The Aristocrats is a joke that is told by stand-up comedians to stand-up comedians. The opening line (“A guy walks into a talent agency…”) and the punchline (“What do you call the act?” “The Aristocrats!”) is always the same. The middle portion of the joke is up to the comic’s imagination. Anything goes as long as he (or she) keeps these things consistent: The guy, his wife, son, and daughter have sex with each other. Urination, defecation, and vomiting aren’t required but it helps. Points are earned if the comic can come up with the sickest shit imaginable.
The joke itself isn’t funny but the execution of the middle section can be depending on who is telling it. This is where the comedian can completely let go and say virtually anything and get a laugh. This documentary from director Paul (Comics Only) Provenza is essentially just interviews with a 100 comedians who tell us their encounters with the joke. Some of them even tell their version.
It’s here where the movie sorta fumbles. I honestly believe if the whole movie was 100 comedians telling the joke, it would’ve been great. As it is, Provenza often cuts away to other interviewees while someone is in the midst of telling the joke. Telling jokes is an art form that requires intricate timing. By cutting away from the comedian in mid-joke, it ruins the flow of their version.
Some people actually get to tell their version of the joke with minimal to no interruption and it’s hysterical. George Carlin, Bob Saget, and Sarah Silverman are among them and each one of them had me in stitches. Drew Carey gets a special mention for doing a little hand motion at the end to accentuate the punchline as does Kevin Pollack who performs it while impersonating Christopher Walken. Martin Mull tells a clever variation on it that is very funny as well.
The Aristocrats (the movie not the joke) loses points thanks to the sloppy editing. Still it’s funny and fast moving enough for me to recommend it. It’s definitely a treat just seeing all these great comedians (Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Don Rickles, etc.) in the same movie.
The Hollywood Knights is basically a rehash of American Graffiti. Except the acting and directing isn’t as good. It does have a bunch of titties in it though so that makes it watchable.
Just like American Graffiti, there isn’t any plot; just a bunch of nostalgic interconnected incidents revolving around a group of teens over the course of a single night. We get drag racing, mooning, and a lot of excessive loitering at a drive-in restaurant. We also get pissing in the punchbowl and nerdy band leader hazing. All of this happens while the soundtrack blares the requisite wall-to-wall oldies.
The characters are basically the same too. There’s the guy who’s going away to
A lot of the humor is sophomoric and although nothing in the flick comes close to matching American Graffiti, it’s sorta funny. The highlight comes when some pledges are made to walk through
Danza is the “star” of the movie but he isn’t really given a whole lot to do besides whine at Pfeiffer a lot. Wuhl comes off best as the jokester of the group who pulls off a lot of pranks. He gets the most screen time of anyone and says all the funniest lines like, “Did you hear about the guy with five penises? His pants fit like a glove!”
Jon Voight co-wrote and stars in this sloppy, stillborn, and unfocused mess of a movie. He plays an annoying gambler who along with his buddy (Burt Young) head to
Lookin’ to Get Out was a big dud in it’s time and never got a proper release. I can see why. Voight’s performance is thoroughly irritating and since he’s such a lout; it’s hard to really give a shit about him. Also, the movie has a lot of long, boring stretches where next to nothing happens. Because of that, all we can concentrate on is how grating Voight is. And let me tell ya; it’s not a heck of a lot of fun.
The thing that really pissed me off about this movie was the ending, where Voight and Young get away Scot free. Are we supposed to believe that the bumbling duo would be allowed to fleece the casino and the owner would let them walk out the door? And what about the security guards? They were about as competent as the Keystone Kops. The day you let the tubby Burt Young get the best of you is the day you turn in your Rent-A-Cop diploma.
The film was directed by Hal Ashby, a guy that’s used to directing good movies like Being There and Harold and Maude. I don’t really blame him though. This was Voight’s baby all the way. He was responsible for the listless script and his overindulgent performance is hard to take. I guess we do have to give him some props for putting his daughter, Angelina Jolie in the movie.
Tom (Newhart) Poston plays a college professor who obtains a magical coin that gives him the power to hurt people whenever he points at them. It also allows him to slow down time when he says “Zotz”! And when he points at someone AND says “Zotz”, they die. Since this is a family friendly movie, he doesn’t do that. (Although he does wantonly murder a lizard to prove that he can do it.) Naturally, some Russian spies learn of his power and try to get their hands on the coin for their own devious purposes.
Even though this flick was directed by horror movie gimmick guru William (House on Haunted Hill) Castle, Zotz! is more of a comedy with some fantastical elements thrown in. (It’s basically like a slightly better version of one of those Flubber movies.) While Castle was the master when it came to movie gimmicks, the gimmick for Zotz! was kinda weak (patrons were given Zotz coins). Likewise, the movie itself is not up to the usual Castle standards.
Things get started off on the right foot as the flick has a couple laughs early on. The spy subplot is quite pathetic and involves a lot of dumb shit where bumbling Russkies have to pretend to run in slow motion whenever Poston says "Zotz". I did like the part when the spy fired a pistol at Poston and he slowed down the bullet by yelling the title. This guy was dodging bullets in slow motion long before Keanu Reeves made it hip.
Poston is likeable and makes for a goofy lead. His charm can only carry the flick so far though. The great supporting cast, which includes Jim Backus and Margaret Dumont certainly helps.
Castle’s next was 13 Frightened Girls!
When the CEO of an advertising firm dies, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson), the only African-American board member is put in charge. He quickly fires all the white help and hires a bunch of black militants as advisers and renames the company, Truth and Soul. Swope intends to run the company into the ground and produces some really crazy commercials that feature nudity and cussing. Ironically, his clients end up loving them.
Putney Swope is one of those underground 60’s movies that really needs to be seen during the time of it’s original release to get the intended impact. I’m sure it must’ve really wowed people back then but for me, it felt more than a tad dated. That said, the film still holds up a lot better than a lot of similar movies from that era.
