Watch the trailer! Finishing up our look at animation aimed at adults, we turn to proof that something can be moved from television (well, cable television) to the big screen and the result is something truly unique and well worth watching! From the demented minds of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 1999's "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" shows exactly what the duo would turn in every week were it not for the programming limits of basic cable. And to top it all off, it's a musical, with songs in the style of so many classic movie and stage musicals, it even had a song nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, "Blame Canada!" This is a great middle-finger to the MPAA, done with all the snark and style those familiar with "South Park" have come to expect, and then some! Plus, the trio reveal which two "Thanksgiving-adjacent" films make up their next pairing!
Watch the trailer! We're turning to the realm of animated films aimed at adults for this pairing, and starting with the poster-child for such offerings. With nearly as many directors and writers as cast members, 1981's classic "Heavy Metal" turns in a sci-fi/fantasy/horror anthology with something for everyone! The film has voice-work from some notable actors including John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, John Vernon, and Harold Ramis. The variety and complexity of each segment's animation (there are eight!) provide for an amazing visual palette, but it's musically that this film really shines! With a score by Elmer Bernstein and a soundtrack featuring the likes of Sammy Hagar, Devo, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Don Felder, Nazareth, Donald Fagan, Journey, Grand Funk Railroad, Cheap Trick, Stevie Nicks, Black Sabbath, and more, the film completely lives up to its name in both content and tone!
Watch the trailer! Part two of Halloween pairing is the rare television-to-film adaptation that does the original material justice! We're talking, of course, about the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed masterpiece that is 1991's "The Addams Family!" Starring Angelica Houston as Morticia, Raul Julia as Gomez, Carel Struycken as Lurch, Judith Malina as Granny, Jimmy Workman as Pugsley, Christopher Hart as Thing, and Christina Ricci in her break-out role as Wednesday, the film follows Gomez's search for his long-missing brother Fester (Christopher Lloyd), and the trio of hapless normals who are part of their orbit, two of whom are trying to scam Gomez out of his riches! This film is the perfect combination of romance, goth, and humor, and creates a world we'd all like to live in, especially if we could be neighbors with the Addams... as long as we were at least two houses away that is. And the trio reveal which two quality representatives of adult animation they're choosing for the next pairing!
Watch the trailer! Happy Halloween! For this year's Halloween pairing, we're taking a look at the lighter side of the holiday, and reviewing two classic horror comedies. The first is THE classic horror comedy, and the film that signaled the end of the first horror cycle in American film, 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," directed by Charles Barton! Viewed primarily as a stand-alone film (and not a continuation of Universal's horror series'), this film finds Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Gray (Lou Costello) working as baggage claim agents at the local station. They receive a strange call from someone asking them not to deliver two packages, but then the actual owner turns up and demands they do so. As it turns out, the two large crates contain a coffin holding Count Dracula (Bela Legosi, in only his 2nd turn as the famous vampire) and the other holds the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange). And it turns out that the person who called to warn them was none other than Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), the Wolf-Man! Add in a couple beautiful women and you have a romp that's strangely still quite scary in its third act, and a monster-mash to beat all others!
From a castle somewhere in Ohio to the Paris of the mid-1930s we go for the second film in our "tranvestite musicals" pairing, courtesy of master director Blake Edwards! This time, it's a starving former opera singer, Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) who, thanks to a chance meeting with cabaret performer Carole 'Toddy' Todd (Robert Preston), winds up as a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be woman, as they embark on a musical con to become rich and famous, and Victoria becomes Count Victor Grazinsky, Polish aristocrat, and Europe's greatest female impersonator! And it would have worked, were it not for the arrival of King Marchand (James Garner), his moll/girlfriend Norma Cassidy (Lesley Ann Warren) and his bodyguard 'Squash' Bernstein (Alex Karras) to witness Victor's debut. After King is smitten with Victoria, he refuses to admit that "he" is really not a "she" and embarkes on a mission to get the girl (after he proves she IS a girl). It's am amazing romp and a true tour de force for both Andrews and Preston! And then, the trio reveal why they're going with horror comedies for this Halloween's pairing, and which two films made the list!
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