The Screengrab : pee wee's big adventure

April Fools: The 35 Funniest Movie Characters Of All Time (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

WILL FERRELL AS RICKY BOBBY IN TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY (2006)

Will Ferrell’s Anchorman may be more absurd, but Talladega Nights is still the SNL alum’s greatest big-screen achievement to date, a NASCAR-set bit of lunacy that mocks American culture while simultaneously exhibiting fondness for it. Via the character of Ricky Bobby, a nitwit car-racing star, Ferrell manages to send up our national gluttony and materialism, as well as Southern political and social conservatism, with a no-holds-barred goofiness that’s nonetheless underscored by affection for his redneck milieu and its inhabitants. To keep things evenhanded, Sacha Baron Cohen’s aggressively homosexual French F-1 champ Jean Girard provides a hilarious caricature of liberalism. It’s Ferrell’s titular clown, however, that truly embodies the film’s fair-minded attitude, his Ricky Bobby an egotistical good ol’ boy whose jingoism is as inane as his predilection for saying grace to the baby Jesus – an extended bit that gets funnier with every subsequent viewing – and yet whose me-first ridiculousness is laced with a childish kindness that makes him both an embarrassing and endearing personification of 21st century southern America. (NS)

CHEVY CHASE AS CLARK GRISWOLD IN CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)

While the original remains the most popular, and European Vacation is probably the funniest, the Vacation series’ most heartwarming entry was 1989’s Yuletide saga, in large part because its holiday setting provided Chevy Chase with the best opportunities to convey not only Clark Griswold’s buffoonery, but to root that silliness in his deep, abiding love of family and tradition. In this second sequel, Clark’s homestead is invaded by parents, in-laws and the clan of Cousin Eddy (Randy Quaid), and this raft of supporting players – which also comes to include the Griswold’s prissy Yuppie neighbors (Nicholas Guest and Julia Louis-Dreyfus) – helps take some of the comedic burden off of Chase. Despite surrounding him with talented co-stars, however, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’s spotlight nonetheless remains squarely on its headliner, whose pratfall skills are in fine form, and whose sympathetic embodiment of his well-intentioned doofus patriarch – aggravated by his kin, disappointed over not receiving the work bonus he was counting on, and tormented by a squirrel let loose in his abode – lends the manic, messy proceedings real warmth. (NS)

PAUL REUBENS AS PEE-WEE HERMAN IN PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985)

Too much fun in a porn theater may have destroyed Paul Reubens' career – and, consequently, the life of his iconic Pee-Wee Herman character – but his 1985 big-screen debut, helmed by first-time director Tim Burton, stands up as a perfectly realized idiosyncratic original. In this fanciful, carnival-esque saga, Reubens' strange-talking man-child Pee-Wee embarks on a cross-country odyssey to recover his beloved red bike, which he believes was stolen by his rich, spoiled, nasty neighbor Francis (Mark Holton). Even on his first feature, Burton’s flair for crafting strange, wild, wondrous visions was in full effect, as was Danny Elfman’s aptitude for offbeat scores. Nonetheless, it’s Pee-Wee who cements his place in the film-comedy pantheon. From the colorful, gadgety confines of his home (where he chows down on some Mr. T breakfast cereal), to the Alamo (whose basement he foolishly hopes to investigate), to a roadside bar where he famously displays his dance moves while surrounded by a horde of nasty-looking bikers, Pee-Wee proves himself a one-of-a-kind weirdo whose irrepressible cheer is infectious, and whose childlike innocence is endearing. (NS)

ALBERT BROOKS AS ALBERT BROOKS IN REAL LIFE (1979)

Albert Brooks has built a career – and a pretty fine one, if you ask us – out of portraying himself as a complete jerkoff. Even when he’s not playing a fictional character who’s kind of a schmuck, he’s kind of a schmuck: the “Albert Brooks” he plays in his films is a rampaging egomaniac who’s completely oblivious to how he comes across to people. Nowhere is this better realized than in his first full-length feature as a writer and director, 1979’s Real Life. This criminally underseen comedy, which brilliantly anticipates the reality-TV craze of 20 years later, sees Brooks playing himself as a desperate-to-please filmmaker who decides to film a normal, average American family; the comedy lies in the fact that he quickly assesses that the moviegoing public will be bored stiff by normality and averageness, and immediately sets about interfering with their lives for entertainment value. Unsurprisingly, this ruins the experiment, and starts to ruin the family’s life as well – but right up until the very end (where he hits upon the brilliant idea of burning their house down in order to provide his disastrous movie with a suitably exciting ending), Brooks is completely blind to the fact that the only thing wrong with his movie is that he’s the one making it. “Albert Brooks”, as portrayed by Albert Brooks, is so fine a portrait of a self-absorbed Hollywood phony it must have made Robert Evans blush.