Director Robert (Up the Academy)
Putney gets the best line of the movie when he meets “The Arab” (played by Antonio “Huggy Bear” Fargas) and asks, “Who are you supposed to be, Lawrence of Nigeria?”
The Little Shop of Horrors is one of director Roger Corman’s finest hours. After directing dozens of unintentionally hilarious movies like Attack of the Crab Monsters, this was his first intentionally funny horror film. It also happens to be a searing indictment of the small time businessman and the lengths he will go to in order to be successful.
Seymour Krelboin (Jonathan Haze) works for his overbearing boss Mushnik (Mel Welles) at his Skid Row flower shop where he pines for the pretty (but dumb as a bag of hammers) Audrey (Jackie Joseph).
The Little Shop of Horrors is famous for a lot of reasons. First, it was shot in two days, which is pretty amazing. Secondly, it kinda gained a second life after the 1986 musical remake. Thirdly, it’s a public domain movie, so everybody’s probably seen it. And perhaps the best reason is because it features Jack Nicholson in one of his greatest roles. His performance as Wilbur Force, the masochistic dental patient has to be seen to be believed. With his hair parted down the middle, he reads Pain Magazine and says shit like, “No Novocain! It dulls the senses!” He’s almost as nuts here as he was in The Shining.
This flick is chockfull of bizarre little bits and entertaining black humor. The Dragnet style cops are hilarious and some of their banter will leave you in stitches. The scenes of
Incredibly, Corman also managed to churn out Ski Troop Attack, Fall of the House of Usher, and Last Woman on Earth the same year.
Audrey Sr. gets the best line of the movie when she says, “I’m so hungry; I could eat a hearse!”
The Little Shop of Horrors is Number 3 on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year for 1960 which places it just below The Magnificent Seven and right above Peeping Tom.
Movie stars on the set of their latest film start to hear rumblings of possible Oscar nominations. They all deal with the news in a variety of different ways. Eventually, none of them get nominated but they enjoyed the buzz while it lasted.
I’m a big fan of director Christopher Guest’s work so I was looking forward to this flick. With For Your Consideration, Guest eschews his usual mockumentary style and gives us a straightforward comedy. Surprisingly enough, I missed his shaky-cam aesthetic. Out of his quartet of comedies (which include Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind); I think this is the weakest of the lot. It’s still pretty funny though.
The film really cooks when it’s sending up the pressures of the
For Your Consideration is lightweight material to be sure; but the dynamite cast really delivers. John Michael Higgins gets some big laughs as the clueless publicity man (“The internet? Is that the one with e-mail?”); as does Eugene Levy as the idiotic agent. Hands down the funniest performance comes from Fred Willard, who plays an entertainment show host. Willard also gets the best line in the entire film when he says, “You know what they say about blind prostitutes… you really have to hand it to them!”
Woody Allen’s movies have kinda been in a funk lately. What’s worse; his past couple of films haven’t really even been comedies either, which is pretty weird if you ask me. I’m glad to report that Whatever Works is a return to form for the Wood Man.
Larry David stars as a genius named Boris who never passes up an opportunity to express his contempt for the human race. By chance, a runaway teen (Evan Rachel Wood) turns up on his doorstep and Boris, against all better judgment lets her stay at his apartment. Eventually, his disdain for her blossoms into love and they get married. Their marital bliss is challenged however when her boozy mother (Patricia Clarkson) and fanatical father (Ed Begley, Jr.) show up looking for her.
Boris’ motto in this movie is “Whatever works” and this seems to have been Woody’s approach behind the camera as well. The film has some passages that contain absolutely no laughs but more often than not, David will let loose a zinger that has you cracking up. Whatever works, right?
While Allen’s writing is sharp, it’s David’s performance that makes the movie. This is the kind of role that Woody would’ve usually taken for himself but David infuses the character with a lot of his trademark piss and vinegar that makes his rantings and ravings hysterical. Naturally, he gets the best line of the film when he says, “I get night sweats… I used to think it was AIDS!”
Ash (Bruce Campbell) gets whisked away to medieval times where he is immediately enslaved and sentenced to die in a pit fight with some Deadites. He easily kicks loads of ass and pretty soon everyone is calling him “The Promised One”. In order to stop the Evil Dead from haunting the King’s castle, Ash has to go on a quest to retrieve the Necronomicon. Whilst removing the book from it’s unholy cradle, Ash fucks up the magic words (“Klaatu… Barata… Cough… Cough… Cough!) and it doesn’t take long before the dreaded Deadites are trying to break down the castle walls. Luckily, with a little 20th century know-how Ash is able to fend off the Army of Darkness and return to his own time. (If he can ever get those words right.)
Army of Darkness is the best film in The Evil Dead trilogy. This is not a popular opinion. I know I am in the minority on this one, but for me this is the most balls out fun movie in the series. Not only is it the best of the Evil Deads; it’s also one of the greatest movies ever made. (It’s Number 4 on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of All Time List in between Fight Club and Halloween.) This movie rocks and it rocks HARD. It’s ten times funnier than most comedies and features enough movie in-jokes to make your head spin. (Everything from The Three Stooges to Jason and the Argonauts to Gulliver’s Travels to The Manster to The Day the Earth Stood Still is referenced.)
In addition to the wide range of film references, director Sam Raimi mashes up a whole bunch of genres and hits the PUREE button. There’s horror, sword and sorcery, comedy, and even a little romance too. Army also features more action than you can shake a stick at. Throughout the movie Ash battles monsters in the pit (the part where he leaps in the air and his chainsaw lands on his stump is priceless), gets attacked by miniature versions of himself, fights his evil double, gets sucked into a vortex, gets assaulted by an evil book, and goes to war against an army of skeletons. Raimi films all of this with his usual manic energy and the results are one Hell of a breathtaking, non-stop, hilarious, good time.
