Cabin Boy

While a number of critics have discussed at length "Cabin Boy"'s allusions to earlier sea epics, such as "Mutiny on the Bounty", "Moby Dick" and "Humanoids of the Deep", surprisingly little attention has been devoted to it's social commentary. Although it may, perhaps, be an overstatement to call Chris Elliot's script "revolutionary", its message has a decidedly socialist bent. In fact, I would venture to say that none of Elliot's other work, prior to OR since "Cabin Boy" has had a comparable impact on the way ship captains treat their crew - or for that matter, on the labor movement in general in this country. It's safe to say that the success of "Cabin Boy" is a product not only of Elliot's vision, but also a fortunate case of being "the right film at the right time", so to speak.

Additionally, the cast must be credited. Brian Doyle-Murray, Russ Tamblyn and many others give the performances of their careers. The stand-out, of course, was Ritch Brinkley in a magnificent portrayal of Captain Greybar, captain of "The Filthy Whore." Far from the stereotypical old salt sea captain, Brinkley's Greybar is hard, harsh, irritable and irrascible, and yet even-handed and even sensitive, giving a textured character which is so clearly missing from many other sea films. Particularly touching is the scene when Elliot's character, Nathanial Mayweather, serves "fish-stick kitties" for the crew's lunch. Words cannot describe the emotion that Brinkley's face conveys. It's so touching because it's true!

While "Cabin Boy" has its flaws, I have no doubt that it will be greatly appreciated by landlubbers and sea captains alike, particularly those who, like myself, started their careers as lowly cabin boys.

A reviewer below compared Chris Elliot to Andy Kaufman, and I don't think he knew how close that analogy really fits. Elliot is like Kaufman in alot of ways. Some people never really understood Kaufman's peculiar brand of performance, and from the looks of the reviews below, there are plenty of people who don't get Elliot. It was not always the *content* of Kaufman's performance that made you laugh, it was the fact that he was doing it in the first place. For those that saw "Man on the Moon", think about the Gatsby reading. It wasn't funny for an audience member at that Kaufman appearance to hear all of Gatsby being read, even LONG after the joke of doing it wore out. But paradoxically, if he hadn't done so it wouldn't have been as funny. What's funny is that he had the gumption to go ahead and finish the entire work, regardless of what the effect on his audience was.

Likewise, not everything that Elliot does is gut-busting hilarious. For those of us who like his work, it's the absurdity of what he did that counts. If you've seen Elliots short-lived TV series "Get a Life", than the perversely surrealistic scenery of "Cabin Boy" makes more sense. It's supposed to make the viewer feel like there is no normalcy to be found. I'm not claiming this was some great artistic acheivement, it's simply a good way to facilitate Elliot's brand of comedy. There was no comfortable, sane baseline in "Get a Life" to which characters could return, not even a basic continuity of plot between episodes (such as what characters are still alive.) Likewise, "Cabin Boy" is simply a string of absurd situations that when taken separately are not really "hilarious" in that sense. But taken as a totality, a fan of Elliot's humor appreciates the quirky nature of the film as a whole.

I say this not to convince those who don't like Elliot, only to justify the opinions of those of us who do in the face of people who simply write this film off as "horrible." In terms of quality, the TV series was Elliot's best work, but this film definitely has some appeal to some people. There really is a "cult" sort of following for this film, becuase some of us are sick of the cookie-cutter comedies that get churned out these days.

I have been a loyal fan of Chris Elliott since his early appearances on

Letterman. This movie is typical of what happens when Elliott is given creative control -- wry, warped humour delivered in such a deadpan manner that you

don't know whether he is laughing at himself or if he really is a simp. This movie has given me countless hours of debate with fans and non-fans, as I have only encountered one other person who enjoyed Cabin Boy. We often lament Chris

Elliott's underrated genius and dream of the day when Cabin Boy takes its

rightful place in film history as a classic. Hard to believe its already been ten years since its release and I still crack up every time I watch it. Only thing that could top it would be a sequel -- Passion of the Cabin Boy, perhaps?

I've been a Chris Elliot fan since watching him on his old television series "Get a Life." I think he is the precursor to comedians such as Tom Green, and the modern gross-out comedy. The image of Elliot licking the boat with soapy water comes to mind.

Lots of people would label this movie as one of the worst movies of all time, but it's consciously absurd (or "wacky" as Christ Elliot's character might say). "Worst" movies are ones that think they are legit, like The Order, or Batman and Robin.

That being said, Cabin Boy is not the best comedy of all time. The crazy-funny parts are laugh out loud funny, but spread too far apart. I think this movie should have been wall-to-wall laughs. But it's worth it for the good parts, and Chris Elliot deserves our attention.

