Most of the landmarks of 90s comedy can be seen somewhere in this little movie, from Michael Richards to Chris Farley to Beavis and Butthead. If you haven't picked this one up yet, you should, it's a funny little gem and I remember enjoying it immensely.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish
(1999 Video)
Awful movie from a great kids' show
17 December 1999
I grew up with "Animaniacs" at a time when I was already supposed to be grown-up, and still have a soft spot for it. But please, rent "Mostly In Toon" or "The Warners Escape" or ANYTHING, ANYTHING but this disgusting dreck apparently recycled from the ruins of some [god help us] DISNEY DTV FLICK -- it feels the same, anyway. Very few laughs, most involving Pinky and the Brain --- constant stream of pointless cast cameos, great animation from Tokyo Movie Shinsha which makes the unspeakably bad script all that more painful, because it does LOOK good onscreen. The plot? There's Tom Bodett, and at the end.... Major ouch.
Rutland Weekend Television
(1975–1976)
Very funny, forgotten little show
2 November 1999
Fans of Monty Python will have a sense of deja vu watching "Rutland Weekend," since Python Eric Idle carted over the same mindset and writing style to the tiny studio in BBC2 where all 14 episodes of Rutland Weekend were recorded. This is probably Eric's best work. Even though many of the sketches fail, the easy wit of Eric's writing sees the audience through. You kind of have to retrain your ear to deal without the laugh track, more like watching a feature than a sitcom. It's not a show that insults the intelligence. It insults, certainly, and gets away with murder -- much of what's done in series 2 would have to be cut for American TV -- but it still works. Basically the show consists of Eric talking a whole lot, as a sketch comedy budget doesn't allow for much else. But that's what he did on Python too. The supporting cast, especially David Battley, Henry Woolf, Neil Innes, Gwen Taylor and Terence Bayler, are great, and Python fans will regard this as a rare treat. However, they're not likely to ever see it. As of this writing, these shows are almost impossible to find ...
The Thief and the Cobbler
(1993)
Edited "Thief and the Cobbler" misses the magic
9 June 1999
Here at last is the long-awaited theatrical release of Richard Williams' "The Thief and the Cobbler." Begun in the late 1960s but not brought close to completion until after Williams created "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" in 1988, it was conceived as an exercise in expression through animation, with an amazing roster of animation legends new and old [Art Babbit, Grim Natwick, many of Disney's and ILM's new masters] passing in and out of the project over many decades, all widescreen and 60s-groovy, baby. But now it comes to us at last, and it's really not all that good. The reason? Miramax, a subsidiary of Disney and perhaps fearing the very obvious parallels to their own "Thief" remake, "Aladdin," has cut the film to shreds. Not only have they added three truly awful songs, deleted one character [the witch, now just an eye], and removed much of the original's best shots, but the rather nice original soundtrack has been replaced with a crass, narration-heavy butchery that adds constant voice to Williams' great silent characters. Those who know anything about the original will consider this a hack job. But see it anyway, if only for the still-groovy animation and to see where "Aladdin" came from. Now why wasn't Disney sued for this? A great work, by one of the great masters, and please Miramax, your version sucks, so let's see the original sometime soon, ok?
The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue
(1998 Video)
A Vision of Hell
11 April 1999
I defy anyone to enjoy this "film." Does Don Bluth even know what the satanists at MGM and Wang (both doing their worst work yet) have done with his characters? It's a Non Bluth. Let's face it, it's evil, and I hope someone loses a lot of money on it ... though I doubt it. Please avoid this unconnectable dreck and watch the real "Secret of NIMH." The difference is as vast as the first and fourth "Batman"s.
Quest for Camelot
(1998)
Arthurian Waste of Time and Talent
11 April 1999
The wonderful, classic legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table has never been properly handled as a feature film. Even "Excalibur" seemed forced, and perhaps the only truly enjoyable features have been gentle comedies like Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" and of course "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" which throw the technical mythology out the window and try to make what's left fun. Eric Idle starred in that latter entry, and he stars here, as one-half of a fairly well-animated, somewhat badly-designed, talking dragon. With Don Rickles' help he becomes a comic sidekick, but the script doesn't let either of them be all that funny, and the animation mixes the beautiful and awful with a disturbing shot-to-shot tickertape rhythm. About 1/4th of the animators here don't seem to know how to animate convincingly, and those who do have to struggle not to let the movie fall down around them. But the animation is still the best part of this woefully misconceived hybrid of randomly-scattered Camelot legend and F-grade science fiction. The science-fiction takes over, sadly. Consider the red-armored, action figure of a villain (played by Gary Oldman, in yet another bad career move). I can't decide if he's Riffraff from Rocky Horror, or Ade Edmonson from the Young Ones. It matters little. Caring not for the great legend sitting right under their feet, the umpteen writers turn out sub-Disney drivel about robots, walking trees, a laughable CGI version of the rock monster from the "Never-Ending Story," and a talking chicken with a hatchet for a beak. Lovely. I'm sure Sir Thomas Malory wanted to put these elements in his "Morte D'Arthur," he simply wasn't clever enough to think of them, right? Who needs Lancelot and Galahad when you've got Lionel and Bladebeak? And does anyone really want Celine Dion Eurovision Song Contest-esque material sprinkled in every few minutes? Supposedly sung by the "characters" of what story there is, but they rarely move their lips to it, so the work is not particularly convincing. An all-star cast is wasted (Sir John Gielgud, for chrissake!), as is the time of anyone watching this confused "Black Cauldron"-esque collage of scenes from other movies. The design looks like Don Bluth traced by Wang, and the entire enterprise made me slightly ill. What a waste of talent. I want to hurt this movie.
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