Movie Madness

"National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" is the worst movie ever made, surpassing even the witless "Plan 9 from Outer Space." At least that movie was just inept; the Lampoon film, on the other hand, is both inept and mean. Once upon a time, movies used to respect their audiences' intelligence. This one, however, holds a fetid, rotting carcass up to our faces -- and then tries to rub our noses in it.

Another reviewer on this site wrote that the only good parts of the movie are the nude scenes; and I agree, Misses Ganzel and Dusenberry do flash a bit of flesh, and very nice flesh it is. But the directors seem not to realize that even T&A needs a good story to surround it. There's none of that here.

Perversely, the film makers save the worst for last. The third of the three segments is the ugliest of the trio. In this vignette, Robby Benson plays an eager-beaver young police officer reporting for duty on his first day on the job. He is paired with a weary, cynical oldtimer played by Richard Widmark. For just a moment, we are given hope that this film will end triumphantly. Surely, we think, the youngster's spunky attitude will rub off on the cynic and change him for the better.

Forlorn hope! Instead, the cynic wins the day -- and the youngster's spark is doused forever. "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" and heads right for the toilet, asking us to follow it down the drain. Nominally, this is a comedy. But where's the humor?

National Lampoon's Movie Madness (1982)

1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely bad and embarrassing comedy is perhaps one of the worst that the decade had to offer. This film has three different spoof's of popular movie genres but none of them are funny. The first has Peter Riegert (NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE) playing a lawyer who asks his wife to leave him so that he can go through some personal growth. The second story deals with a woman who was gang raped with a stick of butter so she sets out to bring them down by making margarine the item to use. The third film has a stupid rookie cop (Robby Benson) tries to track down a serial killer (Christopher Lloyd) who likes to leave a copy of his driver license on the body of his victims. All three stories are incredibly bad but if I had to pick the best one I'd go with the first. It at least has Riegert and his certain style of comedy getting a few laughs and we also have some rather strange nudity. The second film seems to be spoofing TV shows like "Dallas" but it doesn't get any laughs. The third film is just downright annoying because it keeps going and going and never appears to know what it's trying to do. The major fault of this disaster has to be pointed at the screenplay, which just isn't funny. Non of the spoofs are that far out there and one could argue that none of these items needed to be spoofed because their own films did a good job at that. Did we really need this cop comedy when there was something like POLICE ACADEMY out there? The performances are all fair to bad but acting isn't what people come to a film like this for. The second and third films are without any laughs and what's really scary is that there was a fourth film spoofing disaster movies that was cut before the movie was released. With these three shorts being so bad you can't help but wonder how bad the fourth one was for the studio to decide that was the one to leave on the cutting room floor.

I chuckled a few times during this movie. I laughed out loud during the notarizing of the margarine company handover (pun intended).

There are three segments in this movie. The first one is supposed to be a spoof of "woman 'grows up' and launches career" movies. The Tampax® box was the funniest thing in this segment. Most of the cast members aren't listed here on IMDb. They are the lucky ones. Few other people will be able to connect this thing to the ruin of their acting careers.

The second segment is a spoof of "sharkish woman sleeps her way to the top and seizes control of huge industry" movies. Robert Culp has several funny moments, all physical humor, including the aforementioned handover. After his character dies the segment sinks lower and lower as Dominique Corsaire rises higher and higher. By the time she becomes First Lady I wanted to rip the cable out of the TV and watch "snow." I switched to Pakistani music videos instead. I don't understand Urdu, or whatever language the videos were in. It was still better than listening to the dialogue in this painfully dull "story."

Then came "Municipalians" with the *big* stars, half of them on screen for less than a minute: Elisha Cook, Jr., Christopher Lloyd, Rhea Perlman, Henny Youngman, Julie Kavner, Richard Widmark and ... *Robby Benson.* It's supposed to be a spoof of "young cop teams with hardened, substance abusing older cop who needs retirement *badly*" movies. The horizontal flash bar on the police car is very impressive. It was interesting seeing old RTD buses, and a Shell gas station sign, and an American Savings sign -- none of them are around anymore. Nagurski's "Never stop anywhere you might have to get out the car" made me smile momentarily. Then they discuss how boring the young cop is. A lot. Back and forth about how boring he is. That was as boring as this description of how boring it is. Nagurski's Law Number Four, "Never go into a music store that's been cut into with an acetylene torch," made me think that the music store is a real business at the actual location the dispatcher gave. Thinking about that was more interesting than the set-up for the gag which followed. Young Falcone (Benson) gets shot. A lot. He becomes a hardened cop like Nagurski. The segment keeps going. On and on. And on. It won't stop. It rolls relentlessly onward no matter how many times you wish he'd just *die* already so this thing will end. It doesn't. It goes on and on and on.... Then a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode which I've seen four times already comes on. Thank God! This abysmal movie ended while I went to get the mail.

