Saturday, January 31, 2009

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. 1969 Columbia Pictures.
Starring: Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon
Director: Paul Mazursky
Buy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice at Amazon.

A documentary filmmaker, Bob Sanders (Culp) and his wife Carol (Wood) attend a weekend retreat involving group therapy and self-discovery. Bob is there mainly because he wants to make a documentary about the process. What happens is, they have an epiphany, helped along by Bob's confession of an extra-marital affair, and Carol's appreciation of his honesty. Feeling enlightened and free, Bob and Carol come home, wanting to embrace free love and complete honesty. Their best friends Ted and Alice Henderson (Gould & Cannon) are both curious and repulsed by their friends' new feelings, and naturally, Bob and Carol want their friends to think and feel the same way they do now.

Ted and Alice do get caught up in this, and both couples are convinced that mutual love and honesty depends upon them trading partners.

This film was pretty shocking and bold for 1969, and it still holds up well today forty years later. Recommended movie.

The Americanization of Emily

The Americanization of Emily. 1964 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: James Garner, Julie Andrews, Melvyn Douglas, James Coburn, Keenan Wynn
Director: Arthur Hiller
Available from Amazon as a single DVD, or as part of the Controversal Classics box set.

Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (Garner) is the personal assistant to Admiral William Jessup (Douglas), keeping his superior and other high ranking officers well supplied with luxury items and amiable English women. Jessup is under intense pressure since his wife died, and his belief that the Navy will be overshadowed in the coming D-Day invasion of France by the Army and its Air Corps; overshadowed to the point that it would be "scrapped". In his state, Jessup comes up with an idea: that the first dead American on Omaha Beach must be a sailor, and a film must be made to document it. The sailor would then be placed in a "Tomb of the Unknown Sailor".

Charlie is also sweet on war widow Emily Barham (Andrews), who has lost her husband, brother and father in the war. She doesn't want to lose another loved one, and she finds the self-confessed "coward" Charlie irresistable.

Charlie can't get out of the invasion, and he finds himself on the front line along with his friend, Lieutenent Commander Paul "Bus" Cummings (Coburn) and a film crew. Trying to retreat, Charlie finds himself chased forwarded by a disgusted Bus who is brandishing a pistol. Believed killed, the image of Charlie running up the beach during the conflict is plastered all over the media, turning him into a hero back home. However, Charlie did survive, and was only wounded by Bus and his pistol.

Jessup, having recovered from his breakdown, regrets his part in Charlie's apparent demise, but he's ready to use it in support of the Navy in Washington. Emily is devastated, and Bus is proud to have created a hero. While in an evacuation hospital in England, a furious Charlie threatens to tell the press what really happened, but Emily talks him into staying true to his coward's beliefs.

Good movie, I thought. Recommended.

Friday, January 30, 2009

MST3K #408: Hercules Unchained

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #408: Hercules Unchained.
Originally aired August 1, 1992.
Available at Amazon as part of the seventh MST3K set from Rhino.

Steve Reeves makes his final film appearance as Hercules in this 1959 film. Asked to intervene in a feud between two brothers, Etecoles and Polynices, over who should be the rightful ruler of Thebes, Hercules drinks from a magic spring, losing his memory. Taken captive by Queen Omphale of Lydia, Hercules encounters young Ulysses, who is trying to help him regain his memory.

Not much of a movie on its own, but it does make for a decent MST3K episode, complete with "wash and wax day" on the Satellite of Love, which has the 'bots scared witless. After Crow gets his bath, his mood is not helped by an upbeat and cheerful Tom Servo, and he finally tells Joel that he wants him to "beat up Tom!" to make him feel better.

Recommended show.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Monkey Business

Monkey Business. 1931 Paramount Pictures, now owned and distributed by Universal Pictures.
Starring: The Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo), Thelma Todd, Rockliffe Fellowes, Harry Woods, Ruth Hall
Cameo Appearance: Sam Marx
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Part of the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection.

"Do you suppose I could buy back my introduction to you?"

Stowing away on a ship bound for America, the boys are unwittingly recruited as henchmen for a pair of feuding gangsters while trying to avoid the ship's crew. Groucho and Zeppo assist one gangster, Chico and Harpo "help" the other one. After the boat arrives in America, and the brothers sneak off the ship, one of the gangsters kidnaps the daughter of the other one, and it's up to the brothers Marx (particularly Zeppo, engaging in a fairly brutal fight scene towards the end of the movie) to save the girl.

While trying to sneak through a passenger checkpoint, on the advice of Zeppo, the boys try to get past security by impersonating the French entertainer Maurice Chevalier. Three of the brothers sing "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" ("If a nightingale could sing like you..."), while Harpo relies on a recording of the song played on a record player concealed in his coat. Hilarious scene.

This is my personal favorite Marx Brothers movie. Highly recommended.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Clerks II

Clerks II. 2006 View Askew Productions & The Weinstein Company.
Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith
Director: Kevin Smith
Buy Clerks II at Amazon.

The sequel to Clerks opens red hot, as Dante Hicks (O'Halloran) comes to the Quick Stop one morning to find it ablaze. It seems that Randal Graves (Anderson) accidentally left the coffee pot warmer on overnight, burning down the store that he and Dante had worked at for over a decade.

One year later, it's Dante's last day of work at a fast food joint called Mooby's, where he works with Randal, and a socially inept Lord of the Rings and Transformers fanboy called Elias (Fehrman). He's planning to leave for Florida to marry the one who wears the pants in their relationship, Emma (Schwalbach Smith). Her father's giving them their very own house, and a car wash to run. Dante really isn't that crazy about Emma, as we find out.

Jay and Silent Bob (Mewes & Smith) still hang out wherever Dante and Randal work, now drug free thanks to being on probation and random drug testing, but they still sell marijuana and act up the only way they know how.

Dante is also close with his boss Becky (Dawson), whom he had a one-night stand with on a preparation table one night after the restaurant closed. She also reveals that she's carrying Dante's baby, which puts him in a hell of a spot. Dante realizes he's in love with Becky, but still agonizes about doing the right thing by leaving New Jersey and marrying Emma.

Randal, when he isn't teasing Elias on the job, finds himself not only not wanting to lose Dante, but after a run in with a millionaire ex-classmate (Jason Lee), starts to realize that he's not as happy with his position in life as he thought he was. He also arranges a going-away party for Dante, complete with a live "interspecies erotica" show, which indirectly gets he, Dante, Elias, Jay and Bob thrown into jail for the night. At the party, Emma walks in to find Dante and Becky kissing, calls off the engagement, and still has time to blow off Jay's advances. After Dante renounces their friendship, Randal confesses his fear of losing his best friend and proposes they buy the Quick Stop and reopen it themselves. Financed by Jay and Silent Bob, they do so.

Highly recommended.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Gov't Mule: The Deepest End, Live in Concert

Gov't Mule: The Deepest End, Live in Concert.
2003 Michael Drumm Music Link Productions & ATO Records.
Recorded May 3, 2003: The Saenger Theatre, New Orleans.
Gov't Mule: Warren Haynes, Matt Abts, Danny Louis
Additional Musicians: Michael Barbiero, Michael Drumm, Karl Denson, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Bela Fleck, David Hidalgo, Sonny Landreth, Ivan Neville, Derek Trucks, Fred Wesley, Bernie Worrell
Guest Bassists: Jack Casady, Les Claypool, Roger Glover, Mike Gordon, Paul Jackson, Conrad Lozano, Will Lee, Jason Newsted, George Porter Jr., Greg Rzab, Rob Wasserman, Victor Wooten
Buy The Deepest End: Live in Concert (two CDs, one DVD) at Amazon.

Gov't Mule's original bass player, Allen Woody, died in August of 2000, when many thought that the offshoot of the Allman Brothers Band would become a major success in their own right. Regrouping, surviving members Warren Haynes and Matt Abts recorded a pair of albums in tribute to Woody, jamming with some of Woody's favorite bassists (Jack Bruce, John Entwistle, Flea, Mike Watt, Les Claypool, etc.) While touring in support of both of the Deep End records, the band used a plethora of keyboard players and bassists.

The final "Deep End" show took place at Jazz Fest, or as it's known by its official name, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, in 2003. Gov't Mule invited several players from the Deep End sessions as well as several more musicians to come jam with them. This could've been a major catastrophe, as many of the musicians were given very little time to rehearse, many of them would be performing songs they had never done before, and some of them were performing onstage with other musicians who they had never even played with before that night.

Instead, it turned out to be an amazing show, one that ran over six hours, and turned into an essential concert memento.

For those curious, here's what songs are performed on the DVD.

Highly, highly recommended. GET THIS ONE. It has over six hours' worth of music, and it's worth every minute of your time.

Monday, January 26, 2009

The Last Waltz

The Last Waltz. 1978 United Artists.
The Band: Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson
The Guest Musicians: Paul Butterfield, Bobby Charles, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Hawkins, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Pinetop Perkins, Carl Radle, The Staple Singers, Ringo Starr, Stephen Stills, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Neil Young
Director: Martin Scorsese
Buy The Last Waltz at Amazon. Then, you may want to invest in the four CD box set later on.

