Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Monday, July 6th, 2026
June 28, 1996
While the recently-minted superstar Jim Carrey was challenging himself (and getting paid well) with THE CABLE GUY, his ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE director was remaking Jerry Lewis’s 1963 movie THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. A challenge of a different sort, I guess, because it’s a big special effects movie. It was a huge hit (biggest comedy of 1996, and #5 movie overall), a comeback for Eddie Murphy, and even won an Oscar (best makeup for the legendary Rick Baker). Murphy is quite good in it. I always hated it though.
Sherman Klump (Murphy between VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN and MULAN) is a professor at Wellman College who is also heading the lab’s groundbreaking DNA experiments on hamsters. He happens to be quite obese, but he gets by, and he’s very good natured. I think people like him, with the exception of his less-than-one-dimensionally uptight boss, Dean Richmond (Larry Miller, RADIOLAND MURDERS), who hates his fucking guts and always stands around and/or hides in his classroom, making various outraged expressions at his activities.
The first joke in the movie (if you’re charitable enough to count it as a joke) is about Richard Simmons. In 1996 you couldn’t really address the topic of weight loss without the observation “Can you believe that Richard Simmons!?” So Murphy plays “Lance Perkins,” not so much a parody as an imitation of Simmons. That makeup is a disturbing image to open on.
I think a joke in the next scene will give you a better idea of the strength and quality of wackiness in this picture. A couple are sitting on the grass at the college when a hamster somehow crawls up the leg of the man’s pants. The woman sees the bulge it creates, apparently believes he has a large boner wagging back and forth, and is very pleased by this. This is only the first of many hijinks involving the unlikely number of hamsters roaming free on campus due to Sherman not noticing that his ass bumped the “for some reason this lever opens all of the cages at the same time” lever on the way out of the lab. Whoops. When he goes into the dean’s office to be dressed down for it he notices, but is stopped from pointing out, that a hamster dangling from the light fixture takes a shit right into the dean’s coffee.
Friends, welcome to COMEDY! Comedy is illegal today, but in 1996 it was a way of life! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barry W. Blaustein, Dave Chappelle, David Newman, Def Jam, Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jamal Mixon, John Ales, Larry Miller, Montell Jordan, Rick Baker, Steve Oedekerk, Tom Shadyac
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 23 Comments »
Friday, July 3rd, 2026
June 28, 1996
STRIPTEASE was one of the most derided movies of 1996, and the winner of six Razzies including Worst Picture. There is no question in my mind that that particular distinction can be attributed to the Razzie’s usual misogynistic and puritanical hatred of sexuality. The winners of the previous three years were INDECENT PROPOSAL, COLOR OF NIGHT and SHOWGIRLS. Hollywood could have listened to them, but instead here was Demi Moore briefly nude and showing off her body in tame but sexually provocative dances – this could not stand. She had to be punished. That’s what those fuckers were like back then, and much of society went along with it. (In fact, it also won top honors at the competing “Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.”)
I think when you look at Moore’s performance with today’s eyes it’s impressive: she clearly put alot of work into getting into ridiculous shape and learning to dance, similar to the dedication she would show a year later for a very different but also physically challenging role in G.I. JANE. (which the Razzies would also give her Worst Actress for, the absolute clowns). And she makes the character grounded and sincere. I like her in it. Unfortunately, the worst guy you know sometimes makes a good point, and I have to concede that STRIPTEASE is not a good movie.
