Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024
July 1, 1994
BABY’S DAY OUT was a financial flop panned by critics, and from what I remember kind of a breaking point where for a while John Hughes became thought of more as the kids-movies-about-testicle-smashing guy instead of the beloved-‘80s-teen-coming-of-age movie guy. I don’t really have a strong opinion about his work but I found this one for the most part unfunny and annoying. I’ll try not to be too mean about it.
Hughes is the writer/producer, but the director is Patrick Read Johnson, who was a miniature model maker on 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT, BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and WARLOCK, second unit director of DEAD HEAT, and writer/director of SPACED INVADERS. It makes sense that this would come from someone with that background, because it’s a big live action cartoon with FX by ILM, including one of the first c.g. three-dimensional cityscapes and whatever tricks are involved in making it look like an actual baby is crawling around a city being lifted around by cranes, barely avoiding getting run over, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anna Levine, Brian Haley, Bruce Broughton, Cynthia Nixon, Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano, John Hughes, John Neville, Lara Flynn Boyle, Matthew Glave, Patrick Read Johnson, Verne Troyer
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024
June 29, 1994
I LOVE TROUBLE is a romantic comedy mystery thriller about two reporters at rival Chicago newspapers competing to get the scoop about a series of deaths of people connected to a particular project at a chemical company. Peter Brackett (Nick Nolte, 48 HRS.) is a womanizing columnist so famous and “off the charts hot” that he’s in Gap ads and constantly recognized in public. We meet him when he’s dropped off at work by a very satisfied groupie he picked up at a signing for his new novel White Lies. Meanwhile, Sabrina Peterson (Julia Roberts, THE PLAYER) is new in town, introduced into the movie pumps and legs first, noticed for her looks but quickly establishes herself to the point of having a full-sized photo on the side of a delivery truck that crosses paths with the one that has Peter’s photo on it. I wondered if somebody saw the introduction to Siskel & Ebert and thought, “Hmmm. What if one was a lady, and they fell in love? And solved a mystery?”
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Bernardi, Charles Martin Smith, Charles Shyer, Clark Gregg, David Newman, Eric Poppick, Frankie Faison, James Rebhorn, Jane Adams, Julia Roberts, Keith Gordon, Nancy Meyers, Nick Nolte, Nora Dunn, Olympia Dukakis, Paul Gleason, Paul Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Saul Rubinek, Walter Murch
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Mystery | 21 Comments »
Thursday, June 20th, 2024
RIDDLE OF FIRE is a distinct and very funny movie about three hellraising dirt bike rider kids named Alice (Phoebe Ferro), Hazel (Charlie Stover) and Jodie (Skyler Peters). Their day long quest to get a blueberry pie for Hazel and Jodie’s sick mother (Danielle Hoetmer, bit part in one episode of every TV show) so they can play video games strands them deep in the woods with a family/cult of witchcraft-practicing poachers called the Enchanted Blade Gang. This takes place in rural Ribbon, Wyoming, but it’s filmed in Park City, Utah by rookie feature director Weston Razooli, who grew up there.
The kids are introduced hiding behind ski masks, but with their names written on the racing plates of their bikes. There’s a montage of loading and assembling their paint guns, the attention to the metal clinks and air canister pffts as fetishistic as any actual-gun preparation sequence you’ve ever seen. Now armed, they break into a warehouse and pull some ninja shit to steal an Otomo Angel video game system. When they’re caught by a worker, Hazel distracts him with a handful of gummi worms. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 16 mm, Austin Archer, Charles Halford, Charlie Stover, Lio Tipton, Phoebe Ferro, Skyler Peters, Utah, Weston Razooli
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 12 Comments »
Monday, June 17th, 2024
June 17, 1994 was such a big day that in 2010 Brett Morgen released an ESPN 30 For 30 documentary called JUNE 17TH, 1994. It covered Arnold Palmer playing his final round at the U.S. Open, the commencement of the first FIFA World Cup hosted by the United States, a ticker tape parade for the New York Rangers after winning the Stanley Cup, Game 5 of the 1994 NBA Finals, Ken Griffey Jr. tying a Babe Ruth home run record, oh yeah and O.J. Simpson’s infamous slow police chase in the Ford Bronco. One important event of the day that it did not cover was the release of Mike Nichols’ WOLF starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer. And I will not be covering it either, despite its story of an older generation getting all macho to compete with a younger one stealing their jobs and women, because I already wrote about it in my Summer Flings series.