Without a doubt, this is the greatest concert movie I've ever seen.

Early in 1976, Richard Manuel was seriously injured in a boating accident, and his bandmate Robbie Robertson began thinking about taking the group off the concert circuit, existing strictly as studio performers from that point on. The rest of The Band didn't agree with this decision, the concert still went down on Thanksgiving, 1976, at the Winterland Ballroom, where they made its debut as a group (after backing Bob Dylan for a long while) in 1969. Originally, The Band wanted to perform on its own, but they decided to invite Dylan and Ronnie Hawkins, and the guest list ballooned up substantially. The only real confusion backstage was the insistance of Robertson that Neil Diamond be part of the concert. Dylan did not want his performance filmed, because he was afraid that it would detract from his own movie Renaldo and Clara. After receiving assurance that this project would be released well after his own movie, Dylan agreed to be filmed, but only while performing two songs, "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" and "Forever Young".

Click here for the music performed in the movie, and at the concert that might not have made it into the final cut.

Highly, highly recommended. Great music played at a historical concert with guest stars out the wazoo.

"This film should be played loud!"

Sunday, January 25, 2009

MST3K #512: Mitchell

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #512: Mitchell.
Originally aired: October 23, 1993.
Still available at Amazon.

Yes. Joel Hodgson's last episode.

Joe Don Baker stars as an abrasive, alcoholic police detective who ignores his superiors' orders, and has no respect for "by the book" police work or normal social graces in this 1975 film. It's not very good. Reportedly, Baker hated the MST3K treatment of this film, and threatened violence to any cast member responsible if he ever met them in person. I believe he still goes to bed regretting that he never got his hands on anyone from the show that day, or week, or month, or year...

Away from the theater, the Mads have hired a temp (Michael J. Nelson) to help out, and he does such a bad job that Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank contemplate killing him. Up on the Satellite of Love, Gypsy catches the Mads discussing this, and she believes they're plotting to kill Joel. She hatches a hasty plan to get Joel off the satellite with an escape craft hidden in a box marked "Hamdingers". Joel couldn't stop the escape procedure, hinting that he really had no intention of leaving, and he's sent back to Earth. Once it dawns on them that they're now by themselves, Tom Servo and Crow panic.

Once the Mads find out that Joel is now off the satellite, they decide they need to replace him, and they quickly decide to send Mike up there in his place.

This is actually the only MST3K episode that I was never able to finish watching for many years. Perhaps it was sentimental reasons, since I've never really made it a secret that I preferred Joel to Mike, and it took me a long time to warm up to the latter. However, since it is a historically significant episode, and a very funny one to boot (tonight was the first time I've seen it since late 2001 or early 2002), I do have to recommend it. Highly.

Clerks

Clerks. 1994 Miramax Films & View Askew Productions.
Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Lisa Spoonhauer, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier
Director: Kevin Smith
Buy Clerks at Amazon. Also available: the 10th Anniversary Collection.

Dante Hicks (O'Halloran) is called into work at the Quick Shop, a New Jersey convenience store, on his day off. He's asked by his boss to cover the morning shift, and is supposed to only work until twelve, giving him two hours to get to his hockey game. Everything imaginable goes wrong for Dante, prompting him to exclaim "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" on several different occasions.

Randal Graves (Anderson) works in the adjacent video store, although he spends most of the day in the Quick Shop talking with Dante about a plethora of topics. When he's actually working, he's doing his best to drive away the customers who walk in.

Outside, the legendary Jay and Silent Bob (Mewes & Smith) hang out outside all day, selling dope, and Jay spends most of the day showing off to anyone who will listen. He and Bob invite Dante to a party towards the end of the movie, but Dante turns that offer down.

During Dante's marathon shift, he convinces his buddies to play hockey on the roof of the store, an idea that goes bad after 12 minutes. He and Randal also close down to attend the wake for an ex-girlfriend, which goes very badly, although we don't see exactly what happened. Veronica (Ghigliotti), Dante's current girl, stops in before class to motivate him into quitting a dead end job and go back to school, which he can't bring himself to do. After she leaves, he starts wondering about an unfaithful ex named Caitlin (Spoonhauer), and by coincidence, she comes in. After chatting, Dante decides to take her out. While he slips home to change, Caitlin has sex with a dead man (who snuck a pornographic magazine in there and died of a heart attack) who she mistakenly believed to be Dante. This horrifies Caitlin, and she's taken away in an ambulance along with the corpse.

Highly, highly recommended.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Italian Job

The Italian Job. 1969 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Michael Caine, Noël Coward, Benny Hill, Raf Vallone, Tony Beckley, Rossano Brazzi
Music by Quincy Jones
Director: Peter Collinson
Buy The Italian Job at Amazon.

The film begins with a thief named Roger Beckermann (Brazzi) speeding in a Lamborghini Miura through the Italian Alps. After entering a tunnel, the car explodes.

Charlie Croker (Caine) is released from prison some time later, and meets up with a woman (Lelia Goldoni) who was Beckermann's wife. She gives Croker plans for a daring robbery that her late husband was in the midst of planning, which attracted the attention of the local Mafia, with explosive results. The plans detail a way to steal four million dollars worth of gold from China to banks in Turin, which is a payment to Fiat for licensing their car designs for production in China. Despite the risks involved, Croker decides to finish what Beckermann started, putting together a large gang to help him out. He breaks into jail to meet a Mr. Bridger (Coward), who runs a large criminal empire while still incarcerated, and who gives Croker the funding he needs to pull off "The Italian Job".

Croker recruits computer expert Professor Simon Peach (Hill), an electronics handler named Birkinshaw (Fred Emney), and several getaway drivers. The plans call for Peach to disrupt Turin's computerized traffic control system to create a traffic jam which would prevent the police from recapturing the gold after it's stolen. Planning and training for the "Job" takes up the first half of the movie. After that, Croker's gang sets out to capture the gold, with the local Mafia and its boss Atabani (Vallone) well aware that the British will make another attempt. Despite the Mafia's sabotage efforts the night before, Croker and his men are still able to throw Turin into chaos, using that as a cover to grab the gold. The infamous chase scene follows, climaxing with the getaway vehicle hanging on the edge of the cliff.

"Hang on a minute, lads, I've got a great idea!"

Recommended movie.

Murder by Death

Murder by Death. 1976 Columbia Pictures.
Starring: Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, Estelle Winwood
Written by Neil Simon
Director: Robert Moore
Buy Murder by Death at Amazon.

The mysterious millionaire Lionel Twain (Capote) invites a group of detectives, all pastiches of famous film or literary sleuths, to his mansion. When they arrive, Twain announces that he is the greatest detective in the world, not them, and to prove that boast, he challenges them to solve a murder that will take place at midnight, with a one million dollar reward. At the stroke at midnight, everything seems fine, until Twain turns up murdered.

The guests spend the rest of the night investigating, dining, and bickering amongst themselves. They also find their efforts hampered by a mysterious, unseen force, which keeps adding new twists to the murder, and eventually starts endangering the lives of the detectives. The following morning, all is revealed, and it's only an elaborate gag put on by Twain, who is in fact, very much alive...

...or is he?

Recommended. It turned out to be quite an amusing film.

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 1 (Disc 2)

Get it at Amazon.

Best of Daffy & Porky:

Duck Amuck*, directed by Chuck Jones, 1953 (Wiki).
Dough for the Do-Do, directed by Friz Freleng & Robert Clampett, 1949 (Wiki).
Drip-Along Daffy, directed by Chuck Jones, 1951 (Wiki.
Scaredy Cat, directed by Chuck Jones, 1948 (Wiki).
The Ducksters, directed by Chuck Jones, 1950 (Wiki).
The Scarlet Pumpernickel, directed by Chuck Jones, 1950 (Wiki).
Yankee Doodle Daffy, directed by Friz Freleng, 1943 (Wiki).
Porky Chops, directed by Arthur Davis, 1949.
The Wearing of the Grin, directed by Chuck Jones, 1951 (Wiki).
Deduce, You Say, directed by Chuck Jones, 1956 (Wiki).
Boobs in the Woods, directed by Robert McKimson, 1950 (Wiki).
Golden Yeggs, directed by Friz Freleng, 1950 (Wiki).
Rabbit Fire, directed by Chuck Jones, 1951 (Wiki).
Duck Dodgers in the 24½ Century, directed by Chuck Jones, 1953 (Wiki).

* Selected for inclusion by the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress.

The second disc from the very first Looney Tunes set is pretty loaded with classics, starting out with a bang with Duck Amuck, where Daffy Duck deals with a very uncooperative animator, who turns out to be Bugs Bunny. The disc also ends with a bang, literally, with Rabbit Fire* and Duck Dodgers in the 24½ Century. In between, of course, are eleven more classic cartoons. The Scarlet Pumpernickel is also noted for its unusually large cast of characters, which included Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Henery Hawk, and Mama Bear. Mel Blanc provided the voice for Elmer in that short in place of Arthur Q. Bryan, the regular voice for the hapless hunter.

Highly, highly recommended.


