THINGS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/8/11

 

While one review hails THINGS (1989) as "a movie that defines what 'cult' really is", you'd be quite accurate in saying that this low-budget, straight-to-VHS Canadian gorefest also defines what "100% brain-rotting crap" really is. 

There's no denying that this is one of the worst excuses for a movie ever made.  It's one of those films whose status as either "so bad it's good" or "totally unwatchable dreck" depends entirely upon the charity of the viewer.  That said, though, if you catch it in the right mood--as the film's many fans apparently did--you can have an awful lot of fun watching it.

Shot on Super-8mm by high-school pals Andrew Jordan (co-writer, director) and Barry J. Gillis (co-producer, co-writer, star), THINGS is the story of a man named Doug Drake (Doug Bunston) who seeks medical help when he and his wife Susan are unable to conceive a child.  Unfortunately, Dr. Lucas (Jan W. Pachul) turns out to be a giggling, sadistic psycho who takes time out from torturing people in his dungeon of horror (the torture scenes are amateurish-looking but extreme) to impregnate Susan with a monster fetus.



Later, Doug's brother Don (Gillis) and his friend Fred (Bruce Roach) drop by Doug's secluded cabin in the backwoods of Toronto for an exciting evening of drinking beer and watching TV.  Suddenly, Susan gives birth to a creature that looks like a cross between a chest-burster from ALIEN and a giant cootie.  The thing begins to multiply at an alarming rate until the house is crawling with them, plunging Don, Fred, and Doug into a nightmare of insect insanity and gratuitous gore. 

While all of this sounds exciting, it isn't, and the most interesting thing about the film is the bizarre and illogical behavior of its main characters.  After Susan's horrific death (during which actress Patricia Sadler is unable to suppress a smile whenever she's on camera), Doug's initial grief quickly gives way to lighthearted prankishness and an overall "who cares" attitude, in addition to a concern that his nice shirt has been ruined by Susan's gushing blood.  Don interrupts the somber mood with a gruesome campfire story at the kitchen table, while Fred wonders what kind of cool TV shows are on. 

Characters appear and disappear seemingly at random--we don't even know Doug is in the house with Don and Fred until there's a sudden closeup of his butt, after which he disappears again.  The total lack of basic storytelling skills forces us to decipher what's going on in almost every scene, even down to figuring out whether we're supposed to find certain drawn-out sequences funny, suspenseful, or scary.
 


There seem to be several deliberate attempts at comedy throughout the story, but the serious and funny elements are so equally stupid that it's hard to tell.  I laughed out loud when the dog got killed, and I don't even know why.  Other scenes are equally amusing for unknown reasons, such as the part where Doug and Don are searching the bathroom for bug-monsters and find one perched on the toilet, and then each of them insists on using the bathroom anyway. 

Much of the running time is padded with shots of them wandering around the house with their flashlights, trading goofy dialogue and doing things that don't make sense.  When they finally go down into the basement to change out some fuses, a sudden bug attack results in Don bludgeoning Doug with a club.  More excitement ensues when Fred finds an electric chainsaw and goes commando against the critters while Don wields a power drill as though he were building the world's most insane birdhouse.  The film's most hilarious moment ("I'm still alive!") is followed by a surprise visit from none other than the gleefully insane Dr. Lucas, after which things just go totally whacko until the film abruptly ends. 

THINGS supposedly cost around $40,000 to make, but I can't imagine it costing any more than forty dollars.  A sizable chunk of the budget ($2,500) went to 80s porn goddess Amber Lynn, who consented to appear as a TV news reporter making intermittent appearances throughout the film.  Reading her lines cold from a cue card held way off to the side, Amber doesn't come off too good here.  This is irrelevant, though, since her presence is mainly an excuse to use sexy pictures of her in the advertising.  The film's only nudity comes in the first scene, in which a woman (a real-life hooker who appeared under the condition that her face not be shown) strips naked while wearing a devil mask that makes her resemble a deranged Ed Wood.



The DVD from InterVision is in full-screen with 2.0 sound.  Extras include two commentaries, trailers, Barry J. Gillis TV appearances promoting the film, a cast and crew 20th anniversary reunion, a ten-minute behind-the-scenes look at Amber Lynn filming her scenes, and testimonials for the film including comments by Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) and Jason Eisener (HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN).  After the closing credits crawl there's more candid footage of Amber Lynn and some outtakes.

The first commentary, an audio viewing party with the Cinefamily, is fun, but the cast and crew commentary is a wonderfully raucous affair during which Gillis' daughter, Victoria Elizabeth Turnbull (who also appears in the anniversary segment), mercilessly mocks the film while a growing air of inebriation seems to prevail.

With camerawork and editing that seem to have been performed by blind people and dubbing that might've been done from across the street--not to mention some of the most delightfully atrocious acting of all time--you might think that THINGS was made by people who have never seen a movie before.  As things grow more bizarre and nonsensical, however, the film begins to look more like something made by aliens who have never seen human beings before.

THINGS -- DVD Review by Porfle

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/31/11

 

WRISTCUTTERS (2006) is quirky as hell but doesn't make a big deal about it, and it's this deadpan, matter-of-fact attitude that makes it so irresistible.  Wonderful characters, situations, and bits of business just keep emerging from this low-key comedy as it unwinds. 

As the story begins, Zia (Patrick Fugit, ALMOST FAMOUS, DEAD BIRDS) is slitting his wrists over a girl named Desiree (Leslie Bibb).  The next time we see him he's working in a crappy pizza place called Kamikazee's and sharing a dingy apartment with a foul-tempered Austrian guy.  It turns out that people who commit suicide end up in a world just like this one, except it's even worse.  Everything's falling apart, most of the people are listless and depressed (no surprise there), and it's physically impossible for anyone to smile.  Furthermore, everyone still retains the bodily damage resulting from their chosen methods of suicide. 

When Zia discovers that Desiree also "offed" (the local term for killing oneself) shortly after he did, he sets out to find her along with his new friend Eugene (Shea Whigham, FIRST SNOW, LORDS OF DOGTOWN). Eugene's a Russian guy who lives with his family, who all committed suicide at different times.  Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker named Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon, A KNIGHT'S TALE), who is searching for the people in charge because she believes she's there by mistake due to an unintentional drug overdose.

For awhile, WRISTCUTTERS is a fun road picture with the three of them traveling through the hot, desolate landscape in Eugene's crummy little car.  When they break down, there's a nice scene in a roadside garage where Mark Boone, Jr. (MEMENTO, SE7EN) plays a psychic auto mechanic who diagnoses their trouble by laying hands upon the car.  At one point Zia drops something under the passenger seat and finds that there's a black hole under it, which sucks in all the cassette tapes, sunglasses, and other items that he's continuously fumbling to Eugene's irritation.



Later Mikal almost gets arrested for vandalism--she has a tendency to deface signs that she disagrees with, such as scrawling "unless you want to" under a "No Smoking" sign--until Zia talks the cop out of it.  In this world, the cops all look like bums, restaurants are rundown shacks with the word "FOOD" crudely painted over the door, and there's junk scattered everywhere.  It's an interesting, well-realized environment, and it makes us wonder what the next level of existence must look like to anyone driven to off themselves on this one.

