Too much parody vs. too little parody

Fulfilling a promise I made to a recently deceased Leslie Nielsen, I finally watched my copy of Dracula: Dead and Loving It on Sunday afternoon.

You know, it wasn't that bad. I understand the impulse to rake Mel Brooks and Nielsen over the coals for this movie, but to be honest, Nielsen made a dozen movies that were worse than this. (You have no idea how many movies he made in the late 1990s and early 2000s that you've never heard of.) Brooks may not have made that many that were worse, but he certainly made one or two.

However, I freely admit that my limited affection for Dracula: Dead and Loving It may just be relative, when you compare it to what passes for parody in these here modern times of ours.

Yes, I am going to shit on Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer yet again on my blog.

Friedberg and Seltzer, the writer-directors of such landfill as Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Vampires Suck, are irritating because of their many sins of commission. A movie like Dracula: Dead and Loving It is notable for its omissions, not its commissions.

Put differently: Epic Movie tries way too hard, while Dracula doesn't try hard enough. And in this case, I vastly prefer the latter sin.

When you think of Mel Brooks, you may think of a guy who is terminally goofy, willing to try anything for a laugh. But he's really quite restrained compared to Friedberg and Seltzer. Brooks at least confines his jokes, relatively speaking, to the context of his plot. There may be the occasional anachronism in his movies, sure, but it's nothing compared to Alice in Wonderland showing up in the middle of a vampire movie. (Which happens in Vampires Suck. Friedberg and Seltzer have done far worse, but that one is fresh in my memory from an unfortunate recent viewing.)

You might say that anachronisms are the raison d'etre for Seltzer and Friedberg, the more off-the-wall, the better. This gets old, fast. But it's what they have to do, since they're determined to end every single shot on a joke. (Note: calling it "what they have to do" is not, for a moment, endorsing anything about their method.)

And that's what I really noticed as I was watching Dracula: Dead and Loving It: Some scenes just ended, without what appeared to be a joke. To some people, that's the very definition of why it isn't a good movie. To me, it brought relief -- relief that the movie takes itself seriously enough not to strain for humor when it just isn't there.

I guess the fact that I noticed it means that they were doing something wrong. And I'm not going to try to tell you that Dracula is in the same league as The Naked Gun (if we're looking at Nielsen movies) or Blazing Saddles (if we're looking at Brooks movies). But it is in the same league as Naked Gun 33 1/3 (Nielsen) or High Anxiety (Brooks) -- which is to say, not great, but worth a watch.

What I like most about Brooks' approach relative to the approach of the Two-Headed Monster (I will refer to them as such from here on out) is that Brooks' approach doesn't date itself. If the Two-Headed Monster had been making Dracula: Dead and Loving It, it would have come across less as a parody of Bram Stoker's famous novel, and more as a parody of the pop culture landscape circa 1995. Which would make it really fun to watch in 2011.

But since the humor in Dracula was almost entirely driven by the scenario, I was able to laugh at it, from time to time, in 2011. Sure, it's not high comedy when Lucy (Lysette Anthony) closes her balcony door, and a bat with Nielsen's head slams face first into a pane of glass. But at least the humor flows organically from the situation.

I did not laugh at the bat-into-the-glass gag, but I did laugh at the following jokes:

1) When Dracula (Nielsen) removes his goofy heart-shaped hairdo, revealing it to be just a "hair hat";

2) When Harker (Steven Weber) gets repeatedly doused by sprays of blood from Lucy's corpse, as he drives a stake through her chest. The sprays of blood alone are funny, but Weber's line deliveries during this scene are priceless;

3) When Renfield (Peter MacNicol) eats all manner of bugs while at a dinner with Dr. Seward (Harvey Korman). I think Peter MacNicol may have been born to play Renfield;

4) When Van Helsing (Brooks) and Dracula have a battle to see who can get in the last word, each prolonging the conversation by throwing down one last Yiddish word as an exclamation point. This bit has a funny payoff in the film's final shot;

5) When the sun melts Dracula at the end, leaving only a bat-shaped pile of ashes on the floor. Renfield gathers the ashes into a neat little pile and draws a smiley face in it. "There, master, you're starting to look like your old self again."

And those are just the times I can remember.

When you legitimately laugh (or "LOL") during a movie at least five times, that means it was worth watching.

