With the possible exception of Cusack’s Better Off Dead (which only includes a bit of skiing).

In response to whoever wrote something like “if you like Chocolat and the Piano, you’re not going to like this.” I loved Chocolat. I loved the Piano. And I also sincerely love Hot Dog the movie. And just so I don’t seem like a simpering love-it-all. I hated Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King (the Two Towers was excellent, this one just did not know when to end and had nothing new to give). But back to Hot Dog….

This film actually seems more like a 70’s flick than an 80’s flick. Unabashedly sexual, friendly, self-absorbed but not self-conscious, Hot Dog is absolutely uncaring of the way the world takes it. It does not fit into the 80’s scheme of things. It has more than its share of titillation, but it is not coldly calculated soft-porn trash ala “Hardbodies.” Hot Dog is more like Caddyshack but with ski stunts instead of star power.

Hot dog is about the joys of hedonism and self assertion, plain and simple. It captures a brief moment in time just before Aids and the war on drugs would make everyone very nervous about who they are and what values they espouse. Which is also why no one has come close to making as good a ski movie as Hot Dog. What little I’ve seen since has been nothing but toned down Hollywood pap for the family market. Perhaps it cannot be done.

Despite Shannon Tweed’s plastic tits (although, did they have silicone implants back then?) and some very bad singing (and I don’t mean Duran Duran – which was awesome!) this is a very fun and strangely honest film. Definitely worth checking out.

Plus – it did coin the household phrase “Chinese Downhill.” Which no one on the slopes I frequented had ever heard of before Hot Dog. How many B-pictures can claim that!