38) Coneheads (1993)

(2 out of 5)

"We come from France." 

Director

Steve Barron

Cast

Dan Aykroyd - Beldar Conehead
Jane Curtin - Prymaat Conehead
Michelle Burke - Connie Conehead
Michael McKean - Dep.Comm. Gorman Seedling
David Spade - INS Agent Eli Turnbull
Jason Alexander - Larry Farber
Lisa Jane Persky - Lisa Farber
Chris Farley - Ronnie Guestsetter
Phil Hartman - Marlax Zanthstrom

Laraine Newman - Laarta Zaanthstrom

If you asked me or anyone else who knows a good movie when they see one what the best movies based on a skit from "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) are, the answer will likely be either "The Blues Brothers" (1980) "Wayne's World" (1992) or both. Well, no one asked me, but I'll toss my commentary out there anyways. Those two are the best SNL movies to date.

I've counted 11 movies based on SNL skits including those two I've just mentioned as well as "Wayne's World 2" (1993) and "Blues Brothers 2000." 
There's also the SNL movies "It’s Pat" (1994), "Stuart Saves His Family" (1995), "A Night at the Roxbury" (1998), "Superstar" (1999), "The Ladies Man" (2000), and "MacGruber" (2010). And then there's "Coneheads" from 1993. It's perhaps the strangest of the SNL movie line-up. 

The movie "Coneheads" went through a short-lived life of popularity back when it was released. I place emphasis on the word "short-lived." Now, it's an oddity of the past for those who remember it, or even for those late to the game. 

The concept started on SNL in 1977 about aliens from the planet Remulak who are stranded on Earth and try to assimilate to the American way of life. The joke is that they can't blend in well primarily because they have big cone-shaped heads. They go through all the motions, albeit awkwardly. 

They also eat a lot of food, or as they put it "consume large quantities." 

In the skits, Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin play parental units Beldar, the familial patriarch and Prymaat, matriarch. Comedian Laraine Newman plays their daughter Connie on the show. 

And the last name "Conehead" is their attempt at an Angelized version of their Remulak name "Clorhone." The last thing these Coneheads want to do is stand out. Of course, everything about them stands out. There's your comedy! 

The Coneheads speak in a stiff, overly formal, robotic monotone manner. They treat every situation and encounter like someone referring to a technical manual. They take everything literally because they're aliens who don't understand human behavior in general. Social norms aren’t instinctive to them. 

Michelle Burke, Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin in "Coneheads."

Basically, they approach everything in day-to-day life such as work, family life and human relationships with rigid logic and alien curiosity trying to figure out the purpose behind it all. This is how the comedy behind the strangeness of human customs surfaces. 

That's what this movie is all about. 

In "Coneheads," Beldar (Dan Aykroyd) and Prymaat (Jane Curtin) crash-land on Earth near Manhattan after they fail at an attempted invasion. So, now that they're stuck here. 

All they can do is wait to be rescued. In the meantime, they try to blend in while their rescue ship arrives to their aid. They have a long wait ahead of them. 

What's funny is that other people around them try not to notice their cone-shaped heads. Beldar takes on a fake identity, goes by the name Donald R. DeCicco, and obtains a fake ID and false Social Security number. 

Government agents, however, are aware that these aliens are in town illegally. INS agents led by Deputy Commissioner Gorman Seedling (Michael McKean) and Agent Eli Turnbull (David Spade) make it a priority to apprehend "Donald R. DeCicco."  

Otherwise, the Coneheads live a quiet life, and even have a daughter whom they name Conjaab, or "Connie" for short, played by Michelle Burke. 

Several years later, when Connie is already a teenager, the Coneheads are finally contacted by their rescue ship. 

Beldar is torn between returning to Remulak and conquering the Earth as originally planned or staying where he is on Earth for the sake of his family's happiness. 

Seeding and Turnbull are still pursuing them and won't quit until they have enough evidence to apprehend them. They even go so far as to disguise themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses to get inside their house and ask them questions. 