I haven't legitimately laughed five times in all the movies I've seen by the Two-Headed Monster -- combined.

I'm glad I got a laugh or two (or five) from Dracula: Dead and Loving It, if only because it's nice to come across a Nielsen movie I hadn't seen that's better than Wrongfully Accused or 2001: A Space Travesty. (I saved you the trouble and saw both, thank you very much.) Seeing his smiling face in the "In Memoriam" section at the Oscars just whetted my appetite for this unique funnyman, all of whose best work I thought I'd already seen.

No, Dracula is not among his best -- but it didn't make me cringe either, and that's a small victory worth applauding.

One of those weird coincidences

Yesterday morning, I wrote my Sunday morning post over a cup of coffee, around 9:30 a.m. It was about winning a bunch of not-so-great movies in a poker game on Friday night, and I'd chosen Dracula: Dead and Loving It as the poster art to accompany the post. In other words, a movie in which Leslie Nielsen plays a vampire, a dead man who is loving life as a dead man.

Just a couple hours later, Leslie Nielsen was a dead man.

In fact, all I know is that one of Nielsen's relatives announced it on a Florida radio station at 5:30 p.m. local time. He could have been dying at any point in the hours preceding that, perhaps even as I was writing my post. He didn't die from a pair of sharp incisors to the neck, but from pneumonia. He was 84.

I'd like to think that the first event didn't have anything to do with the second.

But what a weird coincidence, right? Anyone who glanced at my blog last night would have thought a poster of one of Nielsen's lesser movies (I won't say "worst" because I haven't seen it yet, and because there would be many contenders for that dishonor) was what I'd chosen to eulogize him. They might have been confused by the title "Poker haul," but if they hadn't read any further, they would have assumed it was one of the many Nielsen remembrances that have been appearing on the film blogosphere. This piece being one of them, I guess.

Nope. Just a random decision to choose a 15-year-old movie in which Nielsen is dead -- probably the only movie where he's ever died or been dead, at least after Airplane! turned him into a full-time comedic actor -- as the art to accompany my post. I mean, it wasn't completely random -- the movie came up in the poker game, and that was really the random part, considering how soon he was going to die. But it was random for me to choose that poster out of the 11 movies I came home with that night. It was the first one that landed in the pot during poker, which is why I chose it, but I did think for a moment how American Pie Presents Band Camp or Killer Klowns from Out of Space would have been a more perfect example of the kitsch on display.

Well, it is indeed a sad morning, as Nielsen was one of our great deadpan comics. I'm not going to remember him in the form of listing his top five performances, because probably at least four of those were in Airplane! or Naked Gun movies. Actually, now that I look, he wasn't in Airplane II -- which could be one of the chief reasons we consider it inferior to the original. The truth is, Nielsen was a guy who appeared in a couple great parodies and then about 20 that ranged from mildly amusing to truly awful. He's considered one of our great comedic talents because he was so great in Airplane! and the original Naked Gun, not because he had a particularly brilliant comedy career in total. Most of the time, it was the scripts who let Nielsen down, not Nielsen who let us down.

So instead of writing some kind of cliched remembrance that you can read numerous other places, I'll instead commit to watching Dracula: Dead and Loving It as soon as I can. I'm sure it won't be great, but I'm sure it will make me smile a couple times.

After all, Leslie Nielsen was pretty damn good at making us smile.

Poker haul

I was at a friend's house on Friday night for a poker game. He's been hosting Friday night poker games about once a month since the first one in July. For the purposes of this post, we'll call him "the host."

Even though it was Thanksgiving, the host decided to have a poker game this past Friday because another friend of ours, who used to live here, was in town from Seattle. Only one from the normal poker group had been out of town for Thanksgiving, and the rest were able to make it, plus two others, including the visitor. So we had seven, and it was a fun night. I won $8, but it would have been more like $25 if I'd quit at my peak.

But it's not my financial winnings I'm here to talk about today. In fact, it was at the point that the host started throwing a DVD on the pot at the beginning of each new hand that things really got interesting.

And funny as hell. See, these were not DVDs anyone really wanted. We wanted to win them, because it would be funny later on to tell someone you won _________ in a poker game. But actually wanting to watch them? That was a different story.