* Wabbit season! Duck season! Wabbit season! Duck season!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Sisters

Sisters (Criterion #89). 1973 American International Pictures & Janus Films.
Starring: Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning, William Finley, Lisle Wilson
Director: Brian De Palma
Buy Sisters (Criterion Collection) at Amazon.

Two paid actors (Kidder & Wilson) appear on a game show called Peeping Toms, which honestly wouldn't be out of place in today's television lineups. Danielle and Philip go out on a date after the taping, and things are going nicely until her creepy ex-husband Emil (Finley) shows up at the restaurant. He's stalking Danielle, so they have to sneak back to her apartment on Staten Island, where Emil ends up after they arrive, standing guard outside.

After that, things go well until the morning. Danielle mentioned that she has a jealous and unmanageable sister named Dominique (also played by Kidder), and that day is their birthday. Philip decides to add to the festivities with a birthday cake, which gets him murdered for his troubles.

Reporter Grace Collier witnessed the crime, and unfortunately, she can't get the police to believe her. She hires a detective, Joseph Larch (Durning) and they set out to investigate the two sisters, discovering that they were siamese twins recently separated by a doctor...who is Emil!

De Palma was clearly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, and Sisters was his homage to the latter director's filmmaking, even down to hiring Bernard Herrmann, Hitchcock's preferred composer, to score the film. It's an effective thriller. Recommended movie.

Faces

Faces (Criterion #252). 1968 Janus Films and Castle Hill Productions
Starring: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassell, Fred Draper, Val Avery, Dorothy Gulliver
Director: John Cassavetes
Faces is currently available as part of the John Cassavetes: Five Films box set. It will be released separately from the box on February 17th, 2009.

John Cassavetes directed this amazing documentary of the great band the Faces, led by a not-at-all afraid to rock out Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stone Ron Wood, and...wha? Oh yeah.

Anyway, Cassavetes directed a grainy, black and white (for artistic purposes) film of a married couple (Marley & Carlin) whose union is disintegrating after fourteen years. After a nasty argument where he finally expresses his desire for a divorce, Richard goes out and hires a prostitute (Rowland), while his wife Marla meets up with her girl friends, and they pick up a hippie (Cassell) who she has a one-night stand with. Marla finds out that she is just as unsatisfied with this tryst as she would have been staying in her marriage to Richard.

Faces has a lot of dramatic closeups of the characters, almost to an uncomfortable degree, giving the viewer the feeling that not only are they right there, they probably will feel just as dissatisfied and unhappy as the characters in the movie are portrayed. It also was reportedly six hours long originally. Cassavetes also invited a young Steven Spielberg to help out during the making of this movie, and he served as an uncredited production assistant for two weeks.

Really good movie. Highly recommended.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

A Shot in the Dark

A Shot in the Dark. 1964 United Artists & The Mirisch Company, distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer, George Sanders, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk
Music: Henry Mancini
Director: Blake Edwards
Currently available only as part of the Pink Panther Film Collection, or the considerably more expensive Pink Panther Ultimate Collection.

Peter Sellers returns as the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and it looks like his French accent has become even more outrageous. Herbert Lom makes his first Pink Panther film appearance as Clouseau's boss, Commissioner Dreyfus, and Burt Kwouk debuts as the Inspector's servant Cato (not Kato). The movie wasn't intended to include Clouseau, but it was an adaption of a French stage play L'Idiote. Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty decided the story would be a good vehicle for Inspector Clouseau, so they rewrote the script around him and the new premise. A Shot in the Dark came out only a few months after The Pink Panther.

The good Inspector is called to the home of a Paris millionaire named Benjamin Ballon (Sanders) to investigate a murder. His first act is to stumble into the fountain after getting out of the car. Inside the mansion, all evidence of the murder points to the maid Maria Gambrelli (Sommer), but Clouseau is struck by the woman's beauty and refuses to admit she's guilty. The real culprits commit more murders to keep the truth hidden from Commissioner Dreyfus, since every time there's a murder, Maria is arrested, only to be set free by Clouseau. The Inspector also finds himself arrested by the police four times in quick succession for being in the wrong place at the right time.

Clouseau continues to botch the case, which drives Dreyfus mad, and he accidentally cuts his thumb off, and later, stabs himself with a letter opener. Meanwhile, an anonymous figure tries to kill the Inspector, but fails, killing a doorman, two cafe customers, and a dancer. In the end, all of the suspects (Ballon, his wife, the butler Maurice, and the surviving servants) are blown up while attempting to escape in Clouseau's car. The anonymous figure turns out to be Commissioner Dreyfus, driven over the edge, and in his attempt to eliminate Clouseau, accidentally killed the real murderers.

Highly, highly recommended. This would be the last Pink Panther film for Sellers for a while; he and Edwards stopped getting along during the film's production, and they said they would never work together again. "Never work together again" only meant four years, as they reunited for the production of The Party.

The McKenzie Break

The McKenzie Break. 1970 United Artists.
Starring: Brian Keith, Helmut Griem, Ian Hendry, Jack Watson
Director: Lamont Johnson
Buy The McKenzie Break at Amazon.

Why is only one prison camp in Scotland causing any problems during World War II? Captain Jack Connor (Keith), a hard drinking womanizer with six AWOL incidents, is sent to investigate the McKenzie prison camp, where the German prisoners, led by a submariner named Schlüter (Griem), have risen up against their captors, asserting their own authority in the facility. Major Perry (Hendry) is helpless until Connor's arrival.

Connor figures out that the Germans are only acting out as a cover for an escape plot, using a tunnel, and he learns a little information from a prisoner called Neuchl who was ordered attacked and beaten by Schlüter during a riot. Despite Connor's orders to keep Neuchl separated from the other injured soldiers, he is strangled, although he does tell Connor that '28 German submariners' plan to escape. Meanwhile, two Germans have disguised themselves as British soldiers, and are on their way to a nearby town to meet a contact.

The day after Neuchl's death, Schlüter orders the escape to commence, and 28 prisoners escape after collapsing the barracks roof on some of their own mates as a distraction for the guards. Schlüter also kills the tunnel engineer with a wrench underground. Escaping in a red truck and with a motorcycle "escort", the escapees make their way to the coast, where a U-boat is due to pick them up. Unbeknownst to Schlüter and his allies, Connor is well aware of the plan, and after General Kerr arrives, the search for the fugitives can begin.

Not great, but not that bad, either. This one might require more than one viewing for me to really appreciate it.

The Fugitive Kind

The Fugitive Kind. 1960 United Artists.
Starring: Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward, Anna Magnani, Victor Jory
Written by Tennessee Williams
Director: Sidney Lumet
Buy The Fugitive Kind at Amazon.

A decent film based on Tennessee Williams' play Orpheus Descending starring Marlon Brando as a guitar slingin' drifter named Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier who leaves New Orleans to avoid arrest, and finds work at a five-and-dime in a small town run by Lady Torrence (Magnani), whose husband lies dying in the apartment above the store. Val also finds himself pursued romantically by two local women, the alcoholic nymphomaniac (Woodward) and a simple housewife (Maureen Stapleton), but ends up breaking both of their hearts when he succumbs to the Lady's charms, a decision that could prove very dangerous. Will Val skip town, or stay and risk being shot by the local sheriff?

Highly recommended.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Pink Panther

The Pink Panther. 1963 United Artists & The Mirisch Company, distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Claudia Cardinale
Music: Henry Mancini
Director: Blake Edwards
Currently only available as part of the Pink Panther Film Collection, or the substantially more expensive Pink Panther Ultimate Collection from Amazon.

Not to be confused with the equally famous cartoon character, the Pink Panther is the largest diamond in the world, with an unusual flaw: if somebody stares into the stone long enough, one can see what appears to be the image of a leaping panther, which coincidentally only comes alive for the title sequences and end credits. As a child, Princess Dala receives the pink gem as a gift from her father, the Shah of Lugash. When Dala (Cardinale) grows up, rebels seize control of Lugash, and demands possession of the jewel, but the exiled princess (on holiday at a skiing resort in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy) refuses to surrender it.

Also at the resort is Sir Charles Lytton (Niven), who has a secret identity as a jewel thief known as "The Phantom", and he has his eyes on the Pink Panther. His American playboy nephew George (Wagner) follows him to the resort, hoping to steal the diamond himself, and pin the blame on The Phantom, unaware that he's his uncle. The Phantom is also being trailed by French police inspector Jacque Clouseau (Sellers). Clouseau's wife Simone (Capucine) is secretly assisting the Phantom in his thefts. Clouseau is so incompetent that when several attempted heists of the Pink Panther go down as a party, he looks everywhere but the right place. Simone has her hands full in trying to dodge her husband, help Sir Charles' plans, and avoiding George, who is enamoured of her.

Clouseau somehow manages to arrest Lytton and his associates, but they ensure that the inspector snatches defeat from the jaws of victory at the worst possible moment, and he goes to prison, framed for the theft of the Pink Panther. Not to worry, he'll be back in time for 1964's A Shot in the Dark.

Highly recommended. Too bad I didn't see The Ant and the Aardvark make an appearance...

