Monday, January 3, 2022

TIME WARP: THE GREATEST CULT FILMS OF ALL-TIME: VOL. 3: COMEDY AND CAMP (2020) ***

There really isn’t anything wrong with doing a documentary about cult comedies.  It’s just that it doesn’t have the same allure to it as midnight movies, horror flicks, and schlock favorites.  This third installment in the Time Warp series devotes more time to comedies than it does campy movies, which to me, was a bit of a miscalculation.  

The comedies featured are Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Rock n’ Roll High School, Valley Girl, Napoleon Dynamite, Clerks, Office Space, Best in Show, Kingpin, Super Troopers, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  In the camp… uh… camp is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Showgirls, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Female Trouble, Eating Raoul, and The Room.  Honestly, I probably could’ve done with half the amount of comedies.  While I like nearly all the movies featured, they sort of spend too much time on them.  I mean I like Valley Girl and all, but I wouldn’t put it in the same league as Plan 9 or anything as far as a “cult” movie.  Also, you have to wonder why The Big Lebowski was included in the first part of the series if the third volume was going to be mostly all comedies.  

I also kind of take issue with them lumping together “Comedy” and “Camp”.  Yes, Plan 9 is hilarious, but unintentionally so.  It really belonged in the second volume, Horror and Sci-Fi, but I guess they had to pad out the series somehow.  Speaking of padding, this is by far the longest entry in the series (over two hours), and it really could’ve used some trimming.  That said, it’s enjoyable enough, and the variety of interview subjects is once again tip-top.  I still liked it.  It’s just that it’s a definite step down in quality from the other documentaries in the series. 

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