Category Archives: Crude Comedy

Up In Smoke (1978)

Posted on March 21, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Two stoners become friends.

Anthony (Thomas Chong) is told by his father (Strother Martin) that he must find a job, or he’ll be kicked out of the house. Anthony then hitches a ride with Pedro (Cheech Marin) and the two quickly become friends based on their mutual interest of getting high on drugs. Soon they’re involved in many adventures including being shipped off to Tijuanna. In order to get back into the country they agree to drive a van that unbeknownst to them, is made completely of hardened marijuana, which gets them quickly put on the radar of Seargent Stelko (Stacy Keach) who along with his crack team of incompetents chases the two relentlessly in order to haul them into jail and make the country’s streets safe again. 

Cheech Marin was trying to avoid the draft when he went to Canada in 1969, which is where he met Thomas Chong, already a Canadian citizen who was starting up his own improv called ‘City Works’ after seeing Second City improv in Chicago while touring as a musician. The two became a comedy team who would come out to warm up audiences before concerts, but in many cases were more popular than the bands they were introducing. This then caught the attention of producer Lou Adler, who signed them to a contract to create record albums, which were so profitable that they graduated into making a movie, which Adler directed, that recreated many of the same skits they had used during their stage routines.

The movie upon its initial release with its open drug use was considered quite controversial and lead to many critics at the time to condemn it but nonetheless proved to be a big money-maker grossing $104 million on a $2 million budget.  Today the film is seen in a much softer light and in 2024 was elected for preservation by the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

I remember watching this when it came out and laughing at much of it particularly the car scene where the two smoke a giant marijuana cigarette and then get pulled over by the police. The film also does a terrific job of showing the East L.A. vibe possibly better than any other movie out there. You feel immersed in the culture and get a vivid feel of the era and setting especially at the end when the two go onstage and take part in the Battle of the Bands at the Roxy Theater. The film also has a leisurely pace, much like a French film, where it doesn’t feel the need to have a highly structured plot like in most American films and putting the emphasis more on atmosphere, which is a refreshing change of pace. Some of the supporting players, including Strother Martin who refers to his son as the ‘anti-Christ’ and Stacy Keach as the hardnosed police detective as well as his loyal, but bumbling deputy, played by Mills Watson, but without his patented mustache, who later went on to play the same type of role in the TV-show ‘The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo’, are all perfect and help add to the fun.

On the negative end the two leads and their interactions, are poor. Cheech never even bothers to learn his buddies name and just continues to refer to him as ‘man’ for the duration of the pic, which might be the intended comedy, but offers no character development. They never grow or change and instead are paralyzed in a permanent caricature. Marin is funny, and in fact the only source of the humor, but Chong is underdeveloped. He spends most of the time strung out on drugs, or going through a bad trip, to the point that he seems catatonic and allowing all the energy to go to Marin, which is fine as he makes the most of it, but it barely seems like a buddy pic when it’s only one guy getting all the laughs. 

Without sounding like somebody’s old-fashioned parent I must agree with the initial sentiment that found this movie to be glorifying drug use and thus toxic to the day’s youth. The film acts like using drugs is just harmless fun. The scene involving actress June Fairchild, who later became homeless due to her own real-life addictions, where she sniffs some Ajax by mistake thinking it’s cocaine, but has no bad reaction to it and instead gets just as an enjoyable high is a problem. Granted I realize it’s supposed to be ‘funny’, but I could see a parent being concerned that it’s sending the wrong message to impressionable teens. 

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 15, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 26 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lou Adler

Studio: Paramount Pictures

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies

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Meatballs (1979)

Posted on September 2, 2024 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Shenanigans at summer camp.

Tripper (Bill Murray) has been assigned to lead a new group of counselors-in-training while simultaneously pulling pranks on camp director Morty (Harvey Atkin). He also takes shy camper Rudy (Chris Makepeace) under his wings and giving the kid some confidence, so that he can play in sports and feel that he has a chance to win. Tripper also gets involved in the annual Olympiad between his camp, Camp North Star, and their rival Camp Mohawk, which sits across the lake from theirs. Camp Mohawk has won the title the past 12 years, but this year Tripper thinks things will be different mainly because he’s trained Rudy on how to be a cross-country runner due to their early morning jogs together and assigns him, much to the disagreement of the other campers, to run against Mohawk’s top runner in the crucial final race.

