Tag Archives: Airplane!

Top Secret! [1984)

And so we come full-circle.

As in the olden days.

When we first started.

Writing about spy spoofs.

And this is a doozy!

Val Kilmer’s first film.

As Nick Rivers.

Very much Elvis, but equally Beach Boys (at least on the opening number “Skeet Surfing”).

I would call this style of filmmaking “kitchen sink”.

It was a particular type of American comedy in the 1980s.

Fast jokes.

Set pieces.

Elaborate puns.

General silliness.

The setting is East Germany.

In the time of Markus Wolf and the Stasi.

Wolf retired in 1986.

The year after this film (1985), Vladimir Putin started his KGB career in East Germany.

But let’s talk about more important stuff…like how beautiful Lucy Gutteridge is!

A girl and a gun, said Godard.

And for a sequel, another girl and another gun…

Said I.

Port Said.

Fuad II.

Yes, Ms. Gutteridge plays the stunning Hillary.

Which roughly translates to “she whose breasts defy gravity”.

That’s a direct paraphrase.

What?

We almost get the Lawrence Welk Orchestra doing “Sister Ray”, but Nick Rivers and “Tutti Frutti” is close enough to alienate the visiting Russian operatic singer and his caricature faux-Nazi patron.

General Streck.

Not to be confused with Colonel Sturm or Sergeant Drang.

Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers (David and Jerry) strung us along the whole time.

And they directed a fairly decent film here…the triumvirate.

The Nutcracker turns out to be a ballet of literal protrusions.

The prop room is equally literal.

It’s both Joycean and daft.

But I had some genuine chuckles during this film.

They execute a priest as a demonstration.

And his Latin is a knee-slapping litany.

A greatest hits of that dead language.

Legal.  Medical.  String it together.  Make it flow.

Pig Latin.  Cow Latin.  Pidgin Latin.

Yes Elvis.  Yes Beach Boys.  And yes Beatlemania.

Sullivan.  Hysteria.  Hip sway.  Swooning.

Is it a bit of Fritz Lang with the magnifying glass?

Certainly prefigures the backmasking of Twin Peaks.

Swedish as a backwards language.

Like those hidden messages on (back to the) Beatles records.

I want to live in that loft of that Swedish bookstore…

clutching a volume of Strindberg and holding a Ms. Gutteridge.

How could anyone dream of more than two fireplaces at the top of a firehouse pole?

Many references.  The Blue Lagoon.  When Brooke Shields was just 14.

Like the Podestas, we end up next in the script at a pizza restaurant.

(!)

“Straighten Out the Rug” pulls out all the stops…and all the rugs…like Pejman Nozad on vitamins.

An incredibly detailed mock-up of the prison grounds complete with a toy train.

Bovine infiltration.

Eggs Benedict Arnold.

When instead of hollandaise, they’ve secretly replaced the sauce with Folger’s crystal gravy (on loan from the struggling PepsiCo).

While Trump protestors boycott every snack and cranny of this MNE.

But the dénouement is the underwater saloon brawl.

It is actually artful.  Postmodern.  High art in spite of itself.  Dodoism.

We must not forget the yeoman efforts of the great Omar Sharif in this film.

Sadly, Mr. Sharif passed away just this past year in his home country of Egypt.

At least he did not (presumably) need two hours of surgery to wipe the smile off his face.

“Who do you root for in the Virginia Slims tournament?”

“I always root against the heterosexual.”

“Do you know any good, white basketball players?”

“There are no good, white basketball players.”

All of this from the “Match?  Lighter.  Better still.” line which Robert Shaw sweated out of someone to fool his way into James Bond’s presence and trust for a short time…before he chose fish with red wine.

One wonders whether the East Berliners had the jelly-faced joy of seeing this arrogant Hollywood slap at the time of its release?

Most importantly, “kitchen sink” was the style of the ZAZ directors mentioned previously:  Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker.

Kentucky Fried Movie.  Airplane!  The Naked Gun films (with the exception of the last).

This really is a cute film.

And while most of it would have pushed the envelope for 1984, it would almost be a G-rated movie by today’s standards.

Still, there are some jawdropping moments…such as The Anal Intruder (with the Cuisinart on the shelf [in the jailhouse now]).

Turns out the Christopher Atkins character (played by Christopher Villiers) had gotten all the joys of the Russian sailors who rescued him…including sodomy, Karl Marx, Lenin, L. Ron Hubbard, and one more bloke.

And so we wonder…couldn’t the Butthole Surfers have made it into this film?

