Mel Brooks

The Elephant Man Review

November 11, 2016 by JD Hansel

There is much to be said for a filmmaker that can repeat common stories, scenarios, and twists that we’ve all seen before while still making great work (and evoking a strong emotional response). David Lynch is one of those filmmakers, as he demonstrated most clearly when he made The Elephant Man. It’s Lynch’s go at a conventional Hollywood film, and we are very fortunate that Mel Brooks took a chance in bringing young Lynch on board to direct the project before he was well-known. Obviously, everyone else involved in the project was already established, which means we get to see some great performances, and I would argue that the score is some of John Morris’ best work as a composer. The story doesn’t really go anywhere, and it’s blatantly based on the old trope that “the monster isn’t the monster, the normal human is the monster,” and yet it all still works very well. We fear for John when we’re supposed to fear for him, and we wonder if Treves is right in worrying that he’s mistreated John, and we adore Madge Kendal the same way John does. The drama just works.

As a great combination of Hollywood drama and Lynchian weirdness, I think it’s a film everyone ought to see.

The Twelve Chairs Review

March 16, 2016 by JD Hansel

No, not Spaceballs. Not Blazing Saddles. Not even The Producers or Young Frankenstein. Mel Brooks insists that his best film is The Twelve Chairs. Not too many others seem to agree, but I can understand why he makes this claim. Is this my favorite Mel Brooks film? No, I still reserve that spot for High Anxiety. It is, however, a beautiful example of a wonderfully written and perfectly performed chase movie that captures the essence of fun.

My first exposure to this movie was the theme song. One day, I was trying to find a song that would perfectly express my daily anxiety, pessimism, and general expectation that everything in my life would go wrong, so I naturally sought the song “High Anxiety” from High Anxiety. When I purchased this song, I found it was actually cheaper to buy Mel Brooks’ whole greatest hits album, which happened to come with a song I’d never heard of – “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst.” I naturally just had to hear this song, and it was just as satisfying as one would hope – it perfectly captured my feelings about living. I then realized just how crucial it was that I saw The Twelve Chairs. My hope was that the song would be part of a huge, extravagant, over-the-top musical number a la “The Spanish Inquisition,” but alas, this movie does not have such an extreme, flamboyant tone.

This film is sort of a change of pace for Brooks, in part because it’s one of his only G-rated films, but also because it’s not trying to parody anything – it’s just an adaptation of an old novel. However, this makes it a much safer choice to show the younger members of the family (although it is not completely clean), and it also means that the side of Mel Brooks that we see here sticks to a strong story led by likable characters, which happens to thrust the characters into very chaotic situations. In a way, it’s a little more down-to-earth and believable than a lot of his other works, but at the same time, it gets so, so wild and crazy that it makes Spaceballs seem tame. For someone expecting Men in Tights or Young Frankenstein, this may be a little disappointing, but I can completely see why Brooks considers it to be his best work.

Rather than trying to throw crazy, “cartoonish” jokes at the audience the whole time, and rather than trying to put a twist on things that have been parodied to death anyway, Brooks managed to get an enormous amount of comedy from a small cast and a simple premise, while keeping the story first instead of the jokes. One of the best moments in the film is surprisingly when we see some very dramatic tension between two of the main characters, and because it comes in the middle of such a silly movie, it’s actually one of the most powerful moments in all of cinematic drama. The ending, while not as climactic as I had hoped, has a lot of heart to it, and better yet, it handles the heart in a way that even I, the hater of all things sappy, can really, really enjoy. It just puts a smile on my face.

As is usual by the time that I have reached the last paragraph of a review, I am left with only a few miscellaneous thoughts about various aspects of the movie, which in this case might hopefully persuade readers to find a way to see this rare work of genius. There is not a single moment, at least to my memory, when this movie is boring, and there are very few movies that can get such praise out of me. The whole production is perfectly paced, the story is marvelously structured, and the performances are exactly what they ought to be. I would go so far as to say that Mel Brooks’ acting in this movie is funnier than his acting in any other (Muppet Movie-inclusive). I still wouldn’t say that this is my favorite Mel Brooks film, as it doesn’t quite have that special, unique distinction about it that a Young Frankenstein or a Spaceballs has (which is to say that the movie’s cast and setting lack a unique collective personality that sets the world of the film apart from ours). I must also reiterate the lack of satisfaction in the conclusion of they’re chase, because the story has a twist ending of sorts which I find devastatingly underwhelming. What I will say is that I can never argue with anyone who claims that this is Brooks’ best work; for it truly is a masterpiece.