Eventually they encounter a strange man named Kneller (Tom Waits), who presides over a shantytown by the tracks.  Kneller takes in all the aimless wanderers who pass by and offers them a chance to live together in relative happiness (Etger Keret's short story upon which the screenplay is based is entitled "Kneller's Happy Campers").  But just as Zia and Mikal begin to settle in and develop romantic feelings for each other, they discover the presence of a nearby cult led by a would-be messiah (Will Arnett) who promises his fervent followers deliverance from their purgatory.  And his devoted consort is none other than Zia's ex-girlfriend, Desiree.

In a bold move, director Goran Dukic actually keeps his camera still and allows things to happen in front of it without instructing his cinematographer to hop around like his pants were on fire.  Hopefully this revolutionary technique will catch on.  The washed-out hues convey the dreary atmosphere of the present while flashbacks of the real world, where we get to see how various characters happened to snuff themselves, are shot in vivid color. 

The very likable leads compliment the dry tone of the script by giving restrained, semi-realistic performances and not trying to funny things up too much.  Tom Waits is just right as Kneller, proving once again that he's an outstanding character actor.  John Hawkes, the liquor store clerk in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, pops up as one of Kneller's "happy campers", and early on there's a cameo by Jake Busey, an old friend of Zia's who still wants the 200 bucks he owes him even if they're both dead.

It's rare that you see a movie with a premise this odd that doesn't screw it up before it's over.  But WRISTCUTTERS stays the course without once getting too cute or trying too hard to bowl us over with how clever it is.  It feels almost like Tim Burton's BIG FISH with the fairytale cream filling sucked out of it.  And when two of the characters smile at each other right before the fadeout--which, in the context of this story, is a pretty big deal--they had me doing it, too.

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR 50TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR'S EDITION -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

  Originally posted June 12, 2014

 

(THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, perhaps Jerry Lewis' most celebrated comedy, is now available on Blu-ray [as of June 3rd] in a brand-new 50TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR'S EDITION. The set also includes DVDs of THE ERRAND BOY and CINDERFELLA, along with the CD "Phoney Phone Calls 1959-1972.")

Mention Jerry Lewis and you get some extreme reactions, and likely a few remarks along the lines of "Well, the French love him." This is mainly because some of the best French filmmakers, such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard , have recognized and appreciated Jerry's talent, even comparing him favorably with the great screen comedians of yore. But you don't have to be French to do that, as I and many millions of his fans worldwide have found out for ourselves over the years.

With his lavish Technicolor comedy THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1963), writer-director-star Jerry Lewis made his bravest and most wildly imaginative statement as a film comic. This outlandish variation on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"--particularly the film adaptations starring Frederic March and Spencer Tracy--finds him abandoning his familiar child-friendly comic persona of "The Kid" to take on two totally different, and at times even unlikable, personalities.

As college chemistry professor Julius Kelp, he's a gawky, ineffectual uber-nerd bullied by his burly jock students and totally lacking in confidence. This prompts him to create a chemical formula to enhance his personality and physique, turning him (in a frightening transformation sequence) into the handsome, cool, and extremely debonair Buddy Love. In this guise he's able to become popular singing and playing piano for the young crowd at a local nightclub while wooing a gorgeous student, Stella Purdy (an incandescently beautiful Stella Stevens), with whom Kelp is smitten.

The trouble is, Kelp's a nice guy and Buddy Love is arrogant, vain, and insensitive. There's been much speculation over the years as to whom Lewis based the character on--is he former partner Dean Martin, or is he Lewis' own dark side? (Or, as some believe, Frank Sinatra?) Jerry himself says Buddy is simply a combination of bad traits he's seen in several showbiz types. The important thing is, however, that his performance as Buddy is so fascinating to watch, especially when brief flashes of Kelp show through whenever the formula begins to wear off.

While Lewis is definitely "saying something" about human nature here, what has always drawn me to THE NUTTY PROFESSOR are his hilarious antics as the supremely geeky Professor Julius Kelp. This, in my opinion, is his greatest comic creation, one which he would reprise in later films such as THE BIG MOUTH and THE FAMILY JEWELS.

He is most similar to the great silent comics when performing his imaginative sight gags (while working out in a gym, a heavy barbell stretches his arms all the way to the floor) but his use of sound is also brilliant. In one scene, while Kelp is sneaking into the university lab at night to continue his experiments, he removes his squeaky shoes only to discover that it is his feet which are squeaking. In another sequence, Kelp suffers the hangover from one of Buddy's drinking binges as every tiny sound in his classroom--chalk on a blackboard, gum-chewing, water dripping--is amplified to gargantuan proportions.

Besides Lewis and Stevens, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR is brimming with Lewis stock company members and other familiar faces such as Kathleen Freeman, Del Moore (hilarious as the harried college dean Dr. Warfield), the great Howard Morris (who, in a nightmarish flashback, plays Kelp's horribly henpecked father), Norm Alden, and Buddy Lester, whose performance as a bartender encountering the abrasive Buddy Love gives the film one of its most memorable comedy bits. (Lester would also score big laughs in Lewis' other truly great film THE LADIES' MAN.)

 If you look quick, you'll catch Gavin Gordon of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (in the p.o.v. introduction to Buddy Love which Lewis copped from the Frederic March version), Francine York, "Laugh-In" castmember Henry Gibson, and a young Richard "Jaws" Kiel.

The story comes to a head when Kelp is enlisted to serve as a chaperone at the senior prom where Buddy has been hired to perform. Here, Lewis stages his most daring and emotional scene yet (with some Oscar-worthy acting), skirting the boundaries of bathos without going over (which he has been known to do frequently). It's the perfect and ultimately quite cathartic capper for THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, Lewis' greatest film. Others may cringe at the sound of his name, but I consider Jerry a national treasure--no matter what nation one might happen to live in.

--------------------------

Also included in this collection are two more Lewis solo comedies on separate DVDs, THE ERRAND BOY and CINDERFELLA. THE ERRAND BOY (1961) recalls the previous year's THE BELLBOY in that we find writer-director-star Jerry shooting a low-budget black-and-white feature which is simply a plotless series of gags set in one location (in THE BELLBOY it was a busy Miami Beach hotel, while this takes place in and around a bustling movie studio).

There's a semblance of plot involving studio head Brian Donlevy and his obsequious toady, played with verve by Howard McNear (Floyd the barber from "The Andy Griffith Show") but it's just an excuse to give Lewis the run of the place once again, packing each scene with as many imaginative gags as he can devisewith a cast that also includes Stanley "Cyrano Jones" Adams, Kathleen Freeman, Doodles Weaver, Sig Ruman, Fritz Feld, Iris Adrian, and some surprise guest stars.

Much of it is as laugh-out-loud funny as you'd expect, while the rest is rather hit-and-miss. Jerry, of course, disrupts the orderly filmmaking process at every turn, at one point dubbing his own ear-splitting vocals into a lovely young actress' song interlude and elsewhere attempting to eat a quiet sidewalk lunch on the set of a war film.

