"That's part of your problem: you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies." - Davis played by Steve Martin (GRAND CANYON 1991)
Because of the recent controversy over Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 911 or maybe because we're just simply bored we here at film babble thought we'd give a shout-out to some other political documentaries in recent circulation:
UNCOVERED - THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR
THE FOG OF WAR : ELEVEN LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF ROBERT S. McNAMARA Dir. Erroll Morris.
JOURNEYS WITH GEORGE (2002)
POWER AND TERROR : NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES (2002)
Those oughta tide you over 'til Moore's obviously anti-Bush and anti-war cinematic diatribe gets proper backing and makes its way to our town.
More later...
is the Green Art Nail
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Monday, May 10, 2004
AIRPLANE! & Its Many Children
"Life's like a movie, write your own ending"
- Kermit the Frog (THE MUPPET MOVIE 1978)
So we at film babble have been going nuts over the sequel summer to come as evidenced in our last post. Every genre represented and every cliche exploited - it is going to be a long hot summer. One genre that we babble bloggers all agree must end is represented by the arrival on DVD of SCARY MOVIE 3. You know the genre - the AIRPLANE-MAD-MAGAZINE-DERIVED-JOKE-A-MINUTE spoofs (see list below)that seem to appear every several months and have inane scatalogical humour in place of real satire.
AIRPLANE! AND ITS MANY CHILDREN:
For those of you just tuning in - fellow comedy writers/performers Jerry and David Zucker along with Jim Abrahams created a franchise around a bunch of cheap jokes and lame sight gags. It started when the Zuckers and Abrahams (ZAZ for short) took their stage show from the Kentucky Fried Theater in Milwaukee to Hollywood to make THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE begat AIRPLANE! which begat :
POLICE SQUAD (TV SERIES-1982) After his straight-man to a perfection performance in AIRPLANE! Leslie Neilsen stars as Detective Frank Drebin in a dead-on parody of '60s and '70's cop shows. Unfortunately this blueprint would later be bred dry.
TOP SECRET (1984) - File this under "what were they thinking?!!?" I mean the idea was to mix Elvis movie musical fluff with Nazi spy dramas, right? RIGHT?!!? I dunno but Val Kilmer does his ernest best to fend off prison anal sex jokes and a misguided BLUE LAGOON take-off. At least it has that one surreal sequence with Peter Cushing, otherwise what a dog patch!
THE NAKED GUN (1988)/ NAKED GUN 2 1/2 (1991) / NAKED GUN 33 1/3 : THE FINAL INSULT (1994) Detective Drebin (Nielsen)returns from sitcom cancelation pergatory in 3 movies that get progressively worse and are most notable for having O.J. Simpson as his cop partner punching bag. Priscilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban, Anna Nicole Simpson, and Robert Goulet chime in with pop culture icon plug-aways and the jokes - the very definition of hit or miss - just keep coming. First Film recommended only.
HOT SHOTS (1991)/ HOT SHOTS PART DEUX (1993) While the Zucker Brothers did other less jokey projects (GHOST, RUTHLESS PEOPLE) Jim Abrahams never left the always go for the funny fold. His Charlie Sheen fronted TOP GUN spoofs also took on RAMBO, NO WAY OUT, BASIC INSTINCT among countless other targets to better success than a number of later day Zucker efforts. Surprisely both flicks hold up today - on a silly stupid level mind you - the Saddam Hussein look-alike alone but add a clueless war-time President played by Lloyd Bridges and you'll get sucker punched into the next decade.
HIGH SCHOOL HIGH (1996)- Hip hop high school dramas like DANGEROUS MINDS get a beating in a movie that actually lets Jon Lovitz take the lead - a romantic heroic lead at that. Problem is among the cheap throwaway gags herein - who was even paying attention? Only David Zucker of ZAZ was involved here.
Some of the ZAZ team appear as writers or producers of the following offspring of AIRPLANE! but some titles are unrelated hangers-on or copycats. Most notably AIRPLANE 2 : THE SEQUEL which ZAZ not only had nothing to do with - they made a pact never to see it. It was a blatant cash-in you see. Much like the majority here :
YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE (1982) - One of the first to use lame slogans like "in the tradition of..." or ad copy along the lines of "does to soap operas what AIRPLANE did to disaster movies". Wishful thinking - this Gary Marshall directed hospital farce didn't een come close despite the talents of Michael McKean and Sean Young.
JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY - This time out it's '30's-'40's gangster movies getting the joke-a-minute treatment. Try joke every 30 minutes more like.
CAVEMAN - Dawn of man comedy starring Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach. Dennis Quaid and Shelly Long hold up the rear. And what a rear it is.
I'M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA! - The Wayans Brothers pre-IN LIVING COLOR take on Blaxploitation movies from the '70's using the ZAZ mold.
FATAL INSTINCT : The less said the better.
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON I : Ditto
JANE CHAMPION'S MAFIA!: Jim Abrahams should have known better. The genre has barely 2 breaths left.
BASKETBALL (1999) This ill-fated collaboration with the Stone brothers of South Park fame is barely a blink on the comedy radar. Remember it? I didn't think so.
WRONGFULLY ACCUSED
SPY HARD - Leslie Nielsen cashes in on his ZAZ-created non-persona. Why not?
Coming up the Wayans steal from the Zuckers and the Zuckers get their revenge - SCARY MOVIE style when FILM BABBLE BLOG continues.
AFTER THESE MESSAGES...
- Kermit the Frog (THE MUPPET MOVIE 1978)
So we at film babble have been going nuts over the sequel summer to come as evidenced in our last post. Every genre represented and every cliche exploited - it is going to be a long hot summer. One genre that we babble bloggers all agree must end is represented by the arrival on DVD of SCARY MOVIE 3. You know the genre - the AIRPLANE-MAD-MAGAZINE-DERIVED-JOKE-A-MINUTE spoofs (see list below)that seem to appear every several months and have inane scatalogical humour in place of real satire.
AIRPLANE! AND ITS MANY CHILDREN:
For those of you just tuning in - fellow comedy writers/performers Jerry and David Zucker along with Jim Abrahams created a franchise around a bunch of cheap jokes and lame sight gags. It started when the Zuckers and Abrahams (ZAZ for short) took their stage show from the Kentucky Fried Theater in Milwaukee to Hollywood to make THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE begat AIRPLANE! which begat :
POLICE SQUAD (TV SERIES-1982) After his straight-man to a perfection performance in AIRPLANE! Leslie Neilsen stars as Detective Frank Drebin in a dead-on parody of '60s and '70's cop shows. Unfortunately this blueprint would later be bred dry.
TOP SECRET (1984) - File this under "what were they thinking?!!?" I mean the idea was to mix Elvis movie musical fluff with Nazi spy dramas, right? RIGHT?!!? I dunno but Val Kilmer does his ernest best to fend off prison anal sex jokes and a misguided BLUE LAGOON take-off. At least it has that one surreal sequence with Peter Cushing, otherwise what a dog patch!
THE NAKED GUN (1988)/ NAKED GUN 2 1/2 (1991) / NAKED GUN 33 1/3 : THE FINAL INSULT (1994) Detective Drebin (Nielsen)returns from sitcom cancelation pergatory in 3 movies that get progressively worse and are most notable for having O.J. Simpson as his cop partner punching bag. Priscilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban, Anna Nicole Simpson, and Robert Goulet chime in with pop culture icon plug-aways and the jokes - the very definition of hit or miss - just keep coming. First Film recommended only.
HOT SHOTS (1991)/ HOT SHOTS PART DEUX (1993) While the Zucker Brothers did other less jokey projects (GHOST, RUTHLESS PEOPLE) Jim Abrahams never left the always go for the funny fold. His Charlie Sheen fronted TOP GUN spoofs also took on RAMBO, NO WAY OUT, BASIC INSTINCT among countless other targets to better success than a number of later day Zucker efforts. Surprisely both flicks hold up today - on a silly stupid level mind you - the Saddam Hussein look-alike alone but add a clueless war-time President played by Lloyd Bridges and you'll get sucker punched into the next decade.
HIGH SCHOOL HIGH (1996)- Hip hop high school dramas like DANGEROUS MINDS get a beating in a movie that actually lets Jon Lovitz take the lead - a romantic heroic lead at that. Problem is among the cheap throwaway gags herein - who was even paying attention? Only David Zucker of ZAZ was involved here.
