Category Archives: Parody

Hysterical (1982)

Posted on November 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

hysterical1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ghostly witch haunts lighthouse.

While Casper (Bill Hudson) has had success writing racy novels he longs to author something of a serious quality and thus uproots out of New York and drives across the country to Oregon where he takes-up residence in a town called Hellview. It is there that he rents a lighthouse as he feels it’s secluded locale will give him the quiet that he needs to complete his book. However, he’s unaware that the place is haunted by Venetia (Julie Newmar) a woman who committed suicide at the lighthouse 100 years earlier. She now sees this as an opportunity to resurrect Captain Howdy (Richard Kiel) a man she was in-love with, but who she killed when he threatened to dump her and return to his wife. As Casper notices more and more bizarre occurrences happening at his place he requests the services of Dr. Paul Batton (Mark Hudson) and his assistant Fritz (Brett Hudson) to aid him in solving the supernatural mystery.

This was the one and only film to feature the Hudson Brothers, which were a famous teen idol band who rose to fame in 1974 when they were a summer replacement series for the ‘Sonny and Cher Show’ only to get enough good ratings that they were offered their own Saturday morning show ‘The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show’ during the 1974-75 season. The brothers came from humble beginnings born in Portland, Oregon and raised by a single parent mom after their father announced one day, when they were quite small, that he was ‘going out to get some cigarettes’, but then never returned. They formed their band when there were still just kids and first called themselves the My Sirs and then The New Yorkers followed by Everyday Hudson and then just Hudson. Their biggest success came during the mid-70’s where they had a couple of top 40 Billboard hits including ‘So You Are a Star’ and ‘Rendezvous’  though by the end of the decade their fame had significantly faded and their final studio album ‘Damn Those Kids’, which was released in 1980, failed to sell at all.

The fact that these guys were no longer a big act makes is surprising that they would’ve been given the funding to make this film, which was shot in the fall of 1981 as they were clearly on a career decline. The script is credited as being written by the three brothers with help from Jeffrey Ganz who got brought in as a ‘comedy consultant’. The humor derives almost exclusively  as a collection of gags that poke fun of famous scenes from popular horror movies of the day. Unfortunately none of it is funny and results in coming-off as quite cheap and cheesy. It’s also not clear what age group they were going with here as the band, during the 70’s, was quite popular with children and the film does have a lot of silly, cartoon-like bits that they would enjoy, but it’s also laced with stuff more attuned to older adolescence and even one moment that features a topless woman. The special effects are corny and having the victims of Captain Howdy turn into zombies the second they’re killed isn’t very inspired. Since they become zombies after getting axed to death you’d think they’d have obvious flesh wounds and missing limbs, but here they don’t just faces that become pale white and regurgitating the phrase ‘What difference does it make?’ and that’s it.

The film’s only cool moment is when the zombies do a rap song and dance, which is amusing, making me believe this would’ve worked better as a horror musical like Rocky Horror Picture Show. I was surprised too that the brothers never break-out into their old rock routine especially since it’s built into the script that the zombies respond well to music. The brothers don’t even do the film’s opening and closing song, which is instead sung by a female performer named Harriet Schock.

The cast is filled with a lot of familiar character actors, with some of them, like Bud Cort as a lispy mad scientist, doing okay. It’s funny seeing Murray Hamilton playing a mayor who’s reluctant to close the beaches since that’s the exact same role he played in Jaws, but this irony quickly wears thin. Robert Donner, doing a send-up of Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13th, where he proclaims “You’re doomed” to everyone he meets gets old real fast. Other actors like Keenan Wynn, who was related to the Hudson family through marriage and appeared here in a small and insignificant role as a favor, gets completely wasted.

Today this film sits in absolute obscurity and deservedly so. The Hudson Brothers themselves, though all still living, are relics of the past as well. Lead singer Bill is probably better known as being married to Goldie Hawn and the father of actors Kate and Oliver Hudson.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: December 22, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Chris Bearde

Studio: Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD-R

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Ghost Story, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Parody

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

The Exorcist: Italian Style (1975)

Posted on October 31, 2022 | Leave a comment

exorcist3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Mayor’s family becomes possessed.

