Rat Race (2001)

Director: Jerry Zucker

Cast: Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Have I Seen It Before: Have I? I’m almost positive I haven’t. I’d remember it, right?

Did I Like It: I think there’s a certain dishonesty to a certain generation when they say that It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) is… oh, what’s the word…? good. The moment when a boomer got a hold of the rough concept, the first thing he did was chop down the running time by about half. I’m not sure a single comedy could ever successfully fill two VHS tapes. Billy Wilder understood it, Mike Nichols understood it. Even Kubrick—he being unafraid of a long film, to be sure—understood it.

Zucker understands it, too. Unfortunately, the film forgets to be funny in the meantime. Maybe Zucker didn’t get it, had a three-hour version of this film and chopped it to fit the modern sensibility.

I sat there stone-face aside from a few moments, which should open and immediately close the case on the film. One might argue I’ve been sleep deprived and wouldn’t have cracked a smile at Chaplin if he started churning out films again, but I’m submitting that the film is the one which is sleep deprived. The two biggest comedic beats of the movie are that John Cleese has improbably white fake teeth, and that Rowan Atkinson is sometimes very foreign, sometimes very sleepy, and occasionally both. Blink and you’ll miss whether or not Seth Green’s brother is foolish or pitiable, and if you’re thinking that deeply about this question, I would forgive you for neglecting to laugh. I sure did. I still don’t understand what Cuba Gooding Jr.’s problem is. Are football fans usually this worked up about the coin toss at the top of the game?

Also, Smash Mouth is there. They’re naturally hilarious. Ahem.

The Witches (1990)

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Cast: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Rowan Atkinson

Have I Seen it Before: Many, many times.

Did I Like It: With Jim Henson’s involvement—read, Mr. Henson’s actual involvement before his passing, not just his company—there’s already a certain level of quality delivered. The special effects in this film have aged astonishingly well since release. The creature effects for many of the witches are just as evocative of anything Henson’s company produced in either The Dark Crystal (1982) or Labyrinth (1986). Even the converted children mouse believably talk and interact with their environment. A film like Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989) would make large sprawling sets out of a small world. This one leaves the world as is and builds its impossibilities to scale.

Anjelica Huston swings for the fences, and I cannot readily think of a film where she appears to be having quite as much fun. Even in both of The Addams Family films she is in, there is a pretty heavy layer of irony in her presence. Here, she is the Grand High Witch, and will not be questioned in that capacity.

All of these elements recommend the film, but there is one thing that makes it truly memorable, and keeps me coming back to the film. In it’s opening scenes, Helga (Zetterling) introduces her grandson (Fisher) to the world of witches. She tells the story of her childhood friend, Erica (Elsie Eide) who is captured by a witch, and placed in her father’s prized painting. There, she is doomed to spend the rest of her life looking out at the world passing her by, eventually dying in that painting. What is essentially a children’s film spends its opening minutes remind every child that their future could very well be one of abject futility, punctuated by an anticlimax of a death.

This is before they eliminated Luke’s parents in a car crash. The film is brutal, and I don’t think it gets hardly enough credit for that.

Not a month has gone by in the last thirty years where I have not thought about little Erica at least once. And if you need something more from a horror movie, then you’re simply not getting enough enjoyment out of life.