Marital bliss double header: 'A Wedding' and 'The In-Laws'

I am getting married tomorrow -- a fact that excites me, of course, but still hasn't really sunk in and maybe won't until I got through the rehearsal in about 14 hours. In the meantime I watched two wedding-related movies to get me in the mood for my big day.

The first was the relatively obscure 1978 Robert Altman film A Wedding, a project that was born out of an offhand remark the director made while filming his creepy and haunting psychodrama 3 Women in 1977.

And the other is the 1979 cult comedy hit The In-Laws, which I'd seen before but never fully appreciated until now.

Neither film provides much to emulate in real life, but are both very funny and entertaining when it comes to providing insight into how maddening and awkward the process of joining together two families can be.

Altman's A Wedding is the more realistic film in this regard. It is made in Altman's signature style -- a quirky ensemble cast, performing overlapping dialogue, in what appears to be largely improvised scenes.

What little plot there is revolves around two culturally divergent, nouveau riche families coming together for an elaborate ceremony and reception, where virtually everything goes wrong. Affairs begin or are exposed, people die, fights ensue.

Altman, for all the humanism in his movies, seemed to have some pretty cynical impressions of human nature and American culture-- and they are all on display in A Wedding, which plays like a textbook example of how you wouldn't want your nuptials to go.

That doesn't make the movie an unpleasant viewing experience. The terrific cast, led by Carol Burnett (and Mia Farrow in a mostly mute performance) are a riot -- as is the loose and shambling pace of the project. I'm not sure why this film has been overshadowed by so many other Altman works, it may be one of his most underrated.

The In-Laws on the other hand has always enjoyed a huge following. When I first watched it I didn't get why. It was madcap to be sure, but I felt somewhat detached from it. Watching it again, I got on board largely thanks to Peter Falk's perfect performance. He was such a genius at playing off-kilter characters in such a grounded and charming way that you want to go along with them for the ride, even if its deadly.

In The In-Laws he plays a CIA agent who ropes his soon-to-be fellow father-in-law (Alan Arkin) into a freewheeling espionage plot that puts them in front of a firing squad by the last act. If you surrender to the sheer absurdity of this movie, you'll come to understand it as a precursor to films like Wedding Crashers and Meet the Parents, but less gimmicky.

Although both films have very different goals -- one is a subtle character piece, while the other is a broad comedy -- they both play on the anxiousness of encountering members of your spouse's family and trying to assimilate them all as one.

Luckily, I don't have any of the typical trepidation about my in-laws or my future extended family, but I understand the potential for disaster is universal and both of these films tap into the reasonable paranoia and discomfort that coincide with that.

Nothing will probably calm my nerves completely about this Saturday, but at the very least these comedies reminded me -- in a fun way -- that things could be much worse.

'Raising Cain' and the underrated legacy of John Lithgow

In the special features for 10 Cloverfield Lane, the filmmakers gush about the fact that John Goodman is one of the few actors who can be both effortlessly sympathetic and menacing in the same performance. I would argue another character actor who has that unique ability is the woefully underrated John Lithgow.

Perhaps its his very expressive face -- by no means traditionally movie star handsome, but still very appealing.

Or, perhaps its his distinct voice (which he tried to disguise, badly, in his improbable villain role in Cliffhanger opposite Sylvester Stallone).

He's been so good for so long in everything he does, not just movies but stage and screen, that he's one of these actors I think we all just take for granted. At 70, he's been in the business a very long time, and his presence in a project assures a certain level of quality.

He's only been nominated for an Oscar once -- for his turn as a sweet man in a loveless marriage who has an affair with Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment -- and has never won. But I think he has a solid claim to being one of the best character actors of his generation.

Take his performance in Brian De Palma's 1992 film Raising Cain for instance. It's one of Lithgow's few name-above-the-title roles and he has a field day playing a character with split personalities, and a third character under heavy make-up who turns out to be the arch villain.

The movie is not one of De Palma's best. It's so improbable and full of gaping plots holes that it's best enjoyed as an exercise in pure style over substance, and on that level it works tremendously. One could see it as a bit of a middle finger to the critics who scoffed at this failed attempt to go more mainstream with his critically and commercially reviled adaptation of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities.

