The Screengrab : the party

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

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:30:00 GMT

NICOLAS CAGE AS H.I. MCDUNNOUGH IN RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

The Coen brothers have turned out some truly amazing fools over time (Ulysses Everett McGill from O Brother, Where Are Thou? is a standout), but their first full-fisted idiot, H.I. McDunnough from Raising Arizona, was their best. As the above chase sequence shows, H.I. lives in a world of blasé, gun-happy morons who easily compartmentalize the absurdity of their lives. It's cartoonish in the best way, like a live-action Merrie Melody that features lots and lots of guns and ammo and bizarre double-crossing and for some reason all the men resemble Elmer Fudd. One of the nicest touches is that the baby Nathan Jr. generally has a pacifying effect on the idiotic adults around him: H.I.'s prison buddies Gale and Evelle Snoats, the nightmarish Leonard Smalls, and even Nathan Arizona, Sr., who shows no propensity towards compassion until his baby boy comes back to him. It's ultimately a sweet movie about fools who can make a better world for themselves. Because if there's one thing that is true in every movie directed by the Coen brothers, it's that everyone in the world fools themselves and plays the idiot, and somehow, by the grace of luck and sheer numbers, the human race keeps creeping forward for better or for worse. We're all the punchlines in an elaborate joke, so we have to find some way of enjoying it. That's a very particular type of existential gallows humor, but it's my favorite type. (HC)

PETER O'TOOLE AS ALAN SWAN IN MY FAVORITE YEAR (1982)

Flipping out and in the throes of an attack of stage fright, Alan Swan declares, "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!" Both terms seem inadequate for whatever the hell he really is. Broken down, bankrupt, and alcoholic, Swan is both a coward who plays heroes and a universal object of adoration who despises himself; he works as hard as he does to live up to people's romantic image of him because he's always disappointed in himself, and he'd hate to have other people feel as bad about how pathetic he is as he does himself. The paradox is that the effort to conceal what a wreck he is really does make him a romantic hero. To see this performance when you're young is to be filled with the desire to be middle-aged and dissolute as quickly as possible, so that you can be worth a damn. (PN)

ANTONIO FARGAS AS THE ARAB IN PUTNEY SWOPE (1969)

Robert Downey, Sr.'s feature-length put-on about a subversively "honest" advertising agency is all over the place, but it has one strong center of focus in Fargas, playing a character so far-out that nobody had the guts to name him: ranting at top speed and top volume in a burnoose, he's just called "the Arab." Everybody in the movie is out for himself, but Fargas is the one who manages to make this seem not just hip but enlightened. Brandishing his cane and alternating haranguing people and reaching out to them by telling them how impressed he is that they have the sense to see things his way, he's funny, threatening, insane, philosophical, and irresistible, all at the same time. If you've ever wondered just what the hell it is that Flavor Flav thinks he's doing, here's what it looks like when somebody actually pulls it off. (PN)

PETER SELLERS AS HRUNDI V. BAKSHI IN THE PARTY (1968)

Of all the subtly anti-establishment movies to come out of Hollywood in the late '60s and early '70s, The Party may be one of the best. Why wouldn't you want to watch film extra Hrundi V. Bakshi (Peter Sellers — in brown-face no less *ahem*) methodically fuck up the glitzy party of a Bizniz hot shot. (With nothing but the best of intentions, of course.) Hrundi ensures that the party becomes infinitely better than it ever would have uninterrupted. By the end of it all, the face-lifted fat-deprived Hollywood wives are dancing with abandon amidst soap suds gone amok while the maid who demurely opened the door in the first scene gets down to the band. Let the revolution begin. (SCS)

ZERO MOSTEL AS MAX BIALYSTOCK IN THE PRODUCERS (1968)

Generally speaking, the best comic performances have at least some element of subtlety to them. When all you have is shouting and playing to the balcony, like as not, you come off as obnoxious instead of funny. Zero Mostel’s gargantuan overacting as failing show producer Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’ debut feature puts that generality to its most severe test. From the first moment we see him, putting on outrageous airs to seduce the rich widows who finance his rapidly decaying lifestyle, he’s so far over the top that he’s coming back at it from beneath. When he hatches a scheme to make millions by luring investors to a play (Springtime for Hitler) that he knows will be a flop, he essentially terrorizes nervous accountant Leo Bloom (played by a fragile Gene Wilder) into going along with it – and when Leo isn’t being intimidated by Max’s bellicose bellowing, he’s being seduced by his insanely unrealistic lust for life. Mostel and Brooks apparently didn’t get along well during filming (possibly because they shared a similarly vulgar and explosive sense of showmanship, and there wasn’t room enough on the set for two such rampaging egos), but Brooks didn’t dare fire him – he knew he’d caught pure comedic lightning when he saw what Mostel was capable of. Brooks’ script has such great one-liners that almost anyone could make them funny, but Mostel’s Hindenburg-going-down style lent genius even to shouted throwaway lines like “I’m wearing a cardboard belt!” (LP)

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

Contributors: Hayden Childs, Phil Nugent, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Leonard Pierce

Take Five: Gotta Get A Guru

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:55:00 GMT

Mike Myers' not-so-glorious return to the big screen, The Love Guru -- also known as Austin Powers IV and Verne Troyer's Pleading E-Mails Finally Pay Off -- opens everywhere today, and critics couldn't be more disappointed. Not only is it reported to be low on laughs, it's also being criticized as being high on stereotypes; despite his alleged friend and idol Deepak Chopra coming to his aid, Myers has been attacked for his stereotyping of Asian Indians and his portrayal of a cartoonish, caricatured guru. But let's face it: Hollywood has always loved its gurus, spiritual masters, and wise old mystics from the subcontinent. Hardly had the Beatles falled under the influence of the Maharishi than Hollywood followed suit; here's a look at some of the more memorable wise men of the East that the movie business has given us.

