clarkpark Reviews

Hook (1991)

Barrie would have been pleased

[9/10 · 5 September 2006]

Peter Banning (Robin Williams) is a 90's kind of guy, a driven workaholic who spends too much time on his cell phone and too little with his children. He is a premature old fart devoid of imagination or playfulness. Then he and his family return to his boyhood London home to visit Grandma Wendy (Maggie Smith) the philanthropist who took him in as an orphan, raised him and whose granddaughter Maura he married.

On their first night, Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) has Peter's children kidnapped. To spur him to rescue them, Grandma Wendy reminds Peter of his long-repressed origins – he is, or was, the real Peter Pan. He refuses to believe this until Tinkerbelle (Julia Roberts) shows up, sprinkles him with pixie dust and, before he knows or in any way approves of what's happening, he's sailing past the second star on the right. In Neverland, Peter must find his original qualities somewhere inside him to win back the Lost Boys and battle Hook for his children and their affection.

Robin Williams gives a performance only he is capable of in this lovely tale of recapturing youth and realizing that the most important things in the adult world really aren't very important at all. If you have no capacity for innocent romance, like some other posters here, you'll hate this movie. If, on the other hand, you consider being likened to Peter Pan as one of life's greatest compliments, you need to get a copy of Hook and clear some time in your adult schedule to reconnect with your own sense of joy and wonder.

Stacked (2005–2006)

Seinfeld and Married: With Children Step Aside

[10/10 · 12 August 2006]

Pamela Anderson has appeared in a lot of exploitation television. But, if you look at the producing credits, you realize she's the one doing the exploiting – a vernacular Katherine Hepburn with a boob job.

Stacked is excellently written, acted and directed. The punchlines are every last bit the equal of Get Smart, Green Acres, Night Court, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Married: With Children, Seinfeld and Scrubs. Elon Gold and Brian Scolaro as Gavin and Stuart, the two nerdy brothers who run the bookstore, and Marissa Jaret Winokur as Katrina, the cute but chubby and insecure girl who tends the coffee counter, are first rate and would stand out on any other series. But here, there talents are matched by Pam as Skyler, the rocker girlfriend who decides to turn over a new leaf; the lady has a first rate sense of comedic timing. Then, as their irascible regular morning customer, throw in Christopher Lloyd, and you have a recipe for a half hour that guarantees a lot of chuckles and at least a half dozen outright belly laughs.

In the pilot, Gavin's bitchy ex-wife comes in to torment him with news of her new boyfriend and is flabbergasted by hottie Skyler pretending to be Gavin's new flame. Non-plussed by Skyler's hands-all-over him familiarity, ex-wifey goes ballistic when she realizes her twelve year old son is so impressed by Skyler – or certain large portions of her – that he's lost the capacity to blink, close his mouth or hear his mother screaming at him that it's time to leave.

A later episode begins with Skyler telling all of her co-workers that she loves them and proceeds to slapstick results, including a long-time unknown admirer of Stuart's coming forward. His mousey little redheaded stalked may be the funniest thing I've ever seen on television.

Some critics of Ms Anderson, may say the lines are a little risqué for TV, but they're no worse than the "But, I've got hand." and reply of "Good, you're gonna need it." or shrinkage discussions from Seinfeld. What they are is unfailingly funny and often totally unforeseen. This is such a welcome relief from hit comedy series whose laugh track is the only way to tell that a joke must have been in the dialogue somewhere. There are only eighteen episodes so far, and already enough dynamite lines for the quotes page herein to require a warning for those of weak heart or with torso stitches.

Best of all, it's one of the shows available on iTunes, so you needn't miss a single minute.

Shrek (2001)

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.

[10/10 · 25 July 2005]

You can do smartass humor or be poignant, but it's tough to do both in the same hour and a half. The only movie I can think of that pulled it off is Mr Roberts.

And then came Shrek, which uses pages from a bona fide book of fairy tales as toilet paper, shows the hero taking a slime shower and has maggots wriggling into place to create words – and that's only through the opening credits. Yet, after all that, and the candle made of ogre earwax and a donkey urinating out a campfire, it still manages the most poignantly beautiful scene ever committed to film as the hero and heroine contemplate their lives without each other to the accompaniment of Leonard Cohen's haunting Allelujah.

Mike Meyers as the title ogre, Eddie Murphy as his talking donkey sidekick, Cameron Diaz as the enchanted princess and John Lithgow as the vertically challenged villain are all brilliant. The script and direction match their efforts. The animation is simply the best ever done (even to the point of replicating the red-point sun reflection off the camera lens as the heroes emerge from a tunnel). Fantasia eat your heart out.

And it isn't just that this is the comedic equal of Arsenic and Old Lace and Young Frankenstein. Or that it is to animation what Citizen Kane was to cinematography. Or that, while creating the greatest of all fairy tales, it lampoons every one that came before it along with the Disney machine that put most of them on celluloid. It's greatest strength is that it's as societally important as Mr Smith Goes to Washington or To Kill a Mockingbird. Not all of us, in fact not many of us, grow up to be swans, and there's not a damn thing wrong with being an ugly duck.