There is however one topic I will be covering that was far too provocative and/or non-sports-related to include in the documentary, and that’s the movie GETTING EVEN WITH DAD starring Ted Danson as Dad and Macaulay Culkin as the party getting even.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gailard Sartain, Glenne Headly, Great America, Hector Elizondo, Howard Deutch, Jim Jennewein, Kathleen Wilhoite, Macaulay Culkin, Sam McMurray, Saul Rubinek, Ted Danson, Tom S. Parker
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Family | 14 Comments »
Thursday, June 13th, 2024
June 10, 1994
I put ERNEST GOES TO SCHOOL on my schedule because it was on a list of June 1994 releases, but upon further research I realized they didn’t exactly attempt to mount a challenge to SPEED and CITY SLICKERS II. They only gave it a limited release in Connecticut (nickname: “The Ernest State”) before the rest of the country got it on video in December. So I could have very justifiably skipped reviewing it in this series. But never let it be said that I retreated from my search for knowledge. Ernest, going to school!? I mean, how is something like that gonna pan out? I had to know.
It occurs to me that I’ve never reviewed an Ernest P. Worrell movie before, so I’ve never had a chance to note that back in the Ain’t It Cool days some people thought my name was a reference to the off camera character Ernest was talking to in the commercials and TV series he did, or that it was funny to write “Know whut I mean, Vern?” in response to my reviews. Both were incorrect.
This one was the sixth Ernest motion picture, or seventh if you include DR. OTTO AND THE RIDDLE OF THE GLOOM BEAM (1985), where Jim Varney played several characters, including Ernest. There were three more after this, all DTV, and out of the whole series this is the only one not directed by John Cherry. Instead the honor goes to Coke Sams, writer of most of the Ernest works going back to the beginning. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Coke Sams, Corrine Koslo, David Keith, Jim Varney, Linda Kash, Russell Porter, Sarah Chalke, Will Sasso
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 39 Comments »
Wednesday, June 12th, 2024
June 10, 1994
CITY SLICKERS II: THE LEGEND OF CURLY’S GOLD is the sequel to the Billy Crystal comedy adventure hit I reviewed in my summer of ’91 series. You may remember that Jack Palance won an Oscar for playing the surly trail boss Curly, who teaches Mitch (Billy Crystal, RUNNING SCARED) how to feel like less of a twerp, helps him deliver a baby calf, dies, and is bizarrely buried out in the middle of the desert. The sequel opens with Mitch riding out to visit Curly’s grave, only to have him reach and rise out of it, in a parody of the end of CARRIE. (A nightmare, of course.)
I thought it would be funny if they got Palance back just to do that scene, but this is actually a sequel that follows in the tradition of A BETTER TOMORROW 2, where the stand out character was killed in the first movie so they brought the actor back as his twin brother. Mitch keeps seeing Curly outside his window and shit, his friends think he’s losing it, but in fact Curly’s twin brother Duke is following him around trying to find a treasure map hidden in his brother’s hat, which Mitch has. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrian Biddle, Babaloo Mandel, Beth Grant, Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Jack Palance, Jon Lovitz, Lowell Ganz, Marc Shaiman, Noble Willingham, Patricia Wettig, Paul Weiland, Pruitt Taylor Vince
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, June 11th, 2024
HIT MAN (2024) is on the more crowdpleasing side of Richard Linklater movies, a sort of comedy, sort of romance, sort of noir, sort of true story that’s good enough to sort of make me forgive the “based on a true story… sort of” disclaimer and related dad joke vibes. For me it doesn’t quite live up to the hype from the Toronto International Film Festival, where it apparently blew the roof off, but it’s definitely worth watching if you already get Netflix, where it ended up.
