Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Wednesday, June 9th, 2021
June 7, 1991
Of the other Summer of ’91 movies so far, DON’T TELL MOM THE BABYSITTER’S DEAD is most similar to SWITCH. It’s not nearly as high concept or fantastical, but it’s another comedy about a woman (in this case not a man trapped in a woman’s body, but an actual teenage girl) pretending to be an adult in order to work a fancy office job. I think I saw it back in the day but I had no memory of it, and the title and cover with the babysitter’s dead feet sticking out of the lawn had me thinking it was a dark comedy. I was even thinking “Oh shit, Christina Applegate now stars in Dead To Me, which also involves lying about a death and hiding a dead body.” But that’s not really much of a factor here.
(P.S. – She’s absolutely great on that show.)
The titular mom (Concetta Tomei, Max Headroom) goes on vacation to Australia with her boyfriend, and right when she’s leaving reveals to her five kids that she hired the titular elderly babysitter (Eda Reiss Merin, THE BLACK CAULDRON) to stay with them. I guess it’s a long trip, but this is two 17 year old high school graduates, a 14 year old, a 13 year old and an 11 year old – do they really need a full time paid supervisor? In ’91 no, of course not, you just give the kids a key and pizza money. So I guess this movie was ahead of its time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christina Applegate, Christopher Pettiet, Danielle Harris, David Duchovny, Eda Reiss Merin, Jayne Brook, Joanna Cassidy, John Getz, Josh Charles, Keith Coogan, Robert Hy Gorman, Stephen Herek, Summer of 1991, Sydney Lassick
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 49 Comments »
Tuesday, June 8th, 2021
June 7, 1991. Despite the notable release of another odd Spike Lee movie, this week was won by more middle-of-the-road culture. It was the week that the original run of Twin Peaks ended. The #1 and #2 songs on the Billboard charts were “More Than Words” by Extreme and “I Wanna Sex U Up” by Color Me Badd. And the #1 movie was a nice normal comedy about wisecracking Billy Crystal birthing a cow to cope with the boredom of middle aged, middle class existence.
Like JUNGLE FEVER, CITY SLICKERS is about some lives upended and rearranged after a married man has an affair with a subordinate at his workplace. In this case the dude is Phil Berquist (Daniel Stern, C.H.U.D., FRANKENWEENIE), a wet blanket grocery store manager who is very unhappily married to a mean bully (Karla Tamburrelli, “Stewardess [Northeast Plane],” DIE HARD 2) until panicked young clerk Nancy (Yeardley Smith, then in her third season as the voice of Lisa Simpson) finds him outside of work to tell him she thinks she’s pregnant.
“Why is she telling you this?”
The scene goes down at the 39th birthday party of Mitch Robbins (43 year old Billy Crystal, ANIMALYMPICS) and inspires Phil to unleash twelve years of suppressed fury at his wife in front of the Robbins family and all their friends. If this was reality he’d for sure be the bad guy here, but we’ve already been primed to hate how this horrible wife talks to him and feel victory in him telling her off. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Babaloo Mandel, Bill Henderson, Billy Crystal, Bruno Kirby, Daniel Stern, Danielle Harris, David Paymer, Dean Semler, Helen Slater, Jack Palance, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeffrey Tambor, Josh Mostel, Kyle Secor, Lowell Ganz, Marc Shaiman, Noble Willingham, Patricia Wettig, Phill Lewis, Robert Costanzo, Ron Underwood, Summer of 1991, Yeardley Smith
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 30 Comments »
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021
a.k.a. DEADLY FORCE: MISSION BUDAPEST
I’ve been a fan of Milla Jovovich since THE FIFTH ELEMENT, but I think it was when I finally watched her in Paul Whenharrymet Sally Anderson’s THE THREE MUSKETEERS that it occurred to me what a genre icon she’s become playing acrobatic heroes or cool villains in digital age B+ movies like the RESIDENT EVIL series, ULTRAVIOLET and HELLBOY. Then, while researching my review for MONSTER HUNTER, I noticed on IMDb that she’d even had a turn as the American marquee name in a 2019 Chinese-Hungarian movie. Jovovich + crazy international co-production = I want to see that, but it hadn’t made it stateside yet.
