Mel Brooks

Spaceballs: The Movie Review

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  • Title: Spaceballs
  • IMDb: link

Released 5 years after the conclusion of the original Star Wars trilogy, and long before any glimmer of new Star Wars films ever being made, with Spaceballs writer/director Mel Brooks lampooned the cultural phenomenon along with countless other sci-fi properties including Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and others. Although Brooks would go on to do other parodies in a similar vein, arguably learning the wrong lesson from the film, Spaceballs marks the end of the director’s better work which peaked far earlier in the early 1970s.

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Spaceballs (Your Helmet is So Big Edition)

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  • Title: Spaceballs
  • IMDb: link

Spaceballs (Your Helmet is So Big Edition)Released back in 1987, Mel Brooks‘ Spaceballs lampoons the original Star Wars trilogy (and several other sci-fi movies) in a comedic adventure about a scoundrel (Bill Pullman) in a Winnebago, a space princess (Daphne Zuniga) on the run from both a wedding and an evil empire, and a dark-clad villain with a really big helmet (Rick Moranis) and a plan to steal an entire planet’s oxygen supply.

More than 25 years later Spaceballs may be a bit dated but it still provides plenty of laughs and quotable lines, particularly for Star Wars fans. With a supporting cast including John Candy, George Wyner, Dick Van Patten, Joan Rivers, Brooks in multiple roles as both President Skroob and the Schwartz expert Yogurt, a memorable cameo from John Hurt, Mega Maid (who goes dramatically from suck to blow), a memorable radar technician (Michael Winslow), an entire crew of Assholes, and Pizza the Hutt, Spaceballs fills the screen with an enjoyable assortment of odd characters to keep the comedy rolling.

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Young Frankenstein

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  • Title: Young Frankenstein
  • IMDb: link

young-frankenstein-dvd

Young Frankenstein is Mel Brooks’ most complete work.  Though not his funniest movie (The Producers) the movie works from beginning to end and doesn’t fall apart during the last act (Blazing Saddles); it remains as the hallmark of his career and his one truly flawless film.

The brainchild of Gene Wilder entertains and enthralls the audience for every single frame.  Wilder was a huge fan of the Frankenstein movie franchise and his love for the characters is palpable in this delicious satire.  Brooks would return to satirize other works such as Star Wars and Dracula, but those films lack the emotional connection to the originals that this one produces so effortlessly.

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