Adams Movie Reviews

Because two copulating birds bash into his satellite dish, the blandly handsome Grant develops godlike powers. When he and his new bride Kerry have sex, the entire house joins in, from the soap dish to the electric sockets. Grant manipulates her breasts to form balloon animals; he changes her into a blonde, then a nun, then the Statue of Liberty. Basically, he's become an animator like his creator Bill Plympton, able to make the world reflect his every id-driven whim. Is it any wonder that Kerry begins to question if Grant is still the same straight-up guy she married? Plympton's new animated movie, I Married a Strange Person!, opens with a quote from Picasso: "Ah, good taste, what a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativity." Plympton has taken this perhaps a little too much to heart, but with a good dose of sprightly charm. Plympton's drawing style vibrates, shimmies, and pops with boyish cheer. The movie is regularly punctuated with breezy songs that you'd imagine sound great on a ukulele, sung by some guy in a straw boater. Over-the-top sex and violence and crazed excursions into the origin of belly-button lint combine to produce a weird, sparkling movie. I Married a Strange Person! is clearly the pure product of Plympton's imagination, without any meddling from studio executives. --Bret Fetzer

Stanley Kramer's sprawling 1963 comedy about a search for buried treasure by at least a dozen people--all played by well-known entertainers of their day--is the kind of mass comedy that Hollywood hasn't made in many years. (Another example from around the same time is Blake Edwards's The Great Race.) After a number of strangers (including Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, and others) witness a dying stranger (Jimmy Durante) identify the location of hidden money, a conflict-ridden hunt begins, watched over carefully by a suspicious cop (Spencer Tracy). The ensuing two and a half hours of mayhem has its ups and downs--some bits and performers are certainly funnier than others. But Kramer, who is better known for socially conscious, serious cinema (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?), is in a mood for broad comic characterization, and some of his jokes are so intentionally obvious (Durante literally kicks a bucket when he dies), they'd have a place in Airplane! Watch for lots of cameo appearances, including Jerry Lewis (who had called Kramer and asked him why he hadn't been invited to participate). --Tom Keogh