Down and Out in Beverly Hills

Down and Out in Beverly Hills. 1986 Touchstone Pictures.
Starring: Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss, Little Richard, Tracy Nelson
Director: Paul Mazursky
Available from Amazon as a single DVD, or as part of a two-fer with Ruthless People.

The first R-rated movie ever released by Disney, through their subsidary Touchstone Pictures, and it was based on Jean Renoir's 1932 film Boudu Saved from Drowning.

Dave and Barbara Whiteman (Dreyfuss & Midler) are a very rich, but not happy Beverly Hills couple. Their children are dealing with sexuality confusion and eating disorders, and Dave is also sleeping with the house maid since Barbara is only interested in yoga and aerobics. Even the family dog Matisse seems to be suffering from depression. During Thanksgiving, they meet Jerry Baskin (Nolte), a hard on his luck bum who decides to end it all by drowning himself in the Whitemans' pool after losing his beloved dog, which was all he had left. He is saved, and taken in by the family.

After making himself at home, Jerry starts influencing the entire family, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worst. This begins to anger Dave, who feels that Jerry is taking advantage of his kindness.

Not bad, but not as funny as I remember it from my childhood. I think I should also give Renoir's 1932 film a viewing pretty soon, just to compare the two.

Ruthless People

Ruthless People. 1986 Touchstone Pictures.
Starring: Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater, Anita Morris, Bill Pullman, William G. Schilling
Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker & Jerry Zucker
Available at Amazon as a single disc, or in a two-fer with Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

While having lunch with his mistress Carol (Morris), millionaire Sam Stone (DeVito) explains in great detail his plan to murder his wife Barbara (Midler) just to get her money. While he has made a small fortune himself, Barbara is the herress to a much larger one. Sam despises Barbara, and only married her for the money. Arriving home, Sam finds the house empty. He receives a call from an anonymous man who explains that "they" have kidnapped Barbara, and Sam must pay a small ransom, or she will be killed. Barbara's life is also in danger if Sam contacts the police or media, which naturally, he does immediately!

Barb's kidnappers are Ken (Reinhold) and Sandy Kessler (Slater), a poor couple eager for revenge against Sam. Sam "made his fortune" by stealing a fashion idea from Sandy, as well as the Kesslers' life savings to help produce it. Barbara gets locked in the Kesslers' basement, where she is more than a handful to the amateur kidnappers. Their problems only increase when it becomes obvious that Sam doesn't want his wife back, and is trying everything possible to goad the Kesslers into killing Barbara. The kidnappers may be desperate for money, but murder was never in the cards, despite the threatening message. Ken starts offering to drop the ranson, all the way down to ten grand, but Sam still refuses.

As for Carol, she and her boyfriend Earl (Pullman) believe Sam plans to throw his wife's body from the Hollywood Hills late at night. Earl lies in wait with a video camera, unwittingly capturing a rendezvous in a car between a prostitute and the chief of police. The woman screams a lot, and Earl mistakenly thinks the murder is happening right in front of him. Sam gets an anonymous copy from Carol, and after his reaction, sends another to the police chief. Thinking he's being blackmailed, the chief asks what Carol what she wants, and she says the answer is obvious: arrest Sam Stone. Planning to plant evidence in Sam's place, the chief is surprised when a bottle of chloroform and pictures with Sam and Carol are found. Sam is arrested, and he now faces the dilemma of having to get Barbara back to prove his innocence.

But...things are never that easy.

Recommended movie, although not as zany as the "normal" Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movie.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

To Be or Not to Be

To Be or Not to Be. 1983 20th Century Fox & Brooksfilm.
Starring: Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, Tim Matheson
Director: Alan Johnson
Available as a single DVD, or as part of the Mel Brooks Collection.

A remake of the 1942 movie of the same name starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny, staying extremely faithful to the original movie, except for acknowledging that homosexuals were persecuted by the Third Reich along with the other victims of the Holocaust. Also, the character of Professor Siletsky (here played by Jose Ferrer) was changed into a comedic figure, even somewhat of a buffoon, as opposed to the original film, where he was completely serious.

Frederick and Anna Bronski (Brooks & Bancroft) star as a husband and wife team in the Polish theaters during World War II, having to make adjustments after the Nazis rolled in and conquered Poland. Anna, who object to her husband's insistance that her name appear in parentheses on the marquee, always has an eye for the handsome young servicemen who worship her every night in the theater. This doesn't sit well with Frederick, who also has a penchant for being all over the map onstage, performing Hamlet's soliliquy, and starring in a revue called "Naughty Nazis" on the same night. Frederick also seems to have a problem with one (always one, every single performance) audience member who gets up and walks out in the middle of the Hamlet bit.

Anna becomes smitten with a pilot named Sobinski (Matheson), who keeps getting up and leaving during Frederick's big scene. After the Germans invade and quickly overrun the "doormat of Europe", Sobinski rushes to England to fly and fight alongside the Polish squadrons of the Royal Air Force. He returns with Professor Siletsky (Ferrer) on a mission to organize the Polish resistance. Siletsky is secretly a Nazi collaborator, and Sobinski's love letters to Anna have attracted the attention of the Gestapo. Frederick and his troupe need to think fast, and put on the performances of a lifetime to save Anna, and escape unharmed from the Nazis. Hopefully, nobody walks out in the middle of the performance...

Charles Durning is along for the ride as Colonel Erhardt, and plays it so over the top that he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Recommended film, although my one complaint about the DVD is that it doesn't include the Mel Brooks music video for "To Be or Not to Be (The Hitler Rap)", which peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Since the DVD doesn't seem to have it, even as an easter egg, I'll include it right here. Enjoy, and can you believe that such a song almost was a Top 10 smash?

49th Parallel

49th Parallel (Criterion #376). 1941 Janus Films & General Film Distributors Ltd.
Starring: Eric Portman, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Raymond Lovell, Raymond Massey
Co-written by Emeric Pressburger
Director: Michael Powell
Buy 49th Parallel at Amazon.

A propaganda film made during World War II. Michael Powell was originally asked by the British government to make a film about mine-sweeping. Powell had other ideas: making a movie to sway opinions in the United States, which was still neutral at the time, in hopes of "scaring the pants off the Americans". 49th Parallel was the end product, but it took the attack on Pearl Harbor to finally bring the U.S. into the war. Powell teamed up with his fellow Archer, writer Emeric Pressburger, and after getting approval from the British and Canadian governments, started work in 1940.

The Royal Canadian Air Force sinks a German U-boat in Hudson Bay. The survivors attempt to evade capture by traveling across Canada to the still-neutral United States. Nazi lieutenants Hirth (Portman) and Kuhnecke (Lovell) lead their fellow survivors, and meet an eclectic range of people, including Johnny, a French-Canadian trapper strictly from commercial (Olivier), some pacifictic German Hutterite farmers (led by Anton Walbrook), and an eccentric English teacher (Howard), who gets wounded, but is still able to help capture one of the sailors.

Hirth ends up encountering an AWOL Canadian soldier Andy Brock (Massey) on a freight train, but he fails to gain entrance to the U.S. when Brock alerts the officials that he isn't listed on the manifest.

The film's title is taken from the 49th parallel, which also serves as much of the U.S.-Canadian border. No scenes in the movie take place anywhere near that frontier, and the only border scene in the movie takes place near Niagara Falls (slowly I turn...), located further south of the 49th parallel line.

A fine effort from The Archers. Olivier is also particularly effective in this one, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Recommended.

Mean Streets

Mean Streets. 1973 Warner Bros. Pictures.
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Danova
Director: Martin Scorsese
Buy Mean Streets Special Edition from Amazon.

Charlie (Keitel) finds himself increasingly torn between his devout Catholicism and trying to move up in the local mafia run by his uncle Giovanni (Danova), where he collects protection money. It could be argued that Charlie is "too nice" to succeed at what he's doing. He is also feeling hampered by his feeling of responsibility towards his immature and destructive friend Johnny Boy (De Niro). Not only that, but Charlie is having an affair with Johnny Boy's cousin Teresa (Robinson), who sufferes from epilepsy, and who is also looked down upon by Charlie's uncle.

Johnny Boy is also deeply in gambling debt to a local shark named Michael (Romanus), who is not making it a secret that his patience is running short.

Charlie also wants more than anything to run a restaurant controlled by his uncle. When Giovanni offers him control, Charlie struggles with a difficult decision: his mafia ambitions, or his devotion to Teresa while keeping Johnny Boy out of trouble.

A great flick. Scorsese, De Niro and Keitel would reunite three years later to even greater acclaim when they made Taxi Driver. Highly recommended.

Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century. 1934 Columbia Pictures.
Starring: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Edgar Kennedy
Director: Howard Hawks
Buy Twentieth Century at Amazon.

A 1934 film based on an unproduced stage play Napoleon of Broadway, which was written by Charles Bruce Millholland.

Oscar Jaffe (Barrymore) is a Broadway producer who is a bigger ham than most actors. However, he is still able to build a successful career. At a rehearsal, he encounters Lily Garland (Lombard), and he is the only one to see her as the next big star. Jaffe mentors Lily and turns her into a true star on Broadway, but she has also become just as difficult to deal with backstage as he is.