Some of the ZAZ team appear as writers or producers of the following offspring of AIRPLANE! but some titles are unrelated hangers-on or copycats. Most notably AIRPLANE 2 : THE SEQUEL which ZAZ not only had nothing to do with - they made a pact never to see it. It was a blatant cash-in you see. Much like the majority here :
YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE (1982) - One of the first to use lame slogans like "in the tradition of..." or ad copy along the lines of "does to soap operas what AIRPLANE did to disaster movies". Wishful thinking - this Gary Marshall directed hospital farce didn't een come close despite the talents of Michael McKean and Sean Young.
JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY - This time out it's '30's-'40's gangster movies getting the joke-a-minute treatment. Try joke every 30 minutes more like.
CAVEMAN - Dawn of man comedy starring Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach. Dennis Quaid and Shelly Long hold up the rear. And what a rear it is.
I'M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA! - The Wayans Brothers pre-IN LIVING COLOR take on Blaxploitation movies from the '70's using the ZAZ mold.
FATAL INSTINCT : The less said the better.
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON I : Ditto
JANE CHAMPION'S MAFIA!: Jim Abrahams should have known better. The genre has barely 2 breaths left.
BASKETBALL (1999) This ill-fated collaboration with the Stone brothers of South Park fame is barely a blink on the comedy radar. Remember it? I didn't think so.
WRONGFULLY ACCUSED
SPY HARD - Leslie Nielsen cashes in on his ZAZ-created non-persona. Why not?
Coming up the Wayans steal from the Zuckers and the Zuckers get their revenge - SCARY MOVIE style when FILM BABBLE BLOG continues.
AFTER THESE MESSAGES...
Thursday, May 6, 2004
Another Summer Of Sequels & Remakes
"I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache."
- Bette Davis
SEQUEL SEASON IS IN SESSION!
This summer no less than 80% of all releases are sequels to successes of summer's past. Here's some of the most notable :
SPIDERMAN 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO - This presumably pure popcorn flick is highly awaited by us here at film babble after such a great trailer. Hope it delivers.
SHREK 2
THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2 - The world was dying for this one. Way to go Gary Marshall!
BEFORE SUNSET - It is odd to do a sequel to a little seen independent flick - let alone one of Richard Linkletter's lesser efforts - BEFORE SUNRISE. Still, film babble's Spidey-sense tingles that it might be worthwhile.
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY Apparently the BOURNE IDENTITY was the most rented movie of 2003. So here's a sequel. Good for them.
ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH VOLUME 2
HARRY POTTER 3-D
ALIEN VS. THE PREDATOR
EXORCIST : THE BEGINNING
REMAKING THE GRADE
15% of the remaining releases this summer are remakes of cult classics. The cream of the crop :
THE STEPFORD WIVES
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE - Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep do their best to answer the question - remake the perfect classic - why? Doubt they'll have a convincing answer
SOUL PLANE - AIRPLANE with black people! That's the pitch. Seriously. Snoop Dog stars.
More later...
- Bette Davis
SEQUEL SEASON IS IN SESSION!
This summer no less than 80% of all releases are sequels to successes of summer's past. Here's some of the most notable :
SPIDERMAN 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO - This presumably pure popcorn flick is highly awaited by us here at film babble after such a great trailer. Hope it delivers.
SHREK 2
THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2 - The world was dying for this one. Way to go Gary Marshall!
BEFORE SUNSET - It is odd to do a sequel to a little seen independent flick - let alone one of Richard Linkletter's lesser efforts - BEFORE SUNRISE. Still, film babble's Spidey-sense tingles that it might be worthwhile.
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY Apparently the BOURNE IDENTITY was the most rented movie of 2003. So here's a sequel. Good for them.
ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH VOLUME 2
HARRY POTTER 3-D
ALIEN VS. THE PREDATOR
EXORCIST : THE BEGINNING
REMAKING THE GRADE
15% of the remaining releases this summer are remakes of cult classics. The cream of the crop :
THE STEPFORD WIVES
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE - Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep do their best to answer the question - remake the perfect classic - why? Doubt they'll have a convincing answer
SOUL PLANE - AIRPLANE with black people! That's the pitch. Seriously. Snoop Dog stars.
More later...
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