Todd’s Movie Blog

I did a lot of back and forth internally about this next suggestion, due to the star’s erratic and disturbing behavior over the past few years, but as one of the things about Christmas is good will I decided to look past Mel Gibson’s recent problems and go back to remember when he only played a crazy person instead of actually being one.

Lethal Weapon is the film that took Gibson from a popular leading man to superstar.  The film is set during Christmas in LA, Gibson is introduced pulling a drug sting at a Christmas tree lot.  Gibson is suicidal stemming from the death of his beloved wife, and takes insane chances when working on his cases. With everyone afraid to work with him and the Department shrink wanting him watched they team him with veteran homicide detective Danny Glover, who is only days away from retirement.

Working on a case involving an old friend of Glover’s, the two mismatched soon to be buddies uncover a major drug smuggling operation run by ex-military special ops leader Ryan Mitchell and is psycho right hand man Gary Busey.  After several attempts on their lives, things come to a head when they get captured and brutally interrogated over a piece of evidence Glover supposedly has.

The whole thing ends with Glover blowing Mitchell away and then Gibson and Busey have a knock down drag out kung fu fight on Glover’s front line, that started with Busey driving a car through the house’s front window, destroying their Christmas tree.  In the end, Glover decides not to retire and Gibson decides to live, becoming part of Glover’s family and spending Christmas with them.

Now that Thanksgiving is past and we have had a couple of days to recover from our triptophan induced stupor, it is time to think about Christmas, as with the past two months I am going to put forth alternative film titles from the standard holiday fare.  While these films are set at Christmas, Santa will not be winning over Martians and Ralphie isn’t goiing to be told he’ll shoot his eye out.

My first suggestion is a true classic, The Thin Man.  Retired PI Nick Charles and his younger wife Nora are spending the holidays in New York, throwing parties, getting continually tipsy and trading the kind of witty banter with each other that all of us wish we could think of, much less deliver with the panache of stars William Powell and Myrna Loy.  Into this gaiety comes the daughter of an old family friend who’s father is missing.

Nick isn’t sure he wants to get involved until the man’s secretary turns up dead and then a thug shows up in the detective’s bedroom demanding Nick tell the police he didn’t have anything to do with the killing.  After beating the crap out of the goon, Nick reluctantly puts aside his martinis and scotch (as well as his current hobby of shooting out the Christmas decorations on their tree with an air gun), and starts to look into the case, unraveling enough family secrets to make up a year of subplots for Days of Our Lives and discovering a second murder victim, all the while continuing to trade quips with the ever sarcastic and loving Nora.

The whole thing climaxes with the Charles’ throwing a dinner party where in between appetizers and entree (”Serve the nuts, I mean serve the guest the nuts.”) Nick details the actual crime, revealing the identity of the second victim and cold cocking the murderer before he can pull a gun.

One of the best mystery films ever made, it effortlessly combines the conventions of the who done it with a screwball comedy and throws in a few moments of genuine suspense, all peppered with Powell and Loy affectionately traded wisecracks.  A comedic highlight is the Christmas party Nick throws for Nora’s society friends and his old detective and hoodlum cronies, while the happy couple kid around and swipe each other’s drinks. A standout moment involves Nora asking Nick to hand her her drink, when he asks which one it is, she answers rye.  Nick then empties the glass and then hands it to her saying that one was the rye.

For my third suggestion I am putting forth one of my all time favorites that I discovered a few years back, Bubba Ho-Tep.  Unlike my previous two suggestions, which were out and out spoofs, this film is a little different.

Now the plot sounds like an all out comedy spoof.  Sebastian Haff, a retired Elvis impersonator who claims he is the real man (having grown tired of the fame he switched places with the real Haff) teams up with his best friend, a black man who claims he is JFK( apparently LBJ faked the assassination, kidnapped the president and chemically changed him black) to investigate some strange goings on at their retirement home, like a large scarab that attacks Elvis and residents mysteriously dying bent over with their pants pulled down.  Evidence leads them to a resurrected  Egyptian mummy that was lost in a truck accident nearby, who sustains his life by sucking out his victim’s souls through their anus.  When no one at the home believes them Elvis puts on his rhinestone jumpsuit and JFK puts on his inaugural suit and they head out via walker and wheelchair to do battle and save their retirement home from an ancient evil that dresses his dessicated body in a cowboy hat and boots to try and look inconspicuous.

I know, it sounds totally ridiculous, and a lot of it is laugh out loud funny, but not for the plot.  Much of the humor is character based and comes from the banter between the leads, played by Bruce Campbell (best screen Elvis ever) and Ossie Davis (in his last role), like Elvis comparing the size of the bugs to peanut butter and banana sandwiches or JFK referring to people that visit him as “the girl who claims to be my granddaughter”.

There are also some serious scenes in the film, mostly Elvis’ reflections on his past, his regret about leaving his wife and child behind and wondering whether or not they would come to see him  if they knew he was still alive, plus a dawniing acceptance that he is dying from a cancerous growth on his penis. Phantasm helmer Don Coscarelli has fashioned an interesting mix of horror, comedy and social commentary that takes a look at what we treat out eldery while simultaneously poking fun at and giving some dignity to two cultural icons, and throwing in some scary thrills with the scarab attacks and the final confrontation with the mummy.