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JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME’ Rated PG-13
More than thirty years after his passing, beloved comedian and actor John Candy finally gets his due in the respectful documentary “John Candy: I Like Me” that covers his life in his own words and those of family, friends, and colleagues.
Fans of the Canadian thespian, who got his start in Toronto’s “The Second City” and the “SCTV” television series, will get a better idea of his on-screen persona reflecting much of his own everyman warmth and self-effacing charm in this Amazon Prime Video biopic.
How did this film arrive at the subtitle “I Like Me,” you ask? Steve Martin, his co-star in “Trains, Planes & Automobiles,” in his role of Dale Neal unloaded a truckload of insults as he grew weary of Candy’s Del Griffith, a shower-curtain-ring salesman’s endless blather.
The scene is played here, where Dale says to Del, “I mean, didn’t you notice on the plane when you started talking, eventually I started reading the vomit bag? Didn’t that give you some sort of clue, like, hey, maybe this guy’s not enjoying it?”
The look on Del’s face exposed real hurt, as he then retorted, “I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me, ‘cause I’m the real deal. I’m the real article. What you see is what you get.”
What Candy’s character says to Steve Martin’s really sums up what a parade of show business colleagues, family and friends reveal about the comedian. What everyone saw with Candy was the sweet nature of an agreeable, warmhearted person devoid of artifice and guile.
In the opening scene, Bill Murray, another co-star in “Stripes,” says, “I wish I had some bad things to say about him,” and then relays to director Colin Hanks his wish that this project would turn to “some people who’ve got some dirt on him.”
Either the director and the production team didn’t bother to dig deeper, or they just couldn’t locate malcontents or aggrieved parties to satisfy Murray’s whim. Judging by the good things said of Candy by so many, the latter was the obvious result.
Befitting a documentary focused on the life of one man, the films include plenty of home videos, pictures straight out of family albums, and a plethora of film clips that lead to fond memories.
An apparent page out of a yearbook has Candy labeled as “The Pink Panther,” and it would be nice to know the meaning of this reference. Did it have anything to do with the Peter Sellers film, and was that British actor an influence on his comedy?
Anecdotes throughout the film divulge some interesting tidbits. Apparently according to a friend, during the Vietnam War, Candy wanted to enlist in the U.S. Army and visited Buffalo to see if he was eligible, only to be rejected due a knee injury suffered playing football in school.
The late Roger Ebert, at the time of a 1981 release of a film starring Bill Murray joined by Candy, mentioned that at least one summer film would be “irreverent, gross-out, anarchistic, slapstick comedy, and this summer it is ‘Stripes.’”
Clips from that zany military comedy show Candy’s self-effacing humor as he tells other recruits that he has “a slight weight problem,” and that a doctor told him that he “swallows a lot of aggression with a lot of pizzas.”
As a student at Harvard while president of “National Lampoon,” Conan O’Brien, desiring to have comedy heroes visit the university, convinced Candy to participate in a big montage of his film clips, where he “filled the room with his aura. He was expansive and joyful.”
That Candy was willing to nurture talent was revealed by O’Brien admitting to the comedian that he was interested in trying comedy, and Candy replied, “You don’t try it. You either do it or you don’t do it. You don’t try it, kid.” The idea of going all in or not at all is good advice in many fields.
Tragedy in his own family affected Candy deeply, as it is revealed that his father died of a heart attack on the day of his fifth birthday, leaving him in a state of confusion and possibly a sense of dread. Candy died of a heart attack at the age of 43 while filming in Mexico.
From Steve Martin, it was interesting to learn that director and writer John Hughes (“Home Alone”) wrote characters specifically for Candy, referencing “Uncle Buck.”
This review of “John Candy: I Like Me” only scratches the surface of the remarkable life of a man and legend, as there is much divulged by fellow actors like Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Tom Hanks, Dan Aykroyd, and Eugene Levy, among others.
We cannot leave out the memories shared by his widow Rose Candy, nor those of his children, Christopher and Jennifer, who share more intimate details of growing up with a loving father who was often absent due to his work. Fans of John Candy will be edified.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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‘DMV’ on CBS
According to legend and online sources that might be somewhat reliable, the British character actor Edmund Gwenn, best known for portraying Kris Kringle in 1947’s “Miracle on 34th Street,” expressed the sentiment, if not the exact quote, “Dying is Easy. Comedy is Hard.”