Hotel Transylvania 2 Review

October 24, 2015 by JD Hansel

This sequel feels very sequel-ish. In spite of the fact that this storyline is refreshingly different from that of the first Hotel Transylvania, most of my feelings towards this movie are exactly the same as my feelings towards the first. It feels like an extension of the same film, with a story that shows what would inevitably follow the events of the first film, and a script that relies heavily on its predecessor’s running gags. This one does seem slightly lacking in the cleverness and creativity of the first film, but it has the added bonus of a good Mel Brooks character. I certainly did enjoy watching the movie, and I laughed out loud at Drac’s description of using FaceTime, but since my count of predictable moments reached 18 (if memory serves), I can’t pretend it was a fabulous film. (I suppose I was impressed with a lot of the visuals – particularly when it comes to classic cartoon animation styles – but this is also something that can be said of the first Hotel Transylvania.) Aside from thoughts I already described in my review of its prequel, I really don’t have much in the way of strong thoughts or feelings about this movie at all.

History of the World – Part I Review

July 21, 2015 by JD Hansel

I absolutely love it when a film has such a strong creative essence that it immediately relays its muses to me, who inspire me to express the experience in a review (in much the same way that a songwriter might be overcome by the need to play the expression of his/her passion). At those moments, the essence of the film appears before me as a dream awaiting a poet’s articulation. Other films, however, leave me scratching my head (and leave my muses shrugging) as I try to figure out what to make of whatever I’ve just seen. These are the moments that make me look at Roger Ebert with jealousy, knowing that he could nearly always express exactly how he felt about a movie, no matter the film’s complexity. Unfortunately, History of the World – Part 1 is a puzzler for me, since I really want to love the film, but I just don’t think I do.

The film has its moments that hit home and are very strong, but it has a lot of moments that simply don’t do it for me. Unfortunately, the movie can’t decide whether it’s comprised of comedy sketches, vignettes, or (not very) short films. This inconsistency in length means that many scenes leave me thinking, “that’s it?” while others make me cry, “it’s still going?” I think that consistency – or, better yet, a narrative (or some focused structure) to tie everything together – would do the film some good. That being said, I love the “Inquisition” number, and I’m more moved by Mel’s take on 2001: A Space Odyssey than I am by the actual Kubrick film.

I generally wouldn’t hold a vignette-based film to my Pausibility Test (I measure a film by how content I am with pausing it and coming back to it in a few weeks) because the nature of such a film has built-in stopping points, which makes pausing natural. The problem with this film, however, is that I was content with pausing the movie mid-segment, and I suspect that’s because of the characters. Ebert helped clarify this for me by pointing out that we are presented with cardboard cut-outs of Jews, monks, etc., but there is not much detail added to make them funny or interesting. Instead, our interest in each character is dependent on the performers. While I didn’t necessarily “have a blast” watching the movie, I cannot be as hard on it as Ebert because I suspect that many scenes from it will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Silent Movie Review

September 1, 2014 by JD Hansel

Mel Brooks is known for writing clever stuff, and a lot of that cleverness is in the dialogue. So, the question is, can Mel do a silent movie well? I strongly believe that he did. Silent Movie is delightful in every scene, with a fun cast of characters who are performed very well (with perfect timing of course) by Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, and Brooks himself. The cameos are used well, and also add to the delight.

From a technical standpoint, the film is impressive, and ironically, I really liked this movie’s use of sound. The music always fit the scene, as did the sound effects, and the score actually varied in style, but still felt coherent despite its different genres. I liked the way the movie was shot and edited as well, and Mel generally does a good job with that kind of thing I’ve found.

While I thought the writing was very clever (since I laughed a lot throughout) and I thought the story had about the right amount of simplicity that it would need as a silent movie, there were a couple of things about the writing that bothered me. Firstly, the characters were all sort of caricatures, and while the protagonist is somewhat relatable and down-to-earth, even he is too over-the-top to be relatable sometimes. When this happens in a story that essentially is a series of attempts to get celebrities to do the movie, it is easy to stop caring about the story since one eventually grows tired of such a basic and simple plot.

I still think that this is one of Mel’s funniest films, which is why I am surprised that I didn’t hear about it much over the years. I do not have much of a special connection to the film, or at least not like I did with High Anxiety, which is in my top 20 favorite movies. However, I think I probably laughed more while watching this than I did while watching Men in Tightsor High Anxiety. So, because I can guaranty that this movie will get a laugh out of anyone, and because this is probably the most family-friendly film Mel’s done, I highly recommend Silent Movie.