Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy

Certainly one of the few excellent films that I have seen David Foley in. I saw this, quite by chance, on television and I was amazed that I had not even heard of a film this good. It is several years since I saw it, and 8 since it was made, but this is truly worth seeing.

The plot is fairly run-of-the-mill comedic insanity, but the characters are what truly makes this so fun. The writing is very very good and I think complaints of bad language are bizarre in the context of this movie, because if you don't like the language how are you going to enjoy the sentiment...One character's key fantasy is being "sent in" to bugger enemy soldiers on maneouvres.

My favourite scene is the brainstorming session with the Ultra-Cool A**hole Advertising Executive who comes up with their slogan.

A group of researchers for a pharmaceutical company release Gleemonex, a drug that brings people's happiest memory to the surface and cures depression. All is right in the world, at least until the drug is discovered to have some side effects down the road.

The Kids in the Hall had a great show, and it's no surprise they were able to make a great movie. With a very limited cast, they play dozens of parts and keep the humor rolling from the very beginning. If there's a group that is the spiritual successor to Monty Python, it is probably KITH.

Some of the best jokes are just throw-aways: a cop that dreams about sex with toast, a therapist who doesn't speak German, and a scientist who develops a drug that gives ex-girlfriends worms. One of the running jokes throughout the film is a man who is obviously gay but is unable to admit it. He is consistently funny, even after he comes out in the middle of a musical scene.

Some people allegedly thought that including Cancer Boy was insensitive and not funny in the slightest. I disagree. If it's okay to make fun of depression and homosexuals, I think cancer should be perfectly acceptable. I may not be easily offended, but I think this was fine.

A couple other things made this film great: a great soundtrack with bands like They Might Be Giants and The Odds. One of the earliest film appearances of Selma Blair. Seriously, the only way you would not find this funny is if you had a stick up your butt or you were a flipper baby.

This film meant more to me than just 'a feature film featuring the comedy troop, The Kids in the Hall'. I am a Kids In The Hall fan. Their first feature length film theme was a good one. They took on one of the biggest things of 1996 and poked fun and holes at it: "Depression".

You have to remember, by 1996, depression drugs were being dispensed at an all time high. People were "sad" and wanted to be happy all the time so prescriptions were running wild for these depression drugs-- Prozac being the top one.

So the Kids went after this theme. Remember, this is The Kids in the Hall taking on this, not the book "Prozac Nation". This film may seem silly to some, or even awful for those who expected the same kind of Kids work as they had done in their series, but I did like it and I like the way they went about taking on a popular subject at the time most people didn't wish to admit how popular it really was.

Look back at "Brain Candy", well, may seem a tad bit dated now that in 2003 we should "know better". Do we? But again, I gotta hand it to the Kids in the Hall for being "sharp" enough to tackle this..and the WAY they tackled this. Think about it...is your health less important than corporate profits? ("We beat -- penicillin!!!!")And how about the summary at the end of the film by the taxi driver..."it's Okay to be sad...sometimes."

The Kids in the Hall were a very talented Comedy troupe of gentlemen and to some degree many expected something more comedic from them with their familiar characters and material for their first film fare, but again, I thought this was a more creative way to go, a more daring and brilliant way to go. Sometimes it strayed, but it all came back to the central theme. This is NOT for everyone's taste, but for those who want to venture into something different from a comedy troupe..maybe along the lines of the Monty Python's troupe fare of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" -- who's theme too was way out there for a comedy troupe. It's enjoyable, pick this one up, see it for what it is.

Okay. Where to begin?

It's phenomenal. If you've ever watched a single Kids in the Hall episode and caught yourself stifling a guffaw for you feared laughing at an orgasming, androgynous chicken-lady(?) might classify you as a lunatic, go see Brain Candy.

If you haven't experienced that, go see it anyways.

I personally think it's the some of the best modern comedic writing there is out there. The troupe collated their ability to create off-the-wall scenes with a Monty-Python-esque flair of weaving the same actors into decidedly varying roles, and thus spawned a seriously non-serious satire of man's eternal search for happiness.

I saw this movie first in the theater, and the odd things is, I didn't laugh once during the entire showing. The true hilarity of the flic hit me several hours later as a friend and I mused its elusive intricacies in a coffee shop. We were nearly falling out of our chairs with just the simple mentioning of many of the scenes.

I made a point of seeing it again, and have never regretted adding it to my 'all time favourite' list.

Go see it.

Booyah.

When I was growing up in the 80's, there were basically three camps of movies that were so incredibly funny that they were legendary among my peers and my generation. Those movies were the Monty Python films (Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Meaning of Life), the Mel Brooks classics (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein), and the Airplane! movies. Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy is an awesome example of how funny a movie can be, and I hope that some day more people will see it that way and that it will achieve a cult status as a legend of great comedy. It did terribly at the box office, but that was just some unfortunate oversight. Brain Candy features uncanny wit, rollicking absurdity, hilarious zaniness, immaculately understated social commentary, and some of the best comic performances ever filmed (my personal favorite performances are Mark as Don Roritor and Scott Thompson as the clueless closeted gay guy). I believe that the particular kind of comedy in Brain Candy is not easy to enjoy during the first viewing, which is why you should watch it a few times. When the Kids' masterpiece starts sinking in to your head, you'll start getting a whole lot of laugh-returns on your investment.