busterbuff61
Joined Dec 2012
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There's no way you can describe the vibe of "SCTV" (TV series, 1977-84) to anyone who wasn't in on it to start with. It's like trying to describe how you felt when you saw the original cast of "Saturday Night Live." However, for the pop-culture-history-impaired, "SCTV" was set at an imaginary TV station that allowed for wacko "local" characters as well as dead-on parodies of any major film or TV show you've ever seen. Since the show was produced in Canada, Canadian TV decided they needed two minutes of Canadian content each week. Thus were born Bob and Doug MacKenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas), two toque-wearing siblings who blathered on about the virtues of beer and back bacon.
"Bob and Doug Mackenzie" were like "SNL's" "Wayne's World" in the early '90s. The first time I saw them, I completely did not get them. After that, I couldn't wait for their next appearance.
All that is by way of saying that "Strange Brew" is about as funny a movie version of the Mackenzie Bros. sketches as you could ask for. The movie begins predictably (and hilariously) with Bob and Doug trying and failing miserably to move their "Great White North" TV segment into feature films. (The moment where Doug does the "movie theme" kills me every time.) From there, the movie goes on to a half-baked plot about the brothers uncovering espionage at the local brewery (run by Paul Dooley and Ingmar Bergman veteran Max von Sydow, neither of whom seems to have any idea how they got into this movie). Basically, it plays like a Cheech & Chong movie for the '80s, with beer taking the place of illicit drugs.
That said, it manages to come up with a fair number of laughs, as when the Mackenzies take brief digs at "Star Wars," or when their dog Hosehead unexpectedly saves the day at movie's end.
If you're unfamiliar with the Mackenzie milieu, the DVD of the movie will help you out. It has an old "SCTV" Mackenzie sketch, as well as a brief but funny animated version of the brothers.
Great comedy can never be properly explained to the uninitiated. On that basis, "Strange Brew" is a classic.
"Bob and Doug Mackenzie" were like "SNL's" "Wayne's World" in the early '90s. The first time I saw them, I completely did not get them. After that, I couldn't wait for their next appearance.
All that is by way of saying that "Strange Brew" is about as funny a movie version of the Mackenzie Bros. sketches as you could ask for. The movie begins predictably (and hilariously) with Bob and Doug trying and failing miserably to move their "Great White North" TV segment into feature films. (The moment where Doug does the "movie theme" kills me every time.) From there, the movie goes on to a half-baked plot about the brothers uncovering espionage at the local brewery (run by Paul Dooley and Ingmar Bergman veteran Max von Sydow, neither of whom seems to have any idea how they got into this movie). Basically, it plays like a Cheech & Chong movie for the '80s, with beer taking the place of illicit drugs.
That said, it manages to come up with a fair number of laughs, as when the Mackenzies take brief digs at "Star Wars," or when their dog Hosehead unexpectedly saves the day at movie's end.
If you're unfamiliar with the Mackenzie milieu, the DVD of the movie will help you out. It has an old "SCTV" Mackenzie sketch, as well as a brief but funny animated version of the brothers.
Great comedy can never be properly explained to the uninitiated. On that basis, "Strange Brew" is a classic.
Moviegoers whose notion of physical comedy ends with Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler will probably roar with laughter over Steve Martin's new version of "The Pink Panther." Viewers with slightly longer memories will ponder just when Martin got so unfunny.
I can't think of any comedy series that is in less need of resurrection than the "Pink Panther" movies. The very first one (1964) is utterly hilarious, with Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, so obsessed with finding a jewel thief –- and so frustrated by the lack of affection from his wife, who turns out to be two-timing him with the thief –- that he falls all over himself in frustration.
Unfortunately, "Panther's" original sequel, "A Shot in the Dark" (1965), established the template for the rest of the Clouseau comedies: a clueless, accent-hindered incompetent who never wants to admit that he destroys everything in his path. Writer-director Blake Edwards beat the formula to death for a half-dozen more movies (some released long after Sellers' death). And now Martin does his best to revive a corpse one more time.
This is supposedly a prequel to the Edwards/Sellers movies, but it follows the same tired pattern. A famous pink diamond resembling a panther is stolen. French Chief Inspector Dreyfus (et tu, Kevin Kline?) hires Clouseau as a red herring to cover up his own detective work, but Clouseau unwittingly scores major points against his scheming boss.
So much for plot. The rest of the movie is the kind of tired physical comedy that endlessly unravels like so much cheap fabric. Once, there was the like of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, whose physical humor expressed their personalities and who took their own falls. By contrast, look at every single Clouseau pratfall in this movie. There's a shot of Martin starting to do harm to himself, a shot of a stuntman dressed up like Steve Martin and taking a tremendous fall, followed by a shot of Martin nonchalantly regaining his balance.
Has Martin forgotten his own movie-comedy history? Like the silent greats, his physical comedy used to be the expression of an otherworldly, ethereal comedian, culminating in what I thought was his finest movie, "L.A. Story" (1991). But over the years, he's been too busy making what one cynic has called "mansion comedies." You know -– Steve Martin needs another mansion, so he makes another dumb slapstick movie.