This was the fourth film directed by Ivan Reitman and while he went on to direct a lot of big hits I felt here he was still learning the craft and it would’ve been a better movie had someone with more experience been at the helm. Originally it was intended for John Landis to direct, but he was too busy working on The Blues Brothers, so Reitman reluctantly took the reins, but the pacing and tone is all off. To some degree it seems to want to be an Animal House wanna-be filled with off-color humor and slapstick, but at other points it tries for sentimental drama. Nowhere is this more evident than it’s eclectic choice of music featuring bouncy tune by Rick Dees and then turning around and having a sappy song by Maureen McGovern that seems out of place for a film that most of the time dwells in low brow humor.

Story-wise it’s incredibly vapid and seems to almost be plotless most of the way. The main crux of the script is apparently centered around Rudy and Tripper’s attempts to help him find some confidence in himself, but even these moments come-off as trite and thrown-in at haphazard intervals. In-between we get treated to a lot of silly hijinks and benign characterizations that mostly fall flat. There’s a lot of potential story threads that the could’ve been funny, but the movie fails to follow through on.

There’s a segment where the parent’s come to visit for a day, but this lasts for a minute and then it’s over. I also wanted to see the reluctant Rudy give out the morning messages of the day via an intercom set-up that had been traditionally done by Tripper. Since Tripper was going to be out he handed over the duties to Rudy who seemed nervous about the responsibility, so it would’ve been interesting to watching how he ended up approaching it and how the other campers responded, but instead we aren’t shown any of it. The same goes for a little boy who brings a frog with him that doesn’t ever move because he’s ‘tired’ yet we never get any follow-up to this, so why even have the scene, which isn’t funny or interesting anyways, if it has no real point to the plot?

The running gag involving the camp director named Morty who’s constantly referred to as ‘Mickey’ gets overblown and rather dumb. It has him being such a sound sleeper that the other campers, under Tripper’s guidance, move him and his bed, along with his bedside table, out of cabin and into various other parts of the campsite including at one point on a raft on a lake. When he wakes up he then finds himself in a very precarious situation, but it’s hard to believe that someone could sleep that deeply that they would’ve wake-up while they were being moved. Even if that were the case you’d think they’d come-up with some way to prevent it occurring in the future like bolting their door shut, or constructing some sort of booby trap that would catch the pranksters in the act. This could actually make it even funnier as it would be upping the ante each time versus just replaying the same old prank. At the very least you’d expect an ultimate angry confrontation between Morty and Tripper who he knew was behind it, which at one point he threatens to do, as he states ‘we’ll talk about it later’, but we never see the ‘talk’ actually happen, which again makes it seem like the movie really isn’t going anywhere.

Bill Murray, who reportedly wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it due to his SNL obligations at the time, but finally did show up to the shoot on the third day of production, is genuinely quite funny and the only things that saves it from being a dud though it comes close to being one anyways. However, his character does prove to be a bit problematic in the scene where he aggressively tackles an attractive counselor he wants to have sex with, played by Kate Lynch, which would be deemed sexual harassment in this day and age and not the ‘good natured, boys will be boys’ fun that it was considered at the time.

The film though does manage to elicit nostalgic homage to the camping experience, so those that look back to their summer camp days with fond memories may bond to this better. Otherwise I found it highly overrated and genuinely surprised that it did so well at the box office.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ivan Reitman

Studio: Paramount Pictures

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Crude Comedy, Cult, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada

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The Wild Life (1984)

Posted on December 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

wild

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: One week before school.

The summer is winding down and the teens in suburban Los Angeles get ready to head back to school. Conrad (Eric Stoltz) has just graduated the previous year and is now planning to move into his own apartment, but finds it to be expensive and his salary working at a bowling alley doesn’t pay enough, so his buddy Tom (Chris Penn) volunteers to move in with him as his roommate and thus share the costs. The two though don’t see eye-to-eye on things particularly Tom’s penchant for wild parties, which Conrad fears will get them kicked-out. Conrad’s younger brother Jim (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) is fascinated with the Vietnam War and getting into trouble by smoking and underage drinking, which Conrad doesn’t like. Anita (Lea Thompson) is Conrad’s ex-girlfriend who’s having problems of her own as she’s still a teen, but having an affair with a cop (Hart Bochner) who is much older and also married.

