Team America: World Police

2004 marionette action movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A stage actor joins the titular terrorist busters, stops a group of terrorists in Egypt with the help of his acting abilities, and then must face Kim Jong Il who is planning to use his weapons of mass destruction to take over the world.

There are a lot of movies that I like that nobody else seems to like very much. I get it most of the time. I don't blame or criticize anybody for not liking Eraserhead. But this one I have trouble understanding. Not even South Park fans seem to like this much at all, and I don't understand why. For me, this is easily the most brilliant and brilliantly executed and consistently humorous thing that Parker and Stone have ever done. They nail big dumb Michael Bay-esque action movies, and the satire is just perfect. Of course, I was sold within the first few moments of the movie when there's a marionette who has his own marionette and a mime. All within seconds! And you get to see puppets engaging in fisticuffs including a guy vs. terrorist fight sequence near the beginning that includes the Crane Technique. And yes, there's the infamous marionette sex scene which is not only one of my favorite sex scenes ever but one that should be required viewing for all newlyweds. These puppets are awesome. I'm easily entertained anyway, so something as simple as getting to see marionettes "walk" around is enough to please me. Still, the way they give these little figures facial expressions and all gives them this realism and makes them seem like better actors than the people who are usually in movies like this. The sets are absolutely amazing with this surprising amount of details. I always imagine Parker and Stone catching part of this on television (because in my mind, they're always in the same room as each other) and saying, "I can't believe we made this thing!" Like most of their stuff, this is also a musical, and the songs are also pretty great. There's a wonderfully catchy song about AIDS, a dumber-than-dumb "Freedom Isn't Free" song which is stupid enough to seem real until a line about how "Freedom costs a dollar fifty" line, fist-pump-inducing "America, Fuck Yeah!" that should probably replace our current national anthem, Jong Il's number about how rone-ry he is, and the brilliant "We're Gonna Need a Montage." The big swing and miss is a song devoted to making fun of the Pearl Harbor movie. Aside from a bit of political jabbing that is pretty harsh on both liberal and conservative ideals, there are plenty of goofy moments that just make me laugh. I don't like all the meta-jokes that draw attention to the fact that the characters are marionettes. Those didn't need to be there. But I laugh every single time I even think about that Matt Damon puppet and his repeated single line. And "No me gusta!" makes me smile. And the line "When you see Alec Baldwin, you see the true ugliness of human nature." Oh, and the line "I was raped by Mr. Mistoffelees." A hammer slid across a table, Kim Jong Il's panthers, the gruesome deaths of many Hollywood stars. Seriously, somebody tell me what's not to like here! That's a rhetorical exclamation, by the way, so you don't really have to answer. Bonus nods for a strong use of the Wilhelm Scream and an allusion to the cantina scene in A New Hope. This might not be a perfect movie, but I challenge you to find a movie this freakin' funny that also contains an extended scene of marionettes having sex.

The Warriors

1979 gang movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: During a big gang get-together at a New York City park, a charismatic gang member is murdered. The titular gang is blamed. Without any weapons but their spunk, they have to return to Coney Island, preferably alive, while moving through hostile territories.

So prior to this, was the whole live-action-freeze-frame-turning-into-a-comic-book-page been done before? I liked it here even though I feel like I've seen it too much lately in other movies. I liked the variety of gangs but kind of wished there were more of them as they were more colorful than the rather boring Warriors. I can imagine the conversations they have about their gangs' themes. "Ok, so you want to go with leather vests and no shirts--headbands optional? Sounds good to me? Anybody object?" I liked the clown baseball players, the mimes, and The Orphans led by either a retarded David Schwimmer or a David Schwimmer who was beaten repeatedly with a Ralph Macchio. And then there was a scene with a long guy wearing overalls and roller skates in the subway, and wondered, "Can he technically be considered 'a gang' all by himself?" before seeing that he had some friends. David Patrick Kelly plays the main villain a little too goofily, but that little "Come out the play" bottle trick is a nice musical number. I wish the fight scenes were a little more realistic or at least choreographed. I guess there's a chaos to them that does create a sort of realism. But I don't know. A lot of the fighting looks so much like play fighting. I did like a scene where a guy in overalls gets punched, hurls himself into a wall melodramatically, has a baseball bat broken across his stomach, and then falls awkwardly onto a trash can. This is an entertaining little B-movie apparently loosely based on a historical Greek battle legend which I think means you could probably show it in school.

