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Reviews
Oscar (1967)
Not only De Funes' funniest film but one of the funniest comedies ever made
I don't think I've ever seen such a non-stop laugh riot, one crazy thing happening after another. Every time De Funes receives a new shock to his nervous system in this film, he rears up with his upper body and shouts "O", "O", "O" as if he were having a heart attack. One the biggest laughs I had in the film was when De Funes receives yet another shock and he goes running through the house at a full gallop and through the front door. He reappears back through the same front door a couple of minutes later, still at a gallop, as if he had run in a nervous frenzy around his neighborhood. Even if you forget his other great comedic gems like Jo, Rabbi Jacob, La Grande Vadrouille, Le Gendarme En Ballade, Faites Sauter La Banque and others, this film alone I think puts him in the rank of the great comedians of the 20th century: Chaplin, Sellers, the Marx Brothers, Laurel And Hardy, and the Three Stooges.
Un drôle de paroissien (1963)
One of Bourvil's funniest. I love this little film
Georges Lachaunaye (Bourvil) is the eldest son in an old French aristocratic family that has known better times. The once wealthy family has lost its maids and butlers and must now resort to eating in soup kitchens and is about to lose its mansion. However, because of their family name and aristocratic lineage, common jobs are beneath them. No one in the family works. Georges stumbles upon a way to make money, however, by going to the large old churches of Paris and robbing the donation boxes in their dark alcoves. Georges slowly develops the robbery of churches into an art form, using such methods as wet caramels dropped through the donation slots on a string and pulling out the attached coins. Through his efforts, the family starts getting rich again. However, a doggedly determined police inspector who specializes in church collection box robberies gets hot on his trail. This little film is extremely funny and entertaining and has wonderful comedic performances, especially by Jean Yonnel, the elderly father of the once-wealthy family. This movie could probably never be the object of a remake in the United States, due to its outrageous plot about lazy aristocrats resorting to the robbery of churches to reclaim their lost wealth. But it's quite funny in French, and one of Bourvil's best films, along with Le Corniaud, La Grande Vadrouille and La Cuisine Au Beurre and may actually be his best work as a comedic actor.
Oscar (1991)
Funny, but not even remotedly as funny as the French original
The French original starring Louis de Funes, one of the greatest comedians who ever lived was much, much funnier. The non-stop plot twists of the storyline of this film were equally matched by the non-stop nervous outrages of comedian Louis De Funes, who was at his best in these type of screwball situations. Oscar was one of De Funes' most hilarious films (maybe only topped by the film 'Jo') with non-stop nervous, slap-stick behavior. The scene where De Funes goes berserk (goes REALLY berserk, because he's berserk from start to finish) and starts pulling on an imaginary nose and playing it like a violin is absolutely priceless. Stallone isn't near the comedic genius of that nervous, little angry guy Louis de Funes played, but he turns in a good performance. I'd highly recommend seeing the original, however, which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, in any language.
Pure Luck (1991)
A lot of fun but not as good as the original
There was something very special in the chemistry between French actors Gerard Depardieu and Pierre Richard that was lacking in the Martin Short, Danny Glover comedy team. In fact, the trio of comedy films that Depardieu and Richard did together was quite funny: Les Comperes, Les Fugitifs, and La Chevre. Each of those films was re-made by Hollywood (Father's Day, Three Fugitives, and Pure Luck) but each unfortunately fell short of the hilarious originals. The original Depardieu character in La Chevre was an impatient take-charge man who always had to exercise self-control in the presence of the guy with bad luck, knowing all the while that he was really the professional private eye and the competent one and forced to play along with the Richard character's self-delusions about his own investigative prowess. Depardieu was the rational Cartesian man who didn't believe in good or bad luck and you had the constant feeling he was about to boil over as the Pierre Richard character continually proved him wrong. I felt there was a more dramatic turnaround in this character's eventual dumbstruck realization that good and bad luck existed in the original comedy. His wide-eyed disbelief at the end when they found the missing girl was an emotional high-point in the original, whereas the American version wasn't nearly as moving. I didn't feel the mounting sense of frustration and aggravation from the Danny Glove character, who played it a little too coolly, in my opinion. Also, Pierre Richard's character in the original approached every incident of bad luck with the same comic serene self-confidence as though it were something completely normal. I didn't get this sense of Barney Fife nerdish swagger as the man who thought he was in charge of the mission from the Martin Short character. Above all, I didn't see the same degree of conflict between the two characters that ended in true affection in the re-make as I saw in the original. They were too nice to each other throughout the film. In the original, the Pierre Richard character tries to physically attack the Depardieu character in the end, but only succeeds in badly hurting himself. The American version doesn't involve this conflict at the end. The characters in the American version didn't seem to have as firm a grasp on who they were. Nonetheless, the idea of the film is very original (a man with total bad luck is the last resort for finding a missing girl who has identical uniform bad luck) and Pure Luck is a film that is a lot of fun to watch. Even though Danny Glover and Martin Short didn't seem to "get" what the characters in the original film were all about, which made it a true comedy classic, they still pulled off funny performances which made for good if not outstanding comedy.
