The Screengrab : the flintstones

The Screengrab's 12 Days of Christmas Marathon: "The Muppet Christmas Carol"

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Alert readers may recall that, while I'm posting the reviews of the Screengrab's 12 Days of Christmas Marathon movies in dribs and drabs over the days leading up to Christmas, I actually watched them all in sequence over the space of two days in a bleary haze of rum-soaked egg nog and seasonal affective disorder. I had a highly formalized plan for which movie to watch in which particular order, but I drunkenly knocked over my stack of DVDs after the fifth movie, and then I just watched them in the order in which they fell on the living room floor. I was hoping that it would be late in the day by the time I had to get around to watching some variation of A Christmas Carol -- I find the irascible-old-bastard Scrooge largely preferable to the lover-of-all-humanity Scrooge -- but here's where it turned up, so you're going to have to read about it.

My own misanthropy aside, it's not surprising that Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas has become one of the most beloved holiday stories of all time. It's got a little bit of something for everyone: a sincere, adorable crippled boy, for treacle fans; a handful of truly memorable characters; abundant humor, some of it rather more mordant than one might expect; a creepy ghost story; and, best of all, a central plot that appeals to lovers of Christmas everywhere: a cranky old jerk who hates Christmas has, after a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, a legendary change of heart and embraces the holiday in full, becoming the very embodiment of the spirit of giving and showering those poor souls he previously spurned with largesse.

Dickens write A Christmas Carol for the same reason he wrote a lot of his most famous work: for a paycheck. But it ended up having a much more vast impact on our entire culture than its author possibly imagined. One of the most widely-read stories of the English canon, its familiar story and infinitely flexible formal structure have led it to become one of the most widely-adapted stories as well. The number of stage plays, movies and very-special-episode television series based on the story are probably uncountable; as long as there is economic injustice, as long as there are lazy scriptwriters in love with the flashback gimmick; as long as there are cranky old jerks who, justfiably or not, aren't as into the holidays as the rest of us, there will continue to be new movie and TV versions of A Christmas Carol.

Just to mix things up a bit, I chose as my preferred adaptation this time around the 1992 felt-puppet version of Dickens' classic. Made just after Muppet maven Jim Henson died, it didn't do that well on its initial release, but gained something of a cult following on home video. There's plenty of inside jokes and a clever framing device of the story being narrated by Dickens himself (played by the Great Gonzo) and a comic foil in the form of Rizzo the Rat; the story is surprisingly faithful to the original; the casting of balcony naysayers Statler and Waldorf as Jacob Marley and -- ho, ho -- his brother Robert is inspired and leads to the movie's best musical number; and best of all, Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge proves that, just as he can turn in a great performance in a bad movie, he can be intensely human and affecting while acting opposite a stuffed bag of felt.

You'd be forgiven, naturally, if you chose a different movie version of A Christmas Carol as your favorite; there's enough good ones to make a 12 days of Christmas marathon of nothing but this particular story. The 'canonical' version is probably the 1951 British adaptation Scrooge, carried on the strength of an unforgettable lead performance by the wonderful Alastair Sim, but there's also the 1970 Albert Finney version, a 1935 adptation starring Leo G. Carroll, the George C. Scott-as-Scrooge TV movie from 1984, a 1999 television adaptation with slices of thick British ham from Patrick Stewart, Joel Grey and Richard E. Grant, Henry Winkler's An American Christmas Carol, Bill Murray's post-ironic 1988 adaptation Scrooged, and animated versions starring Mr. Magoo, the Flintstones, and a bunch of talking dogs that all have their fans.

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS RATING: An enjoyable 9 Muppet ladies dancing. This isn't the best Muppet movie, but it isn't the worst, and its relentless charm is hard to resist. Henson's son Brian and Steve Whitmore do a solid if uninspired job of carrying on the Muppet tradition, and there's the usual blend of kid-friendly shenanigans and clever jokes and references for the grown-ups. Caine's performance as Scrooge, though, is what really steals the show.

The Screengrab's 12 Days of Christmas Marathon: The Star Wars Holiday Special

DVD Digest for August 28, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It’s a good week for fans of classic comedy of both the big-screen and televised varieties. Plus, the Christmas DVD season officially begins.

