To recap: The first flick I attempted was Cavegirl which was just so irredeemably terrible that I ended up fast-forwarding through the entire thing looking for all the boob shots. Based on Cavegirl, I figured getting through the next 11 movies in the set would be an endurance test or a masochistic act of stupidity. But Coach kinda won me over and now I'm almost looking forward to where this collection will take me next. Presumably somewhere with more partial nudity.
Coach is about a losing highschool basketball team who become reinvigorated when a new coach comes on board. The new coach, Ricky Rawlins turns out to be a smoking hot blonde chick, an Olympic Gold Medal runner who also happens to know her hoops (for some reason that is never explained). When we first meet Randy, she has just won gold in an olympic running event. The sequence is both beautifully cinematic and bargain basement cheap. The camera is placed far away and then zoomed into a close-up of Randy's face as she crosses the finish line in super slow motion, the sound of her breathing is exaggerated and the only accompanying soundtrack. It's kind of mesmerizing and has a very hazy 70's beauty about it. But you don't see any other runners, or the cheering crowd, or the track for that matter. And when Randy is being awarded the gold medal, a similar trick is employed, simply shooting Randy in a low-angle close-up. No one else on the podium is visible, in fact there is no podium. They probably shot this "Olympic" sequence in a parking lot before calling lunch. Randy is played by Cathy Lee Crosby, who is a quintessental 70's Farah-esque babe that I've never seen or heard of before.
The explanation for why Randy is allowed to coach the basketball team is pretty ludicrous and has to do with her name, leading the faculty to believe she's a man. And when she shows up and turns out to be a woman, they balk, but Randy calmly explains that they promised her the job sight unseen and to deny her now would be sexual discrimination. It's never really explained why Randy, an Olympic Gold Medalist is fighting so hard to take a shit job at a highschool. Nevertheless, the faculty, led by great character actor Keenan Wynn, relent and Randy gets the job. At first the boys are all "WHA???" and "BONERS GUY!" and "BUT SHE'S A BROAD!", but they soon realize that she's got the goods and rally behind her leadership to become champions.
Micheal Biehn stars as Jack Ripley, one of the kids, a point guard or something. Biehn is one of my childhood heroes because of his wicked roles in James Cameron's in The Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss, so I was excited to see him in one of his first movies. Here Biehn is a supposed to be a teenager (although he's probably in his 20's) whose charm and good looks help him woo coach Randy and they have a love affair that is pretty significant in the way that the movie doesn't treat it with any real signifigcance.
This coach is fucking one of her teenaged players and the movie never really acts like it's a big dark secret, or something they should try to hide. This is either tremendously irresponsible handling of sensitive subject matter or the filmmakers correctly assumed that a teenaged boy screwing his hot teacher is cause for some high-fives, not hysteria. If this movie were made today, Coach wouldn't climax with the boys winning the big game, but with Randy's high-profile trial for raping a minor. For the nonchalant handling of this affair alone, Coach rules. The other highpoint of the film is the early scene where actor Keenan Wynn sits court-side and watches the game. His awkward head movements and facial expressions suggest that he'd never even heard of the sport basketball and had no idea how to act like he did. It's priceless.
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