Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Wednesday, August 18th, 2021
August 14, 1991
THE COMMITMENTS is the story of a wannabe music manager in Dublin convincing his friends (all white) to put together a soul cover band. The conceit is that ’60s soul music is beautiful and “honest,” that working class Dubliners have more in common than they realize with the African-Americans who created this music, and that the novelty of white Irish people pouring their hearts into these beloved songs would be a cute and fun way to celebrate them in the context of a comical underdog story.
This is one of Mrs. Vern’s favorite movies, so I wanted to be open to it, but I definitely rejected the idea at the time, not taking any serious offense or anything but just under the belief that at best white singers can do pretty good soul music. Dusty Springfield was a one off and Amy Winehouse was 9 years old at the time so it just seemed delusional. I imagined some kind of “let’s all clap for these white people pulling off pretty good soul music” story of triumph for people who don’t generally listen to the real thing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Parker, Colm Meaney, soul music, Summer of 1991
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Music | 27 Comments »
Tuesday, August 17th, 2021
You may have thought I was done with the weird dog movies of summer ’91 after the ROVER DANGERFIELD (plus 101 DALMATIANS re-release) review last week, but if so you forgot all about the live action division. August 9, 1991 also saw the release of BINGO, a pretty odd movie about a kid whose family moves, leaving behind a dog he had secretly befriended, E.T. style.
It’s directed by Matthew Robbins, who as a writer contributed to George Lucas’ original THX 1138 short and Spielberg’s SUGARLAND EXPRESS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and as a director gave us CORVETTE SUMMER, DRAGONSLAYER, THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN and *batteries not included. He doesn’t have a credit on the screenplay here – that went to newcomer Jim Strain.
Bingo is a dog who lives with a circus. One day he has to fill in for an injured poodle, but he freezes when he’s supposed to jump through a flaming hoop – a flashback tells us that his mother was killed in a pet store fire. (I sincerely love the shot of puppy Bingo mourning at his mother’s grave [with flowers!] like he’s Bruce Wayne or somebody.) His trainer Steve (Simon Webb, one episode of MacGyver) tries to shoot him, but Bingo escapes because Steve’s Peg-Bundy-looking-wife Ginger (Suzie Plakson, MY STEPMOTHER IS AN ALIEN) at least briefly sympathizes with him, telling him to run away and “Do whatever makes ya happy!
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cindy Williams, David Rasche, dog movies, Glenn Shadix, Jim Strain, Joe Guzaldo, Kurt Fuller, Matthew Robbins, Richard Gibbs, Robert J. Steinmiller Jr., Summer of 1991, Suzie Plakson, Wayne Robson
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Family | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
August 2, 1991
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate watching DOC HOLLYWOOD 30 years later. But jesus christ, this type of movie. Michael J. Fox (CLASS OF 1984) stars as Dr. Benjamin Stone, an arrogant Washington D.C. emergency room doctor who gives it all up to become a plastic surgeon on the other coast. “Okay, question: Beverly Hills, beautiful women and plastic surgery – what do these three things have in common? Me, in less than a week,” he says to another doctor, clearly convinced this is a fuckin cool thing to say. And then he puts on his LEON-style round glasses, gets a bunch of gum and toothpicks to chew on, and hops in his red ’56 Porsche Speedster to head for the 90210.
But on his cross country drive (during which he laughs at how fucking awesome he is when he drives on a shoulder to pass a bunch of traffic) he crashes literally into a white picket fence and is forced to to do community service at a small country hospital in “the Squash capital of the south” on “the buckle of the Bible Belt.” Seems like a pain in the ass at first, but then he Learns a Valuable Life Lesson and/or Discovers What He Really Wants Out of Life. (This story was later remade as Pixar’s CARS and Vanilla Ice’s COOL AS ICE.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barnard Hughes, Bridget Fonda, Daniel Pyne, David Ogden Stiers, Eyde Byrde, Frances Sternhagen, Jeffrey Price, Julie Warner, Michael Caton-Jones, Michael Chapman, Michael J. Fox, Peter S. Seaman, Roberts Blossom, Summer of 1991, Woody Harrelson
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 23 Comments »
Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Before I start one of these retrospectives I research the movies that came out during that summer and put together a schedule. But in the course of doing 1991 I keep stumbling across movies that seem worthy of looking at that I missed because they were limited releases, TV movies or DTV and didn’t show up on any of the release date lists I looked at. So when I realized Adam Rifkin’s THE DARK BACKWARD played on one screen starting July 26, 1991 I thought I should backtrack a little to cover it.
