FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VIDEO VULTURE Yep. This week's topic is inflatable clothing. Not just lifejackets, water wings and suchlike, but full body-engulfing suits that puff up to enormous proportions with the tug of a string. I actually found enough movies with compressed-air activated costumes to justify an entire column. (Can you believe I get paid for this?) · Danger Mouse, Volume 1 (1982): I wholeheartedly recommend this offbeat, thoroughly enjoyable cartoon series. The unflappable, eye-patched Danger Mouse and his loyal sidekick Penfold get into a whole whack of ridiculous adventures, while the eccentric narrator spouts hilarious nonsense. ("How long with Danger Mouse be out? How long can Penfold cope without him? How long is a piece of string? Will the person who took my bicycle pump please return it?" etc.) In one episode, "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God," DM and Penfold get swallowed by a large fish after falling into the ocean from orbit. (Don't ask.) The fish in turn gets swallowed by a medium-sized fish, which gets swallowed by a small fish, which gets swallowed by a tiny minnow. Our heroes escape and bob to the surface using DM's inflatable suit. All's well until they get a puncture.... · Sleeper (1973): Woody Allen finds himself in a dictatorship in the distant future after spending 200 years frozen in tinfoil. On the run from futuristic cops, he kidnaps a pretty socialite (Diane Keaton) who tricks him into wearing a suspicious-looking Hydro-Vac suit as a disguise. When the cops arrive, she tries to incapacitate Allen by pulling a string on the suit, inflating it to Michelin Man proportions. A very silly chase ensues, with the frantic Allen bouncing around like a beach ball. · Unidentified Flying Oddball (aka A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court) (1979): An astronaut travels back in time to the Middle Ages in this Disney comedy. Sentenced to be burned at the stake, our hero wisely decides to go to his fate while wearing his asbestos-lined space suit. To counter the heat, he activates the suit's air conditioning, which causes it to balloon out humorously. Onlookers assume his unusually round shape is the result of his last meal. · Time Bandits (1981): David Warner has the coolest role of his career (including Hamlet) as the most evil being in the Universe in this wildly bizarre fantasy from director Terry Gilliam. As the Evil One's victory draws nearer, the heroes use time travel to bring in reinforcements against him. A legion of Roman archers fire a volley at him to no avail, since the arrows lodge harmlessly in Warner's inflatable pincushion costume. Then he takes a deep breath, grunts and sends the arrows shooting back out of his body in all directions killing the archers. Neat trick. · Mad Mission 3: Our Man From Bond Street (1984): Hilarious, nonsensical spy spoof from Hong Kong, featuring a host of familiar-looking guest stars and celebrity impersonators. Trapped in a room that's slowly filling up with water, our hero Sam (Samuel Hui) activates his - you guessed it - inflatable suit. Shortly thereafter, evil henchmen descend on Sam, leading to an enthusiastically odd kung fu battle with our man still in his puffed-up costume. He looks like a cross between Samo Hung and the Pilsbury Doughboy. · Inspector Gadget (coming soon to a theatre near you): Wowsers! TV's most clueless bionic sleuth will soon be appearing in his own live action movie. Word has it that Matthew Broderick will play the over-equipped and under-brained gumshoe. You gotta be curious about seeing this one. If nothing else, seeing Broderick float though the air like a pudgy zeppelin should be good for a chuckle. Go, go gadget coat! |