The script was written by Cameron Crowe, who had great success with Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and took about trying to emulate that one. Instead of being all about crude jokes and pranks like with most teen flicks of that decade Crowe centered it more on studying the individual teen characters, but unfortunately they’re all rather banal and not that interesting to follow. The first half suffers from a lot of segments that go on too long and doesn’t help the pace. It moves along so leisurely that 20-minutes in I started to wonder when it was going to get on with the story and if there might not even be one though there eventually is. The humor, while amusing at times, is too soft and subtle and could’ve been played-up more to give the thing a much needed jolt. The word ‘wild’ is in the film’s title, but what we end up getting is just the typical teen stuff that hardly lives up to its name. I also could’ve done without the cigarette swallowing, which happens a few times with different people. To me it looked dangerous and enough to make somebody sick and was surprised the characters didn’t puke it out.

Mitchell-Smith has the face of a teen heartthrob, but his squeaky voice is a distraction and I would’ve considered dubbing it though I suppose funny sounding voices at that age as they go through the ‘big change’ may just reflect the reality. His character  is a bit over-the-top with his bravado and at one point challenges a guy who’s much bigger than him to punch him and in another segment he lies down on the street in front of a moving car. This type of behavior seems too reckless and brazen and isn’t normal. Teens are known to take some unwise risks, but it usually catches up with them, but never does here, which I found annoying. Also, when someone shows extreme bravery in one instance they can, as human nature goes, be amazingly scared about something else, but we never are shown that balance and thus making the character come-off as unrealistic.

Eric Stoltz has the same issue in reverse as he’s too clean-cut and responsible. Would’ve been nice and created a more three dimensional person had he been deviant at some point. Lea Thompson, who was already 23 at the time, looked too old to be playing a teen, and in fact just a year later got cast as the mother of a teen in Back to the Future, so I felt her appearance here didn’t work, I did however enjoy Chris Penn he’s definitely a doofus, but a lovable one and all his scenes elicit a chuckle. Robert Ridgely as the slick apartment manager, Hart Bochner as the corrupt cop with a mustache, and Rick Moranis as a preppy clothing store salesmen, with a puffy hairdo, are all funny too and help to give the proceedings a needed zing.

The third act does bring in a party, which gets out-of-hand, but not as much as it could’ve. Having all these people crammed into a tiny apartment should’ve created some fist fights when a boyfriend would catch another guy touching his girlfriend by accident due to having such little space between them. Spraying beer and food fights should’ve also followed, but never do, which makes these party goers too docile and well behaved. Having the guys break down the wall and evade the apartment next door and shock the neighboring couple (Ed Berke, Jessica Rains) was inspired, but we should’ve been shown these neighbors reactions the next day when the apartment manager surveys the damage. Overall though there’s just not enough here that stands-out especially from all the other teen flicks from that era and thus it’s easily and quickly forgotten.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Art Linson

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD-R (Universal Vault Series)

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

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Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983)

Posted on November 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Where is the Bandit?

Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) announces his retirement as sheriff after more than 30 years of service. He decides to spend his time in Florida where he expects to get some rest and relaxation. However, once he becomes a part of the senior community he doesn’t enjoy it and feels the need to get back to what he liked doing most, which was chasing after the elusive Bandit. Big Enos (Pat McCormick) and Little Enos (Paul Williams) offer him a deal to get back into the swing of things. They bet that he can’t drive his police car from Miami, Florida to Austin, Texas, a total of 1,400 miles, in two days with a stuffed fish tied to the top of the car. If he’s able to succeed at the challenge he’ll make $250,000, which Buford readily accepts. To keep him from getting there the two Enos brothers set-up traps along the way in order to stymie his progress, but Buford and his dim-witted son Junior (Mike Henry) manage to get out of each predicament that gets thrown at them, so the Enos brothers decide to call-in Snowman (Jerry Reed) to help them. Snowman is a trucker, but in this instance he gets to pretend he’s the Bandit and even dress in his get-up and drive Bandit’s fancy black and gold Pontiac Trans Am. The new Bandit, who picks-up Dusty (Colleen Camp), a disgruntled used car sales woman along the way, soon catches up with Buford and son and steals their stuffed fish, which turns-the-tables and forces Buford to go after them.