Mimmo Baldi plays a 10-year-old boy named Luigi who comes upon a small amulet lost in a field while playing soccer with his friends. He puts it into his pocket and then begins to behave in unusual ways including assaulting a young woman he meets while walking home. His father is Pasquale (Lino Banfi) who’s the mayor of the town and running for reelection. He and the rest of the family notice the increasingly odd behavior of their son and decide to call-in a doctor (Gigi Bonos), but when he’s unable to do anything they get desperate and ask for the services of a local demon hunter known as L’Esorciccio (Ciccio Ingrassia) who’s reputed to have an ability to exorcise demons, but in reality is a fraud. When he tries to do a fake exorcism on the child nothing initially happens, but when the amulet falls out-of the child’s pocket and onto the ground the child is considered ‘cured’. However, his older sister Barbara (Barbara Nascimben) then retrieves it and soon begins acting in the same dangerous way. Their father wants to keep this issue as far away from the press as he can for fear it will hurt his reelection chances only for him to eventually come into procession of the amulet himself where his wild and shocking behavior gets put on full display for everyone.

While this film has been seen in a better light in recent years it was considered when it first came-out as ‘the worst movie of all-time’ by the Italian public and lambasted as such even decades later. Ciccio Ingrassia, who was a much beloved comedian, who had been starring in comedy films for the past two decades, became shaken by the response and harsh criticism and vowing he’d never direct another movie again and while he did continue to star in them through the 90’s he kept  to his promise and never directed any others.

It’s hard to say where the film, which is clever at times, went wrong for the moviegoers as the comedy is there if you’re patient. I’ll admit the special effects are scant and not too impressive. The film tries to emulate the classic one of which this is a parody by putting-in most of what that one was known for into this story though it does compromise on some of it. For instance during the exorcism the bed that the girl is on begins to levitate, but the projectile vomit is not done. They do have her spit something at them, but in parody it’s always good to go overboard and the film missed a prime opportunity to do something visually hilarious like drowning the exorcist and his assistant in a mound of green muck that flies out of her mouth, or something to that effect. The swivel head doesn’t get done either, at least not with the girl victim, but instead it’s saved for later when the father becomes possessed, but the effects here look cheap and not believable.

In some ways this is a smart movie as it doesn’t just depend on a barrage of gags to keep it going, but instead creates an actual character driven story where they react to the craziness going on with a befuddled amusement, which to me was the best element. Banfi is very funny as the conniving husband/father who’s convinced that these satanic events are just something that his political opponent (Tano Cimarosa) is behind, so that he’ll lose the election. Ingrassia has his moments too and there were some parts that had me laughing-out-loud though the sped-up running, where the son chases the father around their yard looks cartoonish and should’ve been avoided. The soundtrack is also a problem as it’s blaring and doesn’t give-off a creepy vibe. Even if it’s just parody when it involves a famous horror movie it’s good to at least play along and give a spooky facade to it, which with the music selected here doesn’t do that.

Spoiler Alert!

The wrap-up where seemingly everyone in the town, while attending a public event, becomes possessed, at least for a few minutes, as they randomly pick-up the amulet that gets passed around from one person to another becomes dizzying and silly. Having the story center on the family characters was when it worked and that’s where it should’ve stayed. While certain segments could’ve been played-u more there’s enough here to be enjoyed as long as you accept it as a simple comedy done on a shoestring.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 11, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Ciccio Ingrassia

Studio: Dear International

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Low Budget, Obscure Movies, Parody

Tagged , , , ,

The Sex O’Clock News (1985)

Posted on September 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

sex4

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: News stories about sex.

KSEX is a TV-station that’s modeled like an ordinary broadcast station that has a 2-person anchor team (Doug Ballard, Lydia Mahan) that delivers the news and a show similar to ‘Entertainment Tonight’ that talks about the latest gossip in Hollywood and is hosted by Bill Wright (Wayne Knight) and Wanda Bennett (Kate Weiman). It even has a sports desk lead by Marty Cohen (Rob Baartlett). The only difference between these news shows and the regular ones is that the reports deal exclusively with sexual topics from nude car washes to abusive game shows.

This was yet another attempt to replicate the success of Kentucky Fried Movie that worked off of a collection of short raunchy skits loosely based around a bawdy theme. The unique genre began with The Groove Tube in 1974 and got imitated by many other independent filmmakers throughout the ’70’s who liked the format because it could be made on a low budget and yet still attract attention due to the outrageous humor. Some of them, which are too many to list here, were mildly funny while others fell flat. By the 80’s this type of movie had pretty much burnt itself out and was no longer in vogue. Only one other Amazon Women on the Moon was made, but since 1987 this genre has gone dark and most would probably say, due to the dubious quality, is probably for the best.

