Wrongfully Accused (1998, directed by Pat Proft)

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Ryan Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) is a world-famous concert violinist who plays his instrument like Jimmy Page plays his guitar. Harrison is invited to a party but when his host, Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York), is murdered, Harrison is wrongfully accused. No one believes his story that the murder was committed by a one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged man. Harrison is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Maybe he should have asked for a preemptive pardon but that would probably have been too ludicrous an idea for even a parody film like this one. An accident on the way to prison allows Harrison to escape. He must now prove his innocence while being pursued by the determined Fergus Falls (Richard Crenna).

Wrongfully Accused is the only film to be directed by comedy writer Pat Proft and it’s a parody film in the style of Airplane! There are sight gags, movie references, and a lot of ridiculous dialogue delivered in deadpan fashion by Leslie Nielsen. Richard Crenna does a decent impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones. There’s a North By Northwest parody that involves a toy airplane. It’s not that there weren’t enough funny moments, it’s just that there weren’t enough of them. Most of the jokes instead felt uninspired, as if Proft just turned on his TV and tossed in a joke about whatever movie he saw being advertised. It feels like the script was written by using parody movie mad libs. One reason why Airplane! holds up so well is because it genuinely loved disaster movies and there was a sense of innocence to even the wildest of the jokes. Wrongfully Accused has some funny moments but there’s no real affection for the movie being poked fun at. The Fugitive feels like almost too easy a target. Leslie Nielsen and Richard Crenna score some laughs but even they sometimes seem to be just going through the motions.

As the old saying goes, dying is easy. Comedy is hard.

Game Review: American Outlaws: The Dillinger Gang (2017, by Will 1 1)

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

The time is the Great Depression and you are a lawyer who has had a terrible run of luck. You’ve lost your money, your home, and your wife. Sent to prison for a pretty crime, you befriend the legendary outlaw John Dillinger. When you are both released on the same day, it’s time to get back to doing what Dillinger does best, robbing banks.

American Outlaws: The Dillinger Game is a choose-your-own-adventure style game, in which you are a member of Dillinger’s gang and an associate of outlaws like Baby Face Nelson, Red Hamilton, and Homer van Meter. The choices start out simple. Do you accompany Dillinger on his latest robbery? Do you head to Indiana with Dillinger or do you instead decide to join Baby Face Nelson’s gang? The choices start to get more difficult. Do you run when the cops show up? Do you fight with the cops? When a member of the gang orders you to shoot someone, do you do it? The game keeps a running tally of the number of gunfights you’ve taken part in, the number of people you’ve injured, the number that you’ve killed, the number of banks you’ve robbed, and the amount of money you’ve made. Depending on the decisions you make, it’s totally possible to make it all the way through this game and retire without having killed or even injured someone. It’s also possible to be such a viscous outlaw that even Baby Face Nelson wouldn’t mess with you. The longer your play, the more money you can potentially make but the more money you make, the more likely it is that you’ll commit a crime that will make it impossible for you to safely retire. You could end up the last member of the Dillinger Gang. You could also just as easily end up getting taken down by the FBI.

It helps to know the history of the Dillinger gang. That saved my life at least once. In fact, it’s really not difficult to survive the game. The sensible decisions are there and easy to make. But why be sensible when you’re hanging out with John Dillinger and there’s more and more money to be made?

This is a good game because every choice really does effect what happens to your bank robber. There are no throw-away choices and who your outlaw turns out to be really does depend on the decisions that you make. Because there are so many different outcomes, this is a fast-paced game can be played again and again.

Play American Outlaws: The Dillinger Gang.

Great Moments In Comic Book History #39: LBJ Stands Up For The Hulk

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Say what you will about Lyndon B. Johnson, he was one of the few presidents to understand that the Hulk was not the menace that the media made him out to be. In 1967, he even issued full amnesty to the Hulk in recognition for the number of times that Hulk had saved the planet. Gil Kane captured the moment in Tales To Astonish #88.

