Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)

Title: Mom and Dad Save The World (1992)

Director: Greg Beeman

Writer: Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson

Cast: Jon Lovitz, Jeffrey Jones, Teri Garr, Eric Idle

Review:

I am a great admirer of the legendary English comedy troupe Monty Python, you know, the guys behind Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983), three movies I never get tired of watching. I love how their stuff seems silly, but actually talks about a lot of important themes and subject matter. If you’re a fan of the Monty Python guys like I am, then you also probably admire the films of director Terry Gilliam, who was at one point one of the Python guys, but then branched out to make films of his own. Films like Time Bandits (1981) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989). Gilliam is yet another director who mixes comedy and satire in his films, he often times criticizes societies obsession with reality and preaches on about our god given right to delight in fantasies, escapism and stories! Mom and Dad Save the World seems to come from that same ‘Pythonesque’ universe, that universe that cares not for logic or rules, but for zaniness! 

In Mom and Dad Save the World we meet Dick and Marge Nelson, two loopy parents who are about to embark on a summer vacation, just the two of them, the kids stay at home. Unfortunately for Dick and Marge, millions of miles into space, Tod Spengo, ruler of planet Spengo has fallen madly in love with Marge, whom he has spotted while scoping the galaxy for a planet to destroy. Obsessed with Marge, Spengo uses his giant magnet and pulls her and Dick through space (along with their station wagon) all the way to the edge of the universe, where planet Spengo lies. Once they get their, they meet the self proclaimed ‘Spengoans’.  Their ruler, Tod Spengo, wants Marge as his Queen and wants to kill Dick, so he can have Marge all to himself. Too bad for Tod, Dick manages to escape and unite with the rebels of planet Spengo, whom he organizes to go on a revolt against Tod and his fascist (yet moronic) empire while rescuing his wife in the process!

So this movie is all kinds of fun for me, I really don’t get why it didn’t make more money way back when it was released in 1992. For some reason this film was completed in 1990 but not released by the studio until 1992. Why? I don’t know, but if you ask me to speculate either the studio wasn’t sure the movie was going to sell, they couldn’t figure out how to market it or maybe there was a change in management in the studio, these are usually the reasons why a studio would hold back a movie like that. Maybe they just thought they had a bad film in their hands. Who knows. The film had a budget of 16 million but only made back little more than 2 million. It only played for one week in theaters! Another problem the film probably encountered is that though from afar it looks like a silly film (and it is) it does have some double entendre jokes that might have made it difficult to sell it as a kids film. Had the titular parents taken the kids along in the adventure, instead of leaving them at home and brought down the raunchy jokes, then maybe they could have sold it as a kids film, as it is, this is a very silly film for adults. And that’s always a hard sell any way you look at it.

But whatever, I like the film the way it is. The art direction is really cool, the sets look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book and so do the creatures which range from killer mushrooms to midgets with the head of a dog or a fish, sounds crazy, I know, but that’s the kind of movie this is. The jokes are decidedly ‘Pythonesque’ in style, it’s obvious the writer and director adore Monty Python and Terry Gilliam style of comedy. One funny scene has the self proclaimed idiots from planet Spengo picking up a  weapon that makes anyone who touches it instantly disappear. One idiot picks it up and disappears, the next one picks it up and disappears, and the next one picks it up….all because the device says “pick me up”.  So the humor, while quite silly, is also quite good.

One of the best things about this movie though is the cast. Eric Idle plays King Raff, the true king of Planet Spengo! His role is a small one, but he makes his funny mark! I’ve personally always enjoyed Jon Lovitz’s style of humor, there’s something kind of sleazy about him that fits perfectly with the character of Tod Spengo, the dictator. I loved how he worries about the silliest things like “on a level of one to ten, in terms of world dominating greatness…where would you place me?” Teri Garr was always one of my favorites, I’ve been an admirer of hers sense she played sexy laboratory assistant ‘Inga’ in Mel Brook’s  Young Frankenstein (1974), here she plays the role of the quintessential mom, taking pictures of the galaxy as she travels through space on her station wagon. And Jeffrey Jones plays the goofy father well; similar to the role he played in Tim Burton’s Bettlejuice (1988), only on this one he ends up turning into an overweight Flash Gordon.

