Get Crazy

1983 musical comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A businessman attempts to disrupt a New Year's musical extravaganza. 

Interesting cast with Malcolm McDowell in a purely comedic role, Daniel Stern with his Daniel Stern eyes, freakin' Lou Reed, teen-idol Fabian, Dick Miller who is actually playing a character not named Walter Paisley, and shane-movies favorite Paul Bartel. Oh, and there's been a Clint Howard spotting! I'm trying to think of some joke where I compare Clint Howard to a groundhog, like "If you see Clint Howard in a movie before February 1st, you're going to have six more weeks. . ." See, I can't do it, and that's just one of the reasons why I'm failing as a blogger. 

This is a fun but completely unimportant comedy by Allan Arkush who did Heartbeeps with Andy Kaufman, Rock 'n' Roll High School, and Caddyshack II. And a lot of it is your everyday 1980's comedy, or maybe like a few 1980 comedies got together to talk about old time, got hilariously drunk (because that's how you'd get drunk in 1980's movies), and then threw this up. But sort of in a good way. It's from the school of comedy-makin' where the writers seemingly threw every idea they could into the pot to see what you'd laugh at. And I did like some of the humor. A blues man's funeral made me laugh, both with a gag that I won't give away because it's just too funny and one of those great movie prayers: "God, this is my man and you better take care of him or I'm gonna wax your ass." There's some mild absurdism mixed in, too, like when McDowell's character is given a turtle and a refrigerator while performing ("A gift from me") or Lou Reed spending the duration of the movie in a cab. McDowell's pretty funny, playing sort of a Mick Jagger character. The first shot of him during his performance is great--he turns and looks at the crowd, his eyes matching a ridiculous poster that we got to see earlier in the movie. He's also, naturally, wearing a ridiculous codpiece because he's Malcolm McDowell and "My character will wear a codpiece in this movie if I want him to wear a codpiece" is in every contract he signs. He also delivers an "I'm not satisfied" (another nod to Jagger?) from a wall of naked women, and while "going for a pee" has a conversation with his penis. 

McDowell: I didn't know you could talk.

Cock: There's a lot you didn't know about me. 

I did five seconds of research and couldn't find any credit for "voice of Reggie Wanker's penis" unfortunately. And yes, his character's name is Reggie Wanker. Anyway, I'm just going to assume it's Clint Howard doing the voice work for the penis because he's probably the cast member who looks most like a penis. McDowell also takes care of his own singing, but it's his rock star faces that make that character. Lou Reed is funny enough although he's clearly not an actor. His "Death Bed Request" in the cab is cute, and I was happy to see a solo performance as the credits rolled. ("My Baby Sister" for you Lou-ficionados.) I liked the blues guy, too, with his Jews band--get it; it rhymes--and all-girls band Nada with guest vocalist Piggy. Piggy's a hardcore punk rocker Lee Ving, and here, he's great at wordless screaming and stage diving. The best character only makes two or three quick appearances and doesn't say a single thing. He's Electric Larry, and I assume the Butthole Surfers got the name of that album from this guy. He pops in whenever he thinks the characters need drugs. And he looks like this: 

Nope, I can't find who plays Electric Larry either, so once again, I'm assuming it's Clint Howard. 

Also, this is kind of fun: 

First Vanilla Sky, and now this movie recreating Dylan album covers.