Dogs and Babies and Stooges... oh my!

Parenthood. An inevitable stage of human development, or just all that stuff that the "breeders" do? Even the Stooges weren't invulnerable to such deep, philosophical questions, and as much as a nightmare as it would be for about 99.9% of humanity to let a Stooge near a young child... it did happen on several occasions. But at least it appeared to be an accident... Let's start from the beginning of this shaggy dog story, so to speak, shall we?

ACT ONE

We see the Stooges on the right side of the law at the start, as they operate their Rube Goldberg designed dog washing business. Actually, we start with the customer who makes his way to their shop with the smartest, most tolerant dalmatian in the world. Bess Flowers stars once again as the long suffering high society wife... hmm! Interesting resumé. Wonder if it's worth it to look her up in all them old movies... Palm Springs Weekend? Probably not worth it. As for the husband... there's something unsettling about that guy. I just can't put my finger on it. Lane Chandler, I think it is. Being a nerdy film critic, I guess I just can't handle all the machismo.
Anyway, so we head to the dog washing business, where the poor mutt's manhandled from the start, falling down a chute onto a conveyor belt. The first indignity is a contraption with feather dusters on it. Then, the dog goes past a circular device with six gloves on it to Larry who uses a cake froster to apply soap to the dog. Then, in reverse, back to the gloves which suddenly, through movie magic, have human arms in them! They scrub the dog, flip it on its back, continue scrubbing, and generally humiliate the dog as much as possible without actually killing it. Curly operates a stationary bicycle that powers the dog's rinse water. Curly complains that he's "not getting anywhere" in his job. Moe provides meaning to his work by operating a hand that slaps Curly in the ass. Damn near half of the first reel is squandered on this conveyor-belt-based dog washing operation. Final charge for services? Fifty cents!!! Well, it was the Depression, and fifty cents was actually worth something. And their business was relatively eco-friendly! They didn't have coal to burn to power anything.

ACT TWO

Continuing the eco-friendly theme, the Stooges' car is Curly powered. As for the non-Stooge part of the film involving the rich white family, well... there may be a weaker film than this out there, probably one with Joe Besser. The wife is going to get revenge because she thinks the husband's gone ahead to Palm Springs without her. She goes back home, forgets her key, and leaves the baby by the front door as she goes around to the back to see if there's a window to crawl in through. Not as bad as, say, 3000 Miles to Graceland in terms of plot contrivance, but whaddayagonna do. The Stooges, in their car being pushed by Curly, just happen by the house when the baby's left on the doorstep. Thinking it's been abandoned, they take it to give to the police... but maybe they'll take care of the cute little fella a while before they go to the police. That'll pad out the film a bit more! At this point, Moe has a very rare moment to himself. Sounding a bit like Shemp, Moe muses "I dunno... it was my idea, but I don't think much of it." Okay, so that can be said about every Stooge film ultimately, but tis a rare occasion indeed when they achieve lucidity. The car, pushed by Curly, slowly trudges on, but they're out of frame, so the mother comes back in front of the house and, in utter horror, finds the baby gone. Fortunately, the husband's car is driving off and she at least has the comfort of thinking that husband took junior to Palm Springs. But what is she to do at this point? We'll leave that aside and get back to the Stooges, who are busy smuggling the kid into their apartment in A BAG OF GROCERIES. There's a sign on the door of their apartment complex that says "No dogs or babies", but it's all good because they're smuggling the kid into their place INSIDE A BAG OF GROCERIES. Vernon Dent has an all-too brief scene as the tough but fair landlord. The kid, INSIDE A BAG OF GROCERIES, starts to cry. Curly pretends that he's crying. The boys get him inside as quickly as possible, and I assume to GET THE KID OUT OF THE BAG OF GROCERIES. I'm trying very hard to censor myself here... Oh! They also rig the kid up to a Goldberg-esque pulley system so they can HIDE THE KID INSIDE A BASKET FROM THE LANDLORD. They have a little trouble putting the kid back in. Too bad the ASPCA can't get redress on old films like this.

ACT THREE

Admittedly the line between acts two and three is awfully blurry, but I suppose it begins in earnest with a newspaper with the banner headline screaming "Manning Child Abducted"... something like that. The boys quickly put two and two together... rare for them... and make plans to return the kid as quickly as possible. Curly gets dressed up as the boy's mother. He fits the part except for his ugly, stick-thin legs. You'd think, being a fat man, that he'd have fat legs, but a good premise is a good premise. Sponges are used to pad out his legs, covered up by pantyhose or God knows what.
Now we come to perhaps the film's sole redeeming feature: Bud Jamison as a very VERY Irish cop. He takes an immediate liking to Curly and the kid. "Ah, a fine brat of a boy, Mrs. O'Toole." Curly makes a poor choice of place to stand: in front of a sprinkler. Water fills up the sponges, making his legs unsightly in a new way. Bud Jamison puts two and two together, and the chase begins. The scene I love is where Bud starts running, screaming "Come back here! Ya can't get away with that!" I love it because he runs away from the microphone, and his voice sounds far away. God bless them for not re-dubbing it in. It's downhill from there, so to speak, even though the altitude doesn't change. Moe and Larry duck into a Chinese laundry... hoh boy. Yup, you can tell what's coming. Now, apparently, Wikipedia's all over the gobbledygook that Larry says and was able to make sense of it. I guess the closed captioning on the DVD is just that good... I hope. Even though it's offensive, the last third of the plot hinges upon Moe and Larry as ethnic laundrymen, so in it stays. They run with Curly and kid inside of a wheeled hamper. That the film and sound are sped up doesn't help much. To cut to the end of the chase, everything turns out all right, but some of the cops don't seem too happy about it. Mom's happy to be reunited with baby, "...but you're the dirtiest baby I've ever seen!" Well, just as the car companies were turned into tank companies for the war effort, so too do the Stooges modify their dog washing operation for young kids. Curly wants to do something to help, but ends up ruining everything. Maybe it's too subtle, but the baby ends up getting spanked by the six-hand part of the dog washing contraption. Frankly, it left me feeling a little dirty.

Good double bill with: The Way Things Go

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Sid and Marty Krofft

Welp, it seems that The Onion will kiss anybody's ass if they show up in person to do an interview. That sure seemed to be the case when they interviewed Paul Verhoeven, arguably one of the most obnoxious filmmakers to hit the American market since... since Paul Verhoeven! Well, maybe Jody Hill. But God bless 'em, they've found niche markets, and why not. Adam Sandler caters to the mainstream teenager in all of us; someone's gotta give a shout out to the teenagers with headless Barbie dolls in dominatrix dioramas in the basement, walls plastered with photographs of nuclear explosions...
On the other hand, it's probably not good to bash these two, the same reason it's probably not good to bash Jerry Weintraub. They're corporate! They could have me whisked away to a REAL black site! Not those ones always talked about during the Dubya presidency. Judging from the Onion interview, I'm going to say Sid's the alpha dog of the two, but Marty's not exactly a slouch either. Neither will go down without a fight. Such long résumés. Why, The Onion didn't even mention The Bugaloos! Or D.C. Follies in the late 80s when it was okay to make fun of Reagan? Most of us don't often see this sight, but Fred Willard here looks like he's in Hell. Or maybe it was Moving Violations I was thinking of. (In the same photo, Leslie Nielsen looks like he's giving the finger with his pen... a sight we frankly don't get enough of these days) Clearly the 70s are the decade of choice, when the shows were the wildest. They apparently weren't on drugs when making their shows. As Sid explains, "But hey, three presidents said that they smoked pot. It was the ’70s. It was a psychedelic period." When you're high on the wacky weed, apparently the only thing one feels like making is a run to the store for some snacks.
You do gotta hand it to them Krofft boys. Okay, maybe not, but I will anyway. I saw some of the Land of the Lost movie, and the part where the dinosaur hears Will Ferrell talking about how dumb dinosaurs are... SPOILER ALERT. The dinosaur rolls its eyes, turns around, and proceeds to scare the ... stuffing out of Will. Damn near priceless. Just one problem: Danny McBride? Really? I thought the Kroffts tried to surround themselves with the best of the best! I hate Bust-Ass, I'm sorry. Maybe I'll get my mind changed about that. In fact, I know I will, especially if I drive through the wrong parts of Georgia. I'm kinda interested in their movie Side Show ... maybe not. It's based on Sid's adventures working for the circus, but it sounds like the subplot about witnessing a murder was tacked on to either a) make the story more palatable, or b) Sid actually shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Show biz, baby! The first one's always free. One last thing: the Kroffts are consummate showmen, even during interviews. They don't want to give anything away, but they're still good at surrounding themselves with the best people, and in their new role as producers of the upcoming Krofft-property-based movies like Lidsville, The Bugaloos, and The Altered State of Drugachusetts, they're working with someone who's won eight Oscars! No, not Rick Baker, someone who's won for music. I can't imagine who that would be. Usually people like Rick Baker really clean up at the Oscars, or Colleen Atwood. Or Katharine Hepburn! She won four of the little beauties. Then again, she tied in 1968 with Barbara Streisand, so it's more like 3.5. Why, she didn't even show up to get her statuettes in 1982 OR 1934! OR 1968! Why, it's like she didn't win them at all! She's still got the most wins for an actor. Sorry, Kirk Lazarus, but no actor's made the big five. For the most part, a good actor's lucky if they get two or three, usually for roles based in the big stages of life: childhood, young adulthood, and senior citizen age.

