Reeling Backward: "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" (1987)

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and mine is this: "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" is simply one of the funniest movies every made, not to mention a beacon of absolute joy.

I can't think of a film that I have laughed at harder, longer or more consistently. And it's not especially sophisticated humor -- mostly pratfalls, gross-out moments and personality clashes. It's the classic odd couple tale, with a more or less straight man bothered and befuddled by a loudmouth lout. These are signature roles in the careers of both Steve Martin and John Candy.

With a few script changes, you could easily have made it in the 1940s with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

It's hard to believe it's been 30 years since "Planes" came out, but here it is getting a very nice Blu-ray combo pack video reissue from Paramount. This is definitely one that will stay in my library. It includes a great transfer plus plenty of cool bonus material, including a press footage from the film's promotional tour and a comprehensive overview of the career of John Hughes.

Up till then Hughes had been known exclusively for teen dramedies, so it was considered a big risk at the time for him to make an R-rated comedy featuring a pair of middle-aged men. The film was a critical and commercially successful, though not a runaway hit. Its reputation has only grown with the years.

You know the story: persnickety marketing executive Neal Page (Martin) is trying to get back home to Chicago for Thanksgiving after his meeting in New York runs late. He is repeatedly foiled by circumstance and the intrusion of Del Griffith (Candy), a jovial traveling salesman who hocks shower curtain rings. They ping-pong back and forth between antagonism and cooperation as they make their journey by the various conveyances listed in the title, along with a few others.

I can easily tell you the movie's high point for me. After having their plane grounded in Witchita by bad weather and their train broken down on the tracks, their cut-rate bus tickets only get them as far as St. Louis. (All their cash had been stolen by a motel thief.) Del manages to secure a rental car -- using Neal's credit card, which had earlier gotten switched between wallets by the hapless motel operator, Gus (Charles Tyner) -- and they're cruising down the road.

(The car, an ugly little green Chrysler LeBaron Town and Country convertible with wood paneling, surely must be the diminutive cousin of the station wagon from "Vacation.")

This entire sequence is 10 minutes or so of pure hilarity. Hughes warms us up with some contretemps over the passenger power seat, which Del manages to break. Then Del loudly cranks up the radio playing Ray Charles' "Mess Around" while Neal snoozes next to him. Del be-bops and shakes his thing while driving down the road in the middle of the night, repeatedly looking over to Neal, hoping he'll wake up and join in.

It's a tiny encapsulation of their entire relationship: Del, the man who can't stop reaching out, and Neal, the guy who just wants to be left alone.

Del gets his coat sleeves caught on the seat while trying to remove it, leading to a crazy screaming spin-out that finally awakens Neal. Del, trying to cover up his latest screw-up, reassures him and starts driving again, not realizing they're going the wrong way on the interstate. Failing to heed the warnings of another motorist, they carom between two semis, a fireworks of sparks spraying everywhere. Neal looks over at Del and envisions him dressed in the full red devil's suit, from horns to cape, laughing with wild glee.

Funny stuff, but what follows is even funnier. As they realize how close they've come to death, each man discovers the extent of their peril. Del has bent the steering wheel in half, and Neal gripped the dashboard so ferociously that he's left finger-shaped indents, an audible pop sounding as he pulls his hands free.

If you don't bust a gut laughing at that, I can't help you.

I love that the mystery of Del's oversized trunk is never solved. He trundles that thing everywhere, platooned with stickers and an endless source of grief. It's his totem and, quite literally, his baggage. Does he keep his shower rings in there? Souvenirs from his wife? Like the glowing suitcase in "Pulp Fiction," it works better because it remains a mystery.

Watching the film again for the first time in awhile, I was struck by how many cameos there are by recognizable performers -- character actors and future stars. Kevin Bacon plays the young businessman who outraces Neal for a cab at the start of the film. Owen, the redneck son of the Witchita motel owner who gives them a ride to the train station in Stubbsville, is played by none other than Dylan Baker, doing a bestial snort/croak thing that's impossible to mimic without giving yourself an anyeurism.

William Windom has a cameo as the corporate honcho whose indecisiveness results in Neal being late for his plane, and Lyman Ward, who played the dad in Hughes' previous film, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," is Neal's colleague from Chicago. Bill Erwin does his signature cantankerous old man routine on the plane, and Ben Stein turns up as an airline worker delivering catastrophic news in soothing, dulcet tones.

