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Post by kds on Jul 19, 2022 15:51:17 GMT
Agreed on the "adults." Bill Murray was typically brilliant. Rodney Dangerfield was unbelievably funny. And...
I think it might be the funniest movie Chevy Chase ever did. (Nobody really thinks of him as all that funny anymore, and sadly he has almost become a punch line rather than deliverer of punch lines. But I'd say he was almost always great at least up to his failed talk show in the early 90s.)
But even people who aren't big fans of the guy, I'd think they need to admit he was funny through the '80s and into the '90s. And in Caddyshack he was as good as ever, if not better. (Several of the Vacation movies and Fletch also belong in that territory.)
I've said several times on this forum that I feel like 1978-93 was the golden age of film comedy, mainly due to the immense talents coming out of Second City and SNL around that time. I'm not sure exactly why that seemed to dry up in the 1990s. Candy passed away in 1994. Murray seemed more interested in taking smaller roles in comedies and doing more "artful" things. Chase, in particular, really fell out of favor, maybe due partly to his attempt at late night comedy. Even a 4th installment of the Vacation movies in 1997 landed with a bit of a thud. I think he's great in the original Caddyshack, but for me, my go to Chase role is as Clark Griswald in the Vacation franchise, mainly the original (like Caddyshack, a Ramis directed summer comedy) and the Christmas installment. Back to Caddyshack though, I recently read an article about the movie that said they got pretty late in the filming before they released that Chevy and Bill Murray didn't have any scenes together, so the scene with Ty and Carl was written in at the 11th hour. Two of the funniest actors of their time, together. That alone makes Caddyshack required viewing, despite what's happened to both of their reputations later on.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 19, 2022 16:05:06 GMT
That scene!
Murray: They got a pool up there? Chase: Yeah, there's a pool ... and a pond. The pond would be good for you, though. Murray: The pool or the pond [one of the funniest lines that isn't a real joke I've ever heard]
Or as he's describing different details of lawncare. "You know ... manganese. A lot of people don't know what that is."
As for the decline of comedy in the 90s, I think there was a lull between generations to some extent. It was a crop of 90s comics (meaning they were working standup or doing SNL in the 90s) who broke in the later 90s and into the 00s that I know you do like. But it seems that--just as I'd argue was the case in basketball, actually, for whatever reason--there were weaknesses in the latter 80s. Why?
As you said, Candy died. But so did John Belushi (earlier), Sam Kinison, and Chris Farley and Phil Hartman (later).
Murray got more serious. Eddie Murphy is another one who went from absolute superstar to dramatic actor to whatever he became later... And Dan Ackroyd also more or less left consistent comedy work. Dana Carvey left SNL and more or less tanked as a movie star and with his own Dana Carvey Show (which had one of the most insanely good casts ever: Louis CK among the writers, plus Steve Carrell, Stephen Colbert, Robert Smigel, Elon Gold...)
It just seems like enough people left, died, or did other things that comedy struggled for a while.
However, that 90s crew of SNL people did really come on strong later. First people like Ben Stiller (SNL for about 15 minutes), then into the whole Sandler-Farley-Spade-Macdonald-Rock crew, and then into the Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow empires, not to mention Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
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Post by kds on Jul 19, 2022 18:20:20 GMT
That scene!
Murray: They got a pool up there? Chase: Yeah, there's a pool ... and a pond. The pond would be good for you, though. Murray: The pool or the pond [one of the funniest lines that isn't a real joke I've ever heard]
Or as he's describing different details of lawncare. "You know ... manganese. A lot of people don't know what that is."
As for the decline of comedy in the 90s, I think there was a lull between generations to some extent. It was a crop of 90s comics (meaning they were working standup or doing SNL in the 90s) who broke in the later 90s and into the 00s that I know you do like. But it seems that--just as I'd argue was the case in basketball, actually, for whatever reason--there were weaknesses in the latter 80s. Why?
As you said, Candy died. But so did John Belushi (earlier), Sam Kinison, and Chris Farley and Phil Hartman (later).
Murray got more serious. Eddie Murphy is another one who went from absolute superstar to dramatic actor to whatever he became later... And Dan Ackroyd also more or less left consistent comedy work. Dana Carvey left SNL and more or less tanked as a movie star and with his own Dana Carvey Show (which had one of the most insanely good casts ever: Louis CK among the writers, plus Steve Carrell, Stephen Colbert, Robert Smigel, Elon Gold...)
It just seems like enough people left, died, or did other things that comedy struggled for a while.