Written and directed by Alan Yuen (PRINCESS D, FIRESTORM) with action direction by Stephen Tung Wei (HERO, BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS, KUNG FU KILLER), the original title is 素人特工 (AMATEUR AGENT), but the English V.O.D. title is THE ROOKIES, and last Tuesday Shout! Studios released it on DVD and Blu-Ray as DEADLY FORCE: MISSION BUDAPEST. (Yes, that sounds like a joke title I would use for a fake generic action movie, but that’s real.) Jovovich plays a cool supporting role to a younger Taiwanese and Chinese cast in this comedic spy thriller. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Yuen, Danny Chan, David McInnis, international co-productions, Lam Suet, Milla Jovovich, Sandrine Pinna, spy, Stephen Tung Wai, Timmy Xu, Wang Talu
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Thursday, May 27th, 2021
“Certainly I am a lot to blame for the film but I can’t say the alchemy of it was well balanced. What I have always said about my participation in action films in general is that I like to cut the head off of a rhinoceros and put a giraffe’s head on it. For some people, a rhinoceros with a giraffe’s head on it is interesting and something to look at. ‘Wow, you don’t see that every day!’ Other people will say ‘That is wrong! That is an abomination against nature! Kill it now! Get it out of my sight!’”
—HUDSON HAWK screenwriter Daniel Waters to Money Into Light, 2016
May 24, 1991. Yes, THELMA & LOUISE, BACKDRAFT and HUDSON HAWK were all released on the same day. (Also ONLY THE LONELY and WILD HEARTS CAN’T BE BROKEN.) And cinema was never the same.
I reviewed HUDSON HAWK 11 years ago, and I stand by that review. There are many things about the movie that don’t work, but none of them overshadow how much it makes me laugh or how much I enjoy seeing, as the quote above puts it, “a rhinoceros with a giraffe’s head on it.” So read that review if you’d like to hear more detail, including my theory about its flop status being partly caused by Eddie “Hudson” Hawk being in many ways the opposite of John McClane. But this is so much the type of movie I love to look at in a summer retrospective – an attempted blockbuster, using star power and production value to try to draw normal people into something kinda weird – that I felt I should rewatch it and add further thoughts in the context of the other 1991 releases. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andie MacDowell, Bruce, Bruce Willis, Daniel Waters, Danny Aiello, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael Lehmann, Richard E. Grant, Sandra Bernhard, Steven E. de Souza, Summer of 1991
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime | 62 Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2021
May 10, 1991
Okay, I’m looping back a little here. I initially skipped SWITCH because it didn’t look very fun to me. But as I think about MADONNA: TRUTH OR DARE and a couple of the movies coming up later I’m realizing that changes in the portrayal of women in pop culture will be a major theme of this series, so it seems like a mistake not to look at a movie about a sexist guy waking up in the body of a woman. Also, Bryan in the FX2 comments wrote, “I don’t blame you for not wanting to review SWITCH but I was excited to hear your thoughts about it. It seems it could teach us a lot about 1991.” Good point. So I’m doing it.
SWITCH is late period Blake Edwards. That’s not a period held in high regard by anyone I’ve come across, but I did kind of like BLIND DATE (four years and three movies before this), which got terrible reviews. So you never know.
