Of all the great performances in "The Godfather" (1972)...
...perhaps the least appreciated is that of Connie's incredible acrobatic salad bowl.
A tumbling run such as this would surely rate a "ten" at any dinner-table-related Olympics.
Video by Porfle Popnecker. Music from the TV series "CHiPs." I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Star Trek's writers often enjoyed having a little fun with Spock's character...
...usually by contrasting his precise, stoic manner with that of his emotional human crewmates.
But in this episode, it's possible that they went just a tad overboard.
Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Detective Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) is pursuing a mad bomber...
...in this hilarious parody of coffee commercials.
He consults with Police Squad's resident forensic expert.
But too much caffeine has made him cranky.
Decaf to the rescue!
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Originally posted on 12/8/11
Having just watched the 5-DVD set SLEDGE HAMMER!: THE COMPLETE SERIES, I find that, once again, I dislike something at first and then end up liking it after further consideration. This proves either one of two things: (a) I'm wishy-washy, or (b) you can't always go by first impressions. I'm going to go with the second alternative, since it's less uncomplimentary toward me.
I have a vague memory of seeing an episode of this show during its first run (1986-88) and dismissing it as a crappy "Police Squad!" wannabe. That criminally brief 1982 series (six big episodes and out) by the Zucker brothers, which introduced Leslie Nielsen's celebrated "Frank Drebin" character and inspired the NAKED GUN movie trilogy, continued the same outlandishly farcical yet totally deadpan vibe of the Zuckers' AIRPLANE! on a smaller scale.
Naturally, I was disappointed when I approached "Sledge Hammer!" expecting it to be more of the same. What I finally realized after watching several episodes, however, is that this show is its own addlebrained entity--it's still a lightheaded farce that often resembles something out of MAD Magazine and celebrates silliness for its own sake, but the deadpan humor is shot through (pun alert!) with heaps of pure, giddy goofiness. In fact, "Sledge Hammer!" works both when it's aping the bone-dry "Police Squad!" comedy style and when it's making funny faces at us.
It takes awhile to get its groove on, though. The first episode is a bit of a mess--production values are murky, the direction and editing are flabby, and, worst of all, there's a laugh track pointing out the funny parts to us. Still, it has John Vernon (ANIMAL HOUSE) as the mayor, who demands that Sledge be let loose on the case when his daughter is kidnapped by terrorists.
There are some funny bits and Hammer's character, who is a cross between Dirty Harry and his watered-down TV equivalent "Hunter" (also a likable fascist cop with a female partner), is well established when he uses a bazooka to demolish an entire building in order to stop a sniper ("Trust me, I know what I'm doing" is his oft-heard motto). Overall, though, it's pretty limp.
We get to watch the show get its bearings and start firing on more cylinders as the season progresses, with the scripts getting funnier and more daring, and the direction improving (Bill Bixby eventually helmed eight of the series' best episodes, with Dick Martin of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" contributing a couple of good ones). Despite its lesser moments, there's a relentless quality to the hot-and-cold-running gags and a sort of earnestness from the stars that makes the first season somehow likable. And some of the gags actually score big laughs, as when Hammer and an informant (guest star Dennis Fimple) conduct a secret conversation via adjoining pay phones.
Before long, the chemistry between Hammer and his female partner Det. Dori Doreau starts to click. RUNAWAY's Anne-Marie Martin (who, incidentally, co-wrote TWISTER with Michael Crichton) is an appealing foil for Hammer even though her comedic skills take awhile to develop, and their relationship has a certain charm--Doreau sees the good behind Hammer's fascist, violence-loving, ultra-right-wing exterior and eventually finds herself falling for him even though Hammer's first love is his gun, which he talks to and sleeps with.
As Hammer, David Rasche (BURN AFTER READING, UNITED 93) has a firm grasp on the character from the start but also gets better as he goes along. Rasche has a field day in the role, with his trigger-happy detective shooting first and asking questions later while gleefully roughing up everyone from jaywalkers to the mayor's wife. He reels off one-liners like nobody's business--when a nagging reporter asks if he has any predictions, Hammer's deadpan response is, "Yes...scientists will perform the first brain transplant, and you'll be the recipient." We eventually learn that Hammer thinks the death penalty is too lenient, his favorite song is "Taps", and the only thing he fears is world peace.
As season one comes to a close, just about the time Patrick Wayne does a delightful guest shot as Hammer's long-lost brother, the show really starts getting serious about being funny. The season-one cliffhanger is insane, opening with a introduction by Robin Leach in which he announces that the series is making a bid for renewal by packing more sex and violence into the upcoming episode and ending with Hammer frantically trying to disarm a nuclear warhead that could annihilate the entire city. Cult star Mary Woronov plays the mad villainess in this one, which actually does end with a nuclear explosion.
