Film Talk: A Look at Madcap Comedy

Time for another Film Talk. This time it is about madcap comedy. I will be going over the history of it and comedians and movies that made it famous. Time to start.

Comical Genius: There are many great comedians who are famous for madcap comedy: The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, The Marx Brothers and so on and so forth. But I am not familiar with all of them. So I will talk about the ones I am most familiar with.





The Marx Bothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo Marx have made some great comedies, like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera. They all had different styles of comedy: Groucho used snappy one liners, Chico used trickery (and a fake Italian accent), Harpo used slapstick, and Zeppo was the straight man who played off the others' wacky personalities. All making a perfect comedy team.





Abbott and Costello: About and Costello are hilarious. Abbott is the smart trickster and Costello has no idea what Abbott is up to. Their best work is their crossovers with the classic horror movie monsters and their famous Who's on First routine. By the way, in the monster movies did you know that sometimes they got the original actor to play the monster (like Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr)?


It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World: This one is great. A cross country madcap race to find buried treasure. That is awesome. The slapstick is all perfectly timed. It has one of the funniest climaxes ever. Not to mention cameos from Don Knots, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, The Three Stooges, and many more.


Buster Keaton: One of the best silent movie actors next to Charlie Chaplin. His best work is probably The General. He does some very impressive stunts. If his movies where made nowadays the stunts would probably be done with computers.








Charlie Chaplin: His comedy is hilarious. He is a master of slapstick. In fact, one time I actually paused the video because I was laughing so hard. His best work is probably The Kid.







This has been Film Talk. Hope you like it. All these people are funny. Sorry if I left out any of your favorite comedians. Next I am reviewing The Princess Bride.

 CLOWN FORMAL ATTIRE

Knight Rusty

Hello Welcome to my final review for Kids Tiff international film festival. All these movies played at the Tiff Bell Lightbox (April 8 to 21). Anyway let us start. By the way if I credit the wrong people for voicing the characters I am sorry (the copy I got was dubbed but on IMDB all the character names were in German).

This movie takes place in a world of scrap metal robots; we meet our main character Rusty (Rick Havanan). He lives with a dragon named Coal  (Dustin Semmelrogge) and a human named Bo (Carolin Kebekus). Rusty dreams of being a big shot knight. But his horse's engine breaks down so he "borrows" a cog from Bo's sewing machine. Now here is one of the problems with this movie, Rusty only cares  about himself. Anyway Rusty accidently breaks the engine. So he buys an engine from a man named Honest Bob. He wins the tournament but it turns out that the engine was stolen from Prince Nobel (Christoph Maria Herbst). So The king deknights (is that a word?) Rusty.

Rusty loses his castle and Bo leaves him. Bo goes to live with Prince Nobel and she likes it there. But Rusty is on the road. The next day Rusty finds Honest Bob and takes the sewing machine from him and the police arrest Honest Bob. So Rusty gives the sewing machine back to Bo but he breaks it again. Bo get's angry at him so he goes to the king. The king tells him that if he brings back a dragons head he will be a knight again. So Rusty realizes that Coal is a dragon and decides to chop his head off. He wants to decapitate his only friend?! No no no no I am out of here.

ONE HOUR LATER

So (fortunately) he decides not to decapitate Coal and instead goes to a cave where a dragon hangs out. They make it to the cave and ride on a mine cart to the dragons lair. Meanwhile Bo finds out that Prince Nobel wants to destroy all the scrap in Scapland and replace it with new stuff and of course marry Bo. You know because that's what all evil princes do. So Rusty gets the dragons head but the head is still alive. You Know Because it's a kids film. Bo escapes through a secret passageway full of other princesses that Prince Nobel used to love. Rusty shows the king the dragons head but it is too late Prince Nobel takes over the kingdom.



          ***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***


It looks like it is all over and Prince Nobel is about to marry Bo. But Rusty realizes he has friends. Wait no he doesn't. He  ruined and than sold Bo's prize possession and tried to decapitate Coal. Why does he have friends? Oh forget it let's just get to the end.
So they have a battle and the former princesses beat the guards up with frying pans and rolling pins (oh you have to be kidding me). So we have a final battle the pince is defeated and everyone lives happily ever after. The End.

                                          ***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***


This is the only TIFF movie (that I have seen) that I didn't like. All the characters are annoying, stereotypes, or annoying stereotypes. Throughout the whole movie Rusty only thinks about himself. Also the rules of the world they live in are very inconsistent. For example everyonething is either robot or half robot. But Bo and the other princesses are human and the sewing machine is just a normal sewing machine. Also, why do they keep calling Bo "damsel" throughout the whole movie? And the whole rejected Princesses with their rolling pin revenge? It is so sexist. The animation is nice I guess it's not on quality of say Pixar Animation Studios but it had it's own style and pizzazz. Overall I think I could of reviewed a much better movie. It has been fun being a reviewer for TIFF. See you next time.

MIME SPEECHES

The Easter Parade

I promised it and here it is, my review of The Easter Parade. So let's get down to business. This is The Easter Parade. Oh, and by the way, I didn't have enough time to make a cartoon.