CHICO MARX AS BARAVELLI IN HORSE FEATHERS (1932)

Although we’ve chosen his role as Baravelli in the campus comedy Horse Feathers as representative, it’s really just a stand-in for any Chico Marx performance. In the Marx Brothers’ films, Groucho’s role was to be the anarchist, the fly in the ointment, the wild card who refused to play by society’s rules and hilariously wrecks the smooth running order of things; Chico’s role was to do the same thing – only to Groucho. Often stereotyped as the dimwitted punster, Chico’s roles went far deeper than that: he was a true comic foil to his younger brother, reminding him that he couldn’t always win, that there was always someone there who could outhustle even the great Groucho – even if it was by playing dumb. Groucho was the subversive riddle that brought down authority, and Harpo was the dynamite bomb thrown right in the middle of the room, but Chico was a Chinese finger puzzle: it looked so simple, but once you were caught in it, no matter how smart you were, you couldn’t get out. Nowhere is that more clear than in the famous “Tutti Frutti” scene in Horse Feathers, where a supremely confident Chico prevents a slow-burning Groucho from betting on the horse he wants to win. It’s one of the greatest examples of pure comic timing ever captured on film.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four, Five, Six, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Nick Schager, Leonard Pierce

OST: "Beetlejuice"

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:45:00 GMT

Danny Elfman's reputation as a film composer, to put it politely, is mixed. To put it not so politely, there are a lot of people who think he sucks. Though Elfman himself -- a multiple Oscar nominee, a millionaire many times over, and Mr. Bridget Fonda -- probably doesn't pay his detractors any mind, there is a growing consensus that the man who started out as the most unlikely person to achieve success as a composer of scores for blockbuster Hollywood films has turned into a contemptible hack whose name in the opening credits is a sure sign of sonic disappointment ahead. Of course, for everyone who feels that way, there's also those who fiercely defend his scores as memorable, inventive, and distinct; how many other film composers can you name who have gold records for collections of their motion picture scores? Elfman has two of them, and a legion of devoted fans. This kind of vehement disagreement is, in fact, familiar to Danny Elfman: during the 1980s heyday of his band Oingo Boingo, opinion was roughly split between those who found him an obnoxious noisemaker whose danceable, horn-laden compositions were an embarrasment to the punk circles in which he traveled, and those who found his music creative, infectious, and a welcome change of pace from the business-as-usual of L.A. hardcore.

But as Elfman's career as a film composer enters its third decade, those who defend him are growing fewer, and those who attack him are growing more. The time at which his name in the credits alone was enough to make fans line up at the box office for a ticket are long behind him, and it seems the more he embraced his fame as a Hollywood name worthy of dropping, the more he moved from his ludic, sonically inventive early work to a sense of darkness and bombast that never quite suited him to what can only be described as hackwork in films like A Civil Action, Proof of Life and Red Dragon. The sad thing is, it was not always thus: Elfman got his start composing music for the films of his friend, fan and frequent collaborator, the director Tim Burton -- and the early work they produced together really was special. Back then, Elfman geniunely sounded like someone who might seriously change the game when it came to film scores: his utterly postmodern approach of mixing the high and the low, and his keen sense of comic and dramatic timing, which he used to blow the doors off scenes with a judicious application of musical cues, seemed to be indicators of someone who was there to do more than just collect a paycheck.

