Third of Four Parts
Knuckleball Comedies
by Jamie Jobb
Little Murders 1971
The Ruling Class 1972
Being There 1979
The Man Who Stole The Sun 1979
Melvin and Howard 1980
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid 1982
All of Me 1984
Moscow on the Hudson 1984
Brother from Another Planet 1984
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai 1984
Brazil 1985
After Hours 1985
Down and Out in Beverly Hills 1986
Things Change 1988
Beetlejuice 1988
Married to the Mob 1988
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown 1988
What’s “apathist” Alfred Chamberlain to do under Gotham?
Little Murders (1971)
"Surprising isn't it how the name of God is still respected in this town? ... [But] where -- on those bitter cold mornings with my hands so blue with frostbite they looked like ladies gloves -- is God?" Manhattan "apathist" photographer Alfred Chamberlain (Elliott Gould) takes nihilism to new depths because he doesn't "know how to fight" because he’s "always getting beat up".
Also Alfred "can't stand families" and doesn't "know what love is" but "really, nearly trusts" his bride-to-be. The bride, self-appointed male-reformer and interior-designer Patsy Newquist (Marcia Rodd), knows that when men "want a woman they can collapse without shame in front of, they come to me" and that she "draws them like flies".
Patsy wants to marry "a big, strong, vital, virile, self-assured man that I can protect and take care of" but views Alfred as "the toughest reclamation job I've ever had". No wonder neither Alfred nor Patsy wants any mention of "The Deity" in their wedding ceremony! This does not rest well with Patsy's screwball family. What would?
Brother Kenny (Jon Korkes) was rejected by the Army four times and "the fifth time they said if I came around again they'd have me arrested". Mom Marge (Elizabeth Wilson) "can't be expected to remember everything" although she understands how complicated life can be "when you marry a person shorter than yourself". And Dad Carol (Vincent Gardenia) believes "We have to have lobotomies for anyone who earns less than ten thousand a year ... It's freedom I'm talking about".
Jules Feiffer's rabid satire magnifies his brilliant play's ahead-of-its-time pillorying of conurbated gun nuts. "They shot a hole in my shopping bag." "You coulda been killed!" "I get shot at every day!"
Especially amazing are tour-de-force soliloquies by Judge Jerome M. Stern (Lou Jacobi), First Existential Church Rev. Dupas (Donald Sutherland) and NYPD Lt. Practice (Arkin) who stammers to explain 345 unsolved Manhattan murders in six months: "We are involved here in a far-reaching conspiracy to undermine our most basic beliefs and sacred institutions."
Directed by Alan Arkin, screenplay by Feiffer based on his play. Absurdly manic shot-from-hip direct-action depicts "the Breather" and brown-outs, assassin windows and steel shutters, church riots and postal censors. "It's very dangerous ... to challenge a system unless you're completely at peace with the thought that you're not going to miss it when it collapses." (USA)
* * *
Harry Andrews kicks bucket in long-john tutu
The Ruling Class (1972)
"Do you still believe you're Christ, my Lord?" When Thirteenth Earl of Gurney, Ralph Douglas Christopher Alexander (Harry Andrews) mysteriously kicks bucket in long-johns, cocked hat and tutu, his family slanders his "always rather artistic" legacy.
When Fourteenth Earl Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney (amazing Peter O'Toole) inherits Ralph's house-title-and-manor, his family believes him bonkers, and not Jesus Christ as he claims. Nor do they call him "The Creator, Ruler of the Universe, Khoda, The One Supreme Being and Infinite Personal Being, Yaweh, Shangri-Ti and El, the First Immovable Mover". Hell no! "When I pray to Him, I find I'm talking to myself."
Eventually Jack of Earl learns lingo as Jack of Ripper: "Dignity has nothing to do with divinity." "Breeding speaks to breeding." And "It's hard to look at people downwind, they stink."
Of course Duke's uncle Sir Charles Gurney (William Mervyn) knows "sniggering" when he hears it, while aunt Lady Claire (Carol Browne) "has claws" and is "always on the lookout for men". Cousin Dinsdale (James Villiers) is "prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Division, and I have to watch my step with 'em."