A spoof on the movies, that looks at a growing movie, a revenge type movie and a buddy cop movie. Usually I open a review with a plot summary – with this film it would be pointless to try and summarise the plot in a meaningful way….the writers certainly couldn't do it!

Instead of a plot or a story we have three sketches that are only notable for how unfunny they manage to be. None of them manage to get beyond their original lazy setup, often they aren't even jokes – instead we are just given the situation and expected to find it funny. I never laughed once – not even a smile…..and I was in the mood for a silly spoof! The titles reveal what to expect – a childish, crude, rude and stupid focus.

The cast contains some `names' – Robert Culp, Christopher Lloyd, Rhea Perlman, Richard Widmark and a few others, but none do well. All of hamstrung by rubbish dialogue. It's almost sad to think that they made this film, thinking audiences would be roaring with laughter!

Overall this is absolute trash, it didn't get a cinema release and to me is the definition of pointless. Even by the low, low standards of the National Lampoon stable – this is rubbish.

Facts about National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, a.k.a. National Lampoon's Movie Madness:

1. The movie is poor, even by Lampoon's typical standards. 2. It's not funny. 3. No one goes to see a movie.

So, after I finished watching it, I began wondering why on earth it's called 'National Lampoon Goes to the Movies,' and why it was ever conceived, much less actually made. It would be like calling Austin Powers 'An American Guy Goes to the Movies.' How lame. He isn't American, and he doesn't go to movies. None of the characters in Lampoon's so-called 'satire' are funny, and none go see movies, which causes a bit of a problem. I had hoped it would be something in the vein of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but it isn't.

This was National Lampoon's first film after Animal House, although you couldn't tell it from the quality of film. Poorly developed, rough and amateurish by any standard, it induces headaches – not a good sign for an 89-minute movie that seems double the length.

I've noticed a pattern. Really bad movies are typically renamed – and this little disaster falls under that category. It has two separate titles -- probably to help try and promote it to people too stupid to remember how bad a panning it received from home video critics in 1982/83. 'Hmm, Movie Madness – I've never heard of this movie before! Let's rent it!' And then, the realization: 'Hey, wait a minute, this is just National Lampoon Goes to the Movies!'

It was shelved by MGM/UA, never to be released into theaters or DVD; it occasionally pops up on television a few times per decade, which is just about the only place you'll manage to find it.

It's split up into three stories – a parody of self-enlargement videos, butter and corporate ruthlessness, and police brutality/cop-buddy films (I guess). The first segment stars Peter Riegert (Animal House) as a frustrated guy who divorces his wife and does some other stuff. I'm not sure what because it was so boring my mind started to drift. Until the sex scene popped up.

Part II is about an exotic dancer raped by a stick of butter (don't ask) who decides to become Queen of the Margarine so she can cut off the supply of dairy products. Ouch! This contains the only funny line in the movie: 'Only I can make love with my son!' If you think that doesn't sound very funny, you're right – it's not. And just imagine – it's the highlight of this film!

Part III is about a cop who chases down a serial killer (Christopher Lloyd) only to lose his nerve and shoot the guy. It does contain one funny scene but it's extremely over-acted – only Lloyd really exhibits any humor, playing his character dry and compassionate, yet strangely surreal. The part where he's choking his victim and the meek cop stands by watching it all unfold, at least, evoked a chuckle or two.

It's a shame to watch such a cast of semi-famous names resort to low standards. The writers of each segment clearly believe that they're being very ironic and clever by spoofing so-called stereotypes – the fault being that the movie becomes one huge contradiction, favoring the standard T & A instead of plot; crude humor instead of witty dialogue; desperate performances instead of inspired ones. It's easy to see that none of the actors were enthralled with the material, muttering their lines, often so embarrassed they can seldom make eye contact with the camera.

The movie isn't funny, as I said before. I laughed once, at only one line, and even then it was a halfhearted one. Two chuckles, a smile, and a very weak laugh. Compared to Movie Madness, a number of other decent comedies seem like regular laugh tracks.

I like National Lampoon's Vacation series (or, at least three of four installments), and their classic Animal House, but their recent slew of direct-to-video bombs such as Golf Punks (with that great comic genius Tom Arnold) provide a good example of why their magazine went out of print more than a decade ago. It gets really old, really fast.

Sad to see a new film, called Gold Diggers, is being released with their 'stamp of approval.' It's like condemning a film before it even hits theaters – maybe they should start not advertising their name all over the place…

Distributor: 'This movie is bad. It gets the National Lampoon stamp of approval. That'll teach you not to make something so awful next time.'

Forget the death penalty. Just stick a bunch of criminals in a room and make them watch this over and over every day for a month.

It's so bad that I can't even begin to explain its putrid vileness. I give up.