Most reviews I’ve read of this film always whine that there isn’t as much blood as the previous films. Umm… HELLO didn’t you see that great big geyser of blood when that one guy got pushed into the pit? That scene alone featured three times the amount of blood than the first two movies combined. This scene also gives us a pretty good severed head and a disembodied hand, so I don’t want to even hear these petty gripes about the lack of gore.
What makes Army of Darkness standout from the other films in the series (besides the bigger budget that is) is that Ash actually has a character arc in this one. He just isn’t being repeatedly assaulted by the undead (well he is, but still). He goes from being a loudmouth, to being a coward, to finally, a hero. Bruce plays all of these facets of his character extremely well; particularly in the scenes where he acts like a complete jackass to people.
This movie also has the most quotable dialogue than any film ever conceived by the human mind. If you don’t quote the following lines aloud in casual everyday conversations, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with you:
“Well HELLO Mr. Fancy Pants! I got news for you pal; you ain’t leading but two things right now, Jack and Shit. And Jack left town!”
“All right, you primitive screwheads listen up! You see this? This is my BOOMSTICK!”
“Now I swear… the next one of you primates, even touches me…”
“First you wanna kill me… now you want to kiss me… BLOW!” (This is particularly effective on first dates.)
“Yo She-Bitch! Let’s go!” (Again, great to use on a first date.)
“Gimme some sugar baby!” (Likewise, a golden statement for a first date.)
“Good… bad… I’m the guy with the gun.” (Good for a night in
“That’s just what we call pillow talk, baby!” (In fact, nearly everything Ash says in this movie could be said on a first date.)
“Say hello to the 21st century!” (Which is fitting since we’re actually in the 21st century now.)
And of course the immortal, “Hail to the king baby!”
You can tell that Raimi was particularly proud of his dialogue because during the closing credits, his (along with his brother Ivan) screenwriting credit appears before his directing credit. I’d be proud of that shit too. Raimi went on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy. They were great and all, but none of those movies captured the sheer awesomeness of this flick. It’s truly one of the greatest movies in the history of the human race.
Army of Darkness is Numero Uno on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year 1993.
<Tomorrow’s Horror Franchise Movie: Psycho (1960)>
Dance Flick is the latest spoof from The (ever-expanding) Wayans Brothers. It lampoons just about every dancing movie from the past twenty years. (The one notable omission: Dirty Dancing.) No plot rundown is needed but if I give you a list of films it makes fun of, then you’ll get the general idea of what to expect: You Got Served, Step Up, Step Up 2: The Streets, Bring It On, Roll Bounce, Flashdance, Save the Last Dance, High School Musical, and so on and so on. The fact that I haven’t seen any of these movies didn’t matter because it was still funny as shit.
My main criterion for a comedy is: Did I laugh? A comedy could have poor editing, shitty direction, and awful acting but as long as it keeps bringing the funny, that’s all I care about. With Dance Flick I was constantly cracking up, so I can’t bear to give it any less than *** ½. I was flirting with even giving it Four Stars for a while but the laughs became more infrequent about ¾ into the film when the Wayans had to throw in the obligatory “plot”.
There are some things in this movie that had me straight up busting a gut. I don’t want to really spoil the best moments for you. Just know that you should be on the lookout for the dead-on parody of “Fame” and any scene involving Charity (Essence Atkins) and her son. Hands down the best performance came from Amy (Strangers with Candy) Sedaris, who plays Miss Cameltoe. (“It’s pronounced Ka-Mel-Twa!”) I dare you not to laugh when she starts “beat-boxing”.
Overall, I don’t think Dance Flick was quite as funny as Scary Movie but I liked it more than Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. If that isn't a wholehearted recommendation, I don't know what is.
Two cavemen (Jack Black and Michael Cera) get ostracized from their tribe and go out wandering around. On their journey they meet various Biblical characters like Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd) and Abraham and Isaac (Hank Azaria and Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Eventually, they get picked up by some slavers who take them back to the palace of the evil king (Xander Berkeley) who makes daily virgin sacrifices. When their potential girlfriends are the next to be sacrificed, the two get their shit together and rescue the fair cavewomen.
The idea of a Biblical comedy starring Jack Black is a promising one but sadly director Harold Ramis dropped the ball. He must have forgotten everything he learned from Groundhog Day. The whole film is essentially the same joke repeated over and over again (Biblical characters talking like 21st century jackasses) and the joke wasn’t exactly funny the first time he told it.
There is some good stuff sprinkled here and there like the scene where Black eats some shit. The highlight though is the Hal Needham style outtakes and goof-ups at the end. They contain more laughs than the actual movie does. For the most part, Year One is a big disappointment considering the talent involved. (It was produced by Judd Apatow.) Despite being low on laughs, it’s still watchable and moves along at a steady clip. Plus, you get to see Olivia Wilde looking H-O-T as the bitchy princess.
Peter Sellers stars as Chance the Gardner, a guy who is clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic, if you catch my drift. When he isn’t tending to his garden, he’s obsessively watching television. One day, his benefactor dies and Chance must leave the house for the first time in his life. Through a set of somewhat contrived circumstances (which is fitting I guess, given that his name is Chance after all), he becomes best friends with a dying billionaire (Melvyn Douglas), romances the sick dude’s wife (Shirley MacLaine), and becomes a top advisor to the President (Jack Warden); all because he constantly spouts gardening advice that people mistake for life-changing metaphors.
I will admit right up front that I am not the world’s biggest Peter Sellers fan. While I loved him in Dr. Strangelove; the Pink Panther movies were definitely not my cup of tea and his performance in Lolita was downright irritating. In Being There, he defied the odds and gave me a pretty great performance. I thought at the beginning he was going to get on my nerves, but his performance became endearing rather quickly.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good Idiot Becomes a Hero Movie. Just like Corky Romano, this Chance guy will say something dumb and the people around him misconstrue what he says as wisdom. The whole premise asks (allow me to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi for a second) who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him? It’s a pretty good message and fortunately, director Hal (Harold and Maude) Ashby doesn’t beat us over the head with it.
