The return of the Hawaii movie
You become a state, and everybody wants to film there. Elvis most of all! He wants to guide tourists or fly a helicopter or scuba dive around your islands, and he wants to unite your diverse peoples in spontaneous song. It's impressive.
Time passes with lesser effect. Elvis dies (probably), and the writing goes south. The Bradys visit for a week. So do the Tanners and the Winslows. Location shots come to lack a certain glamour and budget quality. If Disneyland hadn't developed a grime and subsequent ove-renewal, both of which were no good for filming … you respect Canada, in a way.
So, we greatly thank Jason Segel and his Forgetting Sarah Marshall for bringing back the Hawaii movie and perhaps, making the greatest Hawaii movie ever. The water, the sun, the sand, the food, the surfing, the drinks, the clothes, the fat funny guys, the fat angry guys, the skinny funny guys, the rivals, the others, the trips, the clash, the coalescence, and the girls. Mila Kunis, hello.
Shakes off Neil Goldman feeling.
I'm not saying the movie is the greatest movie ever. I'm saying it may be the greatest Hawaii movie ever. Consider an unofficial list. Blue Crush, a good watch. Punch Drunk Love, liked it a lot, not a real Hawaii movie. Joe Verus the Volcano, same thing. 10, more of Bolero thing. Blue Hawaii offers some competition. From Here to Eternity … let's say Sarah Marshall is the greatest Hawaii movie comedy ever.
Which brings me to Branscombe Richmond. If you see one movie the day after seeing Sarah Marshall, do not see 1977's The Chicken Chronicles. I beg you. The movie is awful. The movie is a simultaneous failure as a period piece, teen sex romp, stoner flick, coming-of-story, California nostalgia and fast-food comedy. How bad is it? The film has Steve Gutenberg's first lead role, and amid the cast and script, he's the standout. You can see the movie creating Gutenberg's career through contrast alone.
Which brings me back to Branscombe Richmond. When you watch The Chicken Chronicles, Branscombe plays Steve's Hawaiian best friend. And you want to google him because he looks like Fred Armisen. When you do google him, you find out he looks nothing like Armisen in any other role. But you learn the movie was Branscombe's first "also starring" credit. You learn he went on to star in Renegade and become a busy actor and stuntman, with a bunch of Hawaii roles included.
His latest role? He's the angry bartender in Sarah Marshall. There's no great connection here, especially for those who didn't see The Chicken Chronicles the following day. But it shows Jason Segel following a bit of a plan. If you're going to revive a genre, you better bring everybody.
Again, we await the Muppets.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:09 AM
[...] is the worst movie I've seen since The Chicken Chronicles, which unfortunately I saw only two weeks ago. But now I've seen the The Land That Time Forgot sequel end to [...]