Coneheads

A Tale of Two Connies

What's it about?

Tonight's nostalgic pic is "Coneheads" (Paramount, 1993). Alien interlopers Beldar (Dan Aykroyd) and Prymatt (Jane Curtain) have a malfunction on their spaceship while on their way to Earth to conquer the planet. The ship goes down in the ocean and the two are forced to swim to shore without weapons or the means to communicate with their home planet, Remulak. The two find that they know nothing about the local culture, but are forced to blend in until they can contact their superiors. Beldar uses his advanced technical knowledge to work as a TV repair man for Otto (Sinbad) and uses the opportunity to secretly construct a device to contact Remulak.

Ozzie and Harriet, if Ozzie and Harriet were immigrants. And horrific aliens.

He is informed that a space cruiser will be sent to Earth to pick up the two in seven "zurls" (which is apparently the equivalent of nearly two decades on Earth). Prymatt expresses concern and reveals that she is pregnant, to Beldar's delight. When Otto realizes that Beldar is an "illegal alien" he arranges a meeting with mobster Carmine (Adam Sandler) to get him some documentation.

Aw, he's so young! Also, not very funny.

Unbeknownst to everyone, the documents are being tracked by United Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents and their insane director, Gorman Seedling (Michael McKean).

This man is an absolute legend.

After the INS raids the aliens' trailer home, Beldar and Prymatt relocate to a new job (taxi driver) and a basement apartment, saving money to buy a home to raise their daughter in.

Driving Miss Drew-ey.

When the second INS raid fails and jeopardizes his promotion, Seedling makes tracking down the aliens his main priority. Beldar and Prymatt give birth to a baby girl and settle into successful suburban life, while their daughter, Connie (Michelle Burke) grows up as an earthling.

She's played as a normal girl in this interpretation, unlike the original sketches.

Can the family maintain their cover while waiting for rescue?

Some background

Wow this is *checks watch* THIRTY YEARS OLD NOW?! That can't be right. Why do my bones hurt?

This is based on the original Saturday Night Live sketches produced by Lorne Michaels and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, and Laraine Newman (as the original Connie) all the way back in 1977. There was an effort made before to revive the property (in the 1980s they made some new sketches with Phil Hartman and Nora Dunn taking over for Aykroyd and Curtain), and also make the property more mainstream (see my review of the animated pilot). This film took that humble beginning and made it a blockbuster special-effects-laden film with a $30,000,000 budget (an astronomical amount in 1993)! The ads were everywhere, and it was one of the first times I remember the restaurant chain Subway really leaning into commercial promotions (a Subway restaurant is even prominently featured in a scene). This film had a gigantic cast of well-known comedians and soon-to-be-famous stars.

How big were the stars? This background character swimming coach is played by Ellen DeGeneres.

It's funny, the gags are very visual, and it got absolutely totaled at the box office, only bringing in just over $21,000.000 worldwide, failing to even meet its budget. Even today the film is listed as "rotten" on RottenTomatoes.com, absolutely hated by critics and fans alike.

The good

Surprisingly, despite is cold by-the-numbers corporate veneer, I don't hate this film. I don't know that you can fault the cast for how bad it was received, as it has an astounding amount of Saturday Night Live alumni and NBC sitcom stars in the cast, and every scene and bit part had me pointing at the screen and shouting, "ooh! I know that person!" It delighted me, especially since it makes the aggressive aliens of Remulak seem just as clumsy, overconfident, and incompetent as their earthling counterparts (my favorite joke is when starship Captain Orecruiser, played by Garret Morris, accidentally hits the moon while pulling away from Earth and just pretends like it's normal).

Even if you don't know who Garret Morris is, you've probably seen him in something.

I like the "immigrants are people too" message, but it's not really delivered cleverly or leaned on as much as it could be.

The bad

The film doesn't have very many twists, especially in this day and age, and really just leans into its B-movie tendencies, but while its laughs are usually obvious it rarely goes for the guttural gross-out humor of most "Happy Madison" films, of which this shares some sizeable DNA.

This horrific scene at the dentist is about as bad as it gets.

The one sore spot for me is the sexual aggressiveness of Chris Farley's character "Ronnie," as he almost assaults Connie at one point, but it is played off as "normal" and "romantic" later on.

This character isn't great, but is typical of Chris Farley at the time. 

This is rather shockingly one of the shortest movies I've ever watched, clocking in at just 86 minutes from beginning to the end credit crawl. It might be dragging a bit in spots which is why it seems longer, but I couldn't say for sure; it seems like a normal length film despite its hastened approach.

Go ahead, watch it with the kids

This movie should be okay for younger viewers. It's mostly just a family sitcom with a few light horror elements that are all played for laughs. There's no swearing, although there is a lot of alien sex-talk and innuendo, but as most of the dialogue in these scenes is made up of nonsense words younger viewers might not gather what the scene is referring to even if they understand the tone.

WARNING: May contain questionable levels of Spade.

Is it worth watching? Eeeeh… Probably not. If you're familiar with the cast of SNL and the liked the original sketches it is well worth seeing. It's pretty inoffensive overall, and you might just get a laugh or two, but don't expect biting social commentary or to bust a gut from laughing so hard.

Where can you watch it?

"Coneheads" is available to rent or buy on most platforms, and is can be streamed for no extra cost with YouTube Premium (which is where I watched it), as well as for free with commercials on some other providers (like Pluto TV) at the writing of this review.

Eight Crazy Nights

76 Wasted Minutes

What's it about?

