Random Movie Club

Your July 2005 RMC LITE results are in!

Tonight's presentation was the third movie made from the files of POLICE SQUAD!, called NAKED GUN 33 1/3: THE FINAL INSULT. The TV show POLICE SQUAD! (1982) lasted only 6 episodes, and is rumored (rumoured for RMCer Pete) to have been canceled because (believe it or not) the jokes were too funny, and/or went over America's heads.

Jim Abrahams and Zucker Brothers David and Jerry created a whole new genre when they released AIRPLANE!, and gave brilliant deadpanner Leslie Nielsen a new career so identifiable that I defy you to watch any of his earlier dramas without laughing (he was the captain of the Poseidon, and, well, now it just adds to the kitsch of that film, almost as if it were planned).

AIRPLANE! was such a hit (and one of four movies that I stayed in the theater to watch again) that it polarized a nation. I offer you these two exhibits as proof: My dad, who can never remember what movie he saw the day before, still quotes AIRPLANE!, especially the bit where the ground crewman uses his flashlights to point out where he left the forklift. And- one night at 3am, while picking up a cheeseburger at the all-night deli (Delion, for you New Yorkers), I did that snake-like hand movie that Robert Hays does when imitating Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, and the limited English speaking overnight cook pointed at me and said, "AIRPLANE!"!

Well, now if we get AIRPLANE! at RMC I won't have to write it up. Anyway, AIRPLANE! begat POLICE SQUAD! (still not on DVD!), which begat numerous knockoffs deader than Leslie Nielsen's grandpappy. But if you waded through all the YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE and REPOSSESSEDs, you'd finally get to the NAKED GUN movies, superior by a longshot due to the fact that the Zucker/Abrahams team was steering.

NG 331/3: TFI is more of the same, and by that I mean although the model is the same, it's still a really funny movie. However, even though at times it's laugh out loud funny, the film doesn't hold up as well as the TV episodes. It's still maybe only a million and a half times funnier than anything in any of the SCARY MOVIE movies. Some bits that killed me: The Mother Teresa musical, the Where's Waldo? shot, Mary Lou Retton doing flips and tumbles up the aisle when accepting her award, Frank Drebin's kid with the same white hair, and the rule-of-three cab driver (you had to be there).

This case centers around Frank, now retired and a stay at home husband (making cupcakes and wearing furry slippers) lured out of retirement.He goes undercover in prison to discover that master criminal Rocco Dillon (I love Fred Ward, ever see MIAMI BLUES or REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS?) is plotting to blow up the Academy Awards. The tone of these movies are always light, so they pass on a real opportunity for some biting humor (like TEAM AMERICA'S "Film Actors Guild," or FAG).

Starring alongside Neilson as Detective Frank Drebin (think Clouseau x100), are Oscar winner George Kennedy (one day COOL HAND LUKE will come up in RMC and we'll watch him deserve his Oscar), and Orenthal James Simpson in his last acting role, unless you count the trial. And lots of people playing "himself" and "herself": Elliot Gould, Pia Zadora, Raquel Welch, Weird Al Yancovic, Ann B. Davis, Vanna White, James Earl Jones (maybe you knew him as the voice of CNN, and now as the Verizon spokesperson) Mary Lou Retton, Mariel Hemmingway, Shannen Doherty, etc. And rounding out the cast: Priscilla Presley as Frank's wife, and Anna Nicole Smith as the moll. There was no sign of Amy Locane.

To quote some brilliant critics, the "jokes fly fast and furious" and "a raucous guilty pleasure!"