Lily decides to make the big leap from Broadway to Hollywood, which sends Jaffe's career into a tailspin. Now bankrupt, and desperately seeking a hit to bring him back to the penthouse from the outhouse, Jaffe boards the Twentieth Century Limited train from New York to Chicago. The director's only using the train to duck his creditors, who are all waiting at Grand Central Station in hopes of spotting him.

Not so coincidentally, Lily is also on that same train. She also wants nothing to do with Jaffe at all by now, but that isn't going to stop him from trying to talk her into coming back to him. Oh, and there's also some lunatic onboard the Twentieth Century Limited, and there's no doubt he's going to make things even more interesting.

All of this adds up to a decent screwball comedy that starts out slow, but really picks up momentum after Lily departs for Hollywood. The performances of Barrymore and Lombard were amazing. Recommended.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat

The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat. 1974 American International Pictures (released to DVD by MGM).
Vocal Talent: Skip Hinnant
Director: Robert Taylor
Buy The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat at Amazon.

By the time this movie was released, Robert Crumb had already killed off Fritz the Cat in the comics, and had moved on to other projects. So, the title of this movie is pretty ironic. Ralph Bakshi was busy directing a new movie called Heavy Traffic, and he had no input to this sequel.

Fritz the Cat is now married, with a child. As his wife yells at him, and his infant son masturbates, Fritz sits on the couch, smoking a joint and staring off into space. Tired of his wife nagging him, Fritz fantasizes about what life would be like for him if things were much different, and ends up thinking about his previous lives as an astronaut, a soldier for the Nazi Party, and a messenger. His wife finally throws him out of the apartment when she can't get through to him. Fritz concludes that the existance he's in now is "about the worst life he's ever had".

Not as good as the first movie, but interesting nevertheless.

Fritz the Cat

Fritz the Cat. 1972 Steve Krantz Productions & Cinemation Industries (released to DVD by MGM).
Vocal Talent: Skip Hinnant
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Buy Fritz the Cat at Amazon.

Robert Crumb's cartoon characters are brought to the big screen in the first X-rated animated movie. Reportedly, Crumb's first wife gave Bakshi and company the rights to Fritz and his friends against his wishes. Crumb hated the movie enough that he killed Fritz off shortly after the movie's release. Fritz met his demise via ice pick to the back of his head by an old girlfriend. Still, that didn't discourage the making of a 1974 sequel, which I'll review later on tonight.

In the movie, Fritz's entire existance seems to revolve mostly around sex, drugs, and other illegal activities, with the epiphany that he "needs to tell the people about the revolution" while stoned out of his mind and engaged in sex with a former prostitute. After a few scrapes with the law, Fritz is collared by his girlfriend Winston, who plans to road trip out to San Francisco. Out west, Fritz falls in with a group of revolutionaries planning to blow up a power station, and ends up going along with the leader. He only changes his mind after seeing the dynamite, and fails to prevent the explosion. Hospitalized, Fritz realizes he should "stick to his original hedonist philosophy and let the rest of the world take care of itself".

This film was very controversal after its release, and it's very easy to say why. Regardless, it was an enormous box office hit, only kept out of the top slot by The Godfather at one point. Recommended.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

MST3K #1006: Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #1006: Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues.
Original airdate: May 9, 1999.
Part of the fifth Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection, still available.

Charles B. Pierce directed and co-starred in this 1985 sequel to his 1972 film The Legend of Boggy Creek. He also cast his son Chuck, who really needs to keep a shirt on. A professor and his students camp out in a rural Arkansas swamp, in hopes of finding a Bigfoot-like creature.

This is actually the third film in the Boggy Creek series. Return to Boggy Creek came out in 1977 without Pierce's involvement. It starred Dawn Wells and Dana Plato. Pierce simply ignored that one, dubbing his project the "official" sequel. The end product leaves something to be desired, but Pierce's work always gave the impression that he was really trying to film something decent and meaningful.

In short, they do encounter the monster, who is looking for his/her offspring, which has been captured by a local backwoods redneck played by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts' greatest student, Jimmy Clem.

So, yeah, it's no Cloverfield. But you probably already guessed that.

A decent MST3K episode. Recommended.

Cloverfield

Cloverfield. 2008 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Michael Stahl-David, T.J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Mike Vogel
Director: Matt Reeves
Buy Cloverfield at Amazon.

Starting by releasing a trailer to a then-untitled movie along with the release of Transformers in summer of 2007, Paramount Pictures launched a complex viral marketing campaign to promote this movie, which led more than a few people to think that this was going to be another Godzilla movie at first. Well, they weren't too far off the mark, but the creature turned out to not be Japan's famous guy in a rubber suit stomping HO scale models.

The film is presented as a video file recovered from a digital camcorder by the U.S. Department of Defense, which means that once you know this information, they're gonna hafta kill you. Seriously, though, there is a disclaimer stating that the footage you're about to watch is a case designated "Cloverfield", and it was found in the area "formerly known as Central Park".

April 27th: Rob Hawkins (Stahl-David) wakes up early in the morning after shagging a previously platonic best friend Beth McIntyre (Yustman), and they make plans to go to Coney Island later in the day. See, Beth's never been to Coney Island, so it's obvious she's never had a run-in with The Warriors, who also hang out there. The footage overlaps, cutting to the end of May, when Rob's brother Jason (Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (Lucas) prepare a farewell party for Rob as he's leaving for a new job in Japan. Before the party totally gets out of control, Jason hands over the camera to "Hud" Platt (Miller, the primary cameraman for the movie), giving him the task of filming testimonials, and unsuccessfully flirtin' with his crush, Marlena Diamond (Caplan). Hud also tapes over the footage of Rob and Beth's Coney Island trip. Good one, Hud!

Actually, Rob gave Hud his blessing to erase the trip footage after Beth showed up with a guy named Travis as her date to the party. This essentially spoiled the whole night for Rob, as his closest friends try to console him, suggesting Beth isn't good enough for him. After all, he's leaving for Japan!

And then, Manhattan gets hit by something. The power goes out, and people be freaking out. The local news is reporting that an oil tanker capsized in the middle of the harbor near the Statue of Liberty. As everyone rushes outside to look, there's a major explosion at the other side of Manhattan. Everybody rushes down to the street, where Rob gets an unexpected going away gift: the head of the Statue of Liberty thrown down the street, coming to a rest right in front of Hud. Mere moments later, the Woolworth Building is destroyed by what appears to be a giant monster (caught briefly by Hud on camera), sending everyone inside running for cover. After the smoke clears, Jason tells everyone they need to leave Manhattan right now, choosing the Brooklyn Bridge as their escape route. Crossing the bridge, Rob gets a call from Beth and stops moving, while Hud, Lily and Marlena stop as well, but Jason keeps going. The monster smashes the main span of the bridge, causing it to collapse, killing Jason and hundreds of others, sending the survivors fleeing back into Manhattan.

Rob helps loot an electronics store for batteries for his cell phone. Beth left a message saying her building is on the verge of collapse, and she's trapped. Hud catches sight of TV coverage of the monster, which has parasitic spider-like creatures that are falling off the monster, attacking and killing U.S. military personnel. Rob decides he's not leaving Manhattan without Beth. Hud, Lily, and Marlena follow him. Caught in a crossfire between the military and the cute kitten they're battling, our heroes take to the subway tunnels to make their way uptown, where Rob has to break it to his mom that Jason is dead. Several parasites have also gone underground, and Hud gets attacked by one. Marlena opens a can of whoopass on one, but gets bit (by that time, it's suggested that the cold and distant Marlena has finally warmed up to Hud). After escaping into the abandoned Bloomingdale's via the 59th Street station, they meet the military who have set up a field hospital and command center for the wounded. Marlena starts getting sick. Taken behind a curtain, her stomach expands and explodes. However, Rob, Hud and Lily have been given the go ahead by a sergeant to find Beth, telling them to report to an evacuation site before six in the morning, when the last helicopter leaves Manhattan, and the military will enact the "Hammerdown" protocol, meaning they will destroy Manhattan to take out the creature. Just after getting back on the street, Hud finally loses it after witnessing Marlena die.

Beth lives in Time Warner Center, and one tower has collapsed against the other one. Predictably, she lives close to the top of the damaged building. After making their way up, they find Beth, impaled by a concrete rebar, but they're able to save her. They make it to the evacuation site, and encounter the monster again. Lily gets on a helicopter without her friends (her fate is unknown), while Rob, Beth and Hud get on another one, witnessing a Stealth Bomber unleashing a huge payload of explosives on the monster. Hud lets out a victory cheer which proves to be premature as the monster reaches out and swats the craft down into Central Park. "Hammerdown" in fifteen minutes.

Hud and Beth get an injured Rob out of the helicopter. Then, Hud does the absolute dumbest thing ever, as he runs back to get his camera just as the monster decides it's finally ready for its closeup. Hud gets killed. Rob and Beth get the camera, and retreat to an arch just as the air raid sirens start going off, indicating that the military is ready to strike. They record their final(?) testimonies, and profess their love for one another just before a big ol' explosion goes off, disrupting the feed. The rest of the video is Rob and Beth in Coney Island in happier times. In the background, an object can be seen falling from the sky into the ocean. Beth's final message? "I had a good day today." And we're out!

