The Madcap Laughs

             I’m breaking my rule again about lists and opinions; however, I’m in a weird mood.  Hence, some of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.  Not all laugh-out-loud funny, some charmingly funny, some quietly funny.  The list, in no real order, hence starting off with:

Stepbrothers:  Will Ferrell is definitely a hit or miss guy with some of the movies he’s been in.  When he teams with John C. Reilly (formerly a dramatic actor of some note) the results are hilarious.  This movie has a lot of laugh out loud moments.  Also:  I know I’m in the very small minority on this one, but Land of the Lost is pretty funny too.

Annie Hall:  It’s hard to pick just one Woody Allen movie, but this one gets the nod.  As I grow older I see a touch of sadness and poignancy as well.  Manhattan and the underrated Stardust Memories are also good.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail – Monty Python is an acquired taste.  My wife hates them, my son loves them.  This is silliness at its best.  I remember I bought the album and had it memorized well before I even saw the movie.

Tootsie – Sure, Dustin Hoffman’s good in this, but the real credit goes to an excellent supporting cast that includes, Dabney Coleman, Teri Garr, Charles Durning, an unbilled Bill Murray and the old guy from Punky Brewster.

Local Hero – This is more of a smile and nod type of movie than a gut buster.   It’s about an American oil company representative who gets captivated by a little Scottish town.  The locations and soundtrack (by Mark Knophler of Dire Straits) are enchanting.

The Naked Gun movies – Airplane is funny, but these movies are funnier.  With Leslie Nielson playing it straight amongst the lunacy, these movies are gut busters.

Mr. Hulot’s Holiday – The French Charlie Chaplin?  I first saw this movie at a matinee in New York at one of the revival theatres there.  The audience consisted of parents who brought their young kids to see something special, something other than the pabulum foisted on children back then and today.  The kids were enthralled and merrily entertained.

Animal House – RIP John Belushi.  “My advice to you is drink heavily.”  His character trying to cheer up Flounder as you would a idiot child is a priceless moment.

A Fish Called Wanda – John Cleese is one of the funniest human beings alive and the best thing about this movie.  Kevin Kline was funny, but Academy Award funny?  This movie is a tribute to the Ealing comedies, which are also worth a watch,especially the one's with Alec Guiness.

Mr. Bean’s Vacation – A lot better than the previous Bean movie.  This is another example of a movie that doesn’t have to be offensive or vulgar to get laughs.

The Bell Boy – Critics rave about The Nutty Professor, but this movie is funnier.  It’s an almost plot less series of vignettes about the usual hapless Jerry Lewis getting into trouble (what a novel concept).  Also, another plus, Jerry has virtually no dialogue.

His Girl Friday – Rapid fire dialogue and plotting doesn’t get any funnier than this.  Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell crackle.  A great supporting cast of wonderful character actors.

Duck Soup – The Marx Brothers made a lot of good movies (and, sadly, some average ones too).  Pound for pound this is the greatest.  S. J. Pearlman (my favorite humorist) contributed to the dialogue.  Hail, Hail Fredonia.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – I loved this movie when I was a kid and it still holds up today. 

The Producers – The original, not the musical.  Zero Motel and Gene Wilder make a great comic tandem.  Whatever happened to Dick Shawn?

Pee Wee’s Big Adventure – Tim Burton’s first film.  Funny and inventive.   Whatever happened to Pee Wee Herman?  Oh…yeah.

The Night Shift – I used to work in a video store and customers would often ask for recommendations.  For comedies, I would recommend this, one of Ron Howard’s first efforts.  Michael Keaton steals the movie.  Shelly Long is horribly miscast as a prostitute(?!).

The Pink Panther Strikes Again – This and A Shot in the Dark are the best Panther movies.  This is the one where Inspector Dreyfuss goes nuts (again) and blackmails the world's spies into killing Clouseau.  A Shot in the Dark has the famous nudist colony scene and Elke Sommer. 

Some Like it Hot - This is here for obligatory reasons and as a nod to Jack Lemmon, one of the great actors of the past half century.

Afterhours - This is without a doubt the strangest movie (if you don't count New York, New York) Martin Scorsese has ever done.  Can I get one of those plaster of paris bagel paperweights?

Borat – Tasteless, vulgar and one of the funniest movies ever.

A Life in the Theater, Part the Fourth

                 My first professional show!  Also the first time I got paid to act!  Also, one of the more bizarro life experiences ever.

                The play, Marat/Sade, is a wonderful quasi-musical that plays out some of the highlights of the French Revolution as performed by the inmates of a lunatic asylum.

                I got a call one day from a man with a very thick Eastern-European accent who wondered if I would be interested in a role in his production.  He said he had seen my work before and liked it (!?).  It was a non-speaking role as one of the brutish asylum guards (apparently he liked my “brutish” qualities).  I would be on stage the entire time and would get to do various and sundry stuff, like restrain and beat the inmates when they got out of line and look menacing.  I said, sir, sign me up.

                The cast was a mix of Equity, non-equity actors and two musicians (a violinist and a trombone player).   The cast and backstage personnel were also a rather bizarre assortment of humans.  The young woman who played Charlotte Corday, with two weeks to go before the premiere, decided a theater showcase in New York, was much better suited for her career, so she promptly quit the show.  Her replacement was awful.  The actor portraying Marat quit in the middle of the run.  They had to get some poor guy who had done the show in college, who barely remembered the lines and often extrapolated them nonsensically in performance much to the cast’s delight.  The actor who played DeSade was certifiable.  He had a reputation as being incredibly difficult and would often perform stoned.  Some of his monologues were cut for brevity; however, I once remarked that I missed a certain monologue so that night he put it back in.  Thanks, guy.

