J.D. Hansel

Comedy Classics

Horse Feathers Review

by

My main problem with Marx Brothers films, with the exception of Duck Soup, is that they are not Duck Soup.  When it comes to film comedy, that movie pretty much sets the bar for me.  I’m not sure why Duck Soup works – it feels like it shouldn’t – but it does.  Maybe it’s just one of those “lightning in a bottle” things.  Consequently, Horse Feathers isn’t everything I might hope for, but fortunately, it’s pretty darn close.

This is a good movie for college students to see.  It offers some catharsis in this crazy phase of life to think that maybe the reason why everyone at your university hates the administration is that the president is a bozo like Groucho.  With as many comedy films have taken on academia, it still hasn’t gotten as much spoofing as it deserves, so it’s nice to see the Marx Brothers take on the subject.  It’s also not one of those Marx Brothers films that tries to shove a serious romantic plot into the film alongside the Marx antics, so it’s light on the boring scenes.  It’s one of those films that I’d like to have on in the background at parties – it’s something fun that I could watch over and over again, but I don’t feel like I lose much if I don’t pay attention to the plot.  It’s more about the lunacy of the characters and the highly hilarious (albeit very stupid) jokes, which are all I need to have a really fun movie night.

National Lampoon’s Vacation Review

by

I think road trip movies are among the most challenging to write.  There’s usually very little sense that the events of these films must occur, or that they must occur in the order in which they do, which tends to make everything feel arbitrary.  This, in turn, can make for a very weak movie – unless the comedy is strong.  Unfortunately, and much to my surprise, the comedy isn’t strong here.

I think I only laughed a handful of times throughout the film – maybe four – and I’m not sure how that’s possible from John Hughes.  The key difference between this film and Hughes’ better work seems to be that he usually features very likable main characters.  The characters in this film are jerks, so I don’t enjoy watching them.  I also felt throughout that much of the humor was relying on highly judgmental stereotypes of people and places, so I find the film somewhat offensive.

That being said, the best case I can make for the film is actually related to the aspects to which I take offense.  I think it has a lot of what I call “cultural utility.”  It’s a very useful film in that it can be used to understand American culture better.  It’s very rare to see a depiction of the white American middle class that so perfectly captures its hatred of white trash, its sexual tensions, its struggles to embody the ideas we have of what the white middle class should be, its racist fears, its respect for religions it doesn’t understand, and its all-around pathetic insanity.  For anyone outside the United States who wants to understand why and how Americans seems so crazy, watching this film is a good place to start.

An American Werewolf in London Review

by

My appreciation of great horror films is always a little bit limited by the fact that I don’t really care for being scared all that much.  There is still some horror out there that I like, but this film doesn’t have that much of it – most of this film’s horror portions are simply slow builds to jump-scares.  Sometimes fun builds, but the point is still the “startle,” which isn’t my kind of horror.  This film does, however, offer my kind of humor.

Most of the movie is really a sort of bizarre ’80s comedy about a college kid and his buddy having a strange experience abroad, and the character comedy is absolutely delightful.  John Landis knows how to make the minor characters funny as well; the casting of Frank Oz here is perfect, and sometimes finding the right character actor is all it takes for great comedy.  I think that’s what I like so much about this film: Landis brings together different elements that don’t usually get put together, but his careful combination creates a rare and beautiful emotional effect on the viewer – an effect of uneasy laughter.  It’s simply a work of really smart craftsmanship, and while not all of it is the kind of entertainment I’m used to, this film is already inching its way closer and closer to my heart.

The Nutty Professor Review

by

Wait a minute – isn’t this movie supposed to be … ya know, funny?  It’s amazing how, with one look at the DVD case, anyone would think this film surely was one of the worst ever made, yet a look online would reveal how highly regarded it is as one of the great comedies.  While I can easily understand why critics want to recognize Lewis for his talents, I just have to ask … really?  This counts as a good comedy?