Lady in the Water (2006)
I'm a movie lover and I try to see something positive in every movie I see
In Lady In The Water, however, I don't see much.
I have to say that I'm not a fan of Shyamalan's films. I think he's a fine director, but an absolutely terrible storyteller. I think the number one thing that a storyteller owes his audience, even before establishing a storyline with central conflict, before conceiving his characters and their motivations, a storyteller must establish a world that is consistent unto itself in which to stage the action.
I had problems in that regard with the Sixth Sense. I had a feeling that I was being manipulated from the very beginning because Bruce Willis chose not to even question why his wife didn't pay attention to him or people in general would ignore him. At least once, I would have thought, if Willis had the genuine belief that he was alive, he would have come up to someone and tried to grab them and ask them why they were ignoring him. I have a feeling it was a manipulative gimmick just so that Bruce Willis could have a sudden revelation at the end that he was actually dead.
Signs disappointed me in the same way. The aliens simply weren't believable and Shyamalan never drew me into the special world of his movie, as there were no coherent rules. I cannot believe that an alien race would come millions of light years to planet earth and communicate with each other by tiny crop circles barely visible from a thousand miles up instead of through high tech communication systems. And how is it that incredibly advanced aliens would choose to fight humans on the ground in bare hand-to-hand combat against knives and baseball bats? These elements are important in a movie in getting the audience to suspend belief and believe in the special world in which the characters live. All along, I felt that the world of Signs was contrived and that aliens were coming along to fight without weapons just so that Joaquin Phoenix could rediscover his self-worth by swinging a baseball bat and Mel Gibson could regain his faith.
Similarly, the world of Lady In The Lake never draws the audience into the special world of the rules of the movie to suspend belief. At all times, I'm aware that Shyamalan is on the other side sitting in a director's chair yelling "action" and "cut" and that the characters are actors waiting to get a paycheck. There are no Korean bedtime stories involving narfs and scrunts and the like. Bedtime stories don't require a rule book to make sense. I saw no point to the story and its complex rules and came away saying "so what". In Harry Potter, the rules reveal themselves through the ACTION of the story. Here, dialog and questions revealed the rules, which is bad storytelling. Also, I saw no connection between the main character and the Lady In The Water. She just sat throughout the movie, dripping water and barely moving. I saw no exchange of emotion with the main character and therefore I saw no motivation in him as to why he would risk his life to save her. Again, I think Shyamalan is building a contrived world that never lets you believe in it but instead exists just so an important moment near the end of the film can give the hero a reason to feel redemption of some sort. To me this is the opposite of storytelling as there is no story, no motivation, no building of tension, no heightening conflict or adversity, just an internal and private climax for the main character.
The only positive thing I can say about this film and for which I gave it 1 point is in the monster. I thought the idea of a giant dog or wolf (or whatever it is) that has grass growing on its back and that can flatten itself and hide in the lawn is clever and imaginative.