                The stage manager would barely communicate with those of us who either had no lines or he didn’t like (I fit into both categories) and would repeatedly kiss the asses of the stars and the actors (esp. female) that he did.  This was one of the first plays where the makeup I had to put on was somewhat complex and I had to ask the stressed out makeup person for help every night.  I tried to do it myself and every night she would have to touch it up or redo it (any career as a clown was out of the question).  I think I got it right once.  On a side note, I ran into her in New York and she was completely different, transformed.  We became friends.

                It was also the first cast that I would hang out with (at the corner bar) after the show.  A semi-regular occurance.  Actors sometimes make the best/worst drinking partners. I fell head over heels in love with one of the women playing one of the nuns (they’re something weirdly Freudian there), alas, that never went anywhere.  We were good friends, but she was more interested in the creepy stage manager.  

I had a few more shows to go before I moved to New York.

Hi Diddly Dee, it's the actor's life for me!

The Music Man

             I’ve rapidly been filling up the MP3 player my son bought for me at a yard sale for $5.  I’m a frustrated DJ.  At one point in college, I wanted to be an actual DJ, but that dream lasted about a semester or until I took a film class.

            Way back when, I used to compile my favorite songs on cassettes.  The cassettes held the primitive amount of 45 minutes of songs per side.  My stereo system was slightly off, so my cassettes always played back at a slightly faster speed.  Those were the days.

            Currently, I’ve been looking for CD’s (another dying purveryor of tunes!) of all (or most) of the music I liked way back when.  My musical interests (and buying) came to an abrupt halt  back around 1990, when I got married and had little or no discretionary income; therefore, I’m almost totally oblivious to anything (good) beyond that time.

            I’ve been scouring thrift stores and yard sales for musical treasures.  Walmart is a pretty good place to go, the selection is bleak but the prices are pretty good.  $5 for Classic Yes or Mile Davis Greatest Hits is a good buy.  Speaking of Yes, I haven’t listened to half these tunes since college.  And I haven’t listened to any of them sober, ever.

            I had about 3600 mega bytes (Is this the right term?) on the MP3 and started to just but anything on it.  100 greatest classical hits?  Sure.  Two CD’s worth of Big Band?  Okay.  The entire ouvre of ZZ Top?  Why not.

            It seemed like a lot of space at first, but, man, did it fill up fast.  I’ve had to be more discriminating in what I put on as well as delete things already on there. (According to my son, the MP3 player, unlike the IPod, allows you to delete songs.  Thank God)  

Johnny Cash singing “Cats in the Cradle”.  I hated that song when Harry Chapin sang it.  Goodbye!

The Monkees’ “The Porpoise Song”.  “Daydream Believer” is enough of a compromise. 

You mean I don’t have to listen to “The Long and Winding Road” ever.  Woo Hoo.

Basically, I’m adding by subtracting or multiplying proportionally or something.

Anyway, music always had a place in my life and I’m happy it’s back.

I Learned it from Comic Books

I’ve been reading comic books off and on for a long time and I can honestly tell you that you can learn stuff from just reading comics.  I’m not talking about Maus or Watchmen or Classics Illustrated, but your run-of-the-mill super hero comics. 

1)      The criminal justice system sucks.  How many times has Spiderman fought Electro or Dr. Octopus over the course of his career?   How many times has Batman had to deal with the Joker? Too many times, that’s how many.  No matter how elaborate the jails get, (Arkham, the Raft, the prison in the Negative Zone), villains will find a way to get out.  Doesn’t the death penalty ever come into the conversation with any of these guys?    Which brings me to my next point...

2)      Nobody ever stays dead in the comics.  Superman, Batman, Captain America, even the Captain’s sidekick, Bucky Freakin’ Barnes (a character nobody wanted to see again), has been declared dead at one time or another and brought back to life.  It doesn’t matter.  Comic book creators create their own logic and world.  Normal rational plays no part here.  Superboy punches a wall and Batman’s second Robin comes back to life.  Now, he’s evil and bent on revenge or  something.  Sure.  Why not.  Aristotle’s got nothin’ on this baby.

3)      A super heroine’s breast size is directly proportional to her power and abilities.  Not that I’m complaining.

Power Girl can bench press 200 tons.

4)      Nobody writes Shakespearian-like dialogue better than Stan Lee.  Check out some of his Thor stuff from the sixties.  The Bard would be proud, sir.

5)      Star Trek (“Mirror, Mirror”) and Fringe aside, the “alternate universe” concept is the last resort for the writer who has run out of ideas.  How many different timelines, versions of characters and re-workings do we need (or have to pay to read)?

6)      “With great power, comes great responsibility”.  I don’t know who first said it, Uncle Ben, Socarates, Mr. Whipple, but it is a truism beyond the realm of comic books.  Politicians, take note.

7)      Sorry Mr. Wizard, Science is the great corrupter.  Radiation has done a number on a variety or heroes, (Daredevil, Spiderman, the Hulk) and villains (the Abomination, the Leader) and they are probably the worse for wear because of it.  How about all the inventions that have led to superpowers? 

8)      Comics are a great source of debate and rumination in my household, usually between my son and me.  Who would win in a fight?  Superman or the Hulk?  Who is fastest man in comics?  The Flash or Quicksilver?  How are comics a mirror of what goes on in society today?  Why have comics (consciously or unconsciously reflected the times in which they existed?  That is a subject for another blog.