We start in the year 1912 where we see a Broadway performer named Don Hewes (Fred Astaire) doing some easter shopping. After an awesome musical number, Don goes home to his dancing partner Nadine Hale (Ann Miller). But Nadine says that she is quitting his act because she got a better offer. So on hearing this news he does the first sensible thing anyone would do, go to a pub. At the pub he has a talk with the bartender Mike (Clinton Sundberg). Don tells him that he can train anyone to replace Nadine. So he asks one of the performers at the bar named Hannah Brown (Judy Garland) to come to his dance studio the next day. But in the morning Don is starting to think that he is in over his head.

Nadine

Hannah and Don walk through The Easter Parade and discuss their act. After a few rehearsals they are ready for their first performance. It goes okay. That night Nadine, Don,  and Don's friend Johnny (Peter Lawford) go out for dinner. While having dinner Nadine complains that Don is just having Hannah mimic her. This gives Don an idea. The next day it rains like crazy and Hannah meets Johnny. Johnny falls in love with Hannah and they sing the song "A Fella With An Umbrella". When Hannah gets to rehearsal Don tells her just to be herself when performing. This goes well and everybody loves them. Eventually they audition for Ziegfeld Follies. But when Don finds out that Nadine is the main star he turns down the deal and tells Hannah that Nadine doesn't deserve to be in the same show as her. But when Don hears that the show was a big success he get's a bit upset. So he get's someone to build a show around them.

           ***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

So it is the night of their big show. They perform some musical numbers and then their finale, the song "A Couple of Swells" (which is probably the funniest song in the movie). After the show they have dinner on the rooftop and it turns out that Nadine is performing. Nadine takes this chance to get Don away from Hannah. Which works, and Hannah gets upset and goes home. Don goes to Hannah's apartment and tells her that he will stay there all night...until he is kicked out by the house detective. The next day Hannah tells Johnny about the misunderstanding. Johnny tells Hannah to tell Don that she loves him. She does and Don loves her back and takes her to The Easter Parade. The End.


                                    ***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***


This is another great movie. Fred Astaire and Judy Garland are great singers and dancers. The Songs are very memorable. The costume design is very nice as well. The only problem I have is that the title is misleading. The movie has very little to do with Easter. But that isn't too big of a deal. Check this movie out some time, it's pretty good.

The Cat in the Hat

So since it is close to Easter I was going to review The Easter Parade. But I ran out of time so I am reviewing The Cat in the Hat. It is based on a book of the same name by Dr. Seuss. I recommend the book, it's pretty good. But is the movie just as good? Lets find out.

We start in the city of Anville (get it? It's a pun) where we see a woman named Joan Walden (Kelly Preston) working at a hand sanitizer factory. Her boss tells her that she is hosting the company office party at her house so she needs to keep it as clean as possible. Back at her house we meet her children, Sally (Dakota Fanning) and Conrad (Spencer Breslin). Conrad is a trouble maker and sally is a control freak. Joan leaves to go to the store and hires a stereotype to baby sit. The babysitter falls asleep but then The "Cat" in the Hat (Mike Myers) shows up. If you're wondering why I put the word cat in quotation marks, it is because he looks more like Ronald McDonald if he got fur glued to him. Which is pretty scary. After he shows up...stuff happens...nothing important, just stuff.

He gets the children to sign a contract of fun and he films an infomercial. But then he sings a horrible song, and after it ends he ruins Conrad and Sally's mother's dress. So to clean it he opens a box and Thing one and Thing two (both played by Dan Castellaneta) come out. You know how I said the cat was terrifying: well, they are even worse. They look like psychotic humanoid hippos. All they do is wreck the house. Conrad unlocks the box that the things came in. But the lock attaches itself to the family dog and it escapes out the window. So the kids, The Cat, and the things go after it in the cats crazy car. But their  neighbor chases after them.


         ***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

They get the dog and hide  from the neighbor inside a kiosk where a party is going on (no comment). Once they make it home it turns out that the power of the box has transformed the house into a Dr. Seuss wonderland. Then they say a line that is just unforgivable. It goes like this: Conrad: "This is just like an amusement park." The Cat: "You Mean like at (turns to camera) Universal Studios. (winks)"...The Cat just directly advertised Universal Studios. Do I need to say what is wrong with that? Anyway they close the box. But the house is still a mess. But luckily, The Cat cleans it up. Joan gets home, the party is a success and The Cat goes on his jolly way. The End.



                                         ***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***


This movie is awful. It totally disrespects the book and Dr. Seuss. There is no plot, it's just random stuff happening that the writers hope you think is funny. There is a lot of unnecessary stuff like the fish is pointlessly added and the neighbour has a really big role and so much other pointless stuff. None of the jokes are funny. Mike Myers doesn't portray The Cat as a fun loving eccentric cat. He portrays him as a manipulative cat that will do anything to have things go his way. The only good thing about it is that the set design is very nice. But that is not enough to save this movie. The Cat in the Hat (book) isn't a masterpiece but it does have a lot of heart and its own unique charm. But this is just plain....I can't even think of words to describe how awful this movie is.. This movie is so bad that Dr. Seuss's widow, Audrey Geisel, forbids anymore live action adaptations of her husband's work. Every other adaptation of Dr. Seuss's work is a better representation of him. My final statement is this: avoid this movie at all costs. Next time I am reviewing The Easter Parade, I promise.

JENERAL JITTERY: THE JITTERYIST JENRAL IN ALL OF JITTERSBERG