John Lithgow in Raising Cain, it makes sense in context

And it's all the more watchable because of Lithgow's deliciously hammy performance. He's one of those actors who never phones it in. He has had some good collaborations with De Palma, my favorite of which is Blow Out (1981) where he plays a particularly cool and efficient killer whose perfectionism winds up having tragic results.

Another bravura turn can be seen in the anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), where, in the movie's best segment (directed by Mad Max: Fury Road's George Miller), he plays an airplane passenger driven to delirium by a monster destroying the plane's engine, which only he seems to be able to see.

To audiences of my generation, he may be better known for playing the stick in the mud dad in Footloose, or the more genial patriarchs of Harry and the Hendersons and TV's 3rd Rock From the Sun, although his stock rose with the millennial crowd after a critically acclaimed stint on the cult hit Dexter.

Still, my favorite stuff he did was with De Palma. Although their partnership never reached De Niro-Scorsese level consistency, it's obvious that these two eccentric talents fed off each other in interesting and entertaining ways.

Hopefully, with the new, incredible documentary out now reviewing the director's career -- their work will finally earn the wider audience it deserves.

'Never Seen It' Episode 4: Taking a trippy trip to 'Xanadu'

Xanadu's best scene

And we're back with another "Never Seen It" podcast. This is our fourth go round, check out the earlier shows, here, here and here.

On this episode, my fiancee Liz Rosado and I review the notorious 1980 music flop Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, with some decent songs by Electric Light Orchestra.

I had few preconceived notions about this movie. In fact, it probably wouldn't have been on my radar had it not been for a particularly uproarious episode of "How Did This Get Made?" which made me want to check it out.

As far as "good" bad movies go, this one's a gem in my book. And what it lacks in story and coherence is almost made up for by the charming performances of the leads, pictured above.

Check out the video below to hear Liz and my thoughts on this cinematic misfire, which nevertheless has developed a pretty devoted cult following:

'Blue Collar' is one of the best movies of the 1970s

I've seen the Paul Schrader film Blue Collar several times now and I have always enjoyed it and considered it one of the great overlooked classics, but after viewing it on the big screen for the first time, I became convinced that it is one of the best films of the 1970s.

I have always thought it deserved to be remade because its exploration of class, race and labor would be just as relevant today as when it came out in 1978.

It did little business back then -- studios didn't know how to market a film like this -- with two black leads and one white one, and a plot that mixes some elements of comedy with a fairly bleak drama.

The finale -- which is ambiguous in the best way -- doesn't present any clear heroes or triumphs, instead laying bare the inherent hatefulness within our two main characters.

Richard Pryor in Blue Collar

This is the stuff which made 1970s movies great. Their cynicism. They didn't skimp out on the entertainment though either, and Blue Collar is a wildly entertaining movie -- with an unpredictable plot and electric performances, especially from Yaphet Kotto (and unsung actor) and Richard Pryor, who gives the best performance of his screen career (with the exception of his self-titled stand up movie) here.

Pryor is funny in this movie, but he is also heartbreaking, furious and ultimately deep. He was apparently incredibly difficult during filming -- very much in the grip of his long drug addiction. He, Keitel and Kotto reportedly feuded and fought on set, and Schrader was often forced to shoot their scenes in one shot for fear of losing one of the actors for the day.

But the final results, Schrader's first and best film (although I do enjoy Hardcore and American Gigolo), is a real masterpiece, that has only gotten better with age.

It's about three lovable losers in Detroit who are cash poor and desperate. They decide to knock off their union, which has been screwing them over for years, and stumble upon an illegal loan scheme which could get them killed or get them richer through blackmail.

As the plot thickens so do the characterizations and the scope of this film. You come in for the caper element but leave with a tough take on the economic status of middle America. And, even if the movie was made today, there are elements of this story that would still ring true.

Sadly, because of the limitations of Hollywood at that time, opportunities for Pryor to give this type of performance in his heyday were few and far between. Save for his pairings with Gene Wilder, and the under-seen gem Which Way Is Up?, most of his big screen roles were beneath him at best and demeaning at worst (*cough* The Toy *cough*).

This and his moving supporting turn in Lady Sings the Blues are the best testimonials to his talent as an actor, when he was given a part up to his ability and really applied himself. As the lone name-above-the-title black movie star for almost a decade (until Eddie Murphy supplanted him) he had to bear the burden of a lot of substandard material.