Not again...

Oh, the Oscar whisper campaign has begun in earnest. But to really improve your chances with the Little Golden Man(TM), you gotta make at least 200 million dollars these days. The Help's halfway there. I couldn't help but do some half-assed research behind that quote that gets tossed around here in this age of internet lists: Margaret Mead's extra quotable "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Why, did you know that the 2006 music video for "If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback ends with her quote? My good friend Wikipedia told me so! But I am part iconoclast, and I couldn't help but read the rest of the Wikipedia entry, and ran across this:

"Occasionally a message carried by the media finds an audience so eager to receive it that it is willing to suspend all critical judgment and adopt the message as its own. So it was with Margaret Mead's celebrated 'Coming of Age in Samoa.'"

Sometimes you gotta get both sides of the story. Not global warming, though. We've definitely screwed ourselves. Cars are fun! In other box office news, the latest Luc Besson/Robert Mark Kamen juggernaut, Colombiana, makes the U.S. box office its bitch. See? This is exactly the kind of thing that The Help has to put up with! Such a lack of civility. Not exactly a surprise coming from the French, of course. At #3, Guillermo del Toro applies the Pan's Labyrinth family formula to a reboot of the 1973 TV movie Don't be Afraid of the Dark. Our Idiot Brother is the last of the debuts this week at #5. Judd Apatow didn't officially produce this one, but Paul Rudd has been in scads of Apatow films, as you might know. Apatow's got the second-hand golden touch! But the real interesting story this week is that The Smurfs is back! For two weeks it was hovering at 11 and below, but popped up again like a buoy that someone was trying to drown. Usually these overloaded Hollywood vehicles are like giant sponges, and they never stop soaking up the water.

Tyler Perry's Meet the Stooges

Something just occurred to me... why didn't Rob Schneider lobby a little harder to play Larry in the up-and-coming Farrelly brothers Three Stooges movie? Shame. Probably because Adam Sandler wasn't offered the Moe part. What could've been. Thank God some of the cast of Jersey Shore is in it, though! Stooges, time to meet herpes!
Well, you've got to hand it to those Stooges: they never had any pretensions about their place in the heavily stratified world of show business. Here they start off as three cleaning men about to lose their jobs cleaning the office of... wait for it... B.O. Botswaddle, head of Columbia Pictures... I mean, Super Terrific Productions, a studio that probably could've bought up Columbia at the time. For some reason, that comedy name makes me think of Billy Gilbert's name in The Music Box, which was... hold on while I look it up... I think it's Theodore von Schwarzenhoffen, ADA, DDS, FLD, FFF&F... something like that. Man, that dude was pissed. Pissed off, not drunk. Anyway, back to Three Missing Links. One thing I know for sure is that parts of Act One are featured in Lethal Weapon 2, when Mel Gibson rightly throws away the remote when he finds a Stooge film on the ol' boob tube. Only Richard Donner could broker that deal, showing parts of a Columbia pic in a Warner Bros. flick... or maybe Spielberg made the call.

ACT ONE

James C. Morton plays long suffering studio head B.O. Botswaddle. He's having trouble with his leading lady, Mirabel Mirabel and his new pic set in Africa. He paces up and down his office with the director by his side, screaming "Where is Mirabelle Mirabelle?" Only James C. Morton could pull that line off. Mirabelle squared eventually shows up, and the three of them get to work rehearsing before heading off to "Africa." The Stooges show up with their office-cleaning gear, ready to destroy... I mean, clean the office. Botswaddle tells them to be quiet. Boy, he must've fallen off the turnip truck. Larry helpfully offers, "We'll be as quiet as a mouse." Curly says "Yeah! A deaf and dumb mouse." The political incorrectness escalates from there, needles to say. The producer, director and Mirabelle Mirabelle must have a very, very high tolerance for noise and disruption, because the Stooges end up very far from quiet. Moe delivers an Oscar-worthy performance when he bursts into a rare rage, screaming "GIMME THE BUCKET! GIMME THE BUCKET!" He throws the bucket at Curly, but it instead goes through the nice pristine glass door. In any other business, they'd end up fired or worse, but this is showbiz, and Curly ends up eventually impressing the producer and director. At first, after experiencing Curly's imitation of a chicken with its head cut off (the camera wisely is up high off the ground and far back to show Curly in all his velocity-driven glory), the director says "Let me kill him... Just once, it won't cost much." Curly then launches into dog-gorilla fighting mode... just what the Africa pic needs. The six of them end up toasting their new-found venture... Curly gets the gin and ink drink he prepared earlier.
You might've noticed that some of Curly's noises during his headless chicken dance were repeated. This is a Stooge film! That's merely the beginning of the repeating sounds...

Act TWO

The Stooges and crew end up in "Africa," or a moderately-dressed set on Cannery Row. It's big enough so that the boys can do some damage over a good distance. Curly helps the boys find some water... in a water-drenched tree. Moe and Larry, enraged, chase Curly into another tree. Curly slows down before hitting it. The three knuckleheads make their way to a medicine man's hut. There must be a special place in Hell for African American actors who've appeared in Stooge films... I mean, besides the Stooge films themselves. Anyway, the medicine man's a cannibal, and sets his sights on Curly first. Well, apparently the mosquitoes love the big, fatty Americans that travel abroad. Quite tasty! As George Carlin once mused, how do you decide who to eat first? Do you pick on the skinny guy because he can't fight back, or do you all gang up on the bodybuilder because he's got a lot of steaks and chops on him? The Stooges helpfully offer up each other to the medicine man, citing their own unique animal spirit guides in the process. That's loyalty for you. Was I the only one who thought of Rob Schneider's capering in Judge Dredd when he and Sly ran afoul of some cannibals? It's probably a 99.7% chance with a Confidence Interval of 95, but hey, that's just elementary statistics. Fortunately for Curly, he happens upon some love candy. The medicine man describes its effect: "Love candy. Make big strong love." I don't know how that got past the Hays Office, but God bless them for missing it. In the end, capitalism made its way to the heart of darkest Africa, and the medicine man takes payment for a handful of love candy, and puts it in a cash register. Hooray, small business! And now, back to the cannibalism... poke in the medicine man's eyes, exit stage left.

---

Every once in a while, a Stooge makes a genuine noise of complaint when getting hit. In this case, Curly's plaintiff wails of thwarted love ring true when, after Curly tells Moe he's going to give Mirabelle Mirabelle some love candy, Moe orders him back to work with a slap to boot. Larry has a similar moment when Moe winds up to hit Curly and gets hit his own damn self. Curly runs afoul of some comedy stakes he's trying to keep in the ground. The boys have a special tent that needs double tethering... oh no. Not the lion licking their bare feet gag! Larry gets a positively Shakespearean moment before the big reveal: he says "I do not snore! Why, I stayed awake all last night to see if I snored, and I didn't." Why, that's got to be the biggest speech he's ever given!

ACT THREE

The day of the big shoot, and we see the director moving some stuff around the set. Boy, what a shoestring production this is. Moe and Larry play cavemen in this pic, and Mirabel Mirabel looks positively fetching in a leopard-skin outfit. James C. Morton must be a white glove producer, for he's nowhere to be found. Curly's getting dressed up in his gorilla costume when... wait for it... a "REAL" gorilla shows up. COMEDY!!! Then again, if this were a drama, would not the same thing happen? I wonder if Woody Allen has ever considered this possibility, possibly with Will Ferrell in the cast... Anyway, you can imagine the comedic possibilities of two gorillas in one pic, but I'm just going to mention one that reminded me of the movie Ronin when Sean Bean gets kicked out of the group for his Stooge-like idea, because Moe and Larry implement it here. They're each at the mouth of a cave with guns pointed at each other's hats. Curly, imbued with powerful temporary psychic gifts, hits the ground as he's running out of the cave. Moe and Larry end up shooting each other's hats off. The love candy ends up closing the pic.
All in all, I gotta say... I think this is a four-star Stooge pic! You got the bare essentials, and just enough uneasiness to offend today's P.C. crowd. What's not to like? Probably the Stooges' ad-libbing, but their laughter seemed real when the lion was licking their feet.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Stephen and David Koepp

God Damn! Are we ever going to get out of the 'K's? Probably not. Anyway, on to the next sibling team. Well, clearly David is the alpha Koepp in this equation. All Stephen's done in the last 20 years is The Paper and go on The O'Reilly show on Fox News.... Someone wants royalties!!!
So let's get back to this David guy. Which do you think is his favorite decade? Was it the 80s, the lean, hungry decade? Mohawks and Sally Cruikshank, in the wake of All That Jazz, and Koepp was working with a bloke by the name of Martin Donovan, clearly in the apprentice role... well, who's the apprentice now?
And then came the 90s and, just as Spielberg claimed Dean Cundey as his own from protegé Zemeckis, so too did Koepp get swiped up for Jurassic Park, no less! Good move on Koepp's part. Not long before he was a damn director in his own right, directing a West-coast Fargo, so to speak... The Trigger Effect, it was called. Certainly more handsome people than Fargo, and more of the kind of bullying behaviour that the American public can understand and appreciate. He musta did something right as 1999 brought his version of The Sixth Sense with that six degrees of Kevin Bacon thrown into the mix for good measure... what was that damn thing called? Stir of Echoes, that's it.
Or maybe the 2000s is Koepp's fave decade. Higher screenplay salaries, and he still gets to play director. 2004 brought his O Brother Where Art Thou to the screen, or Secret Window. Turturro goes from getting redress for a watch stolen from his kin to a story stoled'd from his own damn self! And this time, Turturro's not playing Larry to George Clooney's Moe: he's the whole damn show his own damn self... or so I've been told. And then, 2008 gave us Koepp's The Sixth Sense meets About Schmidt with a touch of Brit, called ... Ghost Town? That's it.
But perhaps the 2010s will be the bestest decade of all for David Koepp. The stench of Indiana Jones 4 behind him, he's ready, willing and able to bring his version of 16 Blocks to the big screen, and it's so far called Premium Rush, the story of a bike messenger being chased by a dirty cop. It's all well and good, but David knows what's coming: the next phone call to his mom, and he's gotta collaborate with Stephen again, even though Stephen went on Fox News. Try and get along with your sibling!

