Movies

Recap: ‘Movie Hullabaloo 3 – Make Me Laugh’

April 26, 2017

Twenty. Ten. Three.

No, these are not Powerball numbers. But they do have some significance relating to Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (ADC), a cinema chain that Entertainment Weekly once declared as “The #1 movie theater in the country doing it right” (August, 2005). The brainchild of Tim and Karrie League, the first drafthouse opened twenty years ago in Texas’s state capital, Austin. Move forward to 2007 and one would take residence in a strip mall in Houston, TX on Mason Road.

That was the location where one hundred-plus gathered this past Sunday to partake in “Movie Hullabaloo 3.” I would say third annual Movie Hullabaloo but it did not happen in 2016. Robert Saucedo, programming director for the ADC – Houston decries “Mea culpa” for that gaffe, but he made up for it with the third installment. But what is a Hullabaloo? It has nothing to do with Hulu, a hula hoop, or Baloo from The Jungle Book, I’ll tell you that much.

Movie Hullabaloo is a magical journey through the power of film. A cinematic mystery tour.

In the past the event has included five mystery titles. This year’s event was comprised of four films. Four comedies, actually. It wasn’t something that Robert or Meredith Borders (Managing Editor for Birth.Movies.Death) or Alan Cerny (Writer for Coming Soon) planned. Though the timing couldn’t have been better, especially with everything that’s transpiring in the world. The audience needed a good laugh – and they got it! The selling factor is that other than those programming the event the audience has no idea what will be shown. The concept of programming the movie marathon is a simple one: What movie would you want to share with an audience if you only had one more chance to do so.

Essentially, your “desert island” movie.

Past films have included the likes of Brick (the debut feature from Rian Johnson – he’s got a little movie coming out later this year called Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi), Rio Bravo, True Stories (featuring John Goodman in one of his first performances), The Legend of Billy Jean (FAIR IS FAIR!), and Houston premieres for Afflicted, Spring, and I Am a Knife with Legs.

Knowing that there was a comedy theme, I can’t say I was surprised with Alan Cerny’s choice: The Bad News Bears. In fact, I almost wore my Chico’s Bail Bonds shirt to the event. “I can never keep a poker face,” Alan admitted. This Michael Ritchie comedy stars Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Vic Morrow, and Jackie Earle Haley. Before the movie played, Alan did a short introduction exclaiming that The Bad News Bears was definitely a film of its time. So true, this statement, as during the presentation a pair of older women sitting down from me remarked, “This is politically incorrect.” Considering that one of the little leaguers, Tanner, uses race, religious, and ethnic epithets at one point, it’s easy to see why. Then again, Bill Lancaster’s (son of Burt Lancaster) script is so good with so many great lines it was a solid choice for a desert island pick. It’s hard to go wrong with Walter Matthau trading barbs with a bunch of youngsters.

Engelberg: You’re not supposed to have open liquor in the car. It’s against the law.

Coach Morris Buttermaker: So is murder, Engleberg. Now put that back before you get me in real trouble.

But leave it to politically incorrect Tanner to put the ultimate capper on The Bad News Bears.

Tanner Boyle: Hey Yankees… you can take your apology and your trophy and shove ’em straight up your ass!

Following a brief intermission to stretch and move around, Meredith Borders introduced her selection for Hullabaloo. Her selection was based on Edmond Rostand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac” and directed by Fred Schepisi. His career as a filmmaker isn’t very prolific but before Will Smith was one of the Bad Boys, Schepisi plucked him out of Bel-Air and had him star opposite Donald Sutherland, and Stockard Channing in Six Degrees of Separation.

Her pick: 1987’s Roxanne with Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah, and Rick Rossovich.

Talk about a blast from the past. As a child growing up in the 1980s, Roxanne was a staple of HBO programming. It was always on or in regular rotation. I hadn’t seen this comedy in probably a decade but it is so delightful. The premise involves Steve Martin as C.D. “Charlie” Bales, the chief of a volunteer fire department in the small town of Nelson. His friend Dixie (Shelley Duvall) rents her house to Daryl Hannah’s Roxanne and he falls madly in love with her but keeps his feelings secret. C.D. has a bit of a complex on account of his huge nose. Begrudgingly, he lends advice to Chris (Rick Rossovich), one of the new firemen in the department, and someone who is described as being a real hit with the ladies. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Chris has the looks. But he has a small mind. Roxanne falls in love with Chris on account of the letters he writes her (which are actually written by C.D.). Eventually she’ll learn the truth, right?

Dixie: So, why don’t you ask her out?

