Airplane! - 1980

"Airplane!" - 1980
Dir. by Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker - 1 hr. 28 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

It's so unbelievably rare that a comedy ages well.  There are a million reasons for that: topical humor, changing humor tastes and trends (have you tried watching one of Jim Carrey's 90's comedies recently?), targets that lose relevance, etc.  "Airplane!" doesn't entirely dodge all of those pitfalls, but it pioneered a particular style of comedy that no one has managed to do quite as well (it's hard to imagine any of the Wayans brothers movie spoofs in a universe without this film).

The script is heavily based on 50's movie ("Zero Hour!"), and it centers around the pilots and passengers of a commercial flight getting food poisoning from the in-flight meal.  Only one man on the flight can fly a plane AND didn't have fish for dinner, Ted Striker (Robert Hays).  But he's still hung up on a mission gone wrong during the war (time-wise, which would have occurred in the mid 70's - part of the humor of the movie), and hasn't flown since.  Like many good comedies, the plot serves somewhat as an excuse to keep things moving along, and provide new backdrops for gags.  And there are so many gags in this movie!  It's the movie equivalent of Will Elder's "chicken fat" drawing style from Mad Magazine - jokes layered on top of jokes on top of jokes.  It's a relentless parade of gags for an hour and a half, and the jokes don't even end when the credits roll.

It's really difficult to get into why something like this works.  Part of it is the relentless pacing, which helps when a gag falls flat (and some of the humor is dated).  But for every bit that doesn't work now, there's a steady flow of absolute classic bits.  For the most part, the actors play things deadly serious, even when something absurd happens right in front of them.  I think that it's that level of stone-faced commitment that elevates the material (witness Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, or Peter Graves here).  And while most of the gags fly by, there are a couple of continuing gags that run through the course of the movie.  The first, an abandoned taxi-cab passenger waiting for Ted to return (while the meter runs, of course), the other is how characters who arrive at the airport handle the religious glad-handers (as it turns out, Stack's Rex Kramer is a martial arts practitioner).  Those gags, stretched out over the course of the movie, help keep "Airplane!" from coming off as a slightly more focused version of ZAZ's scattershot (yet also very funny) earlier movie, "Kentucky Fried Movie."  It's a small step in the direction of storytelling, but an important one.

For all the things that come off as anachronistic (religious zealots harassing people at the airport (!), a "Saturday Night Fever" spoof sequence, suicide as a running joke), it's just a classic comedy.  Thirty-plus years out, and it's still one of the funniest movies that I've ever seen.  It launched Leslie Nielsen's comedy career (during a college anthropology class, I remember sitting through a National Geographic film he narrated probably in the 70's, waiting for the gags to kick in), which is worth something on it's own.  I don't necessarily think it's the greatest comedy ever, but it's on the short list.

4 / 5 - NF Streaming

Horrible Bosses - 2011

"Horrible Bosses" - 2011
Dir. by Seth Gordon - 1 hr. 38 min.

Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

This is the second film I've seen where Kevin Spacey plays a boss who terrorizes his underlings to the point of physical retribution (the first being "Swimming With Sharks").  Sure, that other movie was nearly 20 years ago, but Spacey's so good at being an overbearing boss that I look forward to another one of these kinds of movies in another 20 years or so.  I'm not sure which approach I prefer, though.

In contrast to "Swimming With Sharks," a darkly humorous indie film, "Horrible Bosses" has three buddies who all hate their bosses (and not without good reason), and end up talking themselves into killing the bosses to escape their shared, separate unbearable situations.  Kevin Spacey plays Jason Bateman's boss, who has been dangling a promotion in front of him in order to extract ridiculous hours and performance out of him.  Colin Farrell plays Jason Sudeikis' boss, a cokehead fuck-up who inherits a chemical company and a disdain for his father's ethics.  And Jennifer Aniston plays a sexually aggressive dentist who keeps harassing the freshly engaged (and also registered sex offender) Charlie Day.

The most obvious movie to compare this to is "Office Space," in the sense that it shows people who are completely unequipped to pull off major crime bumbling through the process.  And while the characters' intense frustration with their work situations is the basis of what comes, the point of the movie is showing these three guys (Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day) interacting and screwing things up.  After watching years of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," it's kind of strange watching Charlie Day try to act in a morally positive manner, but not to fear, he still has plenty of opportunities to show off his manic persona.  In an early scene, the three men break into Farrell's apartment to do some "recon," which ends up with Day and Bateman accidentally ingesting some cocaine.  Boom, Day is wound up like a watch.

