MelBrooks Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you're a fan of the irreplaceable and wonderful Mel Brooks, chances are you've already got The Mel Brooks Collection -- a DVD box jam-packed with most of the directors classic films. I already double-dipped to get them all in one spot, in space-saving super-slim cases, but now there's a collection worthy of a double or triple dip. And -- darn you all! -- yet another reason to get a Blu-ray player.

As DVD Snapshot shares, there's a new The Mel Brooks Collection on the way, and this time in glorious Blu-ray. But it's not just the old collection in high definition. It's the same roster +1 -- the film that was surprisingly lacking from the first release -- Spaceballs. That means, vacuum cleaner intergalactic hijinx along with Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety, History of the World Part I, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Silent Movie, To Be or Not to Be, The Twelve Chairs, and the wonderful Young Frankenstein. On top of all that, there's a collectible book in the mix.

The bad side: DVD fanatics probably won't like the slide-in packaging, and it's not full of extras. The plus side: It's now available for ordering on Amazon for only $89.49. That's a $50 savings from the list price, and only $20 more than what the current DVD collection is priced at.

Can you resist Brooks in Blu?

Jazz fans may appreciate Count Basie more than the rest of us, but the jazz pianist's cameo in Blazing Saddles is pretty funny even if you don't know much about him. It's all part of the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy's shtick that plays with conventional aspects of Hollywood films, culminating in the sidesplitting climactic sequence that blends movie sets, pie fights and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

The Count Basie cameo occurs fairly early in Blazing Saddles. Bart (Cleavon Little) is headed to the Old West town of Rock Ridge as the new sheriff, dressed to the nines. Count Basie's signature jazz number, "April in Paris," plays in the background, highlighting Bart's urbane demeanor. And as Bart rides across the prairie, he encounters ... Count Basie and his orchestra, performing "April in Paris" right there on the frontier. It's one of the more subtle laughs in the film, but it never fails to amuse me, no matter how many times I've seen it. It also provides a hint of the more outrageous anachronisms and spoofs that populate the rest of Blazing Saddles. Check out the clip after the jump.

Asking me to choose my favorite scene from Young Frankenstein is like asking a parent to pick their favorite child -- it can't be done. Instead, I chose to share one of the many scenes that can reduce me to giggles in five seconds flat. When I first saw Mel Brooks' and Gene Wilder's masterpiece, I might have only been a kid with a limited knowledge of dirty jokes and references to classic Hollywood, but I was in love. Thanks to this classic, Wilder, Madeleine Kahn, Peter Boyle, and Marty Feldman have become some of my most lasting examples of comic genius.

It has been 35 years since Young Frankenstein first hit theaters, but I still can't think of a movie that makes me laugh louder and harder every time I see it.

Young Frankenstein Fun Facts (via IMDB)

• When the film was released, Aerosmith was hard at work on their album, Toys in the Attic, and when the band were suffering from writers block for the lyrics to a particular song, the group took a break and went to the movies to see Frankenstein. As the legend goes, Igor's "walk this way" gag was the basis (or phrase) for the hit song of the same name.
• Madeleine Kahn was originally slated to play the sexy lab assistant Inga, but at the last minute decided to play Wilder's fiancée, Elizabeth, instead.

Well, it's sure been quite the week for movie-inspired television series that no one asked for. First up, by way of Ain't It Cool News, is a spot for G4's Spaceballs: The Animated Series. I'm not sure what prompted this Flash-animated wonder -- I mean, it's not like I want to give The Clone Wars that much credit for anything, let alone the likes of this -- but at least we know that something's keeping Mel Brooks and Daphne Zuniga from over-twiddling their thumbs.

Secondly, via /Film, is a promo for Starz' Crash, inspired by Paul Haggis' awards-sapping drama (and not David Cronenberg's psycho-sexual noir of the same name). Apparently, every other character is a corrupt cop, Dennis Hopper is the biggest actor in the cast, and it's shot like a faux-Showtime dose of pay cable conflict. Yeah, let's see the Emmys try and stay away...

I'll be impressed if one or the other lasts beyond a single season (the former premieres on September 21st; the latter, on October 17th). Are any of you genuinely compelled by either prospect? How about a show of hands for those who'll be driven by morbid curiosity and/or mere DVR convenience to give an episode of each the once-over?

During the opening of Get Smart, the new big-screen re-visitation of the '60s spy spoof TV show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, we're shown a montage detailing the mighty workings of the modern intelligence apparatus; covert microphones, satellite communications intercepts, frantic translation, secretive meetings. As top analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) walks the streets of Washington to the hidden headquarters of the secret agency where he works, listening to intercepted conversations to better understand the plans and thoughts of America's enemies, his iPod switches over ... to Abba's "Take a Chance on Me." Spies, it seems, are people too.