An exciting, but surprisingly short movie (84 minutes). Highly recommended.

P.S. Director Matt Reeves confirmed in an interview that the monster was killed during Hammerdown. So, no sequels!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange. 1971 Warner Bros. Pictures.
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Warren Clarke, James Marcus, Patrick Magee, Michael Tarn
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Buy A Clockwork Orange at Amazon.
Also part of the Stanley Kubrick: Warner Home Video Directors Series.

This will be the first time I've ever seen this one, actually.

Alex DeLarge (McDowell) leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie and Dim) which he refers to as his "droogs". After some time drinking narcotic-spiked milk at the Korova Milk Bar, they go out to commit some mayhem, starting with beating an elderly vagrant underneath an underpass. Next, they get into a brawl with another gang, which they have an easy time of, only departing when they hear the cops coming. After stealing a car and speeding through the countryside, Alex and his droogs enter the house of a writer, claiming they need to phone for an ambulance. Once inside, the droogs assault the writer and rape his wife while Alex sings and dances "Singin' in the Rain". Returning to the milk bar, they find some well-dressed guests, including a woman who sings a melody from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Dim expresses his distates for classical music, which earns him a blow from Alex's cane. Alex loves classical music. After going home, he puts on a cassette of the Ninth Symphony, accompanied by a fantasy montage of violent images. The next morning, Alex claims he's too sick to go to school when his mother wakes him. A social worker (Aubrey Morris) visits next, who suspects that Alex has been up to "some nastiness". Alex visits a music shop, picks up two women, and has sex with both of them.

When Alex meets up with the droogs, they express displeasure with his leadership, and say they want a "new way", that involves more ambitious crimes, and no more abuse of Dim. Alex answers by assaulting all three of them next to a canal, reasserting his leadership. Later on, they break into the house of a woman who runs a health farm, and owns a large number of cats and erotic works of art. Alex mortally wounds the "cat lady" (Miriam Karlin) with a phallus-shaped statue. Alex is attacked by his droogs after leaving the house, who leave him for the police when they arrive.

While incarcerated, Alex forms a bond with the prison chaplain, a kindly man who preaches to the prisoners about hellfire and damnation. Studying the Bible, Alex identifies best with the violent characters in it. Alex also finds out about the Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals. Alex is chosen for the treatment after the Minister of the Interior visits the prison looking for a potential candidate.

At the Ludivico facility, Alex is placed in a straitjacket, and subjected to films containing scenes of violence while being dosed with drugs to induce reactions of revulsion. He only reacts badly when he realizes one of the film's soundtracks is music by Beethoven, which means that Alex will now have similar feelings of revulsion for the composer's works. A demonstration of the "cure" follows, where Alex is unable to fight back against an actor trying to provoke him, followed by a nude woman trying to tempt him, which Alex also is unable to succumb to. Declared "cured" despite the chaplain's protests, Alex is released back into society.

The problem is, will society accept Alex now that he's "cured"?

Highly recommended movie.

Some Like it Hot

Some Like it Hot. 1959 United Artists.
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Joe E. Brown, Edward G. Robinson
Director: Billy Wilder
Buy Some Like it Hot from Amazon as a single disc, or an expanded collector's edition.

Two struggling Chicago musicians Joe and Jerry (Curtis & Lemmon) witness what looks like the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929. Spotted by a gangster "Spats" (Raft), the musicians flee for their lives. Deciding to leave town by securing a job, they find the only out-of-town job is in an all-girl band headed for Florida. Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as Josephine and Geraldine (later Daphne), join the group, and get on the train for Florida. They both fall for Sugar Kane (Monroe), the group's vocalist and ukulele player, both trying vainly to keep her attention while maintaining their disguises. Upon arrival in Florida, Joe creates a second disguise as "Junior", the heir to Shell Oil who sounds remarkably like Cary Grant.

Jerry, still as Daphne, finds himself being pursued by millionaire Osgood Fielding III (Brown). One evening, Osgood asks Jerry out to his yacht, but Joe convinces Jerry to talk Osgood on land while he takes Sugar out on the water. Osgood proposes, and Jerry blurts out "yes" in a moment of excitement, believing he could finagle a large settlement from Osgood immediately following the ceremony.

The mobsters, including "Spats", arrive at the same hotel for a conference honoring "Friends of Italian Opera". They see Joe and Jerry, ensuing in several hilarious chase scenes, and yet another mob murder. The boys, Sugar, and Osgood escape to the yacht; enroute, Sugar tells Joe that she's in love with him, not "Junior". Jerry seems almost doomed to be lawfully wedded to Osgood, who is oblivious to Jerry's objections, and is determined to go to the altar. Reaching his breaking point, Jerry removes his wig and yells "I'm a man!" Osgood simply replies "Well, nobody's perfect!", which is #48 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list (link here).

A truly classic American comedy. Highly, highly, highly recommended!

Bad Day at Black Rock

Bad Day at Black Rock. 1954 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin
Director: John Sturges
Available from Amazon as a single disc, or as part of the Controversal Classics box set.

In 1945, a handicapped war veteran, John J. Macreedy (Tracy), steps off the train at a dying desert town called Black Rock, making it the first time a train has stopped there in four years. Macreedy is looking for a man named Komoko, but the residents are hostile to the newcomer. Macreedy is almost turned away from the hotel by Pete Wirth (Ericson) and Hector David (Marvin), but Reno Smith (Ryan), Black Rock's leading citizen, comes to his defense. He also tells Macreedy that Komoko no longer lives in town, as he was interned during World War II just because he's a Japanese-American.

Macreedy goes to see the town sheriff Tim Horn (Jagger), only to find an alcoholic afraid of Smith. Doc Velie (Brennan) advises Macreedy to leave Black Rock, and Smith lets slip that Komoko is dead. Liz Wirth (Francis), Pete's sister, rents the veteran a Jeep, which he uses to drive out to Komoko's most recent residence, finding it burned to the ground. He also finds plenty of water in the well, and a patch of wildflowers growing in the dust. Suspecting that Komoko may be buried underneath the wildflowers, Macreedy returns to town to report his findings, only to find his efforts sabotaged at every turn. He also correctly deduces that Smith was responsible for the murder, along with Hector, Pete, and Coley Trimble (Borgnine), right after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Teaming up with Liz, Doc Velie, the reluctant sheriff Horn, and Pete when he learns the truth about Macreedy's connection to Komoko, Macreedy must bring Komoko's killers to justice.

Recommended movie.

Wholly Moses!

Wholly Moses! 1980 Columbia Pictures.
Starring: Dudley Moore, Laraine Newman, James Coco, Paul Sand, Jack Gilford
Also starring (cameos!): Dom Deluise, John Houseman, Madeline Kahn, David L. Lander, Richard Pryor, John Ritter
Director: Gary Weis
Buy Wholly Moses! at Amazon, if you dare.

This obviously isn't remembered as one of Dudley Moore's better films.

Moore portrays Herschel, whose life and adventures seem to closely parallel that of Moses, except that Moses is the one getting all of the glory. Actually, Herschel just thinks that God is talking to him, not Moses, and takes it upon himself to do the Lord's work, failing miserably. In the opening shot, set in 1980, Moore also plays a tourist who stumbles upon a lost Dead Sea scroll with Laraine Newman.

To be honest, Wholly Moses seems to coast on just two ideas: Herschel's continuing misconception that God is talking to him, and cameo appearances from some of 1980's biggest stars. The cameos really add nothing to the movie, even if John Ritter portrayed an excellent Satan. The scene where Moore interacts with Pryor really falls flat, and the two actors aren't even in the same shot! In his review, Roger Ebert suggested that Pryor was encouraged to "do his schtick" for the cameras, and Moore's reactions were edited in afterwards. That could have happened, but I haven't seen or found any evidence confirming this.

I actually expected more to this one, and I was pretty stoked when I finally found it on DVD a while back. Unfortunately, it's a pretty big disappointment. Dudley Moore tried, but he really looked helpless at times. All I can say is, if you want Biblical comedy, seek out Monty Python's Life of Brian instead.

Not recommended.

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 (Disc 1)

Available at Amazon.

Bugs Bunny Favorites:

Roman-Legion Hare, directed by Friz Freleng, 1955 (Wiki).
The Grey-Hounded Hare, directed by Robert McKimson, 1949 (Wiki).
Rabbit Hood, directed by Chuck Jones, 1949 (Wiki).
Operation: Rabbit, directed by Chuck Jones, 1952 (Wiki).
Knight-mare Hare, directed by Chuck Jones, 1955 (Wiki).
Southern Fried Rabbit, directed by Friz Freleng, 1953 (Wiki).
Mississippi Hare, directed by Chuck Jones, 1949 (Wiki).
Hurdy-Gurdy Hare, directed by Robert McKimson, 1950 (Wiki).
Forward March Hare, directed by Chuck Jones, 1953 (Wiki).
Sahara Hare, directed by Friz Freleng, 1955 (Wiki).
Barbary Coast Bunny, directed by Chuck Jones, 1956 (Wiki).
To Hare is Human, directed by Chuck Jones, 1956 (Wiki).
8 Ball Bunny, directed by Chuck Jones, 1950 (Wiki).
Knighty Knight Bugs, directed by Friz Freleng, 1957 (Wiki).
Rabbit Romeo, directed by Robert McKimson, 1957 (Wiki).

