August Recommendation: Airplane

 

             After watching movie that's so bad that you literally need to take a shower as well as pound five little bottles of fireball (figuratively). I knew firsthand that I had to find a good movie to watch, for me to get back into the game of recommending some movies for all of you to sit down and enjoy. Granted there's no wrong in watching some entertaining bad B-Movies, but the Amazing Bulk was such a mess that just hurts a ton of brain cells. Thankfully I became one of the greatest comedic trios of all time since Mel Brooks. Airplane! (Worthy of a Monthly Recommendation) was one of those movies I remembered watching as a kid, though watched a ton of the sequel but do remembered watching the first movie to the point I remembered the crowd going nuts about a pilot and all of a sudden a half-naked woman comes in for a second and my mom was like "GO TO YOUR ROOM", and in all fairness this movie got me into liking girls growing up in a strange sense.

             This spoof comedy takes shots at the slew of disaster movies that were released in the 70's. When passengers and crew of a jet are incapacitated due to food poisoning, a rogue pilot (Robert Hays) with a drinking problem (figuratively) must cooperate with his ex-girlfriend (Julie Hagerty) turned stewardess to bring a plane to safe landing.

              Shockingly enough although it makes sense, this is in fact Jim Abrahams, Jerry and David Zucker’s directorial debut together for which I at the time didn't know about that, but it makes sense because from this movie to like the Naked Gun films those are there sole movies together. Around 1971, the trio was developing their comic routine, and they would usually record late night television and reviewed the tapes later primarily to pull the commercials. Basically, Abrahams, in a sense of describing or comparing it as "seine fishing", during one of the tapings they unintentionally recorded the 1957 film Zero Hour! and like most comedic writers would find that one source of inspiration this was most certainly fate reaching out to extend its hand towards ZAZ. The group completed their first film script in 1975 titled The Late Show. Having failed to sell their script to major studios, ZAZ met with John Landis who encouraged them to write a film based on their theatre sketches, for which later became The Kentucky Fried Movie, furthermore David Zucker in his own words "it was the first time we had ever been on a movie set. We learned a lot. We learned that if you learned that you wanted a movie to come out the way you wanted it to, you had to direct. So, on the next movie Airplane! we insist on directing". Even though the trio was borrowing a lot of source material as well as dialog from Zero Hour! They needed to negotiate the rights to create a remake of the film to ensure they remain within the allowance for a parody within the copyright of the law. So, before they were able to make the film for Paramount, they had to obtain rights from Warner Bros. and Paramount for about 2,500 dollars at the time. Going back and watching this film, it does have that breath of fresh air sense where you can sit down and have a great time with a lot of goofy and serious comedic humor that's still funny even to its 45th Anniversary. Like the original Naked Gun films what carry's this movie through as well as still being fresh is the seriousness as well as blending comedy, and there's always that sense of being very serious but laughing at the same time especially in scenes where Lloyd Bridges is being serious about picking the wrong time to quick smoking or drinking or Robert Hayes telling his stories and you just have to laugh about his drinking problem and just splashing it on his face it just great humor from start to finish and the best part about it is, as always the fact that it's under a 90 minute movie, but more importantly it works it explains what it is and has a first, second and third act in a quick pace and just finishes it in the best way possible. Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty and Leslie Nielson are excellent in this film, no doubt about it and in fact this was Nielson's first collaboration with the trio of ZAZ who later in 82 began the development of Frank Drebin and the Police Squad TV series. But a lot of credit also goes with the supporting cast in the film with Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Stephan Stucker and even Robert Stack who through the course of my childhood, has always been that narrator for Unsolved Mysteries like between the Unsolved Mysteries and Airplane! those are the only movies I've seen of his, and even when watching this movie for the first time I began thinking to myself is this "his voice is familiar". Peter Graves and Jabbar are great and they play off of each other and both of them have the best moments, but the other supporting actor that deserves a lot of praise is Stephan Stucker who plays the actual goof in the movie Johnny Stucker, who knows what the film is and does a fantastic job at playing either the crazy or goofy person through the course of the movie and you know everyone is serious with their acting as well as comedy but he's the only one who plays the goof ball throughout the movie and yet it's still entertaining at the same time. In all summer movie seasons, you always must have that one good comedy through the course of the year and comedies now is just hard to find but whenever you sit down and watch a classic like Airplane! it  has that breath of fresh air that keeps you entertained year after year. Again like the Naked Gun this film is best that you watch once a year so, the jokes can keep fresh and something to laugh at and for the month of August, you always have to have a great comedy to be entertained as well as something to laugh at, because let's be honest you never get to see these kinds of spoofs, especially when they try to copy this format or fail miserably furthermore when you have pathetic comedic actors now that are just lame and not even close of being funny. So, if you’re bored and need some laughter in your life Airplane! is the best movie to watch in that time of need especially if you’re tired and want to watch some classic comedies, but also the film is on Hulu and hopefully will stay on Hulu forever.