Trading Places
I consider the possibility that some John Landis movies could potentially be bad (though the premise to “Coming to America” sounds pretty awesome), considering how incredibly pointless his movies are. Some of those films are probably stupid and badly written, and consequently no fun at all. But right now, I have no idea whether this is the case because both “Blues Brothers” and “Trading Places” were awesome.
As far as I remember, my comment on “Blues Brothers” was pretty short, and so will be the posting on “Trading Places”. While a short blog posting is typically an indication for a bad movie, in this case it just means that “Trading Places” is a film you have to see, not really write about. The film is fast and funny, and had an amazing cast. But where is the point in detailing out how Aykroyd works perfectly as likable elitist schmuck and Eddie Murphy as random dude turned likable elitist schmuck? The film shows you everything you could want to see about the film. Everything else (like the comparison to Figaro using Mozart’s overture) can be found on Wikipedia. “Trading Places” scratches some socio-economical themes, but I wouldn’t take them too seriously – most of all, this is a light-hearted comedy. All I could add is that this is probably one of Jamie Lee Curtis’ most likable roles, and I was incredibly happy to see Ralph Bellamy (an old favorite) and Don Ameche paired together as evil amusing brothers. Just like “Blues Brothers”, this is an impressive feel good movie, the kind of thing I would suggest to be watched at the PIFF.
It is not too surprising that the Hanukkah movies this year have all been comedies so far, and they are all the laughing out loud types too. I won’t be able to keep that up, but so far it has been a great ride. I have seen quite a few great movies lately, but “Trading Places” is probably something like a personal favorite.