This one is borderline. Not all the skits work, but it does go for a darker edge, which helps. This was part of the problem with the others is that they had this idea that just showing breasts, or making a sexual reference would be enough to get a titillated giggle from the audience, like everybody is just a perpetual 7th grader, but by the 80’s with the proliferation of porn easily attainable at video stores, just making a movie with nudity was no longer provocative enough, so this one digs deeper with material of a very political Incorrect nature.

Some of the ones I found amusing, though others might find offensive especially in this day and age, was the bit promoting suicides by having people jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and captured for posterity on either VHS or Beta. There’s also the report dealing with violent nuns trained to beat-up and even kill anyone that doesn’t convert to Catholicism. A vacation cruise for overweight people is kind of amusing as is a wrestling match between Joan Rivers and Elizabeth Taylor (lookalikes not the actual celebrities) where there’s a lot of quips dealing with Taylor’s weight. There’s also a segment dealing with a transsexual beauty pageant, that might’ve offended more if it were actually funny and a skit dealing with a clinic that does experimental surgery on gay men to turn them straight, or as the anchor states: “they walk in a fruit and leave a vegetable”.

Sprinkled in-between are ads like the Jesse James School where people are sent training materials through the mail on how to become a successful bank robber. There’s also a long segment dealing with a game show called ‘You Bet Your Ass’ where a family, whose father is on death row, must answer each question correctly, or their dad gets fried on the electric chair, which has a decent payoff though it takes too long to get there.

Like with the other films from this genre there’s spotty laughs here and there, but it lacks momentum. Despite the short running time I kept glancing at my watch waiting for it to be over. The production values are cheap giving it a home movie quality and the overall design of the news studio is unimaginative there also isn’t any young future comic star that eventually rose to the top as no one from this cast ever became famous. Unless you like seeing a movie with tasteless humor of a bygone era that could clearly never be made today, there’s really no other reason to watch it.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 9, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 17 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Romano Vanderbes

Studio: Chase Films

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.om)

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Parody, Sex

Tagged , ,

Loose Shoes (1978)

Posted on July 10, 2022 | 1 comment

loose1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lame parody of movies.

In 1967 an improv group, which Chevy Chase was an early member, began that called themselves Channel One, who performed improvisational skits making fun of current events and TV-shows. Instead of doing them on stage in front of audience they filmed it and then played them on three different TV screens at a theater in Greenwich Village. When these proved successful the collection of filmed skits were then toured around the country at college campuses and got a favorable reaction, so the producer decided to turn it into a feature length film. At the time this was considered a novelty as the movie, which was called The Groove Tube, would have no plot and just be a collection of skits, but it proved popular enough that it gave others the same idea. From this came Tunnelvision, American Raspberry, and probably the most famous one Kentucky Fried Movie. 

In 1977 Ira Miller, who had worked with Mel Brooks on his projects and was a member of Second City during the 60’s, became inspired to do his own version of this. He financed it using most of his own money. The concept was for it to be a parody of recent movies and structured similar to movie previews one would see at theaters before the main feature would begin. The working title was Coming Attractions and to keep costs low he cast young, unknown talent like Bill Murray, who agreed to work for a small fee in order to get the exposure, or B-actors that he knew who as a favor would work at below scale for a day in order to help him out. Initially it got such a bad reaction from test audiences that it was shelved for several years, but then after Meatballs was released, which made Murray a star, it was re-released under its new title in order to capitalize on his fame.

The film suffers from production values that are so cheap I’ve seen high school projects that were done better and it doesn’t help that the DVD issue looks like it was copied straight off of a VHS tape. Both IMDb and Wikipedia list the original runtime as 84 minutes, which is incorrect as it was actually 74 minutes, but the DVD version only goes 69 minutes and cuts out several segments including ‘Jewish Star Wars’, which is alright as even with the abbreviated runtime it still felt like it was never going to end and adding in the stuff that was edited out would’ve just prolonged the agony. It would’ve helped had there been some consistent characters like a family going to the theater to see a feature and becoming increasingly annoyed at the ongoing previews. After each skit it could’ve cutback to their reaction, which would’ve given it some minimal structure and focus that otherwise is sorely lacking.