The usual bathos occurs when the errand boy befriends some cute little puppets which come to life for him in a dusty storeroom--it's in these moments that Lewis tries too hard to be charming when we really want him to keep making with the funny. This he does in one of his most celebrated sequences, in which he pretends to be the chairman of the board non-verbally chewing out his underlings while broadly pantomiming the instruments in a blaring big band tune. For this scene alone THE ERRAND BOY is well worth a look for Lewis fans, but it has much more to offer as well.

1960's CINDERFELLA, as you might guess, is a gender-reversed take on the famous fairytale "Cinderella" with Jerry as the gentle soul ("Fella") harrassed by a wicked stepmother out to steal his inheritence (Dame Judith Anderson, giving the film much added class) and two hateful stepbrothers played wonderfully by exploitation film mainstay Henry Silva and Robert Hutton of THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY and THE SLIME PEOPLE.

When Dame Judith hosts a ball for a visiting princess (cute Anna Maria Alberghetti), Fella's fairy godfather Ed Wynn makes it possible for him to attend and steal the young girl's heart. The ball sequence is best known for Jerry's amazing first-take dance down the massive staircase and also includes some genuinely charming choreography as he and the princess enjoy a spirited dance together.

(There seems to be a scene missing before this, however, since we never see his goldfish being turned into a chauffeur or his bicycle into a limosine, or find out why he must flee the ball at the stroke of midnight, leaving behind one of his Italian loafers.)

Much of the rest of CINDERFELLA is of the "charming" variety, yet there's plenty of the old Lewis hilarity to enjoy as well. The film is directed by Frank Tashlin (of the superb Martin and Lewis hit ARTISTS AND MODELS as well as other of Jerry's solo ventures) and thus we get to see where some of Jerry's own directorial influences came from.

There's another musical pantomime bit, and one great sequence which has Fella trying to eat his own supper at the end of a mile-long dinner table while also scrambling to serve as waiter for his stepmother and stepbrothers. The sets and costumes are opulent, and, like THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, CINDERFELLA is in dazzling Technicolor.

Finally, this collection comes with a CD entitled "Phoney Phone Calls 1959-1972", which finds Jerry displaying his unparalleled talent for prank phone calls years before The Jerky Boys came along. Some of the gags are a little flat, but several are screamingly funny. In "The Lost Watch", he answers an ad from a woman searching for a misplaced heirloom and by the end of the track almost has her believing that it's his ad and that she called him.

One phone gag was recorded live during an appearance on "The Steve Allen Show" with an appreciative audience reaction. But it's the final cut, "Bill Lynch", in which Jerry pretends to be his own thick-headed private secretary while thoroughly exasperating some hapless guy calling for a favor, which had me almost breathless with laughter.

All three films in this collection feature some wonderfully warm and chummy (and sometimes even informative) commentary tracks with Jerry and his old pal, singer Steve Lawrence. For THE ERRAND BOY, commentary is included for selected scenes only, along with bloopers, promo spots, and theatrical trailer. CINDERFELLA comes with bloopers as well.

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR Blu-ray is packed with extras, including:
•Jerry Lewis: No Apologies NEW! An intimate look at the artist who has entertained and educated audiences for more than eight decades

•Directors Letter NEW! A letter specially written by Jerry to present this new collection

•Recreated "Being A Person" book: 96-pages made up of drawings and quotes inspired/written by Jerry Lewis and drawn by his personal illustrator. 250 copies of this book were originally made and distributed to members of the cast and crew of The Nutty Professor after the director heard of general conflicts among them.

•CD: Phoney Phone calls 1959-1972: Years before the Jerky Boys were harassing unwitting shop clerks, housewives and businessmen, Lewis perfected the art, as these recordings show. Released in 2001 on the Sin-Drome label, this is a collection of private prank calls secretly recorded by Jerry Lewis over the years.

•48-Page Storyboard Book

•44-Page Cutting Script with Jerry’s notes

•Commentary by Jerry Lewis and Steve Lawrence

•The Nutty Professor: Perfecting The Formula Behind-The-Scenes Footage

•Jerry Lewis at Work

•Jerry at Movieland Wax Museum with commentary by son Chris Lewis

•Deleted Scenes

•Jerry and Stella Promos

•Bloopers

•Screen Tests

•Outtakes

•Original Mono Track

•Trailers

(Pictures shown are not stills from the actual discs.)

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WB update: Warner Bros. and Jerry Lewis celebrated the 50th Anniversary of The Nutty Professor this past week in New York. Jerry Lewis, the consummate entertainer, world-renowned humanitarian, cultural icon and motion-picture innovator was celebrated in an entertaining laugh-filled tribute by his friends and peers. In attendance were Jerry Lewis, Brett Ratner, Larry King, Richard Belzer, Kerry Keagan, Danny Aiello, Ed Norton, Russell Simmons, Rosario Dawson, Dominic Chianese, Ron Raines and more.

The event took place in honor of the Blu-ray release of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR 50th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION which Lewis personally supervised, helping to compile loads of entertaining extra content for the release.

Event Sizzle Reel
  

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR 50TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR'S EDITION -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

OPERATION: ENDGAME -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/21/10

 

A fast-moving cloak-and-dagger action flick that's smart and funny, OPERATION: ENDGAME is adrenaline-fueled fun from start to finish.

The whole thing takes place in the secret subterranean headquarters of a hush-hush black ops group known as The Factory, where two teams, Alpha and Omega, keep each other tenuously in check while performing dirty deeds for the government.  Each member is code-named for a tarot card, and it's The Fool's (Joe Anderson, THE CRAZIES) first day on the job.  The nervous new guy is given a tour of the facility by a drunken, foulmouthed burnout named Chariot (Rob Corddry, BLADES OF GLORY) and the hot but deadly High Priestess (Maggie Q, LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD), finding it to be like a cross between "Get Smart" and "Office Space."

But The Fool soon discovers that his first day will be anything but typical when their mentally-unbalanced, suicidal leader, The Devil (Jeffrey Tambor), unexpectedly sets "Operation: Endgame" into motion.  This means that the complex is sealed off and will explode in about two hours, and that the two teams will now try to kill each other while searching for a hidden exit known only by their late boss and a spooky lone agent named The Hermit (Zach Galifianakis).  Things become even more complicated when The Fool encounters an opposing team member named Temperance (Odette Yustman) who happens to be an old girlfriend.

What follows is an exciting, often amusing series of surprisingly bloody death matches between various agents.  We never know who's going to be paired off against each other next since there are so many unknown agendas involved in "Operation: Endgame" and some of the more psychotic participants, such as sweet-looking Bible thumper Heirophant (Emilie de Ravin), have a survival instinct that is matched only by their bloodlust.  (When we first see Heirophant, she's sitting in her cubicle scribbling "I love killing" repeatedly on a notepad.) 

Some of the fight scenes are reminscent of the Bond vs. Grant train sequence in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE while others are just a bloody mess with the unarmed agents flailing away with whatever office supplies or other sundry items they can creatively use as weapons.  Meanwhile, Michael Hitchcock and Tim Bagley play Neal and Carl, two mild-mannered, befuddled office drones who man the surveillance center and watch what's happening as though it were a reality TV show. 

