Nothing But Trouble - It's Not THAT Bad - A Retrospective

nothing but trouble is an example of a movie that's all but buried beneath makeup special effects and set decoration the humor has to carry around such a heavy baggage of production values so-called values that it never gets off the ground and besides what's funny anyway about the grotesque creatures in this film yeah i didn't think that any of the stuff was funny at all i was stunned by this picture the original title was falconvania and i think that they were trying to do a beetlejuice or some kind of otherworldly thing the world in this movie the visual world is so aggressively ugly yes it is that if it isn't a funny movie which it isn't then you're looking at the screen and you just held repelled by the images hey hey ho ho look who's got the front seats of the mexican hat dance now in my profile on john candy's career released last year i chose not to mention this movie resulting in many comments from those who were disappointed that i didn't bring it up as well as an equal amount of comments from those thanking me for not mentioning it i guess it's a polarizing movie with people either loving or hating it in fairness i can understand both sides of the argument though the original intention was to make a dark comedy horror the zany comedy elements later overtook most of the horror ones it was a product of studio re-editing and trimming resulting in an incomplete vision released at the time it seemed to baffle audiences and critics alike those expecting a comedy more akin to ghostbusters were turned off by the more grotesque car elements while those expecting a texas chainsaw massacre style horror were baffled by the surreal comedy bits since then it's developed a small cult following of fans who have come to praise it for being so out there despite its flaws i actually think it's a very inventive visually impressive movie it's clear that dan aykroyd encouraged the crew to pursue all of their wildest ideas from the set design to the makeup application and it shows resulting in a movie that if nothing else just looks really cool even though it's flawed i've actually been encouraging people to check it out hoping it will lead to someone like shout factory finally remastering it for blu-ray i mean the dvd i have it is so old that it came in one of those awful cardboard cases that just looks awkward to display there's also no special features and as far as i know you can't find it on physical media in its full wide screen format we did talk about this movie in depth on our podcast but being that this year marks its 30th anniversary i want to take a full look back at this bizarre yet incredibly captivating film to encourage some of you to revisit the movie if not solely because you'll never see another movie like it this is the story of nothing but trouble oh fine go suck a bug at the time the film was made dan aykroyd had a proven track record of hits that included the blues brothers and later ghostbusters though it's worth noting that both of aykroyd's original scripts for those movies would later be heavily refined by john landis and harold ramus respectively for nothing but trouble though dan wrote this screenplay on his own with his brother peter getting a story credit the script was based on aykroyd's own experience being taken to a local justice of the peace after being pulled over for speeding in a small new york town aykroyd combined this concept with elements of the popular horror franchises of the 80s describing it as a monster movie with humor something akin to a modern day abbott and costello meet frankenstein when akroyd set out to find a director for this ambitious project both john landis and john hughes turned him down explaining that they just didn't quite understand his vision and they suggested that he take on the role himself and so he did was your first time directing yeah so i had that element of control and i used it really really there with the movie becoming his first and only time in the director's chair the script was purchased by warner brothers who helped surround akroy with some of the best creative minds in the industry including a makeup team led by david b miller who had previously created the makeup design for freddy krueger as well as a production designer in william standell most known for creating the huge dystopian worlds of robocop and total recall aykroyd also pursued many of his talented friends to appear in the movie as well such as chevy chase valerie bromfelt and john candy famously john candy had turned down the role of lewis tully in ghostbusters a decision he later regretted so when aykroyd came knocking with another wacky horror comedy script he was quick to enlist having so much faith in aykroyd that he signed on for dual roles as both the chief constapola volcanvania and his twin sister aldona genuine wage earner struck dumb at birth by a thunderclap my kind of woman was it hard to talk candy into playing a woman well i think candy did it because i said if he didn't you know i would and he knows i i look really really bad in drag so i think uh no he he just did it because the part really has uh a lot of importance to this in the story the evil twin sister uh it's not kind of a it's not really a cheap drag piece it really works in a kind of on the level of a character building thing and uh he wanted to do it because uh it was a really tasty way to play a woman that was funny himself would even go under heavy prosthetics to portray the maniacal judge valkenheiser though he would eventually be forced into dual roles himself more on this later the film went through various titles starting with falconvania before settling on nothing but trouble which was based on a throwaway line of dialogue in the movie i better lie down oh you're nothing but trouble and this is something i feel really hurt this movie in the long run even though it was a studio decision it's just such a bland generic title for such a unique project i'd expect nothing but trouble to be the name of a larlin hardy screwball comedy from the 40s instead of a dark horror comedy of the 90s mainly because it actually is the name of a larl and hardy movie from the 40s and speaking of the marketing another thing that i