The late Chris Farley stars as Ronnie, Connie's boyfriend for added hilarity.  

"Coneheads" is nothing more than a ridiculous comedy. That's certainly no revelation, even for those who've never seen it. I'm sure the title alone makes that clear. 

With the topic of illegal immigration where it is in today's social climate, the film certainly says a lot even as a comedy. 

The manner in which the Coneheads speak gets tiring quickly. By the end of the movie, it's grating! And the fish-out-of-water premise is stretched very thin. 

Chris Farley as "Ronnie" in "Coneheads."

I admit I was a little fascinated to see how Beldar and Prymaat would react at seeing Connie act like a typical teenage Earth girl trying to be independent of her parents and do what all her peers are doing. And, thankfully, Connie doesn't speak with the same monotone manner as her parents, but she still has the same superior intelligence as they do. I think she's the best character in the movie. Kudos to Michelle Burke for portraying both a superior intelligent alien with all the mannerisms and personality of a typical teenage girl. She pulls it off well. 

Otherwise, the comedy is repetitive. Look how the Coneheads act in this situation. Now look how they act in this new situation. Look how better they are at everything than humans are. Do you see how humans pretend not to notice their oddities and quarks? That's the comedy through the whole movie. And after being on Earth for eighteen years or so, they still act just as nieve and surprised at the encounters that fall before them.    

Their cone shaped heads is the only truly funny setup in the movie, save for a few random jokes here and there. It's not enough though to carry the movie along all the way to the end. 

The site gags littered throughout, particularly how much food these aliens eat, did get some laughs out of me but they don't help save the picture. That gag of the Coneheads consuming large quantities of food is used over and over again as well.  

To its credit, Aykroyd and Curtin are great in their roles, reacting comedically as best as they can, and just doing as much as they can with what they have to work with. Plus, there's a cavalcade of cameos and stars in the cast, including a lot of former cast members from SNL. 

Everything else, including a lot of the comedy, is simply weak or overly used. 

"Coneheads" is another alien sci-fi comedy that only stands out among the rest simply because it's based on SNL content. Otherwise, there's not that differnt than any other ridiculous alien comedy. 

37) Time After Time (1979)

(4 out of 5)

"First, Zodiac. And now this."

Director
Nicholas Meyer

Cast
Malcolm McDowell - H.G. Wells
David Warner - John Leslie Stevenson
Mary Steenburgen - Amy Robbins
Charles Cioffi - Police Lt. Mitchell
Patti D'Arbanville - Shirley
Joseph Maher - Adams
Corey Feldman - Boy at the museum

In my post titled "My Basement Picks" over on my platform dontfastforward.blogspot.com in which I list my favorite movies, I included the 1979 mystery-thriller movie "Murder by Decree" It's a crime thriller in which Sherlock Holmes investigates the Jack the Ripper murders.  

In that commentary, I mention that Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper is a fitting and somehow familiar rivalry though the two never really went up against each other in any literary work or film adaptation...except "Murder by Decree." I did mention in that same post the 1965 movie "A Study in Terror" depicts Holmes and Watson investigating the Whitechapel murders and track down a fictionalized Ripper-like figure.

Otherwise, "Murder by Decree" is the only movie that I can find depicting Holmes investigating the the Ripper murders. Still, Holmes and Jack seem just as familiar a feud as Batman and the Joker, or Van Helsing and Count Dracula.
In the 1979 sci-fi movie "Time After Time," it's H.G. Wells who's in pursuit of Jack the Ripper. 

Back in my bachelorhood era 15+ years ago, I had this habit of perusing my local library for movies I had never seen nor heard of and checking them out. That's how I came across titles like "The Triplets of Belleville," "Everything Is Illuminated," and the Wes Anderson movies "Bottle Rocket" and "Rushmore." I find Wes Anderson's movies boring, by the way. Just saying. I've seen a few and either found myself bored, asleep, or both. 
Anyways "Time After Time" was one of my finds. I've only watched it once before but never forgot it.