Guilty of only being feared and misunderstood! That was something that LBJ could probably relate to in 1967. Unfortunately, after a fight with the masked criminal known as the Boomerang, Hulk was once again viewed as being a menace and General Ross threw the amnesty order away. I guess that’s what they mean when they talk about the Deep State.

LBJ wasn’t popular with young readers and he didn’t make many appearances in the world of comics. It’s a pleasant surprise that, one of the few times that he did appear, it was to do the right thing and offer some temporary hope to the Incredible Hulk.

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Great Moments In Television History #37: Eisenhower Hosts The First Televised Press Conference

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

“Well, I see we’re trying a new experiment this morning. I hope that doesn’t prove to be a disturbing influence.”

With those words, President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened the first ever televised (though pre-taped) presidential news conference. For the first time, viewers at home could watch as the President took questions from the members of the press and answered them in his own words. Today, we take it for granted and we even get bored with televised news conferences and speeches. But seventy years ago today, on January 19th, 1955, what Eisenhower did was considered to be revolutionary and a little dangerous. How would the public react to actually seeing the man who led the country answering questions in person.

Eisenhower was asked about the dangers of Communist China, the new budget bill, and his own opinion about how his first term had gone and whether had any plans for a potential second term. Eisenhower laughed at the last query, saying, “It looks like a loaded question.”

Obviously, the new experiment worked. The pubic continued to like Ike and, when he did run for a second term, he was elected just as easily as the first time. The Democrats didn’t even bother to put a new candidate and instead just brought back Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower would be succeeded by John F. Kennedy, who went on to perfect Eisenhower’s “new experiment.”

Previous Moments In Television History:

Phantom Punch (2008, directed by Robert Townsend)

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Ving Rhames plays Sonny Liston, one of the greatest heavyweights who ever boxed but whose legacy will forever be overshadowed by the man who defeated him twice, Muhammad Ali.

Phantom Punch hits all of the well-known notes of Liston’s life. He grows up dealing with poverty and racism. He goes to prison as a young man and it is there that a sympathetic priest (Rick Roberts) helps him discover that his talent for fighting can be transformed into the skills needed to be a heavyweight contender. Sonny turns pro after he’s released but, even as he angles for a championship fight, he’s still collecting debts for mobsters like Savino (David Proval). Sonny becomes the champ after defeating Floyd Patterson but is hated by white boxing fans who resent that, unlike previous black champs, he doesn’t seem to care about their approval. Both of his losses to Ali lead to accusations that he threw the fights. With the help of his manager (Nichols Turturro), he works his way back up the rankings and is poised for another shot at the title but the Mafia now wants him to throw his fights for real. In 1971, Liston dies of what the police claim was a heroin overdose even though everyone knew that Liston hated needles. There’s not much new to be found in Robert Townsend’s biopic of Liston but Ving Rhames is convincing as Sonny and even brings some humanity to one of boxing’s most fearsome champs. It was a movie made for boxing fans and Rhames looks credible throwing a punch.

As I watched the movie, I wondered whether Liston really did throw his fights against Ali. I don’t think he did, even though both fights were strange. In the first fight, Sonny put something on his gloves that irritated Ali’s eyes. When that didn’t stop Ali, Sonny retired to his corner and didn’t come out for the seventh round. That led to rumors that the Mob ordered him to throw the fight but if you watch the match, it’s obvious that Sonny was trying to win and he just wasn’t prepared for Ali’s quickness. Liston knew he was losing and, with an aggravated shoulder injury making it difficult for him to throw his heavy punches, Liston bowed to the inevitable and refused to give Ali the chance to knock him out. The second fight was the one where the phantom punch occurred. Liston fell so quickly that, when I first saw it, I thought he had thrown the fight. It wasn’t until I watched the fight in slow motion that I saw that Ali did make contact with Liston before he fell. Liston may have been many things but but he wasn’t a chump. The so-called phantom punch was fast but it was real.

