PCU
PCU
PG-13 | 29 April 1994 (USA)
PCU Trailers

Nervous high school senior Tom Lawrence visits Port Chester University, where he gets a taste of politically correct college life when he's guided by fraternity wild man Droz and his housemates at The Pit. But Droz and his pals have rivals in nasty preppy Rand McPherson and the school's steely president. With their house threatened with expulsion, Droz and company decide to throw a raging party where the various factions will collide.

Reviews
Ameriatch

One of the best films i have seen

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Brightlyme

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

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Maidexpl

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

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Lidia Draper

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

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SeptumSin

OK this is something that I never expected which was to give this movie a 6 in rating. I was replacing my copy of Airheads but was only able to find a copy paired with this movie and to my dread needed to get it in order to get the movie I wanted and so I watched it...PCU is about a nice young man going off to get a look at the college he wants to attend, little does he know that he'll have the whole school out for his head. At PCU all the students are protesting something and almost every one is against anyone or anything that they can think of at the moment. During this time our potential new student must look to try and help a failing frat house maintain it's stance on campus.Well you know I typically look at this movie...and the fact that David Spade is in it, and say..."ugh, another Animal House ripoff" I was surprised to find the movie being fairly amusing. The protesters for nearly everything concept was very entertaining and a little bit on the original side though I'm not sure about how original it is. The dumping meat on the vegan protest cracked me up good. Jeremy Piven plays the usual man with the plan college student who manages to be on top of everything and pretty much at that point the acting is at it's highest level. It's not really any major piece of art but at the same time it is still entertaining.If you have $5 to spend you can find the Airheads PCU combination and I can safely say that PCU is not a detriment to the package.

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spasmo dunson

I saw PCU in the theatre and a couple months later got to see the P-Funk All Stars at Lollapalooza, so that was pretty cool. I watch this movie about once a year on my old VHS and it still cracks me up. It had a lot of future and former TV stars in it. Jeremy Piven has done a ton of stuff since then. Megan Ward, (hot,hot,hot) went on to do Dark Skies, that cool alien invasion series on TV. Chris Young had Max Headroom to his credit, one of the coolest shows ever! Alex Desert had the very neat show,The Flash, behind him. I never realized what a science fictiony bunch they were. Just a lot of funny ideas very well done in this film. Pig Man watching TV nonstop for his thesis on the theory that a Michael Caine or Gene Hackman movie can be found anytime. The skateboard guys that aren't any good. The stoners fascinated by a spinning frisbee. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Jon Favreau, I heard he's supposed to be directing the new Iron Man movie. He played the house metalhead, Gutter. That guy has come a LONG way. David Spade did what he does best, he was a snotty little t--d. Jessica Walter, a hotty in her own right, was the only "grown-up" star, as the college president. Sort of an Animal House for the '90's, with political correctness being the central theme. If I remember correctly, I was the only guy in the theatre when I saw this. I'm glad it's finding it's audience on DVD. I'm gonna go out and buy one and while I'm at it, I'll get a Starland Vocal Band CD, too.

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grayscaleproductions

I haven't written a message like this before. But then again, I've never seen a film like PCU before. After listening to the commentary, it created an even stronger reaction in me, so I just had to write. I suppose the critical mass for me as a viewer was when Hart Bochner noted (and then again later) that he was relieved that the film had finally found "its audience" in the video world; the insinuation being that his film is a good one that didn't hit on the 1st run because it/he wasn't given the right opportunity, the right marketing support, the proper studio backing, bla bla. The fact of the matter is that, for anyone other than a 13 year old boy, this film is painful to watch. It didn't do well theatrically because it sucks. It's like a train wreck, you keep watching because you're curious to see what disaster is going to come up next. It's kitsch, in the worst kind of way: bad acting (poorly directed), bad score (poorly directed), and terrible comedic timing (poorly directed). And so, it's unbearable to listen to Hart in the commentary make excuses for this and that, all the while thinking smugly that he's this "groovy director" who "made the actors feel comfortable." How about make them act! This has got to be Jeremy Piven's worst performance of his life! I once heard Tom Hanks on David Letterman forsake a film he did early in his career, BACHLOR PARTY. Shame on Tom Hanks for that – BACHLOR PARTY is hilarious. (HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE I could understand.) But poor Jeremy Piven – this debacle is going to be at the beginning of his long track record forever! He is fantastic in pretty much everything he's done. Somehow Hart managed to get him (and the rest of the cast save Cutter and Spade) to overact so badly only a 13 year old could bear it. Everyone else is tuning in for the same reason they tune into the WB on a Saturday afternoon. This is fine, so long as Hart isn't deluded into thinking he's done a groundbreaking film that speaks to this generation. (I can almost hear Hart now, "But they made me shoot a PG-13 film.") Give me a break. No one asked you to turn a script that I imagine is probably pretty funny, and turn it into a predictable, conventional, sloppy, boring, piece of waste-of-time. Little advice for Hart: stick to acting. You have no right wasting so many resources and cluttering up the universe with another clichéd (ANIMAL HOUSE) rip-off. And if you are able to use some connections or commit some crime passing yourself off as a director again, please don't make it worse by adding a commentary where you flaunt how much you don't know. It's too much to bear. Even for a 13 year old.Sincerely, An unsatisfied audience member.PS - I suspect there is a bump in the video rentals because word got out, like it got to me, that there is this film that is so terrible you have to see it to believe it.