Mary and Max

2009 cartoon

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Lonely 8-year-old Australian Mary befriends lonely autistic Jewish New Yorker Max after randomly pointing to his name in a directory and writing him a letter. They have the Noblets and a love of chocolate in common, and apparently, that's enough. They're pen pals for twenty years.

So there's a glut of animated movies these days--the traditionally-animated, the computer-generated stuff, other styles like that disturbing rotoscope stuff used in The Waking Life and those commercials. My favorite, without a doubt, is claymation, and since Mary and Max is a beautiful example of that technique, you're probably going to wonder if there's some bias. Probably. However, I did watch this twice just to make sure. What I noticed the second time--there certainly is a lot of farting in this movie. So if you're a fan of both claymation and farting (I consider myself an aficionado of gassy emissions humor), you'll probably love this. It's more than just farting though. This is one of those types of animated flicks that captures humanity much better than actual actors can. Max tells us that humans are "complicated souls," and I just love how simply Adam Elliot's little movie describes the key to surviving in a really ugly world with some really ugly people--find somebody beautiful to cling to. The claymation is stunning and enhances the storytelling. The settings are stark, bringing the focus to the two characters. Mary's Australia is colorful but bleak, littered and scabbed and occasionally dangerous. Max's is bleaker because it's mostly without color, just splashes of red to interrupt the grays and darker grays. His New York is as grotesque as the big city in The Triplets of Belleville and humorously almost vacant. There's a homeless guy, a woman who zips by on a scooter a few times, and a punk rocker who reappears, but the New York streets are otherwise empty. Their worlds have ugly and mean in common, but their relationship, although borderline creepy/inappropriate, makes them livable. Mary and Max is insanely funny, filled with ideas that seem torn from Roald Dahl's notebooks and quirky Amelie-esque narration and tangents. Watching this a second time, I noticed a lot of funny little details. The movie is also very touching. There are holes in each of the characters' biographies, but you really get to know them in this intensely intimate way, and you feel their ups and downs deeply. I also appreciated the very realistic and touching portrayal of Aspergers. This is a beautiful looking and beautifully-constructed little movie that further supports my belief that 2009 was the best year for animated movies. As always, I've put almost no thought into that belief. I don't have to put much thought into whether I love this movie or not though.

My favorite scene has a mime in it.

One more 2009 animated feature to watch, the French A Town Called Panic that looks like it could be a religious experience.

A Bug's Life

1998 Seven Samurai remake

Rating: 16/20 (Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: Mean grasshoppers threaten a colony of ants after clumsy Flik dumps the food they collected to keep the bullies happy. The lead grasshopper, the cleverly-named Hopper, doubles the order and gives the ants until the last leaf falls to collect. Flik is sent away to find some warrior bugs, but he brings back circus bugs instead. Together, they come up with a plan to rid themselves of their grasshopper enemies.

I love the nod to Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven here although if you count the inarticulate Tuck and Roll, you've actually got nine bugs that come to help the ants. This movie has a little trouble getting started since few of the ants really have any character. The exception would be the protagonist voiced by Kid in the Hall Dave Foley, but even Flik has to grow on you a little bit. Once Flik gets to the big city, the story, as well as the animation and the action, picks up. The circus bugs and P.T. Flea (The Empire Strikes Back's John Ratzenberger, Pixar regular) give the film funk and flavor, and as soon as they're introduced, the puns, some of them very bad, start flying so rapidly that you'll wish you had a fly swatter. There are three terrific action sequences in this although the climactic battle scene that takes place at night might be a little too intense. A Bug's Life is a funny movie, but, uncharacteristically for Pixar movies, a few of the jokes are a little on the cheap side. Still, A Bug's Life is stuffed with creative ideas, fun characters (Kevin Spacey's Hopper is a great villain), lively Randy Newman (of "Short People" fame) music, and terrific animation. I also really appreciate the messages behind the cute little bug story. There are lessons about noncomformity, the power of the imagination, facing up to bullies, and reaching goals despite your size. I'll always have enough of a sweet spot for Toy Story to love it a little more than this one, but it's hard to watch this and not think of it as a step up for Pixar.