Excalibur (1981, directed by John Boorman)

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

During the Dark Ages, Britain is at war. King Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne) leads his men against The Duke of Cornwall (Corin Redgrave). Uther and his men swear their allegiance to God and St. George but they trust in the magic of the mysterious Merlin (Nicol Williamson).

Merlin negotiates peace between Uther and Cornwall but Uther throws that peace away when he becomes obsessed with Cornwall’s beautiful wife, Igrayne (Katrine Boorman). Merlin uses his magic to disguise Uther as Cornwall so that Uther can spend one night with Igrayne. When Cornwall is killed in battle, Uther marries Igrayne and realizes it was never necesarry to use Merlin’s magic and that Merlin, who has the power to see the future, knew that. Merlin takes Uther and Igrayne’s infant son from them and then disappears. Later, Uther is killed by by three of Cornwall’s men. Before dying, Uther drives his magic sword, Excalibur, into a stone. On the true king of England will be able to remove it.

Uther’s son, Arthur (Nigel Terry), grows up with no knowledge about his parentage. When he accidentally draws Excalibur out of the rock, Merlin returns to counsel the new king. And the new king has much to learn, as not all of the nobleman are willing to accept him as their ruler. Arthur proves himself worthy to be king while his half-sister, Morgan (Helen Mirren), waits for her chance to get revenge.

Excalibur is one of the most ambitious films made about King Arthur. John Boorman fits the entire legend of Arthur, Lancelot (Nicholas Clay), Percevel (Paul Geoffrey), Guinevere (Cherie Lunghi), and the search for the Holy Grail into one movie and, as a result, there’s not a dull moment. Boorman presents the reign of King Arthur as a conflict between England’s pagan past and the new era of man. Merlin and Morgan’s magic is powerful but, in the end, power is determined by bloody battles fought by men encased in clunky armor. Arthur, Lancelot, and the other knights claim to live by the honorable, chivalric code but only one of them is able to live up to the ideal. The others become consumed by lust, jealousy, and a thirst for power.

In my opinion, Excalibur is the best movie made about King Arthur, mostly because John Boorman takes the story seriously and makes us feel like we are watching people who truly are living in different world and a different time. The chivalric code is necessary to keep the peace in a time when there are multiple pretenders-to-throne. Mordred (Robert Addie) is not just a villain because he seeks to overthrow his father but also because he is the one person to have no respect for the code or the mystic power of the Holy Grail.

Excalibur has a large cast with many familiar faces. Keep an eye out for Patrick Stewart as one of Arthur’s earliest supporters and also Liam Neeson as a surly Sir Gawain. Of all the Lancelots who have appeared in the movies, Nicolas Clay is the best and Helen Mirren is the perfect Morgan. Nicol Williamson steals the movie as the mysterious Merlin. And while Nigel Terry was too old for the scenes where Arthur is supposed to be a callow teenager, he grows into the role just as Arthur grew into being king of the Britons.

Monty Python and The Holy Grail will always make me laugh but John Boorman’s big, beautiful, and bloody Excalibur is the best film about Camelot.

Cops and Robbersons (1994, directed by Michael Ritchie)

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Chevy Chase is Norman Robberson, a hen-pecked suburban dad who likes to watch cop shows. When he is informed that his next door neighbor, Horace Obsborn (Robert Davi), is suspected of being a Mafia hitman, he agrees to allow Detectives Jake Stone (Jack Palance) and Tony Moore (David Barry Gray) to use his house as their stakeout location.

Cops and Robbersons is just as terrible as its title. Norman is basically Clark Griswold without the excuse of a vacation or the holidays to explain away his stupidity. Jack Palance growls and looks annoyed but without the same comedic flair that he brought to City Slickers. Dianne Wiest is wasted as Norman’s wife. Of course, Norman’s daughter develops a crush on Tony while Norman’s son dressed up like Dracula and tries to put the bite on Stone. Norman keeps getting in the way of the two cops and trying to conduct an investigation on his own. There has to be an easier way to capture a hitman. The only thing that really works is Robert Davi’s performance as the hitman. Davi doesn’t try to be funny, which actually brings out the best in Chase whenever they share a scene. Chase’s goofy dad shtick works best when he’s dealing with someone who isn’t trying to score laughs of his own.