Yes, killing your boss for personal gain is a dark plot, but considering that there are predecessor movies with this same idea, I can't hold that against "Horrible Bosses."  Besides, the bosses are caricatures, there's little attempt to paint them as anything more than monsters who have earned their fate.  But the biggest positive to the movie is that it's funny.  The characters work well (the bumbling criminals idea is built to last), and the smaller cameo roles are pretty good, too (especially Jamie Foxx, playing a "murder consultant" named Motherfucker Jones, which gets funnier every time it rolls off of someone's tongue").  I was actually laughing out loud, not just chuckling, and that's not too shabby.

3 / 5 - Theatre

Grandma's Boy - 2006

"Grandma's Boy" - 2006
Dir. by Nicholaus Goossen - 1 hr. 34 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Is this a good movie?  Well, that's a complicated question.  A movie can be good without being good, in the sense that a candy bar is sometimes exactly what you need to eat.  Would a carrot be better for you?  Perhaps, but you may not always be in the mood to eat a carrot.  "Grandma's Boy" is that kind of good - it's a candy bar when you need it.

One thing I appreciated very much about "Grandma's Boy" was that, in spite of numerous opportunities to turn itself into a paint-by-numbers "save the house" movie, it never really turns in that direction.  Early on, Alex (Allan Covert) is evicted from his house because his roomie has been spending both of their rent money on exotic massages, but instead of rallying to save that situation, it leads to a couple of dicey guest stints (a memorable one involving Nick Swardson's character, a co-worker who still lives at home and sleeps in a race-car bed).  Eventually, Alex lands with his grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two similarly-aged roommates (Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight).

With that settled, the story settles into two-pronged approach - a love story involving a consultant called in to help keep production deadlines (Alex works at a video game publisher), and the professional story about keeping those deadlines.  Since this is a light comedy, you probably already know where these storylines are going to end up, but since this is a light comedy, it's all about the ride.  And the ride is pretty damned funny.  Two of the main actors (Allan Covert and Peter Dante) show up in pretty much everything that Adam Sandler has ever done, and are clearly used to working with one another.  In smaller roles, Nick Swardson and Jonah Hill get the chance to chip in asides and one-liners, which works pretty well for them.  Kevin Nealon plays a suitably odd, new-agey boss, and the sort of villain (J.P, played by Joel David Moore) is so bizarre and socially awkward that it feels like someone like that could really exist.

Probably the best thing I can say is that, while this isn't a great movie, it's infinitely re-watchable.  I've seen this one around half a dozen times, and I still laugh all the way through it.  "Grandma's Boy" doesn't set huge goals, but it does stay entertaining all the way through, and if it's on TV, I'm definitely not changing the channel.

3 / 5 - DVD

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - 2011

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" - 2011
Dir. by Rob Marshall - 2 hrs. 16 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Now that was a long movie.  And in a sense, I am thankful for that, as I got the maximum amount of air-conditioning value for my movie-going dollar.  But in most other senses, I'm not as thankful for that as you might imagine.  You might imagine a movie filled with people in fancy costumes (including frequent appearances of powdered wigs and frilly shirts) prancing and chewing scenery might be pretty enjoyable, and while it's not something I'd generally hold against a movie, it didn't help much in this case.

The fourth installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise continues the downhill slide.  While the first one was a surprise hit (and surprisingly very enjoyable), with each passing film, it's become more and more of a needle-in-haystack search for positive qualities.  Part of that might be familiarity - having seen all four, I expect to see large visuals, cool looking ships, physical humor, and chase scenes when I watch a "Pirates" movie.  Those things are here, but it felt manufactured and formula this time around instead of grand and playful.  But there's also diminishing returns with Jack Sparrow, both in terms of how much of a movie relies on his character, and just generally having now been through four full films with this character.

Here, in "On Stranger Tides," Sparrow finds himself conscripted against his will on Blackbeard's (Ian McShane, one of an army looking magnificent in eyeliner) ship, Queen Anne's Revenge.  In an attempt to buck a prophecy foretelling his death at the hands of a one-legged man, he's on a mission to find the Fountain of Youth.  Sparrow is lured onto the boat by Angelica Teach (Penelope Cruz), later revealed as Blackbeard's daughter, who has been impersonating Sparrow and recruiting a crew for the mission.  Also on the trail of the Fountain are a fleet of Spaniards led by the Spaniard (Oscar Jaenada), and an English expidition led by Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who has somehow lost his leg in a tussle with Blackbeard.  From this, it's a classic adventure plot - collect the items (in this case, a pair of silver chalices from Ponce de Leon and a mermaid's tear), and instigate a ritual.