Shanks

1974 mime movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Malcolm Shanks is a mute puppeteer living with his sister and brother-in-law. His life is not the happiest of lives, but he can always escape and take comfort in his puppet creations. One day, he's hired by a weird looking scientist who is experimenting with the reanimation of the dead. When the scientist dies one night, Malcolm decides to continue the experiments.

Oh, how I enjoyed this delightfully creepy, mime-tacular William Castle flick. The poster above took the words right from my fingers--deliciously grotesque. OK, I wasn't really going to type that, but it is accurate. Marcel Marceau plays two roles, one speaking. He's good in both despite being slathered in some really bad make-up for the scientist part. One mime is usually all you need for a movie, but this one's got a trio of mimes. That's right. Three mimes! When they're reanimated, the fun really begins as they become undead contortionists. It's funny stuff. Before the human reanimation, the scientist and Shanks bring a frog and a chicken back to life. This doesn't come close to resembling a normal movie, but it's got great macabre humor. The bulk of this movie is silent. There are even old-timey title cards used like chapter titles. There's also some very good, though frequently incongruous, music used throughout. The gypsy circus hoedown music contributes to the bizarre atmosphere. Are there problems with Shanks? Sure. It does start to fall apart a little bit once the motorcycle gang shows up. This is the type of movie that you can't watch without announcing out loud, "This is the best movie I have ever seen." You'll realize you're wrong, but you'll still be really happy you watched it. If you're kind of weird. This was William Castle's last movie. He ended his career with a silent bang!

Shakes the Clown

1991 story of redemption

Rating: 6/20 (Mark: 9/20; Amy: 19/20; Amy's friend: 20/20)

Plot: A birthday clown named Shakes has a lot of things going for him. He's got friends, he's got a girlfriend with aspirations of becoming a professional bowler, and he's got a shot at a television gig. Unfortunately, his alcoholism has gotten in the way of his career. When rival clown Binky gets the television role instead of him, it sends him over the edge. His girlfriend dumps him, his boss fires him, and his friends are no help. That's what happens when your friends are Adam Sandler, I guess. Things get worse when Shakes is the primary suspect in the murder of his boss. Oh, snap!

You've got to respect a film that makes a large (and largely unfunny) joke out of alcoholism. It's a dark topic for a comedy. The problem with this movie is the lack of anything resembling comedy. It's stuffed with jokes and slapstick more likely to make you roll your eyes than smile. One of the first scenes shows a child peeing on Shakes' face, and the onslaught of scatalogy and vomitology never slows down. The writing is bad enough to make jail time for writer/director/star Bobcat Goldthwaite a legitimate possibility. It didn't take very long for me to want to urinate on Goldthwaite's face. I liked the idea enough, but the story was very thin, stretched like rubber vomit into a ninety-minute film and about as deep as a cream pie. I've seen a lot of movies where I find a lot of scenes that should have been cut, pointless scenes that add absolutely nothing to the story. More than half of the scenes in Shakes the Clown were like that. Robin Williams was also in this. That's rarely a good thing, but this was apparently during one of his non-sober times. This did get a bonus point for a midget mime. I'd apologize for throwing out the M-word after saying I no longer would, but the alliteration was impossible to pass up.

This is one of my sister-in-law Amy's three favorite movies.

The Aristocrats

2005 dirty joke

Rating: 12/20

Plot: An enormous collection of some of the world's funniest people and Bob Saget ruminate a filthy vaudevillian joke.

This would have been a lot better if it was about half as long. If nothing else, it helps me discover that I don't think I like comedians very much. The interviews with the comedians are edited to make this into a pissing contest. There's also this vertigo-inducing thing going on where you get rapid quick-cuts of the comedians telling the joke from multiple angles, I guess so the producers can show off the fact that they had more than one camera. I never figured out why that was necessary. There's nothing especially clever about any of this, but it does have a lot of very funny moments and gives a glimpse of the inner workings of how funny people make the funny. Overall, it's not as outrageous as it wants to be and in no way succeeds in being as funny as it thinks it is for ninety minutes. It's definitely not for everybody although there is one scene that I doubt anybody could watch without uttering, "My God! This is the greatest thing ever filmed!" That's right--I'm referring to the scene where the mime delivers his version of the joke. That was comedy gold.

Renaissance: Paris 2054

2006 science fiction cartoon

Rating: n/r

Plot: I don't know. I didn't stick around long enough. I think it had something to do with futuristic mimes.

