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ghintaris
Reviews
Dance 'Til Dawn (1988)
laugh out loud funny moments
Was feeling a little blue when I put this in the DVD player, so when I found myself laughing out loud, I knew there was something going on here. The first time I cracked up was when the Dan Lefcourt character walks down the aisle of an all-night movie theater, intently watching the action on the screen and juggling his snacks. The theater is almost deserted, yet he manages to blindly sit down in one of the few occupied seats. The brief and subtle reactions and interplay is great! Not the over-the-top, beat a dead horse kind of attempts at humor so common in many so-called comedies today. (I believe the young actor's name is Chris DeYoung. He's likable, and I'm surprised he didn't have a bigger career.) He's also in another lol bit. Alyssa Milano plays Shelley, who wishes to remain unseen while in the company of the above mentioned Dan. As they scuttle out of a restaurant on all fours to leave unnoticed, Mr. Strull (Kelsey Grammar)comments, wondering what they might have had to eat. Check this movie out. Many more funny moments, but these come to mind.
The Comedians of Comedy (2005)
laugh out loud funny
Don't comment on a lot of movies or shows, but I picked up this DVD by chance and couldn't stop watching. Took in most of the deleted scenes and DVD extras as well, until 3:30 in the morning. The cute puppy sequence is priceless. Patton Oswalt can be seen on The King of Queens sitcom. Didn't know he was a standup comedian until fairly recently, and he was the reason I grabbed this video. Very funny, and the impetus behind the comedy tour and documentary. I appreciate him as someone who has clearly paid his dues. Brian Posehn is good as well. He's an unusual yet likable personality. Self effacing as well, as is Patton above. I especially liked the background info revealed throughout. Hey, where better to get insights into others than through a roadtrip. I enjoyed him in this movie and in Sara Silverman's Show. Maria Bramford was mostly new to me. Very funny and HOT. I'm gonna check out some of her other movies--I've got access to Stuart Little 2 and she also appeared in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 back in '94. That makes sense as she's from Minnesota. Once, intentionally or not, a bit of a Fargo-style accent came out. Maybe she was tired from the road trip or late night schedule. Catch her pteradactyl (splg?) joke. Best of all was Zach Galafianakis. Entirely new to me, his bits were the best. Had me laughing out loud almost every time he did something. And his recruiting of the street performers--brilliant. I'm going to rewatch this documentary. And I saved the "making of" extra. I'm sure that'll be super as well.
Captain Nice (1967)
pill-popping, potion swilling not-so-super heroes
I was very young when Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific aired and then quickly disappeared. Even from that tender age, however, I remember the rumor going around was that the networks were pressured to can these shows because the nebbish lead characters altered their states by ingesting some trippy substances. Others on this site mention Carter Nash's father hiding behind his newspaper. I only vaguely remember that, but it fits as CN's mother was the type to hen-peck. i.e. When Carter's super powers are revealed to his mother she asks what name he has chosen. He'd chosen Captain Nice because of the CN on his belt buckle. She throws up her hands in disappointment and asks, "Couldn't you have chosen something better--like . . . "Super Brain" or something?" I thought that was funny even as a little kid. The only other bit I remember from the series involved an appearance by some kind of Gilligan's Island style native who spoke guttural gibberish. When the native says to the mother, "Tahk-a-mock-a-doi," she is aghast by the nerve of him--maybe she even slapped his face. Was funny that a 60s era stay-at-home mom would know some obscure language. And my brothers and I used that native phrase as undercover cursing around our parents. We could let the receiver of this curse imagine the worst was meant, and yet avoid getting punished for swearing. My last thoughts about Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific are that it seemed odd that two so-similar shows debuted at the same time, just as The Munsters and The Addams Family had. Figured that there was some industrial (TV industry) espionage going on, but as a seven year old I probably just called them copycats.
Here Come the Tigers (1978)
Wes Craven and F.J. Lincoln listed in credits!
Have not watched kids films for some years, so I missed "Here Come the Tigers" when it first came out. (Never even saw "Bad News Bears" even though in the '70s I worked for the guys who arranged financing for that movie, "Warriors," "Man Who Would Be King," and "Rocky Horror Picture Show," among others.) Now I like to check out old or small movies and find people who have gone on to great careers despite being in a less than great movie early on. Just minutes into this movie I could take no more and jumped to the end credits to see if there was a young actor in this movie who had gone on to bigger and better things--at least watching for his/her appearance would create some interest as the plot and acting weren't doing the job. Lo and behold, I spied Wes Craven's name in the credits as an electrical gaffer. He'd already made two or three of his early shockers but had not yet created Freddie Krueger or made the "Scream" movies. Maybe he owed a favor and helped out on this pic. More surprising was Fred J. Lincoln in the cast credits as "Aesop," a wacky character in the movie. F.J. Lincoln, from the '70s to just a few years ago, appeared in and produced adult films. He was associated with the adult spoof "The Ozporns," and just that title is funnier than all of "Tigers" attempts at humor combined. Let the fact that an adult actor was placed in a kids movie be an indication as to how the people making this movie must have been asleep at the wheel.