C.D. Bales: Sometimes I take a walk at night and I see couples walking, holding hands and I look at them and I think: “Why not me?” Then I catch my shadow on the wall…

Steve Martin is charming as Charlie and the film as a whole may be one of most intelligent romantic comedies ever crafted. His adaptation of the famed play allows Martin to have a way with words and make people laugh. Roxanne also has a young Damon Wayans who has one speaking part as well as Fred Willard as the mayor of Nelson, John Kapelos (best remembered as the janitor in The Breakfast Club) and Bonnie & Clyde‘s Michael J. Pollard, who I’ll always remember as Herman in Scrooged starring Bill Murray.

Moving on we have our third comedy of Hullabaloo and it was a Mel Brooks film that nearly half of the audience had never seen. How can this be? The man who gave us Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles (both in the same year – 1974), Spaceballs, and The Producers. Robert Saucedo’s choice was The Twelve Chairs starring Ron Moody, Frank Langella, Mel Brooks, and Dom DeLuise. You may be thinking snoozefest when you hear that it takes place in 1920s Soviet Russia, but you would be wrong. Here is a comedy that sounds like the start of an old joke you’ve heard before. A fallen aristocrat, a priest, and a con artist walk into a bar. Actually, they don’t walk into a bar, but they are in search of hidden jewels inside one of twelve dining chairs lost during the revolution.

Made between The Producers and Young Frankenstein, The Twelve Chairs gives an early glimpse of the side-splitting buffoonery we would come to expect with Mel Brooks comedy. DeLuise, in just his sixth movie role, was a riot with his inflection and line delivery. At one point he delivers a guttural “Give me that chair!” as if he were Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. Langella, who I associate as Skeletor in the cheesy Masters of the Universe, is the sly con artist Ostap Bender. If you look closely enough at his attire you’ll notice that his pants would be reused seven years later when George Lucas made Star Wars. Han Solo is wearing Ostap’s pants!

Ostap Bender: [after yet another failure] Remember the famous Russian proverb: “The hungrier you get, the tastier the meal.” On the other hand, the French have a proverb: merde!

The last film of the event was a special premiere for the upcoming Ingrid Goes West. The comedy stars Aubrey Plaza (TV’s Parks and Recreation) and Elizabeth Olsen. Hullabaloo programmer Alan Cerny summed it up nicely in less than 144 characters.

INGRID GOES WEST is outstanding. A comedic TALENTED MR. RIPLEY for the Instagram age. Aubrey Plaza and O'Shea Jackson Jr. are terrific.

— Alan Cerny (@NordlingCS) April 24, 2017

I wasn’t prepared to like Matt Spicer’s directorial debut as much as I did but Ingrid Goes West is funny, dark (like blackout shades dark), and topical. In today’s culture it is easy to get wrapped up into Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. To a point where the network that is supposed to make us sociable does just the opposite. Ingrid (Plaza) is the perfect candidate. Emotionally unstable, she retreats to Instragram as a life preserver. When she starts following Taylor (Olsen) on Instagram Ingrid sees it as an opportunity to have a new best friend in her life. Her pit of loneliness is at a point that if anyone took an interest in her she would absorb them like a sponge. And she seemingly does just that with Taylor, almost Single White Female-ing her, copying where she eats, what she wears, and going as far as dog-napping to have a reason to meet her at her home.

As Ingrid Goes West progresses we meet Taylor’s husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell), who quits his job to become an artist but doesn’t sell anything; Danny Pinto (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), the would-be screenwriter who loves Batman and is also Ingrid’s next door neighbor/landlord; and Nicky (Billy Magnussen), Taylor’s brother, looking like a character who would have lunch with Patrick Bateman. What’s great is that these characters aren’t caricatures. They are flawed – some are just better hiding it than others. The Ingrid/Taylor dynamic is not the same as Ingrid and Danny. One is vapid, while the other is a genuine connection. Matt Spicer has a nice balance of funny comedy and the exaggerated comedy that seems to be Plaza’s signature deadpan style.

Ingrid Goes West rides that fine line of how to tell a psycho-stalker and a Los Angeles hipster a part. The social media aspect is partially the key in exploring how fragile we are as individuals, trying to create lives and relationships one “like” or photo post at a time. No more is this true in the waning moments where Ingrid does something that finds her on the receiving end of being liked and followed online.

Aubrey Plaza continues to impress. While I had seen her on NBC’s Parks and Recreation it wasn’t until 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed where I really noticed her. Since then she’s been on a streak regardless if she’s playing lead or supporting. Her deadpan delivery and to be harsh when required, Aubrey has it in spades as Ingrid. She is the glue. O’Shea Jackson Jr. (aka Ice Cube’s son) has a nice supporting turn and Wyatt Russell has one good scene where he explains to Ingrid why Taylor isn’t the same woman he fell in love with when she first arrived in California.

I can’t wait until audiences get to see this comedy when NEON releases it in theaters this August. Instead of giving it a Thumbs Up, I give it a Prayer Hands emoji. Director Matt Spicer agrees with my grade.