jadavix In the '80s, the fat guy who is always eating was a staple of low-end comedies like this one. I can only assume that we are supposed to laugh at this: "Look, it's a fat guy! And he's eatin! Har-har!" I guess you have to hand it to the producers of "Joysticks" for adding the additional comedic twist of making their version of this stock character absolutely repulsive. His hair is so greasy it appears wet, his shirt, stretched over his massive gut, is as filthy as a dishrag. He eats cookies covered with tomato sauce.I could not stand to look at this character, and he is in almost every scene.Did I mention this is supposed to be a comedy?The plot: pretty boy runs a video arcade. Evil businessman played by Joe Don Baker, known for classics like "Charley Varrick" and "Walking Tall", wants to shut him down for reasons the movie seems to have forgotten to include. There is also a group of multi-coloured '80s punks, the Vidiots, that the pretty boy wants to kick out: thus the stage is set for not one but two video game tournaments, in which the players use massive joysticks, the knobs so large the players' hands rest upon them like they are crystal balls.There is, of course, also a "nerd" "character", such a stalwart of these movies that there is nothing to say about him except for his being in the movie.This movie really taxed me. There is no tension whatever to be had in watching people play Pac Man, or if there were, the filmmaker certainly has no idea how to show it, so those sequences are merely boring. The rest of the movie disgusted me more than anything else. There's a little nudity, of course, and the movie also supplies perhaps the most repulsive and unconvincing transvestite I have ever seen. The evil businessman has two moronic henchmen - don't they all - and in a movie this bad, someone has to dress up in drag, so it may as well be them.I was really glad it was over, and hopefully I'll forget about it as soon as possible.

mark-4522 A&E should have a "Making of Joysticks" biography. I'm sure it would be hilarious. I can picture it now. The producers say: "Porkies is a big hit and videogames are making millions a year. Can you write a script that incorporates all of that to make money?" So the writers throw everything in but the kitchen sink: Valley girls, punk rockers, conservative villains looking to stop the fun, a pretty surfer hero, a nerd named Eugene, a fat video game jock, hottubs in vans, screenshots of classic video games. It's an 80's hottub time machine.What makes this film even more fun is the magic it produces when some viewers either get it, and laugh hilariously, or don't (such as my wife) and say "This is so stupid" and walk off in disgust. It's like Beavis and Butthead. Some get it, and some don't. That's the genius of it. This film will be watched by historians a hundred years from now when analyzing the destruction of American culture or perhaps what made it great. Teens now are worried about starving to death the day they hit the job market or think their "smartphones" make them smart. No. We had it better back then. A lot better.

ericdetrick2002 You either "Get it" or you don't. Of course when this film first hit the theaters it was just a film about the current fads of the day. If you were a kid going to arcades in the early to mid 80s this will be very nostalgic. If games like "Zaxxon" or "Galaxian" don't mean anything to you then this film will seem ridiculous. And to answer the question, "were arcades really like this?"...Oh yeah, this portrays the arcade "scene" in the early 80s pretty well.This is a have fun, so bad it's funny movie. It could be thrown in with the "sex-comedies" of the 80s- and there were a lot of them. I believe this is coming out on DVD soon (Summer/Fall 2006).

Woodyanders I can't believe all the harsh reviews this movie gets. I think it's a true work of deliciously dreadful 80's trash exploitation movie art that totally nails the rampant hedonism and stupidity of adolescence with uncanny accuracy. All the kids want to do in this film are play video games or make out. They have no ambitions or aspirations towards doing anything meaningful or significant with their lives. They just wanna party and have fun. Come on, people, that's exactly what being a teenager is all about! And boy does "Joysticks" peg this blithely moronic mindset with spot-on incisiveness and authenticity. This movie reaches its true moment of absolute cinematic greatness during the legendary strip video sequence. When the camera pans down to show the hot chick's ample breasts jiggling up and down in extreme eye-popping close-up as she plays the video game those beauteous bouncing boobs perform a majestic ballet that just screams "gleefully mindless sleazy entertainment!" Yeah, the acting stinks, the plot's a paper-thin joke, the humor is crude and sophomoric, the production values are strictly rock bottom, and the 80's slang, clothes, and hairstyles now are hopelessly dated and laughable at this point in time, but "Joysticks" nonetheless reigns supreme as a genuine tacky no-brainer dreck artifact of its era.