Heaven "Help" Us

Every once in a while an important Southern movie comes along to us big-city types way up North, teaching all of us damn Yankees a thing or two about life. But while we're waiting for that movie to come along, we've got something here in the meantime called 'The Help.' Hollywood is powerless to compete. I mean, if even Planet of the Apes can't beat this thing... from the director of Pretty Ugly People, Tate Taylor, comes The Help... I can't help but mention. Maybe I'm just a closet racist myself, but the dude's name is too cute to be a serious director. And he probably wears jeans. Right, Spike Lee? ...see, Shelton once told a girl in jeans that she couldn't be a director, mostly because she was wearing jeans. And that girl's name was... Troy Beyer! Seriously, though, I don't know who the girl was, and so far the Internet's been powerless to corroborate the story... ah, skip it.
Sorry, folks, gotta cut this short. I know, tragic loss, right? The other debuts were: El Mariachi's latest, a Conan the Barbarian reboot in 3D, a Fright Night reboot in 3D... if there was just some way to make Robert Rodriguez an honorary 80s icon... and something called One Day, a rom-com NOT featuring shirtless Matthew McConaughey and Goldie Hawn's kid! Go figure. As God is my witness, the genre will always be fresh.

B-A-Bay Ruckus

The directors of Three Stooges shorts often don't get held aloft in the directing pantheon, unlike, say, some of the Warner Brothers cartoon directors; usually Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones. But Charley Chase is perhaps an exception. Some of his Hal Roach shorts were pretty inventive. They showed a few of them a few odd months ago on Turner Classic Movies, along with the Taxi Boys and other mostly forgettable ones. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifThe Boyfriends? Puh-leeze Having worked with the likes of Laurel and Hardy and... well, what more does one need, really? Charley brings a slightly more academic sensibility to the Stooges with Violent is the Word for Curly. Ah, God bless Wikipedia. Yes, the title is a play on something else. In this case, a parody of a film called Valiant is the Word for Carrie. Now I'm as culturally ignorant as the next internet movie reviewer, but I confess I don't know what that is. Clearly the Stooge film has stood the test of time a little more sure-footedly. But let's just dive right into the plot.

Act ONE

As usual, haute couture is about to get a trident stuck in its ass. Three professors from somewhere in Europe are due to arrive at Mildew College... great comedy college, up there with Huxley and Faber. Meanwhile, the Stooges find themselves not in jail, but in the private sector, with one foot in the cell. Boss Bud Jamison's going to go across the street to get a sandwich and leaves the boys with some rah-rah motivational talk. Up pulls a fancy car with a lewd hood ornament on it. Curly will fix that later. Still, my God! Fox News was right! Damn overpaid teachers flaunting their wealth. The three professors sit smugly in the back of their expensive car, but, boy did they pick the wrong gas station to pull into. The chauffeur goes across the street to get a sandwich too. That must be one hell of a sandwich place. The Stooges set immediately to work destroying the car. Up pulls an ice cream truck in need of repair work. Moe makes an unusual proposition: "Well, we're busy right now, but we'll give you some tools and you can get to work on it yourself!" Something like that. I can't go back to double check it right now. I... just can't. The driver of the ice cream truck goes across the street to get a sandwich; he disappears, anyway. Larry throws the professors' suitcases into the ice cream truck to make room for himself. Curly looks at the bald head of one of the professors, and asks Larry to throw him a bottle of polish. Curly starts pouring polish on the guy's head. Moe goes over to reprimand Curly... then proceeds to buff the professor's bald, polish-covered head with a towel. Worse than that: the professor seems to enjoy it! Curly's job now is to inflate the car's tires. Curly has a little trouble with the air hose as it's whipping around like a cascabel that's eaten one too many Mexican jumping beans... sorry, I was channeling Dan Rather there for a second. Anyway, to cut to the Chase, so to speak, the car explodes, and the Stooges decide to take off in the ice cream truck. Curly has to make a run for it as the truck leaves without him, and he climbs in the back of the truck... hmm! Is this plot development going to come into play later on?

Act TWO

The boys are driving in the ice cream truck. The truck runs out of gas. They remember that Curly's in the back of the truck. They open the back of the truck and find that Curly's frozen stiff. Only one thing to do: thaw Curly out over an open flame. Ah, childhood memories. I remember that one sticking pretty well. Moe makes an awfully snide comment, even for him: "40 minutes to the pound! We'll be here all month!" Good thing Curly was unconscious, and never watched his own work. Curly comes to, and starts freaking out about being tied to a spit over a campfire. What a weirdo! He runs into the nearest puddle he can find. He gets a little short term revenge when he pulls Moe and Larry in with him. Plot device #2: Larry says "Hey! I'll bet there are some dry clothes in those suitcases..." Obviously they have little faith in the power of fire to dry out clothes. Well, being the Stooges, they could mess up a baked potato.
A few hops, skips and jumps later, they find themselves hitchhiking in graduation outfits. The snooty lady from the beginning of the film stops her car and picks them up. They find themselves in a classroom in the next scene. Larry gets a bad case of the blues, and Moe snaps him out of it.. rather, slaps him out of it. And then, to avoid an actual student question, Stooge song history is made with "Swinging the Alphabet." I find the song kind of irritating myself, but I can't deny something its iconic place in icon history. Icon! As usual, Wikipedia's on it better than I ever could. As they rightfully observe, for some reason Curly sings his part faster than the other singers. What a dope. Must be another plot device. Ah hah! But even Wikipedia doesn't know everything! They don't say who wrote the Swinging the Alphabet song.

Act THREE

What Stooge film would be complete without a big dinner scene? The boys make their best dinner entrance yet, and rather quickly make huge asses of themselves. Curly runs afoul of a comedy cucumber. And then... the three REAL professors show up at the college. Now, if it were Vernon Dent, his first order of business would be to take off his coat and vow to murder the Stooges, but this isn't Scrambled Brains. The snooty lady calls the real professors impostors, and the three real professors announce their resignation. On their way out, they spy the laboratory and the ringleader says "We'll give them a going away present they'll never forget!" This was just before World War II started to heat up, so I'll try to keep the German-baiting to a minimum. Besides, they do have a legitimate grievance, but still they leave the door open to get what's coming to them. It's around about this point of the film when I realized that "Super Service" is the theme that's going to come full circle. The boys try to patch things up by tackling the snooty lady in an impromptu game of football using a basketball filled with just a drop of nitroglycerine. What I like about this film is that it's slightly different than the usual Stooge ending. Instead of the cops chasing the Stooges down, the snooty lady tells the Stooges to just get the real professors back and PLEASE GO AWAY!!! Something like that. Finally, someone in a Stooge film makes the ultimate realization: the Stooges just aren't worth all the attention they get.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

DAMN DIRTY APES, PART TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate to do this hasty box office follow-up, but apparently this is the biggest story to hit Yahoo! News in, like, forever and ever, so it obviously behooves me to blog about it. It's beyond my control at this point.

...Okay, that's it.