think hurt this movie was the theatrical poster being pretty bland it fails to accurately represent the dark grotesque nature of the movie you can view some of the original poster art concepts online and they're just so much more visually striking imagine one of these posters with the volcanvania title on it it would just have given the movie a much more different vibe despite their mishandling of the marketing and later editing warner brothers executives were pretty hands off during the actual production being distracted by the bonfire of the vanities adaptation which was in production at the same time and massively over budget and behind schedule this allowed dan aykroyd to actually have creative control over the shooting of the movie encouraging pretty much any idea his crew had this included not only a miniature train set that delivered condiments during a dinner scene but also a phallic shaped prosthetic nose that's visible in only certain scenes within the volcanvania courthouse there also exists a dungeon with a trapdoor that leads to a giant pool of squeaky toys as well as a terrifying sliding board within the walls and even a full on roller coaster that consumes human flesh called mr bone stripper even the exterior of the mansion itself is covered with a combination of dystopian set design and detailed matte painting to achieve a really distinguished look these little projects often delayed filming though causing nothing but trouble to also go over budget and behind schedule but they're really fun elements that ultimately help the movie beyond the effects and design another interesting facet of the movie is its soundtrack complete with an original song by digital underground who dan aykroyd sought to appear in the movie as well making it the first film appearance of a young tupac digital underground joined us we commissioned a song with them tremendous talent now i've seen something that looks like a video but it seems like it's film are they actually in the movie they are in the movie i i wrote a scene in the movie where this 106 year old justice of the peace that i play in the film uh runs across these musicians they come into his compound there and uh so i wanted a talented group to uh commission and write a song for the film aykroyd would even appear in the music video as a favor for them and it's an incredibly fun watch the movie itself centers around a financial publisher named chris thorne played by chevy chase now there are some accounts that state chase was verbally abusive towards akroid and a nightmare to work with for the crew wait a minute what is this sure no costuming car we don't want to hear the story of your life we just want to pay the ticket and get the hell out of here i'm sorry judge well look at him he's going on and on well i can't speak for the crew but here's aykroyd's own opinion on working with him on this film he was my creative conscience throughout this whole thing um you know the movie has a lot of suspenseful twists and turns it's not only a comedy it works on a suspense level and as a thriller too we've got all those things going it's got the worst hot dog you'll ever see in it so i've got all kinds of you know it's a lot of things in the hopper there and he convinced me to stay with some of the things i had doubts about all the way right to the end and it's really tough because you say well is that going to work or you know do we have time for this i had to cut things and he went back and he said you know put these back in have faith in your original vision and uh it's it's not often that actors do that while i don't have a hard time believing that chevy might have been difficult on set the fact that he and awkward remain such good friends and continue working together tells me some of his alleged behavior was either exaggerated or just chevy's bizarre way of messing with akroid as even chevy seemed to enjoy working with him as well dan can do anything and uh when he was on saturday night live he did the best characters anybody's ever done on that show i don't care who well now a lot from from 15 years i don't know man i don't know my feeling about dan is that he can do anything but he is uh it's like working with ramallah on peyote working working with him as a director he's he's a nice man he's out there and he's out there generally as an artist he's a true visionary and a true artist early in the film chris meets diane a lawyer played by demi moore and he agrees to accompany her to meet a client in atlantic city two of chris's brazilian neighbors brother and sister reynalda and fausto also come along for the ride played by vartila damas and the late great taylor negron hi i'm renaldo hello this is and the foursomes soon get nothing but trouble when they take a detour through the hamlet of volcanvania and blow a stop sign a small infraction made worse when chris tries to evade the chief constable dennis played by john candy good afternoon driver step outside the car please now if you watch this channel you know i can't sing john candy's praises enough and dennis is a really great role for him being that he's the one character in the movie that's actually likable he's conflicted in his role as chief constable and doesn't want to stay in volcanvania it sets up a really interesting arc that ultimately goes nowhere as the character just disappears halfway through the movie only to surface at the very end he comes off as being the sole voice of reason in volcanvania especially when chris and co are brought before the judge who sentences them all to appear in court the following day what's the point in that they're clean no drugs no guns nothing ah just another batch of hot pistol lily wagon city chickens to run through grandpa alvin's trick house when i'm gone you will be reeved you can run things anywhere you want until then you just do your job although later we get to see what happens to offenders of the law that aren't treated as kindly you're a crack and high school and you got your pills and your vials of coke and snorters and pipes and grinders get your gun in here as one of the baldwins and a mock joe pesci are given a ride on mr bone stripper it's also no coincidence that in the next scene hot dogs made up of a questionable looking meat