Before watching the movie:
Finally, one of my most sought-after movies. I’ve been looking for this since before I started writing this blog. Widely regarded as perhaps the worst movie ever, I heard of it as a hilarious movie everyone else was wrong about. I’ve been looking for a chance to find out for myself for the better part of a decade, but due to its extreme unpopularity, it’s been hard to find until now.
Before watching the movie:
I think I heard this was terrible. But then I might have conflated it too much with Pauly Shore. I had in mind that the bird was voiced by Pauly Shore in the “falling out of favor” part of his career. So I have no idea what to expect besides “talking animal road movie”. It has Tony Shaloub, so it can’t be too bad.
Before watching the movie: This looks way too similar to Down Periscope. Though that’s probably just because of the closeness of subject matter. And tropes of 90s poster design. Some months ago, when I learned of the existence of this movie and queued it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to appraise it well without a better appreciation of the TV show, so I recorded and watched a handful of episodes. I’m sure the rest of the boat was distinctly characterized if one paid attention over the course of the series, but really only four characters stood out to me. So I’m already not too bothered with the fact that they clearly seem to have changed that lineup to move with the times. However, that would just leave a shell of legacy over a story that would otherwise be its own thing. Continue reading
Before watching the movie:
This doesn’t have any real reason to, but something about it reminds me of Radioland Murders, Stay Tuned, and Night Court. I doubt it will actually have anything in common with any of them. I keep thinking this has Jeff Daniels, but I think that’s mainly because I’m conflating it with The Newsroom.
Aside from those spurious associations, what draws me to this movie? I don’t remember why it was recommended. The television industry of course interests me, and this looks like a typical workplace comedy in that field, otherwise not too remarkable.
Additionally, this might be the first time I’ve seen Albert Brooks on screen, though I’ve heard him in Finding Nemo and several times on The Simpsons. Oh. And a few appearances in the early days of Saturday Night Live, I guess.
Before watching the movie:
Have I seen this before? There’s something special in my memory about Coneheads, but I can’t quite place it. I’m fairly sure that I had a friend in Kindergarten or first grade who talked about it fondly, but the only concrete recollection I have is that there were a few clips of it in a Paramount promotional montage on a couple of tapes I liked to watch a lot. And more recently, I’ve seen some of the original sketches. Since my memories are so hazy, and there are a few alternative options, I’m going to conclude for now that I haven’t seen it before, and if I did, it was so long ago that nothing really stuck and my view will still be fresh. However, in the interest of transparency, I’m making this decision public.
While not as widely talked about as other Saturday Night Live spinoffs, this seems to have a pretty positive reputation. The concept certainly offers room for a full-fledged plot and lends itself to a higher budget. In fact, it may be so much more of a movie concept than a sketch concept that it becomes hard to remember it got its start on SNL, like Blues Brothers.
Before watching the movie:
I’d never heard of this movie when I came across it, and to be honest, I didn’t put a lot of thought into enqueuing it. I searched for a few widely known Peter O’Toole movies and this came up as a similar title. Comedy, ghosts, Irish castle, I’ll take it. He seems to have been in a lot of odd movies later in his career, which are coming to the surface first.
I’ve only recently begun to notice the… charisma(?) of Steve Guttenberg, and I’m reluctant to classify the strengths of Daryl Hannah just yet for fear of putting her in a box.
The flying bed in the poster reminds me far too much of Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
Before watching the movie: The late 90s, a time when the internet was just beginning to be a thing normal people used, when it was beginning to be treated like the post office or telephone and nobody had a business interest in controlling access to it.
PSA aside, a time when the internet was new but probably safe enough, not something fearful. A time when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan could be Hollywood’s most bankably romantic couple yet again by somehow meeting online without knowing each other’s real identity, and this is a good thing. Yay technology. Continue reading
Before watching the movie:
This movie is incidentally legendary in my family. I’m told I saw a few minutes of it at an extremely young age until my mother realized she shouldn’t be playing it in the presence of someone so young. So this is the Ur-example of movies I haven’t seen because of good parenting.
The combination of Gene Wilder and the Holmes mythos is an odd one, but both of them individually are reasons to take an interest, so hopefully they merge successfully. I expect the reason Wilder’s character is “Sigerson Holmes” when Mycroft Holmes is a canonical character who is actually smarter than Sherlock is so they have more room to do what they want with him, but I hope Mycroft at least gets a mention. I think the Doyle estate still had American copyright over Holmes characters, so this might be a legal loophole as well.
I think somewhere around the house there’s still an off-air recording of this movie (which has most of the title on the label, but always seemed less like a title and more like a placeholding description), but even if we had a working Betamax player, I don’t like to review from off-air recordings since scenes get cut for time and content, and commercials break the flow in an unintended way. I saw this float through the library again and decided it was time.
Before watching the movie:
I’m a bit surprised at the fact that I only heard of this movie in the last decade. An eighties comedy sci-fi(ish) adventure about a cute robot coming to life seems like the sort of thing I would have been watching once a week as a child. In fact, I only became aware of its existence and cult status after meeting the internet hivemind that loves this movie.
Now that I’m actually going to watch it, all I can think of is that lightning doing magical things to machines seems dated even for the 80s.
Before watching the movie:
“Noir spoof” sells. Bob Hope as a wannabe detective gets in over his head in a real case.
All I really have to say besides that is that I hope that handlebar caterpillar in the poster is a disguise, not worn for the entirety of the movie. But I doubt it.
Another selection from the great big box of movies loaned to me by my grandparents.
Yesterday's Movies 