Film Critique

By Lynn Hammarstrom

Webster’s dictionary defines the word inept as “unsuitable, unfit, foolish, awkward and clumsy.” If the venerable scholars who put together this lexicon were ever to turn their hand to film criticism, they might add the title of Dan Aykroyd’s latest film endeavor to this list.

Ostensibly, “Couch Trip” is the tale of a psychiatric patient who escapes incarceration and masquerades as a top psychiatrist in order to take over the doctor’s popular call-in radio program. With typical Hollywood disregard for reality, Aykroyd’s character is able to help huge numbers of patients with such “therapeutic” techniques as loading busloads of patients into a ballpark and categorizing them according to disorder. “Nymphomaniacs in this bus!” All goes well for our hero until he meets up with another psychiatric patient (Walter Matthau) who threatens to disclose Aykroyd’s identity if he refuses to share his newfound wealth with him.

Aykroyd is astonishingly unlikeable in this film. His comedic talents are wasted on a script that makes him only slightly less revolting than the movie’s so-called “bad guys.”

As Aykroyd’s nemesis-turned-best friend, Walter Matthau is crude, obnoxious and as amusing to watch as drying paint. This is no “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” as far as male bonding (or anything else) goes.

“Couch Trip” is a film that may entertain a number of undersexed high school students, filled as it is with vast quantities of unjustified expletives. For anyone over the mental age of fifteen, however, it is a filmed study in how relatively talented actors can perform for over an hour without eliciting a single chuckle.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”

A musical comedy about a homicidal transvestite would scarcely seem to be the stuff of enduring film value, but for the thousands of people who have lined up at midnight showings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for the past decade in this country and Great Britain, this film is indeed a classic.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” deals with the misadventures of an extremely naive couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) who, while searching for shelter after their car breaks down, find themselves in the castle home of a bisexual transvestite (Tim Curry) who is celebrating the creation of his dream man, Rocky. What follows is a highly entertaining romp through an alternative world, from which the couple emerges unscathed but irreparably altered.

As amusing as the film itself undeniably is, it is often the accompanying floor show, in which audience members, some of whom have seen the movie hundreds of times, act out and augment the film’s action. Audience members attired in black leather corsets and garter belts are not an unusual sight at a screening… and this is on the men. “Virgins,” those who have never seen the film, may be surprised periodically as they are doused in water from spray bottles and pelted with rice and toast during strategic points during the show.

The performances in the film are highly campy, and the music is definitely an acquired taste. Though it may offend some whose moral uprightness bars their enjoyment of any but G-rated films, for the rest, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is an experience worth having.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will be shown tonight at 7, 10 and 12 p.m. in the Sandburg Auditorium. Admission is $1.