Infamousta
brilliant actors, brilliant editing
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
moonspinner55
Pop singer in Los Angeles is told the record business has forgotten her--she had a hit single two years ago, but her last album lost money. She responds to this rejection by driving to the beach, her childhood sanctuary, to play in the sand and flirt with the impressionable kids. This is history repeating itself: a sun-kissed 1970s update of the beach party genre, which hadn't been in vogue since the mid-'60s. Although written by John Carpenter (in his salad days) and William Schwartz, from a treatment by John Herman Shaner and Alvin Ramrus, this TV-movie has sunshine and wet sand to spare but doesn't have the hormone-crazed teenager lingo down right (everyone under 18 talks like a beleaguered adult). Suzanne Somers, still riding high with "Three's Company", shows polish in the lead, but the younger players are hit-and-miss. Rosanna Arquette needs help rolling a joint, P.J. Soles is tired of playing volleyball, Timothy Hutton is training to be a lifeguard, Michael Biehn ("J.D.") ruins Suzanne's sandcastle, and Tanya Roberts (with a belly-chain) is a knockout pretending to be just another dateless chick in the crowd. Not credible for an instant, and embarrassing when it tries for seriousness, but at least the scenarists keep it relatively clean. These kids want romance! How's that for a beach come-on?
Jakemcclake
Spoilers This movie has good points and many unrealistic points. Suzzanne Sommers plays Bonnie a recording artist, who bursts on this beach scene getting tremendous attention from the teenagers who come to the beach. Then the viewers discover as Bonnie does, there are many twists, ties and problems, in the teenagers lives within the story. Bonnie befriends many of the teenagers and almost magically proceeds to straighten things out.Just to add to the charm of the movie are Roseanne Arquette, Tanya Roberts prior to their fame. Not to mention PJ Soles who carries a lot of the movie.Also added to the movie, to, I guess, help make you feel like you're at a beach, are intermixing shots of people walking in front of the action in their bathing suits, every couple seconds.
charlespc007-1
I was 15 when this ABC movie of the week came out. Miss Somers being hot off the second season of Three's Company and growing in popularity, was adorable in this beach movie. Shot on the West Coast, the scenery was breathtaking. In 1978, i'm sure that executives at ABC must have wanted to capitalize on this 'Blonde of the hour' but giving her this role. Her acting in this movie was fine. It wasn't a comedy like Three's company, but it was more on relationships and the coming of age with these teenage kids. I liked the way she talked to the teenagers, she was some kind of mother figure to them. Anyway she was real pretty and really approachable. I like Suzanne Somers, i think of all the sex bombs of the 70's she's the one that aged most gracefully.
Hermit C-2
'Zuma Beach' is strictly a jiggle-and-giggle flick, as one commentator once put it so aptly, designed to get TV ratings and nothing more. Suzanne Somers was in the midst of her successful (and horrible) network series 'Three's Company' at the time this was made and the idea was to strike while the iron was hot.Somers plays some kind of rock singer, believe it or not, who is experiencing a career crisis of sorts and comes out to the beach to clear her mind and look for inspiration, or something like that. The local high school beach boys just about lose their minds when they see her stretch out on the beach, though I find their own bikini-clad girlfriends such as Rosanna Arquette, Kimberly Beck and P.J. Soles a lot sexier. Somehow all their lives get intertwined, and through making sand castles and playing volleyball Suzanne somehow manages to instill self-confidence and worth in a number of these youths while finding new inspiration for her own career. Amazing.This is the type of empty entertainment that one can find enjoyable from time to time even if it's only because it gives you a good laugh. Some of the faux-Beach Boys songs on the soundtrack may have you and your dog howling at the screen together, though.