Larry Hankin, whose specialty is playing skeevy interlopers, plays Doobie, the Kansas taxi driver with a pimped-out muscle car. Michael McKean plays the state trooper who makes Del and Neal take their burnt-out rental car off the road. Martin Ferrero, another classic "that guy" actor known for his snivelly connivers, most notably the lawyer who gets chomped by a T-rex in "Jurassic Park," is the motel clerk who accepts bribes in lieu of cash. He happily pockets Neal's expensive wristwatch, but resists Del's energetic sales job for his Casio, even after Del dangles the cheap ticker over his knuckles in full trade show mode.

Without a doubt the most iconic cameo in "Planes" belongs to Edie McClurg, who's made an entire career out of her chirpy voice, Midwest accent and matronly demeanor. She plays the car rental agent upon whom Neal unfurls a banner of f-bombs as long as your arm after he's ditched in the distant parking lot with no car. It's the most famous scene in the movie bar none, with Neal using the f-word in gerund form dozens of times before Edie lands the punchline using the same base word as a descriptive adjective.

Interestingly, without this scene and one or two other brief bits of language, "Planes" could have easily gotten away with a PG rating from the MPAA. Well, there's also the "two pillows" scene, which is probably the second most memorable scene.

Let's talk about that for a minute.

Seen today, the motel room sequence would probably be frowned upon as a homophobic example of gay panic. Forced to share a double bed, they awake in the morning to find themselves snuggling contentedly, with Del giving Neal an affection nibble on the earlobe for good measure. Then, of course, they discover the location of Del's other hand, between two pillows that are not actually pillows. They leap to their feet, screaming in disgust, then quickly covering up the awkward moment with football chatter about the Bears.

Hughes and audiences probably took the scene at face value in 1987. Seen today, though, I think the joke endures with a distinctly different color. In their half-awake state of sleep, both men are quite happy to share physical closeness and a mild bit of affection. It's only when their grogginess is punctuated, and they realize how this scene must appear, that their instincts kick in to reassert their straight self-image.

The joke is not that they might be gay, but that they're petrified of others thinking they are.

There are so many other memorable moments of "Planes, Trains &; Automobiles" to mention, but time and space runs short. Such as Del raising cash for their trip by passing off his shower rings as fashionable ladies' earrings -- which, given the state of '80s fashion, is not so incredulous as you might think.

If you haven't caught "Planes" in a while, I urge you to go back and check it out again. It's one of the true comedic gems of the 1980s.

Video review: "Home"

We are living in a second golden age of animation, which means there are a lot of really great cartoon films out there at any given time. But it also means there's a higher standard to meet. So even movies like "Home" that are merely good have a patina of disappointment about them.

This tale of a friendly alien who gets estranged from his kind and lost on Earth just doesn't have that spark of extra magic from, say, "Finding Nemo," "Up" or the first couple of "Shrek" movies. It's great-looking... but then, aren't most animated films great-looking these days? Again, it's a matter of our standards having gotten so inflated that the formerly dazzling is barely noticed.

Jim Parsons provides the voice of Oh, a member of the notoriously cowardly Boov people. When I call them cowards, it's not an insult; they consider it the highest praise, actually. Creatures who actually stand their ground and face their problems are considered weird.

Currently they're fleeing from their arch-enemy, the Gorg, and using our planet as a hideout. Of course, this means the pesky humans have to be rounded up for their own good.

Even by Boov standards, Oh is something of a timid fellow. Like the others he looks like a little purple land octopus, who changes color and jitters according to his current emotional state. Talk about wearing your emotions on your sleeve... or your face.

After getting the boot from the other Boov, Oh hooks up with Tip Tucci (Rihanna), a human girl who's also been displaced by all the alien activity. Together they go on a road trip quest, except in a hover car. Along the way are the expected hi jinks, musical interludes and unsubtle life lessons.

Look, "Home" is a fun, fun flick. It's sure to delight little kids and keep their parents modestly entertained as well. It's just second-tier entertainment in comparison to the field.

Bonus features are quite good, and like the movie itself geared toward the wee set. There are a number of games and interactive music features, such as "Oh's Shake Your Boov Thing" and "Oh's Boovy Jukebox." There are also deleted scenes, interviews with the voice cast, a drawing tutorial, music videos and more.

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Review: "Home"

"If my face is recognized, I am 100 percent popular for being arrested!"

So says Oh, the friendly little alien who looks like a purple (most of the time) land octopus with an oversized mouth and sounds like Yoda after he's received a touch of New Age philosophy and mild brain damage, not necessarily in that order.

He's the star of "Home," the new animated film from DreamWorks, which like Oh himself is agreeable enough so long as he doesn't overstay his welcome. A natural screw-up, the running joke is that Oh is the unwitting outcast of his people, whose groaning exclamations whenever he shows up lend him his name.