Auteur Watch - Alek and Aleen Keshishian

It's a sad, sad story, oft repeated in Hollywood. One sibling leads the way, only to be superseded by the one not currently in the biz... I can't think of any good examples right now that fit that mold. For some reason, Glen and Darin Morgan come to mind. Glen was the alpha brother for a while, working on The X Files, but brother Darin came in and wrote some crackerjack scripts. And I tells ya, when Darin's name came up in the credits, one just KNEW they were in for a good episode. As for the Keshishians, well, they're currently the toast of the Ehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif! reality show set... damn! I mean, the Kardashians. Well, that certainly doesn't help things if your name is that similar to someone bigger and more famous in your industry, but let's try to focus here.
The Keshishians are the biggest thing to come out of Beirut since... since the attack on the U.S. base? Since Keanu Reeves? Yeah, that's more positive. Since Keanu Reeves. And Dom Joly, Austin Powers cinematographer Peter Deming and Terminator producer Mario Kassar. But Alek was a kid with a dream and a brother, and he soon found himself rising to the top of his craft, directing such classic music videos as "My Prerogative"... the Bobby Brown original, not the Britney Spears cover. At which point, Madonna thought he would be the perfect director she could really push around for her documentary debut, Truth or Dare... oh! There's two directors! Well, a subject as big as Madonna certainly merits at least two directors, I'll give you that.  With Madonna directing herself as well, no doubt.  After that, it was time for the cookie cutter flic With Honors. Patrick Dempsey had yet to start the second act of his career, and people wanted to see Joe Pesci just go f-ing nuts again... like he did in JFK! They'd have to wait for Casino for that to happen, I guess. Anyway, Alek must've gotten fed up with the biz at this point, because it's 12 years to his next pic! Unfortunately, he's not exactly Terrence Malick, and his comeback feature wasn't exactly The Tree of Life.
Oh, did I mention that Aleen is a chick? Oh well, who cares. Too late to go back and change it now. As it turns out, Ben Geisler from Barton Fink washttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif right. "Writers come and go... we can always use a few Indians!" As it turns out, directors come and go, but casting agents are forever. According to her IMDb entry, Aleen's clients are Jennifer Aniston and... whoa! Stop right there. I dare not list any more clients in the same sentence with Jen-An! Am I right? And yet, for Aleen, that 10% of that green, green Jennifer Aniston money just isn't enough. I know I wouldn't be able to pull that one off, that's for sure. As you can further see from Aleen's IMDb entry, she clawed her way up through the ranks through the 90s, the 00s and is clearly at the top of her craft now, right alongside Lynn Stalmaster, Ellen Chenoweth, Mali Finn and... some others, I'm sure. I know! How about Martin Bregman? He gets credit for all those Al Pacino pics, anyway, lucky guy. But I tell you what: any time I see Keshishian's name, which is not that often, I still can't help but think of that guy that got screwed over by Madonna. And apparently it's all going to happen all over again to poor Alek. I guess W.E.'ll just have to wait 'n see!
...oh, I think I see why this is getting a bunch of hits.  It must be confusing the Google spiders.  They look at it and go "Oh!  Kim Kardashian!  I hope it's a picture of her ass!"

The Continued Franchising of the Planet of the Apes

Welp, in honor of the continued kick-assedness of that damn dirty ape movie, I'm using the same jpeg from last week. No apology from Chennai necessary. In other James Franco-related box office news, another film pops up from outta nowhere, and it's called The Help, and it features Ahna O'Reilly, who apparently used to date James Franco. Well, can't blame a girl for trying! I hate to always be the first to say this, but... Oscar nom time for Bryce Dallas? I mean, what's a girl gotta do these days? She did her time with M. Night Shyamalan! She's in the Oscar-ish neighborhood, if nothing else. She'll go slumming if she has to... does she have to? Ick. She hopes not. So homeless people exist! So what; what else is new.
In other B.O. news, Final Destination 5 came in third. They're turning into the Final Fantasy video game series. Who knows what it's up to now: Final Fantasy 23 or something. Some video games are just way too needy. Meanwhile, as I suspected, the stoner comedy 30 Minutes or Less didn't debut at #1. Oh, Jesse Eisenberg, how could you let this happen? This is twice now in 2011 that Danny McBride "helps" out his fellow auteur, only to create a box office embarrasment of iconic proportions... I mean, epic proportions. Well, they're trying to go the Hostage route: a Trojan horse within a Trojan horse. Even the Coens don't get this convoluted. Finally, as seems to be the case these days, there's another concert movie. This time, it's the probably un-Disney-affiliated Glee concert movie. I better make the hyperlink to it, or it will get lost in the shuffle forever... wait a second! Jane Lynch's scenes DELETED? Oh, no wonder this didn't do well. BOO! That's why it's just a PG movie. They're trying to indoctrinate our youth into the Glee lifestyle. Why can't they just keep it for the die-hard fans, unlike myself? I think we finally have our next entry into the one-week club! The Smurfs deserves an honorable mention, because it was #1 the first week, #2 the second week, and POOF! Totally gone now. Gotta start looking at Variety's web site, I guess...

"Get this Henry the Eighth off my neck!"

Finally! One I've seen before. Go figure. Why, I've almost got all the major plot points memorized: the big contest, the glue on the table, the buckets of water... No, it's not A Missed Fortune, although I'm told that's, like, a total remake. It'll take about a year, but we'll get to it later on. For now, we're stuck with the classic Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb. And it just gets dumber from there, just the way we like it. And the opening credits music is still quite regal for Cannery Row.

ACT ONE
In A Missed Fortune, Larry's an epicurean who doesn't believe in the "less is more" maxim, but here in HWD he plays a ruthless card shark, but he's become complacent in concealing his deceptive play, and his winning streak is about to end. Be careful when you cheat Moe out of a hotcake breakfast, as you're in for a pummeling accompanied by comical sound effects. You got to hand it to Larry, though, as he seems to have more aces than Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the big plot point this time is that Curly has entered a slogan contest. In A Missed Fortune, this goes the way of the dodo and is replaced by a quiz show on TV. And as would only happen in a Stooge film, Curly paints his envelope shut with maple syrup, while Moe lathers his pancakes with Stix Fast brand glue. Moe's mouth is glued shut, but he's able to get the other two into Emergency Mode to fix the situation. Larry at least springs into action and does something about it... oh, it's just too gruesome to blog about. Meanwhile, Curly, swelling with pride, manages to get his mouth glued shut as well. His rehabilitation is much more drawn out, and he ends up getting one of his teeth pulled instead. Moe makes a Curly-esque noise when he realizes what he did. To cut to the chase, Curly wins the contest, with a cash prize of $50,000. That was back when a dollar was actually worth something; needles to say, they get more than they bargained for, as do most lottery winners or, frankly, just about anyone who engages in an act of social mobility.

ACT TWO
The boys check in to the Hotel Costa Plente, and are shown to an extra fancy suite by the greatest actor ever... to come out of Helena, Montana, James C. Morton. Well, second only to Gary Cooper and Rebecca Ferratti. The boys horse around a little bit and discover the bathtub in the bathroom. Curly and Larry apparently hadn't seen a bathtub before, but Professor Moe gives them the school of hard knocks, and learns their unlearned asses right quick. James C. Morton pointed out two expensive antiques in the boys' suite, and it's not long before they're at work destroying them.

ACT THREE
The plot was a bit thin, so we have three gold diggers in the hotel that have discovered that the big contest winners are just a few doors down. The Hays code demanded that there be three of them. After running afoul of several bottles of champagne, the boys find themselves in a big mess of trouble, and the only weapon they have to defend themselves with are several buckets full of ice-cold water that the champagne had been cooling in. Various federal and local taxes and levies have reduced the contest money drastically, to an amount far less than would be able to pay for the damage to the bathroom... and to the two priceless antiques. James C. Morton rushes off to draft a bill. The boys do the only economically reasonable thing to do, which is fleeing the hotel, but they're stopped by Bud Jamison as the house Pinkerton. To cut to the chase, it's the three gold diggers who end up delivering the Stooges' final blow that will end the film.

Epilogue
I dunno. Maybe I'm just not in the mood, maybe it's the homework deadline, or maybe it's that I just can't look at myself in the mirror anymore after all these Stooge films I've been reviewing, but somehow HWD just doesn't cut the mustard anymore. Which is sad, because so much of it gets recycled in A Missed Fortune, including actual clips from the original HWD. But that's just how timeless the Stooges are.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Alex and Stephen Kendrick

When you hire Alex Kendrick, you're not just getting one of the most promising Christian directors in the biz, as I'm sure the pages of Watchtower or some other publication would tell you. As you can see from Alex's IMDb page, you're also getting a writer, producer, editor, composer, cinematographer, soundtrack, thanks and self. It's like you're hiring nine people in one! But Craft Services only has to feed one: he probably doesn't eat a whole lot. As any actor will tell you, gluttony is indeed one of the seven deadly sins. Once you stray from the Protein Shake golden path, well, there's just no coming back. Anyway, you're getting quality when you hire Alex Kendrick to make you a film, possibly starring the kid from Growing Pains. But Man is not satisfied for long, and soon he's reaching for the apple off the proverbial Tree of Knowledge, and once Alex Kendrick is on board with your project, you can't help but ask yourself "Any more like him back home?" Actually, there is! There's also Stephen, who makes a fine doorstop. Okay, so he's no Alex, but he's trying. He's a writer, a producer, and he played "Marine at Wreck" in Fireproof! Clearly, Alex has set the bar far too high, but not without good reason: he's poised to make his biggest splash yet with 2011's Courageous. As you can see from the poster, the tag line is "Honor begins at home." Silly me. I always thought it was 'charity begins at home.' Shows you what I know. For me, honor is that thing I keep away from home, since there's just so much of it I have to display when I leave the house. Which is precisely why I've gotta see this movie!... oh, they don't have it for free yet on Hulu or Crackle or Courageous' official IMDb page (see link above). I'm afraid it's going to have to wait. Speaking of waiting, when is Alex Kendrick going to break out into the mainstream like a burst vessel? Surely he's not content to be stuck so close to Sherwood for funding and stardom! Or using the same typeface font in all his movie posters! Where's his role as the token white dude in a Tyler Perry production? When does he get to be an O'Doyle in the next Adam Sandler flic? When is Richard Gazowsky going to produce one of his films?... oh, wait, that might be a step backward. At least the Kendricks get films made.