But at least we have Blue Collar, which deserves restoration from the Criterion Collection, and should be included alongside the likes of Taxi Driver and Mean Streets, as one of the great slice-of-life films from the 1970s era of Hollywood.

'De Palma' documents iconic director's greatness, cool personality

Brian De Palma has long been one of my all-time favorite directors but I feel like he never gets the respect he deserves, so I was thrilled when I learned that directors Jake Paltrow and Noam Baumbach were making an extensive probe into his work.

After seeing it last night I can happily say it doesn't disappoint.

If you're a dedicated De Palma fan like me, it's required viewing; and if you're merely curious about what makes the man tick, it's a terrific experience too.

It's a movie buff's dream and a character study of a droll, thoughtful and brutally honest man.

Some film snobs would have you think that De Palma is simply a Hitchcock rip-off artist -- or worse a tawdry sexist. That would be a huge underestimation of his talents. Sure, some of his films are dismal failures -- he'd be the first to admit that -- but he almost always takes bold risks and does something really interesting with the camera, which I can only say is true of about a half a dozen directors right now.

The film De Palma makes a brilliant choice -- the only talking head is the director himself. He sits comfortably, sometimes gazing upwards but always articulate and witty, working his way through each of his film's in chronological order while injecting bits of his biography and on-set gossip.

In theory, this should be a bore -- but the reality is that De Palma is a very engaging storyteller (which shouldn't be a surprise if you've seen his films) and Baumbach and Paltrow do an amazing job of integrating just the right footage from his films into the narrative so you can feel the visceral excitement of the man's work.

De Palma in De Palma

De Palma himself is bemused by the controversy of some of his films, and the audience rejection of others. But he also comes across as someone who is happy to march to the beat of his own drum, even as his work was often out of the step with the trajectory of pop culture.

He returns to the theme of 'watching' again and again -- watching Hitchcock's Vertigo (which has a profound effect on him as an aspiring filmmaker), watching Robert De Niro (who he discovered) blossom into a movie star before his eyes, watching his father cheat on his mother (he spied on his dad and at one point confronted him with a knife).

In the end, De Palma is both observer and participant in his own life, now finding himself on the other side of 70 years old, and wondering -- how did I get here?

It's funny -- when I read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, as cool as I thought De Palma was as a filmmaker, I was stunned to hear him described as something of a ladies man. But when you watch this documentary, in a weird way it's easy to see why. He has a kind of unique charisma. He's cocky in a charming way and self-deprecating in a confident way that I really admire.

In his heyday, he was seen as someone who slummed in the B-movie genres of horror, gangster epics and thrillers -- but today his best work holds up just as well as his more celebrated peers Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg and Scorsese.

Top 10 essential De Palma:

Sisters (1973)
In many ways this is the first prototypical De Palma movie. A bizarre slasher film about Siamese twins (one is evil, one is not) that is bloody and not entirely comprehensible. Expert use of split screen and the director's trademark sarcastic black humor is present throughout.

Carrie (1976)
De Palma's first big hit is a surprisingly touching version of the Stephen King bestseller, largely thanks to Sissy Spacek's very sympathetic performance in the lead role of an abused, lonely high schooler who happens to have the ability to move things with her mind. The ending is a real grabber -- if you've seen it, you know what I mean.

The Fury (1978)
A really underrated supernatural thriller in my opinion -- which covers some of the same terrain as Carrie, but this time it's two youngsters with supernatural powers instead of one. There are some bravura sequences in this over-the-top movie and a great turn from John Cassavetes as a ruthless villain. Gets a bad wrap, but I've always loved it.

Dressed to Kill (1980)
The beginning of a more sexually graphic and intentionally provocative phase for De Palma. The plot of this homage to Psycho, involving a transsexual killer, is problematic by today's standards -- but there are so many dynamic chases and shots in this movie is can't be easily dismissed. Another classic that the critics came around to too late.

Blow Out (1981)
One of De Palma's most acclaimed films (it's a favorite of Tarantino's) and rightly so. It's one of his more personal thrillers -- about a movie sound guy (played very effectively by John Travolta) who stumbles upon a murder scene and earnestly tries to solve it. The movie's downbeat ending would probably never pass muster today. This feels like of the last great '70s films that snuck in under the wire.

