Category Archives: Comedy

Three Fugitives (1989)

Posted on March 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

 

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bank robber becomes hostage.

Daniel Lucas (Nick Nolte) gets released from jail after serving 4 years for armed bank robbery. After getting out he goes to a nearby bank to cash his prison check and inexplicably gets caught up in another robbery when Ned (Martin Short) tries robbing the bank that Daniel is in, in order to pay for a special school to take his daughter Meg (Sarah Rowland Doroff) to since she refuses to talk. When the police surround the building Ned decides to take Daniel hostage in order to escape. Inspector Dugan (James Earl Jones), who was the one who had arrested Daniel for his earlier crimes, is convinced that Daniel has orchestrated this one too and tries chasing him down, so that he can arrest him again.

Hard to believe that such a successful screenwriter like Francis Veber could write such a dud like this, but after the first 10-minutes this thing falls precariously flat. In fact the opening robbery is the only thing in it that is funny and had it stayed on that level, with Daniel and Ned trying to avoid the relentless pursuit of Dugan while Daniel tries to clear his innocence, this might’ve worked, but too much other stuff gets thrown in that dilutes the main concept until it’s not fun anymore.

The introduction of the kid backfires. She is certainly adorable especially the way she goes running and does help lend sympathy to Ned and his motivations, but the cute factor gets laid on a bit too thick and eventually becomes forced. While I may not have a PHD in psychology the concept that this girl at the young age of 5 would just decide to not talk didn’t seem realistic. You can say it was caused by the death of her mother 2 years earlier, but other kids deal with their parent’s death and that doesn’t stop them from speaking. Kids have notoriously short attention spans, so to have her keep up this non-talking for literally years and have it not deeply rooted in some neurological issue was just too much of a stretch. No explanation either for why Nolte’s presence would suddenly get her to start talking again and then when she finally does start to speak, she begins to babble incessantly, which gets to be a problem the other way.

The police are too inept here. There are plenty of other films featuring bumbling cops and some of them can be funny, but here it doesn’t get played for laughs and instead just used as a way to get the characters out of a dilemma. Once an APB gets put out of the robbery and the men’s identity it becomes hard to believe that Ned would still be able to walk the streets in full view of the cops, which he inadvertently bumps into while walking on the sidewalk and even interact with, and not immediately be recognized. The car chases are dumb too. One has them two driving off the road and into a ditch while the police cars speed by, but it wouldn’t be long for the police to realize they’ve gone too far after not spotting them and turn around especially when Ned’s car explodes from the grenade that was left inside, which should’ve immediately signaled their whereabouts to the police. Later, during another chase, Ned is able to easily fool the police by turning under a bridge and parking his car behind another one while the cops go speeding by, but if it’s this easy to consistently dupe the police you wonder how they’re ever able to catch anyone.

Nolte’s okay in his gruff kind of way, but Short is too high strung making his character more tense and anxious than funny. Kenneth McMillan, an excellent character actor whose last film this was, gets stuck with a dumb role involving a veterinarian who apparently is so senile he thinks Nolte is a dog, but to ‘see’ a grown, big guy like Nick as a canine means he’s got far more problems with his mind than just dementia and thus his moments come off as protracted and desperate for laughs that never come.

Spoiler Alert!

The jump-the-shark moment comes at the end when Short finds himself taken hostage by yet another bank robber. While I love irony this concept gives it a bad name and like with everything else in the movie seems thrown in as a way to allow the characters to have a quick convenient way out of their predicament with no concern whether it makes sense or beats astronomical odds. The small sporadic chuckles that you may have does not make up for seating through the rest of it.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 27, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Francis Veber

Studio: Touchstone Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Remakes, Robbing Banks

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Thank God It’s Friday (1978)

Posted on March 11, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: A night at discotheque.

This film was requested for review and was a part of the disco craze that permeated pop culture during the mid to late 70’s. It was released just 6 months after Saturday Night Fever but was nowhere as good and didn’t have the same staying power. The plot revolves around several people who decide to spend their Friday evening at a local L.A. discotheque and the various conversations and ‘adventures’ that they have while inside the place. The main cast is Donna Summer who plays a character named Nicole who tries to ger her ‘big break’ by singing one of her songs while everyone is on the dance floor, but the club DJ (Ray Vitte) goes to great lengths to prevent that. There’s also two underage friends (Valerie Landsburg, Terri Nunn) who sneak into the club in order to win a dance contest, and a married couple (Mark Lonow, Andrea Howard) who go to the club on a lark, but then have their marriage challenged when club owner Tony (Jeff Goldblum) begins aggressively hitting-on the wife while the husband gets side-tracked by a ditzy patron named Jackie (Mayra Small) who gives him drugs that makes him behave erratically.

The biggest shock was that this lame thing was directed by Robert Klane, who burst onto the scene in the early 70’s with the dark comedy classic Where’s Poppa? that was both edgy and inventive and based on his book of the same name, but this has none of that. The dialogue and situations are quite stale, and it was like he was just selling out his career, which did eventually recover when he wrote the script for Weekend at Bernie’s, but this is definitely a black mark.  What’s even more perplexing is that the screenwriter for this, Armyan Bernstein, was able to sell six more screenplays after this one, even though this one displays no writing talent at all and his subsequent scripts that were made in the 80’s all bombed at the box office, but I guess this kind of shows how it’s more who you know in Hollywood that proves who gets the breaks and who doesn’t.

