It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

This is the cream of the crop of Mad Dash movies. It gets into it’s fair share of silliness, but It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World features just about every comedic actor alive and one of Hollywood’s greatest actors in the leading role. Spencer Tracy heads a cast that includes names like Jonathan Winters, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar, Phil Silver, and on and on. There are also a bunch of cameos- the Three Stooges, Don Knotts, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, and on and on. The plot centers around some motorists who stop to help a dying car crash victim who imparts on them the hidden location of $350,000 he stole years before. The motorists agree to amicably retrieve the money, but distrust immediately sets in and it becomes every man, including the old bag, for himself. Director Stanley Kramer, who also made The Defiant Ones and Judgment at Nuremberg, wanted to make a comedy to end all comedies, but the common criticism is that the movie buckles under all the comedic weight. If you’re willing to sit through the gags that fizzle out and endure the loooong run time, it is a funny movie.

Rat Race

Rat Race wanted desperately to be a modern Mad Mad World. It had the same basic premise (the main difference being that the participants are unwittingly part of a high-stakes game where gamblers bet on who reaches the money first) and features a cast of recognizable names- Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Lovitz, John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Kathy Bates. But the thing it’s lacking is the overall comedic experience of the cast of Mad Mad World. A good chunk of the movie follows Breckin Meyer and Amy Smart- not exactly heavyweights in the laughter department. Director/producer Jerry Zucker can do over-the-top comedy well (Airplane!, The Naked Gun), but when he has to reign it in, the results have been mixed (Ruthless People, Ghost, First Knight). The movie does have it’s moments, but it just doesn’t have the enveloping hilarity of Mad Mad World.

The Cannonball Run

You know it’s a Mad Dash when you see Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Dom DeLuise, Jackie Chan, Terry Bradshaw, Jamie Farr, Farah Fawcett, Peter Fonda, Jimmy The Greek, and Dean Martin all in the same movie. The Cannonball Run is based on the real life illegal coast-to-coast car race and features many of the same vehicles and antics from the real race. Director Hal Needham, a former stuntman, was a participant in the real Cannonball Run, so as outlandish as some things may seem, much of the movie is based on actual events. This was one of Needham’s many collaborations with Burt Reynolds, for whom he had served as the stunt double on many movies. Needham liked to show outtakes during the closing credits, and Jackie Chan got his inspiration for the same from this movie.

Be sure to snag a copy of the wicked cool spreadsheet.

A lot of people think Madagascar 2 is going to break $50 million, but my formula only came up with $41,978,807.44. That’s a pretty big number for a fall weekend, right there in High School Musical territory. The first Madagascar made $47,224,594 on it’s opening weekend, and I think most people believe the sequel would beat whatever the original did. The difference between the two is that Madagascar was released at the end of May, when the crowds tend to be bigger. Plus, I think HSM3 won’t see a huge drop from last weekend because hardly anyone saw it on Halloween- some of those potential viewers will likely make up for it this weekend. The only screwy thing in my calculation was that director Eric Darnell only has two movies under his belt and I didn’t deduct the requisite $2 million from the total. He was the director of the first Madagascar, so I gave him a pass since there should be strong continuity between the movies.

The second biggest release is Role Models, on 2,791 screens. I made some new rules while calculating this movie- whenever possible, I’ll avoid including movies released on less than 1,000 screens or where the actor had a cameo or other small part. For example, I didn’t include Ice Age: The Meltdown for Seann William Scott because very few people probably realized he was even in the movie and his presence certainly wasn’t putting butts in the seats. But Scott and Paul Rudd both have a decent track record recently, averaging $7,404 and $7,841 over their past four movies. I did include the only two movies by director David Wain in the calculation, but still deducted the full $4 million from the total since those two movies combined only played on 27 screens. I came up with $14,191,835.44 for the weekend, a squeak over $5,000 per screen.

Fatal Attraction

[imdb Fatal Attraction]Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) meets Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) and has a brief, torrid affair. Dan wants to let her down easy and get back to married life, but Alex isn’t hot on the idea and attempts suicide. Not to stop the crazy there, Alex begins stalking Dan, eventually breaking into his house and boiling his daughter’s bunny. Dan admits his infidelity to his wife and they have a three-way showdown with Alex. In the spirit of Rasputin, Alex has to be drowned and shot before she expires.