For those not familiar with it, it’s a forcefully weird and uncomfortable comedy that was a favorite of mine in the ‘90s, one of those movies I rented on VHS and made a dub of to show to people who had never heard of it, which was most people. It was Rifkin’s first script ever, written at age 19 after moving to L.A. to try to become a director, made when he was in his mid 20s, and it’s a sense of humor and world view that admittedly appealed to me more when I was closer to that age. But it’s such a distinct and unadulterated vision I can’t help but still kinda love it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Rifkin, Anna Berger, Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Claudia Christian, Danny Dayton, David Silverman, James Caan, Judd Nelson, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rob Lowe, standup, Summer of 1991, Tony Cox, Tony Gardner, Wayne Newton
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 28th, 2021
July 31, 1991
HOT SHOTS! is the story of one Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen, THE ROOKIE, NEVER ON TUESDAY), legendary former jet pilot for The Navy. When Lieutenant Commander Block (Kevin Dunn, BLUE STEEL, MARKED FOR DEATH) tracks down Harley living in a teepee and breathing helium through a pipe, he agrees to return to the S.S. Essess aircraft carrier and join a team for Operation Sleeping Weasel, a mission to blow up a nuclear power plant. But he’ll have to contend with sabotage from high up and his own PTSD about his father causing a crash that resulted in a deadly hunting accident.
Of course not one second of this is done with sincerity, because it’s AIRPLANE! co-director Jim Abrahams doing a parody and/or spoof of the popular IRON EAGLE ripoff TOP GUN with co-writer Pat Proft (POLICE ACADEMY, REAL GENIUS). Abrahams was a writer and executive producer on the first NAKED GUN and then producer on the sequel released earlier in the summer. (Both were co-written by Proft.) This was Abrahams’ followup to WELCOME HOME, ROXY CARMICHAEL, which I don’t think I ever knew was directed by him, and that makes me more curious about that largely forgotten movie seen and thought to be pretty decent by all people of a certain age who felt a certain way about Winona Ryder. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Butler, Brian Thompson, Carey Elwes, Carmen Filpi, Charlie Sheen, homeless, Jeffrey Tambor, Jim Abrahams, Jon Cryer, Kevin Dunn, Kristy Swanson, Lesley Ann Warren, Lloyd Bridges, Mel Brooks, Pat Proft, spoof, Summer of 1991, Teddy Wilson, Valeria Golino, William O'Leary
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 69 Comments »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2021
BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1989) is one of those beloved comedies you take for granted. I hadn’t seen it in 20+ years, so I was kinda afraid it might not hold up. It’s kind of hard to put your finger on why it works so well, and it would be hard to explain why it’s funny if somebody asked. I’m not sure if you had to be there or not.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s a pretty straight forward comical premise: what if a couple of dumb guys got a hold of a time machine and recruited actual historical figures to help with their history test? But for the most part that’s not really what’s funny about it. It’s the particular personalities of the dumb guys, and the reasons they have access to time travel.
Bill S. Preston Esquire (Alex Winter, DEATH WISH 3) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves, THE NIGHT BEFORE) are a Californian version of what we used to call “rockers” and some regions called “heshers” – guys whose lives center around heavy metal and/or hard rock. In the wild you’d expect them to have longer hair and leather jackets, smoke lots of pot and drink lots of beer, but Bill and Ted mostly just idolize Van Halen, talk about “babes,” and laugh at the number 69. They have a band called Wyld Stallyns, which features only the two of them on guitar, an instrument neither of them knows how to play. Still, their worst fear os for the band to be broken up if Ted fails his history test, in which case his dad (Hal Landon Jr., ERASERHEAD), who is a police captain and wears an NRA jacket while off duty, will ship him off to Oats Military Academy in Alaska. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Leong, Alex Winter, Bernie Casey, Boogaloo Shrimp, Chris Matheson, David L. Snyder, David Newman, Diane Franklin, Ed Gale, Ed Solomon, George Carlin, Hal Landon Jr., Jane Wiedlin, Joss Ackland, Keanu Reeves, Kevin Yagher, Kimberley Kates, Oliver Wood, Pam Grier, Peter Hewitt, Pop N' Taco, Rod Loomis, Stephen Herek, Steve Vai, Stevie Salas, Summer of 1991, Terry Camilleri, time travel, weird sequels, William Sadler
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 27 Comments »
Monday, June 28th, 2021
You see, because it’s the second one, but they put a 1/2 on there so it doesn’t make sense. Because why would it be 1/2 unless it was a DVD release with added scenes but they didn’t have DVDs back then. That’s why it’s funny.