Steve Brooks (Perry King, CLASS OF 1984, MANDINGO) is “one hell of an advertising man,” which of course means he’s introduced in his office putting golf balls into that thing that business assholes putt into in all ‘80s and ‘90s movies. Then he gets an an unexpected call. Three of his ex-girlfriends, Margo (JoBeth Williams, POLTERGEIST), Liz (Lysette Anthony, KRULL, Bryan Adams videos) and Felicia (Victoria Mahoney, Brewster Place) invite him over for “a surprise party.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Blake Edwards, Bruce Hornsby, Bruce Payne, Catherine Keener, Ellen Barkin, Faith Minton, gender switch, Henry Mancini, Jim J. Bullock, Jim Lovelett, Jimmy Smits, Jobeth Williams, Linda Gary, Lorraine Bracco, Lysette Anthony, Perry King, Summer of 1991, Tea Leoni, Victoria Mahoney
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 35 Comments »
Wednesday, May 19th, 2021
THE PAPER TIGERS is a warm-hearted indie underdog comedy set in the martial arts world. It’s about three former American gung fu (that’s the spelling and pronunciation they use) prodigies now living unremarkable middle aged lives, who reunite after their master is killed. It has a smattering of jokes that are too broad for me, but it takes its characters and its martial arts very seriously, and it’s so full of heart it’s hard not to love. So why fight it?
The goofy thing is I only rented this on VOD because Vyce Victus and Adkins Unleashed’s Michael Scott were separately raving about it on Twitter. Then in the cold open I saw what sure looked like the Smith Tower, and the credits were set to a song by Kid Sensation (beatboxing padawan of Sir Mix-a-Lot), and holy shit, this movie is entirely filmed in Seattle (and nearby Shoreline), how did I not know about it already? I’ll go into some Seattle stuff later, but please accept the praise of the above mentioned as evidence that I’m not just rooting for the local product. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alain Uy, Andy Le, Brian Le, filmed in Seattle, Gui DaSilva-Greene, Jae Suh Park, Ken Quitugua, Kid Sensation, Matthew Page, Mykel Shannon Jenkins, Peter Adrian Sudarso, Phillip Dang, Raymond Ma, Roger Yuan, Ron Yuan, Yoshi Sudarso
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2021
May 17, 1991
If we agree with director Bill Duke that A RAGE IN HARLEM is “no god damn comedy,” then we have now come to Summer 1991’s first actually funny comedy. WHAT ABOUT BOB? is also the first ’91 release we’ve come to that seems arguably too problematicTM to be made now, at least quite like this.
You see, Bill Murray (following SCROOGED, GHOSTBUSTERS II and QUICK CHANGE) plays a person with multiple debilitating psychological disorders who follows his psychiatrist to his vacation home and, as they say, drives him crazy. Of course this is uncomfortable because we know so many horror stories of stalkers – troubled people crossing boundaries with results that are less hilarious and more tragic. But what really feels of-a-different-time is just how much poor Bob Wiley’s struggles are played for laughs. As he squirms and winces while struggling just to step outside of his apartment or touch a doorknob or get on an elevator, the score by Miles Goodman (TEEN WOLF, K-9) makes sure we know that it’s cute and funny. That seems kind of mean, or just off base when I think about how much Bob reminds me of a much less lovable Bob I dealt with for years at my day job. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anne V. Coates, Bill Murray, Charlie Korsmo, Frank Oz, Julie Hagerty, Kathryne Erbe, Michael Ballhaus, Richard Dreyfuss, Roger Bowen, Summer of 1991, Tom Aldredge, Tom Schulman
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 17 Comments »
Monday, May 17th, 2021
May 17, 1991
On this day, Craig R. Baxley’s STONE COLD starring Brian Bosworth opened. It’s genuinely one of my favorite movies, which is why I reviewed it in 2005 and then again in 2007 when it first came to DVD and then again in 2015 when One Perfect Shot published my piece Strictly Bozness: The Fiery Majesty of ‘Stone Cold’. And I admit it would’ve been pretty fuckin cool for me to somehow squeeze yet another piece out of it for this series, but I did not. Instead, please read Strictly Bozness and then we’ll move on to another May 17th, 1991 release that is seriously lacking in motorcycle-on-helicopter violence, among many other failings.
