MY MOVIE SHELF: Trading Places

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 148  Days to go: 100

Movie #290:  Trading Places

The great thing about Saturday Night Live — the entire purpose, in fact — is to satirize and mock real situations in absurd ways. That’s its schtick. When people get offended by the stuff SNL does, they’re wildly missing the point, yes, but they’re also reacting, at least in part, how they are supposed to. The skits — especially the political ones — are often intended to provoke. That’s how SNL brings attention to all manner of fucked up things.

Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd were never on SNL together. Murphy joined the cast after Aykroyd had left. And technically, Trading Places is not an SNL film. But it was directed by John Landis, who wrote and directed Blues Brothers and has collaborated with a lot of SNL talent over the years, and both Aykroyd and Murphy brought their SNL experience to the set. (Murphy, in fact, was still an active cast member when Trading Places was filmed.) So I think it’s safe to say the film has an SNL sensibility to it, at the very least. And while the movie is undeniably silly and outrageous, it doesn’t fail to make several deliberate points about wealth vs. poverty in America, and the ways in which the environment and opportunities surrounding you help to mold your character.

Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy) is a con man, wheeling himself around Philadelphia on a board, pretending to be a wounded veteran, and begging for cash. He’s loud and obnoxious and pretty much just a bullshitter by trade. Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd), on the other hand, comes from money. He went to Harvard, is a member of a founding fathers country club, works for the illustrious Duke & Duke investment firm, is engaged to an heiress, and has a manservant named Coleman (Denholm Elliott), who pretty much does everything but wipe Winthorpe’s butt (I’m assuming). When the two cross paths and Winthorpe accuses Valentine of trying to steal the Duke & Duke payroll, the Duke brothers themselves — Randolph, played by Ralph Bellamy, and Mortimer, played by Don Ameche — make a bet as to whether they could take a man with a long history of poverty and petty crime and turn him into an upstanding citizen, while simultaneously taking someone of excellent breeding and character and turning him into a criminal. So Valentine gets Winthorpe’s cushy job and home and manservant, while Louis gets railroaded into theft and drug possession charges by shady character Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason), who works on questionable errands for the Dukes. So Randolph proves his point about environment and wins the wager — $1 from Mortimer. The end.

Only, that’s not the end. Billy Ray overhears the Dukes and rescues Louis from his rock-bottom suicidal tendencies. They discover a plan by the Dukes to corner the frozen orange juice market, and they decide to turn the tables. Using the life savings of Coleman and Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis), the hooker with a heart of gold who took Louis in when he was destitute, they ambush Beeks with some snazzy costumes, outplay the Dukes, and wind up on a tropical beach somewhere, living the multi-millionaire life.

It’s a really funny, really great little flick. It’s well-written and sharp, and it makes great use of both spoken and physical comedy. But it’s also really clever and witty the way so soon after Billy Ray finds himself with worthwhile possessions, he finds himself unwilling to be careless with him, whereas Louis has to make do with whatever awful crap he can get his hands on, and literally eats a smoked salmon through a dirty Santa beard. Yes, the circumstances are extreme, but the concept is realistic and sound. If you’ve never had money or opportunities in your life, it’s a lot harder to “pull yourself up” to the level of someone who has had every advantage. That’s a fact.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I mostly like the movie just because it makes me laugh like crazy and I dream every day of having my own financial windfall. Even though I have absolutely no interest in employing a manservant. No offense, Coleman.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Clue

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 306  Days to go: 295

Movie #67: Clue

It has to be a difficult task to make a movie based on a board game. I assume that’s why it’s rarely attempted and only ever moderately successful this once, with Clue.

To clarify, Clue was not at all successful in theaters. I remember when it came out, and while I saw it and a bunch of my friends saw it — more than once, to see all the different endings — mostly it was mocked and derided for being stupid and silly and gimmicky for having multiple endings and being based on a board game. It didn’t make a lot of money, but for several children of that era — and the many children who’ve come after, catching it on TV several times a year — it achieved a certain revered status.

The reason, I believe, for this status — this success, as it were — is twofold. One, the movie employs some of the best and most respected absurdist comedic actors of the previous ten years, at least: Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan and Martin Mull. All were skilled at and at ease with improvisation, rapid-fire banter, and physical comedy, plus they brought Lesley Ann Warren into the mix, who was both sexy and funny. Two, nobody took this seriously. This isn’t Battleship, where there’s some grave worldwide crisis threatening all mankind that must be solved. Clue is playful and ridiculous — not even the setup or the motives or the endings make a whole lot of sense — and incredibly fun to watch.

One thing I think makes this one board game somewhat easier to adapt than any other is the fact that it comes pre-packaged with characters and a storyline. Six people — Miss Scarlet, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock and Professor Plum — are all present in this mansion when Mr. Boddy is killed, and one of them did it, in one of the rooms, with one of the six provided weapons. It’s a basic framework for a narrative already — who are these goofy people with these weird names and why are they all suspected of murder? It’s a structure that the talented actors and writers (including John Landis) could play with.