Scarface (1983)
The oft-parodied and quoted Al Pacino vehicle is certainly not subtle, but it wasn't intended to be. It's as gaudy and uncouth as its main character -- and I like it that way. Even though the production barely shot there, this movie feels like an authentic glimpse of Miami in the early 1980s and Pacino gives a totally liberated, balls-to-the-wall performance that elevates this material to masterpiece status,

The Untouchables (1987)
De Palma's first huge blockbuster doesn't eschew his trademark camerawork and deliberate action set pieces. What could have been a cheesy big screen reboot of a TV show is an exciting, expertly acted thrill ride, which has long been a favorite of mine. If you've ever wondered why Kevin Costner was a movie star, this would be a great place to start.

Casualties of War (1989)

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible

Underrated and little seen, this harrowing Vietnam war film tells the true story of the gang rape of a native girl by a group of U.S. soldiers and the whistleblower who chose not to participate. Difficult to watch at times but also powerful (Michael J. Fox holds his own in a dramatic role, while Sean Penn chews up the screen in one of his best early roles) and thought-provoking. This is a movie that deserves revisiting.

Carlito's Way (1993)
Quite possibly my favorite De Palma film -- a movie that has always really effected me -- about a just released from prison Puerto Rican gangster (beautifully played by Al Pacino) trying to go straight, but who keeps getting dragged into trouble by his unscrupulous friend (a barely recognizable Sean Penn in a great, eccentric turn). The whole movie comes together perfectly with a devastating finale.

Mission: Impossible (1996)
De Palma's biggest commercial success to date launched a huge franchise and reaffirmed Tom Cruise's viability as an action star. It's hard to believe this film came out 20 years ago, it actually feels the most like a spy movie of all the Ethan Hunt films, and while effects and stunts have gotten even more elaborate since its release, the break in at the vault in Langley, is still an all-time classic.

'The Nice Guys' is another great, unjustly overlooked 2016 film

Something strange has been happening this year at the movies.

Either the critics and myself are just getting even further out of step with moviegoers, or the studios are doing a poor job marketing their best products.

With the exception of the new Captain America film and 10 Cloverfield Lane, the best movies I've seen so far this year have all been flops or commercial non-factors. The critics got Keanu, Hail Caesar, The Witch and Green Room, but audiences didn't. And the same can be said for Shane Black's raucously fun throwback buddy movie The Nice Guys.

I was sure that this film would be a breakout hit. It had a crackerjack trailer that scored laughs whenever I saw it. Ryan Gosling is at his rakish best here, building off the comic chops he showed off in The Big Short and a truly transformed Russell Crowe delivers perhaps the most likable performance of his career as a rotund tough guy who beats up people for money.

Perhaps it's because, like so few films aimed at adult audiences, The Nice Guys is devoid of CGI, isn't based on some established property, isn't a remake or a reboot. It's just a fresh, funny, old school action film -- with an engaging twisty plot that pays off in surprising ways.

It's not really about anything -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Director Shane Black's 2005 film Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang -- which covered similar terrain and makes for a great double header with this one -- didn't have any profound messages either, but it contained Val Kilmer's best work in a decade and one of Robert Downey Jr's best recent turns outside of an Iron Man suit.

I hope he keeps making these types of films, which are peppered with his delightful ear for quirky dialogue and off the wall situations. Shane Black's buddy films (stretching back to Lethal Weapon) feel organic and well-earned, instead of most modern iterations, which feel convoluted and as if contrived in a board room (here's looking at you Central Intelligence).

I fell for The Nice Guys from the very first frame when they used the retro, Saul Bass-designed Warner Bros. logo, which is my favorite of all time. The soundtrack is note perfect, as is the late-70s movie posters and costumes that pepper the background.

But what makes the movie work is its corker of a script and its game performances. Crowe in particular surprised me. He wears the added weight well, and he has more warmth than I'm used to seeing from him. And it's not all a testosterone affair, the Gosling character's daughter -- played by the luminous Angourie Rice -- rises above what could have been a cloying role and delivers what could be a star making performance.

Hopefully, The Nice Guys will have a shelf life over the years because it really deserves an audience. Sadly, we won't get to see the Gosling and Crowe characters continue on together in future films -- they have great chemistry -- I just don't get why ticket buyers weren't interested in what they were selling.

