Stay Tuned (1992)

John Ritter and Pam Dawber play Roy and Helen Knable, a married couple who end up sucked into a world of TV programmes all designed to kill them off, allowing their souls to be added to a valuable total. If they can somehow survive for 24 hours then they can return to their normal lives. But that doesn't usually happen. Running through a variety of twisted shows (with pun-tastic names such as I Love Lucifer, Golden Ghouls, Northern Overexposure and Fresh Prince Of Darkness), Roy and Helen are sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by Crowley (Eugene Levy) while the evil Spike (Jeffrey Jones) keeps an eye on the proceedings.

Directed by Peter Hyams, there are a lot of pop culture references packed into Stay Tuned that made it feel dated not too long after it was first released, in the early '90s. But for people who watched most of their TV in the late '80s and early '90s there's plenty of fun to be had. The script by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein doesn't try to be too clever, concentrating instead on keeping the gags and the references flying thick and fast (and who can fail to love an advert for a movie entitled Three Men And Rosemary's Baby?) and developing the main characters into people who might just survive their experience and learn to be better people, don'tchaknow.

Ritter and Dawber are both good enough in the lead roles. The former tends to be good in almost everything that he does, while Dawber is interesting to watch in movies, purely because she's done relatively few throughout her career. Jones is enjoyably evil as Spike, and Levy puts in another enjoyable comedy turn. David Tom and Heather McComb are perfectly fine as the teenage kids, and Don Calfa gets to join in with the fun for a little while, as do . . . . . . . . . . . Salt 'n' Pepa.

There's not a lot else that needs to be said about Stay Tuned. It's fun, it tries to use the budget effectively at all times (especially considering how many gags and references are packed into the runtime), and it holds up as an enjoyably anarchic comedy. There's even a sequence that has Ritter and Dawber turned into animated characters, and that's far from the most far-fetched moment.

Many people won't recognise all of the comedic targets, but this is a blast for anyone born in the late '70s or early '80s. Give it a try if you haven't seen it already.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Tuned-John-Ritter/dp/B00004RF88/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380228961&sr=8-1&keywords=stay+tuned

Terror Tract (2000)

A horror anthology movie with a nice streak of black humour weaving through most of it, Terror Tract sits very much in a safe middle ground when compared to other films of its ilk.

John Ritter plays Bob Carter, a real estate agent showing some lovely homes to Allen and Mary Ann Doyle (David DeLuise and Allison Smith). Bob Carter is a charming, decent man but he may just be a bit too honest for his job. He ends up telling the Doyles a story in each house that they visit, a story about the people who previously owned the property. There don't seem to be too many happy endings.
House/tale 1 - Sarah York plays an unfaithful wife who is about to be caught out by her husband, played by Fredric Lehne. Carmine Giovinazzo is the lover caught in the middle of a very nasty situation and Wade Williams is the local law enforcement who starts to suspect that something is amiss.
House/tale 2 - Bryan Cranston finds his life turned upside down by a vicious monkey. Yes, you read that right. Bryan Cranston vs. a monkey.
House/tale 3 - A young man (Sean Estes) tries explaining to a doctor (Brenda Strong) that he seems to have some psychic link to a serial killer. The doctor is, understandably, on edge and wonders whether or not the young man actually IS the killer, dissociating himself from his actions.

The downside of Terror Tract is that none of the individual tales are that great. The second tale is the best, mainly because, as I may have mentioned, it has Bryan Cranston vs. a monkey, but this is an anthology movie lacking that one great story that everyone can pick as their favourite.

The acting is solid from everyone, the script by Clint Hutchison is okay, if a bit flat, and the direction from both Hutchison and Lance W. Dreesen is competent, if unremarkable. Where the movie excels is in the wraparound content. Ritter is as much fun as he usually is, DeLuise and Smith are both very good and things build up to a final sequence that shows how much better the rest of the movie could have been if it had managed to maintain a more consistent tone from start to finish.

It may not make your list of "best anthology movies ever" but Terror Tract is an enjoyable enough watch, boosted by a sense of fun and some decent performances. Don't make it a top priority, but do try to check it out some time.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-On-Terror-Tract-DVD/dp/B000B64VYO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379941667&sr=8-1&keywords=terror+tract

The Barefoot Executive (1971)

Ahhhh, those innocent and happy days when fresh-faced Kurt Russell was a big star for the Disney studio and it was okay to laugh at chimpanzees dressed up and being amusingly near-human. Alright, it's easy to look at these Disney movies from the past now and dismiss them as nothing more than time capsules full of some dubious content choices but I have to admit that, putting aside the whole humanised monkey aspect of the thing, I enjoyed this film quite a bit.

Kurt Russell plays Steven Post, a young mail delivery boy (Post! Delivery boy! See what they did there?) who wants to further his career with the TV network that he works for. Nobody else thinks he's capable of this but he finds a golden opportunity landing in his lap when his girlfriend (Heather North) ends up looking after a chimpanzee and that chimpanzee shows an uncanny, and unfailing, ability to pick the top rated TV shows. Armed with this information, Steven starts to make a name for himself but everything relies on people not realising that the programming is being picked by a monkey.

It runs for just over 90 minutes, it has a chirpy song over the main titles, Kurt Russell is as likeable as ever and there's a cute monkey. Yes, this adds up to easily enjoyable Disney fare. The supporting cast also features Joe Flynn, Harry Morgan, Wally Cox and a young John Ritter and they're all entertaining in their roles.

The screenplay by Joseph L. McEveety is pretty simple stuff and the direction from Robert Butler is decidedly average but the movie doesn't suffer because of these things. It's a simple film, one that doesn't need any major flourishes to keep things moving along nicely, and it's something that remains very easy to spend some time with even in this day and age of ever-increasing channels, decreasing viewing figures (barring the major, "unmissable" events it's obvious to most people that greater and greater choice has led to a decrease in the quality of programming and a more fractured audience share for big companies) and the knowledge that at least some of the programming for TV nowadays IS being picked by monkeys, surely.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Barefoot-Executive-Region-Import-NTSC/dp/B00077BPF0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344952782&sr=8-2