Wish Me Luck (1995)

*Get an Avalon Anders movie poster on Amazon here*

Desperation. Sometimes film makers will go to extreme lengths to lure an audience. For some, wacky gadgets and mock insurance policies pull the crowds in. For others, a good script and capable performers are enough. To make sure the audience pays full attention to the opening and closing credits of "Wish Me Luck," the director went with his cast's only strength- bare breasts.

Playboy Playmate Avalon Anders is Jeannie, an actual genie sent to a community college on Earth to help nerdy Henry (Zen Gesner) find his manhood so she won't become the slave of the evil Slag (Tom Kane)- this is so lame. Henry can't sleep with Jeannie because he is in love with Rachael (Christine Harte). He is also bullied around the campus by Eddie (David Sobel) and his gang. Jeannie only has two days before becoming enslaved, and Henry is beyond helpless- I've got to stop this review and pull over to the side of the information highway- I need to vomit, the headache is so bad.

While the VHS video box cover pushes this as a raunchy teen sex comedy, I am pressed to remember anyone in the cast looking younger than twenty-five- and they are portraying community college students. The special effects are cutting edge 1995 technology if you had no special effects budget. The cringe factor is very high, and while there is such a thing as comic timing, you wouldn't know it from watching this exercise in stiltedness. The film is padded with some fantasy softcore sex scenes, and apparently everyone at Oak Valley Community College fantasizes about sex in the exact same stained glass bedroom. The comedy not only "does not work," it is "painful to watch." Finally, Avalon Anders. She can't act, and displays her physical assets constantly. The topless dancing during the credits is so sad and so pathetic, I felt bad for her. Stay tuned through the closing credits, where our wacky film makers go all "Airplane!" on us and throw in wild and crazy stuff like a cookie recipe, fake second unit credits from Bora Bora, and then thank Martin Scorsese and "Stephen" Spielberg- I'd like to thank them as well, for creating better films.

Don't confuse "Wish Me Luck" with the Lindsay Lohan disaster "Just My Luck"...then again, do. It couldn't be any worse than this.

Stats:
(1995) 91 min. (0 *) out of five stars
-Written and Directed by Philip J. Jones
-Cast: Avalon Anders, Zen Gesner, Tom Kane, Christine Harte, David Sobel, Stephanie Champlin, Raymond Storti, Bethenny Frankel, Adam Rocke, Alex Cohen, David Jean Thomas, James Reason, Gloria Pryor
(Unrated)