Leslie Nielsen: 1926-2010 “Good Luck, We’re All Counting On You”

28 11 2010

Only days after calling Leslie Nielsen my favorite spoof actor of all time, I got hit in the face, gut, and heart with this sad news:

Pajiba: …Nielsen died from complications from pneumonia on November 28th. He was 84…. he will be greatly missed.

The actor, who started out starring in “normal” movies like The Poseidon Adventure and Prom Night, left seriousness behind for the goofball roles we know and love in numerous spoof films, especially classics like Airplane and The Naked Gun. Nielsen’s straight-faced delivery of the most ridiculous puns and silly sight gags made him a Hollywood favorite, and any person in their right mind can tell that he had a hell of a good time with these films.

Read the rest of this entry »





My 10 Favorite Spoof Movies

24 11 2010

 

I guess it should be said that I love, love, love comedy movies. I mean, one should be able to guess that a puss like me would generally gravitate towards movies a little less bloody and serious, and they would be right. Ever since I saw Steve Martin’s The Jerk and first heard Martin’s character utter the words “I was born a poor black child” (That caught me off guard! I could clearly tell that he was Asian) I knew that these were the movies for me. An even greater discovery occurred at the age of 14, when found a DVD in my parents’ room called Blazing Saddles. I was blown away. How a person could fit that many jokes into one movie was beyond what my teenage mind could comprehend. After watching one of the funniest movies of all time, I quickly searched the film on Wikipedia, looked at pages for all the actors, and eventually came upon the filmography of Mel Brooks. Two days later, I high-tailed it to the local Blockbuster, grabbed their copy of Spaceballs, and never looked back. Thus began my lifelong obsession with spoofs. Shut up, I don’t care that I haven’t lived long.

That said, not only are there virtually no good spoof movies being made today (The only ones even being released are by Seltzer and Freiberg, who have brought you such classics as Meet the Spartans and Vampires Suck. You’d better know that’s sarcasm), but there really isn’t much of a selection of spoofs to begin with, at least when it comes to spoofs that were good. For all the simplicity that appears to drive spoofs (Rapid fire jokes, puns, and sight gags, usually lampooning pop culture), not many parody movies of late have managed to get so much as a chuckle from anyone that isn’t 13. Mel Brooks was the master of the spoof, you probably know that already, so for this top ten list, I’m splitting it up into two halves: The Mel Brooks Division and Non-Mel Brooks division. And without further word rambling, my favorite spoof movies. Read and discuss after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »