2017
Director: James Head
Writers: Rick Suvalle and Scott Sveslosky
Staring: Danica McKellar, Paul Greene, Ali Skovbye, Dylan Kingwell and Draco McKellar Verta as Child in Camping Store.
See this movie if…you still have a huge crush on Winnie Cooper and neither time nor half-hearted writing will dim that candle you burn for her.
Don't see this movie if…if you were more team Madeline (voulez vous de beure?) and believe that Winnie broke Kevin’s heart too many times to count.
You may have noticed that I identify the reasons to see this movie based solely on your opinions of the classic 80s tv show, The Wonder Years. It was a great show and taught all of us about life, love and how many girlfriends a short guy can score. It gave all of us hope. And the theme song tugs at the guitar and heart strings. It’s easily one of the greatest in the history of TV.
The Wonder Years was also the show that catapulted Danica McKellar into stardom and set up her career. You aren’t familiar with Danica’s work, well, you can find her acting in all the best TV movies and voicing animated TV shows. It’s funny how an actor can be the object of so many school-boy crushes and then all of a sudden she is no where to be fo. Well she’s back and while Campfire Kiss is only half terrible, Danica is still the best reason to watch it.
Campfire Kiss follows two single parents, Dana (Danica McKellar) and Steve (Paul Greene), trying to reconnect with their kids by taking them into the middle of nowhere...to go camping...in the winter. It’s a terrible, terrible idea. Like the time in The Wonder Years when Paul needed money for band camp so he started making and selling his own version of LSD to the kids at school. Before you knew it, he was using way too much of his own product and Kevin and Winnie had to stage an intervention. If you watched The Wonder Years you’re now thinking, “Was Paul a drug dealer? Was Breaking Bad based on Paul from The Wonder Years? I don’t remember that episode, but it sounds like Paul.” If you didn’t watch The Wonder Years you’re thinking, “Kids making and selling acid on a family show!?! Man, family shows in the 80s were hard core!”
Anyway, I’ve done my share of camping in the winter and it straight up sucks! You are always cold unless you’re in cabins and that’s not camping, that’s glamping, you pansy. If you’re going to camp in the winter you need to go all out and sleep in a quinsy. For the uneducated and un-Canadian, a quinsy is basically a cave dug out of a pile of snow. It’s actually warmer than a tent and it gives you tons of street cred in Canada. It also takes you one step closer to becoming an unofficial Canadian. The other requirements are to go top shelf on a breakaway (it’s hockey, you perve), learn the words to a Celine Dion song that is NOT My Heart Will Go On (name one other song, I dare you), learn to differentiate a moose from an elk by touch (the key is that elk will run away while moose will kick you in the giblets), play nikky-nikky-nine-door on Santa (he’s my neighbour), learn the Canadian seasons (first winter, second winter, pretend spring, third winter and sprummerfall), know the difference between the Canadian Ryans (Reynolds is a wise-cracking, foul-mouthed tall drink of Canadian spring water; Gosling is a foul-mouthed, wise-cracking tall drink of Canadian glacier water. See the difference?) and play hammer toss with a beaver. Oh, Canada, you so crazy.
Anyway, having camped in the Winter way too many times, it bugged me that they were never cold in this movie. They slept in a tent, but, nope, not cold. They did archery, which is a ton of standing around waiting and hoping someone gets an arrow in the butt, but still not cold. They even spent an hour at the beaver toss, but no one complained of cold hands. That’s the trouble with beaver toss, the beaver tails are sso cold, but you need to use bare hands to grip them right. You can only throw a half dozen before your hands get too chilled to go on.
Needless to say, Dana and Steve start out as enemies, but something about those cold winter nights start to ignite something within them. Will it be love? Will they sing I Drove All Night at karaoke? (That’s a freebie for you) Will they ruin their kids lives by taking them to the wilderness to spend time together only to ignore them and fall in love with a stranger? Well, you’ll have to watch it to find out, and maybe you should.
Campfire Kiss actually isn’t a bad movie. Oh, it has some pretty terrible parts. *Spoiler alert* For example, when they go hiking together, they get lost and decide they need to use their pedometer to find their way back. What!?! How!?! Why!?! Do they really need to know how many steps to go back when they remember the way? Can't they just retrace their path, which they remember, until they get to a spot they know? But they have to give Dana’s lame son some confidence somehow.
But, I kind of enjoyed it. Now, I wouldn’t recommend you make plans around watching this movie. I wouldn’t even recommend you look for it on a lonely Tuesday night. I wouldn’t even recommend it if you’re alone in a hotel in San Juan waiting for your vanilla dealer to arrive and there is nothing on TV Campfire Kiss and Mexican soap operas. Watch the soap operas, you may not understand the words, but you’ll get the body language. Muy caliente!!! But let’s say its Saturday afternoon, your internet is out and the only thing on TV is figure skating, The Littlest Hobo (classic Canadiana) and Campfire Kiss. I suggest you take a chance on Winnie Cooper. If the story doesn’t do it for you, maybe the good memories from The Wonder Years will.
If you are a single parent and want ideas for reconnecting with your child and maybe how to find love for yourself...you should probably look somewhere else.
If you are a camping aficionado and want a movie that combines your love of the outdoors and your love of The Wonder Years...then give Campfire Kiss a try.
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