UHF (1989, Jay Levey)
Click to viewWeird Al Yankovic is one of those people who almost never fails to make me laugh. Something about his timing, facial expressions, natural charm, and even his work ethic just add up to exactly what my id wants in an actor to make me laugh.
The joy of UHF,, apart from the novelty of it being Weird Al's only big screen outing is that the individual scenes seem to be constructed more carefully than the movie as a whole. It's a pretty basic story. the little guy versus the giant. David and Goliath with television stations if you will.
It's the embellishments that make this such an enjoyable picture though. Weird Al manages to stamp his humor all over the margins and the movie achieves a level of organized chaos that recalls Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies.
That would be alright, but it wouldn't be anything special if not for Weird Al at the center of it all.
When people talk about guilty pleasures I assume that what they really mean is something that engages you solely on the basest level of your brain. This is that kind of movie, but that's not to say I feel any sort of guilt watching it.
It engages me because it manages to maintain a completely manic tone for the entirety of it's run time. Just when you think it's let up, something comes in from left field.
I also feel like what critics often malign in this movie is how "dumb" it's humor is. I think sometimes critics mistake a lack of subtlety for a lack of intelligence. The fact is, making a movie that gets laughs as consistently as this one is not a job for a dumb person.
I would like to point out Weird Al's little moustache lift at the end of that clip. That's all the subtlety that I need thanks.
I'll just dig a daisy out of Reuben's yard and say that when someone asks "What time is it?" then an arm crashes through the wall with a watch on it and they look at the watch and go "7:30! OH NO!" and run out the door, you know that you are in for a good time.