However, that 90s crew of SNL people did really come on strong later. First people like Ben Stiller (SNL for about 15 minutes), then into the whole Sandler-Farley-Spade-Macdonald-Rock crew, and then into the Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow empires, not to mention Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
I feel like Chris Farley might have been capable of really bringing the cap between the 1978-93 era and the era of Stiller, Ferrell, and Apatow. But, sadly, he left far too soon, with only one real movie classic - Tommy Boy (1995), which did feature Aykroyd in a bit part. The 90s and 00s were certainly good decades for comedy IMO, with the rise of Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell, among others. But, to me, nothing really touches that 1978-93 era. Those movies are just so relentlessly rewatchable and quotable. One comedy team that I did have very high hopes for in the 2000s was the Broken Lizard group. Their 2001 comedy Super Troopers seemed to have the same spirit as some of those comedies like Caddyshack. Even down to the format of what felt like sketches glued together to make up a feature length film, with more of a plot taking over in the third act. Their next movie would be.... Club Dread (2004)
This is Broken Lizard's attempt at spoofing horror, most notably slasher movies, and it does that quite well. The movie takes place on a resort called Pleasure Island, a hedonistic tropical resort where booze and sex flow like water, which takes its name from a song by Coconut Pete, a Jimmy Buffett esque character played by a scene stealing Bill Paxton. The tropical setting as well as the Buffett parody make this is a good summer view. Although, I will say it's not as funny as Super Troopers, or even their next movie Beerfest (2006). Many of the best lines actually come from Paxton's character ("You Think Eddie Money has to put up with this shit?") rather than from the Broken Lizard team. Broken Lizard were not quite as prolific as I'd hoped twenty years ago. After Beerfest, they did The Slammin' Salmon (2009), which I believe went straight to video, and things were pretty quiet until they released Super Troopers 2 in 2018, which was greeted with mixed reactions (I still have yet to watch it).
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Post by kds on Jul 26, 2022 12:44:00 GMT
The Great Outdoors (1988)
Three years after Summer Rental, John Candy is taking his family on vacation again. This time John Hughes does the writing.
While The Great Outdoors is not a sequel to Summer Rental, it's kind of in the same spirit. Candy tries to take his family on vacation, this time to a cabin in Canada. There is a snob v slob element here, but with a twist. In this case, the "snob" in question is Dan Aykroyd, and Candy has to share his cabin with Aykroyd and his family, who show up uninvited.
Hijinks ensue as Candy and Aykroyd clash. Candy is often the butt of the joke as he struggles with water skies and subjects himself to a challenge of eating a 96 pound steak. Meanwhile, Candy's oldest son, a teenager, is chasing his first summer love in an elusive local bar (in a B story that I never really thought benefitted the movie). Those scenes are balanced out a bit with some surprisingly funny bits with raccoons (whose dialog is provided via subtitles) go through the trash at night.
Like many of these 80s comedies, the first two acts focus more on shenanigans, while the third act introduces more plot and tension. Long story short, there's family fight but Candy and Aykroyd have to come together when Aykroyd's twin daughters go missing in the woods, which all leads to a climax of John Candy vs a bear.
Overall, The Great Outdoors is a fun movie. It's not quite as light as summer rental, as John Hughes often inserted family drama in his movies, but like most cases, it doesn't dominate the movie, or make it too tense for too long. Plus, it's great seeing too comic legends sharing the top billing.
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Post by kds on Jul 29, 2022 15:56:23 GMT
I've decided to do a two fer today as these movies are sequels to movies that aren't necessarily summer movies, but the sequels definitely has a summer theme to them. Let's go in chronological order.
Police Academy 5 - Assignment Miami Beach (1988)
The original Police Academy might not have the same classic status awarded to movies like Animal House, Stripes, Caddyshack, or Vacation, but I think it's a darn funny early 80s raunchy comedy. Did it warrant six, I repeat six, sequels? Probably not. But, I loved them as a kid. While I don't enjoy the sequels as much as an adult, mostly because they're all pretty watered down compared to the original, they have a nostalgic charm.
On the surface, the fifth installment comes off a little desperate. Steve Guttenburg left the franchise for...bigger and better things? And, they moved the location down to Miami Beach, Florida for a police convention. So, the whacky hijinks we're used to now have a beach background. Most memorably when gun happy Tackleberry aims a pistol at a shark, which prompts the shark to quickly swim away from the beach. That's the kind of goofiness one would expect from a PA sequel.
I probably haven't watched it from start to finish since I was in middle school, but I'll catch it on TV time to time, and find myself entertained, and my list of summertime movies doesn't feel complete without.
American Pie 2 (2001)
Unlike Police Academy 5, I actually enjoy American Pie 2 more than the original. After the success of the first teen sex comedy in 1999, a sequel was inevitable. Two summers later, the boys are now in college, and like any heterosexual young man, their goals are still pretty much the same. But, in order to maximize the potential of meeting girls, they rent a house on the lake for the summer. They spend the summer on the lake partying, getting into various shenanigans, and dare I say, maybe even growing up a little.
Despite the fact that I found the American Pie movies pretty unrelatable as I had terrible luck with the fairer sex in high school and college, I did find the core group of four buddies relatable to the group of friends I hung out with then. That, and the addition of Eugene Levy, made those movies a lot of fun.
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Post by kds on Aug 17, 2022 12:26:02 GMT
Well, darn, I'm going to complete this list before summer's gone.
What About Bob? (1991)
I've said before in the music threads that the early part of the 1990s felt like an extension of the 1980s, and I feel that way about movies too. This 1991 comedy could've easily been a product of the late 80s. Also, bonus points for pairing two stars from my two favorite movies - Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws) and Bill Murray (Ghostbusters).