It's an underrated movie. It plays out like a novel. And it has an imaginative underlying "what-if" premise. 

What if H.G. Wells actually created a time machine, and then Jack the Ripper jumped into that time machine, travelled to modern day (well, 1979 modern day) America, and tried to blend in while continuing his killing spree? What would that be like? 

Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells in "Time After Time."

This fish-out-of-water science fiction movie starts in 1893 London as the notorious Jack the Ripper has committed yet another murder. A police officer happens to be close as Jack has just strangled a streetwalker as is his modusoperandi. Now, the law is practically on his tail.

Meanwhile, writer H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) has some colleagues over to his home for dinner and to show off his latest invention, a working time machine. His friend, John Leslie Stevenson (David Warner) arrives late to dinner. 

The local constabulary are in the neighborhood hunting down Jack the Ripper since he just struck again nearby. They come by Wells' home to search for their killer. 

Wells welcomes them in, and they find a doctor's bag that belongs to Stevenson. This bag contains evidence pointing to Jack the Ripper due to manner of the murders and the tools he must have used. But Stevenson is suddenly nowhere to be found. 

He escapes the cops by jumping into Wells' time machine and travelling to the future. However, he fails to take a key Wells made to prevent the machine from returning automatically. It returns back to Wells home, and he can chase his old friend wherever in time he has fled to. 

It turns out Stevenson is hiding in San Francisco in the year 1979. When Wells travels to the future, he finds himself in a museum exhibit dedicated to himself. That's where his time machine is kept in the future. 

Wells doesn't waste time trying to hunt down Stevenson, stop him from murdering anyone else, and bring him back to his own period. 

Wells is also disappointed (for lack of a better word) to find out his utopian theory that by 1979 the world will be free of crime, war, and violence is completely wrong.

Bewildered and intrigued by the modern world and how advanced civilization has become; he seeks out Stevenson/ Jack the Ripper around San Francisco. 

Since Wells can't spend old British money, steps into a Bank to exhange it. There, he meets Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen) who falls in love with him thinking he's just a tourist from Europe. Little does she know his true identity. But she's willing to help him maneuver around the big city. 

When Wells catches up to Stevenson, who believes he's in his element thanks to the violence and crime around him in the city and throughout the world, Wells struggles to capture him and convince authorities that Jack the Ripper himself is going on a murder spree around San Francisco. 

Soon, Stevenson sets his crosshairs on Amy. Wells will need to risk everything, including is utopian idealism, to save her, stop Jack the Ripper and get him back to the time machine. 

*** I'm keen on the entire "fish-out-of-water" element of the story with Wells experiencing the modern day - seeing how society functions, eating at a McDonald's, and experiencing what the socio-political atmosphere is like. Though I would love to have seen more of that, I appreciate that more depictions and focus on it would have distracted from the actual plot so I can't fault the movie for keeping Wells more focused at the urgent task at hand rather than wandering around 1979's San Francisco and playing up the out-of-place role.  

David Warner and Mary Steenburgen.

I also get a personal kick out of seeing specific locations around San Francsico  as they were back in 1979. I grew up across the Bay in Oakland so I'm very familiar with San Francisco. Some places still look the same. Plus, there are ash trays on the tables inside the McDonald's that Wells goes into when he stops for something to eat. It's also comical seeing this literary giant depicted as ordering a burger, fries and a cup of tea at a McD's. 

The movie doesn't stray far into the premise of Wells outside his own time. It stays focused on his pursuit of Jack the Ripper. 

As I mentioned, the layout of the movie feels like a novel, especially when the romance between Wells and Amy Robbins develops. The story is based on Karl Alexander's novel "Time After Time." So, there's that. 

Plus, the premise, which is an entertaining "what-if" scenario, unfolds in a chapter-like way. The film opens in Victorian London with Wells's philosophy - a philosophy I don't particularly agree with, but I'll save that commentary for another time - and blends into a chase through time. It converges with the other plot point of Wells being that "fish-out-of-water" as he takes in how wrong his prediction of the future based on his philosophy actually is. 