Rambo revised opinion: 'First Blood' is actually first rate

The first time I saw Sylvester Stallone's original Rambo film First Blood, I didn't particularly love it.

The second time I thought it was very good but I couldn't get past the absurdity of certain elements of the plot -- especially the opening scenes.

But apparently the third time's the charm. Last night I got to see the 1982 action film on the big screen at a special screening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where the film's director -- the crotchety but charming Ted Kotcheff -- introduced it and did a Q&A afterwards.

His remarks certainly helped shed light on how thoughtful and smart this film is -- especially in comparison to the entertaining, but bloated sequels that followed.

Essentially, First Blood is very much an anti-war film, and not as right-wing as some might interpret it to be, with a very strong dramatic performance from Stallone at its center, which suggest depths he could go to as an actor that he sadly has not explored enough.

Of course, his Oscar-nominated performance in Creed has forced film snobs to at least think about taking him more seriously, but his early work -- in the first two Rocky films -- and here, suggest that he was really a dramatic actor trapped in an action star's body.

Stallone in First Blood

According to Kotcheff, it was Stallone who suggested giving the Rambo character minimal dialogue, which I had noticed on my first couple viewings, but it really struck me now.

This is a mysterious, haunted man of few words. So damaged and isolated from his service in Vietnam that he has no choice but to wander.

When he finally explodes in his famous (and unfairly maligned) final monologue it's shocking because he hasn't been able to adequately express himself previously.

The director made a very good and sad point about veterans returning from Vietnam -- they were shunned by both the left and the right. Sure, we know about soldiers being taunted and spit on by anti-war activists, but not enough is said about how right-wingers also distanced themselves from those soldiers because they were seen as "losers" who put the first official defeat on our war scoreboard.

Curiously, the villains of the first Rambo film aren't the weaselly bureaucrats who would populate the later editions -- they are law enforcement. Kotcheff casts the decidedly unsympathetic Brian Dennehy as a bullying sheriff who instantly decides to harass and antagonize Rambo simply because of the way he looks. I was particularly struck by how prominent the U.S. flags were on the uniforms of the officers while they mercilessly try to hunt down our hero.

Kotcheff said that the treatment Rambo receives and the town itself was meant to be representative of the country as a whole and the way Vietnam veterans were used and then abused. And at least in the original First Blood, that comes across.

The audience I saw it with snickered at times -- and sure, some of the film's elements are dated and melodramatic. But it is a serious film -- even a gritty one at times, where the action is taut and riveting. Stallone is leaner here than he would be in subsequent films and therefore more vulnerable.

It's worth a second (or in my case, third) look -- before Rambo literally became a cartoon character -- he was a powerful surrogate for a whole population on men who deserved better.

'When We Were Kings' and 'Facing Ali': Honoring 'The Greatest'

Like so many Americans I am still reeling from the loss of Muhammad Ali. Not only was he arguably the most beloved athlete of is time but he was also one of the most photogenic, which is why -- besides his inspiring life story -- he was always compelling on screen.

It's hard to capture his greatest in a narrative film. The Will Smith vehicle, while reasonably well made, felt scattered. It tried to cover too much ground and never had much of a center. Smith did a terrific Ali impression, but didn't really delve deeper to reveal his inner life.

If you're looking to find the definitive cinematic takes on Ali you can do no worse than two brilliant documentaries.

One is the well known Oscar winner, which MSNBC has wisely been rebroadcasting this past weekend: 1996's When We Were Kings.

The film is largely focused on Ali's seminal 1974 fight against George Foreman, also known as the Rumble in the Jungle, but it's also a terrific overview of Ali's entire historic career up until that point.

The hook of that film is its remarkable found footage, culled from hours upon hours of on-the-scene coverage in Zaire, where the fight took place. This includes infectious concert performances from the likes of James Brown and B.B. King, as well as candid interviews with the then-former champ (Ali) and the reigning one (a terse George Foreman).

The Rumble in the Jungle

That film is a great primer for Ali fans and those who are still learning about the legend. And an ideal companion piece is 2009's Facing Ali, a documentary that tells the fighter's story from the perspective of the men who took him on in the ring.

These are compelling and in some cases broken men, who are incredibly incisive about Ali's skills and persona. This is no hagiography, but it both reaffirms Ali's greatness while elevating the unique brutality and beauty of the sport of boxing in under two hours.