Just barely.

Three years later they would drop the masterpiece Locust Abortion Technician.

Ah, the Reagan era…

 

-PD

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Airplane! [1980)

My congratulations to Hulu for finally making a move in the right direction as regards comedic movies.

This is a chestnut from my youth.

Directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, this endless stream of one-liners hits some very special notes indeed.

[flying on instruments]

Ted Striker has a drinking problem…

His aim is off.

It dates back to when he was stationed on the island of Drambuie [sic].

He led the strike against Daiquiri.  We’ll be coming in low…beneath their radar.  Attacking from the north.

[when will you be back?  I can’t tell you that.  It’s top secret.]

Yes, his postwar record is even worse than his war record.

I know the feeling.

Leaves his cab with the meter running.

Striker is always coming in too hot.  Robert Hays.

World record for sweat.

But at least he has his Elaine for whom to hope.  Julie Hagerty.

Avoid the brown acid.  And the fish.

But if you do need a doctor, just look for someone perpetually wearing a stethoscope.

Leslie Nielsen.

Plays it straight as a javelin [donnnnnngggg!].

The cavalry trailing Kramer.

But back to Leslie…from Regina, Saskatchewan.

[Municipal bonds…AA rating…best investment in Canada]

Extremely underrated is Peter Graves as the pilot:  Clarence Oveur.

On the ovarian trolley.

[Have you ever seen a grown man naked?]

and

[Do you like gladiator films?]

or

[Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?]

And of course, the man himself:  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

{on this night when my Spurs fell a point shy to the Thunder}

The NBA’s all-time leading scorer (38,387) is Roger Murdoch.

I previously wrote about Kareem’s turn in the Bruce Lee “almost” Game of Death.

Airplane!, then, was his second appearance on the big screen (and first since his kung fu debut in 1972).

Lloyd Bridges picked the wrong week for everything.

All the vices.

From a fag to a swig to bennies to some genuinely Ramones shit.

{now I’m gonna have nightmares about Westbrook}

[How ’bout some coffee?]

[…never has a second cup of coffee at home.  …never vomits at home.]

Robert Stack checks in like Gregg Popovich after a meal at Taco Bell.

[That may have been the lousiest landing in the history of this airport…]

But the absolute secret weapon is the flamingly-gay Stephen Stucker as Johnny Henshaw-Jacobs.

[it looks like a big Tylenol]

[a hat, a brooch, a pterodactyl]

Stucker’s contribution is still alive (though he sadly passed away in 1986 at the age of 38).

And so the queen act was no act.

AIDS.

Shit…

[golly]

June Cleaver speaks jive.

Joey Hammen (Ross Harris) went on to have a very interesting music career which saw his path intersect with Beck, Stereolab, and The Dust Brothers.

[Odelay!]

David Leisure and Kawhi Leonard both went to San Diego State University.

That should definitely help us in Game 3.

But we’re going to need a lot more defense from Ethel Merman.

Really, the Spurs need to revisit this excellent tome by Joel Cohen:

dynomite

No library focusing on military strategy is complete without it.

From Jomini to Clausewitz to Winshield Wiper Man:

if he can just manage to get the hood back down on the Boeing 707 after checking the dipstick.

No need to commit hara-kiri, James Hong.  Just filed under “seppuku”.

It’s 1-1.  Go Spurs Go!

 

-PD

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery [1997)

I imagine I’m the only film critic in the world simultaneously engrossed in the oeuvre of Godard and the semi-genre of spy spoofs.

Yet it’s true.

And this film sets a sort of modern standard.

When I first saw this picture it didn’t have the same effect on me which it does now.

The difference?

Total immersion in the James Bond series.

This brings me back to my first statement…stated differently:

How could a person delve into the deepest recesses of French intellectual film and yet appreciate a notoriously shallow succession of pseudo-cinematic pap?

The James Bond franchise succeeded in its early years on sheer will of confidence (expressed in the nonchalant swagger of Sean Connery).

And so for those of us who are drawn to films such as Dr. No like moths to a flame Austin Powers provides just the right measure of fun to mercifully deflate our nonsensical ambitions.

Truth be told, most average citizens (myself included) would make horrible secret agents.  We can’t keep secrets.

We can’t outrun a young assassin.

But we like to dream.

There are always analyst jobs.  Perhaps…

But let’s get on with it…

What makes this film special?

It is that outsider/outcast aspect which plagues Austin “Danger” Powers.