The concept of having an entire movie take place inside one location has a certain appeal, but Klane captures the proceedings in a flat sort of way. It was shot inside an actual club, that has since been torn down and was described by those who went there as a ‘labyrinth’, but I didn’t get that feeling while watching it. Most of it is shot in and around the dance floor, which quickly becomes boring visually. The various ‘dramedies’ of the characters fail to elicit any interest. To some degree you could say this was a realistic look at the club scene as I remember going out to dance clubs in the 90’s in Chicago hoping to pick-up some action, or meet ‘cool new friends’ but coming away disappointed and feeling like it was all overrated and on that level that’s exactly what you get here. The characters come in anticipating way more excitement than they actually receive, but the film still needs to convey this in some sort of compelling way, and it doesn’t.

A good example of this is the married couple, which has some potential, but the characters don’t learn anything, or change. In a good movie/script the main people are supposed to go through a character arch and end up in a different spot, either in an emotional, or intellectual way, or in their situation in life, then they were at the beginning, but the couple leaves the place returning to their ‘happy married’ mindset. However, since the wife was so quick to consider the advances from the club owner and the husband with the young punk girl, that it should’ve rattled them and they should’ve left seriously contemplating whether their marriage was really all that strong.

The same goes for Donna Summer’s character. She spends the entire evening trying to aggressively get her chance to sing. It might’ve worked better had the movie had a parent, or friend being the one that was pushy while Summer stood shyly back and thus made her seem a little less narcissistic. Either way when she finally sing and the crowd loves it, it doesn’t mean much because it wasn’t in front of a record producer, so therefore there was no contract and thus just a fleeting moment in time.

I did like Goldblum and it’s easy to see why out of the entire cast he was the one that had a long a distinguished career though it’s a little confusing why he hits so hard on another man’s wife when he has a plethora of hot women that he has slept with, or willing to sleep with him, so why get so fixated on the one? Debra Winger is an absolute delight too mainly because of her exquisite beauty, which is at the absolute peak here and makes watching the movie more than worth it just for that. In fact, that’s the only reason why I decided to give this one point.

Out of the entire runtime there’s only four mildly diverting moments that stands out. The first is when the lady holding the torch in the Columbia Pictures symbol breaks out into a disco dance. The second, in a scene that the producers strongly considered cutting, is when a guy asks if he can but into a dance that Debra Winger is having with another guy, but instead of continuing the dance with her he goes on with the other guy. The third is a nice dance routine that Marv Gomez has on the rooftops of some parked cars while the fourth consists of Goldblum’s car, a prized possession of his, that falls completely apart.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: May 19, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Klane

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Tubi, YouTube

 

 

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The Dream Team (1989)

Posted on February 20, 2026 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lost in New York

Dr. Weitzman (Dennis Boutsikaris) is a psychiatrist working at a mental hospital who decides to take four of his patients on a ‘field trip’ to watch a Yankees baseball game. The four patients consist of: Billy (Michael Keaton) who suffers from violent impulses, Henry (Christopher Lloyd) who thinks he’s a doctor, Jack (Peter Boyle) who imagines he’s Jesus Christ, and Albert (Stephen Furst) who can only communicate through baseball terms. Things start out okay, but then Dr. Weitzman witness two corrupt cops (Philip Bosco, James Remar) murdering someone and this leads to him being knocked unconscious. With no one to lead them it forces the four to work together to not only find help but also justice for their doctor all while doing it inside the big, scary place known as New York City.

The first act is too reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and it doesn’t help things that Christopher Lloyd was in that one too, which does nothing but make you want to watch the original and skip this one completely. The humor is too mild, you might chuckle a bit, but there’s never any laugh-out-loud moment. The doctor is also too damn benign. What made the other one so interesting was that Nurse Ratched, the supposedly ‘normal’ one, was just as goofy, maybe even more so, as the patients she was overseeing and ‘helping to cure’ and it would’ve been nice had this doctor also had some unique aspect versus being so painfully blah.

The biggest issue though it that these guys really aren’t all that ‘dangerous’. Sure, they suffer from delusional traits but nothing that necessarily screams that they need to be institutionalized. In Keaton’s case he comes off as downright rational and only needing therapy in anger management. The rest too are quite gentle and could easily exist, with proper medications, in an outpatient setting and the film should’ve approached it that way. Instead of playing it like this trip was their ‘only’ chance to see the outside world again it should’ve been the first of what could be many trips that would hopefully allow them to reacclimate into society.

The trip thing has some intriguing potential, but ultimately losses its edge when it’s revealed that these characters lived and worked in the city before they had their breakdowns and can easily find their way around as evidenced by Henry going back to where he lived and Jack visiting his old job. Having these guys come from a small town to a big, massive city they’d never been to would’ve offered more challenges and comedy. It’s also confusing why the doctor’s identity isn’t known and he gets placed in the hospital as a ‘John Doe’ because he should’ve had his wallet on him, I don’t remember seeing it stolen by the corrupt cops, and therefore his driver’s license would’ve said who he was.