And speaking of Flash Gordon, at the end of the day, Mom and Dad Save the World is a huge spoof of Flash Gordon films. Fans of that Flash Gordon (1980) film starring Sam Jones and Max Von Sydow will notice that this film is practically the same exact film note for note. Just switch Sam Jones for Jeffrey Jones (they even share the same last name!) Max Von Sydow for Jon Lovitz and Melody Anderson for Teri Garr and you’ll see it’s the same exact movie. Even the rebels that Jeffrey Jones ends up leading are bird people of sorts! So yeah, they might as well have called this one “Dad Gordon”. So, anyways, this film was ambitious in my book, a lot of effort went into it for it to have died such a quick death at the box office; practically unnoticed by audiences. In my opinion, it deserves to find an audience and become a cult film, if it isn’t one already. Do you enjoy films like The Ice Pirates (1984), Spaceballs (1987) or Flash Gordon (1980)? Do you like Terry Gilliam or Monty Python? Then give Mom and Dad Save the World a chance, it’s got an innocence and a goofiness to it that can’t be found in today’s films because studios play it too safe nowadays and don’t dare spend their millions on something as offbeat as this film. Still not convinced, okay, it was written by the guys who brougth you the Bill and Ted's movies and directed by the guy who made License to Drive (1988)! Mom and Dad Save the World was made during the last half of the 80’s and though it was released in ’92, it still has that 80’s silliness to it that’s hard to come by in today’s cinematic landscape. So if you want to get your 80’s groove on, look no further than this.

Rating:  3 out of 5  

After Hours (1985)

Title: After Hours (1985)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Cast: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard, Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong

Review:

Every once in a while a director will take a project that could have otherwise turned out to be bland or formulaic and elevates it, makes it better then it has any right to be. I think this was the case with After Hours. You kind of get the feeling that had this comedy been under the command of a lesser director, it simply would not have been as good as it is. Had legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorcese not been behind the camera, it could have ended as just another romantic comedy, lost in the shuffle and forgotten in time. But in the hands of Scorcese, this dark comedy is a superior form of comedy film in my book and I might add, criminally underrated.

After Hours tells the story of Paul Hackett, a New York City computer programmer who’s fed up with his life. He’s got a boring job, doing the same thing over and over again; when he goes back home, it’s to watch the same boring channels on television and judging by Hackett’s one tone face, there’s nothing unique or interesting on it;  he surfs through the channels with a blank stare on his face. So after a while he decides to  go out and venture to the outside world, searching for human contact, searching for something other then the numbing loneliness he lives in. The streets he ventures to are the perilous streets of the big apple, circa mid-eighties, which means dark, dangerous and manic. He stops at a coffee shop to read his favorite novel and stumbles upon a beautiful girl whom he apparently has a couple of things in common with. They exchange phone numbers and part ways, but Paul's loneliness gets the better of him and so he ends up calling her up on that very same night! They meet again at her apartment and Paul seems to think he’s going to be getting lucky, for what is wrong with casual sex? A random night of passion? Absolutely nothing! Unfortunately for Hackett, Marcy ends up being a true wacko! He sees the signs and decides to abort mission, but as Hackett will soon find out, going back home is not going to be an easy task.  