Some of the segments had potential like the ‘Invasion of the Penis Snatchers’, but Miller approaches the material too much like a gag writer where he’s more interested in the punchline instead of playing out a funny scenario. The skit that has Jaye P. Morgan doing a send-up of Nurse Ratched needed to be extended as she could’ve done it hilariously. The segment that spoofs the Woody Allen film Play it Again Sam isn’t exactly funny, but David Landsburg’s impression of Allen is so spot-on that it’s entertaining nonetheless. Murray’s segment where he plays a prisoner on death row is okay and you even get to see him at one point with his head shaved. I also liked the bit with Susan Tyrrell as a woman stuck in the boonies only here the hicks are open-minded and even features a virtually unrecognizable Ed Lauter as a free-spirited, cocaine sniffing, redneck sheriff.

The best moment ‘Dark Town After Dark’ comes at the very end and features a send-up of a Cab Calloway dance number with the song ‘Loose Shoes’ being sung. The lyrics of which came from a comment made by President Gerald Ford’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. He was on a plane flight to California with entertainers Sonny Bono and Pat Boone. Boone asked him why republicans weren’t able to attract more blacks. He responded by making a comment that forced him to resign once it got out: “I’ll tell you what coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy, second, loose shoes, and third, a warm place to shit.”

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: September 1, 1978 as Coming Attractions. Re-released August 1, 1980 as Loose Shoes

Runtime: 1 Hour 14 Minutes (Original Cut). 1 Hour 9 Minutes (DVD Version).

Rated R

Director: Ira Miller

Studio: Cinema Finance Associates

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Musical, Parody

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Pandemonium (1982)

Posted on October 19, 2021 | 1 comment

pandemonium

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who killed the cheerleaders?

In 1963 the town of It Had To Be, Indiana wins the state football championship, but then after the game the cheerleaders turn up dead having been killed by a javelin that manages to slice through all five of them at the same time. This causes the summer cheerleading camp to be closed down, but then 19 years later, it gets reopened. The camp is run by Bambi (Candice Azzara) who had been the only cheerleader not killed during the infamous incident. Now everyone is telling her not to reopen insisting that the place is cursed, but she does so anyway and then the killings start back-up.

This was yet another attempt at parody of the modern-day horror/slasher film, but done in the style of Airplane, which has a gag occurring almost every second. I’m not opposed to horror comedies, and even hardcore horror fans can sometimes enjoy them, as long as they’re structured inside a conventional horror plot like with Scream that mixed the laughs with genuine scares. This film though hired Richard Whitley, who appears briefly along with co-writer Jaime Barton Klein as customers during a restaurant scene, who is best known for penning Rock ‘N’ Roll High School and he approaches the material the same way as that one by throwing in any lame bit of humor that he can whether it works with the story, or connects with a horror element, or not, The result is hit-or-miss with the majority of it being quite stupid and only a few of the jokes managing to land.

The funniest bits are the deaths themselves. The 5 cheerleaders that get turned into a massive shesh-ka-bob and having to be carted away together on this long stretcher is actually kind of cool. The drowning of one victim in a bathtub filled with milk and cookies as well as the killing of another who was obsessed with brushing her teeth, so when the killer stabs her instead of blood coming out it’s toothpaste are good too. Judge Reinhold, who sports a blonde wig here, has an amusing death where a bomb explodes causing him to fly so high into the air that he manages to bump into a Japanese jet and then begs through the airplane window to be let in. The only problem is that due to the high altitude the temperatures would’ve been freezing and therefore Reinhold’s face should’ve been covered with frost.

There are a high number of familiar faces in small roles, so there’s some enjoyment in that especially since the actors give good performances despite the subpar material. The casting of the teenagers though is problematic in that the actors who played them were well past adolescence. This includes Candice Azzara, who has a funny bit where she makes fun of her Brooklyn accent, who was already 37 at the time and Tab Hunter playing the hunky star quarterback even though he was literally 50 though to his credit he still looked young enough to almost pull it off.

