Jiminy Glick in Lalawood

This is not a mainstream comedy, it's a Canadian thing, ehh. A lot of in-jokes and offbeat humor. If you are not familiar with the Jiminy Glick character, you will not get a lot of the humor. Watching it was like watching the old SCTV skits/movies that Short did back in the day in Toronto. I will admit, I laughed 10X harder the 2nd time I saw it, because you do pick up more stuff and lines. This plot for this movie was a favorite vehicle on SCTV back in the 1980s, mixing different movies together to make one confused and painfully funny movie. Sometimes, the plot would get so contrived that even the characters were confused, but that is the point. The David Lynch impersonation is timeless, coupled with The Shining references, Matthew and Modine, etc. and so many other story-lines. This comedy style is not for everybody, nor is Martin Short, but I love him and I LOVED THIS MOVIE! Better each time you see it.

I've rated this an 8 because even though it has trying sections, if you're a Glick nut like me, it's worth waiting (or on disc, fast forwarding past them) to reach the good stuff. The man Martin Short describes as a moron with power leaves his home in Butte, Montana and takes wife Dixie and two of their boys up to Toronto for the big film fest. And once there, the laughs really kick into high gear. Jiminy sleeps through a big ticket premiere, then writes a bogus rave review and, as only Glick could, lands a prized sit down television interview with it's reclusive star!

Short does double duty as Glick and director David Lynch, an uncanny imitation that holds the silly plot together with his recounting of the parallel Lana Turner / Johnny Stompanato scandal that forever changed the life of her daughter, Cheryl Crane. Elizabeth Perkins and my favourite, Linda Cardellini, star as a celebrity mother and her child who have the unfortunate lowlife producer Andre (played by the great John Michael Higgins) in their world like a sleazy time bomb waiting to go off. At least, his vulgar mouth is constantly ready for yet another wicked and disgusting remark.

Glick's "hard hitting" segments with Steve Martin and Kurt Russell are truly funny and the send ups of festival behaviour are probably closer to the truth than industry publicists would care to admit. If Short ever makes a sequel, let's hope there are flashbacks that give Higgins and Cardellini a chance to further flesh out their characters' lives and careers. I need a Glick fix!

If Jiminy Glick was interviewing Martin Short after seeing this movie, it might go something like this:

JG: "Bobby Short…,why did you change your name from Martin?"

MS:"No…Bobby Short is someone else. A singer actually. African American. "

JG: "That was going to be my next question. Were you inspired by Jacko to bleach your skin? Do you feel white is the new black?"

MS: "I'm not Bobby Short. I'm Martin Short. I was born Martin Short."

JG:(A patronizing pat on Martin's knee) "Work it out on your own time, dear. Now, about this movie of yours---I JUST LOVED IT. 'Jiminy Glick…' searching his memory—-looks down at his cheat-sheet-—'In LaLaWood!' It's sad and funny. Bittersweet, without much substance and a threadbare story who's sole purpose is to hang little bits of comic business with a few interviews thrown in. Not a very good movie, BUT I LOVED IT! Bobby, thanks for being yewww."

MS: "It's Martin. You know, I've always wanted to put Jiminy Glick in a feature—"

JG:"No time, dear. We have to move on."

I like Martin Short. I like everything about him. I think he's a great singer and entertainer, he's smart, he's lovable, and he's apparently very funny because he's always cracking up the cast and behind camera crew. He and his style appeal to me, and I just like him.

But this movie just isn't funny. And Glick isn't funny. Short tries to carry Glick with the same funny speech patterns that carried Ed Grimley...(in low voice) "I'm as doomed as doomed could be, ya' know." Grimley and Glick use similar speech patterns. But that's not enough to carry this character or this movie.

Short says in the DVD commentary that they improvised most scenes with no or very little script, though his commentary partner calls him on that and disagrees with him and insists there was a script. Now that's funny. But anyway, as the Beatles learned when filming "Magical Mystery Tour," hoping that people will be naturally funny and interesting doesn't work. You have to put some hard work and long hours into a polished script to get anything worth shooting. This movie (if there really was no script) again affirms that truth.

This movie features a lot of vulgar material and I think that was a big mistake. The larger plot and story and comedy style would have appealed to young people and families and Short sacrificed that entire viewing audience for the coarse material and it really doesn't add anything. I guess Short felt an R rating was what was needed at this point in his career.

Very little in this movie works. The boyfriend/manager character was the only one that was funny, yes he was over the top but at least he was actually somewhat funny. Glick is best when Hollywood celebrity Short shows through the character while giving a good natured ribbing to Hollywood giants like Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, and Kurt Russel (Hanks does not appear in this movie but Glick has interviewed him elsewhere to great results). The interviews that Glick does with Martin and Russel, and especially the deleted outtake footage of those interviews are the only thing that works in this movie.

The production and story were much bigger than what I expected. The plot explanation at the end is pretty good, creative, outlandish, unexpected, and funny. There's a part that was scripted. The movie has good production values, but what it needed was a script that actually contained some jokes.

Jimminy Glick is a funny TV show in my opinion based on the few episodes of it I have seen. But this movie was unbelievably pathetic. The guy playing the foreign boyfriend/producer character was so over the top it was pathetic. Marin Short was okay but Jan Hooks was wasted as his wife. The kids were pointless. The only reason I give this 2 instead of 1 out of 10 are the few kind-of-sort-of funny moments that happen while he is interviewing real celebrities. They seem like genuine improvised funny moments, and the extras at the end of the movie while the credits happen (outtakes from these interviews) were also pretty funny. I think that's the real problem with the movie. The reason the TV show is often so funny is because of these unscripted interviews where he and the celebrities make each other laugh. When you put him in a movie with a script and plot it's not funny, at least this movie isn't funny, maybe if the script or idea for the movie were funny at all.... I just hope there is no sequel.