While the plot manages to generally keep things moving in a forward motion, the characters undercut any suspense.  Nearly everything seems designed to irritate Depp's Jack Sparrow, from Angelica's deliberately poor imitation of him to Barbossa's loss of the Black Pearl, but the character itself seem incapable of actual anger or genuine emotion.  Mild irritation, perhaps, but nothing that would spur him into action.  Sparrow's flamboyant, willy-nilly behavior works as a side dish, but when you thrust that character into the prominent role of the movie and don't sufficiently answer the question of what would motivate that character, much of the conflict and action falls flat.  For the most part, everyone else's motivations are either clear or become so, but Jack Sparrow is both the star and selling point of this film.  Additionally, once you've driven your character insane (as in "At World's End," which was easily the best part of that movie), is it even possible to push Sparrow emotionally without veering into a surreal fantasy land?  If not, whatever is presented as a challenge is going to come off as unimpressive and minor compared to what's come before.

For me, the big action sequences and visuals didn't have much impact (nor were they as clever as anything in the first installment) as a result.  And what that means is that "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" felt really, really long.  That's about as damning of a comment I can make about an action-oriented film; the best ones fly along until they're over, and you can't believe you've been watching for a couple of hours.  This movie really didn't deliver on the things that made the previous ones fun: a sense of cleverness and playfulness, fun, sweeping action scenes, and Jack Sparrow kind of being a dick to everyone around him before pulling back and being more helpful.  I admit, I hope this is the end of the line for this franchise; it's been profitable and a good thing for pretty much everyone involved, but new installments have ceased to add anything interesting to the series.

1.5 / 5 - Theatre

Cedar Rapids - 2011

"Cedar Rapids" - 2011
Dir. by Miguel Arteta - 1 hr. 27 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There's something about Ed Helms that makes me want to see bad things happen to him (on screen, of course), and then watch him freak out about it.  That's the basis of both of the "Hangover" movies, and to a much lesser extent, "Cedar Rapids."  But don't worry, there are a couple of classic freak-out scenes here.

Helms plays an insurance salesman pressed into giving a presentation at an insurance confidence with little preparation, in an attempt to win an award that his colleague had won each of the last three years.  So, no pressure there.  His character, Tim Lippe, is the sort of guy who has never left his small town or flown, who offers butterscotches to a prostitute, who wants desperately to please the people around him.  During the course of the conference, the wheels fall off of pretty much everything in his life, which ends up being a positive development.

The movie itself is a sort of "welcome to the real world" story, steeped heavily in Midwestern charm and normality.  One thing that's pretty notable about "Cedar Rapids" is that the humor isn't as shocking as you might expect, given Helms' other work.  But when you set the bar for normal behavior at the unrelentingly friendly and wholesome, you don't have to go as far to get the same laughs.  When Tim has a fling with Anne Heche's character, the plot point that godliness is one of the things Tim will be judged on in the running for the Two Diamonds award, I was rooting for him even as he was throwing his opportunity for that award down the drain.  This also sets the stage for his first real freak-out, the "I'm a philanderer" scene.

Most of the humor comes out of the differences between the characters.  Tim Lippe is a straight-arrow, one who has to have his arm twisted to even have a drink.  Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly) is a frequently drunk, just-as-frequently coarse walking argument for ignoring a moral code.  Ronald Wilkes (Isaih Whitlock Jr.) is Urkel grown up and gone insurance salesman, who has an affinity for the HBO program "The Wire."  Joan (Anne Heche) is, as Tim puts it, "weird."  She's married with kids, and relishes the yearly opportunity to be someone different at the conference.  They're kind of caricatures, but sharply-drawn ones, and they work very well off of one another (which can happen when you've got a bunch of really good comedic actors).  It ends up being believable that they'd end up being friends with one another.

"Cedar Rapids" is pleasant, it's funny, it's proof that you don't have to do an "R-Rated Comedy" to have an R-rating and still be funny.  It's very much an adult movie, in the sense that it's not hard for an adult to relate to the motivations of the characters (things like being stuck in a rut, having to perform at your job "or else," the unexpected joy of finding new friends as an adult) and their reactions to certain situations.  That's a neat accomplishment for any film.