And pause here to think about the challenges facing any director who wants to make a spy comedy in our modern times. If you depict spies as too competent, the audience unconsciously fears for their civil liberties; depict spies as too incompetent, the audience unconsciously fears for their lives. Make the film's threat to the free world too credible, and the film's more scary than silly; make the threat to the free world too fantastic and foolish (as in the earlier Get Smart big-screen project, 1980's The Nude Bomb) and the film's more goofy than gripping. The makers of the new Get Smart seem to have thought about this, and have transformed the character somewhat from Don Adams's nasal know-nothing in the '60s TV show; as played by Carell, Smart is a bright, dedicated, insightful analyst for the secret agency CONTROL who dreams of being a field agent. And Max learns he's passed the field agent's exam with flying colors; still, his boss The Chief (Alan Arkin) rejects Max's request for transfer to field work because he needs Max behind a desk.

• Lorenzo Odone (1978-2008) - ALD Patient - His story inspired the film Lorenzo's Oil, in which he was portrayed by child actor Zack O'Malley Greenburg and others. He died May 30 in Fairfax, Virginia. (Washington Post)

• Cornell Capa (1918-2008) - Photojournalist - Founder and first director of NYC's International Center of Photography. He was also a still photographer on the set of The Misfits. He died of Parkinson's disease May 23, in New York City. (AP)
• Alexander Courage (1919-2008) - Composer - Oscar-nominated for co-scoring Doctor Dolittle and The Pleasure Seekers (both with Lionel Newman) and best known for composing the original Star Trek theme. He also wrote original music for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Arthur Penn's The Left Handed Gun and André de Toth's Day of the Outlaws. As an orchestrator, he worked on Singin' in the Rain, Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Annie Get Your Gun, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Guys and Dolls, The Band Wagon, Funny Face, Porgy and Bess, Gigi, The Big Country, Hello, Dolly!, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Legend, Basic Instinct, Jurassic Park, Hook, L.A. Confidential, The Mummy, Mulan and many, many other films. He died May 15 in Pacific Palisades, California. (Variety)
• Bo Diddley (1928-2008) - Singer, Songwriter, Guitarist - Blues and Rock legend whose songs "Who Do You Love?" and "Mannish Boy" have appeared on multiple movie soundtracks. He also appears in Trading Places, Blues Brothers 2000, Rockula, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! and a number of documentaries, including D.A. Pennebaker's short Keep on Rockin' and Taylor Hackford's Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll. For info on his death, see Monika's full post.

Between my recent Brooks double feature and the death of Harvey Korman, I've been wondering what's going on with Mel Brooks, and whether we'd ever be treated to another film. Well, we are at least getting more of Brooks' pen, but it's not in the way that you might think. In discussion with The Hollywood Reporter, the epic funnyman said that his shingle, Brooksfilms, is not closing (contrary to rumor), and that he is actually developing a horror film.

No, he's not referring to something like Dracula: Dead and Loving It, which is the last film he penned for the big screen. He says that he's developing a serious horror film with writing collaborators Rudy De Luca and Steve Haberman called Pizzaman. Currently, there's no word on the plot, but considering the title, I think it's safe to say that it will include a Pizza man. Perhaps a killer pizza man?

What's surprising about this news is that Brooks seems to have a direct hand in writing it, although his previous involvement with horror/eerie/dramatic* films, like The Fly and The Elephant Man, were only on a company/producer level. Now if only he could bring us one more, really good comedy, I'd be overjoyed. But then again, some of his best stars are gone now, so maybe it's good that he just moves forward.

What would you rather have from Mel Brooks: a comedy or a horror?

*Edited for clarity.

Why We Can't Wait to See It: Because in pretty much every film he's made -- big, boring, insipid not-quite-sequels excepted -- Steve Carell brings the funny. The trailers look surprisingly solid, and the cast -- including Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp -- is top-notch.

Why It Might Do Well: Because people just plain like Carell -- and the film's plot pitch where a secret agency's having their top people exposed forces them to shove unknown agents out into the field is, in fact, a solid story-driven reason for an incompetent like Max to placed in harm's way. ...

Why It Might Not Do Well: We may be a little tired of Baby Boomer-era nostalgia TV getting splashed up on the big screen; anyone else remember how well I Spy turned out?

Fun Fact: Get Smart was created by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks -- yes, the men behind The Graduate and Young Frankenstein.

Trivia:


Answer Key

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

It's only a couple seconds long, but above you get a glimpse of the ongoing Frau Blücher joke from Young Frankenstein. I had always seen it as just a funny joke in that quirky Cloris Leachman and Mel Brooks way, but a story from the San Jose Mercury News has added background to the whole character who brings fear to gentle horses everywhere.

Gene Wilder recently told the publication that the film is his favorite, that it is the "most perfectly realized," and described the creation of Frau Blücher. "When I was writing the first draft, I said, 'I wonder if anybody would get it when someone said "Frau Blücher" and the horses neigh.' Mel (Brooks) said, 'Keep it in.' Well, the audience loved it in the previews. Actually, I chose the name because I wanted an authentic German name. I took out some of the books I had of the letters to and from Sigmund Freud. I saw someone named Blücher had written to him, and I said well that's the name. Later on, I heard from about two or three sources, who said Blücher refers to a horse going to a factory and being turned to glue. I just thought it was a funny name."

So, now you know why those scared horses neigh. Sure, Frau Blücher is a scary old woman, but her name also brings thoughts of factories and glue.

[via Film Stew]