The characters are insufferable.  The story is insufferable.  The hokey visual gags are insufferable.  Most of the other jokes are insufferable.  The ending is just plain stupid, and undercuts everything else in the movie.  The only thing about this movie that’s impressive is, much to my surprise, the filmmaking.  The way that it’s shot and edited impressed me, but even more impressive is the production design – the costumes, the props, and the sets.  Largely due to its brilliant use of gorgeous colors, this is a movie I would gladly show to anyone who wanted to see my idea of a pretty-looking movie, as long as I didn’t have to watch it with them.

Roman Holiday Review

by

Roman Holiday defies traditional classification.  On the most basic level, it’s a romantic comedy – after all, it is romantic, and it is comedic.  That being said, it’s not like any romantic comedy I’ve ever seen.  At a certain point it becomes clear that, as much as the two leads love each other, they don’t see how it’s possible for them to live out the rest of their lives together since one of them is royalty and the other is not.  Because the rest of the film feels like a fun, happy romantic comedy about escapism, the audience expects that, by the end, everything will work out such that they can be happy together, but this doesn’t happen – and logically it’s a given that it couldn’t happen.  I find it difficult to decide whether or not this counts as an example of bad screenwriting.

Don’t think that I believe all movies should have happy endings.  I don’t even necessarily think all comedies must have happy endings to count as comedies.  My problem with Roman Holiday is the futility of its events.  The ending requires the audience to believe that Princess Ann is now content to return to her restrictive duties as Princess now that she’s had her one holiday, even though there is little evidence to suggest she is.  Joe Bradley actually ends up worse off than he was at the start, having upset his boss and landlord and having lost a lot of money (not to mention a big story that would have advanced his career).  Neither of them should be happy, but the film tries to argue that cherishing the memories of this one wonderful holiday offers enough lasting happiness for the both of them (it’s a “better to have loved and lost” kind of story) even though this conclusion simply isn’t supported anywhere in the film – the viewer must assume this to be true.

Apart from this, however, the film is put together brilliantly.  Right from the very first scene (not counting the newsreel), the writing, camerawork, editing, and acting are all excellent, establishing the character with a carefully paced and wildly funny opening.  The rest of the film continues this high-level of craftsmanship and fun, making for one of the smartest romantic comedy films I’ve seen to date.  What’s particularly likeable about it is Audrey Hepburn’s performance – the only film of hers I’d seen before was Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and I’d always wondered why she was considered such a great actress.  I wonder no more, and I now look forward to seeing more of her work.

The Goonies Review

by

From the Traveling Wilburys to Band Aid, the pop music industry has had its share of super groups, but for whatever reason, cinema hasn’t.  For whatever reason, while talented directors have worked together before, we very rarely see a group of different directors with different backgrounds coming together to work on a groups of films as a team.  I think this begs the question: what would a filmmaking super group look like?  Because I’m fond of ’80s cinema, I’d like to imagine something like a family adventure film with a story by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Chris Columbus (the writer of Gremlins, director of Home Alone), with music by Dave Grusin (composer for Tootsie), and someone like Richard Donner (director of Superman, Ladyhawke, Lethal Weapon, and Scrooged) at the helm.  Fortunately, this is exactly the team assembled for this movie, and what this team produced is just as great a film as one would hope.

I think part of why Goonies is considered to be such a great classic by so many people is that it is very emblematic of ’80s cinema.  Even with a cast of children, the intended age group is entirely unclear because of how dirty some of the humor is, making it a family film in the same category as Ghostbusters in that it’s not really a family film.  It’s also a very good example of Spielberg’s conception of fantasy, giving the viewer the sense that something sort of magical might be found at that old Chinese antique shop, or, in this case, up in the attic.  The most ’80s part, of course, is the theme song by Cyndi Lauper, and the music video that was made to accompany it.  Somehow, even though that video is entirely different from the film, the combination of the two sums up everything that made the ’80s the ’80s, and I think that’s just beautiful.

Once I started watching this movie, it was hard to pause it – and I can say that for very few films – so I think The Goonies, as dated as it may be in some respects, just might be pure entertainment cinema at its very best.