#SatMat Live Tweet double feature for Sat. & Sun., Mar. 26 & 27: PEE-WEE’S BIG HOLIDAY (2016) and MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979)

This weekend for my #SatMat Live Tweet, I’m doing two movies that don’t get me salivating with anticipation, but I feel I must cave to the zeitgeist.

 

First off, at my usual Saturday time slot of 4:30 p.m. EDT, I am hosting Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday. I gave Pee-Wee’s feature filmography a chance 30 years ago, when a friend insisted upon showing Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure to me. At first, I thought I might actually be on to something, as I chortled mightily at the movie’s first 10 minutes. But after that, it got way too disjointed for my taste.

From all accounts, this three-decades-too-late follow-up follows a similar pattern, so I was prepared to ignore it entirely, but it has gotten surprisingly rave reviews. The icing on the cake was a glowing critique from my blogger-friend Salome at BNoirDetour.

So this Saturday, I am throwing the movie out there for whomever wants to bite. If I end up really and truly liking it, I will eat crow and write an appropriately nice review of it the day after at this blog. If you don’t hear from me on Sunday, you have only Salome to blame.

Speaking of Salome, she is generously giving up most of her usual Sunday-night Live Tweet time slot so that I can present Monty Python’s Life of Brian at 9 p.m. EDT.

I must confess that, as much as I have revered the British comedy team of Monty Python for the past four decades, this is not my favorite film of theirs. In its native home of Britain, it’s one of the most acclaimed comedies of all time. But, like Pee-Wee’s initial feature film, I find it a bit disjointed, full of plot points that spring up and wither like so much crabgrass. (Click here to read my complete review of the movie at this blog.)

But there’s nothing Monty Python ever did as a team effort that’s completely without merit, and this movie certainly has its share of hearty laughs. And heaven knows, I can’t resist the irreverence of playing it online at the far end of Easter Sunday.

So I hope you’ll join the #SatMat group for one or both of these wacko comedies at Twitter.com this weekend. And happy Easter!

 

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF BOB & DOUG McKENZIE: STRANGE BREW (1983) – Two Canadian hosers

The following is my entry in the O Canada Blogathon, being hosted Feb. 1-5, 2016 by the blogs Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. Click on the above banner, and read blog entries related to Canadian personalities and subject matter that have contributed to cinema!

There’s no way you can describe the vibe of “SCTV” (TV series, 1977-84) to anyone who wasn’t in on it to start with. It’s like trying to describe how you felt when you saw the original cast of “Saturday Night Live.”

However, for the pop-culture-history-impaired, “SCTV” was set at an imaginary TV station that allowed for wacko “local” characters as well as dead-on parodies of any major film or TV show you’ve ever seen. Since the show was produced in Canada, Canadian TV decided they needed two minutes of Canadian content each week. Thus were born Bob and Doug MacKenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas), two toque-wearing siblings who blathered on about the virtues of beer and back bacon.

“Bob and Doug Mackenzie” were like “SNL’s” “Wayne’s World” in the early 1990’s. The first time I saw them, I completely did not get them. After that, I couldn’t wait for their next appearance.

All that is by way of saying that Strange Brew is about as funny a movie version of the Mackenzie Bros. sketches as you could ask for. The movie begins predictably (and hilariously) with Bob and Doug trying and failing miserably to move their “Great White North” TV segment into feature films. (The moment where Doug does the “movie theme” kills me every time.)

From there, the movie goes on to a half-baked plot about the brothers uncovering espionage at the local brewery (run by Paul Dooley and Ingmar Bergman veteran Max von Sydow, neither of whom seems to have any idea how they got into this movie). Basically, it plays like a Cheech & Chong movie for the 1980’s, with beer taking the place of illicit drugs.

That said, it manages to come up with a fair number of laughs, as when the Mackenzies take brief digs at Star Wars, or when their dog “Hosehead” unexpectedly saves the day at movie’s end.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Mackenzie milieu, the DVD of the movie will help you out. It has an old “SCTV” Mackenzie sketch, as well as a brief but funny animated version of the brothers.

Great comedy can never be properly explained to the uninitiated. On that basis, Strange Brew is a classic.

The Three Stooges in HOLD THAT LION! (1947) – With guest appearances by Curly & the M-G-M lion

The following is my entry in The 1947 Blogathon, co-hosted by the blogs Shadows & Satin and Speakeasy on July 13-15, 2015. Click on the above banner, and read bloggers’ critiques of a variety of movies released in that year!

So this is a 1947 Blogathon? Eh, forty-seven, shmorty-seven! Everybody else can blog about all the prestige Hollywood productions of the year! I’m going to take a little jaunt down Poverty Row and visit…

Hold That Lion! is the 100th of 190 short subjects made by the comedy team The Three Stooges from 1934 to 1959. This short consisted of the second incarnation of the group: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Moe’s real-life brother Shemp (who had replaced their other brother Curly [real name Jerry] after he retired due to an incapacitating stroke). This was Shemp’s third of 76 film appearances as a Stooge. Shemp had originally worked with his brothers on-stage but had bowed out of the act 17 years earlier, returning this time only because Moe felt that The Three Stooges would be finished as an act if he hadn’t.