By 1982 both Hal Needham, who had directed the first two installments, and Burt Reynolds, who had played the Bandit in the first two go-arounds, were no longer interested in getting involved in the project for another time as both were already busy working together on Stroker Ace. The studio though didn’t want to give up on the idea of a third installment since the first two had made a lot of money, so they signed-on Gleason to reprise his role as Buford with the promise that he’d have full script approval, which proved difficult as he didn’t like any of the scripts that were handed to him and at one point made the glib remark “with scripts like these who needs writers?’. After going through 11 rejections the writers finally hit on the idea of letting Gleason play dual roles of both the Bandit and the sheriff. Initially Gleason didn’t like this either, but the prospect of hamming up two different characters, which he had already done in Part 2 where he played Buford’s two cousins Gaylord and Reginald, got the better of his ego, so it received the green light.

In October of 1982 the script with Gleason in both roles was shot, but with no explanation for why he was playing the Bandit and everyone else in the story playing it straight like they didn’t see the difference. Eventually upon completion it was sent to a test audience in Pittsburgh where they gave the film unanimously negative feedback convincing the studio that the experimental novelty wasn’t going to work. They then hired Jerry Reed, who wasn’t even in the project before then, and asked him to reprise his role as Snowman who would then disguise himself as the Bandit. Then every scene that originally had Gleason in the role as Bandit was reshot with Reed now doing the part, but all the rest of the scenes that had already been filmed without the Bandit remained intact. The reshot Bandit segments were filmed in April of 1983 and the film eventually got its release in August of that year where the response of audiences and critics alike remained just as negative.

For years this was considered by many to be an urban myth as no footage with Gleason as the bandit was ever seen, but then in 2010 a promo of Gleason playing Buford, but talking about becoming the Bandit, or ‘his own worst enemy’ appeared on YouTube with the title of Smokey IS the Bandit Part 3 and Jerry Reed’s name not appearing anywhere on the cast list. Then in 2016 the actual shooting script that was shot in October of 1982 was downloaded to IMDb’s message board (back when they still had them), which plainly detailed Gleason as the Bandit, but had no written dialogue for those scenes since Gleason was routinely allowed to ad-lib his lines. The lost footage of Gleason in the Bandit scenes is purportedly in the control of the Gleason estate where it’s kept under wraps never to be shown to anyone again by apparently Gleason himself who felt humiliated by the test audiences negative reaction.

As it is the movie is not funny at all and unsurprisingly did not do well at the box office. Nothing much makes sense and the humor is highly strained including a drawn-out segment featuring the Klu Klux Klan, which I found downright offensive. Having a Blu-ray release of the lost footage of Gleason in dual roles would most likely be a big money maker as through the years it’s built up a lot of curiosity. It might be confusing and weird just like the original test audiences said it was, but it couldn’t be any worse than what we ultimately get here, which is as bottom-of-the-barrel as they come.

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My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: August 12, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Dick Lowry

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Crude Comedy, Cult, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies, Sequels

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Stewardess School (1986)

Posted on September 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

stewardess

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: They become flight attendants.

Philo (Brett Cullen) and George (Don Most) are training to become airline pilots, but an unexpected calamity during the flight stimulator test causes them to flunk out. Without a job, or money they decide to enter into a school that trains people to become flight attendants. They feel this way they’ll still be able to be up in the air and can also hit-on all the hot women. They’re class is full of misfits, but somehow they all manage to graduate despite the presence of Miss Grummet (Vicki Frederick) who runs the school and tries to make each of their lives a living hell. After graduation the students get a job with Stromboli airlines, but Miss Grummet is onboard and wants to make sure things do not go as planned while a mad bomber (Alan Rosenberg) wants to blow the aircraft up.

This was another in a long line of Police Academy imitators that did nothing but make that one, which wasn’t too great to begin with, seem like a masterpiece. The film, which per later interviews with star Sandahl Bergman where she attests the cast and crew including the director were snorting cocaine during the production, is nothing but a barrage of lame jokes and uninspired storyline making it pretty much dead on arrival from the first frame in. It doesn’t even have all that much nudity and what little it does comes from gals looking well over 30. The women cast in the leads keep their clothes on even though they’re far more attractive. Judy Landers, who plays a hooker who speaks in the most annoying Flossie-like accent, in order to conform to the caricature of a NY streetwalker, I found to be the most perplexing. She’s clearly sexy and yet is never seen naked even though she goes to a Dr.’s office for a medical exam, but just as she’s set to remove her bra the camera cuts away, which will frustrate certain viewers as the only point for watching this vapid thing is to see some good-looking flesh and if it can’t even succeed with that then it’s pointless to sit through.

