John-Candy Movie Reviews

This is a fun movie that makes you yearn for simpler times before the world got so jaded.

The supporting cast is unbeatable--Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles, Peter Lupus (billed as Rock Stevens), Morey Amsterdam, and a last-minute appearance by Peter Lorre (as Lupus' father!).

These were the first screen appearances of Stevie Wonder, who steals the musical portion of the flick, and Lupus, who is quite good as the ego-centered Flex Martian, chief muscleman in Rickles' stable. Why this movie works so well is a mystery, but it does. You could spend your money less wisely.

Keach, living in a fleabag hotel, meets young Bridges at the local YMCA, where the former professional boxer has gone to work out. After enticing Bridges to spar a little, Keach is astonished when the younger man with the fast moves reveals he has never boxed, either amateur or professional. Keach suggests that Bridges look up his former manager, played by Nick Colasanto, at the Lido Gym.

Colasanto and his trainer, played by former ranked lightweight and welterweight, Art Aragon, waste no time in turning Bridges amateur. After Bridges' first workout Colasanto tells his wife that a good looking, clean cut "white kid" like Bridges should make a good crowd draw.

Keach falls on hard times, getting fired from his fry cook's job, going out early in the morning to work as a picker at nearby farms. He also forms a romantic relationship with hard luck Tyrrell, a heavy drinker, whose live in love, played by former world welterweight champion Curtis Cokes, has gone to jail on an assault charge. The fight was brought on by resentment of his interracial romance with Tyrrell. Meanwhile Keach moves in with Tyrrell.

When Keach, spurred on by Bridges' ring progress, decides to make a comeback, in his sober state he can no longer abide Tyrrell and moves out. When Cokes finishes serving his time he moves back in with her again.

Bridges has his own romantic involvement with Candy Clark. They make love in his car. She tells him she is pregnant and they get married.

Keach gets in shape and wins the first bought of his comeback against a Mexican fighter, played by noted light heavyweight boxer Sixto Rodriguez. What Keach does not know was that his opponent had passed blood in his hotel room and could not hold up to body blows, having been injured in a previous bout. All the same, he needs the money, and so he fights Keach anyway.

When all is said and done Keach, after Colasanto has taken out deductions for expenses such as room and board for his fighter, receives one hundred dollars. Keach becomes incensed, telling Colasanto once more about the time he let him down and, to save two hundred dollars, let him travel to Panama by himself for his most important fight against a local favorite, then ranked fifth in the world. With Keach ahead his cornermen, in an effort to win the bout for the Panamanian, administered cuts over both eyes with razor blades. This resulted in the referee stopping the bout. After that Keach's wife left him and his life spiraled rapidly downhill.

With resentment for Colasanto revived, a sulking Keach hits the skids once more, returning to heavy drinking. At the film's end he sees Bridges after the latter has sought to avoid him. Bridges tells him about his second child, and that he is still fighting professionally. As they sit in the coffee shop Keach gropes for meaning in life, wondering just where he is gone, fearful of how he will turn out.

Leonard Gardner adapted the screenplay from his own novel. Each had the same hard edge as the world he describes. He should know since it was his world. Gardner grew up in Stockton, boxed as an amateur, and wrote the novel while on the bum in Mexico.

I personally enjoyed the movie thanks to the comical cleverness of Mel Brooks, but as far as overall movie quality goes (comparing this to movies like "The Green Mile") I think it's only fair to say that it only gets 3 stars (so-so) on that sort of scale, hence my rating. I should also warn all those parents out there that the movie would probably get a PG-13 rating under the current system because of the profanity. Even so, the movie is filled with jokes from start to finish to make one laugh out loud quite a few times. Besides being an obvious spoof on Star Wars, it also lampoons (though in smaller quantities) Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and Aliens. I recommend this video for those who like comedy and spoofs, and in that area I give it four stars.

Roy Scheider is Murphy, a police pilot and shell-shocked Viet Nam vet, is given the task of field-testing the new chopper in hopes of getting it in service for the LA Olympics (this movie is circa 1982). Never one to go by the book, and with the help of fellow flyer Lymangood (Dan Stern), Murphy takes the super-chopper on an unauthorized jaunt and discovers the dark secret of Blue Thunder's purpose, uncovering proof of a massive conspiracy to turn LA into a police state governed by a fleet of gunships. When the conspirators - who include a sinister pilot (Malcom McDowell) who was also Murphy's Commander in Vietnam - realize they face exposure, they kill Lyman and set their sites on Murphy. Driven to desperation, Murphy hijacks the machine, stalling for time until his girlfriend (Candy Clarke) can find the proof that Lyman left behind revealing the truth about Blue Thunder. The police and the military pull out every stop to bring Murphy down - missiles, fighters and other choppers. Murphy's solutions are pretty inventive, but you know that these are only previews for the big one - the major dogfight between Scheider and Macdowell over the streets of LA.

Blue Thunder is actually pretty smart, obscured though by how much fun it is. The first half, before we see the super-copter show its moves, is wonderfully paranoid, with an eerie electronic score and wonderfully spastic camera movements (now ruined in countless episodes of NYPD Blue). Schieder and Stern develope this great dialog (mostly ad-libbed) that keeps things flowing, Macdowell is great as the evil Colonel and Warren Oates - though underused - is also excellent as Scheider's boss. The flight-scenes are incredibly choreographed and have yet to be surpassed (after nearly 20 years!?!?).

All in all, a great flick.

Populated with "characters", beautiful
scenery, and a kind of Zen-like rhythm, "Candy Mountain" has
the meandering feel of the journey in which the miles pass, scenes
shift, and not a whole lot happens, but some kind of insight arrives.
Here, the wisdom that seems to emerge is that the road is winding, the
end is not always in sight, the goal may or may not be obtained, but
the trip is worth it. This movie is a small gem that captures the
beckoning and lonely feel of the road that rolls off into the distance
and over the horizon. This also is a movie about and for people who
believe that music is a powerful and important force that touches the
heart and mind in seductive ways. Great Canadian country singer Rita
McNeil makes a brief cameo appearance. The acting is low key, as are
the movie's ultimate aspirations. No deep or sweeping message here,
just a sense of yearning as the miles pass and finally the coast
arrives, and there is nowhere else to go. See this: its offbeat and
likeable and oddly moving.
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