The Naked Gun (1988)

What can you say? Not only is The Naked Gun one of the best genre spoofs ever created, but it is the second best performance O.J. Simpson ever gave.

And then there's Leslie Nielsen! A grade-B dramatic actor most memorable either as Disney's heroic "Swamp Fox", or as the earnest astronaut in Forbidden Planet, Leslie Nielsen made the move to comedy and ascended to a height beyond anything even he might have imagined. Using the same flat, deadpan style that doomed his serious acting, he emerged as arguably the greatest comic actor since Chaplin. Whoda thunk it? In fact, I don't think I could ever watch him in a serious show again, because I now crack up the minute he appears on screen. Of course he may not affect everyone the way he affects me, but he certainly should be assigned one inarguable title: he's the heavyweight champion of genre parodies. He has sent up disaster movies, spy films, horror movies, cop movies, cop shows, sci-fi, and sports movies.

1. Men with Brooms (2002)
2. Spy Hard (1996)
3. Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)
4. Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)
5. The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)
6. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
7. "Police Squad!" (1982 -TV series)
8. Airplane! (1980)

There are some bad movies in that group, and there are some even worse ones I left off the list, but there are also some very good ones, including The Naked Gun. Airplane! is generally considered the best film in Nielsen's filmography, but that was an ensemble comedy in which Nielsen had a fairly small part, while The Naked Gun was Nielsen's star turn, and he made the best of it. Since this role is probably the best starring performance by a man who is a valid contender for the title of "best comic actor ever," I guess you have to conclude it is one of the greatest comic performances in history, and therefore a "must watch" for any comedy fans who have not already seen it. Nielsen plays the part of Lt. Frank Drebin, who seems to be the world's clumsiest and most inept policeman, but who nonetheless always manages to come out on top, not only by defeating L.A.'s most brilliant criminals, but by overcoming virtually all evil in the world in his spare time. In this film he manages to defeat Khaddafy, Arafat, Idi Amin, and Ayatollah Khomeini, and even to remove Gorbachev's birthmark!

The primary storyline of the film involves a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth during her visit to a Los Angeles Angels baseball game. Drebin must thwart the murderer, who turns out to be the Angel's slugging right fielder Reggie Jackson. The baseball game is especially funny, with Lt. Drebin impersonating, in turn, the National Anthem singer and the home plate umpire. Queen Elizabeth, for her part, cheerfully participates in a "wave" and obligingly passes a beer down to the end of her row. There are too many great jokes to list, but my favorite schtick involved Mel Allen's unusual plays of the week, in which a sliding runner is mauled by a 600 pound tiger, and an infielder misses a pop fly because he is run over by a car.

As Mr Allen would say, "How about that?"

Funny movie, and the jokes still work after 15 years.

The only nudity comes from unknowns in the opening title sequence. Amazingly enough, there is even a brief flash of pubic hair, although the film is rated PG-13. (Hey, those were the 80s. It would probably be rated R today.)

Unknowns

L4YER CAKE (2005)

If you really miss the cool and funny gangster films that Guy Ritchie used to make, and wish that Ritchie had kept making them, well, this is the film for you. The Ritchie baton has been passed effortlessly to director Matthew Vaughn, who is one of Ritchie's best friends, was the best friend at Ritchie's wedding to Madonna, and worked as a producer on Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. L4YER CAKE has all the strengths of those two earlier films, and also has some of the same problems (too many characters, too many storylines to follow). It also has a very cool star, Daniel Craig, who can best be described as Steve McQueen with a different accent. It also has a wild and unexpected (although appropriate) ending.

All in all, it is a nifty and entertaining hipper-than-thou film, although I just can't, for the life of me, see why some critics went ga-ga over it. If this had come before Ritchie's movies, I might have been more impressed, but L4YER CAKE now seems to be a little stale. This time the item in dispute is a collection of a million Ecstasy pills, as opposed to some rare guns or some diamonds, but the general idea is about the same as in the Ritchie films. Everyone wants the prize, and our hero is caught in a situation where giving it or even selling to one group of gangsters will make him an assassination target for two or three other groups, so he has to pull off a spectacular flim-flam to satisfy all interested parties.

American audiences avoided this in its brief theatrical run in the States, and I would certainly not recommend that average Americans try to watch this in a movie theater, because it's virtually a foreign language film, and that makes the convoluted plot just about impossible to follow. There are just too many characters, too much going on, and too much jumping back and forth in time and place. On the other hand, DVD is an excellent medium to add some user-friendliness. I found two DVD features very helpful. First of all, I watched it in English with English subtitles, thus allowing me to understand all the heavy accents. Then I pulled one more ace from the DVD sleeve. After I watched the film, I went back and listened to the commentary, and that helped me understand some particularly confusing scenes.  Even after doing this, I was still confused on some details! For example, near the end of the film, one character apologizes to another, "sorry about Lucky." That was obviously supposed to be an emotional moment, but I was racking my brain trying to remember just who the hell Lucky was. Of course, I could have gone back and figured it out, but it just wasn't worth it.

I don't mean to imply that this is a poor film. In fact, it is quite a good one in many ways, and I enjoyed it, but I would have enjoyed it far more if it had departed from the Richie formula and had featured a tighter plot, involving fewer characters and fewer competing parties.

Sienna Miller

Kinky Kerry

This concludes my "Paradise" contribution since we now have uncovered every bit of nudity done by Phoebe in this movie. As I mentioned before her total nude time for this film is 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Which young actress of today with the same name and fame as Phoebe back then will follow in her footsteps? Jessica Alba, Jessica Simpson, Elisha Cuthbert, Sarah Michelle Gellar, the ball is your camp, girls. Will you accept the challenge?

That's all for now, but I'll be Bach with more.

• Phoebe Cates (1, 2)

Today we take the Time Machine back to 1992 for a look at "Unlawful Entry".

Madeleine Stowe is the heroine, and she starts us off with a bit of breast falling out of her nightgown. Later she is menaced by a burglar with a knife. We see more boobage in a love scene (dark scene tho). Last but not least, she's also a "Damsel in Distress" at the hands of bad cop Ray Liotta.

Madeleine Stowe

Sherrie Rose gives up some boobs gettin' it on with Liotta...then he shoves her out of the patrol car.

Sherrie Rose

Our bonus today is a new thing we will call "Newsbabe of the Week". Paula Zahn looking hot and leggy on "Paula Zahn Now".

Paula Zahn

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Currently on disability. If you'd like to get in touch with him, his email address is tuna@scoopy.com

If you have your own site or blog, sign up today and earn some extra cash in 2005 by promoting the Fun House!