Affair, marriage, unhinged woman, stalker. Hmm, sounds a little like Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me, doesn’t it? In fact, suicide, affair, stalking, breaking and entering, confession, and showdown all show up in both movies in the same order. Both John Carpenter and Brian De Palma passed on the movie, with Carpenter saying:

There wasn’t a grain of originality in it – it was Play Misty for Me with Michael Douglas filling in for Clint Eastwood.

Daylight

[imdb Daylight]An irrelevant robbery subplot sets the wheels of this disaster in motion. It eventually leads to an explosion in one of New York’s tunnels, trapping all the commuters with just a few hours of air left. Luckily, Kit Latura (Sylvester Stallone) is on the scene. He’s a disgraced EMS worker looking for redemption and is the only hope for the trapped commuters. He works his way into the tunnels and leads a small group of people out (with the help of a bunch of rats), evading the rising water flooding the tunnel.

If the band of travelers looking for an exit amid the rising water doesn’t seem familiar, those rats and a sacrificial death should do it. It’s The Poseidon Adventure underground. Only it’s not near as exciting, or even all that interesting.

Barb Wire

[imdb Barb Wire]Based on the comic of the same name, Barb Wire is the owner of a nightclub, and a closet mercenary. Barb comes into possession of a pair of contact lenses that will allow the wearer to usurp security and escape to Canada. Her former boyfriend Axel Hood (Temuera Morrison) soon shows up with a defecting scientist in tow. Axel needs to convince Barb to give the contacts to the scientist so she get her info to the resistance. Although she behaves to the contrary, still upset about being abandoned in Seattle, Barb is able to get the scientist out of the county.

Let’s see, a morally ambivalent bar owner sympathetic to the underdog. An old flame who is now a part of the resistance comes calling, looking for a favor. A fascist government. A rouse by the bar owner. An escape. And the bar owner and the local police chief getting all chummy at the end. If that ain’t Casablanca! It’s basically the exact same story set in the future, with most of the characters getting gender reassignments. If you haven’t seen this movie, do. The combination of the stolen plot and a production that fails on every level makes for one of the best times I’ve ever had watching a movie. It doesn’t exactly fall into the so-bad-it’s-good category, more like the so-preposterous-it’s-good. It’s like going bowling and throwing your ball into the other lane, getting a strike. It was the right idea but executed so poorly that every one laughs and has a good time.

[imdb The Mambo Kings]In The Mambo Kings, Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante play Cuban brothers who have immigrated to the US after a dispute with gangsters. The brothers eventually become famous musicians. Cesar (Assante) revels in the fame, but Nestor (Banderas) just wants a small club where he can spend his days constantly rewriting “Beautiful Maria of My Soul,” a song about the girl he left behind in Cuba. The brothers disagree on which path to follow and tragedy ensues.

Back in my younger and more vulnerable years, I worked for Incredible Universe, in the music and movies section. I came across The Mambo Kings in the Musical section and was sure it had been put there by some customer (or guest, as we had to refer to them) who didn’t know the difference between a Musical and a Non-Musical. But no, that was where we were supposed to put it. I was up in arms because IT IS NOT A MUSICAL. It’s a movie with music. No one cared and no one agreed. It still pisses me off.

[imdb That Thing You Do!]In 1996, Tom Hanks took a shot at writing and directing with That Thing You Do! The films chronicles the rise and fall of a one-hit wonder band from Pennsylvania in the 1960′s. The band has a meteoric rise to success on the heals of their popular single, but fall apart once they realize the record company has no intention of letting them pursue their own musical goals.

A pretty well received movie, with solid performances all around. It’s a straightforward movie about a band, but the amount of music performance on screen leads to the gross miscategorization as a Musical. The catchy single and successful soundtrack probably don’t help that distinction, but THIS IS NOT A MUSICAL.

[imdb Eddie and the Cruisers]Eddie and the Cruisers stars Michael Paré as Eddie Wilson, leader of the eponymous band. The band releases a successful first album. For the second album, Eddie wants to do something that wil turn the music world on it’s ear, which creates tension within the band and leads to the record company refusing to release the album, as well as Eddie’s death in a car accident and the tapes disappearing from the company vault. 20 years later, the record company rereleases the debut album, which prompts a television show to do a documentary on the band. A reporter (Ellen Barkin) interviews the surviving members and uncovers some mystery- the tapes of the second album are still around and Eddie might not be as dead as everyone thinks.

