madmanmarkd Reviews

The Stupids (1996)

Leave you're brain at the door for 'The Stupids'!

[7/10 · 10 January 2017]

If you have certain expectations of grandeur before viewing this film your probably going to be very disappointed. The title alone says 'leave you're brain at the door'. This type of film's target audience isn't everyone, its for people who enjoy movies like 'Strange Brew' Bob & Doug McKenzie, 'Dumb & Dumber', 'Animal House' even the Three Stooges though they are more slapstick type humor but fit into the genre of ridiculous stupid humor.

If you couldn't stand or absolutely hated this movie you could of easily saved yourself from it by realizing Tom Arnold was in the starring role, that alone should have raised a red flag for you if you don't like this type of 'stupid' humor. You should have asked yourself 'what types of movies has Tom Arnold been in before?'

I love these types of movies! No not all the time, but those times when I need to really chill, turn off my brain from work, society, everyday life etc... Stupid humor like one of my favorite movies 'Strange Brew' is in order in life now and then. If you were expecting 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Reservoir Dogs' your at the wrong show! 'The Stupids' is just an occasional guilty pleasure when my brain needs a serious break. It's not a laugh a minute, but is very funny throughout.

I caught the Mark Metcalf Neidermeyer throwback right away, awesome! Captain Kangaroo from my childhood was a nice addition. Christopher Lee's character was also funny and ludicrous as most of this movie is. It all fits together into a nice 'let's sit down, turn our brains off for awhile and soak in some ridiculous 'stupid' content for a nice break from life'. Not sure who could have nailed Stanley Stupid any better than Tom Arnold, he fits the role very well. The only other one I could think of would be Christopher Lloyd, maybe.

If you enjoy mindless humor you owe it to yourself to see this film at some point. If you go to an Iron Maiden concert and complain about the high volume and wonder where Julio Iglesias is your at the wrong show. Same goes for 'The Stupids'. If you go into it expecting an 'A' high caliber movie you have to closely follow the story to try to figure out 'who done it' or who is really the villain 'The Stupids' is not for you. So for the rest who love mindless, ridiculous humor see the movie!

KISS: eXposed (1987 Video)

KISS Exposed at the time was a welcomed video.

[8/10 · 5 June 2013]

You had to be there when the original VHS was released in the '80's to appreciate the DVD release. As a die-hard fan going all the way back to '76 getting any KISS video footage was a dream come true.

Even the days before Beta & VHS started to emerge the quest to somehow get KISS on film was there.

In the mid-eighties I hooked into the KISS bootleg VHS pipeline. The problem? Bad quality, multi-generational dubs that resulted in barely watchable material. If you weren't at the top of the KISS bootleg food chain back then you were at the bottom.

Then KISS Exposed was announced that gave some promise to die-hard fans getting at least some quality video direct from the band itself. There were radio commercials, magazine ads that announced the soon arrival of the first official KISS video to have lots of makeup footage included.

Then the release date got pushed back! Yep that's right even back in the early days of video releases KISS started off with pushing back release dates.

When it finally came out it was worth the wait at least for the older makeup footage. Now you really had to be a 'Fridays' fan to appreciate Mark Blankfield's humor and role here. But even with the totally cheesy acting and bogus story of Paul's mansion (it was NOT!) and none of the autos in the front were even owned by any of the members. The scantly clad women everywhere were just nothing more than set dressing to emulate a party lifestyle.

It would have been much better just to present it straight forward like the KISSOLOGY sets but I guess the band felt they needed to be 'in it' trying to convey some kind of 'Rock Star' lifestyle and humor.

But it is what it is, I enjoy the humor and you just have to kinda laugh at what the band was trying to do good or bad. The fact that Eric and Bruce were mostly absent from it was probably a good thing for them I'm sure they never minded about that seeing how cheesy it got.

Some of the live footage at the time was not embedded heavily in the bootleg market at the time. So seeing the single snippets on Exposed threw us video hungry maniacs into a frenzy.

One in particular was the San Francisco Winterland B&W live footage. But not long after Exposed was released it made it's way into bootleggers hands.

Also having actual non-makeup MTV style videos with stereo audio was a plus for those of us that didn't have cable/MTV so we could tape them from television.

So I was more than glad to see Exposed finally make it to DVD after having to wait for the original VHS release back then. The DVD brings better quality to the table not to mention the ability to just play the video's and skip all the malarkey.

Even with it's cheesiness it's still a great addition to the KISS video catalog. It was my first volume of KISSOLOGY so to speak back when it was originally released. It was one of those things you thought the band would never actually do. So most of us thought we were stuck with the inferior quality from the bootleg market. Exposed gave us hope that things would improve.

It was not the end all KISS video but it does have a lot of nostalgia for me. So I give it an 8 for the video content alone and what it represented to us fans back in the '80's.

Later video releases like 'Konfidential' & 'KISS My A**' had sub-standard footage quality compared to what the bootleg market offered in some cases. That fact was somewhat strange.

Exposed serves as the first official video acknowledgment by the band of the makeup years and so is part of KISSTORY!

Doctor Detroit (1983)

Doctor Detroit

[7/10 · 8 November 2005]

I remember seeing this movie on VHS while I worked at a video rental store in the 80's. I thought it was a funny campy movie but Hey! I like these kind of movies now and then. I always like Dan Akroyd movies so it didn't matter if this was not up to snuff with the likes of Ghostbusters or Blues Brothers. It was hard to believe he made that film then. I recently acquired this movie on laserdisc just about a week ago. I had not seen the movie since the 80's. I since taped over my VHS dub many years ago. It was great to sit down and have a few laughs and once again see the 'Doctor' in action. The picture is clean with only a few spots and scratches. The sound is only analog and not digital but delivers very surprising and powerful for an older movie. It's a fun film never the less. Yeah! it was no box office smash or a great comedy or action film, but there's just something about these lesser movies that brings you back to a better time. Dan does a great job even with the film's downfalls. Hey he got a great wife out of the deal marrying Donna Dixon from the film! It falls in the category with the likes of 'Howard the Duck'. Both were box office failures but there are still those devoted fans out there still searching for these 'gems' everyday. So for me the 'Doctor' is always 'in' my movie collection.