Bill Murray plays Bob Wiley, who struggles with various mental disorders (yes, this plot has been highlighted for being potentially problematic in today's climate) who is referred to Dr. Leo Marvin (Dreyfuss). Wiley meets Marvin, and immediate makes a connection thinking the doctor can help him. Unfortunately for Bob, Dr. Marvin is about to take a two month summer vacation with his family in New Hampshire.
Bob finds out the location of Dr. Marvin's lakehouse and makes the trek up there. While being an annoyance to Marvin, the rest of his family finds Bob delightful, which only annoys Marvin more. The fact that Murray and Dreyfuss legitimately did not like each other possibly adds to the tension in the movie.
As often happens in these movies, hijinks ensue. Without spoilers, it gets a little over the top in the third act, but despite the somewhat dated treatment of mental illness in the movie, I still find it to be very fun comedy.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 17, 2022 12:43:23 GMT
One of my absolute favorite movies of all time. (When friends and I did Top 100s, I put it at #11. Though my list is very approximate.)
There are so many quotable lines from this movie. One of Murray's funniest "later" movies. I put that in quotes since, obviously, it isn't exactly later anymore, decades after the fact. But I mean that Murray was consistently hilarious in the late 70s and early 80s, but had hit something of a dry spell by that time. Of course since then his career was rejuvenated by his sad-old-man characters, mostly in Wes Anderson movies.
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Post by kds on Aug 17, 2022 12:56:40 GMT
One of my absolute favorite movies of all time. (When friends and I did Top 100s, I put it at #11. Though my list is very approximate.)
There are so many quotable lines from this movie. One of Murray's funniest "later" movies. I put that in quotes since, obviously, it isn't exactly later anymore, decades after the fact. But I mean that Murray was consistently hilarious in the late 70s and early 80s, but had hit something of a dry spell by that time. Of course since then his career was rejuvenated by his sad-old-man characters, mostly in Wes Anderson movies.
Murray wasn't really very prolific after Ghostbusters. He took about a four year break before starring in Scrooged in 1988, and basically had to be drug kicking and screaming into Ghostbusters II in 1989. It's a pity he didn't really do more when he was at his best, but I think What About Bob might be the most underrated classic Murray movie. I think the last "classic" Murray movie was Groundhog Day, and that movie turns 30 next year.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 17, 2022 12:58:35 GMT
I think the last "classic" Murray movie was Groundhog Day, and that movie turns 30 next year. I agree, but with an asterisk. While I know you're not as much of a fan, I think both Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are classics, too. But Murray was just a part of great ensemble casts in both of those, so it's not really the same thing.
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Post by kds on Aug 17, 2022 13:06:41 GMT
I think the last "classic" Murray movie was Groundhog Day, and that movie turns 30 next year. I agree, but with an asterisk. While I know you're not as much of a fan, I think both Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are classics, too. But Murray was just a part of great ensemble casts in both of those, so it's not really the same thing. I just can't get into those movies. Same with The Life Aquatic. My favorite thing Murray has done in recent years was his cameo in the 2009 horror comedy Zombieland. And of course. POTENTIAL SPOILER It was a thrill seeing him back in the Ghostbusters jumpsuit again in Ghostbusters Afterlife.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 17, 2022 13:10:31 GMT
With the Anderson movies, it was really a matter of diminishing returns for me as they went on. I loved those two I mentioned, which I believe were his second and third movies (after Bottle Rocket as the first). But then Life Aquatic, the cartoon fox one, Darjeeling Limited, Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, Isle of Dogs ... it was just more of similar (if not the same), but in my opinion not quite as good. I actually stopped bothering to see them several years back.
But those earliest ones I mentioned, I really do still love.
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Post by kds on Sept 1, 2022 13:07:33 GMT
It occurred to me that I left off a big one before I wrap up this thread
National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
One can argue that the Griswold family is more synonymous with Christmas than summer, but this is the movie that introduced the world to the clan.
Chevy Chase plays Clark, who wants nothing more than to give his family a perfect memorable summer vacation. He's planned a trip across the States from Chicago to California to visit Walley World.
As expected, things go wrong pretty much from jump. Even before they hit the road, poor Clark is giving the old bait and switch when he goes to pick up a new car for the family outing. When the Griswolds hit the road, things don't really get any better.
Things come to a head when they visit Ellen's cousins in Kansas (featuring Randy Quaid brilliantly playing Cousin Eddie), when the Griswolds are forced to take Aunt Edna on the road with her dog. Things go from worse to worse, as Clark begins to slip into insanity in his quest to see Marty Moose.
Harold Ramis directs this classic comedy. As a father, I find Clark Griswold more relatable than ever as I always have these grand dreams of vacations and holidays. Granted, they never go as badly as they do for poor Clark, but life tends to happen. So, while I've never treated by family to an obscenity laced tirade, I...I understand.
As I alluded to, this was the first movie of a franchise that saw four sequels, all the way up to the 2015 legacy sequel - Vacation - which sees Rusty, Clark's son now fully grown, repeating the trek to Walley World to run into very different problems.
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