DAMN DIRTY APES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the choice was to go either with the iconic quote, or say "SERKIS!!!!!!!!!!" in honor of the hardest working actor/MoCap primate in the biz. A couple more months, and it's back to the precious! And I don't mean the Tyler Perry one. As you can see from the headline, the latest Pierre Boulle novel to hold the box office hostage SMASH competition with fist, as Hulk might say! It raked in 54 million dollars its opening weekend... the only problem is, it cost 80 million to promote. And James Franco went to all that trouble to prove he's a Renaissance Man on the Colbert Report, and not just because he's worked with Sam Raimi of Renaissance Pictures fame. Where does College Boy find the time?
Meanwhile, the other debut this week, The Change-Up, lands with a thud at #4. Boy! Even the bodily-function-centric rom-coms are doing poorly this summer. Friends With Benefits, Crazy Stupid Love, all falling terribly flat. Certainly not making Harry Potter 7B money or Transformers 3 money. I guess Harry Potter's going to win this race, even though Transformers 3's at #10 already. Hard to say. Never underestimate Michael Bay. The guy could buy tickets in bulk just to inflate the numbers at this point in his career. You're going to grow up someday and do that movie about the train wreck in the coal mine! It'll be the awesomest spectacle ever, just as long as the cast is photogenic enough. None of this "real people" crap that the Coen brothers do all the time. Isn't life short enough?

Short Reviews - July 2011

Sorry, folks, another short, harried month for me. But, given the recent unfortunate, untimely death of Amy Winehouse, there's only one question in my mind: is Gina Gershon too old to play Amy Winehouse? I'll bet Gina doesn't think so! Now, I hate to comment on facebook dialogues behind their back, but someone was pointing out that Amy Winehouse was getting all the attention, and yet no one was paying attention to the recent horrific events in Norway. I think it might be because Amy Winehouse's death, we can understand. Norway, not so much. But I'm sure all the right-wingers out there are claiming a victory in the war on peace. Right wings have come to Canada, etc. But where are they going to find someone as dynamic as Charlton Heston, and get a new man to go around the globe wherever gun-related tragedy strikes, hold up a rifle and say "I've got just five words: From my cold, dead hands!"? I'm thinking Chuck Norris. You know, when Chuck Norris does push-ups... ah, skip it.

What else? Oh, right. More important than any of this, staying on the bleeding edge of slang and shortened words, documentary is now "doco." Apparently "docu" just didn't trend well in focus group testing. And "doc" is still short for doctor. That's sick.


Fierce Creatures - They tried to warn us about Murdoch!

The Game - Still deservedly neglehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcted, lost somewhere in that giant gap between Se7en and Fight Club

Beer - This is the first and last time that the movie Beer will ever be featured on a Top 25 list.

Beerfest - Oh, c'mon, Maxim magazine! Don't be such uppity, up-turned-nose film snobs. A damn classic.

Friends with Benefits - Didn't this film come out in January?

The Oxbow Incident - You got to go to that lonesome valley

O Brother Where Art Thou? - You got to go to that lonesome valley

The Champ - Scientists have determined that this movie is the ultimate tearjerker. Personally, I can't get enough of Jon Voight dying in a movie. Still, just what is it about Ricky Schroeder appearing in movies that no one wants to see? Where or what is the correlation? Take The Earthling, for example. Man, but do the waterworks start flowing for me after the RV crashes into the canyon.

Our Idiot Brother - Can't get much funnier than the title, but it probably is, even though it doesn't appear to be an Apatow production. The plot synopsis describes the idiot brother as an 'idealist.' There you have it, folks: idealism is the new idiocy.

Cash Cab - I was going to say, Finally! A game show that even MGM can afford to put on the air... guess the guy was texting and driving at the same time or something. A teachable moment for us all, really.

Furry Vengeance - Brendan! Dude! Hit the treadmill!

K-19: The Widowmaker - See, what these "green energy" types will never understand... nuclear is exciting! And it GLOWS green!

Video Documentaries of the Saved

Oh, I GOTTA review this one. Like most of my pending reviews, it's been sitting for a while. Really gotta jump on these things while they're fresh, like a REAL movie reviewer! But I did get back into the Onion's feature of "Commentary Tracks of the Damned" DVD reviews. They reviewed the most recent Adam Sandler pic, and apparently Sandler says of his own commentary "We hope you hated it." Oh, Sandler. You just don't understand! This is not about like or hate, about liking or hating what happens. This is about noticing what DOES happen, not even wanting it to happen... something like that. I guess in his next commentary track he should get more specific and deliberately say "Hope you O'Doyles over at The Onion get a nice Commentary Track of the Damned segment out of this commentary, you hipster a-holes." Don't be so subtle, man! Or are you going to turn your back on your devoted fan completely?
But back to the Sandler type that is the subject of Audience of One. Now, I'm sure you're probably saying to yourself, but The Movie Hooligan! How could this fat, white son of a preacher mom be ANYTHING like an Adam Sandler character? Well, he's kinda nerdy, kinda put upon by the world, kinda pushed around by the local and global O'Doyles of the world. Why, this part Sam Kinison, part Glenn Beck, all Holy Man of Jesus even says at one point that the world of religion is more clique-y than even Hollywood, so there you go! Hollywood is better than the religious types... nah, that can't be right. The religious types would be the first to admit that.
Anyway, so Audience of One starts out amiably enough, promising to not make the same mistakes that "The Devil's Candy" made with its all-access pass to the set of "The Bonfire of the Vanities." We see people hard at work making costumes, designing sets, preparing for a big trip to Italy to film the big scene... a few big scenes of what is surely destined to be the greatest movie ever produced by a church. Hear that, Kendricks? You're about to become chopped liver in the eyes of the Lord! You're the O'Doyles in this equation to Richard Gazowsky's Sandler, Alex and Stephen! And so, they arrive in a small town in Italy to begin production of what we're told is to be the greatest 200 million dollar feature ever to be produced, second only to Titanic and Spider Man 2 and ... several others at this point. 200 million just doesn't go as far as it used to.
Now, for those of you who haven't seen a lot of making-of documentaries before, there are plenty on the DVDs and Blu-Rays that your movies now come on. For my money, the gold standard seems to be the Coen brothers. No one can kiss their ass hard enough, and I mean that sincerely. A glowing cast, a glowing crew, no one who works with the Coens is ever sorry for the experience. Clint Eastwood is perhaps a close second. People are just afraid of disappointing Steven Spielberg, but he's making strides. Then, there's the film being chronicled in Audience of One. This is a good study of some of the red flags one should watch out for: if your experience of working on a film is anything like what you see in this documentary... bail as soon as possible. We hear from a disgruntled stunt man who needs some time with the director alone, especially after he's smoked some adrenaline-accelerating drugs, probably speed or, God forbid, cocaine. I guess marijuana wouldn't make one that tense. Then there are the stars of the movie. It is all about the look, but I guess "the look" doesn't have to do with dental hygiene. Gazowsky isn't about to let the Godly duties of casting the picture out of his hands in the slightest on the one hand, or on the other hand he's not about to let some outsider "actor" into his inner circle.
As for the supposed $200 million we keep hearing about, well, that might be a problem as well. Apparently, cast and crew are trudging along on a shoestring in the meantime. Now, here's my problem: where's the funding coming from? Germans! Hey, buddy! Let's get some domestic funding over here, huh? But I guess he learns his lesson the hard way: never trust German funders. Oh, sorry, I forgot: SPOILER ALERT.
And so, Gazowsky's problems kind of snowball at an ever-faster pace, but I tell you what: cast and crew have their priorities straight. They work hard, and they play hard. Sometimes they take a break to wheel themselves around in chairs with wheels on them, but more importantly, they always take a break to get their Jesus on with a song. This happens at least three times in the documentary, if memory serves. Which is good, because they'll need many miracles to save this sinking ship. After a disastrous vacation in Italy, in which barely one scene gets filmed and legitimate crew member Jens Klein gets injured by a malfunctioning wire crane shot, it's back home for Plan B. Good luck going back to Wolfgang now, buddy! The ragtag crew takes over a studio in San Francisco, if memory serves. They manage to shoot some green screen shots of screaming girls. It's really all about the look. And then, time marches on, indeed it do, and the city starts complaining about unpaid rentals on the studio. The filmmakers try to reason with the city, but God has hardened the city's heart, and the godless heathen bureaucrats triumph against the humble filmmakers. The man himself, the big Gazowsky, takes his cause to the people who can help him the most in this time of crisis: his congregation. Second wind! Second wind! Second wind!!! There's some more singing and praying.
Act Three. At one point, we see the cast and crew appeal to God almighty to get this damn film done... or at least, started. One woman asks God to just take over completely. They're so exasperated and out of ideas, that they'd be willing to sacrifice their essential liberty and temporary safety, if God would just take over and make everything all right: you know, finish the film, buy off the critics, make cast and crew all millionaires in gated communities. I wonder what the finest of the Godless thought about those who would give up their essential liberties for some temporary safety... I should look that up sometime.
Of course, my mere film review can hardly do this journey justice. You just might have to take the journey for yourself... but I'll tell you how it ends up anyway. The deadbeat cast and crew get kicked out of the studio... I forget if they have to pay the bills or not. Probably not, because they're white. But even though this one film didn't get made, Gazowsky unveils some new plans to his dwindling congregation. It's an ambitious plan with several bullet points in handy PowerPoint format. They're going to create a whole movie studio now, that will churn out exactly 47 films a year, I guess one for each of the ronin. Most major studios can barely do 20! Go figure. They also plan on making an Epcot-esque theme park and colonizing space. If my ears weren't deceiving me, some of Gazowsky's congregation were laughing at him, not with him. The plan is gloriously unveiled, and what better way to celebrate than with one last song. And preacher/industrialist Gazowsky, who betrayed the principles of his religion and watched his first movie at the age of 40, is seen openly weeping during the song, and one is left wondering whether he's crying for the glory of God, or for his own earthly failures. (Hint: it's for himself and his earthly failures)

Good double bill with: The Last Shot

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

OMAY GOD...

