Actually Never

I spend far too much time watching nonsense slop on my phone. Not TikTok, it’s not for me; I watch TikToks that have been reposted as Instagram Reels instead because I’m an adult. And I do that for far too long and then I’m sad about how much time I’ve wasted.

I made a few small New Year’s resolutions but if I had to lump them into one overarching one it would be to do less of that. Part of trying to better use my time is aiming to watch a movie a week. Last year, I barely saw one a month.

The Oscar nominees came out yesterday and they’ll probably be my focus for the next while, which will mean fewer movies discussed here. They’re too new to have Actually Never™ seen them. This one is nice and old though.

What I knew

Bill Murray. Rodney Dangerfield. Gopher. Golf.

What I know

Maaaaaaan, I dunno, guys.

When I was a kid, I saw Revenge of the Nerds at a birthday party. I haven’t seen it since. I bet it isn’t very funny. I’m well aware it’s problematic. But I think I’d still have a soft spot for it today just because I liked it when I was a dumb kid who was too young to be watching Revenge of the Nerds but did so anyway.

I think if I’d seen Caddyshack irresponsibly early in my formative years, I’d have a soft spot for it now. But I didn’t and don’t.

This is far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen. (It might be close, in the sense that it’s only two posts away.) I’m glad I saw it. It had its moments. It just didn’t do much for me.

About a third of the movie is Rodney Dangerfield doing Rodney Dangerfield things. Fun, but you’d be further ahead to watch him do standup. Another third is Bill Murray doing Bill Murray things, which I generally like (in movies, I mean – less so the rest of the time) but he’s still very young here and didn’t quite have his voice yet. Which is easy to say from my position 45 years (!) in the future, but I think even five years later, his performance would have been different and better.

The rest of the movie doesn’t have much to it. The story is barely there and is just used to string the jokes together, which I wouldn’t mind if the jokes were better. Again, maybe I wouldn’t think this if I’d watched this long ago, but I’ve seen this done a lot better.

Like I said, I’m glad I watched it. It looked like the people making it had fun doing so. I didn’t mention the synchronized swimming routine and I enjoyed that. And now I finally know the source of “So I got that going for me. Which is nice.” But overall, I think Caddyshack just missed its chance to become a personal favourite.