Though not listed as the star Carol Kane pretty much becomes the main character having just gotten done starring in a legitimate horror film, When a Stranger Calls, two years before. I found her character’s ability to attain psychic powers after she starts taking birth control pills to be amusing though she does speak with a weird accent here. Tom Smothers is the one who gets top billing despite being the most boring person in it. Having him dressed as a Canadian Mountie is over-the-top and reminiscent of the cartoon character Dudly-Do-Right. He fails to have anything funny to say or do and gets routinely upstaged by side-kick Paul Reubens, who was pre-Pee-Wee Herman at this time, but still quite amusing.

The title of the film was initially going to be ‘Thursday the 12th’, but when production wrapped it was found that another horror parody was being made called Saturday the 14th, so the title was changed to this one, though I would’ve stuck with the original as this movie, as lame as it is, is still to superior to the other one, which was rock bottom. 6 years later another movie from Australia came out called Pandemonium that was a fantasy/horror and received pretty much the same type of negative reviews as this one.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 2, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 17 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Alfred Sole

Studio: United Artists

Available: Blu-ray

1 Comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Campy Comedy, Parody

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980)

Posted on September 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

fiendish

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Peter Sellers’ last movie.

Fu Manchu (Peter Sellers) is a 168-year-old man, who on his birthday must drink a elixir vitae in order to remain youthful and alive. When one of his servants (Burt Kwouk) brings in the formula his shirt sleeve catches fire from all of Fu’s birthday candles and it causes the servant to use the elixir to put the flames on his sleeve out. This forces Fu to have his henchmen go on a international crime spree to find the necessary ingredients to create a new youthful formula for him to drink. After one of Fu’s men steals a diamond in an exhibit it catches the attention of Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Roger Avery (David Tomlinson) who then calls in two F.B.I. agents (Sid Caesar, Steve Franken) to help him on the case. They also visit the aging Nyland Smith (Peter Sellers) who is a former adversary to Fu and knows his traits well, but Nyland has become senile and eccentric. They also use the services of Alice (Helen Mirren) an undercover police detective who masquerades as the Queen, which they feel Fu’s men will try to kidnap, but when Alice gets kidnapped she falls-in-love with Fu and agrees to help him in his crimes.

This marked Peter Sellers last film and for all purposes it may well be the worst one he was in. He was just coming off high praise for his performance in the critically acclaimed Being There, but instead of using his career resurgence to find more highbrow fare he instead reverted back to his old ways of campy comedy. During the early 70’s, when he was in a lot of duds, his excuse was that he was doing it only for the money, but in this case I’m not sure of his reasoning. In any event it’s a train wreck from the first frame to the last.

Initially he was going to team-up with director Richard Quine as the two had worked together two years earlier in The Prisoner of Zenda, but they had a falling-out before production even began. Piers Haggard was then brought in to take Quine’s place, but he became horrified to learn that Sellers had taken it upon himself to rewrite the script turning it from a plot driven story into a cheap gag-a-minute stuff that didn’t seem to go anywhere. Haggard, despite Sellers objections, tried to turn the screenplay back to what it was, or at least in Haggard’s words, ‘give it something that resembled a beginning-middle-and-end’, but his attempts were futile and the whole thing becomes one, long misguided farce that goes nowhere and lacks any interesting elements.

A lot of the humor is lame and includes Nyland having falling-in-love with his lawn mower, which he takes with him everywhere even when he’s inside people’s homes. One segment has him ‘mowing’ the carpet of the inspector’s office, which is kind of funny, but then it cuts to a long shot where we see no damage to the carpet, so what’s the point of doing the gag if there’s no visual payoff? The bit where Nyland turns his country home into a flying machine had potential, but the abysmal special effects ruin it.

Helen Mirren almost saves it with her excellent performance and I enjoyed David Tomlinson in his last film, who shows more energy than the rest of the cast. Sellers though seems tired and worn-out and his acting lacks the required energy. In some ways he looks quite healthy here including showing a nice tan when he’s in the Nyland role, but this actually hurts the characterization as Nyland is supposed to be old and elderly, but despite his gray hair he really doesn’t look it. Peter’s two good moments comes when he’s in the Fu role and breathing heavily as he watches Helen strip, the bit at the end where he becomes a rock star is impressive and he seems to be singing in a completely different voice. If it was dubbed then it takes away from it, but if he was using his real voice then he deserves credit as it certainly didn’t sound like any of the other accents he had ever used in his career.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: August 8, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Piers Haggard (Peter Sellers uncredited)

Studio: Orion Pictures

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

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Campy Comedy, Foreign Films, Parody

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

Posted on June 25, 2021 | 1 comment

dead1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Don’t say ‘cleaning woman’.