This would not include Bishop "Bertie" Lampton (brilliantly befuddled Alastair Sim) who knows no leap of faith so profound as marriage of Earl Jack and Miss Grace Shelly aka Marguerite Gautier, The Lady of the Camellias (Carolyn Seymour). Grace is "hard-working girl" who "always gets first-night nerves" but can "cock my little finger with the best".
That said, Dr. Paul Herder (Michael Bryant) "should have specialized in heart diseases"; instead he introduces Dr. McKyle (Nigel Green) "The high voltage messiah, the electric Christ, the AC/DC God".Sparks fly. Combative butler Daniel Tucker aka Alexi Kronstadt, Party Member 243 (terrific Arthur Lowe) convinces Scotland Yard he's "not only mad, he's Bolshie!" Commonwealth, indeed!
Directed by Peter Medak, screenplay by Peter Barnes, based on his play. Medak's "fly-blown speck in the North Sea" farce forces macabre ending but is heavily dosed with "Watusi walking stick", Mighty Mouse Is Roaring, The Hokey-Pokey, Varsity Rag and Dem Bones. "I was only trying to do what's expected. I recall it a sign of normalcy in our circle to slaughter anything that moves." (British)
* * *
Peter Sellers takes short-cut to horticultural riches
Being There (1979)
"Is it possible to erase all traces of a man?" Out of D.C. Beltway urban rubble ambles unlikely hero with ubiquitous media remote control. Illiterate but literal Chance Gardener (Peter Sellers) carries no ID, no driver's license, no credit cards, no wallet. Although he is "stuck with rice pudding between the ears", Chance bends ear of The President (Jack Warden).
American celebrity-politics gobbled from point of view of rudimentary tv-addicted gardener whose down-to-earth advice – "In the garden, growth has its seasons" – is mistaken for Grand Economic Metaphor.
All whom Chance meets project their own image onto his innocent tabula rasa: "a very reasonable man", "a most intuitive man" and "a truly peaceful man" with "a peculiar band of optimism".
Taken-in themselves as they take him into their palatial mansion are President-maker Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas) who's dying of aplastic anemia and his young lonely wife Eve (Shirley MacLaine) who suffers from lack of care despite her massive staff of valets, butlers, doormen, secretaries, chauffeurs, nurses and X-ray technicians. Chance himself ends up on tv. "He's very clever, kept it on a third-grade level. That's what they understand."
Directed by Hal Ashby, screenplay by Jerzy Kosinski based on his novel. Wicked satire of politically gullibility and America's mythic Dream that anyone can abide the White House. "Life is a state of mind." "I understand." (USA)
* * *
Kenji Sawada is bombastic high-school teacher in Strangelove Japan
The Man Who Stole The Sun (1979)
“So making atomic bombs is going to be included on the exam?” Tough questions face “powerless” young long-haired Tokyo high-school science/chemistry teacher Makoto Kido (Kenji Sawada) – aka Mr. A-Bomb, Bubblegum, Nine and Zero – who builds an atomic bomb in his apartment just to demonstrate that it can be done – despite his students’ disinterest.
Besides, he knows he’s no hero in thwarting a Kyoto-bound school-bus hijacker – and he certainly didn’t intend to extort the country. “I don’t think science is going to help us right now.”
But teacher can’t decide: “When you have an atomic bomb, you can do anything you want. The funny part is … I have no idea what I want. If you were me – what would you want? Perhaps a Rolling Stones concert in Japan despite their visa-cancelling drug bust, or broadcasting extra-inningbaseball games to their conclusion without commercial interruptions? Aiding him in these suggestions is talk-show DJ soon-to-be-girlfriend Zero (Kimiko Ikegami) who convinces Kido it’s “us against them.” Hot on their heels is determined Inspector Yamashita (Bunta Sugawara) willing to follow him onto rooftops and power lines.
Controversial crypto screwball action-adventure over-the-top jump-cut-to-the-chase Strangelovelook at The Bomb from the only nation to suffer under it twice. Directed by Kazuhiko Hasegawa, written by Hasegawa and Leonard Schrader who was dodging the American in Japan draft at the time. “I was going to return what I stole – although I’m going to return in a slightly different form.” (Japan)
* * *
Life is a game show for Paul Le Mat in chance road encounter
Melvin and Howard (1980)
"Listen man, you sing this or you walk. OK?" Leaking in dark desert outside Tonopah, unassuming magnesium plant worker Melvin Dummar (Paul Le Mat) has close encounter with "strange old weirdo wino".
