Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?

I was saddened to learn this week that classic Hollywood actor Peter Graves died this week at age 83. For more information on his life and movie roles, I think this obit story by Time magazine hits the notes pretty well. He was prolific as all heck, as his IMDB page lists 131 roles.

However, I will always remember Graves for a movie that oddly shaped my youth, considering it was released in 1980 - Airplane! I've exposed on my love for the sequel in the past on this blog, and the performance of Graves in both of the movies is understated and great. I first saw the movies when I was in my teens, along with other fare like Naked Gun, and I think they all shaped what I find funny and how I personally write. The Phantom Tollbooth and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were the literary versions of the Airplane, with characters playing everything completely serious and literal for laughs. All of this media just has a sort of light playfulness with language and words that makes them all wonderful.

Unfortunately, I find that this is a quality severely lacking in most current spoof movies. I have no idea who buys movie tickets for all of the Wayans' brothers crapfests now, since the last funny Scary Movie was the second installment, and this was primarily due to the presences of David Cross and Chris Elliott. I admit that I will sometimes be tempted by the trailer for one of their movies, only to find horrible reviews on the Internet, or worse, no reviews, which means that the studio barred critics from attending the turd bomb.

This wasn't always the case. Using my standard critic bar, Roger Ebert loved the original Airplane, and all of the Naked Gun movies.

What's the difference? While Airplane used its cast to play against type - such as the aforementioned Graves as not a stoic hero, but a pilot vaguely interested in pedophilia - the new spoof movies use their cast to film B-movie versions of existing movies. There is always an undercurrent of "aren't we so funny for making fun of this?" during the later Scary Movie movies, and it is even worse in tripe like Date Movie and Epic Movie. The characters of Airplane were never, ever in on the joke, which probably helps to explain why everything is actually funny.

Rumack (Leslie Neilsen): Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oveur (Graves): I can't tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.
Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.
Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?
Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.
Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

The cool, signed picture from Airplane! is from this dude's blog.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Airplane 2

I've been in an inexplicable mood lately, hence the second of these reviews in a week. Pardon my French and what not, I suppose. Anyway, similar to my review of Gremlins 2, let me talk about another sequel that doesn't get all the credit it deserves: Airplane 2.

While the original is a great film, I'd argue that the sequel is just as good, yet nobody has seen it. Most of the humor comes from two standout sequences - A courtroom scene in the early to middle portion, and the last 15 minutes, which has an incredible, and I daresay perfect, cameo. Of course, since it is an Airplane movie, there are tons of gags scattered throughout.

The courtroom scene is presided over by Raymond Burr, a.k.a. Perry Mason, and features a couple of great scenes. (The full scene can be, uh, seen here.) One is the questioning of a witness about what happened over Macho Grande. And like the first movie, there is some Jive talk. Other good portions are the questioning of Ted Stryker's psychiatrist and the calming down of a hysterical witness.

The other great scenes all deal with an incredible cameo - William freakin' Shatner. It's easier to just provide the link to the last nine minutes, which have all of his awesome scenes, and another cameo by the Starship Enterprise. It is Shatner at his over-acting best.

Other good cameos are Sonny Bono as a crazy bomber, Lloyd Bridges as air traffic controller Steve McCroskey, Peter Graves as Captain Clarence Oveur, Chuck Connors as the Sarge, Steve Stucker as a super gay air traffic controller, and Rip Torn as Bud Kruger and President Reagan.

I think the Airplane! movies maintain their humor because all of the actors are playing the material completely straight. All of the humor is derived from people acting completely oblivious to the humorous situations they're in; it is the opposite of Leslie Neilson's later, shitty spoof movies that are painfully trying to make jokes. Things are funnier when everyone is acting as if they are completely serious.

Controller #3: Get me Steve McCroskey!
Controller #2: Are you kidding? Ever since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, he's been completely senile!
Controller #3: Yeah, but what about McCroskey?
Controller #2: About the same as Reagan.

Airplane 2 picture taken from here.

Inexplicable Movie Review: Gremlins 2

Two of the great supporting cast of Gremlins 2:
Christopher Lee and Hulk Hogan

To switch things up a bit, I thought I'd focus on a movie that I actually enjoy, but one that doesn't seem to get much love from anybody else - Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Much like Escape from L.A., Gremlins 2 works as a sequel because it goes in the opposite direction of its predecessor. It shifts from a horror movie to an Airplane-like spoof.

In Gremlins 2, the setting of the film has shifted from a small town to New York City. Billy, the cad married to the ultra foxy girl-next-door type played by Phoebe Cates, finds the runaway mogwai Gizmo on the streets one day. He tries to protect him, but of course, calamity ensues as Gizmo is exposed to water, and the resulting evil mogwais eat after midnight. They run amuck in Clamp Tower, which is run by an eccentric billionaire - think Jimmy James from Newsradio, or the portrayal of Carter Puderschmidt and his buddies in Family Guy.

While you don't need to have seen the original to enjoy the sequel - I hadn't - you do notice a few more inside jokes if you've experienced both. Also, watching the first makes you familiar with the rules of mogwais and gremlins: They reproduce if exposed to water or eat after midnight, and bright light and sunlight can kill them. This "reproduction" is kind of gross, as a warning, with gremlins "popping" out of gross, stretchy bubbles out of each other's backs.

In the original, the gremlins were played up for horror and suspense purposes, but in Gremlins 2, the focus is definitely on slapstick and humor. This is especially evident when the gremlins takeover the genetics lab of the tower, and start guzzling weird potions and injection each other. One becomes super intelligent and is voiced by Tony Randall, and then delivers soliloquy and civilization and understanding.

While the leads are mostly there to play the story "straight", much like the lead roles in Airplane, the supporting characters are hilarious. Standouts include Christopher Lee as an incredibly mad scientist, his twin research assistants, the aforementioned Randall as the voice of the brain gremlin, a Dracula impersonator and kids' show host who serves as a news broadcaster, and Clamp himself.

The movie also loves to break the fourth wall, spoofing itself and other movies. Leonard Maltin reviews the original Gremlins in a fake production of his own TV review show. The middle of the movie is interrupted by gremlins, who are then chased away by (depending on the version you're watching) Hulk Hogan or John Wayne. Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig have skits to open and close the movie. And the Clamp Cable Network, who Dracula-guy works for, has several other spoofs, like a Julia Child-esque chef who uses a microwave primarily.