The Screengrab : rat race

Unwatchable #36: “Daddy Day Camp”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Or is he? Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

I’ve got good news and bad news, Unwatchable fans. The bad news you probably already know. There’s no way I’m going to be able to complete my march to the top of the IMDb Bottom 100 list before the Screengrab shuffles off this mortal coil. The good news is that, despite this devastating setback, I am determined to complete the Unwatchable project one way or another.

Wait – that’s the good news? Well, it may not be good news for me or my psyche, but I’d hate to leave you all hanging. I’m searching for a new home for Unwatchable (make me an offer!), so be sure to check my blog frequently for updates.

There’s no time for eulogies just yet, however! Unless we’re talking about eulogies for Cuba Gooding’s career. Perhaps you dimly recall Daddy Day Care, one of Eddie Murphy’s more insipid family-friendly vehicle of recent vintage. Murphy opted out of the sequel – probably to make Norbit or Meet Dave or some other ungodly piece of shit – and the producers were left to rack their brains for a replacement. Could they possibly find an even more shameless, milquetoast, edgy-as-a-marshmallow African-American actor than Murphy has become over the past fifteen years? Who better than the star of Snow Dogs, Rat Race and Boat Trip – yes, none other than Radio himself, Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Gooding reprises Murphy’s role of affable dad Charlie Hinton, while some random fat white guy takes over for Jeff Garlin in the role of Charlie’s fat white guy friend, Phil. Having achieved tremendous success as the owners of Daddy Dad Care, Charlie and Phil face a new challenge when they take over the rundown summer camp they attended as youths. Camp Driftwood is facing foreclosure thanks to the popularity of the upscale camp across the lake, Camp Canola, run by Charlie’s childhood tormenter, Lance Warner (Lochlyn Munro).

Once the kids arrive at camp, we’re treated to two of the highest forms of humor: adorable tots who all speak like Catskills comedians, and emissions both gaseous and tangible emitting with increasing frequency from every bodily orifice. There’s a recreation of the famous Blazing Saddles campfire scene, except with belching instead of farting. But don’t worry – there’s also farting! Also vomiting, pooping, nut-punching and balloons filled with piss. All the classics! Gooding brings his usual dignity to the proceedings, which means his face is perpetually plastered with the same expression my dog sports whenever he’s left a special present hidden somewhere in the house. Speaking of which:

Previously on Unwatchable:
37. Bad Girls from Valley High
38. Chairman of the Board
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2

Taxing Time: A Screengrab Salute To Beat The Clock Cinema (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:30:00 GMT

IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) & RAT RACE (2001)

I can’t say for sure whether I’ve ever watched It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World all the way from beginning to end in one uninterrupted sitting, but I’ve definitely seen every part of the movie numerous times: mostly during lazy Sundays as a kid, when Stanley Kramer’s three-hour, star-studded tale of random strangers racing for treasure played (thanks to endless commercial breaks) like an all-day Laff-Olympics, featuring generations of comedy all-stars ranging from Buster Keaton to Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by the 1963 edition of the Three Stooges (with Joe DeRita on drums). More than a few strands of Mad, Mad’s chaotic, uneven DNA wound up in the seminal fluids of the far less epic (and epochal) yet funnier than expected Rat Race, featuring another group of random celebrity strangers (including John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Seth Green, Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Whoopi Goldberg, Dave Thomas, Amy Smart, Breckin Meyer and Cuba Gooding, Jr.) involved in another episodic race against time for treasure...but this time, with original songs by the Baha Men! (AO)

BREWSTER'S MILLIONS (1985)

Walter Hill’s Brewster’s Millions was the seventh big-screen adaptation of George Barr McCutcheon’s 1902 novel and, thanks to the participation of headliner Richard Pryor and co-star John Candy, it remains the most well-known and popular. Taking its basic narrative cue from prior versions, Pryor plays a washed-up minor league pitcher who discovers that he’s the sole remaining heir of a long-lost kooky relative who, from beyond the grave, offers him a stunning deal: if he can spend $30 million in 30 days, he’ll inherit $300 million. It’s a too-good-to-be-true offer that, of course, proves more troublesome than it initially seems, as Pryor’s nobody finds it increasingly difficult to successfully relieve himself of so much money, a predicament from which Hill squeezes mild laughs as well as a predictable money’s-not-everything moral. Pryor’s dynamically profane humor is blunted by the proceedings’ safe PG conventionality, and the film is far less funny than Hill’s prior 48 Hours. Yet in Brewster’s Millions’ defense, its time-tested conceit still manages, over a century after its initial birth, to effectively ignite the imagination. (NS)

JUGGERNAUT (1974)