Who knew it could be Howard Hughes (Jason Robards), the reclusive multi-millionaire? "No. No doctor ... No doctors! No nurses!"
Dummar himself seeks no limelight as wannabe computer programmer, real estate, insurance ... anything but back in magnesium. "I've had a lot of jobs, but I ... can't seem to get the right one."
Of course he'd rather be "milkman of the month" than "a loser" any day. "Look, anyplace you go you're gonna be workin' for us."
Melvin's twice-married run-away bride Lynda (Mary Steenburgen) dreams of being a French interpreter, but has legs of Vegas realist. "What you wanna marry me for, Melvin? You just divorced me!"
Rockwood Dairy bookkeeper Bonnie (Pamela Reed) stakes Melvin to Dummar's Tires near Great Salt Lake only to watch their $156 million inheritance evaporate in sandy Utah winds. "Don't settle for nothin'."
Directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Bo Goldman. Demme's deft road cruise lopes along greasewood, sage, repo men, The Mormon Will, The Tiki Sextet, Bye-Bye Blackbird and Santa's Souped-Up Sleigh. "You know, they didn't burn down Rome in one day. You gotta keep pluggin'."(USA)
* * *
Detective Steve Martin brews mean cup of coffee
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
"I don't think I'll be needing my pajamas anymore." L.A. private eye Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) is "a very smart man" who nonetheless knows: "Smart can get you killed!"
When daughter of world-famous scientist/cheese-maker – luscious Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) -- faints into his practice, Rigby knows "Guns don't kill detectives. Love does." But who knew Juliet's butler (Reiner) would double as Field Marshall VonKluck. "Sorry, I'm a butler; not a catcher."
Reiner-Martin pay devoted homage to film noir cutting Martin into classic 1940s scenes with Alan Ladd, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Kirk Douglas, Fred MacMurray, James Cagney, Joan Crawford, Charles Laughton and Vincent Price.
"Only they know who is them." Rigby admonishes fellow dick Marlow (Humphrey Bogart) "Wear a tie for God's sake!"
Directed by Carl Reiner. Written by Reiner, George Gipe and Steve Martin. Plot thickens under Rigby's "famous java", bullet-sucking, Saint Betty, breast adjustments, Hotel Guano, "cleaning woman!" and Fondle-Me perfume. "You know how to dial, don't you?" (USA)
* * *
Steve Martin knows Edwina’s “in the bowl”
All of Me (1984)
"I never liked you when you were in your body. I CERTAINLY don't like you in mine!" Anxious attorney and bee-bop guitarist Roger Cobb (Steve Martin) has reached dead-end at Schuyler & Mifflin. "I want worthwhile cases. I want to defend right against wrong. I want a partnership."
But he never aspired to cohabit with spirit of his law-firm's most despised client, unfortunate heiress Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin) whose $20 million legacy provides "all the money in the world and not one good chance to enjoy it".
Standing to inherit Edwina's estate as well as her soul is stableman's daughter Terry Hoskins (Victoria Tennant) who agrees to "transmigrational" spirit swap. "What makes you think you can do that?" "Because I'm rich!"
Directed by Carl Reiner, screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson based on Henry Olek's adaptation of Ed Davis novel. Seriously ridiculous farce of mistaken interior identity showcases Martin's considerable mime talents. "I can't believe this. I can't even die right!" (USA)
* * *
Robin Williams masters English at McDonalds
Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
"By the way, you are white. You just don't pick up soul in two or three months." Although he may be "strong like Russian bear", soulful Moscow Circus sax-man Vladimir Ivanoff (Robin Williams) is not afraid to plea "You must to help me."
What would you do when all your "new American friends" work at Bloomingdales? "I defect!" "You're not gonna do that here, I told you where the men's room was."
Perfume counter salesgirl Lucia Lombardo (Maria Conchita Alonso) wants to help her new comrade because "I wish for peace for all nations" for she knows how cruel The Big Apple can be. "Everybody I meet from somewhere else."