How they resolve this open-ended situation at the start of season two is undoubtedly one of network television's nuttiest moments, with the show even changing its name temporarily as part of the joke! And this is just the beginning of a series of episodes that get progressively more willing to be weird, while cast and crew all seem to be on the same page at last and making funny things happen. Movie spoofs dominate, with films such as SHAMPOO, JAGGED EDGE, and VERTIGO getting the treatment (with the occasional misfire such as a weak parody of PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM).
"Hammeroid" finds Hammer seriously wounded by a juggernaut robot (which is reminiscent of a similar character on the cult series "The Avengers") and turned into a cyborg a la ROBOCOP. Fans of that movie should love this affectionate spoof, while Bela Lugosi fans are in for a treat with "Last of the Red Hot Vampires", in which "Love Boat" alumnus Bernie Kopel does a surprisingly good Lugosi imitation. (The episode is "dedicated to Mr. Blasko", the actor's real last name.)
In "Jagged Sledge", Rasche gives a tour-de-force performance when Hammer must defend himself while on trial for the murder of a mob boss (the great Tige Andrews of "Mod Squad" fame). Another episode, which finds Hammer going undercover as a prison convict involved in a breakout attempt, actually beats NAKED GUN 33 1/3 (1994) to the punch with a strangely similar premise.
Harrison Page (CARNOSAUR) is undoubtedly the funniest supporting actor in the role of Captain Trunk, a dead-on spoof of the perpetually screaming squad captain whose blood pressure is always sky-high thanks to Hammer's destructive hijinks. Avoiding what could've been a one-note performance, Page is one of the best things about the show and is a constant delight. In addition to those already mentioned, a sterling roster of guest stars includes Ronnie Schell, Bill Dana, Nicholas Guest, Ray Walston, David Clennon, Armin Shimerman, Richard Moll, Adam Ant, Brion James, Bud Cort, Mark Blankfield, and Russ Meyer regular Edy Williams. Directors Bixby and Martin pop up in cameos.
The 5-disc DVD (22 episodes) from Image Entertainment is in 1.33:1 widescreen with Dolby Digital mono. No subtitles or extras.
It's interesting watching a show go from blah to good as we see with SLEDGE HAMMER!: THE COMPLETE SERIES. It may not be perfect but it's just plain fun, and by the time the last few episodes rolled around, I didn't want it to stop being Hammer Time.
Originally posted on 6/26/17
A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO SNUFF (2016) is like comedy-revenge porn for all the poor, hapless victims--especially the pretty girls--who were snuffed in torture porn flicks over the years. The catch: the killers are just pretending this time, but the victim doesn't know that. And when she gets away...
The pretend-killers are aspiring (and perspiring) actors Dresden and Dominic, brothers from the sticks who just can't catch a break in Hollywood. In desperation, the less stable one, Dresden (Joey Kern, SUPER TROOPERS, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD), hatches a plan in which they hold a fake casting call, kidnap the most promising actress in the bunch, and film a fake snuff film that will (in Dresden's clouded mind) win first prize in a film contest and make them famous.
All they have to do, he figures, is to take it to the brink and then reveal that it's all fake to the actress, who will then thank them for the opportunity for fame. Weak-willed brother Dominic (Luke Edwards, MOTHER'S BOYS, AMERICAN PIE 2) protests at first but eventually agrees, and all goes according to plan...until Dresden starts to take it all a little too seriously, and before Dominic knows it, he--and their unwilling actress--are caught up in an honest-to-goodness real snuff film.
Originally posted on 7/28/08
Although it's been likened to THIS IS SPINAL TAP, writer-director Stevan Mena's BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY reminded me more of 1993's "...AND GOD SPOKE", a similar mockumentary about bad filmmakers battling their way through a hellish bottom-of-the-barrel production. In that movie they tackled the misguided task of filming the entire Bible on a shoestring budget; here, they're just trying to get through the making of a single craptacular slasher flick alive.
Harry Penderecki (David Naughton) is a low-low-budget horror filmmaker whose previous bargain bin fodder includes titles such as "Fish Who Ate Flesh!", "Bowel Movement", "Saquatch at the Mall", and "I'll Take Back the Ring--And the Finger, Too!" After finally scrounging up enough backing and assembling the most inept cast and crew ever, Harry launches a grueling two-month shoot in the middle of a freezing cold wilderness where everything goes horribly wrong from start to finish.