Richard Lester's there's-a-bomb-on-this-ship thriller brings class and wit to the disaster genre. The plot involves a demolitions wizard who secrets a collection of big-ass bombs on Skipper Omar Sharif's cruise ship, which are set to go off unless he's handed a wad of extortion money. While Lester scans the landscape for signs of the throwaway slapstick bits and eccentric, comic character moments that were his stock in trade, Richard Harris brings it on a rocket sled as the dashing, showboating cynic leading the team of bomb defusers who are flown in and dive down to join the ship in the middle of the ocean during a very photogenic storm. After his best mate is killed, Harris takes a break to get roaring drunk and deliver his Oscar-reel speech before getting back to work. You might think that getting roaring drunk when attempting to defuse a bunch of bombs is next on your to-do list would be be ill-advised, but if you do, what part of "Richard Harris" do you not understand? (PN)

DR. STRANGELOVE, OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964)

Dr. Strangelove is beginning to rival Psycho as one of the movies we can find a reason to cram on to pretty much any list, but we couldn’t very well compile the greatest races against time without including it. After all, the stakes couldn’t be higher: if President Muffley and his advisors don’t succeed, the endgame will be the utter annihilation of life on Earth. Stanley Kubrick uses the simplest possible device to remind us of how close the world is coming to Armageddon: the little electric bulbs on the “Big Board” blink ever closer to the interior of a map of Russia. And yet, while everyone in the room knows the importance of what’s going on, no one can seem to focus on the matter at hand: General Turgidson is more concerned with being hoodwinked by the commies, Ambassador DeSadesky wants fresh fish and Cuban cigars, and the President gets into arguments with the Russian premier over who’s more sorry about this turn of events. It’s brilliant because it’s so ridiculously plausible: the end of the world is nigh, and no one can be bothered to pay attention. (LP)

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four, Five & Six...before it's too late!

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce

The 12 Greatest Movies Based on TV Shows, Part II

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:30:00 GMT

THE FUGITIVE (1993)

The Fugitive might not have been the first TV series remade for the big screen, but it was almost certainly the one that proved how bankable- and even respectable- such adaptations could be. The film took as its inspiration one of the most influential series of its day, a four-season cat-and-mouse story of an escaped, convicted killer out to clear his name. While The Fugitive remains true to the spirit of the series, director Andrew Davis and his screenwriters do so in a way that reconfigures the formula for the big screen, beginning with a famous, still-impressive bus crash. The film also benefits from placing nearly equal emphasis on the pursued Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) as it does on pursuer, U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerrard (Tommy Lee Jones, who in a rare display of Academy affection for a genre performance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar). The Fugitive also has a sense of place that’s rare for a big-budget thriller, utilizing Chicago so perfectly that the story becomes unimaginable in any other setting. But the best scenes in the film are the ones that remain truest to their television inspirations, specifically the near-miss suspense sequences in which Kimble barely manages to evade capture through a combination of luck and formidable intelligence. Of all the TV adaptations up to that time, it was The Fugitive that showed that films of this kind, when done right, could be much more than a simple grab for nostalgia-driven box office, and in doing so became more or less the standard by which big-budget TV-to-film translations are judged.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996)

Yes, really. A huge hit on its original release, Mission: Impossible was mostly dismissed by critics as a dopey Tom Cruise action movie, while being criticized by many viewers for having too much plot, not enough stuff blowing up. But a second look at the film reveals what a gripping suspense movie it really is, translating the formula of the TV series- gadgets, undercover missions, realistic masks, and the like- into the form of a summer tentpole release. Mission: Impossible contains at least three or four wonderfully tense scenes- the opening operation gone fatally wrong, the tête-à-tête at Prague’s Akvarium, that awesome Rififi-esque break-in at Langley- more than most Hollywood thrillers can claim. In addition, the film represents the most successful attempt by director Brian DePalma to fuse the silky-smooth cinema-saturated style of his most characteristic work with a big-budget blockbuster, and in the process becomes a surprisingly lean and satisfying thriller. If nothing else, Mission: Impossible deserves respect as the only film in the series to date that’s remained true to the team-centric nature of the show, with subsequent efforts becoming increasingly focused on Tom Cruise saving the world. Supporting players like Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave and Henry Czerny make such a strong impression here that it’s a shame that Cruise has become so intent on hogging the spotlight in later films in the franchise.

THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980)

Netflix, video stores and pay cable movie channels are littered with the toxic waste spew of that very special category of cinematic detritus: the SNL movie. Sure, the never-as-funny-as-it-should-be/ never-as-bad-as-its-rep Saturday Night Live has produced more than its share of legitimate comedy stars and second bananas over the years, from Chevy Chase and Bill Murray to Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. But one-dimensional SNL characters, barely tolerable in five minute doses, can be downright unbearable in full-length features (i.e., It’s Pat, A Night At the Roxbury, Coneheads, etc.). Wayne’s World is one notable exception, but to my way of thinking, The Blues Brothers is far and away the best of the SNL films (and, for the purposes of this list, one of my favorite TV-to-movie adaptations), transforming a recurring, ego-driven musical duo (whose routine and appeal I never really understood) into iconic figures in a John Landis/John Belushi/Dan Akroyd phantasmagoria that bends over backwards in its efforts to entertain: car crashes! cast-of-thousands musical numbers! more car crashes! Illinois Nazis! country and western! rhythm and blues! John Candy! Aretha Franklin! Carrie Fisher with a machine gun! (And did I mention the car crashes?) I mean, fuck! The endless, mind-boggling demolition-derby pile-up of police cars in the climactic car chase alone is worth the price of admission (take that, CGI!), but the musical numbers (by Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, et. al.) are even better, and introduced me and countless other white people to a whole bunch of talented black people we’d never fully appreciated before. And if all that weren’t enough, The Blues Brothers is endlessly quotable (“We’re on a mission from God,” “Three orange whips,” etc.) and spawned a pretty damn tasty jambalaya at the late-lamented Cambridge House of Blues...and how many movies can you say that about? True, The Blues Brothers also spawned the execrable Blues Brothers 2000...but the original, indispensable 1980 version will forever stand as the Cadillac Ranch of movies, a bizarre, fascinating, coke-fueled white elephant at the crossroads of cracked genius and howling oblivion.

HEAD (1968)

It was 1968 and the studio chiefs were very confused. There was something called “youth culture” or “the counterculture” or whatever – you know, dirty smelly hippies who wanted to see weird shit at the movies! Hopelessly out of touch, these suits had to turn to the scruffy people for help. The kids seemed to like that TV show The Monkees, so Columbia Pictures hired the show’s producer Bob Rafelson, and he teamed with that really weird Jack Nicholson dude from the Corman pictures, and they smoked a bunch of weed and they came up with Head. Surreal, satirical, self-referential, psychedelic and pretty much plotless, the movie bore little resemblance to the kiddie show that spawned it and failed at the box office. In retrospect, it never had a chance; the heads wouldn’t be caught dead seeing a Monkees movie and the young fans of the show wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it. But there’s enough inspired weirdness, bizarre cameos (Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Victor Mature and Sonny Liston) and good music (notably the Michael Nesmith-composed “Circle Sky”) to make it a worthy cult object, if not a great movie.

THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! (1988)

The Naked Gun has very little competition as the least likely TV-to-movie transition of all time. It’s derived from a series that only yours truly and four other people watched, one that lasted six episodes and went off the air six years before the movie reached theaters. But Police Squad! had a pedigree; the Airplane! team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker created it, star Leslie Nielsen was nominated for an Emmy for his deadpan turn as Lt. Frank Drebin, and the show became a cult favorite through reruns and home video. Even so, The Naked Gun was an unexpected smash hit, spawning two lousy sequels and an entire craptacular genre of Leslie Nielsen parodies. Don’t hold those sins against it, though. The Naked Gun is a well-oiled laugh machine – from the slapstick stylings of the always hilarious O.J. Simpson to the climactic baseball game honored in an earlier Screengrab list, it’s like a MAD magazine come to life, complete with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it marginalia crammed into every corner of the screen. It’s really the last time Nielsen was ever funny, and that goes triple for the ZAZ triumvirate, who have separately and together foisted the likes of Brain Donors, Rat Race and Scary Movie 4 on their once loyal fans.

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

The second and final season of Twin Peaks ended in a flurry of bizarre cliffhangers, so when rumors of a movie began to circulate, those few of us who were still watching shared a brief moment of hope that at least some resolution would be forthcoming. Then we heard that Fire Walk with Me would be a prequel covering the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life and, well, so much for that idea. Presumably the reasoning was that a reboot of the story would draw in a larger audience than a continuation, or at least that’s how we imagine David Lynch explained it to the suits at New Line. It’s a safe bet that 99% of any potential new audience fled the theater within the movie’s first 30 minutes, set in a deliberately alienating bizarro Twin Peaks called Deer Meadow, where the cops are unfriendly, the waitresses are hags and the FBI is represented by Chris Isaak as a pale echo of Kyle MacLachlan’s Special Agent Dale Cooper. (MacLachlan makes only fleeting appearances in the movie, unaware that his career is Showgirls-bound.) But those who left early missed out on one of Lynch’s most intense and emotionally charged fever dreams. Stripped of the quirky humor that had soured into tiresome shtick long before the series ended, Fire Walk with Me unwraps Laura Palmer from her plastic for a one-of-a-kind descent into hell. Sheryl Lee burns through the screen in a shoulda-been star-making performance and Lynch cooks up some of his most indelible set pieces, most notably the subtitled “Pink Room” sequence set in what appears to be Satan’s roadhouse. Just don’t ask us about the David Bowie cameo.

- Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak

READ PART I