Moore plays Erin Grant, who started working as an exotic dancer at the Eager Beaver in Miami after she was fired from her job as a secretary at the FBI. She’s trying to save up the money to appeal her child custody case because her ex Darrell (Robert Patrick, DOUBLE DRAGON) has their 7-year-old Angela (Rumer Willis in her second movie) and uses her as bait for his scam of stealing and reselling wheelchairs. But then some unrelated trouble falls into Erin’s lap. (I would make some kind of lapdance reference here, but I’m too proud. So forget it.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrew Bergman, Anne V. Coates, Armand Assante, Burt Reynolds, Carl Hiaasen, Demi Moore, Florida, Howard Shore, Pandora Peaks, Robert Patrick, Rumer Willis, strippers, Stuart Pankin, Ving Rhames
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime | 12 Comments »
Thursday, June 18th, 2026
June 14, 1996
THE CABLE GUY was, somehow, a divisive movie. It’s such a good idea: what if you slipped the guy hooking up your cable some extra money to give you the pay channels for free, and then he felt entitled to be your friend, and you couldn’t get rid of him? And what if he was an over-the-top goofball Jim Carrey but it played out like a SINGLE WHITE FEMALE or CAPE FEAR type suspense thriller? It’s very funny, but directed like a real thriller by Ben Stiller (following his debut REALITY BITES), so it turns out it wasn’t what most of society expected or desired from Carrey after his run of ACE VENTURA, THE MASK, DUMB AND DUMBER, BATMAN FOREVER and ACE VENTURA 2. We’ll get into that a little more later, but for now, fuck ‘em. They were wrong, obviously.
Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick, WARGAMES, THE LION KING) is newly separated from his girlfriend Robin (Leslie Mann, LAST MAN STANDING), having freaked her out by proposing. So he has a new apartment and needs the cable hooked up and it’s his buddy Rick (Jack Black, WATERWORLD) who suggests bribing the guy, which is not really Steven’s way, but he does it anyway. Great idea, Rick.
The cable guy says his name is Ernie “Chip” Douglas, acts like he’s caressing a nipple when he finds the “sweet spot” to drill into the wall, intuits that Steven is dealing with a breakup, likes to say “I’m just messin with ya” and “I’m just jerkin yer chain,” and pressures him into hanging out the next day. Then he brings him to sit on top of the city’s satellite dish, the place where he goes to think, to talk about the future of cable and internet. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Stiller, Eric Roberts, Jack Black, Jim Carrey, John Ottman, Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann, Matthew Broderick
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Thriller | 23 Comments »
Thursday, June 11th, 2026
I LOVE BOOSTERS is a movie with ideas (arguably too many), style (in abundance), attitude (well earned), and an excess of exuberance. It works at a pace and a rhythm that can be challenging, could be annoying, could be hard to lock in on if you were distracted or in the wrong mood. If somebody hated it in the way I hated CRANK and DOMINO back in the day I would get it, though I think I would’ve liked it even then.
For a while it seems like every scene will be a conversation between characters ignoring an insane thing that’s going on that also requires your attention. An early example is the two main characters having a serious talk about their needs in life while shoplifting what I would consider to be an extremely conspicuous amount of clothes. They stuff their shirts so much they look like Klumps, but they continue their talk as they waddle across the parking lot to their getaway van, with little sense of urgency.
This is the second film from Boots Riley (SORRY TO BOTHER YOU), communist rapper turned writer/director who dresses like Paddington Bear. It’s a goofy maximalist comedy overloaded with genre tangents, convoluted sci-fi concepts, bits of stop motion and miniature models, not to mention acidic satire of capitalist exploitation, so it occurs to me now to call it Marxist Savage Steve Holland. But the truth is that what it kept reminding me of was Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Liquid Television, Alex Winter’s FREAKED – those rare pop culture miracles from a bygone era when the occasional gatekeeper saw the wisdom of giving corporate money and platforms to passionate communities of artists to take their swings at outlandish, quirky, wonderful things they really believed in. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alec Gillis, Boots Riley, Demi Moore, Don Cheadle, Eiza Gonzalez, Keke Palmer, LaKeith Stanfield, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu, Taylour Paige, Tune-Yards, Will Poulter
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 5 Comments »
Monday, June 1st, 2026
May 24, 1996
WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE was a big deal at the time. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance with its brutally relatable, darkly funny portrait of the cruelty of children and the pain of not fitting in. It became a surprise hit and introduced moviegoers to an exciting new voice, writer/director Todd Solondz. Luckily nobody knew about his more Woody-Allen-like 1989 debut FEAR, ANXIETY & DEPRESSION, in which he starred as a neurotic playwright.
