It has been 26 years since, 1980’s “Airplane!” which unleashed a brand of comedy that is still embraced to this day. That film took parody and slapstick to a new level in motion pictures.
Now one of the creative forces behind that landmark film, director David Zucker returns to silver screen.
He single-handly turned around the Scary Movie franchise with the third installment in 2003 which not only paid slight homage to “Airplane!” but also reunited him with Leslie Neilsen who he directed in “Airplane!”, “The Naked Gun” and “The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear”.
Scary Movie 3 was the funniest of the series and was a welcomed return of David Zucker. Sadly his follow-up isn’t as funny and just feels like the creative talent involved were just plain lazy.
The film’s plot or if you can call it that, finds Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), the heroine from all the films in the franchise, taking a job as a nursemaid for a catatonic woman (Cloris Leachman) who seems to be petrified by the ghost of a boy who haunts her house. Cindy’s next door neighbor is Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), a dock worker who is having problems with his kids after a divorce and watches as the world is attacked by alien-tripods. The ghost in Cindy’s house seems to have the key to defeating the aliens if she can just find the ghost’s father.
The film pokes fun at “Saw”, “War of the Worlds”, “The Village”, “The Grudge” and many others. Some of these scenes work while others are disastrous.
The biggest problem I had with the film is that I felt it lacked focus and seemed to fall back on so many other films like it. It is littered with lazy toilet humor and really bad cameos featuring unfunny and disastrous gags by the likes of Charlie Sheen and Carmen Electra. How many times do we need to see the Viagra and misplaced bathroom joke?
I have to hand it to Anna Faris for sticking it out through the best and worst of this series. She is such a great comedic find. If last year’s, “Just Friends” was any sign I know she has a long and hilarious career in front of her.
“Scary Movie 4” isn’t the worst in the series or worst than say, “Date Movie” but it is just a huge disappointment. Please studio executives, put a fork in the Scary Movie franchise because she is done.
David Zucker and his team’s next focus will be to parody the ever growing superhero genre with 2007’s “Superhero!”. Let’s hope he can once again excel in the genre he basically created.
(2 out of 5)
So Says the Soothsayer
Hands down, my favorite comedy of all time is 1980’s “Airplane!” which was conceived by the comedy writing team of ZAZ or David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. ZAZ were responsible for some of the funniest films of the past 20 years.
“Scary Movie 3” has very little in common with its predecessors other than returning cast member Anna Faris as “Scary Movie” staple character Cindy Campbell. Cindy is now a television journalist and has a young son. Her first major assignment finds her meeting farmer Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen) and his brother George (Simon Rex). When Cindy finds out that the Logan farm is the key to an all-out alien invasion this alerts the President of the United States (Leslie Nielsen). If an alien invasion weren’t enough, Cindy also has to deal with a mysterious videotape and a mysterious death. Let the parody begin!
“Scary Movie 3” is a hilarious entry in the franchise as it re-awakens what this series is all about, poking fun at horror movies. There are so many hilarious moments that are sure to make the stiffest audience howl. There is a lot controversial jokes but given the over-the-top context they come off as just plain goofy. The film pokes fun at such films as “The Ring,” “Signs,” “Matrix Reloaded,” “Eight Mile,” “The Others” and even “American Idol.” It is so clever how each is woven into each other.
For me what was the best part about watching this film were the performances of Charlie Sheen, Leslie Neilsen and Anna Faris. Sheen’s mannerisms and dialogue reminded me so much of his beloved character from “Hot Shots!” Topper Harley but he was also able to meld those with a caricature of Mel Gibson in “Signs”.
A couple small problems I had with the film were how short it is and how the filmmakers could have parodied so many more films. I wanted more. I also felt that a couple of the gags did go a little overboard especially at the wake.
The Wayans are back. They are here to kick the horror genre where it counts, again. Just how low will the Wayans Brothers go?
However in the sequel, the ideas are flat, toilet humor runs rampant and a lot of us probably won’t remember what these guys are trying to make fun of. The writing that was so fresh in the first one seem to be substituted with farts, puking, and any other way to dispel disgusting liquid. There are a lot of extremely perverse and gross gags that seem less shocking after Tom Green and the ton of other gross-out comedies this year. Now all this stuff just seems plain dumb.
