Quick Look: Hot Dog: The Movie (1984)

I will rarely make a proclamations such as this, but, Hot Dog is the best skiing movie I have seen, to date.  It also doesn't hurt that the movie unfolds with plenty of juvenile screwball-type humor, and the plot essentially involves a constant search for parties, sex, and the perfect ski slope.  The movie is directed by Peter Markle, and stars Patrick Houser, David Naughton, John Patrick Reger, and Shannon Tweed.  This is a great 80's comedy that is thin on plot, high on laughs, and for the adolescent male in all of us - plenty of nudity.
Harkin Banks (Houser) is the fresh-faced kid from Idaho making his way Squaw Valley to compete in the freestyle skiing championships.  He picks up a hot blonde teenage hitchhiker named Sunny (Tracy Smith) who after some miles on the road, and conversation, they begin a sexual relationship.  In Squaw Valley Harkin hooks up with an awesome group of ski-bums who refer to themselves as the "Rat Pack".  They are led by Dan O'Callahan (Naughton), a veteran on the American freestyle skiing circuit.  We are also introduced the main antagonists, the Austrian ski team, who are led by Rudi Garmisch (Reger), and another blonde "ski bunny" named Sylvia (Tweed).  Harkin inevitably has sex with Sylvia, at a huge party she is throwing, so Rudy has sex with Sunny at the same party.  Good times.  The remainder of the film is the skiing competitions in which Harkin is shown to be the better skier than Rudi, but the judges at the competition give Rudi the higher ratings for political and sponsorship reasons.  It's an underdog story, and its a fight to the finish.
The music is 80's fabulous, the characters are all hilarious, the shots of the skiing are incredible- they were not done up special effects, the footage was of real skiers, and there is a good amount of time spent actually seeing the action on the slopes.  You are never going to wrong with a movie that includes: a wet t-shirt contest; a comical party montage to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf"; multiple hot tub sex scenes; a character named Squirrel; and a full 5 minute finale of the all time greatest fun in skiing - Chinese Downhill.
'R' rating is for nudity, sexual situations, language and drug use.    

Extras:
Shannon Tweed's first "major" role in a film... David Naughton is credited (as of this writing) with over 70 different acting roles, so he would actually be the most successful "stars" to come out of this movie...