Spoiler Alert!

The mystery aspect where no one believed their story about the corrupt cops, I actually liked, but everything gets resolved too easily. For one thing I didn’t like Keaton’s girlfriend, played by Lorraine Bracco, playing an integral role in getting the bad guys caught as this was the four’s story and therefore it should’ve been solely up to them to find a solution. Having them get caught and temporarily thrown into jail only to escape was unnecessary and only helps to slow down the pace. There’s also a major loophole in that the four end up ‘disguising’ themselves as doctors in order to get access into the hospital and yet earlier their faces were shown on a televised news report, so most assuredly somebody would’ve seen that broadcast and recognized them and thus their ‘charade’ would’ve come to an end before it ever got going.

The ending is confusing too in that the four are allowed to go on a second field trip, but this time all by themselves without any supervision. What’s to say they’ll ever come back and if they are deemed ‘sane’ enough to go out on their own then why are they even institutionalized in the first place?

End of Spoiler Alert!

On a side note, you get a glimpse of Peter Boyle’s naked buttocks and while I’ve mentioned in other reviews of seeing Dabney Coleman’s and Tim Matheson’s bare ass and considering those to be two of the finest, I did feel Boyle’s deserves nomination as being one of the worst.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 7, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Howard Zieff

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies

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Stripes (1981)

Posted on February 9, 2026 | 5 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Losers join the army.

John (Bill Murray) works as a cab driver but is getting tired of putting up with obnoxious passengers. He sees an ad on TV about joining the army and convinces his friend Russell (Harold Ramis), who’s also unhappy with his line of work, to take up the offer. The two though find basic training to be far tougher than they thought particularly under the command of drill instructor Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates) of which John doesn’t get along with and they end up having a one and one confrontation while inside the toiletries.

It seems amazing while watching this movie now how much things have changed as at the time this was considered a ‘raunchy’ flick, but in retrospect outside of a brief minute of flashing tits, and a mud wrestling segment, is very tame and PG rated material. It also goes very soft on the army aspect. This was shot during the era when there was still simmering discontent with the Vietnam War, which had just ended five years earlier and it was hip in many films of the era to poke fun of the military and yet this film doesn’t really do that. Sure, there are some over-the-top characters like Larroquettes, but overall, it’s surprising balanced portrait where if anything it’s Murray that learns the hard lesson that it’s best to keep your mouth shut, or pay the price, in this case the ever-mounting number of push-ups he’s forced to do when he smarts off. In some ways it’s a good portrait of what happens when differing personalities clash and how the ones that are more disciplined, or those that learn to take it on, ultimately win out.

Murray is as always highly engaging and his smug, party boy persona never seems to get old, but the story was originally intended for Cheech and Chong who could’ve been even funnier. My main complaint with Murray is he doesn’t really change and remains the same glib slacker that he was at the beginning though I did like the moment he gets punched in the stomach by Oates, which for Murray was his very first dramatic bit. The opening segment though in which he drives his cab erratically through the city streets in an effort to ‘get back’ at a crabby passenger (played by Fran Ryan) gets overdone as it put other innocent drivers at risk and would’ve gotten him arrested. Also, he and Ramis should’ve had their hair cut just as short as the other recruits as the army is all about uniformity and no one gets any special break.

Ramis is splendid in support even though director Ivan Reitman didn’t want to hire him due to Harold’s lack of acting experience and that his audition didn’t go well, but with Murray’s insistence he came on board and it’s a good thing. Mainly because he doesn’t compete with Murray for laughs, and in fact isn’t clownish at all and thus making him the most relatable. Oates is solid too though nowhere near the intensity that R. Lee Emery would’ve been, but still I liked his nervous facial tics. However, his character gets injured at one point and then gets seen with bandages around his arms and hands, but then during the third act these all disappear and he’s perfectly fine again, but I felt for the sake of continuity he should’ve remained bandaged.

I enjoyed too that the women here aren’t portrayed as bubble-headed beach blondes, but instead sensible people who aren’t afraid to be in control as evidenced by P.J. Soles and Sean Young, who looks really cute and was apparently cast simply for her looks alone. My only complaint though is that as Military Police they should’ve remained with the upper hand all the way through. Not letting down their guard and ultimately allowing the men to take charge. There still could’ve been the flirting and sex, but with the women calling the shots and the men playing along.

In support it’s fun seeing the young faces of up-and-coming stars including Conrad Dunn, who later became famous for his work in the soap opera ‘Days of Our Lives’, as a guy named Francis who threatens to do violence to anyone who dares call him that as well as Joe Flaherty as an inept border guard, Judge Reinhold as a would be drug smuggler and Timothy Busfield, in his film debut and looking downright boyish, as a soldier who fires a misguided mortar shell.

John Larroquette is quite good too in his first major role, in fact I felt the scene where he’s playing with toy soldiers inside his office to be the funniest moment. Unfortunately, his egotistical personality doesn’t get played up enough as I would’ve liked to have seen a showdown between him and Murray, which never happens. Also, his date looked too much like Murray’s former girlfriend, and I actually thought it was the same women, and they should’ve cast one as a brunette and the other a blonde, so we could’ve told the difference.

Spoiler Alert!

