{"id":6062,"date":"2024-10-14T23:55:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6062"},"modified":"2024-10-14T23:55:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:55:17","slug":"encino-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/14\/encino-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Encino Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Encino Man <\/strong>(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hollywood\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (mild language, sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Les Mayfield\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: George Zaloom and Shawn Schepps\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J. Peter Robinson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert Brinkman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 22, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sean Astin, Brendan Fraser, Pauly Shore, Megan Ward, Robin Tunney, Michael DeLuise, Rick Ducommun, Mariette Hartley, Richard Masur, Ellen Blain, Patrick Van Horn, Dalton James, Jonathan Quan, Jack Noseworthy, Christian Hoff, Rose McGowan, Michole Briana White, Erick Avari, Gerry Bednob, Sandra Hess, Culture Clash, Infectious Grooves.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $40.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Okay, you got me! I think Encino Man<\/strong> is a riot. It\u2019s so gleefully mindless, I can\u2019t help but watch it with a huge dumb smile plastered on my face. It stars Sean Astin (The Goonies) and MTV star Paulie Shore (in his movie debut) as a pair of Southern California teens who discover a caveman frozen in ice while digging a pool. It\u2019s a silly idea that\u2019s just right for a summer comedy aimed at the under-17 crowd.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dave (Astin) and Stoney (Shore) aren\u2019t exactly popular at their high school despite all of Dave\u2019s efforts to attain popularity. This is why he\u2019s digging a pool in his backyard. He figures throwing an epic after-prom party will make him and Stoney popular. He\u2019s also nursing a crush on the prettiest girl in school Robyn (Ward, Trancers II) who\u2019s going out with the biggest dick in school Matt (DeLuise, Wayne\u2019s World). Matt is your typical jock bully who takes great delight in humiliating Dave at every turn.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, let\u2019s get to the part about the frozen caveman (Fraser in his first major role). Dave and Stoney thaw him out only to discover he\u2019s very much alive. They clean him up and name him Link (as in Missing). They make him look like a teenager and enroll him in school as an exchange student from Estonia. It doesn\u2019t take Link long to become popular. Dave is thrilled while Stoney just wants to chill and be himself. He takes it upon himself to teach their new friend how to speak and \u201cwheeze the juice\u201d at the local convenience store. Learning to speak from Pauly Shore is like learning to drive from the Cannonball Run movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You can take the man out of the cave but you can\u2019t take the caveman out of the man. Link doesn\u2019t understand the ways of modern man. He climbs, grunts, eats frogs in biology class and makes wall drawings with condiments. He mistakes a garbage truck for a mammoth and tries to fight it. He does a lot of other goofy things which is to be expected from somebody who transfers from the Ice Age to 1992.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The point I\u2019m driving at is that Encino Man<\/strong> is funny. Maybe I should qualify that remark. It\u2019s funny if you shut off your brain for 88 minutes and take the movie on its own silly terms. Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Les Mayfield, it\u2019s not exactly the pinnacle of artful filmmaking. Okay, it\u2019s the complete opposite. Cinematically speaking, it\u2019s not very well made. It looks like it was thrown together. The story and characters are underdeveloped. Take Dave\u2019s parents played by Richard Masur (License to Drive) and Mariette Hartley (TV\u2019s Peyton Place). They show up a few times early on before disappearing in the second half. They\u2019re in Encino Man<\/strong> long enough to be convinced they agreed to allow a foreign exchange student to stay with them. Then there\u2019s the matter of the pool. How does it go from being half done to fully operational in the space of such a short time? Once the boys unearth Link, we never see them working on it again yet it\u2019s ready to go by prom night. Oh well, I suppose it\u2019s pointless to be concerned with such matters in a movie like this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When I went to see Encino Man<\/strong>, I didn\u2019t know too much about Pauly Shore other than he had a show called Totally Pauly on MTV that was popular with kids and teens. I hate to say it, but I got a kick out of him in this movie. I like his funny way of talking. Yes, the novelty wore off by the time he made In the Army Now two years later, but it was still fresh in Encino Man<\/strong>. His character Stoney calls himself a \u201cunique weasel\u201d and lives only for \u201cnugs, chillin\u2019 and grindage\u201d. Oh and wheezing juice, an activity that entails drinking Icee directly from the fountain. In the movie\u2019s funniest scene, Stoney teaches this to Link much to the ire of store owners Raji (Avari) and Kashmir (Bednob)- \u201cNo wheezing the ju-ui-uice!\u201d LOL! It still makes me crack up. Funny side story, I worked at a Wawa the summer Encino Man<\/strong> came out. I must have stopped at least a dozen teenagers from doing this at our Icee machine. I always told them to go do it at the 7-11 a few blocks down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Why even bother commenting on the acting in Encino Man<\/strong>? Each actor turns in the kind of performance the material calls for. Some of the characterizations like the jock bully are broad, but what do you want from a dopey teen comedy? That being said, Fraser shows a real flair for comedy in his first major role. That\u2019s really all there is to say on the subject. The only things that really count are its goofball sensibility, hot \u201cBettys\u201d (Pauly-speak for babes) with nice \u201cnugs\u201d (Pauly-speak for you-know-whats) and its overall good-naturedness. I don\u2019t even mind that it\u2019s clearly aimed at the double-digit IQ demographic. Sometimes you need a movie like that. However, there\u2019s a big difference between mindless and moronic. Encino Man<\/strong> is the former; anything Pauly Shore did after Son in Law is the latter. I\u2019ll have to rewatch Bio-Dome to be sure though. In any event, I really dig Encino Man<\/strong>.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Encino Man (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hollywood\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (mild language, sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Les Mayfield\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: George Zaloom and Shawn Schepps\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J. Peter Robinson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert Brinkman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 22, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sean Astin, Brendan Fraser, Pauly Shore, Megan Ward, Robin Tunney, Michael DeLuise, Rick Ducommun, Mariette Hartley, Richard Masur, Ellen Blain, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-thats-some-funny-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Encino-Man-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6062"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6179,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions\/6179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}