Security guard/limo driver Lionel Witherspoon (Clarence Daniels) is a "refuge from Alabama" who offers more than friendship and realizes Vladimir is "probably the only man in New York who doesn't have herpes".
Immigration attorney Orlando Ramirez (Alejandro Rey) only knows "You don't have to thank me, you have to pay me."
Directed by Paul Mazursky, written by Mazursky and Leon Capetanos. Mazursky's loving jazz-blue tribute to Ellis Island spirit is sometimes heavy-handed yet heart-felt with cotton-candy KGB, Times Square vibrating bed, Liberty Lines and steel drums, Hitchcock chase-scene homage and Richard Simmons abdominal warmups, "a couple rum and cokes, and a couple beach towels", Coleman-The-Hawk and Duke's "take A train" "In Russia, I know who the enemy was. Here, too confusing." (USA)
* * *
Joe Morton is pinball faith-healer from outer space
Brother from Another Planet (1984)
"You can't get to heaven from here." Crash-landing at Ellis Island Immigration Center is true alien Three-Toe (Joe Morton), escaped mute deep-space slave who hears with hands and ends up in Harlem "pinball graveyard" as faith-healer of dead computer games.
Barroom regulars Odell (Steve James), Smokey (Leonard Jackson), Walter (Bill Cobbs) and Fly (Darryl Edwards) believe their strange visitor has "internal malfunctions", although no one notices his long spike-nail feet.
Randy Sue Carter (Caroline Aaron) takes him in as boarder while "husband" is away. "Boy didn't marry her for her cooking." "He didn't marry me, period."
Three-Toe eventually holds torch for faded R&B singer Malverne Davis (Dee Dee Bridgewater). "You were great in bed last night. But you're gonna have to do something about those toenails."
Twitchy bounty-hunting cosmic greasers (David Straithairn and John Sayles) learn English as Second Language and order "beer...on the rocks" while they shake down neighborhood in search of lost silent serf.
Written, directed, edited and performed by Sayles. Morton remains in mime throughout, casting Sayles' Afro-American ET as rare example of strong socially-conscientious silent comedy evolving in age of talkies. "There weren't any black people in my town. At least, I don't think there were." (USA)
Peter Weller and motley crew out to defeat alien rug-suckers
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984)
"History is made at night. Character is what you are in the Dark. We must work while the clock she is ticking." Mystic physicist-neurosurgeon pop-star Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) becomes first human to crack eighth dimension in warp-drive West Texas salt-flat experiment. "You can check your anatomy all you want ... when you get right down to it, this far inside the head it all looks the same."
With Hong Kong Cavaliers, his merry band of real-life comic-book superheroes, Banzai soon finds Earth caught in crosshairs of battle between Red and Black Lectoids from Planet 10.
Mr. President: "Buckaroo, I don't know what to say: Lectoids? Planet 10? Nuclear? Extortion? A girl named John?" Secretary of Defense: "Well, if it wasn't Buckaroo Banzai, I'd say commit the man."
Meanwhile schizophrenic villain Dr. Amelio Lizardo/John Whorfin (John Lithgow) escapes Trenton Home of Criminally Insane ("Lithium is no longer available on credit.") to join fellow Mad Scientist John Bigboote (Christopher Lloyd) in scheme to kidnap Prof. Hikita (Robert Ho) and claim Oscillation Overthruster that fueled Buckaroo's breakthrough. "Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!"
As if that weren't enough, Banzai must deal with identical twin of his mysterious first wife, down-and-dirty Penny Priddy (Ellen Barkin). "You drag me outta jail ... like Jerry Lewis, you give me hope to carry on. But then you leave me in the lurch while you strap on your six guns. What do you want from me, Buckaroo?"
Terrific east-meets-western sci-fi cult-classic comedy-thriller turns on wacky plot peppered with bubble-wrap holograms, laboratory watermelons, driveshaft brains, "rug-suckers" and short-form declarations of war.