I set my chin a little higher, hope a little longer, build a little stronger tassels in the air... Ah, how the high and low of society come together. Endlessly fascinating phenomenon. As for the Stooges, even they had to acknowledge crackerjack casting, as the same high-class dame appears again here as she did in Bugs of 1938... I mean, Termites of 1938. Some might think of her as the Stooges' Margaret Dumont... and they'd be right! For me, though, that one chick proved to be their comic equal time and time again, ol' what's her name... Symona Boniface! That's the one. Great name, too.

Anyway, here's the setup for Tassels in the Air: some nouveau riche types want their house redecorated by a famous French designer. Well, the lady does, anyway. The guy just wants to sit in a chair, smoke cigars and read the funny papers. As a former letter carrier myself, I know all too well the desire to rest. A phone call is placed to this French guy, this Omay person... wait for it! The call is rudely sabotaged by noises coming from the hallway... you guessed it! The Stooges pass themselves off as qualified to work on a hallway. Curly and Larry are playing "Paint Can Draughts." Will something get spilled? Could it be paint? Moe kicks Curly in the ass, but they dubbed in the groan later on. Moe stubs his foot, and the boys proceed to mock him, as he jumps around to a groovy beat. I guess the writers felt the plot was a little thin on this one, because once again Curly has a comedy affliction. This time, it's not that Weasel tune or seeing a mouse. This time, if Curly sees a tassel, he starts barking like a hellhound. The only way to get him to stop is to paint his chin with a brush. My French is a bit rusty, but I think the guy says "I'm living in a crazy house!" Couldn't make out that first part.
And then, the trigger that sets off the comedy. Vernon Dent, the boss, gives Moe a direct order. Moe gives the others perhaps the best piece of advice ever uttered by a Stooge, "It's the boss. Show a little interest in your work." And then, Stooge immortality is bourne anew. Moe's orders are quite simple: stencil in some lettering on the doors in the hallway. There's two piles of stencils: these go on this side, these go on that side. Well, you really gotta see it for yourself to truly appreciate it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAMXmW61nWk). Curly must've been having a bad day when he barks at Larry. Which one is right, the one that's left... the very idea. Such levity.

Now, for those of you with a good ear for comedy names, you might have guessed that Omay might be a French name, but there's still something not quite right about it. The Pig Latin angle is introduced. Curly doesn't understand. Larry helpfully says, "Anybody can understand it! It's very simple." Curly retorts, "Well I can't, and I'm simple!" The other two wait for the laugh. Moe's School of Hard Knocks, Pig Latin 101 continues. Curly helpfully gets into a listening pose, for which he gets a slap. For getting a laugh, Moe starts to grab the bluntest object to hit Curly with. Curly himself becomes a blunt object, for just at that moment the high society type lady starts to go through the door mistakenly labeled "Omay." The lady is knocked down on her ass, but her desperation for social mobility trumps this temporary setback. Moe unfortunately leads this poor nouveau riche woman down the primrose path, and plays along. Curly has another tassel attack, and gets his chin painted a color this time. The boys are summoned into the hall by Vernon Dent. On his way out, Curly grabs one of the lady's tassels! An unacceptable breach of his comedy affliction, but never mind. Long story short, the boys lose their day job, so they continue the charade. Vernon Dent, in his fury, forgets where his office is. This time, it costs him dearly. But he goes out with a dash of style, copying the Frenchman's rage at his office door being mislabeled the janitor's closet. An especially painful slight to any designer, I suppose.

ACT TWO
The boys get to work destroying the lady's house. They start painting a big table. The butler tells them "You can't paint this table! It's an antique. It once belonged to Louis the 16th!" Larry rightfully observes, "Oh! Second-hand, eh?" This is America, damn it! We eat FREEDOM fries!... oh, right. That was last decade. Moe must really be getting into his part as an artiste, because he takes an instant disliking to Bud Jamison when he tries to horn in on their game. Bud says, "Boy, I wish there was something I could do to help you guys. I haven't held a paintbrush in years." But Moe's got the perfect ruse. "Sure! Go out and mix us a batch of spotted paint!"
Then, a very strange thing happens. Moe makes a Curly mistake. He's... okay, I'll keep going. He's painting the side of the table, and Larry's behind is at the end of it. He paints Larry's behind in addition to the table. Larry wonders what's going on. Moe does it again. Larry gets suspicious. Realizing what's going on, Larry explodes in anger, Moe style! The very next scene, Larry does the same thing to Curly's head. The comedy escalates from there. Explaining it further would just ruin it. Curly gets pissed off at Larry. He must've been late for his golf game... wait, wrong overweight comedian. The long-suffering butler brings the boys lunch. Moe says, "We'll eat while we work! C'mon." Well, a good idea's a good idea.

ACT THREE
Guests arrive. The boys are painting the stairs. Alarm bells are starting to ring. The high-class dame introduces Moe to the woman who recommended Omay's work in the first place. Okay, so she doesn't know what Omay looks like. Why split hairs now? While all this is going on, Curly was busy painting the folding chairs in the card room. Curly comes out of the room, sees the high-class dame. The high-class dame looks worried. Brilliant directing. Even though she has no visible tassels, Curly starts going into his frenzy. The lady runs into the card room. Curly is subdued. Having no brush handy to tickle Curly's chin, Moe grabs a big fistful of Larry's hair instead. We go back to Bud Jamison, still hard at work trying to make spotted paint. He's got a colender now, and he's doing what he can. Jackson Pollock, eat your heart out!
The ladies set about to playing cards. The high-class dame gets more and more uncomfortable with the Stooges as the seconds pass. Curly proceeds to destroy the clock: first, by trying to eat part of the clock that looks like a corn on the cob, then secondly when Moe tells him to paint the cuckoo bird. Curly paints the bird, then takes a break. "It won't be out for another hour!" Moe helpfully turns the clock ahead an hour behind Curly's back. The cuckoo bird sings, and Curly sings along with it, freaks out, and gets back to work. Larry goes modern art on the wall with a stencil saying "No checks cashed." Almost on a par with "Smash Capitalism" from The Magic Christian.
There's two minutes left! WHEN IS THE BIG PIE FIGHT GOING TO BREAK OUT?!!!! Sigh. I guess it's not going to happen. The original Omay manages to barge his way into the card room and confronts the woman who recommended him to Mrs. Smirch. Might as well use her name at this point. Good comedy name. The woman recommender looks guilty, but why? Somebody's confusing the plot. The Stooges go into either revenge mode, or panic mode. Hard to say. The three guests leave with folding chairs stuck to their asses. The Stooges mean to get Stooge-style revenge and hit them with paint cans. It doesn't go as planned, and frankly they don't land the ending either. Well, it's not as good as Yes, We Have No Bonanza, anyway.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Peter and Philip Kaufman

