Netflix And Chill: An American Tail (1986)

Apologies, but some minor spoilers follow, because An American Tail ended up having some surprisingly relevant plot points that I really want to bring up.

Let me tell you a story. It's all about a family of immigrants who flee a dangerous home country to seek shelter somewhere they think is free of their enemies. The journey is a tough one, leading to one child being split from the family. That child arrives in America, initially befriended by someone else who has come to the country from elsewhere, and knows how much it can give to people seeking a new life there. Unfortunately, the next person the child meets is not so good. The optimistic immigrant is soon surrounded by perils, including a self-serving and thoughtless politician and, perhaps most relevantly, someone who seems to be helping "his own kind" until it is revealed that they are in fact one of the dangerous predators they claim to be able to keep away from the vulnerable, for a fee.

Sound familiar? I'm sure many people have been in that position, and it's probably the backdrop to many news stories that we have read in the past few years, whether we realise it or not. And, yes, it is the main plot of An American Tail, an animated film that focuses on the perilous odyssey of a little mouse named Fievel (voiced by Phillip Glasser). This was a film I had no interest in for many years. As a child it just looked a bit too bland for me, as an adult it just, well, still looked too bland. I was very wrong.

Directed by Don Bluth, this is a beautiful and sweet story that has enough to keep children entertained, and often keep them quite tense, while also sketching out a familiar backstory for many families who managed to uproot their lives in the past and head over to make a new life in the USofA. It's a lot more optimistic and upbeat than a film made today about those experiences might be but that doesn't make it any less effective. The message is all about the risks and opportunities, the strength needed to succeed in such an endeavour, and the ways in which immigrants helped build America, literally, and continue to do so. That may all be intentional (and considering the people able to input anything to the central premise, especially Steven Spielberg, I suspect so), maybe it's not, but it's there anyway.

The animation is quite lovely, often on a par with the most famous animation studio in the world, and the script, written by Judy Fruedberg and Tony Geiss, is an enjoyable mix of cute and smart, with the former being inevitable when you consider how adorable little Fievel is.

The voice cast are a mixed bag, all picked more for their suitability to certain roles than for their immediate recognition. While I will say that I am glad we get names involved such as Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, and Christopher Plummer, I will also say that Glasser is absolutely wonderful as the little mouse at the centre of events, and the moment in which his childish voice, and one other, amateurishly sings a rendition of "Somewhere Out There" is probably the sweetest thing I have seen in a movie in quite some time. There aren't lots of other songs but the ones that you do get are very good, and you also get a lovely score from James Horner to help things along.

I recommend this to everyone who enjoys a good animated movie, especially now that it has become surprisingly relevant with the some of the main plot points, and I hope to now catch the first sequel at some point in the near future.

8/10

You can buy it here.
Americans can buy it here.

City Heat (1984)

Perhaps they weren't at their highest height, but in the early '80s you would struggle to find two cinematic superstars more iconic than Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. Don't get me wrong, we still had plenty of cinematic icons alive and well, but they weren't seemingly at the peak of their powers, whereas Burt and Clint absolutely were. One was The Bandit, and also just Burt, one was Dirty Harry, and so many other memorable characters. Which makes the idea of City Heat a no-brainer.

This was Tango & Cash five years before Tango & Cash, with the added move of making it a period piece, for reasons I still can't quite fathom (although I admit that a couple of fun gags stem from the whole prohibition-era restrictions).

Eastwood is Lieutenant Speer, Reynolds is a private detective named Mike Murphy. The men used to be partners but it's clear from the opening scenes that there's no love lost between them. Murphy has a partner who has unwitingly gotten himself in too deep with some mobsters, Speer is keeping a detached eye on the situation, mainly by keeping an eye on Murphy.

Directed by Richard Benjamin (who I knew as an actor, mainly from the Saturday The 14th films, but was unaware that he has been behind some fun movies, including The Money Pit, Mermaids and My Favourite Year), and written by Blake Edwards and Joseph Stinson, City Heat is a film symptomatic of many that want to pair up two superstars without really knowing how best to use them. There's simple fun to be had just watching any exchange between the fast-talking Reynolds and the much more laconic Eastwood, and there are some good gags here and there (a running joke about hidden alcohol being one, the other involves Eastwood having a supply of larger and larger firearms), but that's about all this has going for it, which is a great shame for all involved. The script should have been full of better lines, the plotting didn't need to seem so convoluted, and there should have been more thought given to creating set-pieces that could involve the two leads.

Eastwood and Reynolds both do very well, and both are much better than the material they have to work with. Jane Alexander and Madeline Kahn are also very good, playing two women who may be inadvertently dragged into the whole dangerous mess. Tony Lo Bianco and Rip Torn play the two mob bosses at odds with one another, and Richard Roundtree, Irene Cara, William Sanderson, and Robert Davi are among the other familiar faces joining in.

Having not seen City Heat since I first watched it on VHS when it was released in the 1980s, I wondered if it would be better or worse than I recall. It turns out that, despite the age of the film and the much older age of myself, I feel pretty much the same way about it as I did way back then. I'll be interested to hear how others view it.

5/10

Having never really been given any special treatment on disc, I recommend picking City Heat up with this set.

American fans can pick it up on Bluray here.

Mixed Nuts (1994)

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house . . . . . . . . . . . . the telephone was ringing and people feeling suicidal were calling for help.