DVD of the Week: Tough call this week, with no real world-beaters in the bunch. But in terms of sheer quantity, nothing tops the release of the mammoth Abbott & Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection. Over the length of 29 DVDs, Universal has compiled every single one of their Abbott & Costello features, as well as plenty of trailers and production notes. In addition, they’ve recorded commentary tracks on six of the movies, plus three new documentaries on one of comedy’s most legendary duos. Also included in the set is the companion book Abbott and Costello: The Universal Story. So if you’re an Abbott and Costello fan, today is your lucky day.

Other laughs can be had in this week’s new TV on DVD releases. For the seventies-era TV watcher, there’s Good Times: The Complete Series and Sanford and Son: The Complete Series (both Sony). For something a little more recent, check out the woefully underwatched-in-its-day NewsRadio: The Complete Series (Sony). Fans of animated sitcoms should enjoy The Flintstones: The Complete Series (Warner). And we shouldn’t forget about Mystery Science Theatre 3000 20th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory), which collects four of the gang’s most-requested episodes (First Spaceship on Venus, Laserblast, Werewolf and Future War), plus new interviews with the whole gang and a snazzy new Crow T. Robot figurine that’s sure to make you the envy of all your geeky friends (i.e. the only ones who really count).

Recent releases on coming to DVD this week include: Brendan Fraser treading all over Jules Verne in Journey to the Center of the Earth (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Abigail Breslin in her seventeenth movie of 2008, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Catherine Zeta Jones and Guy Pearce (as Houdini) in Gillian Armstrong’s Death Defying Acts (Weinstein); and a movie everyone will want to add to his DVD collection, Zombie Strippers (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

Finally, this week’s classics selection includes two of Warner’s recent Christmas favorites, The Polar Express Presented in 3D (Warner, also Blu-Ray, includes four pairs of 3D glasses), and Elf (Warner, Blu-Ray only, includes plentiful images of Will Ferrell in tights). And while Roger Ebert has gone gaga over the new DVD/Blu-Ray remastering of Ron Fricke’s Baraka (MPI, also Blu-Ray), allow me to stump for another sentimental favorite of mine. I’m referring, of course, to Juan Piquer-Simon’s Pieces (Ryko Distribution), one of the trashiest, dumbest, and irresistibly entertaining bad movies ever made. If that doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, stay far away. But if you’ve got a taste for gloriously fragrant cinematic garbage, Pieces is required viewing, Halloween or any other time of year.

Unwatchable #82: “American Soldiers”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

I must admit that the 2005 Iraq war movie American Soldiers had managed to elude my notice until now. I’m still not sure how enough people have seen it to qualify it for this list: it doesn’t appear to have received a theatrical release, but I guess the generic DVD box depicting two grim-faced young men in camouflage gripping enormous automatic weapons simply sang out from the Blockbuster racks. Before watching the movie, I had two competing theories on why it might have made the Bottom 100: Either it was a conservative take on the Iraq war and the liberals were pounding it, or vice versa. As it turns out, journeyman director Sidney J. Furie (the man behind both Iron Eagle IV and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace) has managed to make an Iraq movie that both sides have equal cause to consider complete bullshit.

American Soldiers follows one Army patrol through a single day in April 2004, and a nondescript bunch they are. Your old-timey war movies may have been cliché-ridden, but at least you could count on some reliable caricatures like Brooklyn, Country, Mad Dog, Four Eyes, Mama’s Boy and Sarge to help you tell the members of the unit apart. Here you have Sarge, and I think there’s another Sarge, and definitely a medic called Doc and then a bunch of beefy guys with very few acting credits among them. One of the Sarges spends most of the movie in a stretcher, so I was able to keep track of him pretty well. Otherwise they’re just so much cannon fodder. And oh, what cannons! Granted, I’ve never spent a day in the vicinity of Baghdad (nor in Hamilton, Ontario, where American Soldiers was actually shot), but I feel safe in saying that if a day like this had actually transpired in April 2004, the war would have ended a long time ago, because there wouldn’t be any American soldiers left.

During the first hour of this movie, I had to keep checking my DVD player to make sure it wasn’t simply playing the first chapter over and over again. Here’s what happens many, many times: The patrol rolls along in their open-air transport, repeatedly passing the same scenery as if they’re in an old Flintstones cartoon. Some insurgents pop up from behind a pile of sand with RPGs and fire on them. Someone screams “What the fuck are we doing here?” and someone else responds “We’re doing our jobs!” and the patrol rolls along for a minute or two before an IED goes off in the road and another batch of armed Iraqis pop up from behind a pile of bricks. Rinse and repeat. These guys are not only in the most dangerous place on earth, they’re in the most dangerous place that has ever existed; every person, place and thing on the screen is made out of explosions.