As for the rest of the new "Panther," poor Jean Reno plays Martin's unwilling sidekick as though he is wondering what happened to his own movie career. Only Beyonce Knowles –- in a surprising nod to modernity –- makes much of an impression as, natch, a sultry singer.
I can't think of any comedy series that is in less need of resurrection than the "Pink Panther" movies. The very first one (1964) is utterly hilarious, with Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, so obsessed with finding a jewel thief –- and so frustrated by the lack of affection from his wife, who turns out to be two-timing him with the thief –- that he falls all over himself in frustration.
Unfortunately, "Panther's" original sequel, "A Shot in the Dark" (1965), established the template for the rest of the Clouseau comedies: a clueless, accent-hindered incompetent who never wants to admit that he destroys everything in his path. Writer-director Blake Edwards beat the formula to death for a half-dozen more movies (some released long after Sellers' death). And now Martin does his best to revive a corpse one more time.
This is supposedly a prequel to the Edwards/Sellers movies, but it follows the same tired pattern. A famous pink diamond resembling a panther is stolen. French Chief Inspector Dreyfus (et tu, Kevin Kline?) hires Clouseau as a red herring to cover up his own detective work, but Clouseau unwittingly scores major points against his scheming boss.
So much for plot. The rest of the movie is the kind of tired physical comedy that endlessly unravels like so much cheap fabric. Once, there was the like of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, whose physical humor expressed their personalities and who took their own falls. By contrast, look at every single Clouseau pratfall in this movie. There's a shot of Martin starting to do harm to himself, a shot of a stuntman dressed up like Steve Martin and taking a tremendous fall, followed by a shot of Martin nonchalantly regaining his balance.
Has Martin forgotten his own movie-comedy history? Like the silent greats, his physical comedy used to be the expression of an otherworldly, ethereal comedian, culminating in what I thought was his finest movie, "L.A. Story" (1991). But over the years, he's been too busy making what one cynic has called "mansion comedies." You know -– Steve Martin needs another mansion, so he makes another dumb slapstick movie.
As for the rest of the new "Panther," poor Jean Reno plays Martin's unwilling sidekick as though he is wondering what happened to his own movie career. Only Beyonce Knowles –- in a surprising nod to modernity –- makes much of an impression as, natch, a sultry singer.
How do you top your own legend? In Richard Pryor "Live on the Sunset Strip" (1982), Pryor doesn't quite make it -- but he comes awfully close.
A bit of background for the uninitiated: Pryor, already a huge success via his earthy 1970's comedy albums, made film history with "Richard Pryor Live in Concert." A modestly filmed recording of a 1979 concert he did in Long Beach, CA., it put many of that year's Hollywood blockbusters to shame with its rich characterizations and incisiveness; countless comics still cite it as their impetus for doing comedy.
Unfortunately, Pryor was a volatile man with a severe drug habit. About a year after the concert film was released, Pryor was freebasing and caught himself on fire. (He later acknowledged it as a suicide attempt.) Therapy and cosmetic surgery helped to restore him, but it left him with a quandary: How does a comic whose act was based on fear and hostility acknowledge the love and support of his audience? Unlike its ground-breaking predecessor, the '82 film takes a while to get going. The credits, as simple as they are (Pryor produced the film and wrote the material), seem to last forever. And there's more longeur when Pryor makes his way to the stage via the audience, who can't stop their standing ovation and glad-handing of him.
When he does finally reach the spotlight, Pryor appears a bit unsettled at first. The '79 film showed Pryor prowling the stage, his shirt visibly drenched in perspiration. In "Sunset Strip," he's dressed nattily in a flaming red suit -- ostensibly intended as a visual pun on his fire incident, but so spiffy that even he acknowledges that it ill-suits him. He initially throws out random observations, hoping something will stick.
He finally hits his stride in a riff about male-female relationships, both casual (his encounter with a Playboy Bunny who gets turned on when Pryor does kiddie voices) and emotional (he tearfully calls up a recently estranged girlfriend who coolly advises him, "Don't do this to yourself"). He also hits pay dirt with his account of filming the 1980 comedy "Stir Crazy" at the Arizona State Penitentiary; at first he is moved by the plight of his black "brothers" until he is apprised of their graphic crimes, at which point he declares, "Thank God...we got...penitentiaries!" He also does a great routine about a recent visit to Africa, in which he imitates jungle animals in the manner of the menagerie of impersonations in his '79 film. After this, he begins to soften, as he realizes that his homeland visit has caused him to forever negate his use of the notorious N-word. He follows this with what he claims is "the final appearance" of his street character Mudbone (Pryor lied; he revived the character in his third concert film), who chides his creator Pryor for his fire incident. Critic Pauline Kael was put off by these passages, saying in essence that Pryor was kissing up to his audience with these observations. She might have been on to something, but considering that this comic narrowly escaped death and found some lacerating revelations on the other side, perhaps he was entitled to a little self-indulgence.