Sure, the film has it’s share of problems. It’s overlong, has a couple of half-baked subplots (like the FBI and CIA trying to look into Chance’s past), and the pacing is spotty. I still say that any movie in which Shirley MacLaine (looking like a fox) masturbates is top notch in my book.
AKA: Chance.
Jesse (Michael Kenworthy) is a little kid who lives in one of those housing developments like the ones Spielberg used in E.T. and Poltergeist. He tries to get in good with a bully named Billy (Thor Van Lingen) by giving him a Spider-Man comic and hanging out with him in a graveyard. Jesse wimps out though and runs and hides in a sewer pipe. Billy follows him and finds a canister of Trioxin gas which he stupidly opens. The gas sprays Billy in the face and turns him into a zombie. The gas also seeps into a nearby cemetery and brings the dead back to life.
This mediocre sequel just doesn’t live up to the original. Then again, the original was arguably the best zombie movie ever made, so I guess that’s understandable. The problem is that writer/director Ken (Meatballs 2) Wiederhorn’s approach is all wrong. He apes Dan O’Bannon’s style from the first film but he has no idea what made it work. The zombies were truly scary in the original and the comedy was all situational. Here, the undead all pretty much act like morons, falling into graves, getting stepped on, speaking in cartoonish southern accents, and watching aerobics videos. (The Thriller parody is especially eye-rolling.) Without a credible menace, the movie fails to deliver any chills.
Another example of Wiederhorn’s futile attempt to re-capture lighting in a bottle is the fact that James Karen and Thom Mathews return from the first film; albeit playing different characters. As much as I liked seeing them both again, their material was nowhere near as good as before. He even has them recite the same dialogue too, which is kinda depressing.
Wiederhorn also miscalculated the need to have a bunch of kids in the movie. I’m sure he was figuring that if kids love horror films, they’d love it if there were some characters representing their age group. Speaking as a youngster who loved Return of the Living Dead Numero Uno, I can tell that what made the original work was the fact that it was so adult in nature. By having the kids be the protagonists, it kinda pussifies the whole thing. I mean this flick features absolutely no nudity, which is a major bummer. I’m sure with a few snips here and there it could’ve passed with a PG-13 easily.
The only time Wiederhorn really scores a big laugh is the throwaway scene where the zombies invade a pet store and eat all the animal’s brains. It’s pretty hilarious seeing the zombies devouring all the kitties’ brains because Wiederhorn doesn’t hit you over the head with it. The ending where the humans lead the zombies to their demise by leaving a trail of cow brains is also inspired (and sorta practical).
The gore is acceptable, although nowhere near as juicy as the first flick. There’s a fist through the face, a crowbar to the skull, worms in the face, a screwdriver to the head, jawbone ripping, and of course lots of brain eating. We also get an impressive scene where a zombie gets shotgunned in half but Wiederhorn fucks thing up by having more lame comedy shit as the legs walk around by themselves and bump into things.
You know, I remember liking Return of the Living Dead as a kid. (I have fond memories of seeing in the theater.) Viewing it as an adult, it’s kinda grating but it moves along at a steady clip and certainly has it’s moments. There are definitely worse horror-comedies out there, that’s for sure.
<Tomorrow’s Horror Franchise Movie: Dawn of the Dead (1979)>
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy go into a western town to give a deed to a gold mine to a PYT. The duo mistakenly hands it over to a scheming floozy whose saloon owner husband is crooked as all get out. Once Stan and Ollie realize their error, they set out to return the deed to its rightful owner.
I’m not as familiar with Laurel and Hardy as I am with other comedy teams of the era. (The only other film of theirs I’ve seen was Babes in Toyland.) I like slapstick a lot but I think their brand of comedy is a little too gentle for my tastes. I mean when The Three Stooges do slapstick, they really SLAP each other. Laurel and Hardy’s physical comedy is OK, but it’s nothing compared to Larry, Moe, and Curly.
Way Out West is kinda scattershot but it hits just about as much as it misses. There’s still enough funny stuff here to make me want to see more of the team’s movies. I liked their little dance they did together and there’s a pretty good running gag where Stan is able to light his thumb on fire. I think the funniest part is when they try to sneak inside the villain’s house and inadvertently send a donkey flying through his second story window. The flick might have even gotten Three Stars if it didn’t have so much goddamn singing.
Way Out West is still funny enough to put it on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year 1937 at the Number 5 spot.
I’m not the biggest Charlie Chaplin fan in the world (I’m more of an Abbott and Costello man myself) but I thought it was high time for me to check this flick out. The only other Chaplin film I’ve seen was The Great Dictator and I enjoyed it immensely, so I figured that this one would go down smooth. While I had a couple of quibbles with the film, overall it was thoroughly entertaining.
The Little Tramp goes out prospecting for gold in the icy
The first act of The Gold Rush features more classic comedy than you can shake a stick at. There’s a great scene where The Little Tramp tries to leave the shack in a howling windstorm and promptly gets blown out the back door. Then of course, there’s the immortal scene where he eats his boot for supper. We also get a funny scene where his roommate gets so hungry that he hallucinates and imagines the Tramp has turned into a giant chicken.
For me, the flick kinda slows down once the Tramp falls in love. The laughs certainly dry up during this portion of the film, that’s for damn sure; although we do get the immortal “Dinner Roll Dance” scene. The finale where the Tramp’s shack is dangling on the edge of a cliff almost makes up for the lulls in between the laughs though.
The Gold Rush still has enough yucks for the bucks to place it on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Silent Movies of All Time List at Number 9, right in between The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Maciste in Hell.