I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but it is a fact that the sequel to MANNEQUIN – part two #2 of Summer 1991 – is called MANNEQUIN: ON THE MOVE. There is no number in the title. The video covers have it as MANNEQUIN 2: ON THE MOVE and the theatrical poster says MANNEQUIN TWO: ON THE MOVE (important for “on the move” to be underlined) and I’m a fan of sequels that spell out their numbering, but I try to stick to on screen titles only. So really the MANNEQUIN franchise saga of properties understood it was the ‘90s and that pretty soon it would be in vogue to drop the numbers and just use subtitles (HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE, ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS, THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK, etc.)
It’s not like a road trip or chase movie or anything, it’s more of a rehash but, do you get it though? It’s ON THE MOVE because mannequins normally don’t move but this one moves so it’s on the move. That’s why it’s a good title.
Note: I did watch the first MANNEQUIN (1987) in preparation for this, did not feel I had a full review’s worth of thoughts on it, and had almost completely forgotten it a week later when I watched this. So forgive me if I mix up any of the Mannequinverse mythos.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kristy Swanson, Meschach Taylor, Stewart Raffill, Summer of 1991, Terry Kiser, William Ragsdale
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
Today in S91: JUDGMENT SUMMER I’m going to time travel slightly into the future for some supplementary material. MEDUSA: DARE TO BE TRUTHFUL was not released during the summer – it first aired on Showtime on December 1st. But seeing as how it was a quick-turnaround parody of one of the important films of the summer it seemed to me worthy for the time capsule as a document of attitudes in the culture at the time.
It’s not really a movie per se, but (thankfully) a 51-minute comedy special for Julie Brown (ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, BLOODY BIRTHDAY), transplanting her ditsy, entitled but well-meaning Valley Girl persona into a parody of Madonna. I was familiar with Brown in the ‘80s from her comedic songs “‘Cause I’m a Blonde” and especially “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun,” where she juxtaposed All-American high school imagery with violence (which seemed edgy in those days), and then from her MTV show Just Say Julie. I had seen her in EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, but didn’t realize that she wrote and produced it based on one of her songs. At this time she had a sketch comedy show on Fox called The Edge, which co-starred Jennifer Aniston, Wayne Knight and Tom Kenny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bobcat Goldthwait, Chris Elliott, Donal Logue, John Fortenberry, Julie Brown, Kathy Griffin, Summer of 1991, Wink Martindale, Zero External Reviews on IMDb
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Music | 8 Comments »
Monday, April 12th, 2021
Back in the late ’90s, being a superfan of the SHRUNKEN HEADS mythos, I was excited for a new Richard Elfman/Matthew Bright joint called MODERN VAMPIRES. I found it disappointing at the time – decadent L.A. vampires are not nearly as weird as flying severed head super heroes, so it didn’t make much of an impression. But since I revisited FORBIDDEN ZONE and SHRUNKEN HEADS in close succession this week I decided to also do this one. Now that it’s old I think it plays a little better as a b-movie piss take on the vampire movies that were being made at the time.
Or is that even what it is? When MODERN VAMPIRES went straight to video in the U.S. it was October of ’99 and the cover had a design style and not-screen-accurate fashion flagrantly copying BLADE, but it had actually premiered before both BLADE and John Carpenter’s VAMPIRES. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had already reclaimed bloodsuckers from Anne Rice, though, so I suppose that’s what they’re playing off of, if anything. Or maybe it’s just West Coast elite NEAR DARK. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brent Briscoe, Cedrick Terrell, Conchata Ferrell, Craig Ferguson, Danny Elfman, Flex Alexander, Gabriel Casseus, Jason Ross-Azikiwe, John Sencio, Kim Cattrall, Matthew Bright, Michael Wandmacher, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Natasha Lyonne, Richard Elfman, Rick Baker, Robert Pastorelli, Roberta Hanley, Rod Steiger, Udo Kier, Van Helsing, Victor Togunde
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews | 8 Comments »