THE LOVED ONE (1965)

One of the few countercultural satires from the 1960s to hold up in the modern era, Tony Richardson's The Loved One holds up for two reasons: first, it was based on an Evelyn Waugh novel from nearly two decades prior and isn't quite as tarred, as a result, by the hippie-dippie vibe of its time; and second, it's got an impeccable crew behind the camera, from Richardson to cinematographer Haskell Wexler to skilled, hip screenwriters Christopher Isherwood and Terry Southern. This satire of capitalism run amok in the funereal industry crams so many jokes into its two-hour running time that it's almost impossible to keep up with them all, but make sure you don't miss gravel-throated character actor Lionel Stander as the Guru Brahmin, one of the first-ever big-screen gurus -- and one of the first to be portrayed as a bumbling fraud.

CANDY (1968)

This big-screen adaptation of the Mason Hoffenberg novel (actually the infamous Terry Southern writing under a pseudonym) is generally regarded as a major failure. It's not that there weren't talented people involved -- besides Southern himself, and his co-writer Buck Henry, the cast is crammed with fine actors -- but the entire film seems to go off the rails from the very start. That doesn't mean, though, that there aren't plenty of bizarre treats for those with the energy to sit through it. This updating of Voltaire's Candide is purely Southern in the sense that authority figures are always portrayed as phony, venal, and couching some grotesque habits or appetites. In this instance, we're treated to the the sight of the monstrour Grindl -- a sex-crazed Hindu guru played by an overheated Marlon Brando -- putting the poor, put-upon Candy in yet another compromising position.

THE PARTY (1968)

All right, so technically, Peter Sellers' Hrundi V. Bakshi ("That is what my name is called") in the Blake Edwards farce The Party isn't a guru. (That title more rightly belongs to Chauncey Gardiner, the character played by Sellers in 1979's Being There.) But he is Indian, sort of, and he does speak in Hindi platitudes that those around him mistake for pearls of inscrutable eastern wisdom. For example, when asked who he thinks he is, he responds, "In India, we do not think who we are. We know who we are." Whoa, heavy. The rest of the movie is pretty much straight-up Blake Edwards comic fare, and it falls flat on the stereotypes at times, but a few scenes are still paralytically funny forty years later, especially when a stoned Bakshi comes across a parakeet cage and solemnly intones the name of the birdseed: "Birdy Num Num."

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)

In this stunning, surreal, and nearly incomprehensible masterpiece by ultimate provocatuer Alejandro Jodorowsky, the guru is Horacio Salinas, a Christlike thief who is half savior and half mountebank. Under the tutelage of the Alchemist, a mysterious figure played by Jodorowsky himself, he and his gang of mystical banditos -- each named for a different celestial body -- plan nothing less than an assault on Heaven, where they will depose the reigning gods and take their places. Visually, this is exactly the sort of film people talk about when they talk about crazy European art films: it's bewildering, deliberately offensive, totally impenetrable, and weird for the sake of being weird. It's also absolutely brilliant, and Jodorowsky -- who's the real guru here -- shows us what it might be like inside the mind of the truly enlightened -- and it alternately makes us gasp at its beauty and scares the hell out of us.

HOLY SMOKE (1999)

Jane Campion's weirdest movie -- which, if you think about it, is really saying something -- features the always-engaging Kate Winslet in the role of a young woman who decides to embark on a quest for spiritual self-discovery in the Indian subcontinent. Along the way, she encounters the guru Chiddaatman Baba (played by Dhritiman Chatterjee) and falls under his sway -- and that's just where the movie begins. From there, she is confronted by Harvey Keitel as a deprogrammer -- sorry, "cult exiter" -- hired by her family to get her back, and discovers that he's not without his own guru-like tendencies. A battle of wills, intellects and bodies ensue over the terrain of feminism, spirituality and sexuality, and the movie degenerates into a bit of a chaotic mess, but it's at least a glorious mess with two terrific actors like Keitel and Winslet at the fore.

Trailer Review: The Love Guru

Paul Clark — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Earlier this week, I wrote about the trailer for Step Brothers, the latest comedy from the inconsistent but prolific Will Ferrell. By comparison, Mike Myers only makes a new film every few years — excepting voiceover work in Shrek movies, The Love Guru is his first starring vehicle since (uh oh) 2003's The Cat in the Hat. Given how much time Myers has had to develop this movie, you'd think it would look pretty funny, but alas, you'd be wrong. In this dire Indian-flavored comedy, Myers stars as the guru Pitka, an internationally-famous holy man who comes off like a cross between the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Hrundi V. Bakshi, the Peter Sellers character from The Party, though less serene than Sexy Sadie and not as funny as Mr. Birdy Num-Num. Whether he's engaging in labored physical comedy with a little person or trading quips with sworn enemy of funny Jessica Alba, it's clear that Myers has become a shade of his formerly hilarious self. Sadly, we're now stuck with the Mike Myers who never met a gag he wouldn't repeat half a dozen times, rather than the young tyro who had us (or me, anyway) gasping with his Scots rendition of "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy." It's a shame, really. I miss that guy.