60 - The Silence Of The Hams

Connection To POSSE - Billy Zane

The common misconception is that when Friedberg and Seltzer started getting their hands on the spoof genre is when it went to shit, I've even heard the statement "spoofs aren't as good as they used to" but the truth is even before they got there grubby mitts on the sub-genre, there was plenty of spoof that was less then classic - Plump Fiction, Mafia, Repossessed - are among those, the truth is actually for every Airplane or a Naked Gun there was films just fleetingly funny or downright poor.

The Silence Of The Hams, which to me is such a groan-worthy name for the film, seems tone of the most forgotten of the mid-90s spoofs and is something I did see on TV back in the day, truth is all I remembered though was Billy Zane and his name being a play on Jodie Foster and Dom DeLuise as the Hannibal Lector character, and though it's listed as 1994 on the internet I could of swore it came out in the UK in 1996, which I just checked on, so good memory there.

There's scenes that spoof the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct and the cell scene in The Silence Of The Lambs, anybody who has seen Loaded Weapon, which predated it by a year will know these scenes have already been spoofed. The two films it really spoofs most is of course Lambs and Psycho and besides them there is spoofs of Bram Stoker's Dracula and (rather on the nose) The Addams Family.

I found myself smiling at a far few parts of this movie, mostly with my eyes rolling at the same time. The film is bad, but it was so enjoyably bad, I was right about the Billy Zane character - he is called Joe Dee Fostar, I'd totally forgot about Ezzio Greggio being one of the stars (he also directs and writes), I think he's the weakest part of the cast, struggling a bit with English, but there is an awesome cast here including Martin Balsam apeing his Psycho role (this was a very late in his career role), and small roles for Shelley Winters and Mel Brooks among others. Tony Cox who would appear in some of those Selzter Friedberg spoofs a bit later also a very small role. For me though John Astin (this is like the fourth film I have watched with him in) and particularly DeLuise have the funniest moments for me.

Overall, groan worthy very often but oddly entertaining, it made me smile and was on the verge of making me laugh out loud, so to me it was actually better then I remembered.

59 - Posse

Connection To SANTA'S SLAY - Tommy 'Tiny' Lister

The early 90's western - maybe it's because it's my era but I have an affection for it. Young Guns (which was 1988 I know but I found my love for it in the 90's) and it's sequel, the very awesome Tombstone and of course a film I've already covered here The Quick and The Dead, obviously not forgetting of all movies - Unforgiven - Eastwood's awesome farewell to the western genre that made his name.

Posse though for me just got lost in the shuffle and was a film I'd never picked up to own on DVD even when my western shelf was picking up on these 90's westerns, but I genuinely believe if I saw it then I reckon I would have the same affectionate for it as some of them, I think maybe for me I'm just seeing it for the first time some 20 years too late.

For me though now once it gets past the opening scene, despite it's positives I lost interest somewhere along the way despite some nice imagery. I don't have a problem with bad-ass characters at all, except in usually one instance - when they are played by the director, and the most bad-ass of this posse is played by the director himself Mario Van Peebles, while he's nowhere near as bad as Larry Bishop in Hell Ride, who could seemingly make women drop their panties by looking at them, the rest of the "posse" seem to have big man-crushes on Van Peebles.

Billy Zane was fun in a supporting role because he acting like Billy Zane should and be chewing a fair bit of the scenery and to be fair some of the other cast have enjoyable moments such as Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, not Stephen Baldwin though he starts to wear a bit thin after a while.

Overall, Posse is proof that a film needs to seen in the right time of your life, it really isn't bad but in the end it fell into the category of not really doing out for me.