One-liners and droll character gags abound--Jeffrey Tambor ("Arrested Development", "The Larry Sanders Show") is especially good as he wearily trades snide insults with his uppity underlings.  As the sardonic "Empress", Ellen Barkin continues in the "Rosa Klebb" mode she displayed in BROOKLYN'S FINEST but with more sex appeal and a wicked sadistic streak.  Clearly having fun without straining himself too much, Ving Rhames plays "Judgement", a bomb expert who never passes up a pun on his codename ("It's judgement time, baby").  The rest of the cast is fine, with Bob Odenkirk ("Mr. Show") his usual wonderful self as "Emperor" and Joe Anderson's semi-heroic rookie agent convincingly clueless about the whole thing.
 

Exposition flies by early on so you might want to keep your finger on the rewind button until you get all the details straight, although they don't really matter that much.  It all has something to do with the transition of power from Bush to Obama, with the evil Bushies scrambling to cover up their covert misdeeds before the honest and open Obama administration sheds its heavenly light upon them and cleans up Washington.  (As Michael Corleone once said:  "Now who's being naive?")  Anyway, the "Bush bad, Obama good" campaign-commercial vibe gets old pretty quick, but unless this appeals to you, just ignore it and you should be okay.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 with English and Spanish subtitles.  Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette plus alternate opening and ending scenes.

OPERATION: ENDGAME is an imaginative blend of laughs and thrills that takes itself just seriously enough to maintain genuine suspense. Watching this colorful array of deadly eccentrics going at each other tooth and nail as the countdown to obliteration ticks away makes for a pretty entertaining action-comedy flick.  

OPERATION: ENDGAME -- DVD Review by Porfle

SUNSHINE CLEANING -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/9/09

 

From the looks of it, I thought this was going to be some sappy lightweight comedy or something, but it turned out to be right up my alley. Why? Because I'm a little twisted, and so is SUNSHINE CLEANING (2008), a cockeyed but wonderfully emotional comedy-drama about two sisters who find themselves in the business of cleaning up blood-splattered death scenes.

Amy Adams is dazzling as Rose Lorkowski, a former head cheerleader and prom queen who now runs a cleaning service while trying to cope with her intelligent but difficult son, Oliver (Jason Spevack), and flighty, irresponsible little sister Norah (Emily Blunt), whom she had to help raise after their mother's death. Rose is still "dating" former high school quarterback Mac (Steve Zahn), now a cop, even though he's married and has a second child on the way. When Oliver is expelled from school for "licking", Rose must think of a way to earn enough to afford to send him to a private school. Mac suggests, during one of their illicit motel room trysts, that she try the lucrative world of crime and trauma scene cleanup.

The funniest scenes occur as novices Rose and Norah bumble their way through their first jobs in this bloody and often downright disgusting profession. They scrape gore off the walls with toothbrushes and kitchen cleaner, toss bio-hazardous materials into dumpsters, and more often than not have to clean up their own barf along with everything else. Gradually, though, with the friendly guidance of Winston (Clifton Collins Jr., TRAFFIC), a one-armed model builder who runs the store where they buy their supplies, they start to get a tad more professional.

They also begin, inadvertently, to get more personally involved with the survivors. Rose sits with a suddenly-widowed elderly woman outside her home and comforts her until someone comes to pick her up. Norah, discovering a ribbon-bound stack of old photographs at the scene of a woman's suicide, tracks down her daughter Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub, "Mr. Show") who works at a blood bank. This leads to a tentative lesbian relationship as the two troubled women reach out to one another, discovering an emotional common ground that draws them together.

Of course, just when the sisters think they've found the magic key to post-mortem success, things start to go wrong. Rose finally makes the amazing deduction that her relationship with Mac is a dead-end and that she may very well officially be a failure in life. Norah finally gives Lynn those photographs and reveals the reason for their first meeting, and Lynn doesn't take it well. Worst of all, something disastrous happens on the job (it's Norah's fault, of course) which threatens to ruin them both on a financial and personal level. But while all of this stuff is going wrong, other things are starting to go right in ways that aren't as immediately evident.

Director Christine Jeffs makes the most of Megan Holley's well-written screenplay with a lean style and a crackling pace that doesn't let up. The film's tone remains consistent throughout, even when the comedy gives way to some pretty dramatic and emotional scenes. Jeffs has a light, naturalistic touch that keeps the heavier stuff from getting as maudlin as it might have been in other hands--both the small tragedies and the life-affirming triumphs are just parts of the story's texture as they would be in real life.

The cast is so good that their characters come alive. Jason Spevack as the inquisitive, introspective Oscar is one of those spooky-good child actors who can hold his own with an old veteran like the great Alan Arkin, who plays Rose and Norah's enterprising dad, or Clifton Collins Jr. as the likable and dependable Winston. Steve Zahn plays Mac with an air of detachment suitable to his character, who will never commit to Rose. Making brief appearances are the wonderful Paul Dooley as a used car salesman and Robert Redford's daughter Amy as Mac's pregnant wife. As Lynn, Mary Lynn Rajskub has that same quirky, hesitant quality that she always brought to her comedy roles and it works well here. Amy Adams does a brilliant job of fully inhabiting the character of Rose and it's fascinating just to watch her use that expressive face so well. Emily Blunt is equally good as Norah, gradually revealing the scared little lost girl beneath the gangly, clumsy exterior.

The DVD image and Dolby 5.1 surround sound are good. The movie can be watched in either 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen or full frame. Bonus features include a commentary track with writer Megan Holley and producer Glenn Williamson, a cool featurette called "A Fresh Look at a Dirty Business"--in which two women who actually do this for a living talk about their profession and how well the film portrays it--and a theatrical trailer.

I judged this DVD by its cover and thought it was going to be just another chick-and-wimp flick. But when it opened with a gory shotgun suicide in a sporting goods store, I was forced to readjust my expectations. And when it took the interesting turn of exploring who has to clean up after such an event and what the job must be like for them, I was hooked. I would recommend SUNSHINE CLEANING to anyone, because it isn't just a silly comedy, a sappy melodrama, or a life-affirming feelgood fix. Well, it is life-affirming, but, in a weird way, it's also death-affirming. Does that make sense?

SUNSHINE CLEANING -- DVD Review by Porfle

DIRTY GIRL -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 1/5/12

 

 

Partway into DIRTY GIRL (2010), the movie suddenly turns from what appears to be a teen sex comedy into a weird mishmash of campy cutesiness and mawkish melodrama.  Writer-director Abe Sylvia calls this a "bait-and-switch", but why would he want to bait the wrong audience into watching the movie while the right audience avoids it?

Anyway, it's smalltown Oklahoma in 1987, and behavioral problems get school slut Danielle (Juno Temple) stuck into the "slow" class where she's partnered with overweight gay outcast Clarke (Jeremy Dozier, who resembles a pudgy young James Hampton) in a parenting exercise that requires them to treat a sack of flour as their baby.  Since they're both outsiders with unhappy home lives, we know they'll bond sooner or later, although just how sappily they do so comes as a bit of a surprise.

