Spaceballs

Spaceballs

MGM etc.

June 24, 1987

Sci-Fi, Parody
DVD
B-

I'd of course heard of this movie since the time, and had several of the jokes spoiled, but I never actually sat down and watched it before.  Like most Mel Brooks movies, it's uneven, but on balance it's funny and amiable, especially the much missed John Candy as a mog (man-dog).  The very '80s music, (including the title song) aside, the movie doesn't feel as dated as it should, with even jokes about Rambo and early-release VHS (and key-cards!) still accessible, at least to someone my age and over.  I've tagged everybody I could.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Paramount

November 25, 1987

Comedy

DVD
C

For almost thirty-five years I kind of wanted to see this movie and now I have.  I gave it 25 minutes, but I just didn't like either character, or find the story funny enough to continue.  John Hughes wrote and directed.

Canadian Bacon

Canadian Bacon
MGM
September 22, 1995
Satire
DVD
C+

Michael Moore directed, produced, wrote, and Hitchcock-cameos as Redneck Guy #2 in this dizzyingly dated and sporadically funny non-documentary.  Remember, this is pre-Wag the Dog and pre-"Blame Canada" (in the South Park movie), and it is very much pre-9/11, so that the president (Alda)'s search for someone new to have a "cold war" with is, well, chilling.  As an over-the-top comedy, sort of Dr. Strangelove with (more obvious) dick jokes, it sometimes works, even if I was mostly amused by relatively benign stereotypes like Canadians being overly polite.  And it was of course fun to see what familiar faces popped up in what felt like a low-budget film.  (It cost $11 million and made $178,104!)

Some in the cast are so typecast that I thought things like "Oh, look, he's Alan-Aldaing" (and I like Alda), but then you get the delicious irony of making one of America's favorite Canadian actors (the dead-before-this-movie-could-be-released John Candy) as a simple-minded but oddly good-hearted (and romantic) American sheriff.  I actually thought there would be more of the Perlman & Candy relationship, but her character being "held hostage" obviously prevents that.  Unless a lot was edited out for final release, I swear I didn't notice Wallace Shawn until the Where Are They Nows at the end, but I'm tagging him anyway because of the reverse-casting of a Canadian prime minister played by someone so famously New York and New Yorker.