Those infamous Wayan Brothers attack the teen slasher flicks of the past 7 years. Somebody had to.
And because of this pace is why I liked “Scary Movie” a lot more than I did “Me, Myself and Irene” earlier this summer. The pacing allows the proper jokes to find the right audience member.
They just don’t make movies like this anymore. A monster who stalks his prey to carry out bloody vengeance.
1959′s The Mummy became the first Hammer horror film to be embraced by Universal Pictures in using parts of their concepts for remakes. Kharis, the Mummy was the same name used in many Mummy films played by such legends as Lon Chaney Jr. and Boris Karloff. Peter Cushing’s character’s father Stephen Banning was the same character who was in “The Mummy’s Tomb”. Matter of a fact, this film is closer to “The Mummy’s Tomb” than the original Karloff film.
Peter Cushing once again playing the scientist with a close encounter with a monster does a brilliant job. His performance here is more subdued than his Van Helsing or Dr. Frankenstein.
The whole drawn out flashback scene with Christopher Lee as Kharis before death is wondrously lavish and really cool to behold. I have to say I really got a kick out this scene. It was definitely one of my favorite of the film.
When Hammer Films went to remake Dracula just a year after their huge success with “Curse of Frankenstein” they turned to the creative force behind that previously successful film.
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Hammer’s version of Dracula has been condensed some from other versions.
Cushing’s Van Helsing reminded me a lot of a classic version Sherlock Holmes with an affinity to the supernatural. Cushing has the doctor act down to a science but with this role he also brings panache and humility like Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock. The perfect example of this is when Van Helsing tells Arthur (Albert Gough) about Dracula’s history and lineage. That scene screams Sherlock Holmes and Cushing plays it that way. I swear Cushing could have been as legendary as David Niven if he was allowed to excel besides in the Hammer Horror universe.
It was the movie that started it all.
Another thing that is interesting about Hammer’s version is the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his best friend Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart). Their relationship is almost a tragic bromance. As each side debates the validity of pursuing scientific discovery. The tragic nature of their central relationship and the film’s grisly ending is never resolved until the final reel.
“Curse of Frankenstein” wanted to push itself out of the shadow of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein and escape a lawsuit threatened by Universal pictures. So what did Hammer do? It did something rather brilliant. Universal was obsessed with Karloff’s creature, every film after featured the creature not the man. So Hammer based their series on Dr. Frankenstein as a conflicted mad scientist not the creature.
“Curse of Frankenstein” marked the first time Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee shared a scene. Cushing met Lee for the first time when he was in his monster makeup. Lee had been in two other Cushing films but he was a uncredited extra in both. Lee’s performance as the monster in this film actually believe it or not helped him secure his career defining role as Dracula in 1958′s Dracula. (Watch for a review of that tomorrow, right here!)
Founded in 1934, Hammer Films started out as a small independent British film studio. It went through many growing pains including at one point bankruptcy between 1934 and 1955. It wasn’t until the studio turned to resurrecting the horror film that it started to make a long-standing imprint on horror films as we know them.
First up is the only werewolf horror film that Hammer films ever made. This is a retelling of the werewolf myth except completely reborn.
When Leon (Oliver Reed) grows up, he is cursed and supposedly only true love can break the curse.
Like most Hammer films, the movie teases the creature and the reveal must be an amazing, pulverizing blow for the audience. “Curse of the Werewolf” follows this lead as it isn’t until the movie’s ‘twilight’ (pardon the pun) before the creature is fully revealed.
Surprisingly, Bandidas is a cute little western that pays homage to the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s.
What was so much fun about the film was the relationship between Cruz and Hayek. They squabble a lot but it’s just so much fun to watch.
In the 1940’s animation visionary Osamu Tezuka wrote a little graphic novel that brought about the dawn of a new era in animation and comics. That graphic novel is “Metropolis” and it inspired legions of cartoon creators. Tezuka has been dubbed the godfather of “anime” and “manga” and still influences animators and comic enthusiasts today.
The problem with “Metropolis” was the print itself that I watched. The subtitles were huge and often filled a lot of the screen. That was when you could read them, as they would often be absorbed by the film’s rich background.