The best of Danny Elfman's early collaborations with Tim Burton was the fantastic score to Pee Wee's Big Adventure. A more perfect marriage of score and film is hard to imaging, and the opening sequence of the beloved comedy -- with Pee Wee's activities growing more and more absurd as the main theme becomes louder and louder, finally hammering away at a perfect comic crescendo -- is unforgettable. Unfortunately, the commercial release is marred by many omissions, and by being paired on a double release with Elfman's passable but unspectacular soundtrack to the Rodney Dangerfield vehicle Back to School. So, for Elfman aficianados who want to show off what the man was capable of before he started sleepwalking through his career, Beetlejuice is the default pick. Not that it's much of a step down from Pee Wee's Big Adventure; they're both showcases for his blend of acumen and absurdity, his sure comic timing, his ability to use odd percussive patterns and polyrhythms to such a listener into the scene, and his deft mixing of cartoonish exaggeration with clever and appropriate instrumentation. The ghostly conjurations of the score proved that Elfman, despite later evidence to the contrary, was capable of sounding sinister without taking himself too seriously, and its magical mixture of catchy melodic elements and almost avant-garde experimental sounds makes it a collection of music worth listening to even outside of the context of the movie -- the true test of any great score. Beetlejuice is the pinnacle of Elfman's work with Tim Burton, for good and for ill: it never got any better, and it would all be downhill from there.

BEST TRACKS: The famous opening theme to Beetlejuice is a perfect example of what Danny Elfman is capable of when he's not just out to make a buck. Its clever folding of Harry Belafonte's "The Banana Boat Song" into what becomes a whirling, sinister piece of music is funny and unexpected, and the rest of the piece plays out with excellent and energetic stings over a rapid-fire death train of increasing tempos. "Travel Music", with its conjuration of 1950s-style on-the-road dynamics and its simple innocence twisted by its underlying nastiness, works very well, as does the hilarious muzak-from-beyond-the-grave of "The Flier/Lydia's Pep Talk". The eerie "Incantation", with its high-strung percussion that blasts out into an explosion of creepy vocal cues, haunted-house organ and propulsive horns, nicely rounds out the score.

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Screengrab Movie Vacations #4: The Wheel Inn, Cabazon, CA

Andrew Osborne — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Back in the day, I used to spend a lot of time “commuting” the 20-hour back and forth haul from stinky ol’ Los Angeles to the Happiest Place On Earth, a.k.a. Austin, Texas, in an attempt to live somewhere I actually liked while attempting to maintain some semblance of a screenwriting career with all the necessary Hollywood schmoozing and whatnot.

Anyway, during one of those sleep-deprived, turkey-jerky-fueled jaunts along the good ol’ I-10 West, I happened to glance out the passenger window of my beloved hatchback Honda CRX and notice a very familiar pair of dinosaurs looming on the desert plains.

After slapping myself to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating from gas fumes and Diet Coke intoxication, I realized I was staring at the very spot where Pee-Wee Herman pitched woo to the Francophile truck stop waitress Simone (just before getting chased around the feet of a life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex by Simone’s jealous, Bluto-esque boyfriend Andy in Tim Burton’s 1985 breakthrough classic, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

According to Wikipedia, the dinosaurs (Mr. Rex, the aforementioned T-Rex, and Dinny, who used to be a brontosaurus until scientists changed the name to Apatosaurus in tribute to the hilarious films of Judd Apatow) were created by a Knott’s Berry Farm employee named Claude K. Bell to draw attention to the Wheel Inn Café (50900 Seminole Drive, Cabazon, CA), which opened in 1958.

Distressingly, Wikipedia also informs me Dinny’s interior “has been recently turned into a creationist museum promoting intelligent design theory,” so depending on your political beliefs, you might want to skip the $5.00 “dino burger” at the neighboring diner and save your money instead for the more liberal-friendly House of Waffles & Abortion further down the highway. But if you happen to find yourself on the Interstate 10, roughly 90 miles east of L.A., the Cabazon Dinosaurs will be waiting to offer an authentic slice of roadside Americana (and, uh, challenge your views on that whole elitist “scientific method” thing).

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When Good Directors Go Bad: Planet of the Apes (2001, Tim Burton)

Paul Clark — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Of the marquee filmmakers currently working in Hollywood, Tim Burton’s style is one of the most recognizable. A former animator turned filmmaker, Burton imbues his best films with a look inspired by old-school horror films and classic cartoons, while reflecting a deep affection for outsiders. While Burton’s first two features, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, won the director a cult following, it wasn’t until his third that he applied his style to a blockbuster. With 1989’s Batman, Burton demonstrated that he could apply his Gothic visuals to a big-budget franchise in a way that translated into box-office gold.