I was ready to give this 7 points, but the third act, which director Reitman later described as ‘an embarrassment’, ruins it.  While I’m all for giving the thing some action the way it goes about it is all wrong. Initially I thought it would be the other recruits going to war against Murray and Ramis under the mistaken impression that they were spies after they absconded with the top-secret van, but instead they go up against the Czechoslovakian army, which came off as too easy. These were still amateurs when it came to using weapons and technology and yet they’re able to blow up the bad guys with pinpoint presession until it becomes boring and anti-climactic where if they had been more bumbling about it, it would’ve been both realistic and funnier.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 26, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ivan Reitman

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon, YouTube

 

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity

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The Sunshine Boys (1975)

Posted on January 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Comedians try to reunite.

Wily Clark (Walter Matthau) is an aging comedian from the vaudeville era who’s now in his 80’s and finding it hard to find work. His nephew Ben (Richard Benjamin) acts as his agent but signing Wily to acting gigs proves challenging due to Wily’s disagreeable manner. Al Lewis (George Burns) worked with Wily when the two where in their prime and known as The Sunshine Boys. ABC wants to reunite the two for a TV special, but Wily resists insisting that he can’t work with Al again due to petty grievances. Ben though gets the two together in Wily’s apartment for a rehearsal of their old skits, but fighting immediately breaks out. They then pair up again for the TV special under the condition that neither has to talk to the other outside of the skit, but when Wily falls over with a heart attack things take a serious turn. Will Al be able to reconcile with Wily before it’s too late?

This is another hit Neil Simon play that hasn’t aged well. At the time it was best known for having George Burns, who hadn’t been in a movie in 36 years, and his subsequent Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actor, which he received at age 80 that was a record for oldest recipient until broken 14 years later by Jessica Tandy. My main gripe though is more with characters. Matthau is alright, though he was only 55 when he did the part, but still looked adequately old, but the person he plays is unlikable. Supposedly he wants acting gigs but makes little effort to get to the auditions on time, or memorize his lines while expecting his stressed-out nephew, whom he belittles and berates constantly, to do all the legwork. It’s really hard to feel sorry for someone who doesn’t put in the effort and he’s rude and boorish at every turn. The movie tries to play this off as just being a part of old age, but it really isn’t. The guy has a huge attitude problem for any stage in life, and it becomes a big turn off. The viewer could’ve sided with him more, or at least little, had he been trying his best and just coming up short and would’ve created a far more interesting dramatic arc had his only option back into the business would be pairing with Al and the internal efforts he’d have to go through to get along with him to make it work versus having his nephew desperately do all the attempted repairing, which isn’t as interesting.

The reasons for their feud are inane and hinges on minor issues like Al apparently ‘spitting on’ Wily whenever he says a word that starts with ‘T’ or poking him in the chest during a moment in their skit, but you’d think if they had been doing this routine for 43 years that Wily would’ve brought up these grievances already. Al seemed quite reasonable, so why does Wily feel the need to stew about it and not just call it to his attention? The story would’ve been stronger had there been a true gripe to get mad at, like Al stealing away Wily’s wife or girlfriend, or signing some big movie deal without Wily’s knowledge that made Al a star while Wily got left behind. All of these things would make anyone upset and create a better dramedy on how the two would be able to reconcile, but these other ‘issues’ that Wily has are just too insipid even for a silly comedy.

Spoiler Alert!

The film also lacks an adequate payoff. There’s this big build up for this TV special, but then it never gets past the rehearsal phase. It climaxes with Wily lying in bed in his cluttered apartment treating his nurse, played by Rosetta LeNoire, just as shabbily as he does everyone else and having learned nothing. I was surprised to by all of these get-well cards and telegrams supposedly by his fans and other celebrities. Would’ve been more profound if Wily received no well wishes and thus gotten him to realize that he was truly forgotten and this would then force him to reassess his selfish nature and commit to treating people better, which unfortunately doesn’t occur, and the character learns nothing.

Since it’s revealed that Wily and Al will be spending the rest of their lives in the same actor’s retirement community it would’ve been nice to show them doing their skits in front of an audience of other seniors, but the film misses the mark here to. There’s no real finality or journey, just constant rhetorical bickering and a running joke dealing with Wily unable to unlock his apartment door from the inside “don’t push it, slide it”, which gets old fast.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 6, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Herbert Ross

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive), Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Sunburn (1979)

Posted on September 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple investigates insurance fraud.

Jake (Charles Grodin) works as a private eye and gets hired by an insurance company wanting him to investigate a case that took place in Acapulco of a man who crashed his car into a building and died. The authorities have labeled it an ‘accident’, which would put them on the hook to have to pay out a large sum of money, so they’d like Jake to travel down there and find out if that were really the case, or if it could be deemed as a suicide. Jake decides to hire an actress from a modeling agency named Ellie (Farrah Fawcett-Majors) to act as his wife. Ellie takes an interest in the case and helps him search for clues while also forming a romance with him, which starts out rocky but becomes stronger as they find themselves sucked further into the mystery and the potential dangers.