How did the great Michael Ritchie end up directing movies like this? Whoever let that happen should be ashamed.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992, directed by John Carpenter)

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

An accident at a laboratory renders stock analyst Nick Holloway (Chevy Chase) invisible. CIA agent David Jenkins (Sam Neill) wants to recruit Nick to be an assassin but Nick doesn’t want to kill people. He just wants to make his date with Alice (Daryl Hannah). With Jenkins and his agents in pursuit, Nick flees to a beach house belonging to his friend George (Michael McKean) and tries to figure out what to do with his life now that no one can see him. Fortunately, Alice is staying at the beach house too. Nick and Alice fall in love but Jenkins is close behind.

Based on a science fiction novel by H.F. Saint, Memoirs of an Invisible Man started out as a vanity project for Chevy Chase, who felt that the film’s mix of comedy and drama would establish him as a serious actor. The project went through a series of directors, including Ivan Reitman and Richard Donner, but in the end no one wanted to work with the special effects necessary to create the impression of invisibility and, even more importantly, no one wanted to work with Chase. When the film was finally offered to John Carpenter, he was reluctant to do another studio film because of his bad experience with They Live. He finally agreed because it had been four years since his last film.

The special effects in Memoirs of an Invisible Man are still impressive and the chase scenes show off Carpenter’s abilities as an action director. The movie flopped with critics and audiences but that was not Carpenter’s fault. Carpenter keeps the story moving and gets good performances out of Sam Neill and even Daryl Hannah. The problem with the movie is that Chevy Chase is miscast as an action hero and he tries too hard to give a serious performance. Carpenter later said he wanted to add more comedy to the film and to emphasize Chase’s talent for physical comedy but Chase refused to do so. Chase also resented wearing the blue bodysuit that would be used to render him invisible onscreen and often removed the suit early, ruining whatever else Carpenter had planned to shoot during the day. You can add John Carpenter to the long list of directors who have said they will never work with Chevy Chase again.

One good thing did come out of Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Carpenter met and enjoyed working with Sam Neill. (Memoirs of an Invisible Man probably would have worked better in Neill and Chase had switched roles.) Neill would go on to star in Carpenter’s next film, In The Mouth of Madness.

Trading Places (1983, directed by John Landis)

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

It all starts with a bet.

As Christmas approaches, Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph Duke (Ralph Bellamy) make a bet to determine whether it’s nature or nurture that shapes someone’s future. The fabulously wealthy owners of Duke & Duke Commodity Brokers, the brothers casually frame their director, Louis Winthrope III (Dan Aykroyd), for everything from dealing drugs to sealing money to cheating on his girlfriend (Kirstin Holby). After Louis is kicked out of both his job and his mansion, the Dukes hire a street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) to take his place. Earlier Winthrope tried to get Valentine arrested for approaching him in the street. Now, Valentine is living in Winthrope’s mansion, with Winthrope’s butler and Winthrope’s job.

While Winthrope tries to survive on the streets with the help of a outwardly cynical but secretly kind-hearted prostitute named Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first non-horror starring role), Billy Ray surprises everyone by using his street smarts to become a successful, suit-wearing businessman. The Dukes, of course, have no intention of keep Billy Ray Valentine on as their director. Not only are the Dukes snobs but they’re racists as well. Once their one dollar bet has been settled, they start planning to put Billy Ray back out on the streets with Winthrope.

Trading Places was Eddie Murphy’s follow-up to 48 Hrs and he again showed himself to be a natural star while playing the type of role that could have been played by Dan Ayrkroyd’s partner, John Belushi, if not for Belushi’s early death. (Jim Belushi has a cameo as a party guest.) Murphy gets to show off a talent for physical comedy and Trading Places is one of the few films to really take advantage of Dan Aykryod’s talents as both a comedian and actor. Winthrope goes from being a coddled executive to being as streetwise as Valentine. This is probably Aykroyd’s best performance and he and Eddie Murphy make for a good team.

