“Shakedown” (1988) is an action/crime drama written and directed by James Glickenhaus. Peter Weller and Sam Elliot star as Dalton (an idealistic lawyer) and Marks (a veteran cop) who team up to defend a low-level crack dealer who is framed to cover up a ring of crooked cops working for a drug lord. In the midst of his case, Dalton rekindles an affair with the prosecutor of the case Cantrell (Patricia Charbonneau), unbeknownst to his fiancée Gail (Blanche Baker). Shakedown is one of the more enjoyable and underrated low-budget action films of the 80s.
“Dick” (1999) is a cult comedy co-written (with Sheryl Longin) and directed by Andrew Fleming. It’s an absurdist retelling of the events surrounding the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation of Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon (played in the film by Dan Hedaya). Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams star as Betsy and Arlene, two fun-loving and ditzy best friends, who, through a random chain of events, become the legendary “Deep Throat” figure ultimately responsible for bringing down the Nixon presidency. Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch star as this film’s version of Woodward and Bernstein. A roster of comedic actors including Teri Garr, Dave Foley, Harry Shearer, Jim Breuer and Ryan Reynolds also make appearances.
“Military Intelligence and You!” (2006) is a satire poking fun at the military-industrial complex written and directed by Dale Kutzera. Using public domain archival WW2 propaganda films mixed with new footage, the film tells the story of military intelligence officer Major Nick Reed (Patrick Muldoon) whose job is to locate a secret enemy base housing the dreaded Ghost Squadron. Complicating his mission is the reappearance of his former love, Lt. Monica Tasty (Elizabeth Ann Bennett), now dating fellow Major Mitch Dunning (Mackenzie Astin). There’s also a notable appearance of a gung-ho fighter pilot played by a young Ronald Reagan.
“The Loved One” (1965) is a satire directed by Tony Richardson with a screenplay by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh. The plot centers on the journey of young English expat Dennis (Robert Morse) who struggles to navigate the more confusing aspects of Los Angeles culture, particularly politics, romance and the Hollywood cemetery industry. The film was shocking and offensive for audiences of its time and though it may seem tamer from today’s perspective, it retains a cleverly subversive quality and much of the satirical humor holds up well. Features a great supporting cast including Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, Rod Steiger, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, James Coburn, Milton Berle, Dana Andrews and Liberace.
“Americathon” (1978) is, like Idiocracy, a dystopian comedy with prophetic predictions such as the fall of the USSR, privatization of public assets, smoking being banned, masses of homeless people living in cars, and the dominance of reality TV, but set in the then future year of 1998. It was directed by Neal Israel, based on a play by Firesign Theatre alumni Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman with narration by George Carlin. In Americathon’s vision of the future, the U.S. has passed peak oil and the government is on the brink of bankruptcy. In order to avoid having the country foreclosed and repossessed by the original owners, president Chet Roosevelt (John Ritter) organizes a national telethon with hilarious results. Features surprising appearances by Elvis Costello, Meat Loaf, Cybill Shepherd and Howard Hesseman.
“The Frodis Caper” (aka Mijacogeo) was the final episode of the music/comedy series The Monkees, and originally aired on March 25th, 1968. Directed and co-written by Mickey Dolenz, the plot focuses on the Monkees’ efforts to thwart a conspiracy by the Wizard Glick (Rip Taylor) to control the minds of the masses via television hypnosis with the aid of an alien Frodis plant. Besides the episode’s thinly veiled critiques of mass media, The Frodis Caper is notable for its’ overt psychedelic references, anti-war Monkees song Zor and Zam, and a transcendent solo acoustic performance of Song of the Siren by Tim Buckley ( a song which was later popularized by an arguably superior version performed by Elizabeth Fraser).
Holy moly! In 1983, just a year before his death of lung cancer—an event some people dispute ever happened—Andy Kaufman was given the bountiful gift of an hour of PBS programming time in the form of a segment of the music series Soundstage.
It’s a revelation.
Kaufman used his hour to create a mind-boggling critique of talk shows and the entertainment complex writ large. The show is presented out of phase: we see the inexplicable final, hysterical moments of the program, perhaps holding out the promise that we’ll find out what the fuck was going on at the very end. Kaufman sings an inane farewell song and credits roll—then the program starts up again.
