Mel Brooks

The Muppet Movie

by user
July 25, 2019February 25, 2022

The Muppet Movie (1979), starring Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Charles Durning

Synopsis

The Muppet Movie is the story of how Kermit the Frog leaves the swamp in search of fame and fortune. Along the way, he meets up with the various Muppet characters that we know and love. Fozzie the (failed) comedian, Rowlf who plays piano, Miss Piggy the beauty contest winner, Gonzo, and more.

by user
May 24, 2019December 24, 2023

Spaceballs (1987) starring Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Mel Brooks, Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, Joan Rivers

Synopsis of Spaceballs

Spaceballs is a funny, irreverent spoof of Star Wars (and many other scifi movies). The plot centers around a rogue pilot and his furry best friend team with a princess. The goal is to save her planet from an evil emperor who wants to steal all her planet’s air. But it’s really an excuse for a fast-paced gag fest. Enjoy!

by user
June 3, 2016August 15, 2021

DVD review of Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie – Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn (Mel Brooks), Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman) and Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise) go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio’s creditors attempt to thwart them

Editorial Review of Silent Movie, courtesy of Amazon.com

One of Mel Brooks’s weaker vehicles, this 1976 feature finds a movie producer (Brooks) deciding that the public is ready for the silent film form again. Reasonably ambitious and promising, the film ultimately doesn’t do for silent cinema what Brooks did for atmospheric horror (by reviving it while parodying it) in Young Frankenstein. Lots of famous faces pass through Silent Movie, to varying effect. Perhaps the best joke in the movie is the one performer who actually has a line of dialogue: mime Marcel Marceau. —Tom Keogh

by user
June 3, 2016August 12, 2021

Editorial Review of The Sid Caesar Collection – The Fan Favorites – 50th Anniversary Edition, courtesy of Amazon.com

“When we worked together,”reminisces Sid Caesar, “it was magic, and you don’t question magic.” So just enjoy this essential three-disc collection of vintage sketches from Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour. To work on these programs was to attend “the Harvard of Comedy,” and this “great amalgamation of talents,” which included Carl Reiner, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris, Nanette Fabray, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, and Neil and Danny Simon, were at the head of their class. “We did everything,” Caesar notes at one point, and the proof is on these discs: domestic sketches (“Life Begins at 7:45″ ), game show parodies (“Break Your Brains” ), spoofs of foreign films (“U-Bet-U” ), opera (“Gallipacci” ), and classical music (and a pantomime of “the 1812 Overture” ). It is a testament to the knowledge, technique, and taste of those who created the show that these 50-year-old sketches hold up as well as they do. This was the golden age of live television, when anything could happen, and the cast would have to go with it. In “Gallipacci,” Caesar’s make-up pencil breaks when his character, a heartbroken clown, is applying make-up to his face. Without missing a beat, Caesar rises to the potentially disastrous occasion with one of the most inspired ad-libs in television history.

by user
May 11, 2016August 11, 2022

Dracula Dead and Loving It (1995) starring Leslie Nielsen, Steven Weber, Peter MacNicol, Lysette Anthony, Mel Brooks

I’ve been doing reviews of various movies with Harvey Korman, since his recent death. This led me to watch Dracula: Dead and Loving It starring Leslie Nielsen, Steven Weber, Peter MacNicol and Lysette Anthony. Most of the reviews that I’d read led me to believe that it was a very unfunny movie, with only one or two laughs during the entire movie. In my opinion, they were totally wrong–I would describe this as Mel Brooks’ most underrated movie.