Mixed Nuts is an inferior, but ultimately enjoyable, rom-com set on Christmas Eve in a crisis hotline office. The team are about to be evicted, but only Philip (Steve Martin) knows this. He's not wanting to break the bad news to the lovely, loyal Catherine (Rita Wilson) or the crabby and bitter Mrs. Munchnik (Madeline Kahn). While dealing with a variety of calls, the team ends up in the middle of a domestic between the heavily pregnant Gracie (Juliette Lewis) and her lovable loser of a boyfriend, Felix (Anthony LaPaglia).

This is very standard stuff, especially if you're familiar with the work of Nora Ephron (who both directed this movie and also co-wrote the screenplay with her sister, Delia - not an original piece, the two tweaked and reworked the script of Le Père Noël Est Une Ordure). It's also good fun for anyone who enjoys the featured cast members.

As well as those mentioned, Adam Sandler has a fun role (although he makes use of his standard annoying vocal style and also gets to sing some stupid lyrics), Liev Schreiber is wonderful as a transgender individual named Chris, Parker Posey and Jon Stewart have small roles and Garry Shandling gets to be entertainingly unpleasant for every minute of his limited screentime.

The script may not be the sharpest, and the direction may be a bit flat, but things are improved immeasurably by all of the leads. Martin is good fun, as is Wilson, but more laughs come from the scenes featuring Lewis and LaPaglia. The most laughs, however, come from any scenes featuring Madeline Kahn, easily reminding viewers of just what a great comedic actress she is. She's one of the best, and one of the major plus points of Mixed Nuts is the fact that it lets her steal every scene that she's in.

I doubt that anyone will list this as a favourite film, but there's enough here to make it a fairly enjoyable 90 minutes.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mixed-Nuts-DVD-Steve-Martin/dp/B0006DWHIY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1374958231&sr=8-2&keywords=mixed+nuts

High Anxiety (1977)

It's another top class spoof from Mel Brooks, this time taking aim at the movies of Alfred Hitchcock, and while I enjoyed many individual moments (the riff on The Birds is juvenile but also damn funny) I didn't feel that the whole thing worked as well as it could, or should, have.

The biggest plot developments, and indeed the title itself, are derived from Vertigo - the film that, despite stiff competition, just edges ahead of the pack to remain Hitchcock's finest hour. Mel Brooks plays Richard H. Thorndyke, a man who is appointed as the new administrator for the Psychoneurotic Institute For The Very Very Nervous. There's something not quite right at the institute, something that Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman) and Dr. Charles Montague (Harvey Korman) seem to be covering up. Maybe it's to do with a patient named Arthur Brisbane (Albert Whitlock), a man kept there despite him being in fine physical and mental health according to his daughter, Victoria (Madeline Kahn).

Written by Brooks, as well as Ron Clark, Barry Levinson and Rudy De Luca, the film lacks the gag quotient of, say, Blazing Saddles while the references to the original movies aren't always as immediately recognisable as they are in Young Frankenstein. Having said that, there are plenty of details and little touches that will please fans of Hitchcock even if they aren't always played for laughs.

The performances are all pretty good, in line with the material, but the best moments come from the fantastic Cloris Leachman and the equally fantastic Harvey Korman. In fact, the very best moments feature both stars bouncing off one another and wringing the maximum amount of laughs from each line.

Okay, so comparing this movie to Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein is probably quite unfair because they are two of the best spoofs ever made so I should make it clear that High Anxiety certainly rewards attentive viewers and will undoubtedly be a film that I return to now and again for some guaranteed chuckles.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mel-Brooks-Collection-DVD/dp/B000AM6NCM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348995965&sr=8-2

History Of The World: Part 1 (1981)

History can often be a dull, dry subject. So any movie covering the history of the world is something that you may approach with some trepidation. Knowing that the movie is written and directed by Mel Brooks, however, puts a very different spin on things.

Taking potshots at a few different chapters in history, from the days of the caveman to the days of the Roman Empire and from The Spanish Inquisition to the French Revolution, we get the usual scattershot approach. Gags of all varieties fly thick and fast and if you find yourself groaning at one then don't worry because another, that you'll probably laugh at, will be along within a couple of minutes.

The cast are all superb, and many of them will be familiar to anyone who has already enjoyed other movies from Mr. Brooks. The writer-director himself takes on a number of roles, Gregory Hines really enjoys himself in his first cinematic outing, Dom DeLuise and Madeline Kahn are as much fun as they usually are and more laughs are delivered by Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Spike Milligan, Pamela Stephenson, Sid Caesar and Shecky Greene.

A lot of the jokes are obvious, but not necessarily less funny because of it, and it's quite reassuring to actually see the old "walk this way" gag. There are so many little treats throughout that it's hard to select favourite moments to mention in this review but the undeniable highlight for me, however, was seeing The Spanish Inquisition given the glossy, Hollywood, musical number treatment (with absolutely wonderful and hilarious lyrics AND a catchy melody).

It's sad to think that modern audiences may only know Brooks for such films as Robin Hood: Men In Tights and Dracula: Dead And Loving It when his work in the 70s and early 80s contains moments of sheer brilliance to set it on a par with any other classics that you can think of. This movie may not be one of his very best but it's full of enough intelligence and wit to make you glad that you gave it a watch.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Of-The-World-Part/dp/B000BPND4O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334859558&sr=8-1