There's nothing like fifteen Bugs Bunny cartoons from the Post-1948 syndication package. Definitely the best of the Looney Tunes discs I've watched and reviewed so far.

Friday, January 16, 2009

What's New Pussycat?

What's New Pussycat? 1965 United Artists.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress
Written by Woody Allen
Music by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
Directors: Clive Donner & Richard Talmadge
Available at Amazon as a single disc, or part of the Peter Sellers MGM Movie Legends Collection.

Michael James (O'Toole) is a notorious womanizer, but he desperately wants to be faithful to his fiancée Carole Werner (Schneider). The problem is, every woman he meets seems to fall in love with him, including a neurotic American (Prentiss), and a parachutist who lands in his car (guest star Andress). His psychoanalyst, Dr. Fassbender (Sellers, in another fantastic performance) cannot help, since he's romantically pursuing one of his patients (Capucine) who also is in love with Michael.

All of the film's main characters check into the same quaint hotel in rural France, unaware of each other's presence, and setting up the proverbial collision course with wackiness.

This film was planned to star Warren Beatty. After Woody Allen was hired to write the script, he started relegating Beatty's character to a secondary role, increasing his own role in the film at Beatty's expense. When the studio found Allen's screenplay much funnier than the original idea, Beatty withdrew from the project; he and Allen haven't worked together since. Also, had Beatty remained in the film, Groucho Marx was scheduled to play Dr. Fassbender. Richard Burton also made a cameo in the movie, asking O'Toole in a bar scene "Don't you know me from someplace?" O'Toole responds "Give my regards to what's her name", referring to he and Burton appearing in the 1964 movie Becket, as well as Burton's marriage to Elizabeth Taylor at the time.

Fun movie. Recommended.

The Hustler

The Hustler. 1961 20th Century Fox.
Starring: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott
Director: Robert Rossen
Buy The Hustler two-disc special edition at Amazon.

A film adaptation of the 1959 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, adapted for the screen by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen.

A small time pool hustler called "Fast Eddie" Felson (Newman) is determined to prove that he's the best player in the country by beating the legendary "Minnesota Fats" (Gleason). At the time of the film's production, Minnesota Fats was simply a fictional character that professional billiards player Rudolf Wanderone claimed was based on him. Wanderone adopted the nickname "Minnesota Fats", parlaying the association with The Hustler into book deals and television appearances, and becoming a bonafide celebrity. Walter Tevis always denied basing the character on Wanderone.

Anyway...

Fast Eddie travels with his partner Charlie (Myron McCormick) to challenge Fats at his home pool hall. Fats arrives, and he agrees to play Eddie for $200 a game. Eddie stumbles out of the gate, but surges back to being a thousand dollars ahead of Fats, and proposes that they raise the stakes to $1000 a game, which Fats agrees to. The contest attracts the attention of gambler Bert Gordon (Scott). After 25 hours (!) of playing, Eddie, who was ahead by $18,000 at one point, loses all but his original $200 stake, half of which he leaves with Charlie at a nearby hotel.

Instead of moving onto the next town, Eddie stays where he's at, because he's determined to play Fats again. He meets an alcoholic "college girl" named Sarah (Laurie), and moves into a rooming house where he starts hustling for small stakes. After some reservations, Sarah allows Eddie to move in with her, and later, Eddie falls out with Charlie after realizing that he held out his percentage of the money, which Eddie believed that with that, he could've rebounded to beat Fats the first time.

Eddie runs across Bert again at a poker game, and Bert tells him that he has talent, but no character. He also figures that Eddie would need at least three grand to challenge Fats again, offering to back him up in exchange for 75 percent of his winnings. Eddie refuses, and gets his thumbs broken after hustling another local pool shark. While recuperating, Sarah tells him she loves him, but he can't bring himself to say the world. After healing, Eddie agrees to Bert's terms, since it's better than nothing.

In Louisville for the Kentucky Derby, Bert also arranges for Eddie to play a local socialte named Findley (Murray Hamilton), but the game is billiards, not pool. Eddie gets routed, and Bert refuses to keep staking him. Sarah wants Eddie to leave with her, saying his world and its inhabitants are "perverted, twisted and crippled", but Eddie won't hear it. Seeing how upset Eddie is, Bert agrees to let the match continue for $1000 a game, and Eddie ultimately wins $12,000, taking his share and walking back to the hotel. Bert sexually abuses Sarah at the hotel before Eddie makes it back there, scrawling the words "perverted", "twisted" and "crippled" in lipstick on the mirror before committing suicide.

Returning to Fats' home club, he challenges Fats again, putting up his entire share on a single game. Eddie wins game after game, beating Fats so badly that he is forced to resign from the contest. Bert demands a share of Eddie's winnings, but relents when Eddie reminds him of what he did to Sarah.

Great film! Highly, highly recommended.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice. 1940 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edna May Oliver, Mary Boland, Edmund Gwenn
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Available from Amazon as a single DVD, or as part of the Motion Picture Masterpieces Collection.

A loose 1940 film adaptation based on Jane Austen's novel of the same name. The costumes were recycled from the production of Gone With the Wind, according to Greer Garson.

Two new handsome, eligible bachelors have just arrived in town: Mr. Bingley (Bruce Lester), and Fitzwilliam Darcy (Olivier). This does not go unnoticed by Mrs. Bennet (Boland) and her two eldest daughters, Jane (O'Sullivan) and Elizabeth (Garson). Mrs. Bennet wants all of her daughters to marry suitable husbands, and she has high hopes upon encountering Bingley and Darcy.

At first, Darcy seems uninterested in Elizabeth, declining to dance with her at a ball, and then acting proud of it. She instead decides to accept a dance with Mr. Wickham (who told Elizabeth about how Darcy did him a "terrible wrong") in front of Darcy. Later on, while being pursued at another ball by a cousin of the Bennet family, Mr. Collins (Melville Cooper), Darcy helps her out of that fix, and asks her to dance. Unfortunately, he is appalled at the reckless behavior of Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters, and he leaves again, angering Elizabeth. The next day, she declines a marriage proposal from Mr. Collins, who then proposes to her best friend Charlotte Lucas (Karen Morley).

The paths of Darcy and Elizabeth cross again after a visit to Charlotte in her new home, and he proposes to Elizabeth, but she refuses, having heard a story told by Mr. Wickham about Darcy depriving him of money. He also has broken up the romance between Mr. Bingley and Jane, leading to a heated argument.

Elizabeth comes to realize that she does love Darcy after he tells her that Mr. Wickham had eloped with Lydia (Ann Rutherford), and he had also tried eloping with a fifteen-year-old sibling, Georgiana. Darcy also adds that Wickham would never marry Lydia. Elizabeth, however, fears she will never see Darcy again thanks to Lydia's antics, but Darcy has other plans, which involve righting some wrongs where Mr. Wickham is concerned.

Recommended.

The Gambler

The Gambler. 1974 Paramount Pictures
Starring: James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton
Also starring: Jacqueline Brookes, Burt Young, Vic Tayback, Steven Keats, M. Emmet Walsh, James Woods
Director: Karel Reisz
The Gambler at Amazon (discontinued).

This was a blind buy at Wal-Mart when they were having a sale of discontinued Paramount DVDs some time ago. This movie also should not be confused with anything that Kenny Rogers has appeared in. All right?

Axel Freed (Caan) is a New York City English professor with a gambling addiction that is spiralling out of control, to the point that after one class, he asks his students if anyone could loan him "at least ten grand" to help him out. Regardless of doing that, he is still a decent teacher, but sadly, a terrible gambler who figures that he can "will himself to win". His debt to his bookie Hips (Sorvino) is now threatening to undermine his career and his relationship with Billie (Hutton).

Now $45,000 in the hole, Freed finds himself having to extort cash out of his own mother (Brookes) to pay his debt. He still seems unable to realize that he has a serious problem, despite the warning signs, and later on, the threats of violence if he doesn't pay up.

Recommended.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation. 2003 Focus Features & Universal Pictures.
Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris
Director: Sofia Coppola
Buy Lost in Translation at Amazon.

Bob Harris (Murray) is an actor who has traveled to Tokyo to film a whiskey advertisement for Suntory. This is a reference to real life Hollywood actors doing foreign advertisements that usually aren't seen, or even spoken of (thanks to specific contract clauses for some of the stars) in America.

Charlotte (Johansson) is the wife of a celebrity photographer (Ribisi) on assignment in Tokyo, unsure of her present and future, and about the man she married. Bob's 25 year marriage is also tired and lacking in romance, as seen in his telephone calls back to America. The two of them meet in the hotel bar, and strike up a friendship, spending a lot of time together, experiences the difference between their own culture and Japanese culture, and growing quite close. Things briefly go sour on the day before Bob is scheduled to fly back home after he meets and sleeps with the resident vocalist of the hotel bar, but they both reconcile during a late night fire alarm.