Mary Steenburgen and Dwight Yoakam play Clarke's parents, and since all three actors are from the South we at least get some regional authenticity.  Dwight gets to be Doyle Hargraves from SLING BLADE again only this time with an official family, whom he intimidates with the standard macho bluster while Mom cowers and secretly supports her 65% gay son (in one of the film's funnier lines, Clarke tells Danielle: "My therapist showed me this chart that says I'm 35 percent hetero.  And if I can get that up to 60 percent, my parents won't send me to military school.")  We know Clarke's mom sympathizes with him because she bobs her head when he plays "I Want Candy" in his bedroom.

 

Meanwhile, Danielle's struggling single mom Sue-Ann (Milla Jovovitch), whom we know is a faded rose because "Delta Dawn" pops onto the film's jukebox when she's first shown, has hooked up with widower Ray (the great William H. Macy).  The prospect of a blended family with this straitlaced Mormon and his two creepy kids horrifies Danielle to the point of fleeing her home in search of her real father who disappeared before she was born.  Since the now openly-gay Clarke is avoiding his increasingly hostile dad, the two of them set off in Dwight's prized car for California, suddenly turning DIRTY GIRL into a road-trip movie. 

So far, the movie has abandoned its teen sex comedy premise (the closest we get to seeing Danielle being an actual "dirty girl" is when her car shakes in the parking lot and then she emerges post-coital from it, immaculate and sassy) along with any comedic developments we might've looked forward to regarding Danielle and Clarke's school situation and Danielle's prickly relationship with Macy and his family (Macy, in fact, disappears from the film at this point).  What we get is that coming-of-age bonding between the two runaways and their flour-sack baby, Joan, who ups the film's cuteness factor by acquiring the ability to change her drawn-on expressions in reaction to the moods of her adoptive "parents." 

We're also treated to an increasing number of by-the-numbers emotional moments that are inserted here and there with the appropriate soundtrack songs sparing the script the effort of letting us know how we're supposed to feel.  In fact, all of the film's emotional cues are delivered with songs, to the point where it seems there's a DJ somewhere spinning a different platter for each scene for our emotions to dance to.  Naturally, this includes the obligatory scenes of Danielle and Clarke bopping to uptempo tunes as they cruise down the highway, or crying while Melissa Manchester's lyrics tell us what they're feeling.

 

Drive-by romance enters the picture in the form of a handsome hitchhiker named Joel (Nicholas D'Agosto) who sets Clarke's heart aflutter, while the comedy takes a creepier turn when Clarke enters a striptease contest in a gay bar to earn some cash.  By the time he and Danielle reach California, however, the film has gone full-out maudlin, with enough precious and totally unrealistic emotional moments (each fueled by that relentless succession of treacly songs) to make the whole thing feel like an R-rated Afterschool Special. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay and the Weinsteins is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Bonuses consist of a director's commentary and some deleted and extended scenes.

The final "Partridge Family" ending left me almost literally agog, amazed that director Sylvia actually intended for it to be taken seriously rather than as some kind of deadpan homage to John Waters.  In a way, it's screamingly funny, or at least so cringeworthy that you can't help but laugh with discomfort.  Maybe, because of this, DIRTY GIRL will eventually become some kind of perverse cult film, but taken at face value it's just a really odd sort of artifact.

DIRTY GIRL -- DVD Review by Porfle

DROP DEAD SEXY -- Movie Review by Porfle

(Originally posted at Bumscorner.com in 2005) 

 

Seeing the front cover picture for DROP DEAD SEXY (2005), which shows Crispin Glover and Jason Lee lugging the dead body of a beautiful blonde, I immediately thought "Weekend At Bernadette's." But this isn't about two guys trying to pass off a corpse as alive--the writers were actually able to come up with something a little different, thank goodness, and for the most part, it's pretty entertaining.

Lee and Glover star as Frank and Eddie, two dumb 'n' dumber Texas boys who try to earn some extra cash on the side by performing certain illegal tasks for a corpulent strip-club owner named Spider (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who gives new meaning to the term "shifty-eyed." 

Frank works for a used car dealer named Big Tex (Burton Gilliam), dancing around in the street in a cowboy outfit with a big cartoony head, while Eddie makes his living as a gravedigger (or "subterranean architect" as he likes to put it, proudly proclaiming: "People spend the rest of their lives in my holes!") 

Their latest task for Spider is to drive a pickup full of bootleg cigarettes to Mexico to sell them, with the promise of ten percent of the take. Spider tells Frank that he'll kill them if they mess things up, which is no problem until Frank stops in the middle of nowhere to take a leak and the truck explodes, destroying all $250,000 worth of Spider's cigarettes.


They decide to hide out for a while at Frank's boyhood home, where they find his mother, Ma Muzzy (Lin Shaye--she's the one who made you want to throw up in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and KINGPIN) stuffing her beaver--she's an taxidermist. Later, while scanning the newspaper, Frank notices an obituary for Crystal, the recently-deceased young wife of the town's richest man, Tom Harkness (Xander Berkeley, who played the milk-drinking stepdad in T2), and the picture shows her wearing a hugely expensive-looking necklace. Eddie recalls seeing her wearing it right before he buried her, and suddenly a lightbulb goes off in Frank's head--all they have to do is dig her up, grab the necklace, fence it, and pay back Spider, keeping whatever's left over for themselves. ("What if she's not dead?" Eddie worries.) Easy, right? 

Wrong, because she isn't wearing the necklace, and when the night watchman shows up before they can re-bury her, they end up having to take her with them back to Frank's house, which will be a direct violation of Ma Muzzy's rule against having girls in their room.

This, of course, is where the main complications of the story commence, especially when Frank hatches a new plan to ransom Crystal's body back to her wealthy husband. Meanwhile, Eddie is becoming a bit too infatuated with the beautiful dead woman lying on his bed, and for a few brief moments we get the idea that this movie is going to head off into some really weird directions. Fortunately, though, Eddie's interest remains platonic, and when he finally recognizes her as one of his favorite strippers at a club called "The Mean-Eyed Pussy Cat", the boys begin to investigate her past. 

This is where DROP DEAD SEXY stops being a total farce and morphs into a murder mystery. Eddie's pal, the coroner (Brad Dourif) informs them that Crystal had swimming pool water, not lake water, in her lungs when she was examined, but that the police didn't follow this up. Frank and Eddie suspect the husband of murder and hatch a plan to bring him to justice while ripping him off at the same time. What follows is still pretty funny but a lot of attention is paid to this increasingly complicated plot, which I didn't mind since it's pretty well handled and supplies a few nice surprises, and leads up to a cool shootout at the end. And the lead actors are so good in their roles that when the movie changes tone somewhat, they don't miss a beat.


The best thing about DROP DEAD SEXY, in fact, is the comedy team of Jason Lee and Crispin Glover. Lee displays a great "Bud Abbott" straight-man style here, but he's a lot funnier--he's forever impressed with his own brilliance even as everything he does backfires, and his reactions to the constant stupidity of his partner are often priceless. Crispin Glover, as usual, seems to have just dropped in from another planet. I find him fascinating to watch in whatever he does, and his deadpan portrayal of a laconic, hypersensitive, terminally-confused Texas boy is a wonder to behold and manages somehow to be restrained and over-the-top at the same time. I love the scene where Frank and Eddie visit the coroner, because it gives us a chance to see two of Hollywood's finest oddballs, Crispin Glover and Brad Dourif, trading dialogue over the dead body of a beautiful naked woman who, oddly enough, is holding a glass of white wine, while Jason Lee looks on in utter consternation. (You just knew there had to be some necrophilia in this movie, right?)