Directed by W.D. Richter, written by Earl Mac Rauch. Based on assumption that Orson Welles' 1938 War-of-Worlds broadcast was not a hoax: all aliens are named John and actually work for Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems in Grovers Mill, N.J. "We're not in the eighth dimension, we're over New Jersey!" "No matter where you go, there you are." (USA)
* * *
All roads lead to Brazil, follow the billboards
Brazil (1985)
"This is a black eye for the department, Lowry! ... And I don't care how you behaved when you were at Records! Information Retrieval is an executive branch! We're proud of our reputation and we protect it!" To escape desk-bound drudgery in Ministry of Information Record Clerks Pool, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) has taken to post-alarm flights of fantasy.
Sam's also "looking for a girl with blond hair, green eyes, medium height". So Sam -- being a man with long silver wings -- seems "to have rather a lot to get on with" himself. "Sam, let a friend tell you, your life is going wrong."
Mad bureaucrat, Mr. Kurtzman (Ian Holm) is beyond help as his employees in Records watch westerns on Ministry's computers. But Kurtzman knows Sam's elastic mother Ida (Katherine Helmond) is "pulling strings" for Sam's promotion out of Kurtzman's pool. "I know simply everybody"... but obviously not caged-terrorist Jill Layton (Kim Greist) who may fit the description, but not the job.
Sam thinks she's innocent but believing otherwise is old family friend and mad "Security Level Five"surgeon-bureaucrat Jack Lint (Michael Palin). "Triplets? God, how time flies!" Heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro) knows "Central Services don't take kindly to sabotage!" So he plots to help Sam truly escape. "Happiness, we're all in it together."
Directed by Terry Gilliam, written by Gilliam, Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown. Gilliam's chiaroscuro flashback of remote future-that-crumbled "Somewhere in the Twentieth Century" is hyper-surreal place of designer ductwork, Shangorilla Towers, order-by-number menus, hats shaped like shoes and "Suspicion Breeds Confidence". "My complication had a little complication. But Dr. Chapman said I'll soon be up and bounding about like a young gazelle." (USA)
* * *
Catherine O’Hara and Griffin Dunne seek vigilante action
After Hours (1985)
"I mean I just wanted to leave, you know, my apartment. Maybe meet a nice girl. And now I have to die for it?!?" Bored word-processor Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) sets out round midnight in stormy taxi for incessant SoHo slumber party only to lose his money, his shirt, his keys and his wits to Graveyard Shift. "Different rules apply when it gets this late, you know what I mean?"
Very late date Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette) is doubly troubled by abandoned husband and barkeep boyfriend. "I hope you don't have to get up early tomorrow or anything because ... tonight I feel like I'm gonna let loose, or something."
Copy-shop clerk and Terminal Bar-hop Julie (Teri Garr) hates work but is fond of beehives. "What is it with people today? You can't say anything without getting some kind of a smart answer."
Mr. Softee ice cream vendor Gail (Catherine O'Hara) believes Paul only needs some vigilante action. "I'm just trying to entertain you." And underground conceptual artist June (Verna Bloom) only wants to salvage his soul. "If that's all there is, then let's keep dancing."
Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Joseph Minion. Surreal Big Apple mid-nightmare melts plaster-of-Paris bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweights, reluctant lovers' thunder-and-whispers, Checkpoint Charlie's cut-rate Club Berlin Mohawks and howls of "Surrender Dorothy". "See what happens when you pay for stuff? Somebody rips it off!" (USA)
* * *
Nick Nolte can’t get his best friend to eat
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
"Nobody drowns in my backyard!" "Christ, if I'da know that, I'da gone somewhere else." Clothes-hanger mogul and trailer-park tycoon Dave Whiteman (Richard Dreyfuss) earned his Rolls Royce the hard way, but knows "we should all be feeling a little guilty" at Thanksgiving.
Wife Barbara (Bette Midler) thinks "guilt sucks" and would rather go shopping – after consulting her dog-shrink and guru. "Don't talk to me about charity! I volunteer three days a week at the Free Clinic."
Dave is nothing if not "tolerant" of midnight snacks with their live-in Latina maid Carmen (Elizabeth Pena), "a hot little number". Just ask son and Spielberg-wannabe Max (Evan Richards) who "seems very confused" in his tutu.
"I don't understand, why doesn't he show us the nice scenes?" Daughter Jenny (Tracy Nelson) is Sarah Lawrence psych-major with no apparent appetite. "For years she's been nothing but a blur with a nice smell." Into this cozy genetic pool flops hapless has-been and "displaced person" Jerry M. Baskin (Nick Nolte) who may have "a strange wisdom" and "hidden talents", although he was "eating garbage just three short weeks ago".