A bitchy broad from
Donovan’s Reef was the final paring between star John Wayne and director John Ford. Of the films of theirs I’ve seen; this is by far the worst. For starters, it’s paced the way old people fuck; slow and sloppy. There are a handful of decent fight scenes and barroom brawls, but you have to sit through a lot of unfunny comedic shit to get to the good stuff. And for a movie so goofy, the anti-racist subplot is ill-fitting. I’m sure Ford meant well, but it just seems out of place in a comedy as broad as this one.
I think that’s probably why I didn’t dig this flick. It’s more of a comedy/travelogue than an honest to goodness John Wayne movie. The Duke does what he can with such flimsy material, but in the end, it ain’t much. The supporting cast fares slightly better. Lee Marvin gets some good scenes; most of which revolve around him punching somebody. I particularly liked the opening where he beats up a guy with a mop. Cesar Romero also livens things up as the nominal villain of the piece, even though he is never really given anything villainous to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the first white trash anime movie. It’s got loads of cartoon boobies, cursing, and ultraviolent gore. Since it was based on a comic book by Rob Zombie you know it’s going to be uneven as all get out.
El Superbeasto is this Masked Mexican wrestler who spends most of his time making pornos, getting drunk, and acting like an asshole. Occasionally, he will fight a werewolf or two but mostly he just goes around being a D-Bag. His crime-fighting partner (and sister) Suzy X mostly does all the heroic shit like fighting Nazi zombies and blowing up Hitler’s living decapitated head. When El Superbeasto tries to save a hot stripper from the clutches of his arch-nemesis Dr. Satan, Suzy grudgingly agrees to help save the world.
This flick jumps around like a kid with ADD hopped up on Count Chocula cereal. Zombie keeps cutting back and forth from El Superbeasto and his hot sidekick (who herself has a robot sidekick), which hampers a lot of the film’s momentum. Once they finally team up though, the movie finds its footing and starts becoming funnier. The big problem I had with the flick is that Suzy X is a heck of a lot more entertaining than El Superbeasto. How come Zombie always makes his “heroes” foul-mouthed unlikable assholes? Beats me.
The humor is crude and sophomoric, bordering on freshmanic. There is some genuinely funny stuff here though. I dug Zombie’s references to his own films (Captain Spaulding, Michael Myers and the Werewolf Women of the SS make cameos) as well as the Schoolhouse Rock inspired musical number detailing Dr. Satan’s evil plan. The best part though is the opening which is basically a word-for-word rip-off of the prologue to the original Frankenstein. These moments are fleeting but I have to admit they made me laugh. The bulk of the movie is far too sloppy and/or annoying to give it a full-on recommendation. However, I can’t bring myself to hate any movie that references Carrie and Benny Hill within the same minute.
There was a time not too long ago when the only people making zombie movies were George Romero and Lucio Fulci. Now
The flick takes place shortly after the zombie apocalypse where a loser kid named Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, the guy you hire when Michael Cera doesn’t return your calls) teams up with a cocky survivalist named
Zombieland is a lot of fun mostly because the performers seem to be having a blast. Harrelson hasn’t been this good since Natural Born Killers and is even able to lend some dimension to his otherwise cartoonish character. Eisenberg also fares well as the nerdy sidekick. After Adventureland, this is his second film in a row dealing with an amusement park with the word “land” in it. Thank God this movie is a lot better than that piece of shit. Then there is the surprise celebrity cameo. I just can’t bring myself to spoil it for you. Just be prepared to laugh.
The flick isn’t perfect though. The two skanks that perpetually pull the wool over our heroes’ eyes got on my damn nerves PDQ. I wish they had become Zombie Chow the first time they showed up. I was also disappointed that the filmmakers didn’t take full advantage of the amusement park setting.
Harrelson gets the best line of the movie via his catchphrase, "Nut up or shut up!"
Zombieland has enough yuks for the bucks to place it on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of 2009 List at the Number 8 spot; sandwiching it right in between Watchmen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The awesome Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov star as Paul and Mary Bland, a hard working couple who would do anything to start their own restaurant. Appalled that their apartment building has become a haven for swingers, they try to keep to themselves. When one horny guy busts into their apartment and tries to rape Mary, Paul kills him with a frying pan. Before disposing of the body, Paul steals the guy’s wallet. Pretty soon, the Blands place a swinger’s ad for themselves and kill the repugnant thrill seekers for their cash. When a cholo named Raoul (Robert Beltran) stumbles onto their scheme, he offers to get rid of the bodies (he sells them to a dog food factory) in exchange for a cut of the money. He also falls in love with Mary, which causes some problems for everybody.
Eating Raoul is a love letter to the American Dream gone horribly wrong. Directed with a lot of style by Bartel on an obviously low budget, the film is filled with moments of delicious black comedy. As good as the film is, it never quite lives up to it’s potential. While I wish Bartel had gone a bit more for the jugular (after all, this is the guy who directed Death Race 2000 here), I still admire the flick a lot. It’s clever and consistently entertaining throughout and the performances are terrific. Bartel and Woronov had been in a lot of pictures together but their chemistry here is dynamite. I also enjoyed seeing Buck Henry, Ed Begley Jr., Billy Curtis, and “The Real” Don Steele too.
Frankie Avalon wants to try skydiving. His girlfriend Annette Funicello wants to do it too but Frankie says ixnay to that. His typically chauvinistic reasoning behind that is that it’s too dangerous of a sport for girls. Annette then seeks out to prove her boyfriend wrong by jumping out of a plane and parachuting. Meanwhile, Frankie’s pal Bonehead falls in love with a mermaid and the dumb ass biker Eric Von Zipper kidnaps a singer.
Beach Blanket Bingo was the fifth entry in the Frankie and Annette Beach Party Movies. The only other Beach Party Movie I’ve seen was Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, so I’m not the best judge of quality for this series, but this was pretty damn weak. It’s only slightly better than Ghost in the Invisible Bikini as there were actually a handful of funny gags in this one.