Shrek is irreverently funny in a way that delights everyone from bratty kids to insensitive old farts. It's scenes that attempt romantic beauty are the equal of any classic Disney fairy tale. It's message is the most important ever delivered by any story: no matter who or what you are, there's a place for you in this world and you have a right to be happy being you.

Under the Rainbow (1981)

It's a Funny Movie

[8/10 · 24 July 2005]

Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, Pat McCormack, Billy Barty, Eve Arden, Joseph Maher, Adam Arkin, Cork Hubbard, Robert Donner – how could it not be good. The temporary manager (Arkin) of the Culver Hotel, across from MGM in 1939, changes its name to Hotel Rainbow to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the soon-to-be shot Wizard of Oz. It works as the studio's talent agent (Fisher) books rooms for all of their wouldbe munchkins. So, we start with hundreds of partying little people who make a Shriners convention look like a religious retreat. Throw in an FBI agent (Chase) protecting a traveling Duke (Maher) and Duchess (Arden) from a crazed assassin (Donner), and then a couple of dozen photo- snapping Japanese tourists whose bus breaks down in front of the hotel. Finally, sift in a Japanese agent (Mako) and a dwarf Nazi spy (Barty) who are looking for each other in a hotel full of Japanese and dwarfs. The plot is decent without getting in the way of the comedy, the acting is great, and the dialogue is often superb (What floor do you want? Ballroom. Oh' I'm sorry, I didn't know I was crowding you.) All in all, it's a great way to spend an afternoon.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

One of the four funniest movies ever made.

[10/10 · 2 January 2005]

Cary Grant said, more than once, that the only film he wished he hadn't made was Arsenic and Old Lace. Cary was one of the most brilliant actors ever to grace the screen, and his own self-deprecation of this movie proves the rule that the best actors make the worst critics. This is far and away the best movie the old boy ever made and the best performance he ever turned in – and, given The Philadelphia Story, Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, Charade and many others, that's saying something.

If you believe that performance art is actually art, that Martin Scorcese directs comedy well, or that Quentin Tarntino is an actual person instead of a character created by Andy Kaufman – don't waste time watching this movie. You have neither the wit nor the sophistication to appreciate it.

Following the best formula for comedy, Frank Capra starts with two great leads, creates circumstances which make them both lunatics, and then surrounds them with brilliant comedic actors playing characters who are raving lunatics on their best days. This formula is why Arsenic and Old Lace, Young Frankenstein, What's Up Doc and Love and Death are brilliant, while Fletch is merely funny (Dick Libertini, Ken Mars, George Wendt et al playing straight men for anyone is inherently wrong).

This is the archetypical door-slamming comedy – with a few dozen murders and a family that would make Hannibal Lector faint dead away thrown in for laughs. Cary, as the only normal member of the family, turns in a performance that is suave, yet slapstick to a degree that would do Harpo Marx or Larry Fine proud. The female lead (who isn't seen all that much) is the equally brilliant Priscilla Lane, who made far too few movies. Add in Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Jack Carson, James Gleason, Edward Everett Horton and lots of other great comedians and you get funny in spades.

Mortimer Brewster (Grant), theater critic and author of books against marriage, has just married the minister's daughter (Lane) who lives next door to the two maiden Aunts in Brooklyn who raised him. They stop to tell them on their way to Niagara Falls. You get to see Mortimer's brother Teddy, who thinks he's Theodore Roosevelt, and, in incidental conversation, learn of the psychotic third brother, Jonathan, who's long since departed. But, as least Mort knows good old Aunts Abby and Martha are sane ... until he finds the china closet full of men's hats and learns about the little "charity" service they've been performing. Of course, while he's trying to sort out the chaos he thought was order, Jonathan returns with two friends, one living.

While best viewed just before Halloween, this movie is an absolute treat any time. The dialogue is great, the slapstick is splendid, and there are more and better double-takes than any other film. Watch Cary use every muscle in his face as he intones "Now, Aunt Abby, when you say 'others' do you mean others – as in more than one others?!?" If Raymond Massey's Jonathan doesn't frighten you to your toes, and if Cary doing a prancing pantomime while singing "there is a happy dale far, far away" doesn't put you on the floor – call the ME's, you're as good as dead.

The Missiles of October (1974 TV Movie)

Every World Leader Should Be Required to Watch this Once a Year

[10/10 · 2 January 2005]

This is the best docudrama, and quite possibly the best drama, ever made. Forget the blatant revisionism of the Kennedies that's come in vogue, The Missilies of October is the real story of how Jack Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev faced down their generals and conservative wings and pulled the world back from the brink of Armageddon.

Just before the missile crisis breaks, Kennedy read The Guns of October – an historical work about how the great powers simply stumbled into World War I. It wasn't inevitable; it could have been avoided, but no country would give another room to back down without appearing to capitulate.