Many things make After Hours a good film, not just the fact that Scorcese directed it, though that is the big bonus in my book. Actually a lot of good things came together to make this as special a film; for example, the cast is amazing! The film is mostly centered on Griffin Dunne’s character Paul Hackett, he plays the every man. A blue collar worker type that’s fed up, he wants human contact, he wants something more then just his own self to talk to at night. Unfortunately, the universe seems to be conspiring against him on this night, this is one of those movies where everything goes wrong for the main character. He runs out of money, gets mixed up in all sorts of trouble and meets the craziest people! True blue New York people who live jaded lives in a jaded city. To you or I these characters that Hackett meets through out the course of the evening might seem nuts, or too crazy for real life, but to a New Yorker, this film is merely an exaggeration of every day New York life. Every character is brought to life by a gifted actor. Terry Gar for example, whom I always remember as Inga from Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein (1974), is hilarious on this one as a waitress who’s a lonely desperate woman, looking for the right man to snatch up and devour! Catherine O’Hara plays this psychotic woman who has her own Mister Softee Ice Cream truck, her character is hilariously jaded out of her mind.  I mean we even get freaking Cheech and Chong on this film! The cast is very well rounded out, it makes watching the film a pleasure.

But of course, the big draw here for me is that Scorcese directed the film. What I’ve always loved about Scorcese is how very New York he is. He is enamored with the city, same as Woody Allen is, can’t say I blame ‘em, the place can be rather magical, vibrant, alive. It is a beautiful city and a dark city; it can be the stuff of dreams or nightmares depending which corner you turn on. New York City's ambiguity is what  shines through so well in After Hours. You can meet a beautiful girl in a coffee shop in the middle of the night, but said girl can turn out to be a total head case. It’s these little details that the film has that make it such a New York film, the crazy taxi driver, the cold crazy people, the dark haunting city streets, the bums, the punks, the night clubs, the gay bars, the unexpectedly friendly people, the film effectively captures the dark beauty that was New York of the 80’s, I loved that about it, so my hats down to Scorcese for capturing New York City life so well, it’s something he’s gotten very good at through out his career. I mean, this is the director who made New York, New York (1977), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Mean Streets (1973) all of which take place in the big apple. Scorcese is without a doubt a director that displays his love for the city that never sleeps; he’s the most ‘New York’ director of all. The fact that the entire film was shot in New York City streets and entirely at night is what gives After Hours its unique look.

But aside from that, the film has these amazing camera shots, which is really what let’s us know there’s a master filmmaker behind the cameras, it’s little details, like when we follow these keys that someone throws from a building, or when Hackett’s twenty dollar bill flies out the taxi cabs window and the camera follows it. My favorite shot is the one with which the film ends, the camera simply sweeps through an office building filled with desks and computers and telephones…loved that. This is the camera work and direction that brings After Hours up for me, it elevates the film. So as you can see my friends, many things make this one special. After Hours is without a doubt an extremely underrated Scorcese film! Same as with Scorcese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999), this is a film from Scorcese’s repertoire that many seems to be missing out on, but should definitely be seeing. Scorcese made After Hours in order to regain his love for filmmaking, you see, before making After Hours Scorcese had been trying to get The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) going, but had an incredibly hard time making it happen, until finally he let it go. He ended up making it anyways a few years later, but at the time, he was incredibly frustrated at the fact that apparently The Last Temptation of Christ was not going to happen. So he went on and made After Hours, to regain his love for making movies. His love and passion for the medium shows through in the film, this is a master storyteller giving it his best to make us laugh and achieving it, in a very artful stylish way. This is a wonderfully dark comedy.

Highly recommend it if you want to see one of these films that’s very paranoid, and fast, the film moves at a frenetic pace. It’s the kind of film that takes places during the small hours of the night, in these seedy places that are open when most of humanity is sound asleep. It’s a film that shows us that the freaks most certainly come out at night. Which is probably why Hackett is always shown running from someone, which was a nice motif I picked up while watching the film; that image of Hackett just running,  running from the freaks, from the crazies, from scary life. Paul Hackett is a character that just wants to ‘get home’ which reminds me that in some ways, this is a dark version of the Wizard of Oz, with it’s main character trying to get away from all the craziness and back to the comfort and warmth of home. By the way, the films connection to The Wizard of Oz is alluded to at one point in the film. But aside from wanting to get home, Hackett just wants to live, which I think is an awesome message in the film. He wants more out of life, can’t say I blame him for going after it even if it means going through hell.

Rating: 5 out of 5