I thought it was sorta bizarre that hardly any damn time was spent playing Beach Blanket Bingo. The only time Frankie and Company play it is during the opening credits. The flick should’ve really been called Beach Blanket Skydiving because that’s what the whole movie is about. I guess when you’re singing a really crappy song, “Skydiving” is a harder word to rhyme with than “Bingo”.
Another thing that struck me as odd about the movie was the subplot involving the mermaid. It doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the film and only serves as an excuse to give Bonehead a bigger role. The real reason I think the mermaid was even there was because she was played by the insanely hot Marta Kristen from Lost in Space.
I don’t care how inane the mermaid scenes in this movie were, they were at least a hundred times better than any of the parts with Eric von Zipper. This guy is odiously unfunny and grated on my fucking nerves every second he was on screen. Thank God he gets sawed in half during the Perils of Pauline inspired finale.
I’ve never been a Beach Party fan, so this movie may just not have been my cup of Mad Dog 20/20. On one hand, you had about a half dozen truly nauseating songs. On the other hand, you had a bunch of hot chicks in bikinis (including a young Linda Evans). Then again, you had to put up with Annette’s constant feminist protesting. Still, you had some cameos by the always reliable Paul Lynde, Don Rickles, and Buster Keaton, who at least made things bearable. So it’s pretty much a toss-up.
The best line of dialogue came at the very end when Annette asked Frankie if he believed in mermaids and he incomprehensibly replies: “Is there a moon? Is there a sky? Are there dreams?” Try working THAT into a normal conversation sometime. EXAMPLE: “Hey, are you going to finish your fries?” REPLY: “Is there a moon? Is there a sky? Are there dreams?”
The 70’s was full of sketch comedy movies. Some of these, like Kentucky Fried Movie are great. Most of them are hit and miss. The Groove Tube falls into the latter category.
The film gets off to an inauspicious start with an obvious and not very funny 2001 parody. Then we’re treated to a kid’s show host named Koko the Clown who reads dirty book excerpts during “Make Believe Time” as well as a stupid cooking show send-up, There’s also a film-within-a-film called “Dealers” (which features a random trippy animation scene for no apparent reason whatsoever) that is completely devoid of laughs.
The Groove Tube may contain a lot of long laughless lulls but when it is funny, it’s really funny. My favorites sketches included a brutally honest Barbie commercial, a clever variation on “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking” phone book ads, and “The Sex Olympics”; which is more or less just a stag movie with hilarious sports commentary. The VD awareness spot made me laugh pretty hard too.
I guess the most important part of the movie is the fake news broadcast. While it’s not really all that funny (although I did like the part where they used scenes from Radar Men from the Moon as footage from a Russian missile launch), it should be noted that this is basically where Saturday Night Live stole the idea for Weekend Update from. SNL even stole co-star
The Groove Tube has a mercifully short running time (71 minutes) which helps, but far too many of the sketches go on a lot longer than they should have. The flick could’ve used some more ruthless editing, although I still don’t think it would’ve mattered much. A few of the sketches are filled with gratuitous nudity (including porn star Jennifer Welles), so that was nice.
Director Ken Shapiro later re-teamed with Chase for the underrated Modern Problems.
I don’t know if I’m exactly the right person to review this movie as I only have a passing knowledge of Tenacious D. I have never seen their TV show and I’ve only heard a handful of their songs. All I can tell you is if it’s funny or not. The verdict: I laughed more often than not.
The flick tells the story of how JB (Jack Black) left home at an early age to make his fortune in
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny is at its best in the early scenes where Black and Gass befriend each other. The musical numbers in these scenes have a lot of energy to them and Black and Gass make for a likable comedy team. It’s somewhere around the halfway point where the movie kinda lost me. (More specifically, the trippy Sasquatch scene.) I’ve never done drugs in my entire life, but I guess they’re a prerequisite for this flick. (In fact, the THX sound system parody “THC” should’ve been the tip-off that drugs were an essential part of the movie watching experience.) I guess a lot of the jokes from that point on went over my head because my body wasn’t all doped up on South of the Border Lawnmower Shavings,
If anything, the flick is still watchable thanks to the performances of the two leads. You’ll also have fun spotting a slew of celebrity cameos (everyone from Ben Stiller to Tim Robbins) too. It’s Gass though who gets the best line of the movie when he teaches Black how to do a “cock push-up”: “You’ll never know when you have to fuck your way out of a tight situation!”
Robert DeNiro stars in this atrocious sequel to Greetings. This time his peeping tom character sets out to make a voyeuristic porno with himself as the star. It doesn’t work out so he then joins a black militant theater troupe who perform a play called “Be Black Baby” where they take the white audience members to the ghetto, put them in blackface, make them eat collard greens, rape them, then have them beaten by the police. After the theater company gets gunned down while trying to infiltrate a middle class apartment building, DeNiro retaliates by blowing up the place. He then goes on television where he says the title of the movie.
You know, I have a high tolerance for politically incorrect stuff. I mean it takes a lot to offend me. Hi Mom definitely succeeded in offending me. The “Be Black Baby” segments of the film contained some of the most tasteless things I’ve ever seen in a motion picture. It had the potential to be funny but director Brian DePalma films the scene completely straight. There’s no “satire” at work here, just a bunch of ugliness. And the way he filmed the scene got on my damn nerves. It’s all shot in black and white in one continuous handheld take, which makes everything look like the Blair Witch Project.
This scene is one big train wreck but I guess it may have been forgivable if the rest of the flick had been funny. It isn’t. On top of that, the movie is about as boring as watching dog piss dry on concrete. I fell asleep THREE times while trying to slog through this mess. Hi Mom is definitely one of the worst hemorrhoids on celluloid I’ve ever sat through.
I thought Brian DePalma was a good director. I mean this is the guy who made Sisters, Carrie, and Scarface we’re talking about here. I guess Hi Mom is just further proof that the man can’t direct comedy to save his life. (For further proof watch Bonfire of the Vanities.)