DROP DEAD SEXY -- Movie Review by Porfle

BATMAN: THE MOVIE (1966) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/31/09

  

I remember when Bat-mania hit. When the Adam West TV series premiered, millions of kids were glued to their sets. We thrilled to the colorful adventures of the Caped Crusaders, Batman and Robin, as they fought to keep flamboyant foes such as Joker, Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman from terrorizing the good citizens of Gotham City. It was like seeing the old Bob Kane comics brought to life, and we all went batty over it. In no time the Batman logo was all over T-shirts, lunch boxes, bubblegum cards--you name it. It was cooler than cool.

We didn't know it was a comedy. Most of our parents and older siblings didn't either--they just thought it was the silliest, stupidest thing they'd ever seen, and as we sat there watching each episode in Bat-ecstacy while the older folks poured on the derision, the jokes just went zooming like Batarangs right over all our heads. As I got a little older, I finally started to catch on to how dumb it was myself. But it wasn't till much later, when the Tim Burton movie prompted a lot of local stations to start showing reruns, that it finally dawned on me that "Batman" was one of the most deliriously funny comedies to ever hit the airwaves.

Meanwhile, back in my childhood...the show had been on for one season when word hit the playground that there was gonna be a movie. HOLY HOLLYWOOD, Batman! The local theater was packed to the gills with screaming kids on a Saturday morning back in '66 when BATMAN:THE MOVIE lit the place up. 

We sat in awe as our formerly TV-sized heroes went widescreen with bigger adventures, a bevy of bad guys, and better Bat-gadgets such as the Batcycle, the Batboat and the Batcopter, in addition to the already-awesome Batmobile. 

What we didn't realize at the time was that the movie was just as dumb as the TV series--maybe even dumber! Along with the POW!, WHAM!, and THUD! graphics that "Batman" was famous for, there might as well have been a giant ZOOM! above our heads as the jokes continued to sail right over them.

Back in the Batcave--that is, my livingroom, present day--I can now enjoy BATMAN:THE MOVIE as the wonderfully funny spoof that it is. Adam West as the wise, mysterious, somber Batman and Burt Ward as his earnest, straight-arrow yet boyishly-impetuous sidekick Robin are almost painfully deadpan. 

They take their responsibility as the Dynamic Duo, tireless protectors of Gotham City, with utmost seriousness, and they totally crack me up as they swoosh down their Batpoles, leap into the Batmobile, and Bat-a-pult into action against the nefarious foes of all that is decent.

Their dialogue is often hilarious, as in this Batcave think-session which features them trying to decipher two of the Riddler's fiendishly clever brain-teasers:

BATMAN: "Listen to these riddles, Robin...tell me if you interpret them as I do. One: what has yellow skin and writes?"
ROBIN: (after a moment's reflection) "A ballpoint banana!"
BATMAN: "Right! Two: what people are always in a hurry?"
ROBIN: "Rushing...people...Russians!"
BATMAN: "Right again. Now what would you say they mean?"
ROBIN: "Banana...Russian...I've got it! Someone Russian is going to slip on a banana peel and break their neck!"
BATMAN: "Precisely, Robin! The only...possible...meaning!"

Giving Batman and Robin a run for their money in the deadpan humor department is Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon. To him, each new outbreak of villainy is the gravest catastrophe and would spell certain doom for Gotham City save for the intervention of the Caped Crusaders. His constantly apprehensive expression and dead-serious line delivery are perfect. 

When it appears that Gotham's most foul enemies have become partners in crime, he's utterly crestfallen. "Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and now, Catwoman..." the commissioner solemnly intones. "The sum of the angles of that rectangle is too monstrous to contemplate!"

The bad guys, on the other hand, get to have all the fun. Back then, everyone wanted to play a super-foe on "Batman"--even Frank Sinatra tried to land a role--and people who hated or didn't "get" the show were astonished by the list of big-name guest stars lining up to be on it. Here, Latin romantic star Cesar Romero plays the treacherous trickster, the Joker, his trademark moustache covered in white greasepaint (he refused to shave it off!) 

Distinguished actor Burgess Meredith is delightful as the foul-feathered fiend, the Penguin, while well-known actor and impressionist Frank Gorshin goes nuts as the Riddler. Julie Newmar, who was busy filming something else at the time, is replaced here by the equally statuesque Lee Meriwether as the felonious feline, Catwoman. The scenes with all four of them together in their secret waterfront lair or in Penguin's submarine are sparked with manic intensity and unrestrained nuttiness as these actors get to ham it up without any of the usual restraints.

There's a story floating around somewhere, but it isn't really important. The villains kidnap a guy named Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny) in order to obtain his new invention that dehydrates people into powder so they can make off with a group of United World ambassadors and somehow end up ruling the world. Who cares? It's all just an excuse to have fun.

Highlights include: Batman on a rope ladder below the Batcopter with a rubber shark hanging from his leg ("Robin! Hand me down the Shark-Repellent Batspray!"); Batman scrambing all over the waterfront trying to find a safe place to discard a huge bomb he's carrying, but surrounded by nuns, mothers with baby carriages, and baby ducks ("Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!"); Batman scolding a Pentagon offical over the phone for selling a war surplus pre-atomic submarine to a Mr. "P.N. Guinn", who didn't even leave his full address; and a long sequence involving Batman's alter ego, millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, on a date with a Russian reporter named Miss Kitka, who is really Catwoman. 

Bruce becomes deliriously smitten with the lovely Miss Kitka, and the screen practically drips with romantic cliches that are played so relentlessly straight by Adam West that the result is almost excruciating.

Of course, since the TV series always featured a nail-biting cliffhanger every week, the movie is filled with certain-death situations for Batman and Robin. We also get to see the famous Bat-climb, and we're finally shown how Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson, always leap onto the Batpoles in their street clothes but end up at the bottom in full costume. ("An instant costume-change lever!" I remember thinking as a kid. "So that's how they do it!")

On the downside, the movie gets a bit draggy in spots, and the ending isn't exactly what I'd call a big pay-off. I've always been disappointed by the opening titles as well--no supercool "Batman Theme", no cartoon Batman and Robin POW-ing their way through a horde of evildoers. There's even a lame-joke foreword that betrays the mock seriousness of the whole concept. But most of the time, BATMAN:THE MOVIE is a colorful rush of nostalgic fun that raises pure, straight-faced Bat-silliness to a level rarely experienced by anyone who isn't huffing nitrous oxide. TO THE BATPOLES!

 

BATMAN: THE MOVIE (1966) -- Movie Review by Porfle

16 WISHES -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/13/10

 

When you're considerably older than the target audience, watching a Disney Channel teen comedy can be like swallowing a golf ball.  At worst, you choke on it and die.  At best, even successfully swallowing the damn thing can be a distressing experience.  Fortunately, 16 WISHES (2010) isn't quite the painful ordeal I was dreading when I sat down to watch it.