Maybe I'll give this one another shot some day, but I could not stand the animation. The high constrast stuff with blacker-than-black blacks and blindingly white whites made this seem cold. I figured that the visual style might be the only quality worth watching it for (I was bored by the story and characters almost immediately), and that didn't exactly grab me. Anybody seen this? Should I give it another chance when I'm in a better mood? Should I have even bothered making a blog entry about it?

This Is Spinal Tap

1984 mockurockumentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Advertisement director Marty DiBergi follows heavy metal rockers Spinal Tap on a fateful American tour in support of their latest album, Smell the Glove. Conflicts arise due to their waning popularity, management problems, artistic differences, and a lack of record label support.

You know the jokes are coming and can even quote them, but they still surprise and make you laugh. I'm a sucker for both the faux-documentary format and improvised comedy anyway, and this is the one of the best. It all comes naturally, nothing winding up too hammy or strained, so natural that somebody watching excerpts could easily be fooled into thinking it's legitimate. You've got to pay attention though. The first time I saw this movie with Wombat McClain, he wouldn't stop quoting lines before they came (he also wouldn't stop making sexual advances) so I was a little distracted. He also kept giggling in advance and spilling his plate of corn. This helps prove my theory that movies should almost always be watched alone. I do wonder what Wombat McClain is doing these days though. Probably listening to King Crimson and creeping people out! And eating corn, of course. Dude loved his corn.

This is not Wombat McClain, but it might as well be:

The Conversation

1974 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: This prequel to Superman explains the origins of supervillian Lex Luther before he met Ned Beatty and started sporting towels on the big screen.

Great psychological thriller about a paranoid surveillance guy. It's the kind of thriller that is really only thrilling in your head. It starts creepily and pulls you in before developing mysteriously and ominously. Paced deliberately, Hackman's character develops and becomes more and more desperate until a crescendo at the end. I like how the scenes with Lex Luther's toying with the recording are edited: little snippets of the titled conversation with flashbacks and different camera viewpoints of the opening scene. This movie has a sneaky tension that I really like, and I think Gene Hackman is great in it.

La Constellation Jodorowsky

1994 documentary

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Interviews and career synopsis of Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Some fascinating tidbits and footage, especially the scenes from the "Panic Movement" stuff and the artwork for the abandoned Dune project. The documentary, unfortunately, is a real mess from the get-go and really takes a self-indulgent turn at the 3/4 mark and spirals aimlessly for what seems to be 2 and 1/2 hours before thankfully ending. Any interview/documentary that starts with the subject being asked "Who are you?" is bound to be pretentious although there's a definite fanboy idol worship going on with filmmaker Louis Mouchet. Nothing all that revealing, but it's an ok introduction to Jodorowsky.

The Films of Kenneth Anger Volume Two

Shorts from 1964 to 1981

Rating: 12/20

Plots:

Scorpio Rising is about a gay motorcycle gang who go to a party because they've got great juice. "Juice me!" they keep saying.

Kustom Kar Kommandos is a low-budget commercial.

Invocation of My Demon Brother is about how Mick Jagger should never be allowed anywhere near a Moog synthesizer. It's also about how the 60's were turbulent times.

Rabbit Moon is about how wearing nothing but the color white will transform even the manliest of men into the gayest of bunnies.

Lucifer Rising is about how when the devil rubs his hands together, pyramids are built and volcanoes explode. Satan!

I watched these a couple weeks ago and forgot to post about them. This stuff is interesting, especially if you are a fan of the penis, but none of it seems all that revolutionary and most of it is pretty boring. It frequently hints at genius but genius not ever able to reach full potential. So all in all, this is more frustrating than anything else. Most interesting is Invocation of My Demon Brother although that Jagger music is abysmal. Powerful imagery though. The rest of this underwhelms.

Lent to me by my brother. Satan!

Modesty Blaise

1966 spy satire

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Honestly, I'm not sure. The title character is a thief-turned-spy or a spy-turned-thief. She's assigned by somebody who might work for the government to oversee a transaction involving diamonds, a transaction that might involve Arabs. A suave wealthy Englishman wants the diamonds. Modesty recruits a sidekick, the British equivalent of Silver Spoon's Rick(y) Schroder. A bunch of old guys (also mostly suave) drift in and out of the movie, and it's quite possibly that Modesty Blaise slept with all of them. She's both clever and slutty!

