Air Date: October 29th, 1976
I think I only picked this special because it was mentioned in an episode of Family Guy. It was that episode where Peter and Lois went to Kisstock. They run into Dave and Dotty the nudists and Peter and Dave face off in a Kiss trivia battle. Hey, why am I explaining the scene when I can just post it right here?
Season 3, Episode 7
Original Air Date: November 24th, 1978
Hey! Why isn’t the goddamn Muppet Show on Disney+? I did some digging and the best answer I could find is that Bob Iger thinks the Muppets are dumb. The Muppets being an acquisition by Iger’s predecessor Michael Eisner, Iger hasn’t been interested in integrating the Muppets into the Disney brand post-90s. That means I had to go to the deepest darkest depths of the internet to find this episode. Thanks, Bob.
Hello Boils and Ghouls and welcome to Shocktober! A month-long celebration of the mysterious, the spooky, and the altogether ooky. This year’s theme is “TERRORVISION!” which means we’ll be reviewing thirty-odd days of Horror/Halloween-related TV shows.
Halloween Variety Specials? We got it. Halloween episodes of sitcoms? We got it. Made-for-TV 45-minute Disney movies with Richard Masur? Well, we got that too. From the Flintstones to Frasier, we got more shows than you could shake a stake at. So sink into that couch, grab a big bowl of candy and let the terror take over. For the next month, we will control all that you see and hear.
It begins…
This is my last entry for this year’s Criterion Month. Can you believe it? I’m finally free. No more being confined to my arthouse movie prison (the prison bars are subtitles). I can finally go back to watching the bad kinds of movies I usually watch. I’ve had Hostel: Part II burning a hole in my queue all month. But real talk, I’m glad we do this month of celebrating more intellectually and emotionally challenging films. I’m glad we do this because if I’m being honest, I wasn’t chomping at the bit to watch this movie.
On our Criterion Draft podcast it was mentioned that Y tu mamá también was “kind of a sexy” but I wasn’t prepared for this kind of sexy. Right off the bat this movie hits you with back-to-back explicit sex scenes. I had to stand guard by my remote all night to avoid the embarrassment of someone coming into the room and thinking I was watching porn. A lot of dicks too. The film was rated 18+ in Mexico also known as MX-C which would be the equivalent to the USA’s NC-17 Rating. Which is usually the kiss of death for a film’s success.
Spoilers Throughout! (you have been warned)
I was so ready to hate this movie. That’s because back in the before times (2007), I watched the English language remake of Funny Games also written and directed by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke and hated it. the film was so brutal to its characters. The ending is a downer and Michael Pitt has a punchable face. So why thirteen yeas later would I subject myself to the original?
It’s hard to not make this review just me breaking down all the stunts John Madden-style. I mean the football guy, not the director of Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Though that guy has style too. It’s crazy to think a movie (and its sequel) is in the Criterion Collection because of how good Jackie Chan can take a hit through a sheet of glass. Though I think it’s more than that. Martial Arts are very much an art form. It’s called Martial ARTS after all and there are few martial artists as exceptional as Mr. Nice Guy himself.