I found the characters to be the most irritating as everything gets approached from a 13-year-old perspective with no inkling of nuance. Star Cullen is a prime example as he plays this pilot who can’t see without his glasses even though most people who use them can still make out things when they’re not on but they’re just real fuzzy and yet here this guy doesn’t know when he’s in a shower room full of naked women. The thick coke bottle type of glasses that he does wear was severely dated as by the 80’s the technology had improved that people with bad eyesight could wear lenses that weren’t so thick and obvious.

Wendi Jo Sperber, who is slightly overweight though the film acts like she’s ‘obese’, gets stuck with a part that’s genuinely insulting as it does nothing but make fun of her few extra pounds the whole way through. At one point it even has her spotting a cheese cake in a refrigerator and going ‘oink, oink’, which I found to be quite shallow as they’re can be many reasons for why someone as a bigger body type than others that has nothing to do with overeating.

I did enjoy Mary Cadorette who’s probably best known for playing in the short-lived ‘Three’s a Company’ spin-off ‘Three’s a Crowd’. She definitely gives a likable performance of a terminal klutz. While her clumsiness does get overplayed, with none of the pratfalls ever being funny, I felt the way she overcame her problem by going through hypnosis was a cop-out. A good story should have a character grow and succeed through their own initiative versus having it all go away with the literal snap-of-a-finger.

The worst part may be the ending where the film inadvertently turns into a airplane disaster flick, which has been done better in many other parodies. The mad bomber is too obvious and everyone should’ve been eyeing him suspiciously from the get-go instead of having him being ignored until it was too late. The film should’ve played against type with this part by having the nut turn-out to being what initially seemed like a sweet old lady, or someone else you wouldn’t expect, but of course that would’ve required creativity, which filmmakers here were clearly lacking. The film does stand out in one way as it holds the record for being the most played movie on the Comedy Central cable network, which says more about their subgrade level of programming than anything else.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: August 20, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ken Blancato

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD-R, Amazon Video, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Crude Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Midnight Madness (1980)

Posted on April 15, 2020 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: All night scavenger hunt.

Leon (Alan Solomon) is a geeky college student who comes up with an elaborate scavenger hunt to be played by his fellow students. The object of the game is to pick-up on certain clues hidden throughout the city of Los Angeles and each team must solve the clue given to them before they can move onto the next one. The game is played by 5 teams who have 5 members each: David Naughton heads the preppy Yellow team, Maggie Roswell plays the leader of the nerdy girls red team, Eddie Deezen leads the geeky white team, Brad Wilken leads the green team, which is made up of party animal jocks, and Stephen Furst heads the anti-social/misfit blue team.

On the surface this comes off as just another crude, sophomoric 80’s teen comedy complete with gross out humor of having to watch overweight Furst constantly stuffing his face with food, which is genuinely painful to watch when you realize that in real life he had a big issue with diabetes that made him retire from acting and he ultimately died from the illness. The film fails to have anything all that funny in it and it doesn’t even show any skin from its attractive female cast, which most likely was a result of it being financed by Disney.

The game itself though is kind of interesting and posses some legitimate logic oriented clues that force both the viewer and participants to think it through in order to solve. There is also some interesting on-location shooting done in famous landmark locations throughout Los Angeles including the Griffith Observatory, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, which helps give this otherwise low budget production a bit of a visual spark.

Even with these elements in place the film fails to take full advantage of its setting. If this is all supposed to take place during the wee hours of the night then there really shouldn’t be such large crowds present at the locations they go to including tours going on at the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer plant. It would’ve been more of a surreal ambiance had it just been the players of the game roaming around an otherwise shuttered city while everyone else was fast asleep. The final part of the game takes place in the daytime, which again ruins the nightime/midnight theme and effort should’ve been made to have the entire story take place while it was dark.

The story is also full of a ton of logic loopholes including never explaining how Leon was able to get his face painted on the side of beer cartons at the beer plant as well as a wide assortment of other issues. One also had to wonder why Leon goes to such great lengths to create such an elaborate game that doesn’t really seem to benefit him directly. If this kid is so smart to create such an intricate game then why doesn’t he put his creative energies into forming a profitable business so he doesn’t have to live in a rundown apartment that has paper thin walls and a crabby landlady screaming at him every time he makes any noise?