I liked the style--lots of color flaunting and some really stupid camera choices like shooting scenes through wine glasses. Things are kept disorienting, and most of the movie looks fun. Terrence Stamp (General Zod in Superman, a voice in Halo 3, and also the main character in The Collector) is also in this, and he just might be the greatest actor of all time. Some of the Bond-esque weapons (most notably, an umbrella and a seagull the characters put together during a pivotal scene [although once again, I couldn't really figure out what was going on there. . . signalling the Arabs?) were cool. My biggest problem with this, other than the confusion about what the hell was going on, was that I couldn't figure out what it even was. Satire? Dry comedy? More straight spy stuff? It doesn't sustain a cohesive mood or voice, and that gives it a real scattered, clunky feel. Cheesy in the wrong places. Not goofy in the right ones. I'm not sure what I expected from this since I've never even heard of the comic books this was based on, but I still managed to wind up disappointed.

I wasn't born until 1973.

Tuvalu

1999 German nearly-silent futuristic fairy tale

Rating: 15/20

Plot: An ugly blind man, his ugly wife, and their uglier son try to save a dilapidated bath house from demolition and the threat that it could be replaced by something that isn't a bath house. Anton, the ugly son, falls in love with the smell of Bjork's undergarments and eventually gets to see her swimming naked with a fish. Ostensibly, there is a woody (i.e. hard-on). Unfortunately, tragedy strikes and Bjork seeks the thuggish and more than likely shaggy arms of a slippery-lookin' devil named Gregor (also ugly), and Anton has to simultaneously fight for the love of the pop star and for the survival of his family's bath house.

Tuvalu is quirky, gorgeously filmed, and almost too precious for its own good. The set design, with a multi-storied bath house with crumbling walls and a labyrinth of rusting pipes looked like something straight from a Mad Max movie, apocalyptic and at times nightmarish while somehow always remaining whimsical and beautiful. The feel of the set was further enhanced by the use of both old school black 'n' white and old school color, lots of sepia tones for the indoors scenes and lots of off-blues for the water and outdoors scenes, both used as an homage to silent movies. Both the colors and the set, the herky-jerky plot, the use of ugly European actors, the lopsided cinematography and weird close-ups of the ugly actors' faces, and the dry humor were all reminiscent of Delicatessen, so much in fact that I probably should have deducted points for the blatant rip-off. Oh, and the overly-exaggerated sound effects--lots of creaking and squeaking. The film had no dialogue other than various grunts and squeals and the occasional uttered name, and this, with all the sepia and the Chaplinesque slapstick, recalls the silent film era. Parts of this cross the line into way-too-silly territory, but it's a fun, very French little fairy tale of a German movie that I'm glad I got to see.

Here's a picture of an ugly person with Bjork followed by a picture of an ugly person watching Tuvalu:

The Navigator

1924 romantic comedy

Rating: 17/20 (note: changed from original 16)

Plot: Buster Keaton and his special lady friend find themselves trapped on a drifting, fifty-foot yacht with no clue how to operate the thing. They share misadventures, including a hunt for a place to sleep, a fight with a swordfish, and attempted cannibalism, and their love grows.

Nice little movie with some great gags and early action-adventure scenes that really hold up well. I'm not sure any Buster Keaton movie is actually laugh-out-loud funny, but I did smile out loud. The portrait scene was my favorite, and there was lots of good physical comedy. This wasn't as perfectly executed as The General, but people who like silent comedies should find lots to enjoy.

Trivia: According to my father, Buster Keaton's parents were from Terre Haute, Indiana, my birthplace. They apparently moved prior to Buster's birth to travel with a minstrel show.

More trivia: I'm not expert, but the nicely-filmed fetish sex scenes in this have to be among the first in movie history. As you can see from the pictures below, this is pretty graphic stuff for 1924.

Beginning of the infamous swordfish-on-Buster sex scene.

Buster nearing climax.
Later, the human characters.


And Buster has what might be the first Hollywood orgasm.

Here I am watching Buster Keaton gettin' busy:

El Topo

1970 surreal western

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Title character and his naked son ride into a town where everybody, including the animals, has been brutally murdered. He rides off to take eyes and teeth and meets a woman. He ditches his son and rides off with the woman into the desert. There, he kills 4 master gun men in order to prove his love. She leaves him for another woman after that. He dies, is taken into a cave by a bunch of deformed people, and is shaven. He makes it his responsibility to dig these people out of the cave to connect them with a town full of religious nuts. I guess that's why he's "the mole."


