Top Secret!

Top Secret! (Jim Abraham, David & Jerry Zucker, 1984)

From the creators of Airplane! comes this new comedy mixing Elvis’ movies, spy flicks, and comedy. Set in East Germany during the Cold War, Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) the American star of Rock n’Roll is invited to play at a concert to show how the East is opened to international music. The whole story evolves around this stereotyped character using all his charms and songs to save his ass and the lady.

The Abraham/Zuckers team presents a funny but lower than Airplane! quality amusement with Top Secret!. The whole thing gets old and gets on the nerves after the second or third song. We kind of understand the point that they are mocking Elvis’s movies for their lack of quality and the below average songs wagon they were.

On the side of the comedy, some gags are better than others but they were so imitated and stolen from this film that today a fresh viewer could predict a good 75% of them. Some are very efficient and the contextualization of them is well done. It’s just that the formula is now textbook for comedies and that the jokes influenced shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy and many movies to follow. It made me realize how humour doesn’t need to be about penises and vulgarities to be funny and/or efficient. Sure, there are some jokes falling in that category but compared to the Judd Apatow pedestrian comedies, we are in more decent terms here.

Anyhow, I felt like if the movie wasn’t as inspired as Airplane! was. Moreover, it was duller and despite some excellent moments I’d wished for a better story to hold the jokes together and I just wish I’d seen this when it came out to compare it to the comedies of its time and how it was original.

Airplane!

Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980)

I already admitted on this blog that I am a sucker for a good comedy and that it is probably my favorite of all movie genres. It was the more popular genre at the first moments of the birth of Cinema, look at the success guys like Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and many more had. People are always opened to laugh and disconnect with the diffculties of their lives in a Theater and this is maybe one of the reasons it is still one of the money makers at the Box-office. Just look how every comedy gets to the top of the most grossing films. They are often considered as family films that everyone can enjoy and understand. Pardon the introduction but I though it was interesting to get some ideas out of my head because I don't review lots of comedies here and that's one thing I'll try to correct in 2011.

Airplane! is a success, well in its conception it's cheap and sometimes it looks cheap but the comedy and the gags don't get old. And just the presence of Leslie Nielsen on the screen makes me laugh, so he doesn't have to do much to make me laugh even more. The big story, if there is one, is about a couple that has had some issues and that should work over the fear of flying of the man (an ancient War pilot) and the shame of the woman (a stewardess). The whoel thing is a pretext for crazy jokes in an airplane. Well, except for the rules of in flight behavior that changed drastically since the sad event of September 11 and that make us think that cannot happen as bad as it is, the situations and the gags are extremely hilarious. Maybe it gives to the film a gloss of good old time...

One of the most important things to check when you are watching Airplane! is how in almost every frame there is always something stupid/unexpected happening in the deep focus.

Believe it or not I just discovered Airplane! and it made me think that I should revisit The Naked Gun series and the other films the Zuckers made because they are filled with creative gags and ironic dialogues. Anyone has a comedy I must discover or rediscover?