AKA: Blue
Luke Wilson stars as an average Army recruit who is picked to participate in an experiment where is he cryogenically frozen for one year. The plan of course goes wrong and he winds up being frozen for 500 years. He wakes up in a world that has been continuously dumbed down where everyone speaks in slang talk and ads for corporations are everywhere. Naturally, that makes
To me, Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butthead was never a celebration of moronic behavior but a warning. That warning is a lot more vocal in Idiocracy. Judge is saying that if our nation’s youth perpetually continue on the path of poor education, sports drinks, and reality TV, this nation is pretty much doomed.
Luckily, Idiocracy is never preachy and often very funny. The film is at its best when offering glimpses of everyday futuristic life. For example,
As Judge’s live action movies go, I have to say I liked this one better than Office Space. (I dig that flick but have always felt it was a tad overrated.) Like that film, Idiocracy has more than it’s fair share of laughless lulls. The satire in this film is pitch black and razor sharp, which gives it the edge in my book.
A pimp-obsessed Army general gets the best line of the movie when he says: “A pimp’s love is very different from that of a square!”
A lot of talented people got their start in this meandering but mostly funny flick from director Barry Levinson. The film stars Steve (Police Academy) Guttenberg, Daniel (Home Alone) Stern, Mickey (Homeboy) Rourke, Kevin (Friday the 13th) Bacon, Tim (Storm of the Century) Daly, and Paul (Mad About You) Reiser as a bunch of friends who like to eat at a diner in Baltimore in the 50’s. They all have their various quirks. Guttenberg won’t marry his fiancée until she passes a Colts football quiz. Stern collects records and wigs out whenever his wife messes up his alphabetized collection. Rourke has a big gambling debt. Bacon gets drunk a lot, etc. That’s basically the whole movie.
Since Levinson has directed nothing but stinkers for the past 12 years or so, it’s nice to know there was a time when he could actually make a decent movie. I’ll admit that Diner kinda tested my patience for the first half hour or so but once the movie found its rhythm and the laughs became more frequent, I quite enjoyed it. While some of the more serious aspects of the flick don’t exactly work (Rourke’s gratuitous gambling problem subplot sticks out like a sore thumb), some of the stuff is flat out hilarious (the pecker in the popcorn scene is priceless).
Of the cast, Rourke comes off the best, mostly because he gets the most screen time. Being accustomed to his increasingly bizarre appearance, it’s funny to look back at his early movies when he was so low key and handsome. Bacon is pretty good as the drunk of the group and Guttenberg gives a solid performance too. Reiser and Daly kinda get the short end of the stick and aren’t given a lot to do but they’re fine just the same.
Levinson unsuccessfully tried to get a Diner TV show (which would have starred Michael Madsen and James Spader!) off the ground the next year.
In the early 90’s there were a lot of quirky low budget comedies involving gays or lesbians going on an offbeat adventure. Very few of these movies are any good. Bound and Gagged: A Love Story is not one of them.
Ginger Lynn Allen stars as a chick who is married to the abusive Chris Mulkey. When he learns that she is having an affair with a lesbian (Elizabeth Saltarrelli), he flips out. Big Time. Even though her hubby is a walking time bomb, Ginger still gives up her Sapphic ways and goes back to him. This pisses off her lesbo lover so much that she resorts to kidnapping Ginger and takes her to a lesbian deprogrammer (Karen Black) to make her like girls again.
Bound and Gagged is one of those movies that tries to be hip and edgy but it just comes off as being desperate and irritating. (There is a guy who tries to commit suicide while dressed in a Santa suit, if that gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with here.) Although the bulk of the movie is flat and joyless, there is one (count ‘em, ONE) funny scene where a guy gropes Ginger and her lesbian lover rescues her by running over his hand with a car. Naturally, she runs over the WRONG HAND and Ginger makes her back the car up and crush the hand that touched her goodies. If the rest of the film had successfully maintained this level of black comedy, Bound and Gagged: A Love Story may have actually been worth a damn.
The movie does have a couple scenes of Ginger getting naked and having R rated sex. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not. I mean sure, we get to see her naked and everything, but if I really wanted to see her get down and dirty, I’d just put on Between the Cheeks and watch her do her XXX rated thang.
Ginger gives an OK performance I guess. She’s hot but she’s not much of an actress. Again, if I want to watch her “act”, I’ll put on Ginger’s Party. This was the only movie Saltarrelli ever did and it’s easy to see why. She’s thoroughly annoying and has the face of a catcher’s mitt to boot. Mulkey is typically intense and while his character is excruciatingly abrasive, he nevertheless gives the best performance of the film. He also gets the best line of the movie when he tells Ginger, “You are seriously fucking with my mental health!”
Hardbodies 1 was a better than average 80’s T & A Sex Comedy. While it was no Blazing Saddles in the “comedy” department, it delivered more than its fair share of T & A. Hardbodies 2 on the other hand only features about half the amount of ta-tas and about a third of the laughs.
I don’t even know if the plot is relevant here but I’d like to at least address how dumb it is. What happens is that Scotty (not the same guy from the first movie) and his buddy (not the same guy from the first movie either) are now skin flick movie stars who go to
Another thing that bugged me about Hardbodies 2 was the fact that the filmmakers didn’t give a shit about continuity. All of a sudden the beach bum guys from the first movie are now softcore porn stars. I guess the director thought the audience wouldn’t notice because the characters were being played by two completely different actors. Since I watched both Hardbodies movies back to back, this blatant disregard for continuity was jarring to say the least. The only two returning cast members from the first film are the Waylon Jennings look-alike and Roberta (Caged Heat) Collins. That’s like making Wrath of Khan and re-casting the Kirk and Spock roles and having Sulu and Chekhov being played by the same guys. (Okay, that analogy’s not like 100% accurate, but you get the idea.)