All of this, naturally, leads to the movie's showpiece: Pryor's account of his 1980 immolation. He prefaces it with a joke about how it "really" happened: When he had milk and cookies in bed one night, he mixed whole milk with skim milk, "and the s*** blew up!" But when he launches into the true account of the events leading up to and following the fire, he pulls no punches. His gift for bringing inanimate objects to life gets downright eerie when he does the voice of his reassuring freebase pipe, which he came to regard as his only true friend. When I saw this movie upon its initial release, I sat open-mouthed at this routine, unable to laugh -- but not because it was poorly done. On the contrary, it was so forthright and honest that it went beyond comedy, to a point where you could imagine Pryor observing his self-destructive behavior from outside of himself. (Indeed, that was the approach Pryor took when he dramatized the incident in his autobiographical 1986 movie "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.") Pryor lived for over two decades after this movie, until multiple sclerosis permanently stilled his demons. But in 1982, "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip" inspired well-earned laughter as well as gratitude that a rich talent such as Pryor was still with us. The movie still stands as a remarkable comedic document -- not quite as great as its '79 predecessor, but still head and shoulders above most of the brain-dead comedy from then and now.
A bit of background for the uninitiated: Pryor, already a huge success via his earthy 1970's comedy albums, made film history with "Richard Pryor Live in Concert." A modestly filmed recording of a 1979 concert he did in Long Beach, CA., it put many of that year's Hollywood blockbusters to shame with its rich characterizations and incisiveness; countless comics still cite it as their impetus for doing comedy.
Unfortunately, Pryor was a volatile man with a severe drug habit. About a year after the concert film was released, Pryor was freebasing and caught himself on fire. (He later acknowledged it as a suicide attempt.) Therapy and cosmetic surgery helped to restore him, but it left him with a quandary: How does a comic whose act was based on fear and hostility acknowledge the love and support of his audience? Unlike its ground-breaking predecessor, the '82 film takes a while to get going. The credits, as simple as they are (Pryor produced the film and wrote the material), seem to last forever. And there's more longeur when Pryor makes his way to the stage via the audience, who can't stop their standing ovation and glad-handing of him.
When he does finally reach the spotlight, Pryor appears a bit unsettled at first. The '79 film showed Pryor prowling the stage, his shirt visibly drenched in perspiration. In "Sunset Strip," he's dressed nattily in a flaming red suit -- ostensibly intended as a visual pun on his fire incident, but so spiffy that even he acknowledges that it ill-suits him. He initially throws out random observations, hoping something will stick.
He finally hits his stride in a riff about male-female relationships, both casual (his encounter with a Playboy Bunny who gets turned on when Pryor does kiddie voices) and emotional (he tearfully calls up a recently estranged girlfriend who coolly advises him, "Don't do this to yourself"). He also hits pay dirt with his account of filming the 1980 comedy "Stir Crazy" at the Arizona State Penitentiary; at first he is moved by the plight of his black "brothers" until he is apprised of their graphic crimes, at which point he declares, "Thank God...we got...penitentiaries!" He also does a great routine about a recent visit to Africa, in which he imitates jungle animals in the manner of the menagerie of impersonations in his '79 film. After this, he begins to soften, as he realizes that his homeland visit has caused him to forever negate his use of the notorious N-word. He follows this with what he claims is "the final appearance" of his street character Mudbone (Pryor lied; he revived the character in his third concert film), who chides his creator Pryor for his fire incident. Critic Pauline Kael was put off by these passages, saying in essence that Pryor was kissing up to his audience with these observations. She might have been on to something, but considering that this comic narrowly escaped death and found some lacerating revelations on the other side, perhaps he was entitled to a little self-indulgence.
All of this, naturally, leads to the movie's showpiece: Pryor's account of his 1980 immolation. He prefaces it with a joke about how it "really" happened: When he had milk and cookies in bed one night, he mixed whole milk with skim milk, "and the s*** blew up!" But when he launches into the true account of the events leading up to and following the fire, he pulls no punches. His gift for bringing inanimate objects to life gets downright eerie when he does the voice of his reassuring freebase pipe, which he came to regard as his only true friend. When I saw this movie upon its initial release, I sat open-mouthed at this routine, unable to laugh -- but not because it was poorly done. On the contrary, it was so forthright and honest that it went beyond comedy, to a point where you could imagine Pryor observing his self-destructive behavior from outside of himself. (Indeed, that was the approach Pryor took when he dramatized the incident in his autobiographical 1986 movie "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.") Pryor lived for over two decades after this movie, until multiple sclerosis permanently stilled his demons. But in 1982, "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip" inspired well-earned laughter as well as gratitude that a rich talent such as Pryor was still with us. The movie still stands as a remarkable comedic document -- not quite as great as its '79 predecessor, but still head and shoulders above most of the brain-dead comedy from then and now.