Why So Blu?

Brandon’s Blu-ray Wishlist – June 26, 2014

I’m gonna go with comedy again this week to finish out the month of June.  And I’m digging into that of the teen variety, picking one of my favorites of that subgenre from the 90s.  Its a film I kind of have a nostalgia for and I think is a solid film that not many people probably got a chance to see in the 90s.  It also made a whopping $309 at the box office (costing $15 million).

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Trojan War (1997)

How I discovered this movie has now become a lost art.  It was during summer or spring break of 1998 I think.  When I had my driver’s license in my high school years, in the summers I was at the video store most every weeknight.  And when you do that you kind of tire of the “Hot New Releases” and such.  But, you also want to rent more than just one thing, so catalog stuff made stacking them up cheaper.  Like most males my age around this time, I had a massive crush on Jennifer Love Hewitt.  So, with her on the box I had no choice but to pick it up.  Teen Comedy + Jennifer Love Hewitt = Rental.

As I’m sure most of you are unfamiliar with it, the plot of this movie has Boy Meets World and Batman Beyond’s Will Friedle as a guy who goes to the hottest girl in high school’s house to tutor her.  During their learning, she offers herself up for him, but he doesn’t have a condom.  So, he needs to complete the simple task of going and buying one.  But, oh no…it’s not that simple.  He winds up going on a wild adventure through the night, meeting a bunch of colorful characters and having some dangerous run ins with criminals and the law.

One conceit in this movie, Jennifer Love Hewitt plays the “normal” second fiddle friend that isn’t visible to the main character til the very end.  Haha, right.  Anyway, when I saw the film I was quite surprised at how fun and zany it was.  It became a film my friends and I constantly rented and quoted for a while (“Silver dollars, holmes!”).  It’s also a movie that gives you early looks at actors like Marley Shelton, Eric Balfour and Danny Masterson.  Its funny, because at the time Will Friedle and Jason Marsden were probably the bigger names in the cast.  Its a charming and wild “one crazy night” type movie that just sort of worked for me.

I’m not really sure why this film didn’t try at a major theatrical release.  It’s from Warner Bros.  They only opened the film for one week in a theater.  The film carries a $15 million budget.  You’d think they could have possibly recouped that.  The following year, Can’t Hardly Wait (also with Jennifer Love Hewitt) saw itself reaching a box office take of $26 million.  I could easily see these two lining up with similar success.  Heck, if Trojan War would have been a mild success, Can’t Hardly Wait might have taken in more.  You never know.

Does Trojan War even have a cult following?  I’ve always liked the film and its one of my favorite teen comedies from a decade that didn’t produce many quality ones that appealed to me or even held up much after.  It did actually reach getting released on DVD just a few years back in 2010.  It’s a part of the print-ondemand Warner Archives Collection, so there is faith there somewhere with it.  Maybe it will wind up getting Blu-ray treatment there.  Have you ever heard of or even seen Trojan War?  Let me know, I’d love to know there’s others that like it.