The cast has some familiar faces in small roles including Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) in a bit part at a game arcade and Marvin Kaplan, an aging character actor best known for his work in Adam’s Rib and the TV-show ‘Alice’, as an overwhelmed hotel desk clerk. Kudos also go out to Irene Tedrow as an elderly and quite obnoxious landlord and Dirk Blocker, who is the son of famous ‘Bonanza’ star Dan Blocker and looks just like him, as a dim-witted party animal who just can’t get enough beer.

Naughton though is quite stale in the lead and doesn’t seem to have much acting talent at all although I did like the in-joke of seeing him drink a Dr. Pepper since he’s probably best known for singing the ‘I’m a Pepper’ jingle in TV commercials during the 70’s. This also marks Michael J. Fox’s film debut who plays the younger brother to Naughton though the subplot dealing with his anger at being taken for granted by his older sibling is misplaced and heavy-handed in a film that is otherwise super silly.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 8, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Micheal Nankin, David Wechter

Studio: Buena Vista Distribution Company

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, College Life, Crude Comedy, Cult

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Repo Man (1984)

Posted on March 16, 2020 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Alien in the trunk.

Otto (Emilio Estevez) has trouble accepting authority, which causes him to get fired from many of his jobs. He eventually gets courted into the car repossession business, which he at first resists, but then, especially with its lure of quick cash, he grows into. This then leads him in pursuit of a Chevrolet Malibu with a $20,000 bounty on it driven by a very strange man (Fox Harris) who harbors a glowing radioactive substance in its trunk that kills anyone who comes into contact with it.

The film’s best selling points is that it gives one a gritty feel of what being stuck in society’s poor underbelly is really like as it traps the viewer inside the inner-city of Los Angeles with its almost non-stop capture of its rundown buildings, which becomes like a dominant third character. The viewer then begins to share the same anxiety, anger and frustrations of the people in a place they don’t really want to be, but with no idea of how to get out of it. The only time the film shows the more vibrant area of L.A. is during a brief shot of the skyline from a distance making it come off like a far away place that’s out-of-reach.

The rebel mystique gets better explored and examined here than in other 80’s films where the term ‘rebel’ seemed to apply exclusively to mouthy suburban teens who didn’t like their parent’s rules and would wear punk attire because it was ‘trendy’. Here you get a much more authentic feeling of being an outsider and the unglamorous, desperate qualities that comes with it.

Writer/director Alex Cox also examines the thin, merging line between being a conformist and non-conformist and the ironic/contradictory results that can occur. This gets best captured with the character of Duke (played with gusto by Dick Rude) who is an in-your-face-I-don’t-like-any-rules street punk one minute only to turn around and tell his girlfriend at another moment that he wants to get married and have kids because ‘everybody else is doing it’.

Estevez gives his signature performance here though his excessive cockiness becomes a bit of strain, which fortunately gets tempered in the scene where he gets shot at and panics showing that even a streetwise brash kid like himself has  his limits, which makes it all worth it. Harry Dean Stanton as his partner is terrific and the vast 40 year age difference between the two isn’t apparent at all. Olivia Barash is quite good too without even trying. Her likable unrehearsed quality makes for a refreshing contrast to all the rest who are more compelled to put on a facade and for the this reason I wished she had been in it more.

Honorable mention should also go to Fox Harris who plays Parnell the driver of the much sought after car even though in real-life he couldn’t drive and he got the vehicle in a few accidents and even damaged other props on the set in the process. Normally this would’ve gotten him fired, but because he had been the only actor who was nice to Alex Cox when he worked as a lowly security guard at the Actor’s Studio and before he became a director, he choose to stick with him despite the problems, which shows that if your nice to everybody even those that have very little social standing it can come back in rewarding ways in the long term.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 2, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alex Cox

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Criterion Collection), Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Crude Comedy, Cult, Offbeat, Satire, Sci-Fi

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Tunnel Vision (1976)

Posted on June 12, 2019 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lame parody of television.

The year is 1985 and due to a new Bill of Rights an uncensored television network has been created, which causes many viewers to become hooked on its content watching it for hours while neglecting their other responsibilities. The head of the network, Christian A. Broder (Phil Proctor) is brought in for a senate hearing where the network’s programs are examined by a government panel to see if it should be allowed, or if censoring it would be the better option.