(The audience starts out the movie resenting them for their intolerance, but by the movie's end we gain a little sympathy.)

Oh is voiced by Jim Parsons, who is the star of the immensely popular TV comedy "The Big Bang Theory," which is about a gaggle of nerd friends and is right up my alley, except for the fact I've never seen it. My understanding is that he plays a guy who has trouble fitting in with normal humans, so obviously this role is right up his alley.

Parsons gives Oh a wonderfully high yodel-y voice with the stiff speech patterns of the Boov, who all sound like they learned English via American television commercials translated to Japanese and back again. They're simultaneously very precise and borderline incoherent.

A delightful quirk is that the Boov literally can't control their emotional displays. Their bodies tend to reflect everything they're feeling, like changing colors (red is happy; green means they're lying) or having their squiggly little ear/horn thingees go crazy.

Wait'll you see what effect Earth music has on them.

The Boov spend their lives on the run -- literally. They've been fleeing for years from the Gorg, a fearsome species who resemble the creatures from the "Alien" movies wearing death metal rock 'n' roll grab.

Under the underwhelming-yet-overconfident leadership of their leader, Captain Smek -- terrifically voiced by Steve Martin -- they have relocated from planet to planet escaping the Gorg. With the Boov, cowardice is complimented as a virtue. Risk-taking is discouraged.

And now they want to make Earth their new hideout. Of course, that means the humans will all have to be relocated -- in a benevolent, non-threatening way, of course.

The Boov employ a fantastic technology that revolves around bubbles, which they use for everything from transportation to defense and getting rid of any human objects they don't understand, which are floated up into the air in clusters. Thus, a giant floating ball of toilets becomes a commonplace sight.

After everyone else is moved to Boov-planned communities in Australia, a young girl who escaped their notice is determined to find her mom. Gratuity Tucci -- a great name made even better by its nickname, Tip -- is a smart and sassy kid voiced by Rihanna, who manages a passable tween tone.

Oh commits another one of his classic mistakes: accidentally sending a housewarming party invite to all the cosmos, including the Gorg. Soon he's on the run from his angry own, has joined forces with Tip and they are set up for that classic film storytelling device, the road trip. Though theirs takes place mostly in the air, as Oh turns Tip's mom's car into a hovercraft using Slurpee power.

Directed by Tim Johnson from a screenplay by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, based on a book by Adam Rex, "Home" is heavy on the goofy action and funny critters, though it doesn't have the emotional pull of other recent animated gems. The life-lessons stuff is ladled in haphazardly and rather unconvincingly -- "be who you are" is the basic, banal point.

It's a fun flick that the whole family can enjoy, while wishing it had set its sights a bit higher.

Reeling Backward: "Roxanne"

Because he got his start doing doofy stand-up and comedies like "The Jerk," most people don't have an appreciation for what a cerebral guy Steve Martin really is.

This is a fellow who wrote a novel about Picasso arguing with Einstein, and penned numerous screenplays, including clever little movies most people didn't see like "Shopgirl" (he also wrote the novella). He also came up with the story for "Traitor," a terrific 2008 Don Cheadle movie that's worth catching.

So in that light perhaps it's not surprising that "Roxanne," which wears the clothes of a quirky romantic comedy, is actually based on the play "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand. The story of a poet/swordsman with a comically huge nose has been turned into numerous movies -- most notably the 1950 film version that won Jose Ferrer an Oscar. But Martin, who wrote the script and stars, took the tragedy and took a left turn with it, both modernizing the setting and emphasizing the romantic and comedic elements.

He plays Charlie "C.D." Banes, the fire chief of a small ski resort town, who falls for the title character, an astronomer who's rented out a house for the summer to study a new comet. Of course, since his schnoz has its own zip code, she kind of dismisses him as a romantic partner. Instead, she falls for Chris (Rick Rossovich), the handsome but dim new firefighter at C.D.'s station.

Directed by the Australian talent Fred Schepisi (who also helmed "Barbarosa," featured in this space not long ago), "Roxanne" is a light, funny movie with a lot of deep undercurrents. It's a challenging look at the nature of love and attraction, and how people often fall for the outside package, deluding themselves into thinking the object of their lust must also have wonderful inner qualities, too.