Both films are filled with illustrious and colorful talking heads but the real star of both features if of course Ali himself. His distinct speech pattern, his humor, his warmth light up the screen. Even when he occasionally seems petulant or insensitive, it's impossible not to be charmed by him at every turn.

At the end of When We Were Kings, you see him at his highest point, basking in the glow of what would be the biggest upset of his career. With Facing Ali, you get a glimpse of a run in the ring that last far too long, and possibly cost him his voice and his body, if not his mind.

I've already shared my personal thoughts on why I believe Ali was truly the "greatest" athlete of his time (and one of the great men, too). He was the living personification of all that is exciting and inspirational about the American dream. If you don't believe me or want to see for yourself, watch these two films -- they deliver a knockout punch.

'Under the Cherry Moon' vs.'Raw': Vanity projects go wrong/right

Yesterday I watched two iconic 1980s films back-to-back that on the surface have very little in common but actually share some fascinating DNA. The first, 1986's Prince vehicle Under the Cherry Moon was an unmitigated disaster -- despite the classic soundtrack that accompanied it. While Eddie Murphy Raw remains one of the comic's most popular, quotable hits.
I am so pre-disposed to love anything Prince did, that after he died I decided to revisit his ill-fated follow-up to Purple Rain. I'd sat through it once before and hated it, but I had hoped that perhaps a second viewing would reveal some of its charms, or at the very least redeem it as an imperfect curio.

Despite my undying adoration for Prince, it's still a terrible film. It looks terrific, the black and white cinematography is very flattering to Prince and the rest of the cast, and he and Jerome Benton (who plays his long suffering sidekick here) do have a genuine chemistry, but otherwise the movie offers very little in terms of entertainment or story.

What little plot there is consists of Prince mugging and frolicking around as a gigolo who specializes in seducing rich women. He falls for a particularly snooty one, played by Kristin Scott-Thomas, which provokes the ire of her evil, rich father-in-law, who, in a pretty inexplicable twist, has the singer gunned down in the final act.

I finally think I figured out what is fundamentally wrong with this movie -- besides the fact that Prince barely performs any music in it -- and I think it's that he's playing a role that would have been much better suited for his Purple Rain nemesis Morris Day.

Day had great comic timing and a kind of goofball sex appeal. Watching him prance around this vaguely surreal setting with Benton at his side would have been a lot of fun, but comedy doesn't fit Prince quite like a glove (even though privately he was known to be very funny). Perhaps he was jealous of the praise Day received for his performance in Purple Rain, compared to the mixed reviews he received himself, and, always competitive, wanted to top him.

Needless to say he doesn't. And his tendency to act petulant and sexist opposite women -- which was somewhat justified in Purple Rain by a horrific life at home that gave his character gravitas -- is vain and self indulgent here.

Eddie Murphy is no less vain or misogynistic in Raw, but he is also incredibly funny -- albeit in a guilty pleasure sort of way -- which is why his concert film is the rousing success Prince's film isn't.

Raw was essentially a victory lap for him. After a string of huge box office hits (including 48 Hrs., Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop), Murphy was the biggest movie star on the planet and so he could release an old-fashioned stand-up comedy film and have it outgross many traditional blockbusters.

Eddie Murphy in Raw

He could parade on stage in a skintight purple leather jumpsuit and not be questioned over it. He could boast about his own sexual prowess and get nothing but roars of approval from women in the crowd. There's something infectious about his egoism at this period. It's not politically correct but it's undeniably charismatic.

Like in all of Murphy's stand-up you have to put the problematic material in the context of its time. It's homophobic, virulently anti-women to the point of paranoid, and hostile to the culture of Africa that he would more lovingly send up in the following year's Coming to America.

But it's also chockfull of Murphy's unique talent. His ability to take on other personas is really what set him apart from Richard Pryor and other A-list comics of the day. He effortlessly slips into the voice and body language of a stereotypical Italian who is on a macho high after seeing a Rocky movie and he personifies members of his own family (both male and female) as they argue around the dinner table.

Too many of Murphy's movies have dialed back what made him great, but with no one else to share the stage and no convoluted plot to drag him down, in Raw he's given full reign to explore his own eccentricities and even the offensive concepts offer an intriguing window into Murphy's own psyche.