The Hillz (2004)
This was a pretty funny COMEDY
Come on, people. This is a comedy and intended as a comedy. It is a series of ever-increasing incongruous events. Just the premise, about a bunch of bored, rich, spoiled high school grads from Beverly Hills who decide to become gangstas should tip you off. Anyone who judges this as a serious movie and was disappointed as a result might have also been disappointed that The Producers and Springtime for Hitler was not a well-done serious dramatic treatment of Adolph Hitler and WWII. Of course Paris Hilton seemed like a stuck-up stoned materialistic airhead b*#ch in this film. That's precisely the role she was playing and the character she portrayed. Everyone in this film was stoned and got further and further stoned as things progressed. The fact that people were shooting each other in the face in broad daylight on the street or at parties and murdering at the slightest whim and then acting as though nothing had happened was wildly funny. The scenes where a groupie of the Beverly Hills gang sleeps with one of them to try to get him to murder her rival cheerleader in high school (with her mother's complete approval) is so over the top funny that you cannot take this seriously and at that point should have had a clue that this is a comedy. This is not the greatest comedy I've ever seen and I would give it a 7 out of 10, but it was INTENDED TO BE FUNNY and has to be judged as a hilarious over-the-top comedy, not as serious drama. This was hilarious and I'd love to see it again.
'Way Out (1961)
I have been searching for the name of this series for years
I really want to thank the commenter named Guanche for confirming that the opening of this series featured a bunch of hands coming out of the sand. I was about 10 years old when this series aired and ever since the early 1960's, I've been trying to recall the name of the scary TV show with the hands coming out of the sand. As a kid, I was a nut for every type of horror and science fiction program on television. I loved One Step Beyond, Twilight Zone, Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, and The Outer Limits. This short-lived TV show, though, became my favorite. I won't write any spoilers but I remember one episode that was very creepy about a man who has a terminal disease and who has his brain preserved and hooked up to a computer. He learns that his wife has been cheating on him. I remember a funny scene when the wife visits the lab and blows cigarette smoke at her husband's brain. If I remember well, this series was not shot on film but was like the earlier Twilight Zone episodes in that it was shot on tape. It might even have been live television. I ended up liking this show more than Twilight Zone because it had a more dark edge and more daring horror. Next to the episode of Thriller called 'The Hungry Glass' (which had school kids all across America sleeping with their lights on for weeks after it aired), this was the scariest and edgiest horror and science fiction on early television that I can recall.
La grande vadrouille (1966)
One of De Funes' best comedic performances
In my opinion, nothing can top the De Funes' films "Jo" and "Oscar" as far as sheer comedic brilliance, but this one is a true delight. One of the funniest scenes in any movie is when Bourvil and De Funes arrive at a hotel where they are supposed to meet their friends who will help them get safe passage to the southern free zone in France. They enter a darkened hotel eating area and they see lighted candles in the distance. Someone switches on the light and they find themselves in the midst of about three dozen German soldiers celebrating their General's birthday. The hotel owner and a young woman pretend that Bourvil and De Funes are their husbands and give them a dressing down for being late for their chores. But the German General says that women should not wear the pants and he invites them to join his party. Bourvil and De Funes, exhausted from their day long trek through the French countryside must join in a chair dance, where all the German soldiers play horsie on their chairs in single file around the tables. De Funes looks like an old man about to keel over as he rides his chair among the Germans. It's wonderfully funny.
Le gendarme en balade (1970)
This IS the best of the gendarme movies (warning re plot points)
and one of De Funes' funniest ever. The fourth movie in the Gendarme series, this story finds the boys in forced retirement from the cushy police job at St. Tropez because they've become too old. When the Adjutant (Galabru) comes to visit De Funes to reminisce about old times, they discover that one of their old group (Fougasse) has had a head injury, has amnesia and is in an institution. They decide to get the old gang back and save him. But to save him, they decide to kidnap him and don their old Gendarme uniforms so they can bring back his memory of who he is. That's where the fun starts, because soon they are pursued by real Gendarmes for impersonating false Gendarmes. It's silly fun but very funny, thanks to brilliant performances by De Funes and Galabru.
Throughout the film, there are too many funny moments with De Funes to mention. In the early scenes, I died laughing when De Funes, now a rich man for having married into wealth, punches out his maid repeatedly in the face. De Funes' outlandish comedic rages have often been compared to the manic temper of Donald Duck. In another scene, De Funes is at his absolute best when mumbling incredible gibberish when he and his false Gendarmes get stoned on marijuana in a hippie commune, where they are forced to hide from the real Gendarmes pursuing them. But one of the very best scenes of De Funes in any movie is when the false Gendarmes arrive upon a traffic accident and can't help themselves; they must don their old uniforms and become cops again if only for a few moments. In this scene, De Funes uses a police whistle to clear the accident from the road and, from the sounds he makes, you can actually understand what words in cop language his cadence implies. It's unforgettable. The man was a genius and there will never be another.