The film is based on the 1970 novel ‘The Bind’ by Stanley Ellin, which had a grittier tone than the movie. Farrah’s agent Jay Bernstein felt this would be a good vehicle for her, but wanted the script turned into more of a lighter and comical story that the book did not have. This was at a crucial point in her career as the first film he got her cast in Somebody Killer Her Husband, did badly with both the critics and public, so it was important that she prove her box office ability with this picture and when this one also bombed she fired him complaining that both movies had been ‘put together with hustle and bubble gum’.

One of the elements that really hurts it is the casting of Charles Grodin, who by his own admission was their sixth choice for the role as they had initially pursued Robert Redford and even Harrison Ford, who would’ve both been way better. Grodin can certainly be funny, but this part doesn’t give him much to work with. He has a few amusing moments when he’s trying to scare away a lizard from entering their bedroom and then in an effort ‘to protect her’ from a further ‘lizard invasion’ agrees to sleep on a nearby chair, which cause him to do nothing but toss and turn the whole night in an effort to find a ‘comfortable’ position.

His character though didn’t seem all that professional as he leaves it up to her to place a listening device into one of the suspect’s phones, but she had no background in this kind of thing, so what would happen if she screwed it up? The insurance company is promising him a lot of money so it should be up to him to do most of the legwork to make sure it gets done right and if any ditzy amateur blonde can be pulled in off the street to do what he does then what’s the point in hiring him to begin with?

Farrah does much better here than her previous film. I enjoyed her dialogue with Grodin and how just because she was hired to play his wife didn’t mean she was automatically going to be one during their off hours when he for some chauvinistic reason expects her to make him a sandwich, which she immediately declines to do. I was confused though why her character would want to get so involved in the case. She’s just there to play a part, so why not just do her job and enjoy the sun? Instead, she constantly puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations for no real reason. She’s gets paid whether the case gets solved or not, so why jeopardize her life over something that she has no emotional or financial investment in?

It’s also hard to believe that such a hot looking lady wouldn’t be in a relationship. It would’ve been far more enjoyable had there been a jealous boyfriend who secretly followed her on her mission and even threw a few monkey wrenches into the investigation, which could’ve added extra spark into a movie that’s otherwise too leisurely. For her to then fall in love with Grodin was equally dumb. The guy could’ve been her father and lacked any type of sexual pizazz. Had Redford or Ford been cast then the romance might’ve made more sense, but such a beautiful woman like her would have no reason to settle for a doofus like him and would simply be there for the payout and then be long gone.

Art Carney is great in support and actually does most of the work making it seem like Grodin’s character wasn’t even necessary and in fact having Carney and Farrah team up would’ve made it unique and more entertaining as Carney despite his advanced age shows a lot of energy particularly when he goes out onto the disco floor. The rest of the cast though gets wasted with many of them having only one or two lines making you wonder why they’d bother to sign on at all.

The film does have one memorable moment where Carney and Farrah, in an effort to escape the bad guys who are pursuing them, inadvertently crash their car into a bull fighting ring and then must avoid the bull who goes after them. This action is both humorous and exciting, but otherwise unless you’re some super Farrah fan the movie offers little else that’s interesting.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: August 10, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Richard C. Sarafian

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD-R (MGM Limited Edition Collection)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery, Obscure Movies, Romance

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Tootsie (1982)

Posted on February 3, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pretending to be female.

Michael (Dustin Hoffman) is a talented actor but having difficulty finding employment due to his demanding nature and inability to get along with directors. His friend Sandy (Teri Garr) is auditioning for a part in a soap opera, and he helps her prepare for the role and even takes her to the audition only to learn that she was rejected before given any chance to do a screentest. It’s at this same time that he learns his agent George (Sydney Pollack) hasn’t gotten him a chance to audition for another role because in his words ‘no one will work with him’. Michael then decides to disguise himself as a woman named Dorothy Michaels in an effort to get the role that Sandy was turned down for so as to raise money to produce a play that will star Sandy. While he does get the part, he also becomes a big star with everyone believing that Dorothy really is a woman, which cause many complications in both his personal and professional life making him feel like he wants to end the charade and go back to his normal identity, but not quite sure how to do it. 

The genesis for the story began all the way back in 1970 and was based on an off-Broadway play by Don McGuire titled ‘Would I Lie to You?’ about an out of work stage actor who dresses as a woman to get a big part. Director Dick Richards adapted the plot into a screenplay, and it got shopped around for many years, but to no avail. Then in 1980 cross-dressing actor Christopher Morley played the role of a woman named Sally Armitage in the soap opera ‘General Hospital’. The part was played straight with the viewers under the impression that it really was a female, and Sally even gained the romantic interest from the character Luke, played by Anthony Geary, only to eventually reveal that she was really a man, which was a ratings hit and thus lead to renewed interest in this script. Eventually Dustin Hoffman got a hold of it and decided he wanted to take it on under the condition that was given full creative control and even hired his own people, Larry Gelbert and Murra Schisgal, to rewrite the story to his liking. 

Personally, my favorite parts of the film come at the beginning where we see Michael’s struggles as an actor as well as all of his thespian friends giving one a glimpse at just how hard the business is and how few people can make an actual living in it. Watching both him and his roommate Jeff, played by Bill Murray, working as waiters, but still talking about their acting ambitions while on that job was on-target. Garr gives a great performance as a struggling would-be actress who is full of insecurities and letdowns and a perfect composite of many young women who find the auditioning process grueling and thankless and for this reason, I felt she should’ve won the Oscar instead of Jessica Lange as her part as the love interest wasn’t as interesting, or honest. 