3 / 5 - DVD

Super 8 - 2011

"Super 8" - 2011
Dir. by J.J. Abrams - 1 hr. 52 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

"Super 8" wasn't exactly what I was expecting, based on the trailer, and thank goodness.  It ended up being much, much better.  Generally speaking, movies heavily featuring children aren't something I'm eager to watch.    In this case, writer/director J.J. Abrams pulls a Tarantino, taking stock movie elements and turning them into something clever, suspenseful, and highly entertaining.

The movie opens in the aftermath of tragedy, the death of a parent.  With that hanging over one of the characters, Joe (Joel Courtney) and Charles (Riley Griffiths) continue working on their zombie short film.  While shooting a scene late at night, they find themselves at ground zero of a train derailment, which turns their small town upside down.  Dogs (as in all of them) run away from home, appliances go missing, and the military shows up to lock things down.  All of the kids seem at least mostly focused on completing their movie, until the plot threads intersect.  At this point, they're drawn into things largely out of their control, but aren't completely stymied by it.

Points of praise: the characters all had their own motivations, and weren't just there to further the plot.  That's something that frequently gets lost in more fantastical movies, but each person acting consistently in a way that makes sense definitely helped to build drama.  Also, the batch of teenagers that held up most of the film did a good job, and Abrams has a deft touch with their dialogue.  Overall, the movie didn't sag, even in slower parts.  The run-time flew by, which is key for action-oriented movies.  And, most importantly, they ran the entire zombie movie the kids were shooting during the credits, which was a riot.

I don't have anything to complain about with "Super 8"; it's a quality mainstream summer action movie, and one that doesn't insult your intelligence.  That's too rare of a feat.  The children didn't turn into superheroes, the emotionally heavy scenes weren't sledgehammers over the head, the fantastic elements were handled well (in the vein of the original "Alien" movie).  It's just a job well done, and I'd like to see this one again.

4 / 5 - Theatre

Caligula - 1979

"Caligula: the Imperial Edition" - 1979
Dir. by Tinto Brass, Bob Guccione, and Giancarlo Lui - 1 hr. 41 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Well, it looks like the version of "Caligula" I watched was the most heavily-edited version.  I'm not sure that more of the sort of thing that was cut would make much of a difference in the quality of this movie, and I'm not certain I would have even finished a version that was a full hour longer.

"Caligula" straddles an odd line - somewhere between a historical epic and a full-on porno film.  It's a bad combination; if you want titillation, you're going to be very frustrated by the extended plot sequences.  If you want a historical epic (albeit a graphic, baudy one), at some point you'll probably want Caligula to stop molesting his sister (just kidding, it's totally consentual here) and get on with the plot.  Also, the constant need to have half-dressed or naked people in virtually every scene is kind of giggle-worthy.  I mean, if you were going to break rocks with a pick-axe with a gang of other men, even if you thought that letting your doodle flap in the wind was safe (and you could get OSHA to agree), you still might want a pair of shoes or sandals or something.

So let's get into the plot, since I was deprived of all the truly graphic material.  Tiberius Caesar (Peter O'Toole) is old and dying, so Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) decides to help him achieve death in a more timely fashion (but not with his own hands, because he's kind of prissy that way).  With Tiberius dead, Caligula is the new Caesar, and is free to shape Rome in whatever way he desires (which would lead back to the aforementioned incestual relationship with his sister, Drusilla).  Caligula quickly turns out to be a somewhat unreliable choice, which is amplified by the death of his sister.  Ultimately, he is killed and replaced as Caesar.  But pretty much everyone is either half-naked or surrounded by fully naked people all along the way.

And yeah, "Caligula" is pretty much just as bad as it sounds.  Even with the copius nudity as enticement to make it through, eventually my eyes grew numb to all the flesh, and all that was left was Malcom McDowell prancing around all over the place, with Helen Mirren looking on lustily.  I kind of feel like that, having suffered through the meat of the movie, there ought to be a version consisting ONLY of the pornographic and soft-core elements that I can be rewarded with, without the distraction of Caligula trying to bang his sister over and over again breaking up the more salacious elements of the story.  Without that disc of bonus material, there's not much point to this film at all.

1 / 5 - NF Streaming