It sure starts out that way, though--when we see Abby (Debby Ryan, "The Suite Life on Deck") pop out of bed and start freaking out because it's her "Sweet 16th" birthday, we instantly hate her.  Abby is spoiled, selfish, obnoxious, cutesy, and kind of an airhead.  She's rude to her mom and dad and little brother Mike (Cainan Wiebe, who looks so much like a young Barry Williams that I half-expected him to start crooning "Clowns never laughed before" at any moment) when they burst into her room with a birthday cake, and throws them out. 

She also can't figure out why her cute neighbor Krista (Karissa Tynes, JENNIFER'S BODY, DEAR MR. GACY), who shares the same birthday, hates her and has always done her best to one-up her in everything.  But we can sympathize, and we've only known Abby for five minutes. 

Naturally, Abby has a best guy-friend named Jay (Jean-Luc Bilodeau, TRICK 'R TREAT) who has always loved her although she doesn't realize it because she's hung up on the dashing school quarterback.  Jay is the male equivalent of Mary Stuart Masterson's character in SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL, along with similar characters in countless other teen comedies.  We know that by the end of the film, Abby will realize how wonderful Jay is, but for now let's pretend that we don't know that.
 

Also, when a magical fairy godmother named Celeste (the pixie-like Anna Mae Routledge, 2012, "Harper's Island") shows up and gives Abby sixteen candles which will grant her the sixteen fondest wishes she's had since she was eight years old, we know that sooner or later these wishes will backfire on Abby and she'll come to realize that her life is just fine the way it is.  But again, for now we'll act like we don't know this, or that Abby is going to come through her impending ordeal a much better person with a greater appreciation for the good things she already has, which is the sneaky hidden lesson 16 WISHES is just itching to spring on unsuspecting teen viewers.

In the meantime, the fun part about the movie is the vicarious thrill of instant wish-fulfillment such as having the coolest clothes, a new car complete with driver's license, intense school-wide popularity, and all sorts of other great stuff that Abby can rub in Krista's face, including having a totally better Sweet 16 birthday party than her.  But then--wouldn't you know it--Abby makes the fatal mistake of wishing that everyone would stop treating her like a kid.  Whoops!  Next thing you know, her parents move her into her own apartment, she gets thrown out of school, and Jay won't let her near him because he's still 17 and she's suddenly (gasp) 21.  Is he nuts?  When I was 17, having a 21-year-old babe stalking me would've been my biggest freakin' wish.
 

The rest of the movie is like a teenybopper cross between "The Twilight Zone" and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, which actually makes 16 WISHES kind of entertaining despite the fact that it's still a candy-coated bubblegum flick with unappealing cinematography and vertigo-inducing camerawork and editing.  While Abby isn't made to suffer the depths of despair that George Bailey went through, her predicament is still interesting enough to make us care about her character, especially when the whole thing teaches her to become a better person which, as I mentioned before, we pretty much knew was going to happen.

The DVD from Image Entertainment is 1.78:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.  No subtitles.  Extras include interviews with the two stars, Debby Ryan and Jean-Luc Bilodeau, which can be a pretty frightening prospect with these Disney Channel movies, but fortunately they're very brief.  There's also a music video with Debby performing the catchy, hook-filled theme song, "A Wish Comes True Everyday", and outtakes during the closing credits.

Once you stop wishing for a really awesome movie and just settle for dumb fun, 16 WISHES isn't all that bad.  As far as swallowing golf balls goes, this one actually went down pretty easy.

16 WISHES -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE ERRAND BOY -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 8/20/17

 

THE ERRAND BOY (1961) recalls the previous year's THE BELLBOY in that we find writer-director-star Jerry Lewis shooting a low-budget black-and-white feature which is simply a plotless series of gags set in one location (in THE BELLBOY it was a busy Miami Beach hotel, while this takes place in and around a bustling movie studio).

There's a semblance of plot involving studio head Brian Donlevy and his obsequious toady, played with verve by Howard McNear (Floyd the barber from "The Andy Griffith Show") but it's just an excuse to give Lewis the run of the place once again, packing each scene with as many imaginative gags as he can devise

Jerry is helped in this task by an excellent cast that also includes Stanley "Cyrano Jones" Adams, Kathleen Freeman, Doodles Weaver, Sig Ruman, Fritz Feld, Iris Adrian, and some surprise guest stars.

Much of it is as laugh-out-loud funny as you'd expect, while the rest is rather hit-and-miss. Jerry, of course, disrupts the orderly filmmaking process at every turn, at one point dubbing his own ear-splitting vocals into a lovely young actress' song interlude and elsewhere attempting to eat a quiet sidewalk lunch on the set of a war film.

The usual bathos occurs when the errand boy befriends some cute little puppets which come to life for him in a dusty storeroom--it's in these moments that Lewis tries too hard to be charming when we really want him to keep making with the funny.

This he does in one of his most celebrated sequences, in which he pretends to be the chairman of the board non-verbally chewing out his underlings while broadly pantomiming the instruments in a blaring big band tune. For this scene alone THE ERRAND BOY is well worth a look for Lewis fans, but it has so much more to offer as well including a raucous, slapstick finale.

THE ERRAND BOY -- Movie Review by Porfle

Extreme Comedy Reactions #3: Charlie Callas in "The Big Mouth" (1967)(video)

 

 Rex (Charlie Callas) mistakes Jerry Lewis for a gangster who's supposed to be dead...

...and it totally blows his mind.

The resulting extreme comedy reaction is a showcase for Charlie's comedy talents.

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

 

Extreme Comedy Reactions #3: Charlie Callas in "The Big Mouth" (1967)(video)

The Eating Scene From "The Big Mouth" (1967) (video)

 

In the Jerry Lewis comedy "The Big Mouth" (1967)...

...three great comic actors -- Charlie Callas, Buddy Lester, and Harold J. Stone -- demonstrate their skill at delivering lines while stuffing their faces with food.

 Let's hope this scene didn't require too many takes!

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

 

The Eating Scene From "The Big Mouth" (1967) (video)

Extreme Comedy Reactions #2: "The Munsters" s1e6 (video)

 

 Herman Munster's nearsighted doctor (the legendary Paul Lynde)...

...finally gets a good look at him, resulting in one of the most extreme comedy reactions ever. 

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Extreme Comedy Reactions #2: "The Munsters" s1e6 (video)

Extreme Comedy Reactions #1: "Archie's Funhouse" Ep.22 (video)

 

In this brief clip from 60s cartoon "Archie's Funhouse"... 

...Archie says something dumb to his dad, and, instead of merely reacting, his dad literally levitates out of his chair.

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

 

Extreme Comedy Reactions #1: "Archie's Funhouse" Ep.22 (video)

DIAMOND HEIST -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 3/17/15

 

Imagine sitting down to watch a movie with Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones called DIAMOND HEIST (2012)--thinking, quite understandably, that it's going to be about a diamond heist--and then finding out that it's a dreary, unfunny crime comedy about two Hungarian schlubs mistaken for a pair of popular male strippers known as "The Magic Boys." (Which, incidentally, was the film's original title.)

Even if you think that sounds like comedy gold, chances are you're going to find this mess disappointing. It's one of those bad direct-to-DVD flicks that guys like Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones lend their names and faces to for an easy paycheck and then mug their way through like it was a home video. (Which I think would be a cool way to make a living and would totally do myself if I could.)