The fact that it's about male rather than female beauty makes it all the more interesting. The movie's depiction dovetails with my own observation that handsome men tend to be pricks, and that women are much more willing to ascribe positive personality traits to a man just because she thinks he's dreamy-looking. Men learn very early on that just because a woman is beautiful, it doesn't mean she's a wonderful person, too. I think it has to do with the whole "Prince Charming" myth, that a perfect guy will arrive to rescue them. As a result, good-looking guys have a lot of women throw themselves at them, which leads to swelled ego, and hence the aforementioned prickdom.

In the movie's case, Chris is actually not a jerk, and is in fact painfully shy around women. That's why he enlists C.D.'s aid in wooing her with romantic, poetic letters. Of course, eventually he and Roxanne have to have a real date, which the boys nearly destroy with a cockamamie scheme to rig a transmitter in Chris' hunting hat so C.D. can feed him lines. When the radio goes on the fritz, Chris reveals an unfortunate glimpse of his real self, praising Roxanne's "knockers."

Of course, it all builds to Roxanne discovering that it is C.D. who really loves her, and that he is the one she fell in love with through his words.

The film is a real charmer, from start to finish. There's a lot of lovely throwaway jokes -- I love the one where C.D. buys a newspaper from a machine, looks at the headline and screams, and fetches another coin from his pocket so he can throw the offending paper back into the box.

There's also a lot of actors in nice supporting performances, such as Fred Willard, Shelly Duvall, Damon Wayans, John Kapelos and Michael J. Pollard.

This gem from Steve Martin, Fred Schepisi and company has both beauty, and brains.

4 stars

Review: "It's Complicated"

"It's Complicated" covers familiar ground, but this comedy about autumn romance is charming enough to entertain despite its slightly stale themes.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are a tremendous cinematic pairing as a long-divorced couple who unexpectedly re-stoke the dying embers. Since he's now married to the woman he left her for, she effectively switches places as the Other Woman.

To add to the mix, Steve Martin is cast very much against type as a straitlaced architect with the hots for Streep.

Writer/director Nancy Meyers has trod down the path of oldster canoodling before, most notably with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give." The idea of a woman nearing 60 having to fend off multiple suitors clearly appeals to the filmmaker, and probably a lot of audience members.

Streep plays Jane, who's sending her youngest daughter off to college, watching the middle son graduate, and helping her oldest daughter prepare for her wedding. She and Jake (Baldwin) were married for 20 years, divorced for 10, and after years of consternation have reached a comfortable sort of detente.

But by the way Jane glares at Jake's much-younger wife (Lake Bell), it's clear she has unresolved issues about the relationship ending -- not to mention that she's in a pretty long dry spell herself romantically.

A successful baker, Jane is looking to add an addition onto her house, and thus meets Adam (Martin). The architect is shy, a bit awkward, and just getting over his own divorce. It's kind of a flat role as written, and Martin doesn't really fill out the part satisfactorily.

Whenever the film wanders off into Adam territory, it loses steam. The Jane/Jake dynamic is what keeps things moving.

The scenes of them together are playful and sexy -- the twinkle in Baldwin's eyes speaks of a lifelong rogue who decides the homefires were the warmest. Streep's character is confused and reticent at first, but eventually decides she deserves a romp.

Jake points out that, by virtue of their age, they have simply aged out of all the problems they had while they were married. He's no longer obsessed with work, and she doesn't have to put family before herself anymore.

"We both grew into the people we wanted each other to be," he says.

There's several laugh-out-loud moments, including one where Streep tells a doctor something that you never expected to hear out of Hollywood's Oscar queen. Along with her fleshy, exuberant turn as Julia Child earlier this year, Streep is Tinseltown's latest-blooming sexpot.

Baldwin bares himself, too, though in a more literal sense. All I will say is it's the funniest use of a webcam since the first "American Pie."

"It's Complicated" isn't terribly original, but it's a generous and entertaining look at life and love while rounding third base.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "All of Me"

I believe in serendipity, at least when it comes to movies. In a recent podcast, Joe Shearer and I were talking about body-switcheroo movies, and I cited "All of Me" as one of the best ones. I hadn't seen it in probably 10 to 15 years, and sure enough it appeared on television in time to be recorded and reviewed here.

Made in 1984, "All of Me" arrived a year after "The Man with Two Brains," which also starred Steve Martin and was directed by Carl (father of Rob) Reiner. Four years before that, Reiner directed Martin in "The Jerk." That's three great comedies in five years. (During that span, they also teamed up for "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," but we'll leave that alone.)

"All of Me" is above all a triumph of physical comedy, something that's become less prominent in recent years, unless you consider the towel-dropping in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" hilarious. Martin, who has a cerebral bent but appreciates the joys of slapstick, is terrific as he portrays a man with the soul of a spoiled rich woman (Lily Tomlin) trapped inside him, as the two fight for control of his body. The scene where she first invades him, after the bowl that was the conduit for her soul falls from a skyscraper and bops him on the noggin, would make Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin proud. Martin drags the left half of himself (which he controls) across the sidewalk, while the right side (Tomlin's) pulls him the other.

Then there are the gender jokes, as Martin rages over Tomlin's tendency to act in a very feminine manner, walking with an exaggerated lilt and waving a limp wrist while appearing in court (Martin plays a lawyer). At one point Martin falls asleep, and Tomlin, in full control of their shared body, puts on an excruciatingly funny caricature of macho behavior, in all its ball-grabbing glory. And of course, the scene where they must first negotiate a trip to the bathroom as a team effort is a classic bit. "Shall I tap?" Tomlin asks when business is concluded. Martin demurely assents, and then Tomlin stage whispers "tap, tap" as she executes the deed.

One of the wonderful devices in the movie is that whenever Martin looks in the mirror, he sees Tomlin's reflection. The metaphysical logistics of "All of Me" are, of course, utter hooey -- Tomlin's character wanted to transport her soul from her dying body into that of the stableman's daughter, who is just out for inheriting her fortune. But it works because we get to see these two wonderful comedic actors interacting, rather than just hearing Tomlin's voice projected out of Martin's body.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "The Pink Panther 2"

For those strong of heart and bladder, movie end credits are an endless source of entertainment. In watching those for “The Pink Panther 2,” I learn that Jean Reno, who plays Inspector Clouseau’s right-hand man Ponton, had a dialect coach. This is hilarious, in that he is the only French actor with a starring role in the movie.

This would be like a Western made with an all-Chinese cast except for a single native of Wyoming, and everyone felt he was the one who needed help sounding like an authentic cowboy.

This movie is a linguist’s dream, or nightmare. You’ve got an American star (Steve Martin) doing an intentionally awful French accent, and an English actress (Emily Mortimer) doing the same. Brit comedy legend John Cleese plays the head of the French police, but sounds exactly like he did in “Fawlty Towers.” Then Clouseau joins an international dream team of detectives, except the Italian is played by a Cuban (Andy Garcia) and the Cambridge don is played by Alfred Molina, who actually is half Italian.

Oh, and India’s Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai turns up as a detective from … actually, I’m not sure if they ever said where she was from. At least the Japanese detective (Yuki Matsuzaki) actually is from Japan, and sounds like it.

And so I ask again: Jean Reno was the one who needed dialect help?

Anyway, I walked into “Pink Panther 2” fully expecting to despise it, and came out pleasantly surprised. It’s a moderately entertaining bit of piffle, with a few clever laugh-out-loud spots.

Those who were offended that Steve Martin would try to step into Peter Sellers’ shoes may have avoided the first remake in 2006 (as I did), but Martin comes off much better here than when he tried to reboot the Sgt. Bilko franchise.

Besides, for those wearing Rose-colored glasses about Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther movies, don’t forget that he wasn’t so inconvenienced by Sellers’ death as to stop making them. Edwards managed to crank out a Pink Panther movie entirely using Sellers’ clips from the earlier flicks, and then yet another installment where his disappearance is the big mystery. And then he got really classy and cast Robert Benigni as the Pink Panther’s son.

Sellers’ indelible character had long ago been pimped out to keep the cash flowing, so Steve Martin really had no where to go but up.

His Jacques Clouseau is a bit more lecherous than his predecessor, casting a covetous eye toward his assistant Nicole. He also takes a classic French stance on complimenting and ogling women, which draws the ire of the police’s new political correctness enforcer (Lily Tomlin).

Oh, the plot. Yes, there is one: Infamous thief The Tornado has come out of retirement to steal the world’s greatest treasures, such as the Magda Carta and Shroud of Turin. Fearful that he will go after France’s beloved Pink Panther diamond next, Clouseau is put in charge of the international detectives, which leads to some predictable head-butting, and wooing of Nicole by the Italian.

It’s all just a sham to set up outrageous slapstick, at which Martin (or at least his stunt double) proves a gifted physical comedian. One bit where falling wine bottles become a juggling act involving every waiter in the restaurant is particularly inspired. I also loved this screaming French newspaper headline: “Entire nation loses panache!”

Is “Pink Panther 2” the funniest movie ever? Far from it. But my guess is that its existence would not leave Peter Sellers miffed. That’s more than I can say for the Benigni one.

2.5 stars out of four