One thing's for sure, this is definitely my all-time favorite David Naughton performance. He completely inhabits the character of Harry in a wonderfully deadpan way that's consistently right on the mark. I like him better at this age--graying and a little paunchy--than any other time in his career. If he'd started out at this age instead of wasting all those years being young, dancing around drinking Dr. Pepper, starring in failed sitcoms, and being a werewolf, he would already be one of my favorite actors.
The rest of the cast is a delight. Ash's sister Cheryl and girlfriend Linda from THE EVIL DEAD (Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker) are on hand as Harry's frazzled production manager and burnt-out casting director. Ellen's part is bigger and she makes the most of it, her most memorable scene coming when her character, Natalie, tries to empty the filled-to-capacity toilet tank in the location RV and...well, I won't tell you what happens next, but it may be even worse than getting raped by trees. This could be Ellen's "Oscar" moment.
DAWN OF THE DEAD's Ken Foree plays the key grip whose duties increase every time Harry fires someone. Kevin Smith regular Brian O'Halloran plays Jay, the A.D. with ADD. As Harry's loyal East Indian cameraman, Hanu, the diminutive Gerry Bednob gets funnier as the movie goes on. Director Mick Garris and Fangoria's Tony Timpone show up early on as themselves. And playing a (what else?) googly-eyed psycho who may or may not start killing people at any minute is old Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen.
At first it didn't seem as though this film was really going to come together. Then, as I got accustomed to its rhythm and low-key approach, I really started to enjoy it. The hilarity isn't non-stop, and there are some slow spots, but just when things threaten to get boring there's another unexpected belly-laugh to goose them again. And as everything grows progressively more bleak and hopeless for our stalwart filmmakers, I almost started to get a BLAIR WITCH PROJECT vibe that somehow enhanced the black comedy.
There's some pretty funny stuff going on here: a key scene is interrupted when the cast and crew discover that they're in the middle of a firing range; after miles of footage is exposed, Harry finds out that his sound man has no idea what he's doing; a group of rowdy local teenagers keeps ruining shots by driving their jeep through them; and the "fake corpse" that Harry's supposed FX expert is secretly laboring on throughout the production turns out to be less convincing than a CPR practice dummy. Aside from this, there are several funny instances of Harry trying to direct his talentless actors through terrible dialogue scenes and ridiculous action.
Of course, Harry's film features the prerequisite blonde bimbos and plenty of boobage. Amy (Emily Brownell) has lofty aspirations both cinematic and intellectual--when asked if she's well-read, she replies, "Well, I read the entire script." Her co-star, the even less intelligent Tanya (Michelle DiBenedetti), has no qualms about exposing her charms on film, reasoning that she's only using what was given to her by God and then enhanced by her surgeon. And as a nod to the kind of flicks this film is spoofing, female characters often find reasons to bend over so the camera can focus on their backsides.
The DVD features 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 surround sound. Besides the trailer, extras include several deleted scenes, some of which are really funny (you've got to see Ken Foree and Gerry Bednob furiously wrestling each other to the death in the motel bed that cheap Harry has forced them to share). There's also a behind-the-scenes featurette which is also a mockumentary with everyone still in character, so it's like an addition to the movie itself.
Not on the same level as SPINAL TAP or the other Christopher Guest mockumentaries, with less spontaneity and improvisation, BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY is still an often giddily funny valentine to low-budget horror fans. It's also the movie that finally, after all these years, has made David Naughton a household name. In my house.
Originally posted on 12/9/16
If you're unfamiliar with Weng Weng, all it takes to remedy the problem is seeing the trailer for the James Bond spoof "For Y'ur Height Only" which kicks off writer-director Andrew Leavold's affectionate documentary THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG (2007).
For the next two minutes or so, we see the diminutive Filipino movie star (all 2'9" of him) going through all the familiar Bond motions, such as the gun-barrel sequence and a wobbly-wired imitation of his celebrated rocket pack flight from THUNDERBALL, in addition to all the shooting and fancy fighting (not to mention romancing) we're used to seeing from Sean Connery.
Needless to say, watching the vertically-challenged Weng Weng as Agent 00 doing all this action-oriented secret agent stuff in a spiffy white suit is the very definition of the term "novelty."
(This is part three of my look at the "Don Knotts Reluctant Hero Pack", a two-sided DVD containing four of Don's best-known movies: THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT, THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST, and THE LOVE GOD?)