It’s the 1940’s and private investigator Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) gets a visit from Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) who wants him to investigate the mysterious death of her father, which she believes to have been murder. Rigby’s investigation turns up two lists both showing names of people who were either friends or enemies of a person named Carlotta. As Rigby continues his research he becomes menaced by a man who shoots him and steals the lists forcing Rigby to interview a wide array of different people in order to get to the truth.

In the spring of 1980 Martin got together with Carl Reiner and screenwriter George Gipe to go over his next movie project idea. He had just gotten done starring in Pennies from Heaven, a 1930’s period musical, and wanted to do another film from that era, a comedy that was entitled ‘Depression’. While going over the plot he mentioned using a clip from an old movie and splicing it into his film and making it a part of the story. This gave Reiner the idea of doing an entire movie centered around old movie clips ultimately leading to them using footage from 19 vintage films from Hollywood’s golden era with most of them being dramas that were meant to be taken seriously, but with Martin’s character responding to the lines mentioned by the actors in the clips in such a way that it becomes funny.

Incorporating a plot completely around old movies is certainly an inspired idea, but the result is only so-so. On the technical end you can clearly tell when an old film is spliced into the scene because it’s footage is much grainier than when it shows Martin or Ward. Having it all filmed in black-and-white helps a little but the new footage is too pristine and intentional scratches should’ve been added to make it better match the old stuff.

As for the story, well, it works for awhile, but then starts to get downright boring by the third act. There are definitely some laugh-out-loud moments, but the concept wears itself out. Some have called this a one-joke movie, but I would describe it more as a joke that gets told over-and-over again until it’s predictable and redundant. Having old film clips put in during a certain part of the movie, but then focusing on other comedy angles during the rest of it would’ve worked better. Had it spliced-in only 1 or 2 other movies and with a smaller character count would’ve created less of a diluted effect as ultimately there’s just too many people to keep track of and the plot itself is too fabricated to hold much interest.

Martin is excellent and the fact that he didn’t watch any movies from the 40’s in order to prepare for the role as most other actors would’ve done, was a wise decision as he ends up creating his own style instead of coming-off like he’s imitating somebody else. Ward is good too and while she isn’t particularly funny she does make for a excellent straight-man, which is what a solid comedy needs by having a normal person play-off the other wackiness around them. Carl Reiner is engaging in a send-up of Erich Von Stroheim and it’s interesting seeing Reni Santoni appear here as he played a young Reiner 15 years earlier in the movie Enter Laughing. The characters though are flat and never evolve, which like with the other issues described above, make this movie a novelty experiment that never fully gels.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Carl Reiner

Studio: Universal

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

1 Comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Black & White, Mystery, Offbeat, Parody

Tagged , , , , , ,

Movie Madness (1982)

Posted on May 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

moviemadness2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Three very unfunny stories.

If you’re ever needing to show someone why drugs aren’t a good idea there’s no reason to go back to that old TV ad with an egg frying in a pan that said ‘This is your brain on drugs’ instead you could simply show them this movie. Not that it pertains to drugs, or even mentions them, but it was done by people heavily on cocaine, the top drug of choice in Hollywood at that time, who were apparently so coked-up that they thought this movie was ‘hilarious’ even though no one else that saw it thought so.

With the success of Animal House National Lampoon’s was considered the big comic venue, so much so that United Artists gave them top-dollar, a whopping $15 million, to make another feature. In response National Lampoon brought together 5 writers, all of whom had written for their humor magazine, but had no screenplay experience, to compose the movie. The idea was to create 10 short vignettes that would make fun of a different movie genre, but this was ultimately too difficult, so it got pared down to just 4, with only three of them ultimately making it to the big screen. What’s perplexing is that the production values are good (I actually liked the opening song sung by Dr. John and the opening animation), there’s even some big name stars, but the material itself is unbelievably lame to the extent that it purportedly caused a test audience in Rhode Island to tear up their theater seats to show their disgust.

The first story, which is entitled ‘Growing Yourself’ stars Peter Riegert as a suburban father/husband who packs up his wife’s (Candy Clark) bags and tells her to leave so he can ‘grow’ as a person. Though confused with the reasoning she immediately obliges, but ultimately the husband finds raising the kids and finding a new more interesting career to be far more of a challenge then he expected.