Lost in Translation won an Academy Award for best original screenplay, and Sofia Coppola is the first female ever nominated for Best Director. The movie? Highly recommended.

Say Anything...

Say Anything... 1989 20th Century Fox.
Starring: John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney, Lili Taylor, Joan Cusack
Director: Cameron Crowe
Buy Say Anything... at Amazon (special edition).

Believe me, this movie is much more than John Cusack holding a boombox over his head.

Lloyd Dobler is a mediocre student and aspiring kickboxer who is romantically pursuing the school valedictorian Diane Court (Skye), even if his friends believe that she's totally out of his league. Diane has won a major scholarship to study in England, and will be going there at the end of the summer, so Lloyd doesn't have that much time to win her heart. Meanwhile, Diane's father Jim is under investigation by the IRS for tax violations committed at his nursing school, and Diane agonizes about not spending enough time with him before she goes overseas. Jim also doesn't approve of his daughter dating an underachiever like Lloyd.

Highly, highly recommended.

P.S. Standing outside the house of the person you want more than anything, and holding a boombox blaring "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel doesn't work in real life. You'll annoy the neighbors, and come across as a total creep. Maybe if you're lucky, that person you want won't send someone else to tell you to back off!

Besides, what if your crush doesn't even like Peter Gabriel?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Ruling Class

Looks like this'll be the 100th DVD I've watched since I started this at the end of November last year, and what can it be?

The Ruling Class (Criterion #132). 1972 AVCO Embassy Films.
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Alastair Sim, Arthur Lowe, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne, Michael Bryant, Nigel Green, Carolyn Seymour, William Mervyn
Director: Peter Medak
Buy The Ruling Class (Criterion Collection) at Amazon.

Jack Gurney (O'Toole, in an Academy Award nominated performance), the 14th Earl of Gurney, is convinced that he is God. He shocks his family and friends with talk of returning to the world to bring it "love and charity", and we would be remiss if we didn't mention that Jack has a tendency to break into song and dance routines when he isn't sleeping upright on a cross. Any attempts to reason with Jack by using unpalatable facts get places right into his "galvanized pressure cooker".

An uncle, Sir Charles (Melvyn), marries Jack to his mistress Grace (Seymour), in hopes of the couple fathering a child that would rightfully inherit the peerage, so Jack can be confined to an institution. This plan backfires when Grace genuinely falls in love with Jack. Sir Charles' wife (Browne) also befriends Jack, since she hates her husband and wants to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Jack's psychiatrist Dr. Herder (Bryant) in an attempt to persuade him to cure Jack faster. Intense psychotherapy doesn't work, as Jack is confident that he is the God of love, and dismisses any suggestion to the contrary as the rambling of lunatics. Irony spoken here.

The night that Grace goes into labor with Jack's child, Dr. Herder introduces Jack to McKyle (Green), another mental patient that believes himself to be Christ, or the "Electric Messiah" as he puts it. Herder and McKyle subject an unsuspecting Jack to electroshock therapy, hoping to literally shock him out of his delusions. They hope to show Jack that two men could not both be God, and that he's suffering from delusions of grandeur. The plan works, and Jack comes to his senses just as Grace gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Sir Charles again tries to claim the title, sending for a court psychiatrist to evaluate Jack, but the two men bond, and Jack is declared sane.

Jack relapses into mental illness, believing himself to be Jack the Ripper. He murders Sir Charles' wife after she attempts to seduce him, and frames the Communist family butler Tucker (Lowe) for the crime, assuming his place in the House of Lords with his speech in favor of capital and corporal punishment, which gets a thunderous ovation, who have no idea that they're praising the rantings of a madman. After Grace professes her love for Jack, he murders her as well.

Another great, funny, and dark movie. Highly recommended, almost solely because of O'Toole's performance. Sadly, Nigel Green died due to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills after the film was completed.

The Birdcage

The Birdcage. 1996 United Artists.
Starring: Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria
Director: Mike Nichols
Buy The Birdcage at your favorite pet store.

Hold hands, you lovebirds! Val Goldman (Futterman) and Barbara Keeley (Flockhart) are engaged, and they want their families to meet. Problem is, their families couldn't be any more different.

Val's dad is Armand Goldman (Williams), the owner of a gay club called The Birdcage. His partner is Albert (Lane), who makes regular appearances at The Birdcage as the drag queen "Starina". Armand and Albert share the house with a housekeeeper named Agador (Azaria), who is even more outrageously flamboyant than Albert! On the other hand, Barbara's father is an ultraconservative Republican Ohio Senator Kevin Keeley (Hackman), a co-founder of the right wing "Coalition for Moral Order", and he's up for re-election. Barbara lies to her folks, saying that Armand is from Greece, and that Albert is both a woman and a housewife, even saying their last name is Coleman to hide their Jewish background.

Senator Keeley receives a phone call that his colleague and co-founder of the Coalition for Moral Order, Senator Jackson, is found dead in the bed of an underage black prostitute, which naturally becomes a media sensation. Louise Keeley (Wiest) proposes that she and her husband to meet the "Colemans" as a diversion to save Kevin's political career. Besides, wouldn't Barbara marrying into a "traditional, wholesome" family give the Senator excellent PR material?

Barbara phones Val about the lies she's told her parents, and Val finally talks Armand into going along with the farce. The house is redecorated in a more "heterosexual" manner, and Armand talks Val's biological mother Katherine (Christine Baranski) into taking part in the facade, which she agrees to.

Unfortunately, it could very well be Albert and Agador being forced to play roles that they were never meant to play that could bring this charade crashing down...

Great movie! Highly recommended.

Besides, how many times can you think of where another actor (Nathan Lane) steals the show from Robin Williams?

Monday, January 12, 2009

MST3K #211: First Spaceship on Venus

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #211: First Spaceship on Venus.
Originally aired: December 29, 1990.
Part of the MST3K 20th Anniversary Collection.

Earth in the "future" (1985):

In Siberia, construction workers discover an artifact referred to a "spool", which is apparently of extraterresterial origin. An international crew of ethnically diverse scientists and other astronauts get together and determine that the "spool" is part of an alien rocket from Venus that exploded in 1908. The crew is sent to Venus in a craft called the Cosmostrator, a four-spired Mars rocket.

Venus apparently, had some kind of nuclear holocaust in its past, as the astronauts discover almost everything they see has been partially destroyed. To top it off, the shadows of Venusians are seen burned into a wall. Apparently, Venus was planning a full scale invasion of Earth, but its inhabitants destroyed themselves first. Giant machines on the planet still are in operation, and an underground power plant is triggered, creating a force field to augment the gravity of Venus. The astronauts manage to escape, minus two who died in the escape attempt, and another one who was left alive on the surface.

A good, but not great MST3K episode. Joel modifies Tom Servo's sarcasm sequencer, which proves to be an explosively bad decision by the last host segment. Later on, Tom and Crow build and show off the world's coolest robot, that only communicates in shaving cream. Meanwhile, Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank find Abe Vigoda in the bottom of their junk drawer during the invention exchange.

Recommended.

Strange Brew

The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew. 1983 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Max Von Sydow, Paul Dooley, Lynne Griffin, Angus MacInnes, Tom Harvey, Douglas Campbell, Mel Blanc
Directors: Rick Moranis & Dave Thomas
Buy Strange Brew at Amazon.

In typical SCTV fashion, the movie opens with Leo the Lion apparently sedated and unable to roar for the MGM logo card, and the brothers McKenzie (Thomas & Moranis) introducing their ill-fated movie from the set of Great White North called Mutants of 2051 A.D. that they put together. When the movie audience riots, Bob and Doug escape, having given their dad's (voiced by Blanc) beer money to a father with two upset children.

Back at home, they run out of beer. Bob and Doug decide to put a live mouse in a beer bottle in an attempt to get free Elsinore beer from the local party store (which really exists). Referred to the Elsinore brewery by a no nonsense clerk. Bob and Doug are given jobs inspecting the bottles for mice, a position where they take the opportunity to drink lots of free beer, and later, surprising their parents with a van full of Elsinore product.

Brewmesister Smith (Von Sydow, a million miles from The Seventh Seal) is perfecing a secret plan to take over the world by putting a drug in Elsinore beer that renders the consumer docile, and making him or her attack others when stimulated by a musical cue. Smith tests his experimental beer at the neighboring mental institution, which is connected to the brewery by underground tunnels.

Also, the former brewery owner died under mysterious circumstances, and his daughter Pam (Griffin) was given control of the entire brewery after turning 21. Pam's uncle Claude (Dooley) has married her widowed mother, and is not willing to give up his recently-gained control of Elsinore. Bob and Doug find out about these plans after rescuing Pam from a malfunctioning security gate, becoming friends with her. While playing an arcade game in the lounge, they also hear about the true story of Pam's father's death.

And how does former hockey great Jean "Rosie" LeRose (MacInnes), who has been committed to the asylum and is under Smith's spell, fit into these plans?

This movie is an old favorite, as I've loved SCTV and the McKenzie brothers in particular since childhood. Highly recommended.