My favorite movies are those movies that are singular and visionary, movies that absolutely under no circumstances could have been made by any other director. Inland Empire is a good example actually. This is another one. The imagery is iconic. Religious allusions abound and the desert and old cowboy movie sets are beautiful and full of character. Profoundly violent--swinging corposes, a literal river of blood, a crucified lamb, a naked man stumbling to his suicide following castration, lots of dead bunnies. This seemingly has a lot to do with religion, both organized religion and spirituality, but the symbolism is thick and it's another film that requires multiple viewings. But whether or not there are answers or puzzle pieces that fit together doesn't even matter. Jodorowsky has created something that surely won't be enjoyed by many people but will be impossible to discard or forget.

Note: Alejandro Jodorowsky was actually a pupil of Marcel Marceau. No kidding. That mime is all over the place!

Here is Eye watching El Topo:

Paris, je t'aime

2006 romantic thing


Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 16/20)


Plot: 18 directors spit out short snippets about love and lonliness in Paris.


Another movie with a mime! Hot cha!

I expected this to be hit and miss with such a collection of directors, some whom I didn't even know, but there were a lot of hits here--the humor of the Coens' segment with Buscemi, Chomet's mime assault, the touching final short with a woman narrating her story in French with a terrible accent, and the one with the dying guy and the nurse were my favorites. Oh, and the one with the woman in the red trenchcoat. Surprisingly, there were only a couple that I disliked (Wes Craven's, although it was beautiful to look at, and the one that seemed to take place in Chinatown) and one that I absolutely hated--an out-of-place bit of emo cheese trash with a vampire. I'd have to see a list, but I believe there was some order to the madness with stories about meeting and falling in love leading to stories about love leading to stories about love ending or threatening to end. I'm not sure how consistent that was though. Really enjoyable series of romantic blasts nevertheless, interestingly filled with mostly dialogue but still appealing to people with short attention spans.

Jen and I watching Paris, je t'aime:


She hated both the mimes and vampires. How's that for an idea, by the way? A mime vampire movie? I don't see why that wouldn't work!

Barbarella--Queen of the Galaxy

1968 Science Fiction

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A whore is given the task of saving the universe. A robot makes innuendos, and Jane Fonda writhes and moans. Several wardrobe malfunctions and explosions later, Barbarella saves the galaxy while simultaneously giving me an erection.

Psychedelic and goofy fun with special effects that make Star Wars and 2001 look like movies that have much bigger budgets. They ain't got Jane Fonda, however! Jane Fonda's legs should have won an Academy Award, and if there was some kind of award for best sex scene ever, the stimulatingly spicy scene between the title character and Dildono (I've actually spelled his name wrong here, but this is how it should have been spelled) would win without question.

I really did enjoy this movie and not just because of the spiciness. It was visually interesting and since it never even thought of taking itself seriously, remained fun throughout. I also noted that both Duran Duran and Matmos got their names from this movie although I did see that the character and weird watery substance in the movie had names that were spelled differently.

Special note: This makes the second movie in a row that I've watched with Marcel Marceau in it. Complete coincidence.

Here I am becoming aroused:

Silent Movie

1976 hilarious Mel Brooks comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Idiots attempt to get money and stars together to shoot a silent movie. People fall down a lot, and a studio is saved. Maybe. I lost interest and can't remember.

A timeless classic with slapstick and sight gags galore! That stuff never gets old. I knew from the first gag (in which a pregant woman climbs into the back of the Three Stooges' convertible and the car tips back on its back wheels) that this would be a laugh-a-minute comedy and that my knee would be red from slappin'. And when Burt Reynolds showed up in a shower scene that rivals Psycho for most hilarious shower scene in cinematic history, I knew I was watching something special.



He was the bandit and looks great without a shirt!

The funniest moment of the movie, although I honestly didn't even come close to chuckling even once, involved Marcel Marceau's cameo. And sadly, if the funniest part of the movie involves a mime, you know you're in trouble. I find it hard to believe that this wasn't dated before its release. I really like my humor a little more subtle than this.

Here I am laughing hysterically while enjoying Silent Movie: