Loose Shoes (1978)
Broad satire and buffoonery presented as a series of movie trailers. Among the titles and subjects are: "The Howard Huge Story", "Skate-boarders from Hell", "The Invasion of the Penis Snatchers", Woody Allen (pre-Mia), movie trailer come-ons, Charlie Chaplin, war movies, Billy Jack. The source of the title is presented about an hour into the film.
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Instant Favorite.
Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
I rented the film years ago (Bill Murray...gotta be funny right?) and we put it in the player and waited for the movie to start. After a few of the movie previews we thought, "Any time now...the movie has to start just any minute.." Then we realized that all it was was trailers...and fake ones to boot.I really hate movies that play on a big name who really is little more than a cameo in the film just to get someone to see it. Like Bruce Willis in Four Rooms or Lugosi in Plan 9; just there for window dressing.The only thing I can see using this movie for would be background noise at a big party. I can see it playing on a screen, you wander by, watch a scene or two, and wander on. No plot to miss by not sitting and watching it.
I saw Loose Shoes featuring Bill Murray when it first came out (1980) and enjoyed it, but filed it under the same satiric label as Kentucky Fried Movie and Groove Tube also from that era, and forgot about it. But I saw it recently, and suddenly realized that over a dozen modern movies (as well as TV shows) totally did RIP-OFFS of the many parody plots from this flick! The writers of this thing turned out to be total psychic geniuses when it came to future entertainment! For instance:Does a talking pig from the farm going to the big city, like Babe sound familiar? And a bio on Howard Hughes, like Aviator? And Skateboarders From Hell, ala the recent skateboard flick Doggtown And Z Boy? Or how about a western slant to the Wizard Of Oz, like that recent Richard Dreyfus thing? And a Space Odyssey spoof, like the later Space Idiocy starring Leslie Neilsen, plus a Star Wars take-off like the later Spaceballs by Mel Brooks. Add to that a raunchy sequel to the Bad News Bears, like the recent... raunchy sequel to the Bad News Bears, starring Billy Bob Thornton. And the list goes on and on!
An occasionally amusing, often confusing, gleefully profane 70's movie that hasn't really aged well. A precursor to Saturday NIGHT LIVE, it's a hodgepodge of spoofs and takeoffs of popular movies of the time. Some of the material is quite good ('The Shaggy Studio Executive,' where Walt Disney comes back as a guy in a dog suit), some of it's dated badly (A 'Snacktime' concession stand advert featuring a stoned guy with the munchies), a lot of it you have to think for a minute or two to figure out what's supposed to be funny (Who knew the eulogist at the biker funeral was supposed to be a takeoff of Georgie Jessel?). Best if you remember the time.
Most collections of comic sketches are extremely uneven. "Loose Shoes" is an exception. It is CONSISTENTLY unfunny, and all the episodes are awful. Their humor is infantile, aimed strictly at kids. Murray, who stars in just one episode, is awful,too. At 74 minutes, this excruciating "comedy" doesn't even qualify as a movie. It's just a fraud. Be warned.