What was considered ‘pushing-the-envelope’ in its day would now barely pass as a blip on the radar of the average seventh grader. I was honestly expecting much more sex and nudity here, but ultimately the film offers very little and nothing is worse than smug filmmakers thinking they’re making something ‘edgy’ when they really aren’t. I also got tired of seeing a close-up shot of a plastic eyeball popping out of a woman’s lipstick laden lips, which I suppose might be considered by some as being sort-of sexy looking, but after it gets shown over and over again it becomes annoying.

The overall tone is too inconsistent. Certain provocative bits get lumped in with a lot of goofy, mindless ones, which creates a casual chuckle every 20 minutes or so but then coupled mainly with a lot of groans in between. The film also never cuts away to show any reaction shots of the conservative committee who are supposedly watching these ‘shocking’ clips, which could’ve added in an extra layer of humor. The viewer is also required to be highly familiar with mid 70’s programs and commercials as otherwise many of the in-jokes will go completely over their heads especially to those born at a later time.

The film was written and directed by Neal Israel who managed to have one hit Bachelor Party in 1984, but overall his other output conveys the same mindless, lame comedy as this one and whose talents seem limited. Had there been some visual flair it might’ve helped, but everything looks like it was filmed inside someone’s suburban home using low-budget home movie-like production values. Also, for a film that was supposed to be a peek into the future it certainly doesn’t have much of a futuristic design and instead reeks of mid-70’s sensibilities.

Of course there’s a lot of politically incorrect bits here too, which includes a parody of ‘All in the Family’ that features a Romanian gypsy family that spouts every conceivable ethnic slur, but this segment like so many of the others are just not that funny or imaginative. The only interesting aspect about the film is that, besides showing some young up-and-coming stars at the beginning of their careers, it also features many behind-the-scenes announcers whose voices you’ll immediately recognize, but not their faces, so seeing them in front of the camera for a rare time like Donny Darko who portrays a newscaster named Steve Garvey is kind of cool, but otherwise this thing is nothing more than a dated dud.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: March 3, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 7 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Neal Israel

Studio: World Wide Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Crude Comedy, Cult, Movies with Nudity, Parody

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Class (1983)

Posted on September 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen fucks friend’s mother.

Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy) is a new student at a prep school who rooms with Skip (Rob Lowe) and almost immediately gets mocked by the other students for being geeky. To help bolster Jonathan’s reputation Skip has him sent off to Chicago where he can meet-up with a woman, have sex with her, and then bring back her panties as a souvenir. Jonathan does that when he hooks-up with the beautiful middle-aged Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset) whom he meets at a bar and the two begin a relationship. The problem is that Ellen is also Skip’s mother.

The film was written and directed by Lewis John Carlino who had done several highly acclaimed films previously both as a writer and director so having him churn out what amounts to being just another crude ‘80s teen T&A flick is genuinely shocking. My belief is that Carlino wanted to do something that had a little more depth to it, but due to the success of movies like Porky’s the studio pressured him to incorporate raunchy humor, which creates an awkward narrative that jumps precariously from broad comedy to clumsy drama.

The film’s low point comes when Virginia Madsen, in her film debut, gets her blouse torn off and has her breast exposed that has nothing to do with the main plot and just a shameless excuse to throw in some nudity. Madsen has described her experience on this film as being unpleasant and if anything despite some ‘serious’ moments later on this scene really cements the movie as being mindless lowbrow tripe at its worst.

My biggest beef though was with Bisset’s character. It’s never explained why this sexy middle-aged woman would become attracted to a boyish guy that was young enough to be her son. Just saying she was in an unhappy marriage wasn’t enough. She could’ve attracted many eligible men that were her age, so why does she end up going to bed with a teenager that looks like he isn’t even old enough to shave?

Bisset complained in interviews that the film cut out many crucial scenes that would’ve given her character’s actions more subtext. One included having Lowe visit her after she checks herself into a hospital. This scene was needed as the film essentially has her ‘disappear’ and only mentions in passing where she’s gone while seeing a scene with Lowe visiting her would’ve given the characters and movie better closure.

I also thought it was weird that Lowe and McCarthy continue to room together even after the awful revelation of the affair comes to light. I would think that the awkwardness of the situation would have both boys clamoring to be transferred to a different dorm room. They also end up getting into a physical altercation, which gets pretty extended and one of the film’s best moments, but I sided with Lowe, which I’m not sure was the filmmaker’s intention, as I felt McCarthy deserved to get his ass kicked since he continued to have sex with Bisset even after he knew she was Lowe’s mother.