One of the first things Kaufman does is ask the home viewer to go get a piece of cellophane from the kitchen—and then sits on the lip of the audience bleachers and waits 30 seconds in ballsy silence while that task is accomplished. (Just in case there are any stragglers, he then briefly jacks the volume and shouts at the home viewers to hurry up.)
You don’t need me to tell you all the gags in advance, but boy, they are beautiful. What’s sometimes forgotten about Kaufman is that for all of his daring experimentation, he was almost always very funny. Nobody had better mastery over the mirth that could be extracted from an awkward turn of phrase or an uncomfortable pause.
They gave him an installment of the PBS concert series Soundstage, for which he was invited to fill an hour as he saw fit and, since this was public television and no serious money was involved, he saw fit to contrive the most elliptical and surreal refraction of existential realities that he had ever attempted. He spent the better part of June working at the WTTW production facilities in Chicago, where the series was produced and where he plotted strategem as he went along, with George and Lynne Margulies and Elayne Boosler as his sounding board. He would begin the show at the end and start again near the middle and utilize ideas learned as a child from watching Winky-Dink and You, wherein viewers were instructed to put cellophane on the television screen and draw on it to help him out of jams. He would have himself arrested and thrown into television court (all with cartoon backdrop) and defend whatever broadcast transgressions he had so far commited on the program. He would have an interviewing desk that was now seven feet high (calling no attention to this) from which he would imperiously interview Elayne, wherein they (candidly, no, really) traversed what had gone wrong with their relationship—“Sometimes I would wake in the morning,” he told her, “and I’d think I’d like to tell you that we’re gonna break up. I’d say, Well, I gotta tell her tonight—we’re gonna break up!” The Clifton puppet would meanwhile stalk the desktop and serve as sidekick.
If you have any yen at all for the outer reaches of experimental comedy, this is a must-see.
Oh—since it’s Kaufman we’re talking about here, don’t take anything for granted. Make sure you watch the program to the very end.
Hardware Wars: The Mother of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Profitable Short Film Ever Made)
Back in 1977, San Francisco filmmaker Ernie Fosselius had the brainwave to make a spoof of a movie that had just come out. It was a risky move. Nobody had any sense that Star Wars would become the worldwide cultural phenomenon that it did. And just as George Lucas’s space opera earned staggering amounts of money, so did Fosselius’s parody, Hardware Wars. You can watch it above. Made for a mere eight grand, the 13-minute movie became a pre-internet viral hit and a staple on the festival circuit, ultimately earning over $1,000,000 – an unheard of haul for a short film. In fact, in terms of money spent versus money earned, Hardware Wars ended up being far more profitable than Star Wars. And it’s considered the most profitable short film ever made.
“I think a lot of the charm of that movie is the fact that we didn’t really know what we were doing,” said Scott Mathews, who donned a blonde wig to play the movie’s lead, Fluke Starbucker. The movie’s production is so gleefully cheap and half-assed that you can’t help but be charmed by it. Irons, toasters, and tape players are used in place of spaceships.
A canister vacuum cleaner stands in for R2D2, and Chewbacca appears to be a Cookie Monster puppet dyed brown. At one point, while on a desert planet of Tatooine, you see a beach-goer sauntering in the background. And Star Wars’s famous cantina scene is in this movie simply a stroll through a crowded tavern. If you know anything about the bar scene in 1970s San Francisco, you know that it was at least as weird as anything George Lucas managed to put up on the screen.
The often litigious Lucas reportedly really liked the movie, called it “cute.” He even invited Fosselius to voice the inconsolable sobs of Jabba the Hutt’s animal trainer after his beloved Rancor gets killed by Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.
Hardware Wars ended up launching an entire subgenre of movie – the Star Wars fan film. And with the advent of Youtube and digital filmmaking technology, the ability of nerds and mavens to make increasingly sophisticated takes on Lucas’s universe became easier and easier. One of the better, and older, ones is Troops. A mash up of Star Wars and the reality TV series Cops, the short shows the challenges and the struggles of being an Imperial Stormtrooper. Check it out below.
After the Crash 