Murray is terrific as the roommate in an unusual part for him as his over-the-top clownish, snarky, frat boy persona is kept under wraps and instead he plays the part straight, but his sardonic responses to things are great. Director Pollack, who took on the role of Michael’s agent at the request of Hoffman and thus making it his first acting role in almost 20 years, is quite good too particularly with how his exasperated nature feeds off of Hoffman’s hyper one and their conversation inside his office is the movie’s highlight. Charles Durning has a few key moments as well playing Lange’s lovesick father who begins to fall for Dorothy though any man that would give a woman an engagement ring before they’d even been out on a single date has to be a bit loopy.

Hoffman falls into the woman role easily and it would be hard to recognize him had the viewer not known about the disguise beforehand though I felt the way Dorothy walked and moved her hands and arms made her seem like Mrs. Butterworth the animated character from the maple syrup commercials. It’s also hard to imagine he wouldn’t have been found out a lot sooner especially since he collected a weekly paycheck from the company, which would’ve required him to give them his social security number, which in-turn would’ve exposed who he really was. Being on magazine covers where he supposedly does interviews as Dorothy should’ve been equally problematic as the reporters would’ve asked him (her) about her past like what other stuff did she act in, where was she from, and where did she graduate. Stuff that’s very much standard questions in any interview and when he (she) couldn’t come up with anything or made-up stuff that could easily be background checked would’ve then raised red flags and brought the ruse to a very quick halt.

Spoiler Alert!

Soap operas were no longer broadcast as live and hadn’t been since 1963, so that story angle doesn’t fly either. Yes, I realize the idea was that it was taped and only had to done live as an emergency when one of the tapes got destroyed, but in reality, the taping would’ve been done so far ahead (usually by several weeks) that even if a video did somehow get corrupted there still should’ve been plenty of time to refilm it before reaching the actual air date. 

The ending it a bit disappointing as well. Sure, it’s nice seeing Lange putting her arm around him as they walk down the sidewalk showing that the two had made up after his secret identity was exposed, but it doesn’t answer what happened to his career. He did this whole thing to help finance a play for Sandy, so what became of that? Also, were casting agents so impressed with the way he fooled everybody that they now were willing to hire him, or was he still blacklisted? These were all major motivations for why he did the ruse, so there should’ve been clarity to what became of it. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sydney Pollack

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Supporting Actress, Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Romance

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Max Dugan Returns (1983)

Posted on December 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

max1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Estranged father comes back.

Nora (Marsha Mason) is a single mother living with her 15-year-old son Michael (Matthew Broderick) who’s struggling to make ends meet as a High School English Teacher. Things become particularly desperate when her beat-up 1964 Volvo car gets stolen and she no longer has any transportation to get to work nor the money to afford buying a new car, or even a used one. Fortunately, the officer working on the case, Brian (Donald Sutherland) takes a liking to her and offers her to use his motorbike even though she needs training on how to drive it. Once she goes through the crash course and begins using it she still has other financial concerns to worry about until one night she receives a mysterious visitor, which turns-out to be her estranged father Max Dugan (Jason Robards) who ran-out on his family 29 years earlier. Now he has returned with a briefcase full of $687,000, which he skimmed from a crooked casino that he used to work at. He tells her he has only 6-months to live and advises her to take the money, so that she and her son can live stress-free, but Nora isn’t so sure she wants to accept it, so Max goes about buying her stuff anyways including a fancy new car.

This has to be one of Neil Simon’s least imaginative efforts and the concept seems so contrived it’s like he thought it up for the 10-minutes that he was sitting on the john. I’ll admit when I was a teen and watched it when it first came out, I enjoyed it. I especially remembered the scenes dealing with Charley Lau, who regrettably died less than a year after the film’s release, where he plays himself the hitting coach for the Chicago White Sox baseball team, who Max hires to help Michael become a better hitter and these teaching scenes I found to be engaging. Unfortunately, the foundational premise has a lot of holes.

The idea that a father would suddenly want to see his daughter after 29 years of being away didn’t seem authentic. If he longed to reconnect then why not reach out earlier? Granted he was in jail for 6 of those years, but what about the other 23? If family was so important to him then why run out on them in the first place? Why doesn’t he at least make some attempts in-between those years to communicate like sending letters of phone calls before just showing up and expecting to be welcomed with open arms? The idea of throwing her and his grandson a lot of money comes-off in bad taste like he’s simply trying to buy their love and if anything seems quite shallow. During those 29 years away you’d think he would’ve met other people he’d become friends with, or other women he dated that he might’ve wanted to give the money to instead, or are we to presume that for 3-decades he lived in a cave and made no contact with anyone else?

I didn’t get why Nora didn’t recognize her father when he called. Yes, it had been awhile since she had last heard or seen him, it’s stated that she was 9 when he left, but he has a distinctive voice, so I’d think it would set something off in the back of her brain that she knows who this is, but can’t quite place it, versus having her immediately call the police in panic after getting a call from some ‘strange man’. He also tells her at one point that he may not actually be Max Dugan, but again she wasn’t a month-old infant when she last saw him, but instead someone entering the fourth grade, which should’ve given her a solid enough memory of what he looked like and thus know if this was her real father, or not.