The movie’s main claim to fame is that it features Curly in a cameo appearance as a snoring passenger on a train. Curly had happened to drop by the set, and director Jules White thought it would be funny to use him for a short bit in the film. Thus, the movie features the only film appearance of (a) Curly with a full head of hair, (b) all three Howard brothers, and (c) all four of The Three Stooges.

As Stooges shorts go, this one isn’t bad. It’s not an all-out laugh riot, but it’s funny enough and has good pacing and production values. It was made just before Columbia started to get all-out cheap with the Stooges shorts by shortening the running times, and using and re-using stock footage as much as possible. (In fact, Hold That Lion! was mined for stock footage for three later Stooges shorts.)

The movie’s plot, such as it is, begins with the Stooges at the office of their attorney (long-time Stooge supporting player Emil Sitka), trying to obtain a huge inheritance to which they are entitled. Unfortunately, the money is in the hands of an underhanded broker named Ichabod Slipp (Kenneth MacDonald). The attorney gives each Stooge a subpoena which they are to serve to Slipp in order to resolve the legal issue. Brilliant attorney, eh?

The Stooges go to Slipp’s office, but he catches on to them fast, knocks them out cold, and absconds with the money. When the Stooges come to, they discover that Slipp is escaping on a train and go after him. Most of the remainder of the film involves a lot of major (fake) fright regarding a caged lion aboard the train that the Stooges accidentally let loose.

If you’re willing to cut the movie some “oh, brother”-type slack, its only real debits are a supposed comic bit where a black porter does a stereotypical eyes-a’-poppin’-’cause-I’m-a-skeered routine when he sees the lion, and a belabored slapstick closing gag involving some eggs. (Eggs and a lion on a passenger train??) Other than that, the short is fairly funny, even if you’re not a die-hard Stooge buff.

“Enough of this popsicle stand! I’m going over to Columbia!”

Of far greater interest in some of the behind-the-scenes trivia. The lion was played by Tanner (above), who served as the on-screen mascot for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1934 to 1956. Reportedly, Shemp Howard was so terrified of Tanner that, in the scene where the Stooges first encounter Tanner in a crate, Howard insisted on a glass plate being placed between the trio and the lion. (If you look closely, you can see the Stooges’ reflection in the glass as they rush out of the crate.) However, Shemp had little to worry about; according to Emil Sitka, Tanner had gotten so sickly in his elder years that he would fall asleep in the middle of a take.

 

IN & OUT (1998) – Coming out was never so funny

After I attended a screening of In & Out, I went to a local pizza joint, where I ran into a woman whom I’d seen at the screening. I asked the woman for her opinion of the movie, and she launched into a diatribe about how Hollywood movies promote homosexuality. That’s kind of sad, because I think the movie isn’t so much about promoting a lifestyle (whatever that means) as being true to yourself.

In & Out is loosely based upon Tom Hanks’s first Oscar acceptance speech, where he thanked a gay drama teacher of his. In real life, the teacher was already out of the proverbial closet. In In & Out, Kevin Kline plays Howard Brackett, a teacher who’s a week away from getting married to a fellow teacher (Joan Cusack). Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), an actor and former student of Brackett’s, blurts out Brackett’s gayness during his own Oscar acceptance speech, turning Brackett into the latest media celebrity.

The movie is probably a gay man’s dream of the perfect “outing.” (The screenwriter, Paul Rudnick, is a gay playwright.) That said, why shouldn’t it happen this way? Everyone in Howard’s life has trouble accepting the news, but in the end, they continue to accept him. Along the way are two riotous scenes: one where Howard listens to a self-help masculinity tape and ends up boogeying the night away, and another where Howard is forced to confront his conscience in the form of a Hollywood TV reporter (Tom Selleck).

The movie starts out as a very fey comedy along the lines of The Birdcage (which, unlike most of America, I despised). But the further along it goes, the better and better it gets. Frank Oz, no slouch in the directing department (Little Shop of Horrors, What About Bob?), finds just the right tone for the movie — not too preachy, not too farcical. Rudnick’s dialogue has the delicious feeling of saying a lot of things that should be said, about homosexuality and other topics.

And what a stellar cast. Cusack and Dillon never make a wrong move. Bob Newhart (as Howard’s flustered principal) and Selleck have probably never been better in a movie. And Kevin Kline’s physicality is put to best use here, particularly in that dance scene. I don’t know how gays and/or uptight types will find his performance, but I found it perfectly believable and wonderful.

You don’t have to agree with the viewpoint of In & Out to enjoy it. Towards the end of the movie, everyone in it “comes out” in one sense or another. The only lifestyle the movie seems to be promoting is honesty. Of course, that makes some people uncomfortable, too.

One can never get enough of Jane Russell, can one?

Here’s a nice start to your weekend — Jane’s opening number from the Bob Hope comedy Son of Paleface. Gotta love that va-va-voom music at the start…