This is really a star vehicle for Glen Powell, an Austinite who worked with Linklater in FAST FOOD NATION, EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! and APOLLO 10 1/2 (an animated/rotoscoped movie that’s also on Netflix, and quite good) before blowing up in TOP GUN: MAVERICK and ANYONE BUT YOU. Now the two of them teamed up to co-write and co-produce this showcase for Powell doing more than just his usual cocky hunky guy thing (but also that). He plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans psychology professor who lives alone with two cats, enjoys bird watching, and tucks his polo shirts into his cargo shorts. He’s a dabbler who moonlights as a tech guy for the police, recording undercover stings busting people who were asking around about putting a hit out on somebody. When Jasper (Austin Amelio, The Walking Dead) is suspended for excessive force, Gary is pushed into playing the hitman, digs deep to create a macho character, and turns out to be very good at it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, based on a magazine article, Evan Holtzman, Glen Powell, Retta, Richard Linklater, Skip Hollandsworth
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Thriller | 24 Comments »
Wednesday, June 5th, 2024
June 3rd, 1994
I should’ve known better after BEVERLY HILLS COP III, but I was kind of excited to watch a ‘90s studio action comedy that I’m not really familiar with. I might have seen THE COWBOY WAY on video back in the day, but I don’t remember for sure, so it was basically new to me. Could’ve been an unheralded gem! But it wasn’t. Just some competently produced, very dumb bullshit. I always think of ’94 as a great year for film, but so far, I gotta tell you, the summer movies are not contributing to that impression.
The story is about two bickering New Mexico rodeo pals, Sonny (Kiefer Sutherland, TWIN PEAKS: FIREWALK WITH ME) and Pepper (Woody Harrelson, DOC HOLLYWOOD), who go to New York City to look for their missing friend Nacho Salazar (Joaquin Martinez, JOE KIDD). Nacho turns out to have been killed trying to save his daughter Teresa (Cara Buono) from traffickers, so they try to save her. Both the action premise and the comedy premise are that they only know how to live “the cowboy way” so they don’t really understand the city much but also can punch better than any mere city boy on account of cowboy ruggedness. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Newman, Dylan McDermott, Ernie Hudson, Gregg Champion, Joaquin Martinez, Kiefer Sutherland, Luis Guzman, Tomas Milian, William D. Wittliff, Woody Harrelson
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, June 4th, 2024
May 27, 1994
THE FLINTSTONES was undeniably one of the big movie events of the summer of ’94. Sure, it got poor reviews, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone who thought it was anything more than fine, but people definitely went to see it – it made almost $300 million over its budget, the #5 grossing movie of the year. Since we all agree that box office is important because movies are a business etc. etc., this figure proves that THE FLINTSTONES made a bigger mark than SCHINDLER’S LIST, PULP FICTION, THE CROW, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, SHORT CUTS, ED WOOD, and CLERKS that year. Only THE LION KING, FORREST GUMP, TRUE LIES and THE SANTA CLAUSE were more impactful. Sorry, that’s just science. There are fossils to prove it.
So I thought it was important to include in this series, and also I wanted my sainted wife, who had never seen it, to watch it with me. (Don’t worry, it was fine, she didn’t hate it.) But when I did that and then I re-read my review of the movie from the Summer Flings series in 2017, I realized that oh jesus, I covered this very thoroughly at that time. Didn’t leave much more to write about. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Levant, Elizabeth Perkins, Halle Berry, John Goodman, Kyle McLachlan, Rick Moranis, Rosie O'Donnell, Steven E. de Souza
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 31 Comments »
Monday, May 20th, 2024
“Better no cowgirls at all than cowgirls compromised.”
Richard Donner’s MAVERICK was obviously the big western type movie of May 20th, 1994. I didn’t see it. I did see the goofy indie cowgirl comedy that flopped and got terrible reviews. Gus Van Sant’s EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES, from the novel by Tom Robbins (who narrates the movie), was considered a huge debacle at the time. I remembered very little except that I kind of liked it. Thirty years later it wasn’t really what I remembered, but I found it actually pretty delightful.
It stars Uma Thurman very close to PULP FICTION, which came out in the Fall. It’s one of her early lead roles, and she actually gets the rare “IN” credit:
As you can see the title fills up the screen, so going by my TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. rule you know this is gonna be a good one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angie Dickinson, Buck Henry, Carol Kane, Crispin Glover, Ed Begley Jr., Edward James Olmos, Grace Zabriskie, Gus Van Sant, Heather Graham, John Hurt, k.d. lang, Keanu Reeves, Ken Kesey, Lin Shaye, Lorraine Bracco, Pat Morita, Rain Phoenix, Sean Young, Tom Robbins, Udo Kier, Uma Thurman, William S. Burroughs
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 15 Comments »