Hard to say which is worse. Philip clearly should be billed first, but by being billed second here, he gets his whole name smooshed together as two words. Hard to say. Just as long as I don't mention his age, I guess. Still, he's done more at 75 than son Peter's done at 51. Ouch. But let's go back to the beginning and try to divine with our wishbone-shaped stick and see where the water is in terms of Favourite Decade here. Maybe it can be done.
Well, of course there's the 60s, the decade of the Beatles, and all those other things Billy Joel references in perhaps his single greatest song, We Didn't Start the Fire. Philip started young with Goldstein. Damn! The link to the Onion's review of it doesn't work. Did they like it? Or think it was pretentious, disagreeing with Jean Renoir, no less? Phil experienced a sophomore slump of sorts with Fearless Frank, in my humble opine anyway. It had a small budget! Where was it mostly filmed, the Kaufman mansion? I did love the performance by Severn Darden, especially as Claude, his evil twin. Just think of Fearless Frank as the Cliff's Notes for basically EVERY comic book known to man.
Or perhaps it was the 70s that are Phil's phavourite decade? Afros and disco, pimp outfits and platform shoes with goldfish in the heels. Disco mirror balls everywhere. Or as Moe Syzlak might say, it's like the 60s threw up, and the throw-up became the 70s! Or perhaps, the 60s ate too many pastel colors... you get the idea. Phil tackled Jesse James, The Thing, and The Body Snatchers in the 70s, so clearly still well under the radar. How a full frontally nude Brooke Adams gets only a PG rating is beyond me. I guess the MPAA blinked or something and missed it. Similar antics with his The Right Stuff in the 80s if I remember correctly, with the feather dancer. But since it was done artfully, the PG remains.
And then, the go go 80s. The Me Decade. Blow everywhere. Your grandfather was President, and the kids were partying whenever he nodded off... which was often. Fortunately for Phil Kaufman, he ended up in the right place at the right time. For you cinema SAT-types, Phil is to Raiders of the Lost Ark what Sam Simon is to the Simpsons. I guess Kauf's got a great lawyer or something, because he's still getting credit to this day... even for those crappy Lego Indiana Jones things. I like Legos as much as the next guy, but WTF, dude! I have yet to sit through a Lego ANYTHING featurette. Started to watch the Lego Monty Python and the Holy Grail... don't get it. I just don't get it. Anyway, all that directing must've tuckered ol' Phil Kaufman out... a lot. His gestation period's longer than even Martin Breast, almost! I know I misspelled it, but aren't misspellings rampant enough on the web these days? And so, 1988 gave us The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Oh, if only we all could live like Daniel-Day Lewis and Lena Olin in that movie. Piggybacking on that theme, we got 1990's Henry and June. Ol' Phil's responsible for more MPAA changes than anyone! Indiana Jones 2 created the PG-13, Henry & June creates NC-17... I guess that's about it. 1993 gave us Rising Sun, and Phil takes another long break, this time for 7 years. I guess the 90s weren't as good to him as the 80s. That's what you get for crossing Michael Crichton's path... at least, back then.
So, are the 2000s a good decade for P. Kauf? We got Quills, not bad. Then, he steps into a big pile of Judd with Twisted. Well, hopefully the set was sort of fun. I'm guessing that the joy in the making of the movie probably doesn't show up on the screen... oh, dear. It's made it into the Onion's "Commentary Tracks of the Damned" Hall of Shame. Not good. And yet, they priase and badmouth Kaufman at the same time. His talents were wasted, but he does the commentary so SCREW 'IM! Hang on while I read this... Oh, they're so mean. But maybe it's a good lesson for Kaufman: that's what you get for crossing Ashley Judd's path. Now and forever.
Or perhaps the 2010s will be the best Kaufman decade of all. An Ernest Hemingway biopic! Not the sort of thing he would tackle, but why not. Too bad he didn't do Norman Mailer as well. Great Costco 3-Pack: Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, and Hemingway. Well, either Mailer or Bukowski. A 3-Pack of manly authors! I slapped her across the face. Hard. She shed a tear. And then, she kissed me. Hard. And the rain came down. The phone kept ringing, and we made sweet, geriatric love. Old! So very old...
Oh, and son Peter directed a thing: China: The Wild East. Well, if it's not a neo-Western with Jackie Chan, then I don't wanna see it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just what's going ON down at that IMDb, anyway?... Are you always this nice?

Well, apparently, what's going on is that there's a tie for first place between the Smurfs and Cowboys & Aliens. I'm shocked! I could've sworn The Onion was going to give Favreau a free pass. I mean... he's Favreau! Vince Vaughn's friend? The two Iron Mans? Will Ferrell in Elf? Bueller? ... ah, people are over-using "Bueller" these days in polite conversation. Raja Gosnell strikes again, as The Onion noted, but he can't keep up his streak forever. The new, non-nepotist generation's taking over Hollywood! Monsters. Another Earth. They're lean and hungry and wanna work, build up the ol' resumé, Raj. As for Cowboys & Aliens, well, I'm told the winner goes on to play the winner of Monsters vs. Aliens in the finals. Wouldn't that be weird if it were an Aliens v. Aliens lineup? It's probably going to be Monsters v. Cowboys. They'll team up to play the winner of Alien v. Predator. Wait, the v. means a lawsuit. Get Dersh!
The other debut this week is Crazy Stupid Love. Or, rather, I guess it's spelled like Eat, Pray, Love, with commas after each word. But even though it's trying to ride Julia Roberts' coattails, I think it's also trying to make fun of them, but perhaps they're both not so different. Crazy self-obsessed white people at the center of their own limitless universe. Oh, God, let me join you! I'll give up movie criticism forever! Still, just once I'd like to see Steve Carell go back to his ol' Daily Show stomping grounds and not kiss Stewart's ass so hard. Oh, "I owe everything to you..." Gimme a break.

La Cage aux Stooge

Somewhere in France... the very idea. Stooge time again, my nine followers! And we're just in luck, because Curly's nyuk nyuk seems like it's finally starting to mature here in Wee Wee Monsieur, the next Stooge film in my cinematic death march. But it starts out pleasantly enough with the boys singing a traditional French song about lollipops. But, don't worry. The song ends with an abrupt transition back into the violent world of Stooge slapstick. I could describe it, but it just wouldn't do it justice. As usual, the boys find themselves as struggling artists in an indifferent world. Literally, this time. We've missed the part where they're running from the cops and wind up in an art school. They've already graduated and are practicing in the world: Curly the Dali-esque abstract painter, Moe the sculptor, and Larry the piano man. The boys are behind on the rent, and after they rob a street vendor from above with a fishing pole, the landlord comes a'knocking. He looks familiar, like the exasperated director in Movie Maniacs. Can someone else check on that for me, please? Needles to say, their meeting with the landlord ends with the boys fleeing their studio apartment, and running from a cop. They've already chalked up two charges of aggravated assault with watermelon shoes. Same vendor, different crime.
Act Two? The boys rip off Beau Hunks and The Flying Deuces by entering into the French Foreign Legion. To be fair, it's not because of a broken heart. In fact, I can't remember off the top of my head a single Stooge film where they get a broken heart over a dame. They're usually married and get the old one last chance, usually to find a job. But back to the instant case. Spoiler alert: we find out that Curly's last name is Van Dyke. Soon after, Act Two begins in earnest with the boys in uniform in the desert. Their assignment: guard Captain Gorgonzola. Must be an Italian fellow. Bud Jamison is their commanding officer, sans French accent. I guess he didn't have time to prepare. He can do old frontiersman accent, Vulgarian accent... go figure. Anyway, we come to the part that's padded out for time. The boys pace to and fro outside the Captain's tent. This part's padded out for time, and Curly's low man again, getting hit in the head with swiveling rifles and what not, but to be fair, in a brief instant when the boys are far from the tent facing the other way, the Captain gets kidnapped. The Stooges will face the firing squad for this... but they get one chance to save the Captain.
Act 2, part 2. The Stooges have a brilliant idea on how to get in to the evil Arab compound where the Captain's being held. No, they don't do the ol' "You know my friend Achmed! Fella what walks like this..." They pull up in a sled dressed as three Santa Clauses! Duh! The boys are in. I know, I know, but there's a long, proud tradition of Arabs being the bad guys in movies. I say why fight it? It's time to just accept it. Jack Shaheen be damned. Besides, who forced Sayed Badreya to be in Shallow Hal and Zohan? Egg-zactly... Ah, putting my Politics 101 class to work. Anyway, to rub more salt into ethnic wounds, Vernon Dent plays the chief Bad Arab who tries to extract information from the beleaguered Captain. The Stooges find an open window. Moe and Larry go in first. You'll just never guess what happens next. More stalling for time. Anyway, they did good post dubbing of Curly saying "How am I gonna get up there?" I dare say they did some ad-libbing after the window episode. They finally get into the house and stumble upon... what else? The palace harem, of course! Curly gets to say yet again "I'll take the black and tan." He says that an awful lot, and I didn't keep careful enough track of when this happens, unfortunately. Some critic I'm turning out to be. Moe and Larry run off, and we're left to follow Curly's girl troubles. He's besieged first by an ugly chick, and then by an angel with a Brooklyn accent. I guess the bloom's off the harem rose, so to speak, but hey, that's probably the way it is in your typical workaday harem. Truth in advertising. Larry runs afoul of a comedy pineapple. Curly gets blindfolded and has to catch his girl. Guess what happens.
Act Three. The Stooges run away, ending up in the harem clothing closet... whatever it's called. The Captain is invited to partake of the harem. Does comedy ensue? Duh!! The ladies perform a dance. The Stooges bump heads and fall down a lot. More celluloid padding. I guess I should mention that the boys are dressed as harem girls. They eventually knock out Vernon Dent and his black bodyguard. At least the black dude didn't have to do any bug-eyed stuff. They grab the Captain and flee the palace. But there's still some time left to kill, so they end up in the lion's den. This being the discount palace, there's just one lion. They scare off the lion at first, but the lion returns. The boys run away, and the lion walks off screen as soon as the boys have left the frame. This was before computer effects, you know. Then, we hear a bunch of commotion. Will the lion end up eating the Three Stooges and their captain? Will the lion emerge dressed as a harem girl, or as the Captain? I guess you're just going to have to see for yourself.
On second thought, this isn't one of my favorites, and probably never will be, so here's the ending: the lion walks out, towing a giant carriage with the stooges and captain riding on it. Poor lion.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Charlie and Donald Kaufman

Oh, right. They're not real. Human Nature will be vindicated as the classic it is!!! You'll see!!!!

