Reviews

Yes, it's dumb. Steve Buscemi is a grieving Mama's boy who's offered the chance to resurrect his dead mother a year after her death. A better than average cast with Ned Beatty as Uncle Benny, Miriam Margoyles as the dead mother and John Glover as a slick resurrection salesman. There's a nice laconic style to the dialog. It comes off as a mixture of Pet Cemetary and The Music Man (without the showtunes).

With Rance Howard in a cameo as a cheerful vengeful pastor.

In the eighties, Savage Steve Holland put out three movies, two of which are classics of what seems to be a very small genre, absurdist teen comedies. The third "How I Got Into College" does not measure up to "Better Off Dead" and this one, mainly because of it's lack of John Cusack and Curtis Armstrong (Except for a tiny cameo).

One Crazy Summer is an underrated movie, with lots of great characterizations and gags. As I recall, Savage Steve's movies were vilified as being brain dead at the time and after three movies he drifted into children's TV. We could use more movies from the likes of him.

I've caught "Isn't She Great" several times now (It seems to be eternally running on the movie channels).

This was a monster flop when it came out, barely released, but it does a fine job of capturing the era.

The main attraction of this film is the acting of the leads. Both Nathan Lane and Bette Midler can come off incredibly stagy on film, but their style works well with these characters. Jackie Suzanne was larger than life. They both manage to bring a true sense of sweetness to their roles.

Particular note must be made of David Hyde Pierce as her editor. This actor fits very well in this era. Also, John Cleese is a hoot as the publisher. Wish there were more of him in the movie.

Give this one a chance. A period piece from a currently unhip period.

Throughout the 1960's and 1970's, the unfunny sitcom was a staple of network television. Shows like "Family Affair" and "The Brady Bunch" laid it on thick with the laugh track, but no jokes ever emerged and nothing funny ever happened in them. They were the television equivalent of the "Family Circus" comic strip.

Coming along in 1981, after Mary Tyler Moore, Mash and All in the Family seriously raised the bar on TV comedy, Private Benjamin was a throwback to those earlier sitcoms. Based on an actually funny movie, the series strained hard, with an omnipresent laugh track, to make Judy Benjamin's klutzy mistakes look like they were high comedy. Hal Williams and Eileen Brennan were pulled in from the movie, but just seemed strained in the series. Brennan in particular seemed like she was SCREAMING ALL THE TIME.

Lorna Patterson, coming off the truly funny movie Airplane, is cute but adds nothing to the mix.

They don't make 'em like this anymore, thank goodness.

I saw this film as a child and the only things I remember were that it was very slow paced and that Orson Welles was completely unintelligible. He makes James Dean look like a linguist. A sad misstep for an often brilliant actor. I found now that he overdubbed drunk. Aside from that this is glacially paced. Shame on all.

You start the movie with the knowledge that both the main characters are dead. Halfway through the movie you start thinking that this might be a good thing.

An uncompromising look at some very unpleasant people.