Originally posted on 7/19/09
Well, here's something for those with a really big taste for the unusual. Part mockumentary, part giant-Japanese-monsters spoof, BIG MAN JAPAN (2007) is one seriously weird movie. And watching it is like discovering a chest full of really cool toys that were designed by crazy elves on acid.
The mockumentary part follows a reserved, unassuming man named Daisato (director and co-writer Hitoshi Matsumoto) around as he makes his way through a seemingly ordinary life. He lives in a dumpy home with a stray cat and makes pointless conversation about how he likes things (folding umbrellas, dehydrated seaweed) that are small until you need for them to get big.
Sometimes he wistfully talks about his 8-year-old daughter, whom his ex-wife will only let him visit twice a year because that's as often as she can stand to be around him.
Rocks crash through the windows as he speaks. His house is adorned with strewn garbage and graffiti such as "Die!" and "We don't need you!" Why? Because Daisato is Big-Sato, or "Big Man Japan", a widely-reviled superhero who is also small until the government needs for him to get big and fight the giant monsters that constantly invade Japan, and it's no longer the glamour job that it was for his predecessors. In fact, his reality TV show is currently getting lower ratings than the weather channel.
Originally posted on 3/12/14
Chances are that, sooner or later, many people who watch Troma Entertainment's latest cinematic outrage, RETURN TO NUKE 'EM HIGH, VOLUME 1 (2013), will reach a particular point in the action where they hold up their hand and say, "Okay, that's just going TOO far." For some, that point will begin during the pre-titles sequence and last for about an hour and a half.
For others, it may not happen until the disintegrating penis scene, the tossing-a-dog-over-Niagara-Falls scene, the "duck rape" scene, or the corrosive green slime lactation scene. For me, incidentally, it was when two guys are arguing about music and one of them keeps insisting "Justin Bieber is the best! The BEST!!!"
But first, there's a nostalgic opening montage of mayhem from previous Troma "Nuke 'Em High" films (with relatively much lower production values than this one) and a surprise narrator. A tone of breezy irreverence sets in early and doesn't let up--in fact, it increases with each new and more imaginative atrocity, beginning with an obligatory teen sex scene in the high school janitor's room that degenerates into horrific extreme gore in which both teens dissolve into heaps of gooey detritus. (The girl's dramatic last words, "What kind of a god...?" become a running gag.)
This scene is so colorfully, so gleefully over the top that we know "Okay, we don't have to worry about any kind of censorship, limits, boundaries, or taste--WHATSOEVER--for the next hour and a half."
Originally posted on 8/7/16
1960's CINDERFELLA, as you might guess, is a gender-reversed take on the famous fairytale "Cinderella" with Jerry Lewis 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.
As those familiar with the original fairytale will already know, Fella's life is one of thankless drudgery and constant belittlement as he scrambles to perform every menial task given him by his pampered, arrogant stepmother and stepbrothers (and which Jerry, as usual, manages to milk for laughs).
But when Dame Judith hosts a ball for a visiting European princess (cute Anna Maria Alberghetti), Fella's fairy godfather Ed Wynn appears and makes it possible for him to attend and steal the young girl's heart.
Originally posted on 9/8/12
When adult filmmaker Doris Wishman got together with bazooka-boobed Polish stripper Chesty Morgan in the mid-70s, the result was two of the most head-scratchingly cockeyed and totally off-the-wall nudesploitation flicks ever made. "Deadly Weapons" and "Double Agent 73" are now together on the same Blu-Ray disc along with an unofficial non-Chesty follow-up, "The Immoral Three", to form the Something Weird Video collection CHESTY MORGAN'S BOSOM BUDDIES.
It was a match made in junk-film heaven--Wishman, a filmmaker with an abundance of energy and enthusiasm but little actual skill, and Chesty, a stunning human visual effect who nevertheless displays absolutely no natural talent whatsoever in front of the camera. In fact, her absolute lack of any discernible acting skill makes everyone and everything else around her seem better by default. And yet, with those mind-bogglingly huge all-natural hooters and preternaturally unaffected (some might say "spaced-out") expression, she somehow demands our disbelieving attention every second she's on the screen.
"Deadly Weapons" (1974) features Chesty (here billed as "Zsa Zsa") as the faithful wife of a mob wiseguy named Larry who gets whacked after he steals an incriminating address book and tries to blackmail his boss with it. The grief-stricken Chesty vows revenge. Overhearing one of her hubby's killers referring to his addiction to "burlesque", Chesty knows what she must do--get a job as a stripper and wait for him to show up at the club.
(NOTE: This review originally appeared online at Bumscorner.com in 2006.)