The problem with this story, like with the other two, is that the characters and their motivations are unrelatable to real everyday people. For a story to work, even as satire, there still needs to be a connection to reality and this thing is too daffy. Even on a surreal level it goes nowhere and becomes simply a glimpse to weird individuals saying and doing stupid things with no intrinsic point at to it at all.

The second segment, entitled ‘Success Wanters’, suffers the same fate. It has to do with recent college grad Dominique (Ann Dusenberry) getting a job as a stripper, which almost immediately leads to her becoming heiress to a massive fortune of a margarine company when the owner (Robert Culp), who she was fooling around with, dies. This then leads to more affairs, and more money and ultimately even a relationship with the President of the United States (Fred Willard).

Again nothing that happens here has any bearing in reality, never in the history of the world has this happened to any college grad out there, especially in only a few days time. To be funny it still needs to make sense, but like with the first story you’re left scratching your head wondering what the point of it was although Dusenberry does look fabulous naked, both topless and bottomless, making catching it for that reason almost worth it.

The third and final segment, entitled ‘Municipalians’ has rookie cop Brent (Robby Benson) paired with jaded, crabby veteran Stan (Richard Widmark) as they go out to find a bizarre serial killer (Christopher Lloyd). Supposedly this was meant as a parody of the cop buddy movies, but too silly and over-the-top to be even slightly amusing. I will admit it’s fun seeing veteran star Widmark in such an odd project and his cantankerous ways is slightly engaging, including one moment when he’s caught reading Hustler magazine, but the story structure is faulty. It might’ve gotten a few more points from me had the scene where Benson and Lloyd start singing a duet of ‘Feelings’ and then had Widmark barge in to form a trio, but since that doesn’t happen this one like the other two fails miserably. It also ends with the camera focusing on Benson struggling to get up after he’s been shot several times, which comes-off as cruel like it’s making fun of someone who’s in pain, which I found disturbing.

There was a fourth segment entitled ‘The Bomb’ that starred Kenneth Mars and Marcia Strassman and was a parody of disaster movies, but when screened United Artists’ vice president of production found this segment to be ‘of an awfulness that made the whole picture look unreleasable’. so it got taken out. However, he did also find the first three stories to be ‘good, funny segments with high commercial promise’ making you wonder if he was coked-up on the white stuff too.

Alternate Title: National Lampoon’s Goes to the Movies

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: April 23, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Directors: Bob Giraldi, Henry Jaglom

Studio: MGM/UA

Available: DVD-R (MGM Limited Edition Collection), Amazon Video, Tubi

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies with Nudity, Parody

Tagged , , , , ,

The Return of Captain Invincible (1983)

Posted on January 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Super hero drops-out.

Captain Invincible (Alan Arkin) successfully fights off the Nazis during WWII and becomes a hero to millions, but then by the 1950’s, during the McCarthy era, he is smeared as being a ‘communist’, due to wearing a red cape.  The congressional investigators also accuse him of flying in airspace without a proper license and wearing underwear in public. All of this causes him to drop-out of the superhero business by moving to Australia and turning into a homeless alcoholic. Then his old rival, Mr. Midnight (Christopher Lee) steals a secret weapon called the hypnoray, which puts the whole world at risk. This causes the authorities to plead to Captain Invincible to return and help them stop the madman, but through the years his skills have diminished and he’s not sure he can get back into form to battle crime like he once did.

At the outset this is an inspired concoction made long before the super-hero satire was ever in vogue and there are a few funny bits here and there, but the whole thing gets too bizarre for its own good. The viewer becomes inundated with so much wacky imagery and goofy characters that instead of laughing you’re left scratching your head wondering what’s it all about.

The biggest mistake was adding in musical numbers, which turns the thing into an ill-advised version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The original script was not intended to be a musical, but director Philippe Mora had always dreamed of doing one, so he requested that the songs be added in. The first time this occurs it’s kind of fun particularly the line dance done by the well-dressed advisors to the President, which all helps to add to the irreverence, but then continuing to add in more songs bogs everything down  and makes the already sluggish pace even worse. Arkin and co-star Kate Fitzpatrick do not have good singing voices, so hearing them belt-out a half-hearted tune hurts the ears and with no interesting dance numbers to come along with it, these moments become boring visually as well.

