When Entertainment Weekly started publishing in February of 1990, 11 year-old, film-obsessed Dan Tebo was on it like a shot. It was the first grown up mag I carried my own subscription for. I read every issue cover to cover without fail. Now, while they definitely softened their approach over the decades (and reduced the size of their movie reviews from 2000 words down to about 20) EW came out of the box HARD! Cold swinging! Every other damn movie was graded “F,” which was fine with, say, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but less fine in the case of Joe Vs the Volcano. An F!?? That’s a top 5 Tom Hanks flick right there....and yes...I have seen all of the other Tom Hanks flicks. Shit, even Goodfellas got a B-! Their initial film reviewer, Owen Gleiberman, was clearly a hack with an ax to grind and no future in the biz. What’s that? He’s the chief correspondent for Variety now? Well....whatever then. In an April ‘90 issue, Gleiberman “awarded” the Dudley Moore/Daryl Hannah mental illness comedy a D-, which is a totally awesome grade if you are me and it is high school algebra. I went to see it anyway, laughed until I spat out my nonpareils, and gave it an A+ in my 6th grade movie review journal. I sent Gleiberman a strongly worded letter and promptly canceled my subscription. Just messin’. I was an avid reader all the way through college and still have tubs full of back issues in my mom’s basement. Sorry ma. I hadn’t watched Crazy People in a good 30 years so I thought I’d give it another spin to see if that A+ held up. Answer: it does not. The end. Seriously though—if there’s a list of movies with concepts too offensive to even say out loud in 2022, this one would be right up near the top…next to Soul Man and the other late 80’s mental illness comedy, The Dream Team. If there’s one useful thing my former therapist taught me, besides tapping my wrist 20 times to stave off a panic attack, it’s to never refer to someone as “crazy.” Don’t worry—I was almost always referring to myself. I’d be like “yo doc—I got a serious case of the cray cray pants today” and she’d promptly chastise me, tell me to hold my breath and count to 10, and then charge me fifty bucks. The makers of Crazy People had no such scruples. In fact...it says right here on the VHS box that the film is about a “crazy, stressed-out ad exec” and a “kooky blonde.” There’s also a pull quote from Roger Ebert that reads “...really big laughs…” Well, I went ahead and looked up Rog’s actual two-star review and the full sentence reads “(the film) has more really big laughs in it than any other unsuccessful comedy I’ve seen.” That’s fine and all but the front of the box bills the film as “a comedy about truth in advertising.” Holy fucking irony, Batgirl!
Crazy People
Crazy People
Crazy People
When Entertainment Weekly started publishing in February of 1990, 11 year-old, film-obsessed Dan Tebo was on it like a shot. It was the first grown up mag I carried my own subscription for. I read every issue cover to cover without fail. Now, while they definitely softened their approach over the decades (and reduced the size of their movie reviews from 2000 words down to about 20) EW came out of the box HARD! Cold swinging! Every other damn movie was graded “F,” which was fine with, say, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but less fine in the case of Joe Vs the Volcano. An F!?? That’s a top 5 Tom Hanks flick right there....and yes...I have seen all of the other Tom Hanks flicks. Shit, even Goodfellas got a B-! Their initial film reviewer, Owen Gleiberman, was clearly a hack with an ax to grind and no future in the biz. What’s that? He’s the chief correspondent for Variety now? Well....whatever then. In an April ‘90 issue, Gleiberman “awarded” the Dudley Moore/Daryl Hannah mental illness comedy a D-, which is a totally awesome grade if you are me and it is high school algebra. I went to see it anyway, laughed until I spat out my nonpareils, and gave it an A+ in my 6th grade movie review journal. I sent Gleiberman a strongly worded letter and promptly canceled my subscription. Just messin’. I was an avid reader all the way through college and still have tubs full of back issues in my mom’s basement. Sorry ma. I hadn’t watched Crazy People in a good 30 years so I thought I’d give it another spin to see if that A+ held up. Answer: it does not. The end. Seriously though—if there’s a list of movies with concepts too offensive to even say out loud in 2022, this one would be right up near the top…next to Soul Man and the other late 80’s mental illness comedy, The Dream Team. If there’s one useful thing my former therapist taught me, besides tapping my wrist 20 times to stave off a panic attack, it’s to never refer to someone as “crazy.” Don’t worry—I was almost always referring to myself. I’d be like “yo doc—I got a serious case of the cray cray pants today” and she’d promptly chastise me, tell me to hold my breath and count to 10, and then charge me fifty bucks. The makers of Crazy People had no such scruples. In fact...it says right here on the VHS box that the film is about a “crazy, stressed-out ad exec” and a “kooky blonde.” There’s also a pull quote from Roger Ebert that reads “...really big laughs…” Well, I went ahead and looked up Rog’s actual two-star review and the full sentence reads “(the film) has more really big laughs in it than any other unsuccessful comedy I’ve seen.” That’s fine and all but the front of the box bills the film as “a comedy about truth in advertising.” Holy fucking irony, Batgirl!