This is the story of Dawn Wiener (rookie Heather Matarazzo), a friendless seventh grader in suburban New Jersey. I love the opening scene, which vividly captures the terror of being an awkward kid in a noisy middle school cafeteria trying to find somewhere to sit. There’s a diabolical spin on a trope because she finds gloomy burnout Lolita (Victoria Davis) all alone and joins her, though their interaction is cold. When a group of giggly cheerleaders come over to ask, “Hi Dawn, sorry to bother you but we were just wondering, are you a lesbian?” we know in our bones that this freak is supposed to defend this geek. She’d rather stay out of it but she feels bad enough for Dawn or just has enough disdain for the cheerleaders to step in, tell off the bullies and become Dawn’s unlikely friend and protector. And it will be so moving. Except that doesn’t happen at all. Lolita joins in with the taunting and goes on to become Dawn’s worst bully. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brendan Sexton III, Eric Mabius, Heather Matarazzo, Ken Leung, Matthew Faber, Todd Solondz
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 12 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2026
May 24, 1996
I’m not saying this as a complaint, this is not why I didn’t like the movie, but I was kinda surprised to watch SPY HARD thirty years later and find out that it was not in any way a parody of DIE HARD. I mean obviously it’s a spoof of spy movies, and also a few action movies, and also a few random other things pulled out of a box with a blindfold. But the only thing Inoticed that made me think of DIE HARD was a shot of plummeting much like the death of Hans Grueber. But this isn’t the villain at the end, it’s the hero’s lady in a prologue.
You all remember how it went down. Leslie Nielsen was a veteran actor going back to the ‘50s, then the Zucker Brothers put him in AIRPLANE! and found out how fun it was to see him acting serious about ridiculous things. So they made him the star of their tv show Police Squad!, which moved to the big screen as NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD!, which then got two sequels, and now many of us mainly knew Nielsen as a comedy guy. So then directors unaffiliated with Zucker-Abrams proceeded to use him in less successful (both artistically and financially) spoofs, and they either weren’t nearly as good at this style of comedy or just got to the party too late and we were already sick of this type of shit. In the case of SPY HARD I’d say it was both. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: "Weird Al" Yankovic, Aaron Seltzer, Andy Griffith, Dick Chudnow, Jason Friedberg, Leslie Nielsen, Mason Gamble, Mr. T, Nicollette Seridan, Rick Friedberg, spoof, Stephanie Romanov
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Wednesday, May 6th, 2026
May 3, 1996
THE PALLBEARER is not a movie I was interested in in 1996, because it was, as far as I could tell, a romcom starring David Schwimmer. I didn’t even watch Friends, why would I branch into his cinematic efforts? But 30 years later I was curious because it turns out this is the directorial debut of one Matt Reeves, whose subsequent works have been the following: CLOVERFIELD, LET ME IN, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, and THE BATMAN. Apparently he also created and directed 5 episodes of a television show called Felicity and it would be interesting to know if this kind of has a similar feel in many ways, including the way it integrates the score by Stewart Copeland (FRESH), but you’d have to asks someone else for that information. I only know that I liked all of those movies he directed, as well as his one credit prior to this – UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY, which he co-wrote with Richard Hatem.
Reeves’ debut here is produced by his pal J.J. Abrams (credited as Jeffrey Abrams) and written with Jason Katims, a story editor from My So-Called Life who later developed Roswell and worked on Friday Night Lights. With its ugly poster and DVD cover I always pictured THE PALLBEARER as some shitty, uncinematic comedy Reeves would be embarrassed of, but actually it’s a good looking indie type of movie, shot on location in New York by motherfuckin Robert Elswit, who had already done HARD EIGHT and would go on to not only shoot most of Paul Thomas Anderson’s other movies but also MICHAEL CLAYTON, REDBELT, THE TOWN, NIGHTCRAWLER and many other fine films. The guy seems to know camera stuff pretty good in my opinion, so it looks like a real movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbara Hershey, Carol Kane, David Schwimmer, Gwyneth Paltrow, J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, Michael Rapaport, Michael Vartan, Robert Elswit, Toni Collette
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Romance | 18 Comments »
Tuesday, April 21st, 2026
Last week I asked Mrs. Vern if she’d want to see the new Bob Odenkirk action movie from the same writer as JOHN WICK and NOBODY. She loves both of those movies as much as I do (and Odenkirk going back to the Mr. Show days) so of course she did. Then on Saturday, as we were getting ready to go, she asked “What is this movie called, by the way?” I guess I’d sold her on it pretty much the same way I would a new Jason Statham – just the new Bob Odenkirk action movie. I hope he does another one and the poster says “ODENKIRK” at the top in giant letters.
