Criterion Year Week 62: It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

The Criterion Collection, the last vestige of truly collectible DVD and Blu-Ray movies in existence. These are well produced, fancy pants editions of important and interesting films for the discerning film lover.

We continue our journey through Jim's collection of movies with...

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Spine Number: 692

Director: Stanley Kramer

Genre: Comedy

 

The thing about the movie business is that it's a business. As much as we love the artistry and the beauty of what they produce, at the end of the day, movies are a business. And as much as we may want to make that business about art, it is, was, and every will be about money. That's not a bad thing, but it does explain some things.

Throughout the history of the industry there has been a figt for an audience. Be it against TV, streamig, video games, whatever, the industry has always been fighting to stay relevant. This has given us amazing things like super wide screen formats, and foolish wastes of time, like 3D (over and over again).

One of these attempts was the string of EPIC films back in the day. Normally, they were big on spectacle and budget. The idea was to create an experience that could no tbe replicated at home.

This weeks movie, Stanley Kramer's, "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," took the  idea of EPIC and applied it to comedy and decided to spend it's sizeable budget on EVERY SINGLE COMEDIAN ALIVE AT THE TIME, or so it seemed. Sid Ceasar, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Carl Riener, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges, and many, many more all appear in this... I guess "romp," is the only appropriate term.

However, this movie completely belongs to Dick Shawn.

It's a good time. There is no denying that. This is a fun movie, and as long as you don't take any time to stop and realize that there are no sympathetic characters, and that pretty much everyone is either dead or badly maimed by the end... it's still a very good time.

So, enjot an old school, mad cap adventure, won't you?

 

Next week,  

 Spine number 696:Foreign Correspondent 

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http://fantasymovieleague.com/

Looks like Summer Movie League has officially become Fantasy Movie League.

It looks quite fun. Here's how it works.

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Every week you pick movies and have a budget/salary cap you have to stay under.

Then you compete against other theaters in your league.

It's fantasy football for movie people.

Our league is Film Thugs 2015 and the password is Porterhouse.

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Thanks for listening, and until next week...