Douglas Kenney Movies
Douglas Kenney honed his comedic skills working on the Harvard Lampoon in college, going on to co-found National Lampoon magazine. He subsequently co-wrote some of National Lampoon's first and most successful movies, like 1978's Animal House and 1980's Caddyshack. Sadly, Kenney was killed shortly after Caddyshack's release, falling from a cliff in Hawaii at the age of 32. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
Inspired by stories from the fantasy graphics magazine Heavy Metal, this five-part animated feature combines the talents of hundreds of artists and animators from 17 different countries. A glowing green orb called Loc-Nar that contains the sum total of all evil in the universe travels through space and time, spreading violence and discord in its wake. The stories that follow demonstrate Loc-Nar's malevolent presence throughout the universe. In New York in the year 2023, cabbie Harry Canyon picks up a fare who turns out to have Loc-Nar in her possession, and it turns out to be one trip he wishes that he had never made. In contemporary suburban America, a nerdy high school kid finds the orb in his backyard and is transported to a comic-book universe where he's a mighty warrior and famous spoiler of women. A robot created by an alien race falls in love with a secretary from Earth who was kidnapped by his masters, while she is at once fascinated and repelled by his sexual talents. And finally, Loc-Nar crashes into a mountain, and a world of fantasy and danger spontaneously appears in its wake, ruled by The Defender, a beautiful amazon who rides on a giant bird. The voice cast for Heavy Metal includes John Candy, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Richard Romanus, and John Vernon. The sound track features selections by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Nazareth, Cheap Trick, Devo, and Grand Funk Railroad. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rodger Bumpass, Jackie Burroughs, (more)
An air-traffic controller (Chevy Chase) is having the worst luck: first his girlfriend leaves him, and then he experiences a nuclear disaster. His life begins to pick up after he realizes that the radiation fallout has given him magical telekinetic powers. He decides to settle a few scores with his new-found power. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Patti D'Arbanville, (more)
The smash success Caddyshack became a prototype for countless other wacky T&A-tinged teen comedies of the early 1980s. At an exclusive country club for WASPish snobs, an ambitious young caddy (Michael O'Keefe) from an overpopulated home eagerly pursues a caddy scholarship in hopes of attending college and, in turn, avoiding a job at the lumber yard. In order to succeed, he must first win the favor of the elitist Judge Smails (Ted Knight), then the caddy golf tournament which the good judge sponsors. Of course, there are love interests as well -- one good, one naughty -- not to mention several foes he must vanquish along the way. The story itself serves to string along a series of slapstick scenes involving an obnoxious nouveau riche land developer (Rodney Dangerfield) who wants to turn the site into a condominium community; an oddball, Zen-quoting, millionaire slacker/golf ace (Chevy Chase); and a psychotic groundskeeper (Bill Murray) with a gopher-fixation. Caddyshack was a bona fide hit; throughout the '80s and '90s, director Harold Ramis would continue to create such hits as Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, (more)
- 1978
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Director John Landis put himself on the map with this low-budget, fabulously successful comedy, which made a then-astounding 62 million dollars and started a slew of careers for its cast in the process. National Lampoon's Animal House is set in 1962 on the campus of Faber College in Faber, PA. The first glimpse we get of the campus is the statue of its founder Emil Faber, on the base of which is inscribed the motto, "Knowledge Is Good." Incoming freshmen Larry "Pinto" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent "Flounder" Dorfman (Stephen Furst) find themselves rejected by the pretentious Omega fraternity, and instead pledge to Delta House. The Deltas are a motley fraternity of rejects and maladjusted undergraduates (some approaching their late twenties) whose main goal -- seemingly accomplished in part by their mere presence on campus -- is disrupting the staid, peaceful, rigidly orthodox, and totally hypocritical social order of the school, as represented by the Omegas and the college's dean, Vernon Wormer (John Vernon). Dean Wormer decides that this is the year he's going to get the Deltas expelled and their chapter decertified; he places the fraternity on "double secret probation" and, with help from Omega president Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) and hard-nosed member Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), starts looking for any pretext on which to bring the members of the Delta fraternity up on charges.
The Deltas, oblivious to the danger they're in, are having a great time, steeped in irreverence, mild debauchery, and occasional drunkenness, led by seniors Otter (Tim Matheson), Hoover (James Widdoes), D-Day (Bruce McGill), Boon (Peter Riegert), and pledge master John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi). They're given enough rope to hang themselves, but even then manage to get into comical misadventures on a road trip (where they arrange an assignation with a group of young ladies from Emily Dickinson University). Finally, they are thrown out of school, and, as a result, stripped of their student deferments (and, thus, eligible for the draft). They decide to commit one last, utterly senseless (and screamingly funny) slapstick act of rebellion, making a shambles of the university's annual homecoming parade, and, in the process, getting revenge on the dean, the Omegas, and everyone else who has ever gone against them. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
The Deltas, oblivious to the danger they're in, are having a great time, steeped in irreverence, mild debauchery, and occasional drunkenness, led by seniors Otter (Tim Matheson), Hoover (James Widdoes), D-Day (Bruce McGill), Boon (Peter Riegert), and pledge master John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi). They're given enough rope to hang themselves, but even then manage to get into comical misadventures on a road trip (where they arrange an assignation with a group of young ladies from Emily Dickinson University). Finally, they are thrown out of school, and, as a result, stripped of their student deferments (and, thus, eligible for the draft). They decide to commit one last, utterly senseless (and screamingly funny) slapstick act of rebellion, making a shambles of the university's annual homecoming parade, and, in the process, getting revenge on the dean, the Omegas, and everyone else who has ever gone against them. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Belushi, Tim Matheson, (more)
- 1977
- R
Director Joan Micklin Silver's follow-up to her acclaimed debut, Hester Street, is a more ambitious film that manages to be both an entertaining comedy and a pointed look at the corrupting power of money on an idealistic enterprise. Writer Fred Barron's characters are all associated with a weekly alternative newspaper in Boston, modeled after the Phoenix. (Silver did once work on the Village Voice, but this enterprise is several rungs below that esteemed paper.) Harry (John Heard) is an ambitious reporter romantically involved with Abbie (Lindsay Crouse), the paper's star photographer. Michael (Stephen Collins) is a writer trying to work on a novel and stay faithful to his loving wife, Laura (Gwen Welles), while Max (Jeff Goldblum), the paper's rock critic, shamelessly uses his job to try to pick up women. Lynn (Jill Eikenberry), a typist who is the paper's mother-hen figure, is also its most principled employee. When a publishing mogul (Lane Smith) buys the paper and promises changes that will compromise its aggressive political stance in favor of more "lifestyle" articles, Lynn resigns, and it's clear to the group that their carefree days are behind them. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, (more)