Captain Remake

It was the 40s, baby. Classic cars, fast-talking dames, what's his face on the radio. If you remember the 40s, you weren't there, George. Something like that. Well, enjoy Captain America while you can. It's going to be remade soon enough. Guess the Harry Potter bunch isn't playing ball here. Number 2 after only one week? ...and you heard it here first! Remember that!!! Meanwhile, Transformers 3 has crossed the all-important 300 million barrier. It'll turn a profit some time around 2019. But even more exciting than that! The IMDb gurus screwed up again! I don't think 2009's Friends (With Benefits) wowed the American box office all of a sudden. Who wants to see a bunch of middle-aged French people? Or for that matter, French people around the age of Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis? No, we want 2011's Friends With Benefits. Or so the web ad geniuses would have us believe. Oh, Richard Jenkins. It seems that Oscar nominations lead to this kind of thing. After all, Natalie Portman did No Strings Attached... and she WON an Oscar! I thought Jerry and Elaine already laid these issues to rest, so to speak.
But I gotta give one last shout out to Midnight in Paris. It's hanging in there, man! Even if it's just lowly #10. If you track it on Variety, it might look even more persistent, but who's got time for that except the man himself? I doubt if Larry Crowne will come back, though. Just sayin'.

THX 1938

Boy, there just aren't enough hours in the day, but I'm almost ready for another week of movie reviewing work. And it's time for the next Stooge flick: Termites of 1938. And at the time this one was made, there was no more reliable comedy crutch than the wacky dumb black person. Unfortunately, the Stooges relied on this crutch quite a bit. Why, in one Stooge short, Larry goes "What's the idea, porter?" Different times. Turns out it was Moe with ink on his face... I think that was the one where the boys invent a stupid fly catcher... one thing leads to another, and Moe ends up taking an inkwell in the face.
But back to our instant case. Listen to Wikipedia; they know all. This time, the boys find themselves reincarnated as exterminators once again. At 2:39, Curly uses his regular voice. Love it when he does that. Meanwhile, a high society type is in need for an escort to a fancy party. At least she didn't need three. Such a blatant plot device. But back to the three knuckleheads. They're in the midst of an R&D session at the exterminator shop. Larry's the old-fashioned rat trap man, while Moe's more of the Rube Goldberg school... actually, when you get right down to it, the Three Stooges are a walking, talking Rube Goldbergian-type noun. The boys run afoul of the cutest mouse in movie history, second only to that mouse from The Green Mile. Almost forgot about that little guy. He gets the last shot of that pic, if I recall correctly. The other three hours of the film are kind of a blur. Is this not the role Sam Rockwell will be remembered for? I'll bet he didn't REALLY have a mouthful of his own excrement. Anyway, the Stooges' million dollar rat trap misfires, Moe loses his hearing, takes a phone call, makes some wonderful miscommunications, and boom! The boys enter high society. Well, even high society folk need to laugh sometimes. Even in Laurel Canyon! But before that happens, we see the dumb maid get the wrong number out of the telephone book. To be fair, she was just one off. Also, the crack the snooty white woman made about discrimination kind of freaked her out. A lot. Gee, this setup seems awfully familiar. Oh well.
Act two. The boys arrive in the usual disgraceful jalopy. Why, they end up perturbing the help! The nerve. They further make asses of themselves during their big introduction, but for some reason the people think they're college boys. Some of the lessons from Hoi Polloi stuck, apparently. Dinner is announced, and the Stooges are first to the big fancy dinner table. They manage to not steal the silverware, but Curly makes a peculiar observation: "Why so many? All you need is a knife!" Remember that, as it just might come up later on. Professor Moe explains the silverware situation. There's four spoons and three forks. Moe says "You start at the far end and work your way down." Curly, ever the helpful Stooge, gives Moe half of his napkin by ripping his in half. It's going to be a long, dark night of the soul. Meanwhile, Bud Jamison gets it into his deluded head that he must emulate the Stooges' behaviour, as they seem to be the toast of this gala affair. Let the emulation commence! Curly throws peas up into the air, catching them in his mouth. Bud does likewise. Everyone else does too! Well, human see, human do. Mashed potatoes are placed on the end of a knife, which is then dipped in peas. Bud does the same, as does everyone else... or did I merely dream it? The stakes are raised by Moe, who proceeds to eat a Cornish game hen with corn cob holders. The other Stooges do likewise, Bud does likewise, and the rest of the blooming idiots at the table do likewise. I double-checked this one, and it does happen.

Music is playing. Normally, incidental music is absent from a Stooge film, but there's an orchestra in the staircase area of the house. Curly thinks the flute player's trying to catch mice. The Micro-Phonies conceit is bourne. They play the song Curly played so famously in Dutiful but Dumb. Must be a public domain number or something. Without realizing it, Moe grabs a saw instead of a bow and ends up sawing his cello in half. At least he stopped at his legs. Mice emerge from the freshly-sawed cello. Everyone panics. Curly does some breakdancing, lands on his tummy, making a loud drum noise in the process. It's Bedlam with a capital b, I tells ya. Curly does a 360 on the floor, apparently the first in filmed Stooge history.

Act Three. The boys get to work looking for pests to exterminate. They don't start with themselves. Larry and Curly team up. Larry's got a very, very large drill. Curly's on insecticide duty. Moe runs afoul of a rug. Muriel ends up getting a metal drill bit in the ass, and her head emerges through the staircase. It's too wonderful, I tells ya. The big finale: the boys are done in when the man of the house returns and throws a lit gopher bomb at their escaping car. The Stooges theme is played at the end of the film almost in its entirety; almost unheard of in Stooge etiquette. They must have had a different sound editor that week.
Well, this is a little bit like A Plumbing We Will Go. The same high society dame is in both, anyway. Somehow, I don't see Termites of 1938 becoming part of my regular Stooge viewing, but who knows? Death before Besser!!!!

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Jon and Jake Kasdan

For some reason, I've always heard that show business is something you wouldn't want to bring your kids into. That must've been your father's saying, because the opposite seems to be the norm these days! As long as you keep your nose clean, it seems like a fine way to pass the time. Take the Kasdan boys, for example. The 2000s seem to be working out better for them than for dad, that's for sure! I'm surprised they keep Dreamcatcher on their résumé... oh, right. That's just Jonathan. Well, he's still growing his sea legs as a director, but as an actor, whoa! Look out. Edward Norton, Sam Rockwell... does he not deserve to stand in this company? But I will confess that apparently, on the IMDb, you can see the whole movie of Slackers on something called Crackle. Maybe you'll have better luck with it, but it just made my computer freeze for about three minutes. Yeah! I know! What nerve. For that and other reasons, I'm going to skip the free showing of Slackers. It's not the 1991 Richard Linklater classic, incidentally, but the 2002 raunch fest directed by... whoever. Dewey Cox... I mean, Dewey Nicks. Guess he was too real for Hollywood. He's certainly no Walt Becker or Brian Levant, God forbid.
But these Kasdan boys, God bless 'em, I think they're going to be just fine. Maybe they can teach ol' Larry a little something about connecting with audiences in these 2010s of new. Compare Roger Ebert's scathing review of Bad Teacher, in which he refers to un-sympathetic characters and slipshod editing... and compare it to its box office performance. Which critic are you going to ultimately listen to?

Carmageddon begins...

...oh, right. And Harry Potter 7B has a bigger opening than The Dark Knight, according to the headlines. Boy, did I pick the wrong industry to be in... before. And now. Why critique the movies when you can make a ton making them? But where do we go from here? The filmmakers and special effects people have climbed the summit, achieving effects the world has never seen before, and in 3-D, no less! Where are the storytellers of tomorrow to provide the heart? As for J.K. Rowling, well, now that she's not afraid to admit she's a chick, it's back to the short stories she middled around with before striking paydirt. When she finds the world's not as eager to embrace her for who she really is, it's back to the Harry Potter well. I think it's time once again to prove F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong... at least, his maxim that "there are no second acts in American lives" only applies to the young Americas. In ye olde moderne Britaine, there's either less or more room for life re-invention. How about Harry Potter as a bored young man? Harry Potter as a grunge rocker? Give the AARP-types some hope: why not go with Harry Potter as an 80-year old man. The ol' wand ain't what it used to be, and it tends to spark erratically, but he can still talk to snakes with the best of 'em! Something like that. This world and the next are your oysters on the half-shell, J.K. You'll almost do as well as Ayn Rand has done; too bad the cultural and scientific elites will never take you as seriously.
Meanwhile, the days of Jurassic Park 2 and X-Men 5 are far, far behind us. There's a little light left for other box office saplings to take root! The beloved Winnie the Pooh gets a glorious reboot. I still refuse to believe that Jim Cummings can do both Winnie and Tigger and do them justice, compared to... whoever did them before. The guy is a vocal dynamo, no question. Damn long resume. Longer probably than Homer or Frank Welker or any of those other ... uniquely Hollywood creatures. I was going to be mean and call them losers. I'm still waiting for someone to post and tell me "What a sad, petty person you are." That would probably do it! It depends on who you talk about, I've found, whether it's Naomi Watts or Mary Lambert. Usually it's the more obscure person that draws the greater ire... TV's Craig Ferguson as Owl? Good Lord. Does he get to say that in the movie? I think he should! "Hi! I'm TV's Craig Ferguson as Owl! Time for my Michael Caine impression! And check this out! Me dinosaur puppit!"
Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell! Winnie and Tigger of old, respectively. I thought I'd never find it. Well, the web is a big place. Even the IMDb by itself is pretty damn unwieldly. Damn cloud computing. You won't be able to hang on to Pixar forever, Disney!