Despondent over disappearance of his mangy mutt Kerouac, Jerry settles for Whiteman cabana and their anoretic Matisse. "He's gonna give that dog fleas and it'll be your fault!" Of Course, next-door record-producer Orvis Goodnight (Little Richard) can see what's coming: "There goes the neighborhood!"
Directed by Paul Mazursky, screenplay by Mazursky and Leon Capetanos, based on play by Rene Fauchois. Mazursky's crafty update of Boudu Saved from Drowning induces backyard tai-chi, Balinese massage and "nipple anxiety" for uproarious effect. "Could you please check my husband? He had his lips on this man's lips!" (USA)
* * *
Joe Mantegna and Don Ameche chill out in Tahoe
Things Change (1988)
"A big man knows the value of a small coin." Unassuming Chicago shoeshine boy Gino Gatto (Don Ameche) dreams of owning his own fishing boat but gets snagged in Windy City net of inverse murder-for-hire. "I putta my shoes outside, they come back dull."
Caretaking Gino until his trial date is mob lackey Jerry (Joe Mantegna) who finds himself "on probation" but "always wondered where I was meant to be".
Turns out there's nowhere like Lake Tahoe for Jerry to escape, and Gino to convert in lost weekend as "Mr. Johnson" with key to Criterion Floor of Galaxy Resort Hotel and Casino. "Babe, this is the guy behind the guy BEHIND the guy! But what I gotta tell you is, I cannot talk about it."
Tahoe rolls over itself: "There is, of course, no bill. Your money's no good in this hotel."
But High Sierra high life quickly compounds Gino and Jerry when local Don, Joseph Vincent (Robert Prosky), invites them up to his place for lunch. "Guy's the head of the Vegas mob, he can't keep gas in his car! What the hell kinda country is this!?!"
Directed by David Mamet, written by Mamet and Shel Silverstein. Low-key wisecracked thriller thrives on The Fertile Crescent, dashboard plastic Jesus, The Ant and The Grasshopper. "Everybody likes ya when you're someone else." (USA)
* * *
Michael Keaton is beside herself in afterlife waiting room
Beetlejuice (1988)
"What's the good of being a ghost if you can't frighten people away?" Barbara and Adam Maitland (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) had anticipated "the perfect vacation" – two weeks at home alone in their hilltop retreat at Winter River, Conn. Instead they struggle to comprehend their Fate as reflected in "Handbook for the Recently Deceased" which "reads like stereo instructions".
Even more troubling is Afterlife's ridiculously slow "No-Exit" bureaucracy. "We're very unhappy." "What did you expect? You're dead!"
As novice ghosts, Maitlands also can't leave their house, which has been purchased by insufferable Gotham yuppies. Real estate tycoon Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones), thinks he's found serenity: "These people don't know the value of their property. I can buy the whole town!"
His fatalistic teen daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) is fearless: "I'm not scared of sheets. Are you gross under there? Are you Night-of-the-Living-Dead under there?"
And upstart artiste wife Delia (Catherine O'Hara) schemes her summer arts center while sleeping with "prince valium". So, when you're "unhappy with eternity", when death is "a problem and not the solution", and when New Yorkers ruin things with hideous upscale redesign – who you gonna call?
"The Afterlife's leading bio-exorcist": Betelgeuse his-own-self (Michael Keaton). "This is why I won't do two-shows-a-night anymore, babe."
Directed by Tim Burton, written by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren. Non-stop comedy-thriller has lost some steam with age, but is still a mortally funny work. "Maybe you can relax in a haunted house, but I can't." (USA)
* * *
Dean Stockwell offers Michelle Pfeiffer rocks at Eden Roc
Married to the Mob (1988)
"Look at this place! Everything we wear, everything we eat, everything we own -- fell off a truck."Angela de Marco (Michelle Pfeiffer), the former Angela Maria Gianelli aka Joan Rivers Junior, has lost patience with her life as mob wife. "I'm sick and tired of the gambling, the guns. Bailing you outta jail. Never knowing when you're gonna come home – IF you're gonna come home."