Watch some night alongside Freddy Got Fingered and Clifford.

When I was a freshman in high school, scared and nervous of the environment around me, I found solace in my year-long Television course, which was an introductory course in the forte of filmmaking and the behind-the-scenes techniques of Television shows. It was a break from the dreariness of perfunctory science, social studies, math, and English, and allowed me to interact with upperclassmen. I was one of two freshmen in the course, since most were thinking ahead to college by doing band or taking a foreign language. I remember telling my quirky Television teacher about my love for film, and how I was in the early stages of being an online film critic, before he hit me with a question I always remembered. "Have you seen Cabin Boy?," he asked. After I stated I hadn't even heard of it, he gasped and demanded, "you make time for Cabin Boy." He would demand that of me for the rest of the year in nearly every film-conversation we had.

This was four years ago, dear reader, and I'm ashamed to say I haven't made time for Cabin Boy until this past evening, to which my Television teacher would be appalled and disappointed, even more so when I say my reaction is one that isn't entirely positive. This is another one of those strange cult comedies that has mustered up a loyal, notable following after being a failure at the box office. Even after watching the film, I struggle to understand just why Buena Vista saw this idea reputable and reliable enough to funnel $10 million into the project, and likely another $5 million or so for marketing costs. Did they have faith in Chris Elliot and his commercially failing program Get a Life (this was before the cult-following for that film became largely known), or did they just want to broaden horizons? For whatever reason, it's pretty hilarious to think a solid amount of money was put behind a project I'm not even sure Elliot himself took seriously. The film is a cockamamie fantasy-comedy with Elliot portraying Nathaniel Mayweather, a snobby, self-centered manchild, who is invited by his father to sail to Hawaii aboard a large boat by the name of "Queen Catherine." Nathaniel has just become a "fancy lad" at his prep school, the highest honor, and believes no change in his elitist attitude will grant him fine wishes in the real world. After being kicked out of his limousine for being rude to the driver, Nathaniel makes a wrong turn into a small village, where he climbs aboard a boat called "The Filthy Whore" instead of his father's "Queen Catherine" and learns the boat will not be docking for at least three months. Nathaniel is stuck aboard a ship filled with foul-mouthed, unkempt pirates, and has no way of contacting his father or getting to Hawaii whatsoever.

Cabin Boy reminds me of a film, similar to Bio-Dome, in the regard that it plays like a film that would've been praised and hailed as a comedic masterwork if it were released in the early 1900's as a silent film. Being released in 1994, where expectations were far higher for film than they were in the 1900's, Cabin Boy found little appreciation initially. Speaking as someone who wants to try and give a fair and balanced review, I will say, the film clearly went through a director change, since it is noticeably scatterplotted and all over the place. According to reports, Tim Burton was originally supposed to assume the director's chair, but dropped down to producer, letting Adam Resnick take over, as he bought the idea for Ed Wood, which would later go on to be another cult success. Burton clearly could've related to the material much more than Resnick could've, making another film about a self-obsessed manchild in a surreal world with both Pee-Wee Herman films achieving great success. Even the backdrops of the film greatly resemble the artistic works of Burton himself, who would've also assure the film have some sort of commentary or overarching theme, small or large, rather than a cloying comedic emptiness to a film that would seemingly bear some internal meaning.

Having said that, one cannot fault Elliot for being a commanding comedic force throughout not only this film but his career. Elliot has always put himself in strange situations, acting as the surrealistic version of slapstick comedian Tom Green, and in Cabin Boy, he achieves success in just being fun to watch. His character, quick to insult and demean while being entirely oblivious, achieves some strong laughs, and the film returns to the building blocks of comedy, which concern a character doing something he doesn't want to do or being stuck in a situation he doesn't want to be in. Elliot is a tireless comic presence and, if nothing else, Cabin Boy brilliantly showcases that. Even James Gammon and David Letterman in a rare starring-role at times collectively match Elliot and his goofy ways.

The bottom line with the film is I didn't laugh as much as I marveled. The first thirty-five minutes proved funny, albeit a tad inconsistently, and the last forty or so proved for a nice surrealist adventure. However, the comedy of the film grows thin and inconsistent, the audience demographic for this picture is all over the place, occasionally treading on the randomness and innocence of a cartoon program to the more adult-oriented material that occurs when Melora Walters' busty character shows up on screen, and the entire event left me weary and somewhat mystified. Cabin Boy is a fine film for cult curiosity, but fails to muster anything but just that.

Starring: Chris Elliot, Andy Richter, Brion James, James Gammon, Melora Walters, David Letterman, and Alfred Molina. Directed by: Adam Resnick.