But the real stars of the film are four actors who weren’t really thought of as being comedic actors, Denholm Elliott, Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy, and especially Jamie Lee Curtis. Ophelia is a much edgier character than the “final girls” that Curtis was playing in horror films and Curtis steals almost every scene that she’s in. Ameche and Bellamy are great villains and it’s fun to watch them get their comeuppance. What screwball comedy would be complete without a sarcastic butler? Denholm Elliot fills the role of Coleman perfectly.

Trading Places was a box office success when it was released and it’s now seen as being one of the new Christmas classics, a film for the adults to enjoy while the kids watch Rudolph and Frosty. I think the movie ends up going overboard towards the end with the gorilla and Dan Aykroyd wearing blackface but, for the most part part, it’s still a very funny and clever movie.

Beverly Hills Cop (1984, directed by Martin Best)

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Two years after teaming with Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs., Eddie Murphy returned to the action genre in what remains he best-known action comedy, Beverly Hills Cop.

We all know the story. Eddie Murphy is Axel Foley, a streetsmart detective in Detroit whose childhood friend, Mickey (James Russo), is murdered because of something that he saw while working as a security guard in Beverly Hills. Axel plays by his own rules and gets results even as he gives his boss, Inspector Todd (Gil Hill), heartburn. Todd refuses to allow Foley to investigate Mickey’s death so Axel puts in for some vacation time and catches the first plane to Beverly Hills.

In Beverly Hills, he meets up with another childhood friend, Jenny (Lisa Eilbacher). Axel thinks that Mickey’s murder was ordered by a shady businessman named Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff). The Beverly Hills Police Department orders Axel to leave Maitland alone and to return to Detroit. Axel won’t go until he gets justice for Mickey. Lt. Bogomil (Ronny Cox) assigns Taggart (John Ashton) and Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) to follow Axel in Beverly Hills.

Like 48 Hrs., the story is serious but the comedy comes from how the well-drawn characters interact with each other and from seeing how Axel reacts to the strange and wealthy world of Beverly Hills. Axel has the same reactions that we would have but, because he’s played by Eddie Murphy, he always has the perfect response to everything that he sees, whether it’s dealing with a snooty hotel clerk or with someone like Serge (Bronson Pichot), Jenny’s co-worker who speaks with an unidentifiable accent. Even more so than in 48 Hrs or Trading Places, Murphy reveals himself to be a natural star here. One reason why we like Axel is because he’s not just funny but he’s also the type of confident hero that we all wish we could be. He’s not intimidated by Beverly Hills for a second.

It’s now impossible to picture anyone else in the role of Axel Foley but, when the film’s script was first being shopped around, it was originally offered to Sylvester Stallone, who said the story had potential but was missing something. He rewrote the script and took out all of the humor, turning it into a grim and serious action film. (It is rumored that Stallone later turned his version of the script into Cobra.) Fortunately, Stallone eventually dropped out of Beverly Hills Cop so that he could co-star with Dolly Parton in Rhinestone. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, then at the start of their producing careers, then offered the role to Eddie Murphy, who took Stallone’s script and added back all of the humor. Murphy also ended up ad-libbing several of the film’s best one-liners, improvising the hotel lobby scene and the meeting with Serge on the spot.

Beverly Hills Cop was a huge success, cementing Murphy’s status as a star and proving that Murphy could carry a movie on his own. The film still holds up, certainly better than any of the sequels that followed. Even though Murphy was clearly the main attraction, the movie also gave actors like John Ashton, Judge Reinhold, Ronny Cox, Bronson Pinchot, and even Paul Reiser a chance to shine. The villainous performances of Steven Berkoff and Jonathan Banks would serve as a model for countless bad guys through the 80s and 90s. Beverly Hills Cop is a movie that makes you happy that Sylvester Stallone didn’t have a better sense of humor.