As stupid as most of the movie is, Hardbodies 2 was actually watchable due to the fact that it had a couple nice up-and-coming Hardbodies in it. First and foremost is Fabiana Udenio. If you don’t know her, she was the chick who played Alotta Fagina in Austin Powers. She looks really hot in this, as does a young and yummy Brenda Bakke. Both ladies would go on to do several more sequels in their time (Udenio: Robocop 2 and Bride of Re-Animator. Bakke: Hot Shots Part Deux and Under Siege 2:
Scotty (Grant Cramer from Killer Klowns from Outer Space) is a blonde beach bum that gets evicted from his rat-hole apartment. It’s OK though because he’s got a hot girlfriend who doesn’t mind the fact that he’s homeless. Scotty runs into a trio of obnoxious forty-something rich dudes who pay him to find hot beach babes they can party with. When one of the geezer jag-offs put the moves on Scotty’s girlfriend, he gets P.O.ed and has to win her back from the lecherous asshole.
Hardbodies is a Skinamax classic. The film has a special place in my heart mostly because I have warm memories of catching it on Skinamax in the middle of the night as a youngling. I also remember ogling the video box more than once at the local video store as a lad too. (Whenever my parents weren’t looking that is.) That haze of nostalgia probably added a Half Star or more to the movie.
Basically, if you’ve seen one 80’s T & A Sex Comedy, you’ve seen ‘em all. The only way to judge them is by the T & A, the sex, and the comedy. There are scads of boobies on display (almost 50 bare exposures), and a lot of sex to be found in Hardbodies, but there aren’t a heck of a lot of laughs. That’s fine by me though because the hooters you do see are Grade A cantaloupes.
You know a lot of people told me when I was growing up that I looked liked the red-headed freckle-faced geek sidekick (Courtney Gains from Children of the Corn) from this movie. Sure, I did have red hair and I did have freckles, but that’s where the similarities end. All I have to say about that is that the geek gets laid at the end of the movie, so there.
The old geezer with the Waylon Jennings beard gets the best line of the movie when he wakes up with a hangover and says, “My liver is staging a major coup d’etat.”
Don Ready (Jeremy Piven) is a smooth-talking hired gun car salesman who is called in to save a privately owned dealership that’s on the verge of bankruptcy. Together, he and his elite team of wheelers and dealers try to liquidate the entire inventory over the course of a three day Fourth of July holiday weekend. Ready has to battle a lot of personal demons (he lost his best friend during a similar
Jeremy Piven has always been an actor I could take or leave. In The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, I could take him. What can I say? He sold me. The supporting cast is just as good. Everyone from Ving Rhames to James Brolin to Charles Napier to muthafuckin’ Alan Thicke is in this movie. What makes The Goods funnier than most comedies out there now is that it’s populated with “actors who are funny” instead of “comedians who can act”. Sure, no one gives a shit about the predictable plot, but at least the actors commit 100% to their characters. By having the actors play it straight, it makes it that much more funny.
I usually don’t like reviewing comedies. My only rule for comedies is if it’s funny, it’s good (or “The Goods” I should say). The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is really funny for an hour or so until it drops its transmission. Although it runs out of gas in the third act, The Goods had enough laughs in it for me to recommend it. Your mileage may vary though. (Sorry about all the car puns. It’s late, I’m tired, and I need to get my ass to bed.)
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is bar none the best comedy about used car salesmen since the granddaddy of the genre, Used Cars. It also contains some of the funniest dialogue you’ll hear all year. My favorite was: “On TV, when someone dies, they never show the poop leave the butt.”
PS: Was it just me or did I just see full on pussy lips in an R rated movie? Look closely during the scene in the strip club where Piven is getting a lapdance by the stripper who wraps her thighs around his head. She’s wearing a see through black dress, but I swore I saw her hairless snatch in full gynecological detail for at least 5 seconds. If anyone can deny or confirm this let me know…
Two karate kicking kids go on vacation with their ancient looking grandfather to a lame campground where they have to sing “My Darling Clementine” and do the Hokey Pokey. They also find time to befriend a cute girl whose rich dad is a real asshole. Two idiot backwoods hillbillies get wind of just how rich he is and kidnap the chick and hold her for ransom. The cops and the Feds are clueless so that means the duo of high flying prepubescents have to step in to rescue the gal and save the day.
Karate Kids USA is an innocuous slice of kiddie crap. It’s watchable I guess; thanks mostly because of Joe (Maniac) Spinell. He plays one of the slow-witted hillbilly kidnappers. Spinell has always been one of my all time favorite character actors and his out-there performance easily stands head and shoulders above every other bland ass actor in the movie.
I think my dislike for Karate Kids USA stemmed from the fact that only .05% of it actually revolved around karate. Sure, the kids spend the whole damn movie in their white pajamas but they don’t bust out their Kung Fu moves until the flick is just about over. I mean we got Kids, we’re pretty sure they’re in the
Karate Kids USA is short on laughs, contains some nonexistent Kung Fu, and seems more like an extended episode of CBS Story Break than a real movie. I think the reason why I’m being generous and giving it Two Stars (in addition to the stellar supporting turn by Spinell) is the because of the behind the scenes talent. First off, it was directed by none other than Curtis Hanson. Do you think this movie ever entered his mind while he was directing Kevin Spacey in LA Confidential? Probably not. Secondly, the flick was co-written by Alan Ormsby, so I’m willing to give it a pass. If you’ve never heard of Ormsby, he’s the man who wrote such classics as Deathdream, Deranged, and The Substitute. Just the combination of those two talents right there is strange enough for me not to hate this movie altogether. Say whatever you want about it, it’s a lot better than 3 Ninjas.
The dim bulb sheriff gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Never eat chili out of a dented can… that’s my advice!”
AKA: Dragons. AKA: The Little Dragons.
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