In one scene, Wells figures out that Stevenson is hiding in a hotel room at the Hyatt Regency near the Embarcadero. 

There in the hotel room, Stevenson turns on the television to show Wells how violent the world has become. It's not the social utopia Wells was certain it would be. 
"The future isn't what you thought. It's what I am," Stevenson says. He claims the modern world is his element. 

When Wells says neither of them belong in that time period, Stevenson says, "We don't belong here? On the contrary, Herbert. I belong here completely and utterly. I'm home."
The story even adds humor to this premise.

When Wells takes his concerns about Jack the Ripper running through San Francisco to the police, he's questioned by a police detective. 

When the cop asks his name, Wells doesn't want to give his real name, and he thinks the cop surely doesn't know about popular literary characters of Victorian England. So, he refers to himself as "Sherlock Holmes" unaware that Holmes is no obscure character even in 1970s American pop culture. 

Then, of course, after the chase, the story shifts to an element of rising danger, climax and resolution.

A romantic arc subplot is thrown in which begins as initial curiosity and some fireworks, leading to emotional bonding. Ideological tension arises that's resoloved in a bittersweet manner. It's very novel-like. 

"Time After Time" is driven by the characters, ideas, and thematic "what-if" exploration. It prioratizes that over being some kind of cinematic spectacle of time travel and novelty. 

It strikes me more as a clash between ideas and worlds from different time periods rather than just the thrill of travelling through time. It does that rather well. And it's entertaining. It has emotion, danger, and intrigue.   

A young Corey Feldman in "Time After Time."

After directing "Time After Time," director Nicholas Meyer went on to sit in the director's chair for another popular and well-respected sci-fi flick, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." 

In 1986, he was a writer for "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." His Star Trek directing continued with the 1991 movie "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." That's a respectable amount of Trek for one's resume!
Meyer also directed the 1997 James Bond movie, "Tomorrow Never Dies" and the animated Bible-based film, "Prince of Egypt" which is a favorite of mine.

British actor David Warner makes a fantastic villain both in this film, and in other roles. He also makes a great sympathetic character as well as seen in his performance as Bob Cratchit in the 1984 movie "A Christmas Carol" acting alongside George C. Scott.  

He's had some dark and sinister roles such as in "The Omen," "TRON," "Waxwork" and especially his role as "the Evil Genius" in the 1981 movie "Time Bandits." 

With his commanding voice that fits well with authoritative characters or evil-doing masterminds, and his dominating presence, Warner makes a great villianous character. Intelligence permeats off of him, and he can shift flawlessly between a terrifying and intimidating presence to a more campy side. When I say "campy," his role as Professor Jordan Perry in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze" comes to mind. He's unforgettable in that role, too. 

It's certainly worth mentioning that "Time After Time" isn't the only time Mary Steenburgen plays a character who falls in love with a time traveler. She did it all over again as "Clara Clayton"11 years later in "Back to the Future III" alongside Christopher Lloyd as "Doc Brown."  

I don't think I've ever seen a Mary Steenburgen performance where she didn't play a character I felt sympathy for - the mother in "Ragtime," Karen Buckman in "Parenthood," and Betty Carver in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." I remember seeing the 1985 Disney movie "One Magic Christmas" around the time of its release in which she stars in the lead role. All I remember from that movie is Mary Steenburgen's character. So, needless to say, I haven't seen a performance of hers I didn't like. That includes "Time After Time." 

A very young Corey Feldman has a cameo in "Time After Time." According to his filmography, it's Feldman's second film appearance. His first appearance is a small one in the 1978 movie "Born Again." I don't know how extensive his appearance is in that movie, or if he even has a speaking role. Here, he plays a kid in the museum who witnesses Wells's arrival from the past. 
"Time After Time" an underrated movie in the subgenre of  time-travel science fiction. It's a creative idea that manages to work thanks in large part to the brilliant cast, and the chemistry they pull off. And, thankfully, it doesn't come across as neither cheesy nor forced.