are served to the guests here's how i like them and i suggest you have them the same way i feel like if you know anything about this movie you probably know of this scene does he treat all traffic violators this graciously only the ones he takes a special interest in like bankers ants on a log ma'am there are just so many great weird little touches that's hard to keep count aside from the judge descending from the ceiling there's also the train set carrying ketchup [Music] the brief shot of the phallic nose a can of hawaiian punch being served using an oil spout there's nothing better at the end of a long day on the road than a nice warm glass of wine punch and even gross looking ant on a log as an appetizer it's just bizarrely perfect through all these layers there you go does the pope wear a hat with sergeant york's mother and angel and will a banker grope for money not to mention we finally get to see aldona and she immediately starts making eyes at chris el dona would you please prepare the meal thank you dear eventually the brazilians have enough and draw the line when the judge shoots a pickle at them from his train i can't believe that's a sentence i just said and i won't have my sister who is once the queen of the marigra are sitting at a table with a pickle shooting train dennis later rescues the brazilians and the three escape falcon vania together only you have the power to help us quick hide come on it's my cousin come on the original all-purpose ditch witch and then we don't see them again until the very end of the movie i have a feeling that there was a lot more film with these characters that was later cut as akroyd himself later admitted that the studio made him trim out quite a bit i for one would really like to see an extended cut of this movie mainly just to see more of john candy as dennis but yet again to candy's credit he has a lot of fun with the aldona role despite the character being mute he finds opportunities to be funny but judge as far as her needs are concerned i could never presume to be able to fill them oh you can slip on a pud collar now the rest of the movie follows chris and diane attempting to make their own getaways from the mansion chris ends up in the walls of the mansion where he discovers a dark falcon venus secret [Applause] [Music] diane herself stumbles upon another of all convenient secret in the form of bobo and little devil who can only be described as grotesque evil twin babies that are scaled up proportionately that's the little devil it's another bizarre touch that really sets this movie apart from anything i've ever seen i win my deal no no no bobo wins because bubba's hand was on top yeah my hands on top i win my d i mean these two characters could have just been two kind of dumb henchmen but akroyd wanted them to be portrayed as these giant babies we're not allowed in the house aykroyd plays one of them bobo as he just couldn't find anyone else who wanted to play the character and he was forced to direct in full costume for all the scenes involving the character apparently being a first-time director ackroyd also allowed all of the cast to have their own video playback monitors to essentially direct themselves an element that went away once john hughes visited the set and declared to aykroyd you have to get rid of these i mean i don't blame akroyd for this he was obviously so consumed in the other elements of the production it really was a pleasure and you know demi was great my cast is wonderful in this in this picture i don't want to give too much more away about the movie especially for those who haven't seen it though i will just say it continues being a wild crazy ride until the last frame of the movie the fact that aykroyd was so encouraging to the cast and crew really shows in the finished film for better and for worse there's sometimes a lack of cohesion at times but it's still a really unique movie that i think has stayed with a lot of people what color it came out on valentine's day weekend 1991 opening at number eight being pitted against new releases like the silence of the lambs and king ralph as well as earlier releases like home alone still in its box office domination it was critically reviled with some critics even adding it to their worst of 1991 lists so i think what happened is somebody made a draft at the beginning and then it got eaten away and eaten away and safety material was thrown in so that the the weirdness that might have been valcanvania completely lost the world in this movie the visual world is so aggressively ugly yes it is that if it isn't a funny movie which it isn't then you're looking at the screen and you just held repelled by the images that you're being subjected just about the finest outhouse wallpaper you've ever seen aykroyd received a golden raspberry for his performance and the movie received five nominations overall including candy for worse supporting actress i think the biggest crime of this movie was cutting short a potential directing career for aykroyd i mean i'm not expecting a best pitcher contender from the guy but he strikes me as the type of filmmaker who would have learned from his mistakes and at least continue to grow in his craft while still encouraging his crew to go all out he's also the one cast member that's obviously having so much fun on screen and you can see that in every single one of his scenes and today when comedy movies in particular feel so flat and generic this movie should be applauded for being so completely out there i don't think acroid set out to make a conventional comedy in any sense of the word whether you love it or hate it i bet part of this movie has always stayed with you go ahead there folks set yourself up a couple of dolls nothing but trouble is worth remembering [Music] you know he's not supposed to see you on this special day special day what is it halloween

Channel: Hats Off Entertainment

Views: 391,340

Keywords: hats off entertainment, joe ramoni, almost cult classics, forgotten failures, john candy, dan aykroyd, chevy chase, nothing but trouble, valkenvania, redlettermedia, re:view, digital underground, shock g, tupac, same song, demi moore, bobo lil debil

Id: A--zIzFa7ow

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021