Even though the story involves an aging superhero I still felt Arkin was too old for the part and would’ve liked somebody who could have offered more energy. Typical Arkin is great with offbeat material such as this, but everything is so over-the-top that he gets lost in the access and ultimately becomes just a prop. Christopher Lee suffers the same fate although some fans love his rendition of ‘Name Your Poison’ which he sings to Arkin as he tries to entice him to take an alcoholic drink from his personally made wet bar.

The film offers no special effects which becomes most apparent during the segment where Captain Invincible supposedly upends a speeding car, but the camera cuts away, so we never see him do the actual act, and just hits home how cheap the whole production really is. If you’re going to make fun of the Superhero genre you have to at least show some respect for it, which this thing never does. Instead of going off on wild tangents there should’ve been a big showdown between Invincible and Midnight, but it peters out in this area by being too busy trying to be weird when it should’ve worked harder to get a more coherent and interesting story.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 11, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Philippe Mora

Studio: Seven Keys

Available: DVD

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Cult, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Musical, Offbeat, Parody

Tagged , , , , , ,

High Anxiety (1977)

Posted on September 23, 2020 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: He’s afraid of heights.

Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) is hired as the new resident psychiatrist at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very, Nervous where he is to replace another Dr. who died under suspicious circumstances. While there he becomes aware of many odd things occurring making him believe that the people running the hospital, Dr. Charles Montague (Harvey Korman) and Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman), have a scheme going on where they take in rich patients and pretend their conditions are worse than they really are, so that they can keep the patients hospitalized for indefinite periods and thus bilk the patient’s rich families for large sums of money. Richard, together with Victoria (Madeline Kahn) who is the daughter of another patient that is being held there against his will, become determined to expose the scheme, but his adversaries use nefarious tactics to try and stop him by taking advantage of his extreme fear of heights.

Per an interview that Mel Brooks gave with NPR in 2013 he revealed that he wrote a letter to Hitchcock in 1976 telling him that he wanted to do a parody of his movies and was interested in getting his feedback. Hitch wrote back saying that they should get together in his office to go over ideas. In fact it was Hitch’s suggestion to have the scene involving the birds pooping on Brooks. When the film was completed he got his own private screening and afterwards he sent Brooks a case of expensive French wine with the note: “A small token of my pleasure, have no anxiety about this.”

Two of my favorite moments include a Psycho parody where a bellhop (played by a young and soon-to-be famous director in his own right, Barry Levinson) who stabs Brooks with a newspaper while he’s in the shower. The afore mentioned Birds parody is good too with the bird droppings made up of mayonnaise and chopped spinach, but because a helicopter was used during the segment it scared a lot of the pigeons causing real bird do-do to get mixed in with the fake stuff.

I enjoyed the bits involving a parody of the ‘gliding camera’ a technique used in many films where a camera shot begins on the outside of a building, but then somehow ‘glides through’ a wall and goes inside a place without any barrier. Here the camera shatters the glass as it tries to ‘glide through’ the window of the hospital, but Brooks almost ruins the moment by having the characters react by looking up to where the noise occurred, but then going back to their conversation, which makes no sense. If a camera operator has just crashed through a window, most people would get up from their seats and inspect the damage, which would’ve overplayed the joke, so they should’ve just had the characters not respond to the crashing noise at all. This same issue occurs at the end where the camera operators are heard talking just before they crash through a wall, but the scene would’ve played better without the banter.

The plot, as thin and goofy as it is, has some interesting moments. I especially enjoyed the segments done inside the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco and the way it takes advantage of the glass elevators there. The scene involving actor Ron Carey blowing up a picture that he took there in order to solve a crime is cool because it goes back to the old way of developing film, which will be a good education for today’s younger viewers who are more used to digital.

The performances are first-rate with Brooks in an uncharacteristic straight part though he still gets in a few zany moments including a segment where he’s a baby who falls from his high-chair. Leachman though steals it in a brilliant send-up of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In fact it’s her contorted face with no make-up and a faint mustache that leaves a lasting impression. She has stated that she disliked doing the role, but it’s so hilarious that I wished her part had been given a wider storyline.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 25, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mel Brooks

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

4 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies with a Hospital setting, Parody

Tagged , , , , , , ,