Conan O’Brien makes me laugh, but a little self-deprecation goes a long way. David Letterman is still funny, for a cranky old man, and Leno’s monologue elicits more than a few laughs out of me (in contrast to Letterman’s sloth paced delivery, Leno opts for the machine gun approach, telling a dozen jokes for every one or two Dave delivers, thus he comes out on top due to the simple law of averages), but in my book they still pale compared to the master, Johnny Carson.
Carson could milk just as many laughs out of a good joke as one that tanked, which was his special gift, but one of my favorite things about watching Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show was the guests he featured.
These days just about everyone you see on a talk show are there to promote a new movie, book, video or album. Of course there was a lot of plugging going on in the olden days that I hold so dear, but there was also a lot of guests that stopped by to simply stop by and pay Johnny a visit.
Johnny had a lot of pals, like Jimmy Stewart, Don Rickles, Shelly Winters, Buddy Hackett, George Gobel, Dean Martin and Burt Reynolds who would just stop by to shoot the breeze and maybe tell a few anecdotes or jokes. These members of Hollywood’s old guard came out cold. Today’s talk show guests are pre interviewed, which is how the hosts can miraculously come up with questions like, “I heard that while making your latest movie you had some sort of an encounter with a pack of albino bats.” Johnny Carson would talk to his guests naturally, and if they happened to bring up a story about some albino bats, that was cool, but they were so at ease that were just as likely to come up with an equally funny story. Nothing was forced.
Buddy Hackett was one of my favorites. Part of the reason was because Johnny genuinely liked him and thought he was funny. Another part of the reason was that he told jokes and stories that were mostly racy, and usually a couple of words had to be bleeped out and I would have to rack my brain to figure out what he had said. And one of the biggest reasons was that he told long jokes and stories. Four, five and six minutes long. While Buddy was telling his joke you could see Johnny looking off camera, probably being told that they really needed to go to a commercial break, but Johnny rarely cut anyone off.
I miss Johnny. Not enough to buy those ‘Best Of’ video compilations I see for sale. But I do miss him a lot.
I heard a great quote on the Tonight Show one night. It was spoken by an actor or an actress who was responding to a bad review that his/her movie had gotten. The actor/actress dismissed movie critics by saying, “Critics are like the eunuchs who guard a king’s harem. They know what sex is. They see it happen every single day. But for the life of them, they just can’t do it themselves.” I thought this was a pretty neat quote, but I had to look up the word ‘eunuch’ in the dictionary. Then I had to look up the word ‘castration’. Once I knew what a eunuch really was the quote was even more powerful to me.
I love movies and based on the reviews of Roger Ebert, I once considered writing movie reviews for a living. But then I thought about that quote and wondered how I could sit back and criticize someone who was doing something that I was incapable of. I can’t cook, so I could I tell a master chef what’s wrong with his bouillabaisse?
Movie critics are not moviemakers, yet we trust their recommendations and heed their warnings. At least I do. Which is why I didn’t see the animated movie ‘Robots’ when it was in the theater. The critics called it thinly plotted, childish, one-dimensional and they mocked Ewan McGregor’s American accent.
Shame on them. And shame on me for listening to them and missing Robots on the big screen. I watched it last night and I can’t recall liking an animated movie more since the first Toy Story movie.
Robots has got a lot of things going for it. For starters, it was produced by the creative forces that gave us the film Ice Age (a film that I had my share of problems with, based mostly on character design and some story elements, but which I still enjoyed a great deal). The next great thing about Robots was that it was designed by the mega genius that is William Joyce. If you’ve lived a sheltered life and don’t know who Joyce is, do yourself a favor and run a GIS (Google Image Search) on him and see what you’ve been missing.
Okay, so the plot of Robots is pretty lightweight, but that’s sort of the point. It’s almost a fable or a fairy tale. The filmmakers understood that from the beginning, which is why they kept the pace so fast. The action and dialogue move along at a lively clip. The Toy Story movies dealt with some complex issues and they built some deep characterization, but at the same time there are huge sections of both movies that move at a snail’s pace. Robots starts off at a pretty fast pace and never really slows down.
Oh, another thing that the critics warned us of was the return of Robin Williams playing the same motor-mouthed character we’ve seen (or heard) him deliver in other animated movies. I was really worried about this. A little Robin Williams is a good thing. Which is what Robots delivers. The character he plays does sound like Robin Williams, but there’s a degree of restraint that was not present when he was playing the Genie of the lamp. There was also a happy absence of celebrity impersonations and pop references that tend to age a film.
This film is gorgeous. The animation is top notch. There’s a slew of big name actors that weren’t at all necessary. Halle Berry is a delight for the eyes but her voice is ordinary and her performance was wasted. The critics were right about Ewan McGregor’s wavering accent. The only voice actors that improved the movie were Greg Kinnear, Amanda Bynes and Robin Williams. Mel Brooks had his moments as well.
If you’re in the mood for some lightweight fun that might make you feel like a kid again, rent a copy of Robots. At the very least, check it out on HBO a few months from now.
No comments:
Post a Comment