Tonight's nostalgic pic is "Eight Crazy Nights" (Columbia Pictures, 2002). Davey Stone (Adam Sandler) is a public nuisance during the holidays, getting drunk, dine-and-dashing, stealing from his neighbors, and ultimately destroying Dukesberry's holiday decorations, giant ice sculptures in the shape of Santa Clause and a menorah awkwardly placed by one another in the center of town.

Honestly, this is probably just Adam Sandler before SNL

He's swiftly caught and almost sentenced to prison when a 70-year-old man named Whitey (also voiced by Adam Sandler) offers to take stewardship of Davey while he referees youth basketball, a sport which Davey dominated in his youth.

The moment this guy comes on screen, abandon all hope of entertainment.

Davey quickly begins to cause headaches for Whitey, but after being reunited with his childhood sweetheart, Jennifer (Jackie Titone, later married to Adam Sandler in real life) and her son, Benjamin (Austin Stout), Davey begins to take an interest in teaching the boy how to play basketball.

Generic character model, meet generic voice actress.

This is cut short when Davey's trailer is burned down leaving him homeless.

The movie depicts this as arson, but veterans of trailer park fires know that it didn't have to be.

Whitey takes Davey in to live with him and his sister, the equally diminutive Eleanore (ALSO VOICED BY ADAM SANDLER).

Just when you think that the movie can't get any worse, it doubles down.

Just when it appears that Davey is starting his upward climb, he begins to slide again. Can Davey get his life back on track and help the people he loves?

Some background

This is a "Happy Madison" production, and as such it features Adam Sandler and quite a few of his "Saturday Night Live" alumni in various roles, as well as several of his friends who turn up in minor roles, mostly animated to look like their real-life counterparts, including Kevin Nealon as the Dukesberry mayor and Jon Lovitz in a brief cameo.

Yep. That's Jon Lovitz all right...

Other stars associated with Happy Madison show up as minor cameos, including Carl Weathers and Tyra Banks.

The bad

Hey, remember when Adam Sandler made funny movies? They were weird, loud, and a little bit offensive, but they were funny! That was over by the time this came out. THIS MOVIE IS HORRIBLE. Let's break down why:

The Cast

Adam Sandler plays the three main characters in this movie: Davey, Whitey, and Eleanore, and while I can laud his performance of Eleanore (it's pretty good), the character and voice performance of Whitey is outright insulting. The character's voice is irritating, as it's just Adam Sandler doing a falsetto. If you haven't seen the movie, you might not realize just how annoying this character sounds. Most of the cast are not professional voice actors, and unfortunately, it's pretty noticeable. Hey, who's that who does the outwardly racist performance of the Chinese restaurateur? Why, it's our good friend on-the-record xenophobe and Republican apologist Rob Schneider, doing a funny voice! Look how funny!

"Screw this movie." -Roger Ebert, probably.

Screw this movie.

The Animation

At first glance, you'll marvel at how good the animation in this movie is. It almost looks like a Disney "renaissance" picture, with soft colored linework, solid character models, and that colorful style. On second look, you'll begin to notice something seems amiss, but it's still good; it looks a lot like the animation and character design from 1999's "The Iron Giant." Still a good movie with decent animation, right? On the third look, it hits you: Whatever the voice actor is emoting, the characters seem dead-eyed and unreactive. Every character looks like they're using the same deadpan expression, ranging from "tired" to "extremely tired," to "oh crap, they forgot to draw on the eyelids." In short, it looks better than it has a right to be, but still isn't as good as it first appears.

You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it.

The Music

While the singing was happening (yes, this is a musical to an extent), I remember thinking, "this isn't very good." But after the movie was over, I couldn't remember a single one, except Sandler's reprisal of "The Chanukah Song" that plays over the end credits. This was common for animated films of the time: Stretch out the time of your extremely short, animated movie by adding messy and unnecessary musical numbers (see: "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut"). If anyone complains about the lack of quality, just say "that's the joke, plebian!"

The Holiday

Look, I get that there aren't a lot of Chanukah movies out there. I get that there are other religions and faiths that are underrepresented during the Christmas season. But here's the rub: If you're going to make a movie to address this, why not make Chanukah the theme? This movie goes out of its way to mention Judaism, Chanukah, menorahs, and dreidels, and then puts all of this stuff in the background and basically ignores it for the entire movie. The most religious thing in the movie is the town's mall -- I'm not making that up. Whitey goes to the mall to clear his head. A drunk Davey breaks into the mall and is assaulted by hallucinations in the form of store logos (real stores with real product placement in this movie, by the way, although many of them have since gone out of business… RIP KB Toys…).

People "of a certain age" will recognize these brands.

Whitey in his lowest moment goes to a darkened mall and gets sympathy from the store logos. Even the whole town meets at the mall at the end to cheer Whitey. It's just… bizarre (and a little bit icky). It's so bad, in fact, that when Davey finally has his emotional epiphany it's hard for the audience (or at least me) to feel anything.

Don't watch with kids

This one's not for kids. It's clearly meant to be an adult comedy, with some swearing and very adult gross-out humor (way too much of it), which is ironic because this is exactly the sort of lowbrow tripe many kids like. You won't be having fun, but your kids would because of all the dirty stuff that isn't original or funny.

Why would you watch this? Sorry, I mean, where can you find it?

As of this writing, "Eight Crazy Nights" is streaming on Amazon Prime video for no extra cost but do yourself a favor and skip it.