To help solve all of this Nora should’ve been made a divorcee instead of a widow. The husband/father could’ve been the one who went to jail and then returned a 6 years later with stolen money hoping to use it to win back his wife’s and son’s favor. It would’ve made more sense because less time would’ve passed, and he’d have a more vested emotional interest in bonding with his son since he was directly his versus an elusive grandfather who didn’t even know the kid existed until being ‘tipped off’ that Nora had one by some secondary source.

Matthew Broderick’s character is problematic too. He seems just too obedient and goody-goody to be a believable teen as he promptly makes his bed every morning, even his mother’s, asks to be excused from the dinner table, and even lets his mother kiss him while in full view of his friends. Yes, there’s one brief moment where he tries to sneak a smoke, but otherwise I didn’t detect the typical rebellion to authority that most teens that age have, and it would’ve been improved had the kid been 9 or 10 where still being compliant with their parents’ wishes is a little more understandable.

Sutherland’s character was off as well as he seems way too aggressive about asking out a woman that he had just met while on-duty and actively investigating her case making it ethically questionable whether he should even be doing it. If a guy does come-on to a woman so quickly, simply because she’s attractive and single, as he knew nothing else about her, you’d presume he’s done this to other available women as well and thus should have a throng of casual girlfriends and Nora would just be one of many. The film should’ve just had him already her boyfriend from the start and thus avoided this otherwise awkward and rushed relationship. I also thought it was dumb that Kiefer Sutherland, who appears early on in a brief non-speaking role as one of Broderick’s friends, wasn’t cast as Donald’s son in the climactic baseball sequence at the end and instead the part was given to another young actor.

Spoiler Alert!

The money issue becomes yet another problem as Max spends it on so many lavish gifts that I started to wonder if there would be any left to put into savings. The idea that he could’ve had workers refurbish the house in just one day while Nora and son where in school is ridiculous as something that massive would take weeks if not months. He even ends up driving away with the car he had bought her leaving her again without a vehicle. Yes, he does open-up a bank account in her name and puts in $400,000, but her cop boyfriend was already aware of this and made clear he put his duty to uphold the law over his personal relationships making it very probable that she’d be forced to give it all back. Worse she might be considered an accomplice forcing her to hire an attorney, which would’ve sent her into even more debt making it seem like she’d be better off had the whole thing not even happened to begin with.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 25, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Herbert Ross

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy

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Night Shift (1982)

Posted on December 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

nightshift1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hookers in a morgue.

Chuck (Henry Winkler) has dropped-out of his former job as a stockbroker due to the stress and decided to work in a more tranquil setting as the night shift manager of a New York City morgue. He’s unhappy though to have to share duties with Bill (Michael Keaton) who’s talkative and partying ways are a complete contrast to Chuck’s introverted manner. Chuck’s home-life isn’t much better as he’s engaged to be married to Charlotte (Gina Hecht) though her habits and constant complaining are at odds with Chuck’s. His only solace is Belinda (Shelly Long) a prostitute whom he sometimes bumps into as she’s servicing his next-door neighbor Luke (Tim Rossovich). When Chuck finds her beaten-up inside an elevator he decides she needs to find a work environment that will afford her more protection, which gives Bill the idea to open-up a prostitution ring inside the morgue, which goes-off surprisingly well for  awhile before rival pimps become aware of it and threaten Bill and Chuck with their lives unless they agree to let them in on the payout.

This marked the second feature length film directed by Ron Howard and was inspired by a New York Times article about a real-life morgue that became a prostitution hang-out during its night hours. He decided to offer the leading role to Winkler, who had the choice of either playing Bill or Chuck but went with Chuck as he felt it would be fun playing against type, or in his words a ‘chance to play Richie Cunningham’. Winkler was still acting in ‘Happy Days’ TV-show at the time, so he’d shoot this on Mondays and Tuesdays in New York and then fly back to Hollywood to play Fonzie on Thursdays and Fridays.

While the change of pace may have shown what a good actor Winkler was it really didn’t help his image as the protagonist here is too wimpy. A somewhat passive guy is okay, but this guy lets people push him around too much making him look pathetic and his buttoned-down personality doesn’t show much energy making most of his moments in front of the camera too subtle to be either funny or engaging.

Keaton on the other-hand is too flamboyant, and his talkative ways become obnoxious instead of endearing and I personally didn’t blame Winkler for telling the guy to shut-up and leave him alone as I would’ve felt the same way. The story could’ve worked just as well if not better had Keaton not been in it at all and let Winkler carry-it alone, which would’ve allowed for a more interesting character arch at seeing this nebbish guy run a prostitution ring and thus learn to open-up more because of it.

Winkler’s relationship with Charlotte made little sense as the two had nothing in common and all she did was nag and complain. Why would anyone want to date someone like that let alone get engaged with them? I realize this was supposed to be part of the ‘comedy’ but for it to be funny there actually has to be some truth in it and these two shared no chemistry and at least one of them would’ve in reality come to their senses and broke it off and logically it’s surprising that it didn’t happen. The Charlotte character wasn’t even needed because the focus is on Winkler’s budding romance with Long, so why not just have him be a single guy who’s lonely and can’t make it with women and thus becomes entranced with Long despite her being a hooker simply because she showed him some attention.