Angela's husband, Cucumber Frank de Marco (Alec Baldwin), aka Frankie, may be undistinguished among "common garden variety hoodlums" until he turns up "iced" in Fantasia hot-tub. "They don't call him The Cucumber for nothing."
Mob boss Tony The Tiger Russo (Dean Stockwell) aka Uncle Tony, may be "a regular menace to society" but don't tell Tony's outraged wife Connie (invincible Mercedes Ruehl), "a ball-buster" who's "always lookin' for action".
Connie needs only "catch Tony the Tiger with his pants down" on Clinton Street, Lower East Side, before she hits ballistic. "And we are your friends Angela, whether you like it or not." Mike Downey aka "Mike Smith" (Mathew Modine) is FBI special agent who doesn't surrender too easily. "Surveillance? Is that what you call it?"
Directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Barry Strugatz and Mark R. Burns. Demme flexes comic chops in Eden Roc honeymoon love nest of supermarket eggs crushed in carton, Hello Gorgeous foot massage, Burger World Hamburger Homicide, Mr. Spoons and Chicken Lickin' peeping tom. "God, you people work just like the mob. There's no difference." "Oh, there's a big difference Mrs. de Marco. The mob is run by murdering, thieving, lying, cheating psychopaths. We work for the President of the United States of America!" (USA)
(1:44:00)
* * *
Antonio Banderas and Maria Barranco attend to virgin fiance
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
"No lady's dangerous if you know how to handle her." Terrible Ivan (Fernando Guillen) is philandering ex-lover who would give ducks and chickens to any woman as birthday presents, then bid her adios on her answering machine.
While Ivan fools females "with everything but his voice", the man "never travels alone". Ivan's sweet son Carlos (Antonio Banderas) certainly is "a kissing fanatic" who "takes after his father".
But he too stands no chance against Madrid's Women on the Brink. Jilted Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura) plays perhaps pregnant mad mother of TV's notorious Crossroads Killer. As foreign-film over-dubber, Pepa is "some talker" with "some nerve" but she'll "never learn" because she'll "just find things out" without trying. "In my house I collaborate with whomever I want."
Lucia (Julieta Serrano) is Carlos' mother who's doubtless "a bit crazy" but certainly knows her fashion statements. "I can only forget him by killing him."
Pepa's terrorized best friend Candela (Maria Barranco) is "feeling very vulnerable", although she'll never face another hooked proboscis like Carlos' virgin fiance Marisa (Rossy de Palma) who only wants another slumberland mirage. Meanwhile, feminist lawyer Paulina Morales (Kiti Manver) has her own hidden agenda, not to mention tickets out of town. "You must admit this is a little weird -- a charred bedroom, a broken phone, a smashed window."
And don't forget penthouse chickens, flying platters, plummeting suitcases, coffee-pot earrings, Mambo Taxi eyedrops, Shiite skyjack alarms, Ecce Homo laundry soap and two-dozen Morphidal gazpacho. "I don't want to kill him, I just want to make him stay."
Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar in hilarious homage to Fellini, Feydeau and Sennett is visually stunning momentum-built off-kilter thriller. "Well, a little more hurt won't hurt." (Spain)
FURTHERMORE
http://www.secretsofstory.com/2011/08/underrated-movie-128-little-murders.html
https://www.criterion.com/films/678-the-ruling-class
https://cinephiliabeyond.org/hal-ashbys-being-there/
https://filmfanatic.org/?p=33454
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyō_o_Nusunda_Otoko
https://japanonfilm.wordpress.com/2021/12/05/man-who-stole-the-sun-taiyo-wo-nusunda-otoko-1979/
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/moscow-on-the-hudson
https://tilt.goombastomp.com/film/brother-another-planet-independent-urban-take-alien-movie/
https://eofftvreview.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/the-brother-from-another-planet-1984/
https://epochemagazine.org/01/plotting-escape-routes-individuation-in-1984-and-brazil-1985/
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/after-hours-1985-1
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090966/mediaviewer/rm435558144/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096259/mediaviewer/rm2247764224/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094721/mediaviewer/rm3432935680/?ref_=tt_md_4
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/married-to-the-mob-1988
https://seeingthingssecondhand.com/2017/05/10/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown-1988/
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