The movie remains plotless through its first two-thirds, until the patrol delivers a captured Iraqi prisoner to Camp Zebra, a CIA detention facility where the Geneva Convention does not apply. Suddenly these guys who have been dodging rocket-powered grenades all day turn into Alan Alda and Mike Farrell, deciding they can’t stand by and allow one of those responsible to be tortured. They storm the compound and, holding the CIA agents at gunpoint, take back their prisoner. Now, of course, they have to dodge eight or nine more ambushes to get back to their base. Eventually everyone finally runs out of ammo and the movie ends with a big hand-to-hand knife fight. Add American Soldier to the Bush administration’s list of war crimes.

Previously on Unwatchable:
83. First Sunday
84. It’s Pat
85. Battlefield Earth
86. Hobgoblins
87. The Sidehackers

Harvey Korman, 1927--2008

Phil Nugent — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:30:00 GMT

Harvey Korman has died at UCLA Medical Center, at age 81. He had been recuperating after an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago. At six foot four and with easy access to an attitude of sneering, haughty disdain for what was going on around him, he sometimes seemed to be demonstrating the answer to a question that nobody asked: what if John Cleese were American and joined the Shriners to get away from his wife? After a stint in the navy, Korman studied theater in Chicago before going to New York hoping to make it as an actor. He didn't have any luck and, he said later, he finally decided to move to Hollywood so that "at least I'd feel warm and comfortable while I failed." For three years he grabbed whatever work he could get while selling cars and performing other odd jobs to get by, until he became a regular on Danny Kaye's TV series in 1963. That led to plenty of work guesting on other shows, including his iconic voice work as the Great Gazoo on The Flintstones. As a movie actor, he appeared in Lord Love a Duck (1966), The April Fools (1969), Americathon (1979), and Radioland Murders (2004), but found his steadiest employment in films as part of Mel Brooks's stock company. He first worked for Brooks in Blazing Saddles, playing the villainous Hedley Lamarr, then returned in High Anxiety, The History of the World, Part I and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

It was in TV that Korman really made his mark, especially playing second banana to Carol Burnett for ten years, beginning with the first season of her CBS variety show in 1967, where he used his size and air of deadhead exasperation to parody classic movie stars and represent the soul of defeated Middle America in the classic "Family" sketches. "We were an ensemble," he said later, "and Carol had the most incredible attitude. I've never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away." Korman left the show after ABC offered him his own series, which was pulled from the air after three episodes; none of his subsequent attempts at a series of his own (including the 1989n flop The Nutt House, which Mel Brooks had a hand in) fared any better, and though he kept coming back, often in tandem with Burnett or his Carol Burnett Show sidekick Tim Conway, he was not above publicly airing his feelings that the best days of his career were behind him. On a 1990 late night talk show appearance with Bob Costas, Costas became so uncomfortable listening to Korman slag himself as a has-been that he jumped at a mention of the comedian's small daughter watching reruns of The Flintstones; did she, Costas asked, seem surprised at how much the Great Gazoo sounded like her father? Yes, Korman said, very surprised: "Daddy used to work!?"

Writers’ Strike: A Novel Solution

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Just wondering: when auto workers are on strike, do they come home after a long day on the picket lines and head down to the workshop where they’re building a boat? When they’re not busy demanding fair wages and safe working conditions, do the members of the International Shoe Cobblers Union spend their off-hours knitting socks?

The reason we ask is this article from the L.A. Times, which alerts us to the fact that, while screenplays are not being written, the keyboards of Hollywood are far from silent. All the screenwriters who always knew they had great novels in them but never had the time…well, now they have the time. For some, it’s a simple matter of digging through the drawer of rejected scripts and plucking out one with literary potential. Others, sick of pitch meetings and studio notes, are trying to find their niche in the young adult or “comic noir” genres.

If the prospect of the writers of Richie Rich and The Flintstones following in the footsteps of Hemingway and Faulkner doesn’t exactly get your toes tapping, imagine what the folks who sift through the slush piles at the big publishing companies and literary agencies must be feeling.

"Oftentimes, you shudder when a screenwriter sends you a novel, because they tend to be strong with dialogue but crappy with context, and novels are all about creating the proper context for the story," says book agent Mary Evans. But look on the bright side: if you do end up selling your novel, at least the pay is shitty!