June 28, 1991
The Summer of 1991 was a big time for sequels, especially part 2s, so now I will attempt to write something about THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2: THE SMELL OF FEAR. The first sequel to 1988’s smash hit TV-spinoff-from-the-makers-of-AIRPLANE! NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! is another irreverent overload of tongue-in-cheek cop drama silliness where there’s no reason to take anything about the plot (police try to foil a scheme by big oil to replace a scientist pushing a solar energy plan) seriously, and nobody wants to read me just listing some of the jokes that are funny (I like when Jane [Priscilla Presley, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE] is singing “The Way We Were” to herself in the shower and the assassin creeping up on her [Anthony James, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER] is moved to tears and starts to sing along). But maybe for this retrospective we can look at it as a time capsule of some of the things that were thought of and joked about at that period in time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony James, Jerry Zucker, O.J. Simpson, parody, Richard Griffiths, spoof, Summer of 1991
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 62 Comments »
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021
As you may know, I can sometimes be a grump about horror comedies, because I’d rather be watching a horror movie that’s funny than a funny movie that references horror. But here’s a movie that’s on Shudder and has gore in it that is a straight up comedy and I kinda loved it.
The closest I can come to succinctly describing the vibe of PSYCHO GOREMAN is “that movie STAR KID combined with THE TOXIC AVENGER.” Or “WISHMASTER meets POWER RANGERS but a comedy.” Or “THE GUYVER meets SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER.” It’s about two little kids who find an alien artifact called “The Gem of Praxidike” buried in their backyard and then learn that it gives them power over a murderous alien supervillain the opening narration describes as “a nameless evil” and “ruthless being” that “had amassed power beyond measure, and was preparing to strike down all that was good and just in the universe.” He says he’s called “The Arch-Duke of Nightmares,” but Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) think that’s stupid, so they rename him Psycho Goreman, or P.G. for short. And Mimi treats this hateful monster as her personal play thing, making him do silly things and not really caring when he uses his powers to turn people into goo. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Astron-6, Kenneth Welsh, Shudder, Steven Kostanski
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Monster, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 42 Comments »
Monday, June 21st, 2021
According to IMDb, SUBURBAN COMMANDO had a limited release on June 21, 1991, before a wider one in October. Therefore, it is my misfortune to have decided to categorize it as a Summer of ’91 release.
Nah, I’ll be okay, but you will not be surprised to hear that this second Hulk Hogan vehicle from New Line Cinema is even dumber and shittier than NO HOLDS BARRED, and not as entertainingly so since it’s a family comedy instead of a brain damaged underground fighting movie. But I made it through and I know what it is now and at least I was able to see the big screen debut of one of today’s most acclaimed actresses in television and film.
The premise is that you got a bounty hunter guy from a poorly explained, generic bootleg Star Wars rip-off sci-fi universe who lands on earth and lives with a bad movie’s idea of a normal suburban family. ALF with muscles and worse jokes. In the opening you have some cheap looking Star Destroyer knockoff model shots as the great hero (or maybe anti-hero? it’s not really clear) Shep Ramsey (Hulk Hogan, GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH) flies in to save the president (Nick Eldredge, “S.I.D. #1,” Hill Street Blues) from their dollar store Darth Vader, General Suitor (William Ball, one episode of The Streets of San Francisco) who’s just a regular unimpressive dude in a black outfit and cape, no mask. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Burt Kennedy, Christopher Lloyd, David Michael Frank, Elisabeth Moss, Frank A. Cappello, Hulk Hogan, Larry Miller, Laura Mooney, Michael Faustino, Shelley Duvall, Steve Johnson, Summer of 1991
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 29 Comments »
Thursday, June 10th, 2021
THE BONEYARD is a pretty cool little horror movie that according to IMDb was release direct-to-video on June 12, 1991. I’m not sure if that’s right, because that was a Wednesday, but I’m gonna assume it really was a summer of ’91 release. I’d never seen it before, but if I’d known about it when I was a little bit younger than I was in ’91 I definitely would’ve wanted to see it, because the cover has a demonic poodle monster, and for some reason I thought that type of shit was hilarious when I was young. For example, the poodle with the mohawk was half the reason I liked ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK.
That image made me expect a horror comedy, so when the movie started with a very legitimate horror score (by John Lee Whitener [RAGIN’ CAJUN]) I was impressed because it makes it feel pretty serious. And then I slowly realized that it is mostly serious, so those FRIDAY THE 13TH-esque violins are appropriate.
In the opening sequence, veteran homicide detective Jersey Callum (Ed Nelson, who played Harry S. Truman in BRENDA STARR) and a younger partner Gordon (James Eustermann, later the makeup effects coordinator of SPECIES) come to a house looking for someone in regards to an investigation. No one answers so they go inside to look for her. There’s something very authentic and sad about this big, messy house. Not quite full-on hoarder, but garbage bags all over, pans covering every counter, laundry hanging in the kitchen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Corso, Deborah Rose, Ed Nelson, James Cummins, Norman Fell, Phyllis Diller, Summer of 1991, Thanksgiving, Willie Stratford
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Horror | 13 Comments »