The most poignant (poignant?) touch is Austin in the casino bar flashing a peace sign (V) of naïvete to a tableful of unsympathetic twits.

It should be noted that Mike Myers actually does a formidable job of not only referencing the various minutiae of Bond films but also of evoking the humanism of Chaplin embodied in the closing speech of The Great Dictator.

Put simply, this is a very smart movie.  Don’t let the fart jokes fool you.

Sure…some aspects of this film have not aged so well, but it was made in a spirit of fun.

Did this opening installment in the franchise pander to the mediocre intelligence of American movie-going audiences?

Of course.

But hey…that spirit has powered (no pun intended) some of the great films of all time.

What Austin Powers brought to the world was really a reawakening of the American comedy zeitgeist from the 1980s.

Think of those great, enjoyable films like The Three Amigos (and especially Spies Like Us), Trading Places, the National Lampoon movies, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles…  I don’t care what anyone says:  those were great movies!

Those are the films I grew up on.  Airplane, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure…heck, even Romancing the Stone pulled me in every time it came on TV.

Director Jay Roach did a really nice job of providing that enjoyable experience with this film.  We all need some laughs.

Life is too hard; too sad.  Too serious!

But Austin Powers is most of all the gold standard of Bond spoofs.  When you can’t watch Goldfinger for the umpteenth time, give yourself a break with this film.

It will feel like a masterpiece.  We all need a funhouse mirror in which to see our own reflection and laugh.

There’s no shame in that 🙂

-PD

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Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs [1988)

“Made-for-TV movie” used to have such a cheap ring to it and this flick would be defying the odds to have aged well, but it is surprisingly charming in a Night Court/Roxanne sort of way.  Often on my site I take the opportunity to wax geopolitical under the pretext of reviewing a rather vapid film.  I think, for once, I’m going to stick to the basics.  There are just too many endearing qualities about this bastard film for me to dissect the gross ethno-cultural generalizations at any great length.

I was reminded recently about Airplane! (1980).  Indeed, I picked the wrong week to quit tobacco.  So, sometimes we have to revel in the yucks and let some water go under the bridge (or some such hackneyed expression).

This movie depicts Arabs as blood-thirsty caricatures, but if you haven’t figured out that the Charlie Hebdo attack was a false flag by now…you’re never gonna get it.  If you didn’t look up Operation Gladio the last time I mentioned it, then you probably just don’t give a fuck about the truth.

Ah, touchy touchy…  Yes, I’m tired of the 24/7 propaganda of Fox News.  Same goes for MSNBC, CNN, all of them.  All crap.  The only, ONLY person I saw get it right and write an elegant article about it was Paul Craig Roberts.  It was a featured story at infowars.com.  It should be cached there.  If you want to know the truth about the recent wave of fake terror, look there.  HOWEVER, I must say that the quickest to call BS were Wayne Madsen and Webster Tarpley.  Madsen’s pithy comments are usually right on the money.  He can be found at waynemadsenreport.com.  Tarpley is at tarpley.net.

Ok, now we’ve really deviated from film review.  Wow.  See, that exercise in not caring did not work.  Sorry guys.  I care.

So, basically two Arabs in this film draw their short swords (gladio, anyone?) at the very beginning of this film during an argument on the floor of the UN General Assembly.  Actually, it is a very cheap made-for-TV rendering, but that is ostensibly what we are to be looking at.  And so they insult one another and act like animals (comical, of course) and one infers that the other is involved in bestiality with his camel.  Ah, another time…  It’s almost like rewatching 48 Hours.  Some of that humor is just TOO RAW now.

But anyway, blah blah…a generic Asian character is cinematically accused of eating dog.  You know, those sort of ethnic stereotypes from this chestnut:  1988.

But…BUT…it IS a charming movie.  If you can get past all that other stuff as the world is being manipulated into further war through Islamo-Gladio, then there is much to like about this little classic with Harry Anderson from Night Court and Ed Begley Jr. from Spinal Tap (ha!).  Linda Purl is actually pretty darn good in this.  Same for Wendy Crewson.  Hey, director James Frawley obviously didn’t have a big budget here…and so this is a nice little homage to the Pink Panther series and other spy spoofs.  Oh, pro tip:  my “espionage” category is all spy spoofs…so far!  Might have to keep you people on your toes.  Ah, but it’s not like anyone is actually reading this.  So to the bought-and-paid-for enemies of humanity (the intel agency assassins/military special ops) who continue to turn bloody trick after trick like the prostitutes you know you are:  fuck you.

-PD

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