NORMAL opens in Osaka, with a great Japanese cover of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and a group of Yakuza atoning for some type of failure by cutting off a pinky and accepting a new job. The job sends them to some small American town called Normal, Minnesota.
Odenkirk does not play one of the Yakuza. He plays Ulysses Richardson, also a fuckup arriving in Normal for a shit job, though in narration he tries to sell it to us as a pretty good one. He’s the interim sheriff, because the old one died, so he’s there to stamp forms and maintain the status quo for the five weeks until the election. He’s playing dumb a little, though. He acts like there’s nothing suspicious, but we see his eyebrows raising at various red flags. We even see him looking at the sheriff’s death certificate and later quizzing the guy who signed it. I’m sure it’s nothing, though. Don’t worry about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Wheatley, Billy MacLellan, Bob Odenkirk, Brendan Fletcher, Derek Kolstad, Henry Winkler, Jess McLeod, Lena Headey, Peter Shinkoda, Reena Jolly, Ryan Allen
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs, Crime | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
I know prequels are always divisive, but I’m usually willing to give them a shot. When I revisited THE FLINTSTONES for my summer of ’94 retrospective, I decided it was time to finally found out how it all began. Then I waited two years. But now I have watched it.
THE FLINTSTONES IN VIVA ROCK VEGAS comes from the same director as the original, Brian Levant (PROBLEM CHILD 2), but not until six years later, with almost an entirely new cast. According to a 2024 SyFy.com article, Universal wanted to film two sequels back-to-back, but John Goodman didn’t want to do another one. Levant theorized, “I think it came down to one thing: people coming up to him in airports and going ‘Yabba-dabba-doo!’ He didn’t like it.”
So they made it a prequel about the characters entering adulthood, but oddly they didn’t cast people who look that age, so it doesn’t really feel like a good explanation for the recast. These actors are in fact younger, but I’m afraid the main difference between John Goodman at 42 and Mark Addy (JACK FROST) at 36 is not their ages. Addy does fine, and Kristen Johnston (AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME) is pretty good as Wilma (is it weird that she reminded me of Emma Stone here?). Stephen Baldwin (POSSE) is definitely not as good as Rick Moranis at playing Barney, but honestly the problem is mainly just that we know he’s Stephen Baldwin and that they let him have ‘90s hair. I can’t honestly say he’s bad in it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Cumming, Ann-Margret, Brian Levant, Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont, Harvey Korman, Jane Krakowski, Jim Cash, Joan Collins, John Cho, John Taylor, Kristen Johnston, Mark Addy, Stephen Baldwin
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 23 Comments »
Monday, March 30th, 2026
THEY WILL KILL YOU is one of those rare cases where the first time I saw the trailer was the first time I heard of it, and before it was over it had become one of my most anticipated movies. What it conveyed was that Zazie Beetz (GEOSTORM) would play a maid at a hotel that’s run by satanists, they try to sacrifice her, she runs around with a sword chopping them up in spectacular, stylized action scenes. It looked like KILL BILL meets READY OR NOT, and that shorthand does capture some of it. But happily the trailer was also holding back some of the other ingredients in the pot, and they all add up to a fun time at the motion picture house.
Beetz plays Asia Reaves, who ten years ago was on the streets with her little sister Maria (I think there’s a young version whose name I can’t find, but the grown up Maria is Myha’la, BODIES BODIES BODIES). They were running from their abusive father when Asia landed herself in prison. Now she’s out, showing up on a stormy night for a job as a maid at a historic apartment building called The Virgil. I would say this was secretly a sinister place, but they’re pretty open about it – there’s a big pentagram and devil sculptures on the exterior. The characters don’t try to be subtle any more than the movie does. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Litvak, Angus Sampson, Carlos Rafael Rivera, Heather Graham, James Remar, Kirill Sokolov, Myha'la Herrold, Paterson Joseph, Patricia Arquette, Tom Felton, Zazie Beetz
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs, Horror | 7 Comments »