Aside from the sequel Batman Returns, Burton’s 1990s output didn’t meet with the same fiscal success, but he nonetheless became a fan favorite, and despite the public’s habitual hostility to sequels, there was a lot of anticipation toward 2001’s Burton-directed “re-imagining” of the science-fiction classic Planet of the Apes. However, much of this excitement dissipated upon the film’s release. Aside from a few supporting performances and the state-of-the-art makeup work by Rick Baker, the general consensus was that the movie was a bloated mess. Worst of all, Burton fans saw the movie as strictly a paycheck job, a cash-grab blockbuster from the director they loved. Watching the movie recently, I found it somewhat more interesting than I did on its original release, but it’s still not very good.

One of the problems is that the ape characters are far more interesting than the humans. A great deal of attention is lavished on the apes, not only in terms of the makeup, but also characterization-wise. Each ape is given a distinct and easily-defined personality, be it the ambitious General Thade (Tim Roth), the slimy “human cargo” dealer Limbo (Paul Giamatti), or the human-rights crusader Ari (Helena Bonham Carter). They’re not especially complex, but they’re fun to watch. By contrast, from square-jawed hero Capt. Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) on down, the human characters are bland and unmemorable.

For a while, it feels like the film is attempting something subversive, by placing the audience’s sympathies with the apes to make them ponder their treatment of “lesser” species. However, it eventually becomes clear that Burton is painting the humans as the “outsider” characters. This might have worked had the movie given us any reason to care about the human characters, but it never does, aside from the fact that the audience will be almost invariably comprised of humans rather than apes. As a result, the film is at cross-purposes- the humans are meant to be the good guys, but the apes are far more entertaining.

Most compelling of all is Ari, who ends up torn between her nature as a chimpanzee and her desire to help humans receive “separate but equal” treatment. At one point, the film sets up a quasi-love triangle between Ari, Davidson, and loincloth-clad human Daena (Estella Warren)- a development that becomes all the more fascinating since Ari is far more appealing than Daena, ape status notwithstanding. Unfortunately, the film shies away from the possibilities of inter-species romance, and after Ari’s advances are thwarted, she attempts to appeal to Thade, who casts her out once and for all. Because she is forcefully banished from the apes, Ari’s character loses quite a bit of thematic interest that she might have kept had she freely chosen to take the humans’ side.

Most surprisingly, Planet of the Apes was Burton’s most visually uninspired film to date. Despite the inventive makeup and creative set design from longtime Burton associate Rick Heinrichs, the images in the film are largely forgettable. Part of the problem was the relatively flat studio lighting, which gave audiences ample opportunity to savor Baker’s and Heinrichs’ work but which bore little resemblance to the trademark “Burton look” of films like Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and Sleepy Hollow. Certain shots bear the Burton stamp, but for the most part the film could just as easily have been made by an anonymous studio director instead of one of the Hollywood’s most inimitable stylists.

Then there’s the ending. Burton’s Planet of the Apes took a lot of flack at the time for its finale, which confused many audience members while annoying others. Upon further review, I sort of like it, not least for how it appropriates the ending of Pierre Boulle’s original novel. However, it couldn’t possibly live up to the final scene in the original film, which was audacious in both its simplicity and its allegorical implications. By comparison, the “new” ending came off as a case of the filmmakers trying too hard to outdo the classic version. In a way, this is reflective of the whole film- despite the best efforts of the filmmakers to outshine the original Planet of the Apes, the inspiration just isn’t there.

Bullitt: The Greatest Car Chase Ever Google Mapped

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The high-speed automotive pursuit from 1968’s Steve McQueen vehicle Bullitt has long been regarded one of the three greatest car chases in movie history, along with The French Connection and, of course, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. But you’ve probably never heard anyone describe it as the most accurate car chase ever filmed. Mention the scene to anyone from San Francisco and they’ll jump at the chance to explain in excruciating detail how the chase defies the laws of space and time.

Now you can see it for yourself. Some enterprising soul, using intel gathered from Ray Smith’s comprehensive account of the chase, has detailed every impossible twist and turn on Google Maps. If you were already impressed with McQueen’s driving skills, wait until you get a load of this. Impressive as it is, though, what we’d really like to see is the Google Maps version of The Cannonball Run.

While we’re waiting for that, here’s the scene from Bullitt. See if your newfound knowledge of the inaccuracies detracts from your enjoyment.