The film only works when Lowe and McCarthy are together and in fact Lowe’s engaging performance is a highlight, so a better scenario would’ve had both boys going to Chicago for a road trip and to get laid. At a bar they’d meet an attractive middle-aged woman and bring her back to a hotel room for a threesome. Afterwards both boys would compete for her affections only to later realize that she was the wife of the principal of their school. This situation would’ve allowed for more consistent comedy while not seeming like a poor rip-off of Summer of ’42 and The Graduate, which is essentially what this movie becomes.

The plot, as dumb as it is, can’t even sustain the film’s entire runtime as the third act consists of Stuart Margolin  investigating students cheating on their SAT’s that goes nowhere and put in solely as filler. Overall the film is a pointless excursion and worth seeing only if you’re into Bisset or for catching John Cusack, Lolita Davidovich, or Virginia Madsen in their film debuts.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 22, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lewis John Carlino

Studio: Orion Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy/Drama, Crude Comedy, Movies that take place in Chicago, Movies with Nudity

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Animal House (1978)

Posted on March 11, 2018 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: They like to party!

In 1962 the Dean of Faber College, Vernon Wormer, (John Vernon) wants to rid the campus of the Delta Fraternity as he considers their rundown house and partying ways to be a blight to the University. He works with the clean-cut Omega President (James Daughton) to establish a kangaroo court which has Delta’s charter revoked. The Delta members then seek revenge by creating havoc at the homecoming parade of which both Wormer and his wife Marion (Verna Bloom) are attending.

The film, which was a huge box office hit at the time of its release, succeeds by wisely balancing the farcical humor with a believable setting where many of the scenarios shown were based off of real-life experiences of the film’s writer Harold Ramis and producer Ivan Reitman during their own fraternity years. While the film does devolve at the end to being just a procession of slapstick gags it also manages to provide diverse characters and a genuine college atmosphere, which was filmed on-location at the University of Oregon.

The inspired casting helps especially John Belushi who mostly improvised his part. Although he’s best remembered for his pimple gag I actually laughed more when he cries out like he’s lost some prized possession after witnessing a crate of alcohol go crashing to the ground. His ability to chug an entire bottle of whiskey in one take is impressive and I liked how his character, as crude as he is, was able to convey a sympathetic side in his attempts to ‘cheer-up’ a despondent Flounder (Stephen Furst) after his car gets wrecked.

Tim Matheson is equally engaging as the cool and collected fraternity leader whose dry delivery doesn’t initially hit you as being funny until you go back and actually think about what he has just said. Kevin Bacon is hilarious in his film debut as a member of the snotty Omega Theta Pi who tries to quell a panicked crowd only to get quite literally flattened by them.

It’s also great seeing Verna Bloom, an actress relegated to mostly plain Jane roles, wearing a snazzy brunette wig and playing a sexually frustrated woman who has an amusingly drunken ad-libbed segment. Karen Allen is gorgeous as always playing a ‘good-girl’, but who isn’t afraid to flip someone the finger if she has to. You also get a nice glimpse of her bare ass as well as Donald Sutherland’s, apparently Allen only agreed to show hers if he bared his, and for the record Matheson’s crack gets exposed briefly too.

However, what I took away from this movie the most were the politically incorrect segments. The most extreme one is when Larry (Tom Hulce) contemplates having sex with Clorette (Sarah Holcomb) after she passes out drunk, which would be considered date rape now, but treated merely as throwaway bit here. Then in a later scene Larry tries to have sex with her again only for her divulge to him that she is just 13. Although the actress looks much older and was actually 19 when it was filmed it still gets implied that they went ahead and had sex anyways despite the character’s age issue.

I was alive when this film was released and although there was criticism pertaining to the film’s overall raunchiness these specific segments, which would create shockwaves now, were never brought up. Whether things are better now, or we’ve become too sensitive about stuff that was merely considered ‘tasteless’ back then is a whole other argument. Yet when they say things shown in the ‘70s could never be done now it’s all true, which makes watching this movie and others like it feel almost like you’ve slipped into a different universe.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 27, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 49Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Landis

Studio: Universal

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Crude Comedy, Cult, Farce, Movies with Nudity

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