The fun started when the host appeared with a perfectly random example of the type of perfectly awful movie someone would throw onto the pot to increase its value by exactly nothing: Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Can't remember how the host said he came to own Dracula: Dead and Loving It, but it was still in its packaging. I haven't seen the movie, but it came up recently in conversation and I knew it was something I was probably going to see eventually. Plus, it had a perfect kind of kitschiness to it. So I angled hard for it, but I just didn't have the cards.

Next up was Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. This I've seen, and I actually have limited affection for it. It too had just the right tawdry kitschiness to show up in this environment, as an extension of the host's sense of humor. It too went to someone else.

Then it was time for what seemed like the ironic prize of the evening, at least so far: American Pie Presents Band Camp. Much laughter was had by all, and the deliciously ridiculous synopsis was read off the back of the DVD package. I think this was before there started to be one American Pie straight-to-DVD sequel per year, and I thought it would be funny as hell to win it. But I didn't.

When the fourth movie came up, I finally had the cards. I don't remember what my winning hand was, but I do remember the movie, in all its schlocky glory: Michael Bay's Bad Boys II. I've seen Bad Boys II -- it's one of a handful of sequels I've seen without having seen the original. (I don't think I was confused, ha ha.) But as I was holding it in my hand, still dizzy from the thrill of victory, I looked at the cover and thought "My God, I never want to see this movie again. In fact, I don't even want it as part of my collection." I tried to trade it for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, but that guy was having none of it.

The fifth and final movie thrown into the pot was perhaps the campiest of all: Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I have not seen it and I did not win it.

But I did come home with it. Because as the game finished up, it became clear that almost no one wanted the booby prizes they'd won over the course of the evening. And so it was that Dracula: Dead and Loving It, American Pie Presents Band Camp and Killer Klowns from Outer Space found their way over to my collection of DVDs, now a pile alongside my piles of chips. The guy who'd won Charlie's Angels wanted to hold onto it I guess.

But that was just the start of my pile. Because then the host came in with another armful of DVDs, this one mostly screeners he'd gotten and watched, or gotten and decided he was never going to watch. Looking for a good opportunity to pare down his excess collection, I guess. And as he started going through them, there was almost nothing I wouldn't take. I say "almost nothing" -- I did reject a few of them. But here are the ones I didn't reject:

Antwone Fisher - Haven't seen it, but liked the other movie Denzel Washington directed, The Great Debaters.

Little Miss Sunshine - Like it but don't love it, and will probably watch it again eventually.

In Good Company - Again, like it but don't love it. Funny, I actually watched this same screener with the host a couple years ago -- it's how I saw the movie the first time.

Seabiscuit - Really liked it at the time, worth an additional viewing I'm sure.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico - Have not seen it, heard it's not very good.

The Manchurian Candidate - Jonathan Demme's remake. Actually liked it pretty well and will probably watch it again, now that I own it.

Notes on a Scandal - Liked it a lot, probably wouldn't have felt the desire to watch it again, but probably will now.

And so it was that my DVD collection increased by 11 movies on Friday night ... maybe three of which I'm actually proud of owning.

But I missed out on some of the best DVDs of the evening, precisely because I was taking all the crap. The guy who held onto his copy of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (I'm saying that as though he's a bad person) got the copy of Minority Report -- having just taken about six DVDs in a row, I didn't think I had the right to assert my interest in it. There was another one that fell into this category, but I don't remember what it was. Then after we'd already moved to the other room, the host came out with Inception, which he'd already received as an early screener this year, though it was vacuum-sealed just like a store-bought copy. Another guy got this one, but almost felt guilty about it, and when I teased him by asking if I could take it, he almost gave it to me. I do actually want to see Inception again, but I wasn't going to deny this guy his one piddly DVD, especially since he hadn't won a single hand of poker all evening.

The biggest prize of the evening, however, is something I'll have to wait for. The host has also already received his screener copy of Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which doesn't hit theaters until just before Christmas. My eyes really grew big when I saw that one -- it's a movie I'm definitely planning to see in the theater. But his fiancee and he haven't watched it yet, so we will have to bide our time. I love Sofia Coppola's work, so maybe I owe her a theatrical viewing anyway. But it would be fun for my wife and I to watch this together, so the ease of borrowing the screener may win out.

And until I get my hands on it, I've got Dracula, Killer Klowns and horny teenage campers to tide me over.