While she gives a really good performance that’s light years removed from her Diane Chambers role from ‘Cheers’ that she’s best known for, and she sure looks great in the scene where she wears skimpy panties, her character here is problematic. She’s too wide-eyed and innocent for a woman whose been working as a call girl on the big city streets and even been badly beaten-up a few times by her pimp and johns. Seems like she should’ve formed a very hardened, crusty exterior for her own basic mental defense and the fact that she doesn’t show any of this and instead is so openly sweet seemed not remotely believable.

The premise has great potential, but it doesn’t do enough with it. For most of the way the pace is leisurely and the comedy subtle. I was expecting dead bodies coming-in amidst the sex and lots of mix-ups and confusion, but that stuff barely even gets touched upon. The prostitutes are portrayed as an extreme caricature with no distinct personalities, which reveals how shallow the whole thing is. Back-in-the-day, and I know because I was around, movies dealing with the subject of prostitution was considered ‘edgy’, but now stuff like this is looks trite and barely even touching the surface in regard to realism.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 30, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ron Howard

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Plex, Roku, Tubi, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity

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Animal Behavior (1989)

Posted on November 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

animal

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cellist falls for biologist.

Alex (Karen Allen) is a biologist employed at a university where she is researching on finding new ways to communicate with chimpanzees including the use of sign language but finding it challenging in getting any funding. Mark (Armand Assante) works at the same school as an orchestra instructor. He meets Alex by chance and while their first encounter is awkward, he immediately takes an interest in her and tries to pursue a relationship. Alex is so involved in her work that she doesn’t pick-up on Mark’s advances initially and then when she does, she comes under the mistaken impression that he’s married which causes her to avoid him and making Mark believe that she doesn’t like him when deep down she really does.

The film, which has never been released on either DVD or streaming and can only be obtained from a very rare VHS print, is more known for its behind-the-scenes troubles than anything that goes on in front of the camera. The main issue was the squabbling, or ‘creative differences’ between director Jenny Brown and the producer Kjehl Rasmussen causing her to leave the project, which began filming in 1984. The production then ran out of money forcing it to be shelved for many years in an unfinished state before Rasmussen was able to receive enough funding to complete it with him as the director. However, out of its initial $3.5 million budget it was only able, after its limited release, to recoup a paltry $41, 526 at the box office making it a huge financial loss. It also came-out 4 years after one of its stars, Alexa Kenin who plays a not very talented cello student, died mysteriously at the young age of 23 for causes that are still unknown to this day.

Despite all of its production problems I came away finding it not too bad and enjoyed the orchestral score and the giant animated musical notes that appear during the opening credits as well as the vast New Mexico landscape. Assante is an interesting casting choice as he plays the romantic lead not in a lovesick way but approaches it instead in more as a matter-of-fact type, which you’d expect a person working in Academia might do. I did though find his ability to handle chimps as relaxed and comfortable was a bit of a missed opportunity as having him afraid of them, which is what I think most people would be like, would’ve given their young relationship more of a challenge to work through and thus more intrigue to the story.

His inability to every criticize Sheila, played by Kenin, who is a very poor cello player, made him in-turn come-off as a failure of a teacher. Granted the film wanted the viewer to like the Assante character and if his criticism of her playing was too harsh it might make them turn-on him, but the guy is her teacher and not her friend. A friend is someone that doesn’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings, but a teacher is paid to get to the source of the problem. If he is just going to allow this student to leave in a delusion that she’s a competent then when is she ever going to get better, or be motivated to improve? A good teacher is obligated to call a student’s attention to their shortcomings and by avoiding doing this he comes-off as weak and ineffective.

While Allen’s performance is also good, I had some problems with why Assante would want to get into a relationship with her. It’s clear from the get-go that she’s so into her chimps that she’s out of touch with everything else around her. Why pursue someone romantically who’s always going to put her monkeys first and make him have to constantly compete with them for her attention?

A far better love interest would’ve been Coral that gets played by Holly Hunter who is an absolute scene-stealer and gives the movie some much needed spunk. This was before she won the Academy Award, so her role is limited, but she still makes the most of it playing a single mother with an autistic child, played by Crystal Buda. She is a neighbor to Assante and the two get into a quasi-style relationship though they don’t have any sex, but I didn’t know why she didn’t want to pursue further past the friendship level as they seemed quite compatible and it would’ve allowed in more drama forcing both her and Allen to compete for the same man, which could’ve lead to some juicy confrontations.

Josh Mostel, as Assante’s friend, is fun, not so much for anything he says, but more for his big white-guy afro. The climactic sequence, which takes place in a large scale maze made out of hay bails is diverting simply because it’s never been used before, or since. However, the characterizations of the University faculty, who are portrayed as being stiff, uptight, while also a bit ‘wacky’ is too broad to be either amusing or insightful.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 27, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jenny Brown

Studio: CineStar Productions

Available: VHS, DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Comedy, Obscure Movies, Romance

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