Bobby Kennedy plays the whip to bring the powerful and contentious men who make up JFK's cabinet, political allies and military leadership into an uneasy consensus around a blockade of Cuba, instead of an invasion. JFK gives Khruschev room to maneuver at every turn, and Khruschev is smart enough to see these openings and take them. Neither side gets what it wants; both sides get what they can live with.

Ralph Bellamy, Nehemiah Persoff, John Dehner, Andrew Duggan, Peter Donat, Dana Elcar, Stewart Moss, Harris Yulin and more give excellent performances. William DeVane as JFK, Martin Sheen as RFK and Howard DaSilva as Khruschev are absolutely brilliant. The script and direction are equal to the fine performances of the cast.

Watch this movie and ponder where we'd be if the Bush cabinet had learned these lessons before they started playing power politics.

The Ice Pirates (1984)

If you liked Mars Attacks! and Buckaroo Banzai ....

[9/10 · 31 December 2004]

This is the movie that killed Mary Crosby's career and nearly derailed Robert Urich's, Angelica Houston's and Ron Perlman's. It's one of those movies - like 1941 and Paint Your Wagon - that everyone knows is a total turkey, except for those who place what they see on the screen above what they read in the reviews. If you liked Mars Attacks! and Buckaroo Banzai, and laughed your ass off at Spaced Invaders and Killer Clowns from Outer Space, you'll love Ice Pirates.

The time is the distant future, where by far the most precious commodity in the galaxy is water. The idea that there were once ten planets whose surface was principally covered by water is considered a myth by most people, as is the story that the last surviving water planet was somehow removed to the unreachable center of the galaxy at the end of the galactic trade wars. The galaxy is ruled by your basic evil emperor (John Carradine) presiding over a trade oligarchy that controls all mining and sale of ice from asteroids and comets.

Robert Urich is Jason, leader of a band of ice pirates that includes Ron Perlman, John Matuzak and Michael D Roberts. Of course, the crew also prominently features the obligatory unbeatable master swordsman and latter-day samurai, but, in a blow for equality, the part is played to perfection by Angelica Houston. In the formulaic plot for outlaw space operas, our heroes attack an ice freighter, are captured, but escape with a princess (Mary Crosby) kidnapped by the evil emperor in tow. They rescue her, thread the perilous path to the center of the universe and the fabled tenth planet, and destroy the evil empire's stranglehold on the people.

Along the way, you are treated to some of film's oddest aliens, god-awful puns and excellent lampoons of space opera icons. It's full of bona fide toilet humor, from the pirates breaking through the hull of the ice freighter into a lavatory whose commode is occupied by a chickenman, to the standard reconditioning for outlaws and other deviants - castration by mechanical chompers, a lobotomy and a blond dye job, then sale as a soprano domestic slave.

Ice Pirates is the illegitimate child of Star Wars and Animal House. The jokes, both verbal and physical, range from the hackneyed to the truly brilliant - and most of both will have you rolling on the floor. It's a an hour-and-a-half of pure unadulterated fun. When I finally get the 6' x 8' screen for our light projector mounted, this will be one of the first movies we watch.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

You'll never be able to watch a horror movie with a straight face again.

[10/10 · 13 July 2004]

How do you make brilliant comedy? Get great writers (like Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder), then hire two stars who can be complete whack-jobs (like Gene Wilder and Terry Gar). Finish it off with a cast of human cartoons (like Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Peter Boyle, Liam Dunne, Kenneth Mars and many, many more). With the possible exception of Shrek, this is the best movie ever made. You'll laugh yourself silly. And you'll find phrases creeping into your vocabulary, like "put the candle back", "elevate me", "well, they were wrong then, weren't they", "there wolf, there castle", "Ovaltine?" and, of course "Blucker!" – as well as singing "Sweet Mystery of Life" in bed. Not only will you still be laughing the sixth and eighth time you see this flick, you'll go into hysterics when people (yourself included) repeat dialogue from it. This is the film that made Gene Wilder a star and Mel Brooks a legend.

What's Up, Doc? (1972)

You thought screwball, door-slamming comedies were from the 30's – but the best ever was made in 1972.

[10/10 · 13 July 2004]

O'Neal and Streisand are brilliant together in this complicated and unrelentingly funny door-slammer about four-card monty played with plaid overnight bags. The dialogue includes word-play that the Marx Bros. and Abbot & Costello would be proud of. It follows the ultimate formula for a good comedy – get two stars who can be complete lunatics and surround them with a dozen human looney-toons. Besides Ryan and Babs, you get: Kenneth Mars, Madeline Kahn, Austin Pendleton, Liam Dunne, Sorrell Booke and Jonathan Hillerman doing some of their best work ever, plus the likes of M Emmet Walsh, John Biner and Randy Quaid in one-line parts. It's the kind of movie you can watch a dozen times and still laugh yourself silly. The courtroom scene near the end is unquestionably the funniest scene in the history of film.