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guyfromjerzee

I'm really glad this movie was able to find its audience on video, because it deserves recognition. This is a damn good film! The unfortunate thing about a movie like "PCU" is that the "Animal House" comparisons are inevitable. But there's no point in comparing. "PCU" stands on its own two feet. "Animal House" is one take on college fraternities and "PCU" is another. It's like comparing "The Naked Gun" to "In the Heat of the Night," because they're both about cops. The characters and plot in this movie are in no way derivative of "Animal House." Jeremy Piven was a great choice for the lead. I've always been a fan of his, but he always gets stuck with supporting roles. In this case, he proves that he has the confidence to carry a lead role. His laid-back sense of humor makes the jokes all-the-more hilarious. I'm often more appreciative of comic actors who don't try to hammer a joke to death with mugging and wacky inflections. Piven delivers a joke the way it's supposed to be delivered--in a straight fashion. We don't see enough of that nowadays. And I can say the same about most of the actors in the film, with maybe the exception of David Spade. He's the type of actor, who can either be sarcastically funny or sarcastically annoying. He doesn't exactly provide the film's funniest moments, but he plays a moderately small role and doesn't get much of a chance to do any annoying shtick.In the DVD commentary, Jeremy Piven mentioned that the actors weren't allowed to improvise, and he was very disapproving of director Hart Bochner's choice to follow the script verbatim. Luckily, that didn't exactly hurt the film, since the actors were working with a solid script. The point is the movie doesn't look scripted. Whether or not they actually were, the actors seemed comfortable with the material and delivered every gag with great precision. Besides, when you let actors improvise too much, that can also hurt a film. I liked the "Rush Hour" movies, but at times it's so evident that Chris Tucker was stepping out of character to make the audience laugh that there were parts where I was taken out of the movie. I certainly can't complain too much, because the comic style of "PCU" had a uniqueness to it that really stood out for me. After watching Hart Bochner's extremely broad spoof, "High School High," I wasn't exactly sure he had a knack for directing comedy. But in this case, he proved me wrong. The gags here are nowhere near as broad, and it helps that the actors don't act like they're in a comedy. Plus, there are very few cheap shots. Very few jokes about bodily functions of genitalia. In other words, the humor had a certain intelligence--something I DEFINITELY can't say about most comedies nowadays. This is not one of those comedies aimed at a teen to young adult audience, where you're allowed to have an I.Q. of 10. As you can tell from the memorable quotes section, there are plenty of great lines. "You're gonna wear the T-shirt of the band you're gonna go see? Don't be that guy." By the way, that's the only line Jeremy was allowed to improvise, for all you trivia buffs. The most memorable gag, in my opinion, is the one involving the sign language interpreter, who has to translate phrases like "butt pirate" and "pillow biter." No one can deny that gag was classic.Another way cool thing about this movie: the gorgeous Megan Ward. I've never seen her look hotter. She has such a gorgeous girl-next-door look that when Chris Young's character got to kiss her, I felt his happiness. There's a great shot of her from behind, where she's wearing low-cut denim shorts. Very nice! So many elements of this movie just click. I loved the soundtrack too. The songs played over the opening and closing credits are both way cool, and plus you're treated to the great sounds of George Clinton during the film. It was an original idea to choose George Clinton, since you'd expect to see a hard rock or heavy metal band in a film of this sort. All in all, go see this overlooked gem of a movie! You won't be disappointed!

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