The story opens with Madsen--in the role of Terence, an eccentric strip-club tycoon and diamond smuggler--smashing a yogurt buffet in the restaurant of the posh London hotel where he lives because he's lactose intolerant and his special goat's milk yogurt is nowhere to be seen. I wasn't sure if this was in the script, or if they'd just secretly filmed him at the craft services table between shots.

There's a lot of crosscutting while the film throws a passel of new characters at us along with some really annoying music and visuals. The best I could decipher it, two male strippers ("The Magic Boys") disappear from one of Michael Madsen's clubs and he sends his mousey assistant "Bad News" to Hungary to find two more. As fate would have it, the two Hungarian schlubs, David and Zoli, are on the run after witnessing Vinnie knocking off a guy, and they end up posing as the missing Magic Boys for free passage to London.

David and Zoli are like a cross between "Dumb and Dumber" and the two "Wild and Crazy Guys" from SNL, when they hit town and are situated in their luxury suite. Bad comedy ensues when they take the stage at Madsen's club and reveal their incompetence while big Mike makes faces and groans.

He later gets the two on their knees at gunpoint in his office and does the whole "I'm the last guy you want to f*** with!" routine, which is always great for a few laughs. Then, inexplicably, he decides that the act will be improved if he forces his right-hand man Splendid Ben (an understandably embarrassed-looking Tamer Hassan, KICK-ASS, FREERUNNER, THE DOUBLE) to join it. You can almost hear "Seinfeld"s Kenny Banya bleating "It's gold, Jerry! Gold!" when the three next appear onstage in full drag. It's as though my sense of humor has been injected with novocaine.

(Meanwhile, elsewhere in London, the REAL Magic Boys also end up on the wrong stage and find themselves getting raped by a hairy, leather-bound gay behemoth. It's fun for the whole family!)

The movie tries to get cute and charming here and there, with one of the Hungarian guys getting cutely chummy with the cute black lady (singer Jamelia as "Cherry Valentine") who works for Mikey as a diamond smuggler but is really not what she seems and zzzzzzzz. As an example of the film's cliched dialogue, the following exchange takes place when he asks about her past:

"That's a bit of a long story."
"I have time."

We find that Cherry's past is actually key to the whole thing, and the lovestruck Hungarian guy decides he must help her in her mission against Mike and/or Vinnie, which is complicated when Vinnie suddenly shows up in London. Things finally perk up when Cherry makes her move during a lavish birthday bash Mike holds for himself, but the whole male stripper angle continues to dumb thing up when the real and fake Magic Boys clash-dance onstage during a lame imitation of the opera scene from THE FIFTH ELEMENT.

The DVD from Random Media is in letterboxed widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound. No subtitles, but closed-captions are available. No extras.

However lacking it is in other areas, the most disappointing thing about DIAMOND HEIST is that there's no diamond heist. That's like calling a movie GONE WITH THE WIND and not having anything actually blow away. Or changing the name of GONE WITH THE WIND to DIAMOND HEIST.

DIAMOND HEIST -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/11/21

 

Currently watching: THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966), the last American-International teen flick to bear even the slightest resemblance to the studio's original "Beach Party" series that began in 1963 and lasted until original stars Frankie and Annette had moved on to other things and only a few hardy supporting players and extras still remained.

For the first time, there's no reference whatsoever to the beach or surfing. In a repeat of the earlier PAJAMA PARTY, the action takes place in a large mansion (this time, it's the haunted hideaway of recently-deceased Hiram Stokely, played by a very aged Boris Karloff) and its swimming pool, giving the cast an excuse to cavort in bikinis and swim trunks and flail around to the music of a bland rock 'n' roll band, the Bobby Fuller Four.

Basil Rathbone (SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, "Sherlock Holmes" series) plays Hiram's crooked attorney, Reginald Ripper, who plans to eliminate the old man's heirs after they assemble for the reading of his will. They include beach-movie veterans Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley, along with venerable comic actress Patsy Kelly as "Myrtle Forbush." 

 

Aiding in Ripper's deadly scheme is his cohort J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse "Maytag Repairman" White), along with series regular Bobbi Shaw and Benny Rubin as Princess Yolanda and Chief Chicken Feather. All three characters are holdovers from PAJAMA PARTY, although Rubin replaces an ailing Buster Keaton who originated the role.

Of course, Harvey Lembeck is on hand as motorcycle gang leader Eric Von Zipper, with his usual motley mob of sycophantic cycle stupes. This time, he falls in love with Princess Yolanda, thus giving the writers an excuse to have Von Zipper and crew scurrying around the mansion along with everyone else once the plot, as it is, finally goes into high gear.

When Myrtle's nephew Bobby (Aron Kincaid, whom I think of as "the male Joy Harmon") shows up with a double decker bus full of swinging teens who turn the mansion into party central, the search for Hiram's hidden fortune quickly becomes a frenetic free-for-all as the rightful heirs clash with Ripper's dastardly baddies and a gaggle of spooks and monsters have the freaked-out teens going ape.

 

This will lead to an extravagantly silly finale that's like a deluxe live-action episode of "Scooby-Doo", only dumber and less coherent as everyone runs screaming hither and yon throughout the mansion (finally ending up in old Hiram's ghastly torture chamber) while some of the hoariest gags and haunted house tropes imaginable are recycled by former Three Stooges writer Elwood Ullman, who co-wrote the script with beach-party regular Louis M. Heyward.

Amidst all this, the simple romantic subplot between Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley is barely given a chance to develop. Meanwhile, Ripper's gorgeous but evil daughter Sinistra (Quinn O'Hara) directs all her considerable seductive powers toward eliminating Myrtle's nephew Bobby (I forgot why), a goal that's repeatedly thwarted by her extreme nearsightedness.

Also appearing in the film are Nancy Sinatra (who sings the wince-inducing "Geronimo"), a young Danny Thomas discovery named Piccola Pupa (who's cute but not much of a singer), famed gorilla suit actor George Burrows as "Monstro", and former silent film star Francis X. Bushman (BEN HUR), who joins the rest of the cast's rather impressive group of vintage stars having some late-career fun (we hope) in this bit of nonsense.

 

Not the least of these is the great Boris Karloff, whose scenes with gorgeous Susan Hart were added, according to Wikipedia, after AIP producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff were unhappy with the film and thought it needed improvement. In their framing scenes, Karloff, as Hiram Stokely, is awakened from death's slumber by the ghost of his dead wife Cecily (Hart) and told that they will be reunited in the afterlife if he performs one final good deed.

The result is Hart's character, clad in an "invisible bikini", being awkwardly inserted into already filmed scenes as a mischievous but helpful ghost, with cutaways to Karloff observing the action in his crystal ball and making various comments being fed to him from off-camera.

One of the film's best assets is its use of lavish sets that are obviously left over from other AIP productions. That, along with the interesting cast and an occasionally infectious sense of fun, are just about the only reasons to recommend THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI to all but the most diehard beach movie fans and lovers of bad movies in general.  As part of the latter group, I enjoyed it, but others may find it just shy of unwatchable.

THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966) -- Movie Review by Porfle