My favorite, unsurprisingly, is the clever wordplay and double entendres bandied about throughout the film. If there is a double meaning to be had or a misunderstanding to be made, Clue exploits it. “Why would he want to kill you in public?”

Then there’s “one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one,” and Madeline Kahn with “flame, flames, flames — on the side of my face.” Not to mention the greatest last line of any frivolous movie ever, “I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife.” Way to go, Mr. Green.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Animal House

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #18: Animal House

First off, I’m not going to be talking about John Belushi in this movie. That is well-covered territory — so much so that fetuses are doing the “I’m a zit” bit in utero. No, what I’m going to talk about is everything else.

Let’s start with the cast. Yes, there was John Belushi in his first feature film, becoming an international comedy icon and symbol of the slacker dorm room poster industry right before our eyes. There were also two future Oscar nominees (Tom Hulce in Amadeus and Peter Riegert for a live action short film), perpetual That Guy Bruce McGill (as D-Day, his perhaps only truly badass role, though my favorite remains the bartender Al in the Quantum Leap series finale), Karen Allen before she became love interest of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, current villain of the blockbuster Hunger Games movies and Hollywood patriarch Donald Sutherland, and some guy named Kevin Bacon who has literally appeared in so many things there’s a game named after him based on the idea that no actor ever in history is more than six degrees separated from him. That’s one hell of a pedigree for a tiny little comedy made by a bunch of no-names.

Oh, and those behind-the-scenes no-names? John Landis directed Animal House — it was his third film — and would go on to give us The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, The Three Amigos, Coming to America, and more, just in the ’80s. Harold Ramis wrote the script for Animal House with two collaborators; it was his first. He went on to write Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Back to School, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, among others, plus act in and direct some of the funniest movies of his time. And when Animal House came out in 1978, producer Ivan Reitman was still a relatively new name, but he would become one of the biggest and most respected men in the business.

The movie’s soundtrack is also historically great, featuring indelible songs of the ’60s like “Louie, Louie,” “Wonderful World” and “Twistin’ the Night Away.” The most memorable song from the movie, however, is “Shout” by The Isley Brothers. Originally released in 1959, “Shout” became the signature song for a movie based in 1962 that was filmed in 1978. But that’s not where the story ends. I graduated from high school in 1993, fifteen years after Animal House came out in theaters (more than thirty years since the song’s original release), and that song was still being played at my school dances. Every time, without fail. They still play it at weddings today. It’s a staple of the portable DJ business. Not only that, but the entire way people dance to that song, to this day (arms in the air, crouching down at the “softer now” parts, jumping at the “louder now” parts), comes from this movie that featured it. If you catch an old episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos on cable some night, and somebody’s grandmother falls on her backside while trying to squat as low as she can during this song, it is because of Animal House. That is monumental cultural influence, and it doesn’t stop there.

Animal House isn’t just a movie, it’s a landmark. If it had been made this century, it would have no fewer than two sequels that would have likely diluted its cultural significance,  but as a standalone film-cum-global phenomenon, it wields massive influence over our collective idea of what college is like, of what young adulthood is like, and it has seeped into all manner of things in our society.

When I was a freshman at Syracuse University my best friend came to visit me for a weekend and as we were wandering around the party houses just off-campus, we stumbled into a toga party. Why a toga party? Because of Animal House.

If you went to a college in the last thirty years that had any kind of fraternity/sorority presence, it was because of this movie. Animal House single-handedly revitalized the Greek system on college campuses, for good or for ill. They wouldn’t be here today if not its popularity. (And weird fraternity brother nicknames? This movie.)

The bizarre and completely played-out myth/idea that girls are constantly having pillow fights in their underwear (or less, if a director is looking for an easy path to gratuitous nudity) features prominently into this movie.

Veronica Mars seasons 2 and 3 featured a fraternity jerkwad named Chip Diller. Chip Diller just so happens to be the name of Kevin Bacon’s character in Animal House.

If you’ve ever been able to correctly use sensuous and sensual in sentences because “vegetables are sensual, people are sensuous,” if you’ve ever shouted “food fight” and expected everyone to respond by flinging things, if you’ve ever said “Thank you sir, may I have another,” it is because of this movie.

Oh, and it’s pretty much accepted as the quintessential college party movie. (I saw one list that put Old School at the top, but there would be no Old School without Animal House.) I’m not saying Animal House invented these things necessarily, but it’s undeniable that Animal House made them mainstream and unforgettable. Just as all sci-fi changed after Star Wars, just as all summer movies changed after Jaws, all adolescent/young adult party comedies changed after Animal House.

And yes, John Belushi was a key player in the movie’s overall impact, but for the record my favorite part is when Kevin Bacon gets literally flattened by a stampeding mob of townspeople. Now that’s funny.