Tag Archives: Colleen Camp

June 23, 2020 · 1:12 pm

The Set of 400: #52 – My Favorite Chester A. Arthur Shoutout

Today! Because his own wife wants nothing to do with him, and he’s about two steps shy of becoming a full-blown alcoholic –

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

Directed by John McTiernan (x3)

Starring Bruce Willis (x5), Samuel L. Jackson (x10), Jeremy Irons (x2), Larry Bryggman, Graham Greene, Colleen Camp (x4), Kevin Chamberlin, Sam Phillips, Stephen Pearlman, Aldis Hodge, Anthony Peck, Aasif Mandvi, Charles Dumas, Michael Cristofer, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney (x2)

There has been many a day where I find myself lost in a general reverie and the water jug riddle from Die Hard with a Vengeance occurs to me. You have an empty five gallon jug and an empty three gallon jug and a water fountain. You need to come up with exactly four gallons of water. How is this done? In the movie, they have to solve this or bombs explode, whereas I need to solve it because the exact path they take to figure it out in the film hasn’t immediately come to mind, and I want to get on with my day. I’ll figure it out eventually – it’s not really that complicated – but for some reason, a month or two later, this will all happen again.

They solve this riddle in like 14 seconds

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Tagged as Bruce Willis, Colleen Camp, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Favorite Movies Ever, Graham Greene, Jeremy Irons, John McTiernan, Kevin Chamberlin, Larry Bryggman, Samuel L. Jackson

January 31, 2020 · 2:03 pm

The Set of 400: #154 – My Favorite Singing Telegram

Today! Because communism was just a red herring –

Clue (1985)

Directed by Jonathan Lynn

Starring Tim Curry (x3), Lesley Ann Warren, Eileen Brennan (x3), Christopher Lloyd (x5), Madeline Kahn (x4), Michael McKean (x4), Martin Mull, Colleen Camp (x3), Lee Ving, Bill Henderson, Jeffrey Kramer (x2), Howard Hesseman

In the very limited realm of Movies Based on Board Games, Clue is far and away the king. It’s not a genre that should’ve necessarily been encouraged to expand, and thankfully it hasn’t managed to in the three plus decades hence. On the other hand, why not? While most board games don’t present enough characters or plot to facilitate a real story to emerge, I’m sure they could come up with something halfway decent for, say, Candyland. Who do you see playing Plumpy in that one? Someone get a treatment together!

Yikes – I didn’t make this graphic – this was actually in development at some point. Gah.

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Tagged as Christopher Lloyd, Clue, Colleen Camp, Eileen Brennan, Favorite Movies Ever, Howard Hesseman, Jonathan Lynn, Lesley Ann Warren, Madeline Kahn, Martin Mull, Michael McKean, Tim Curry

September 16, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #253 – My Favorite Grocery Store Pickup Line

Today! Because I am the worst case scenario of Thomas Jefferson’s dream –

My Blue Heaven (1990)

Directed by Herbert Ross

Starring Steve Martin (x4), Rick Moranis, Carol Kane, Bill Irwin (x3), Joan Cusack, Melanie Mayron, William Hickey (x2), Daniel Stern, Ed Lauter, Colleen Camp, Deborah Rush, Jesse Bradford, Julie Bovasso, Gordon Currie, Carol Ann Susi, Ellen Albertini Dow (x3)

The third of the three comedies they’d appear in (if you don’t count Rick’s uncredited cameo in L.A. Story), My Blue Heaven makes the most out of teaming Martin and Moranis. Parenthood is more drama than comedy and Little Shop of Horrors only has them together briefly, but My Blue Heaven gives them a pair of conflicting, two-ish dimensional characters and let’s them run. Martin’s witness protected gangster Vinnie needs to stay out of trouble until the trial, and Moranis’s FBI agent Barney Coopersmith is tasked with handling him, to great comic effect.

While Moranis seems obviously suited for the nerdy G-man role, Martin as a slick Italian gangster doesn’t immediately sound right. In fact, Martin originally was supposed to play Barney, but after someone (Schwarzenegger? That can’t be right) dropped out, he switched roles and they brought in Moranis. Genius move! Both are playing extreme stereotyped versions of these parts – they weren’t aiming for a gritty mob film with comedic touches, it’s a wall-to-wall comedy – and their interplay, as well as their romantic entanglements, provide for a solidly underrated gem all around. Continue reading →