Tag Archives: Eugene Greytak

The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994, directed by Peter Segal)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Mad bomber Rollo Dillon (Fred Ward) has been hired by terrorists to bomb a major American institution.  Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) know that there’s only one man who can handle this job and his name is Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen).  Frank, however, has retired from Police Squad and promised his wife, Jane (Priscilla Presley), that he is through with police work.

At heart, Frank remains a cop.  He even dreams of shoot-outs.  When he tries to do police work without Jane noticing, it backfires on him.  Even though Frank lies and claims that he’s just having an affair, Jane leaves him.  Frank, with nothing better to do, goes into prison undercover to gain Rollo’s confidence.  After Rollo and Frank escape, Frank discovers that Rollo and his girlfriend (Anna Nicole Smith) is planning on bombing the Academy Awards!

The Naked Gun 33 1/3 is the weakest of the original Police Squad films, which is to say that it’s still pretty funny, even if some of the jokes no longer feel as fresh as they did in the previous films.  It opens with a brilliant send-up of the shoot-out from The Untouchables and it ends with a perfect parody of the Academy Awards.  (Pia Zadora singing This Could Be The Start Of Something Big is funny because it’s exactly the sort of thing that used to happen at the Oscars.)  It’s in the middle section that the film drags, though there are still things that made me laugh, like a flashback to Frank, Ed, and Nordberg in the 70s.  David Zucker did not return to direct this installment and his absence is definitely felt.

Leslie Nielsen is as funny as ever and he’s well-matched with George Kennedy and Priscila Presley.  (OJ Simpson’s presence is as awkward as ever.)  Fred Ward plays his villainous role straight, a smart move.  But then you’ve got Anna Nicole Smith, who was such a terrible actress that her presence in the film doesn’t even work as a joke.  Whenever Smith shows up, the film grinds to a halt.  It’s the worst type of stunt casting.

This was Leslie Nielsen final performance as Frank Drebin.  Even in a lesser film, he was still a comedic treasure.

Hot Shots! (1991, directed by Jim Abrahams)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There are a lot of reasons why it’s hard to take Top Gun seriously but, for me, the biggest problem is that I’ve seen Hot Shots!  Directed by Jim Abrahams, Hot Shots! does for Top Gun what Airplane! did for disaster movies.

Charlie Sheen plays Topper Harley, the hot shot Navy Pilot who is haunted by the death of his father.  (“I’ve even got my father’s eyes,” Topper says before revealing that he carries them around in a cigarette case.)  Topper has left the Navy and is living in a teepee with the Old One.  Command Block (Kevin Dunn) asks Topper to return to the Navy to take part in Operation Sleepy Weasel.  Topper puts on a leather jacket and hops on a motorcycle.  The Old One tells Topper to pick up some batteries for his walkman.

Cary Elwes plays Kent Gregory, who says that Topper is not safe in the air.  Valeria Golino plays Ramada, the psyciatrist who helps Topper deal with his father issues.  Jon Cryer is Washout, who has wall-eyed vision.  Kristy Swanson is Bo, the only female pilot.  William O’Leary is the pilot who has the perfect life and wife but who everyone calls “Dead Meat.”  And finally Lloyd Bridges is Admiral Tug Benson, who has never successfully landed a plane and who has suffered and recovered from almost every war wound imaginable.  Tug is clueless but he loves America and his admiral’s hat.

Hot Shots! is one of the better parody films to come out in the wake of Airplane!  Charlie Sheen’s limitations as a dramatic actor actually made him a good comedic actor and Cary Elwes does a decent Val Kilmer imitation.  Some of the jokes have definitely aged better than others.  In 1991, Valeria Golino singing on a piano automatically brought to mind Michelle Pfieffer in The Fabolous Baker Boys but does anyone remember that film (or that scene) in 2025?  (The 9 1/2 Weeks scene is even more of a distant memory to most but Valeria Golino is so appealing in those scenes that most viewers — well, most male viewers — won’t mind.  In this case, the parody is far more successful than the original.)  Hot Shots! is at its best when imitating Top Gun‘s kinetic, music video-inspired style.  The mix of quick-cut editing and ludicrous dialogue is hard to resist.  After watching Charlie Sheen dance on his motorcycle and Cary Elwes explain what a chafing dish is for, it’s hard to take Top Gun seriously ever again.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Just The Ticket (dir by Richard Wenk)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there!  So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR.  Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded!  I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not.  So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR!  Will I make it?  Keep checking this site to find out!  I recorded the 1999 romantic comedy Just The Ticket off of Epix on October 13th!)

Just The Ticket tells the story of Gary Starke (Andy Garcia).

Gary lives in New York City.  He is a tough, streetwise character, loyal to his friends and quick to anger if he feels that anyone is trying to take advantage of him.  He has no time for pretentious posturing or snobbish social gatherings.  Gary’s a man of the people.  He works with and takes care of an aging former boxer named Benny (Richard Bradford).  He looks after a pregnant, former drug addict named Alice (Laura Harris).  When the slick and dangerous Casino (Andre B. Blake) starts to do business in Gary’s territory, Gary is the only person with the guts to stand up to him.  Having never had a family (he’s never even seen his birth certificate and has no idea who his parents were), Gary has adopted the street people as his surrogate family.

That’s not all.  Gary is also a lapsed Catholic who, when he goes to confession, opens by saying that it’s been 25 years since his last confession and that he’s taken the Lord’s name in vain 20 to 30 times that morning.  Gary needs some help because his girlfriend, an aspiring chef named Linda (Andie McDowell), has left him and Gary wants to win her back.  The priest asks Gary if he can get him tickets to see the Knicks…

Why does he ask that?

You see, Gary is a legendary ticket scalper and…

Okay, I probably just lost you when I used the terms “legendary” and “ticket scalper” in the same sentence.  And I’ll admit that, when I discovered this movie was about ticket scalpers, it nearly lost me as well.  Just The Ticket treats ticket scalping with a dignity and reverence that I’m not quite sure it deserves.  I wasn’t surprised to discover that director/writer Richard Wenk apparently based the character of Gary on an actual ticket scalper that he knew.  A lot of bad movies have been made as the result of a director, writer, or producer coming across some mundane activity and thinking, “Wow, this would make a great movie!”

(That’s one reason why, every few years, we suddenly get a dozen movies about race car drivers.)

However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Just The Ticket is not a terrible movie.  Admittedly, it’s totally predictable and there are a lot of scenes that don’t work.  For instance, there’s a lengthy scene where Gary and Linda destroy a snobbish food critic’s kitchen.  I could imagine Gary doing that because he has nothing to lose.  But Linda is actually hoping to become a chef in New York City.  Would she really run the risk of making a permanent enemy at the New York Times?  There’s nothing about Andie McDowell’s performance that suggests she would.  The scenes between Gary and his aging partner also tend to overplay their hand.  Richard Bradford gives a good performance as Benny but we all know what’s going to end up happening to him as soon as he starts crying after Gary insults him.

With all that in mind, Just The Ticket still has an undeniable charm.  Some of it is due to Andy Garcia’s dedicated performance.  He is frequently better than the material and he and Andie McDowell have enough chemistry that you do want to see Linda and Gary get back together.  Some of it is because Just The Ticket is not afraid to shy away from being sentimental.  It’s hard to think of any other romantic comedy in which the Pope plays such an important supporting role.  It’s a sweet movie.  It has a good heart.

There’s something to be said for that.