Tag Archives: Comedy

Movie Night: Stop or my Mom Will Shoot

Year: 1992

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Production Company: Northern Lights Entertainment

Leads: Sylvester Stallone, Estelle Getty

stop-or-my-mom-will-shootThis was a strange movie, and I have a feeling it was an attempt to capitalize on Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s foray into family comedies (e.g. Twins). Sylvester Stallone should not do family comedy.

Sylvester is a New York cop in L.A. with everything going for him…until one day his mother decides to visit. Sly obviously has mother issues, because he spends the first twenty minutes of the movie trying to call her – to tell her not to come.

It turns out he can’t stop her. How could he? She’s a New York jew (yes, that’s right; Sylvester Stallone, the Italian Stallion, is playing a jew). She arrives, and of course all sorts of chaos ensues. Never mind that she tries to stick her nose into his love life (with his superior on the force, no less), she also vacuums at three in the morning, makes breakfast for twenty, and washes his gun.

It turns out this is an important plot point, because she tries to make it up to him by buying semi-automatic weapons for him from a truck in a back alley. Unsurprisingly, she ends up witnessing a drive-by shooting, and becomes pivotal in tracking down arms smugglers. She, of course, won’t say anything until her son is put back on the case.

Eventually Sly and his mother begin to reconcile, and when the bad guys capture her, it’s time for him to burst in, guns a-blazing. Sort of. The showdown of the movie involves Sly on the ground incapacitated, and his mother blowing away the bad guy with a gun larger than her head. Oh, and he finally makes it with the captain, and they get married. Or something.

The absolute honest truth is that this movie didn’t have a lot going for it. It’s a shame; Sylvester Stallone is an under-rated actor, and Estelle Getty was reasonably humorous. The problem is that the screenwriters didn’t have the guts to push beyond the comfort zone of stereotypes, clichés and tired one-liners. There weren’t any really bad moments in the movie…there just weren’t any really good ones, either. The cast is entirely predictable; the sexy love interest, the overbearing mother, the over-manly protagonist who can’t express his true feelings, the peer who’s got it out for the good guy, the bad guy bent on smuggling those weapons and getting away with it too, if it weren’t for that pesky mother.

I can’t say it felt like a waste of a movie night, but there just wasn’t anything special about it. Oh well. Better luck next time, Sly.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

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Movie Night: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Year: 1948

Director: Charles Barton

Production Company: Universal International Pictures

Leads: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

Well that’s gonna cost you overtime ’cause I’m a union man, and I work only sixteen hours a day.

A union man only works eight hours a day!

I belong to two unions.

51F4U16LZjL._SX500_Oh my, this was too long in coming. After too many Jackie Chan and superhero movies, it was time to introduce Little Satis to the birth of comedy.

His first impression of course was, “Ew…black and white?”

I tried to explain to him that yes, they did have color back then, but they just didn’t use it very much. I also tried to explain to him that just because it was in black and white didn’t mean it wasn’t any good.

It turned out I didn’t need to do much explaining. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a showcase of the duo at their very best, in an absolute farce of a movie with more holes than plot, and whizz-bang cracks every two seconds. What’s so amazing to me in watching these movies is the feel of spontaneity and dynamism that exists throughout; you almost feel as if you’re watching a stage comedy performance. Yet at the same time, every joke and pun fits perfectly into the plot (which is, of course, a joke of its own), and never feels over-rehearsed or generic.

In a nutshell, Dracula travels to the United States with the Frankenstein monster, hoping to find a new brain to revive him and make him his servant. The Wolfman is hot in pursuit, but of course can’t go around at night, because of the full moon (which apparently rises every night). Dracula sets himself on Lou Costello’s brain, of course, it having “no will of its own, no fiendish intellect to oppose his Master.”

Through a series of frankly bizarre and calamitous events Abbott and Costello manage to defeat Dracula, blow up the Frankenstein monster, toss the evil assistant out of a window, and save the girl, who is inexplicably attracted to Costello.

I don’t get it. Out of all the guys around here that classy dish has to pick out a guy like you.

What’s wrong with that?

Go look at yourself in the mirror sometime.

Why should I hurt my own feelings?

However, above the comedic gold, perhaps the true gem of this movie is the chance to see Bela Lugosi return to his infamous role as Dracula (as well as, to a lesser extent, Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman). He is to me the epitome of Dracula (I’m so sorry, Christopher Lee), and to this day when someone mentions the name Dracula, I hear Lugosi’s lilting and sinister Hungarian accent, and see his cape folded over his face. His stone-faced demeanor is such a contrast to the shenanigans of Abbott and Costello that he brings if anything more of a chill than were it a serious movie. His character observes the two as though they are the world’s greatest fools; there’s a moment early on where the expression on Lugosi’s face is priceless:

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Oh, what a joy this film is; and of course the goal was achieved: opening Little Satis’ eyes to movies that were made before he was born.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Movie Night: Project A

Year: 1983

Director: Jackie Chan

Production Company: Authority Films

Leads: Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo

ProjectAOne thing Netflix does have a lot of is old Jackie Chan movies. I have to be careful to avoid the R-rated ones with Little Satis (it’s usually just for Chris Tucker‘s foul mouth), but there are plenty that are pretty much just harmless fun. A particular joy are those from the eighties before he moved to Hollywood, because some of them just don’t make any sense. We watched The Accidental Spy once (fair enough, that one’s from 2001), which is about a salesman who just happens to be a karate master. Fair enough.

At least in Project A Jackie Chan is an ex-cop turned sailor, so the martial arts is a little more explainable…maybe? Anyway, long story short, pirates are attacking the Chinese navy in Hong Kong, and despite all their efforts, they always seem to be one step ahead of the navy’s plans. The admiral, a kindly old man, is discharged, the ships abandoned, and naturally all the sailors become police officers. It turns out, however, that it was the police who were giving the information to the pirates in the first place. With the help of a shadowy, overweight kung-fu-chopping madman friend and a haughty police officer who nonetheless has his heart in the right place, our hero manages to fool the cops, bust an arms trade with the pirates, sneak into their island cove, duke it out with the super-badass pirate bad guy and escape just before it all blows to hell.

Frankly there isn’t a whole lot to be considered here. The whole thing feels a little bit like a Chinese James Bond film with martial arts. IMDB labels it as a “costume drama”, and the costumes certainly couldn’t be more dramatic. The pirates are wonderfully stereotyped, complete with swords and bare chests and pantaloons and drooping pencil mustaches:

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All in all, the main reason to watch this movie – the main reason to watch any Jackie Chan movie – is for the stunts, and of those there are numerous and spectacular examples. The cycling stunts through the back alleys of Hong Kong are splendid, and when Jackie Chan manages to climb to the top of a forty-foot flagpole, jump onto a roof and crash through a loft window, all with his hands manacled, my heart did actually do a little leap. Every fight scene is beautifully choreographed, which is simply a pleasure to watch. There is humor, but often the true laughs are at the attempts to deliberately be funny – the crudeness of the slapstick is itself amusing (for example, when Chan’s bicycle seat falls off without his knowing, and he sits down on the bare pole).

There was one thing about the film that stuck out to me, and it was something that I personally was very appreciative of. Unlike many of his more modern films (and unlike most films these days), the on-location filming in the streets and back alleys of Hong Kong lends a wonderful authenticity that is so often missing these days. No spectacular sets, no jumping out of airplanes or off skyscrapers; the story is a simpler one, and so the locations are simpler. It makes one realize that huge sets are very impressive and all, but it can actually take away from what you’re supposed to be impressed by: the actors, and the action.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