High school dramas with a sports theme is nothing new. For a few years in the middle 80s, there were a lot of these types of films. The fist pumping, adrenaline addled, angsty white male teenager was front & center. All the Right Moves, The Karate Kid and Vision Quest captured the rock out with your cock out inspiration suburbia didn’t know they wanted, but showed up to see.

I never connected with the karate one and Tom Cruise as a football player just gave me a PTSD vibe. Mathew Modine’s character however was my kind of weirdo. The fingerprints of obsession (the emotion, not the fragrance) were all over the plot. The fixation on the tough talking new girl in town, Linda Fiorentino, hailing from the mysterious Garden State. The constant training for the big wresting showdown near the end of the film. It made me feel seen in a way which I could not verbalize as I was not an athlete. But the subtle slide into the net of wanting something seemingly out of reach at any cost. Oh yeah. That gravitational pull on my emotions was as real as trashing your dad’s Ferrari. It was worth the risk, regardless of the potential high school kiss of death: humiliation.

I’m not going to say this has it all or that it is a classic, much less being a good Marijuana Movie Night option. Arguably, most of the movies mentioned here are. I also can’t reach through the screen and make you watch anything. But I will leave you with this. Madonna has a cameo. See, I told you it was the 80s.

So if you are game, take a couple of puffs, put on your red singlet and let's wrassle!