This movie has become somewhat of a cult hit over the years, probably due in large part to the popularity of On the Dark Side, the popular single for Eddie and the Cruisers that was actually performed by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band. Like the story of the band, the song (in the real world) would rise to greater heights on it’s rerelease and still gets airplay today. I always think whimsically about this movie because of the presence of Michael Paré. For some reason he stands tall when I think of the movies of my youth (Streets of Fire, anyone?). This isn’t a great movie, but it’s a lot better than most critics lead you to believe. And most importantly, IT’S NOT A MUSICAL.

The first Lost Genre is Rescuing a Young Girl (RAYG). Films in the RAYG genre generally feature one or two men searching for a girl under 18 years old. Their not looking for her for a reward or glory, their doing it because they said they would, and because it’s really the right thing to do. RAYG movies could be shoehorned into many broader genres (drama, comedy, thriller, western), but they relate closer to each other than the broader categorization. The protagonist is a man’s man- he doesn’t take flack from anyone and is never afraid to throw himself into harrowing situations. His only desire is to rescue the girl, no matter how untenable the circumstances. And the key to the whole genre is the age of the girl. She has to be young enough that her captors easily overpower her and effectively render her helpless. Rescue is the only hope she has.

The Searchers

In The Searchers, John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a former confederate soldier visiting his brother after the war. Before long, Comanches raid the farm, killing his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew and abducting his two nieces. Ethan and his adopted son-in-law Martin Pawley begin searching for the girls. They soon find the older girl, Lucy, murdered. Now the real search begins. After several years of tracking the Comanches, Ethan and Martin finally find Debbie, kill the Comanches, and take her home.

There’s A LOT more to this more than what is in the description, which is just to highlight how it fits in the RAYG genre. It has deservedly garner more respect over the years and is now seen as one of the best Westerns ever. This was one of the first HD DVD’s I bought (don’t give me any smack, I’ll rant on that later) and it looks absolutely stunning in high-definition.

Commando

Perhaps one of more enjoyable RAYG movies, Commando is the definitive 80′s action movie. Mindless killing, pointless destruction, and witty puns abound. Ben Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his daughter Jenny (a jelly bracelet-wearing Alyssa Milano) are kidnapped by a former member of Matrix’s military unit. Jenny is whisked away to a tropical island and Matrix is coerced into performing an assassination as part of a coup. Matrix manages to escape and begins the search for his daughter. After many bullets, explosions, and dead bodies, Matrix finds Jenny and they head home, as if nothing ever happened.

If you like pointless violence and snappy quips, this one is for you. David Patrick Kelly’s Sully is on the receiving end of some of the best lines.

Matrix: Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last?
Sully: That’s right, Matrix. You did.
Matrix: I lied.

Man on Fire

Denzel Washington plays John Creasy, a burned-out former CIA agent hired to be the bodyguard of a nine-year-old girl. The girl is kidnapped, the ransom drop goes bad, and now it’s up to Creasy to get the girl back. Creasy takes out all his inner torment on the bad guys as he tracks down the girl, torturing and killing. Eventually Creasy gets the girl, but loses his life in the process, but all-in-all, it’s a fair trade.

Tony Scott unleashes Denzel and let’s him chew as much scenery as he can. A pretty decent movie.

Spartan

David Mamet’s Spartan pretty much defines the RAYG genre. Val Kilmer is Robert Scott, a military operative who is given the task of finding the daughter of the President after she is abducted. Once Scott discovers the reason behind the abduction, the Secret Service creates a cover story that the daughter was killing in a boating accident and Scott is called off the case. Scott later receives word that the daughter is still alive and he begins the hunt again, because he said he would bring her home. Despite the Secret Service’s best efforts, Scott finds the girl and sends her home, where a big production is made of her return. Scott gets no recognition and is presumably still on the US Government’s naughty list.

I’m not sure what it is, but watching a David Mamet movie makes me feel like a grown up. Even something light like State and Main gives me an intellectual streak. Mamet doesn’t dumb down the movie for the audience and demands you pay attention and think.

These were the movies I came up with off the top of my head. Can you think of any others?