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I was just flipping around basic cable when I stumbled on Blue Brothers playing on TNT. A quick aside here: Is there a better channel on cable right now? I'm being serious. I don't know if you're like me, an accomplished channel surfer, but I have what I like to call a "system" for my flipping. I usually start low, with the networks. I zip up through the WB, ESPN, right until I hit UPN, then I do a big jump to Fox News, up through the Fox Sports channels, then jump all the way up to TNN. I go down a few channels, then jump down to the "power lineup" E!, TBS, and TNT, right in a row. If there's nothing on these, I start over, hoping that some commercials are ending. (I'm sorry, Mrs. Golding, but your son just isn't motivated...) Anyway, I usually end up on TNT, which has just about the greatest movie library ever assembled. They play A Few Good Men constantly, The American President at least three times a week, and pepper in some real classics. I'm no Turner fan, but they own my TV set. We're talking desert island channel. Anyway, as I said, I hit upon Blues Brothers. Being a native Chicagoan, (We need a better name for ourselves, don't we? Nothing is as good as "New Yorker," which makes the city a verb.) I tossed the remote aside. Soon, the Chez Paul scene came up, where they go into the restaurant to convince Mr. Fabulous to join the band again. They sit down at a table, and make the regular clientele sick. It's possibly the funniest scene in movie history. The bit where the waiter (Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Rubens) tells Elwood that he's holding up the wrong glass for the champagne, and Aykroyd makes that face and does the "bring it" move with the glass... it kills me every time. While I was watching this comic litmus test, it occurred to me why it works so well. It works because John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were friends. Not just friends, but good friends. Brother-from-another-mother type friends. They liked each other, and they genuinely got a kick out of one another. The bit where Elwood tosses the shrimp, seemingly over his shoulder, and they cut to Jake, and the shrimp just flies into his mouth... you can just see it. They're having a good time, enjoying a friendship based on mutual comedy. It's a shame we don't see that anymore. I know, Spade and Farley were friends, but it wasn't the same. Their relationship seemed to be based Spade laughing at Farley, not enjoying his idiotic antics. I got the sense that Spade was just waiting for better friends to come along, putting up with his behemoth pal because it was convenient. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it felt. Sandler has his stable of pals, but they're too in awe of him to give us any on-screen magic. Which brings me to last year's Rat Race. Loosely based on equal parts It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Cannonball Run, and a bet John Cleese lost, it came and went with little fanfare. The biggest compliment I heard about it was "it's not as terrible as the trailers make it look!' Perhaps not surprisingly, I didn't see it. For the most part, it was the cast that didn't appeal to me. John Clesse, Whoopi Goldberg, Seth Green, and Rowan Atkinson? Sure they're all pretty funny I guess, but come on! They don't hang out. They don't sit around, drink beer and tell lies or play pranks on each other. None of them even know each other. Compare that to IAMMMMW... Milton Berle, (One for me, one for my homie in the ground) Sid Ceasar, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers... these guys were friends. These guys had a great time on set. I can't even begin to imagine what that set must have been like. There were no complaints about the size of trailers, no "on-set clashes" about character. They were there to have fun; the movie was almost secondary. And don't even get me started on Cannonball Run. Burt Reynolds and Dom Delouise used to go on The Tonight Show together, just because they liked each other and liked Johnny. When's the last time you saw two stars, say Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz in 1997, go on the same show on the same night? Never. Because comedy isn't really about fun anymore, it's about cash. It's about the star doing a Farrelly Brothers movie, hitting the jackpot, and upping their asking price for their next film. It's about their name above the title. It's bullshit. It's the same thing that happened to Eddie Murphy. He stopped caring about being funny and started caring about being "cool." He wasn't ever goofy or poor in a film again. He was always slick, and he always got the girl. In Trading Places, there wasn't even a girl. He was a scam artist working the streets. He wasn't styled, decked out in $1200 suits. He was Billy Ray Valentine, and he was funny. Can you even begin to imagine what Trading Places would be like today? First of all, it would suck, because John Landis sucks. Is there a more palpable example of someone losing their creative edge? It just went poof! No more funny. But Eddie (who will be soon be calling himself "Edward," mark my words) would want changes. Make Billy Ray middle class, good looking, a devil with the ladies. And no more of this scam artist stuff. He's just a regular shmoe who stumbles into Louis outside the club. And would it kill the movie to have a love interest for Billy Ray? Let's see if Vivica A. Fox is available... I guess I'm getting old, longing for
something less cynical to come down the comedy pipeline. Maybe
someday, comedy will come back to me. In the meantime, I've got
TNT. Talk about this in the Forums. Go on, I dare you. |
Past Columns: It's Time to Turn in My Geek Card Academy Awards Diary A Sure-Fire Way to Pick Best Actor Future Oscar Death March Clips |