Remember how a lot of cheap porn movies tried to be comedies, and between the old in-out, in-out scenes there would be embarrasingly lame attempts at humor by people who had absolutely no comedic skills, or acting ability in general? You don't? Uh, me neither. Heh...I never watched movies like that.
But it's a sure bet that those movies would've been a heck of a lot funnier if Thomas J. Moose and Andy Sawyer had made them, because their SSI: SEXY SQUAD INVESTIGATION (2006) is a scream.
Of course, this isn't a porn flick--there's nothing here that you couldn't see in the latest issue of Playboy, or at least Penthouse. But the emphasis is on T & A, and there's plenty of it. There are some really hot women in this movie. One quick shot of a gorgeous black actress named Lexi Martinez reclining naked on a couch almost made me choke on my bean burrito. "HOOO-LY SH**!" I cried, hastily grabbing for--the remote control. (What did you think I was going to say, Mr. Dirty Mind?)
There are several other moments in SSI that are similarly inspirational, though these scenes are pretty brief. Since this movie is as much a comedy as it is a gawkfest, the sex stuff isn't allowed to drag on to the point of boredom like it does in porn films. Or so I've heard.
However, the keepcase contains a coupon you can send in, along with three dollars postage, to receive an "unrated" version in which, I would assume, these scenes are much longer and more...uhh..."useful." If you're a PERVERT, that is!
The story, such as it is, takes place in New York, although most of it was shot in Manchester, England, with actors valiantly struggling to simulate American accents with wildly varying degrees of success. The guy who plays President Shrub (Frank Bowdler) sounds about as Texan as Leslie Howard, and his cowboy hat looks more like a pimp hat. But it doesn't matter, because he's funny.
President Shrub's decree that all sex outside the bonds of holy matrimony is now illegal necessitates the formation of the titular Sex Squad, who tirelessly peep around corners and through windows trying to catch perps in the act of "gittin' it on."
SSI agent John Honeysuckle (John Paul Fedele) is haunted by memories of the day his partner and brother Mickey (director Thomas J. Moose) was accidentally shot in the head by a farmer as they were spying on some sex-criminals while disguised as a pantomime horse. This is the first of several laugh-out-loud scenes in the movie.
Another is when Agent Honeysuckle is gazing at his new partner, Officer Katrina Lightbody (the lovely, flourescent-eyed A.J. Khan) while she examines some evidence. The camera slowly pushes in on her as she picks up a cheerleader's pom-pom in slow motion, and the close-up of Honeysuckle's lovestruck face informs us that he's having a feverish fantasy. He's imagining her dressed as a cheerleader, right? No, he's imagining himself dressed as a cheerleader.
Later, when he has another flashback about his former life as a welder who dreams of being a dancer, Fedele's goofily energetic spoof of Jennifer Beals in FLASHDANCE is a howl. And then there's Honeysuckle's Viet Nam flashback, where a grenade went off in his lap and blew his balls off, and they landed in "Oozedick" Kawalski's mess kit, and...
Anyway, Honeysuckle and Lightbody's investigation of a mysterious woman who is going around seducing people into illegally having sex with her leads them to uncover a sinister plot that is directed at the President himself, and his virginal daughter, Jessica (Natalie Heck).
But that's about as much of the story as I need to yak about, since it's really just an excuse for one comedy bit after another. Much of this is similar to stuff like Mr. Show or SCTV, with generous helpings of Benny Hill thrown in. There are a few slow spots along the way, but heck, even BLAZING SADDLES has a few slow spots.
The commentary track features Thomas J. Moose (I wonder if he's any relation to Bullwinkle?) and Andy Sawyer, but I could only get through about half of it because almost everything they start to say is cut off by cries of intense pain. For some reason they decided to play an old Victorian parlor game that administers electric shocks while talking about the movie, so the commentary sounds pretty much like this:
"So, these shots were taken in Manchester, and John Fedele, who stars in the movie as 'Honeysuckle', shot all the New York material, and we found that--AAAAGGGGHHH!!!"
"In fact, there were a couple of streets in Manchester that we used a couple of times, you'll see one later...in fact, there it is GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! BASTARD!!!"
Along with a short blooper reel and some trailers, the DVD also contains a thirty-minute short called FBI GUYS, which is a black-and-white mock episode of a 50s-type cop show that won "Best Program" in the 1992 USA Hometown Video Awards, whatever that is, and it's also hilarious.
No, this isn't a Woody Allen film, and it's not likely to pass within range of Roger Ebert's eyeballs any time soon, but SSI: SEXY SQUAD INVESTIGATION is brimming with babes and it's cheap, stupid, and funny. As Major Kong might say, "a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