In 1987, he was on top of the world and probably had no reason to anticipate the rocky ups and downs his career would take in the decades that followed. Meanwhile, Prince would make a couple more films (the highly regarded but little seen concert film Sign O' the Times, and the barely watchable Graffiti Bridge), but seemed to concede eventually that he was no movie star.

Murphy has remained a viable, and unsung draw for decades but has recently disappeared from movie screens and also public view. His appearance at the SNL40 special was a disappointment, he didn't tell jokes or participate in sketches, he just looked uncomfortable and that made me sad.

I still think he has greatness in him, both as an actor and a comedian, and hopefully we'll get to see it before he too is gone too soon.

'Bachelor Party' is mostly an exercise in bad taste

Some 1980s movies are both perfect artifacts of their time and pop culture masterpieces that still stand the test of time -- I'm thinking Ghostbusters or E.T. or the first three Indiana Jones movies -- and then there are films like Bachelor Party, which you hope will be an infectious romp, but wind up being an unmitigated bummer.

I had never seen the movie and never felt a particularly strong urge to, but since I took the day off (today's my birthday) and I'm hosting my own bachelor party tomorrow, I figured I'd give it a whirl -- boy, was it bad.

I think of all the performers in the movie, Tom Hanks walks away more or less unscathed.

I am sure this is not a film he'd want to be fondly remembered for when he accepts his inevitable Cecile B. DeMille award though. After seeing his very amusing cameo in the debut episode of Maya & Marty, I did think I'd like to see him do a broad comedy again.

People forget that he was largely known as a comic actor until the mid-90s when he became a bonafide phenomenon; in fact he was often the third choice for roles after Bill Murray or Chevy Chase passed.

Not Tom Hanks' best moment

Here he plays a pretty moronic character who clearly is not too enthused about getting married, but we're supposed to root for him because he resists sleeping with other women on the night of his bachelor party. There's nothing here that anticipates the future two-time Oscar winner's true talent.

What is here is one of the most unfunny, misogynistic and tasteless movies I've seen in a while -- unless a donkey overdosing from cocaine is your idea of a laugh riot. There's a little bit of T&A if that is enough to sustain you. And there was one sequence that did mildly amuse me -- a fight scene at the end in a movie theater showing a 3-D film -- where the action syncs with what's taking place on screen. The rest is basically a lot of unfortunate racial humor and anti-women hostility.

This film pretty much captures the opposite of what I would want out of a bachelor party. A lot of bitter, angry guys who either resent being married or ridicule their friend for getting married. They surround themselves with a bevy of prostitutes, none of whom get an ounce of character development, who we're led to believe they're all sleeping with for the duration of the evening.

The Pimp

Later in the film another woman shows up -- who apparently has held a longtime crush on Hanks' character -- she disrobes and offers herself to him, and when he turns her down she basically becomes an afterthought who gets utilized in a prank that gets played on the "bad guy."

Speaking of the bad guy -- he's the cliched, atrocious, WASPy blonde guy that was a staple in the '80s. He is after Hanks' fiancee (video vixen Tawny Kitaen!) and literally offers to swap his new Porsche for her. But in reality he's no more repugnant that our heroes, one whom is featured in a horribly dated, transphobic scene that is demeaning to everyone involved.

And then there's the "pimp." The filmmakers probably thought they were doing people of color a solid, by not casting a stereotypical black actor, but they go with a goofy, offensive Indian guy instead.

I am all for politically incorrect -- if it's funny. But despite some aggressive efforts to create a raucous atmosphere, the whole movie feels so hollow. There's not really much of a story per se. Hanks' horndog friends seem to be fully supportive of the notion that he should cheat on his fiancee, meanwhile she and her dimwitted friends try to have a wild night of there own -- which somehow climaxes when them dressing up as prostitutes too. Yes, besides a nun who appears early in the film, every woman who appears in this film is either a hooker or dresses like one at some point.

The tone of the movie is set from almost the very first scene, where Hanks' sidekick, the 80's-era stud Adrian Zmed, photographers a buxom woman and her son at a department store. The camera zooms in on her cleavage and then Zmed takes great pains to marginalize the child so he can ogle the woman. It's not funny, it's not interesting, it's just there.

Needless to say, my real life bachelor party should be a more gratifying experience.