That axiom is truer today than ever, as the shortage of comedy in films and television should be evident to anyone. Perhaps, political correctness run amok may have been the death knell for comedy that is edgy or insulting.
The relative scarcity of comedy might be the result of a lack of originality. Consider how many films today are remakes, and that’s not just taking into account the surfeit of superhero stories that operate on a nearly identical premise.
Comedy is hard because there are too many constraints on what is considered acceptable humor. Think about how many people are easily offended by provocative jokes. Could the hilarious “Blazing Saddles” even be contemplated now? Not very likely.
Anyone easily offended by off-color humor or offensive material should never venture to a comedy club. Standup comedians don’t mind controversy; they seem to relish it – to wit, performers like Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle, and Dale Quinn, among others.
Lamenting the dearth of comedy, whether it is provocative or even mainstream, is evident in the current state of television comedy generally. “DMV” on CBS is the only new comedy debuting on a broadcast network this fall.
The premise of basing a comedy on one of the most dreaded places does present a challenge. After all, a trip to the DMV ranks with other awful things in life, such as having a tax return audited, getting a root canal, and preparing for a colonoscopy.
The East Hollywood DMV is divided mainly by two categories of workers, namely the driving examiners and the paper pushers. In the former group, Harriet Dyer stands out as Colette, a single woman in her thirties hoping to get noticed by surfer dude Noa (Alex Tarrant), the hunky new documents processor.
In the premier episode, Colette’s first test is with a Norman Bates-type creepy dude with mother issues, followed by a hair-raising drive with an elderly woman who knocks down every cone, and then incredulously asks if she passed.
“Saturday Night Live” veteran Tim Meadows’ Gregg is a curmudgeonly former English teacher, who unlike some of his colleagues has resigned himself to a life sentence of grinding away in a stultified bureaucracy.
Looking and acting at times like a nightclub bouncer on steroids, Vic (Tony Cavalero) revels in sarcasm, mostly directing barbs at Colette for how she hardly ever fails any of the driving test takers. Vic’s fashion statement is a wardrobe of ugly tight-fitting shirts.
Newly promoted to office manager is Barb (Molly Kearney), whose insecurity might prove to be an impediment in dealing with a pair of efficiency consultants evaluating whether the East Hollywood branch should be shuttered.
One of the funnier scenes involves DMV photographer Ceci (Gigi Zumbado) trying to take a headshot of Barb to hang in the office, while her subject ridiculously gyrates and mugs for the camera.
Meanwhile, Colette would like to make a move to get Noa’s attention, but an attractive co-worker nicknamed Hot Kristen (Samantha Helt) gets in the way. Eventually, Colette awkwardly strikes up a connection with the newcomer by talking about a rescue dog.
Visitors to the DMV provide comic relief, especially when an obnoxious guy (Mark Feuerstein) shows up with an expired passport to get a Real ID license, and becomes incensed when Noa turns him away for not following the rules for documentation.
Aside from Catherine Heine’s short story about a very big-hearted driving examiner inspiring “DMV,” co-creator Dana Klein informed critics at a CBS press conference that two of her daughters took multiple tries to pass their driving test, leading to spending too much time at the DMV.
While sitting in the waiting room and dealing with forms, Klein came to the realization that the DMV is “the perfect setting for a workplace comedy” and “the idea of a show about people who work at a place that is notoriously despised was really interesting to me.”
Klein’s creative partner, Matt Kuhn, related that his vision of the show was to “explore all the fun and heart of everyday working life for the good people at the DMV,” who mostly “don’t want to be there any more than you do.”
While Kuhn’s view that the folks at the DMV are “doing their best to help you and get through their day, often navigating seemingly conflicting and frustrating regulations to do so,” may be overly charitable, nobody looks forward to a trip to the bureaucratic nightmare of the DMV.
The challenge for the writers and the actors in “DMV” is how to make a dreary, depressing workplace consistently funny for an entire season. There are some funny as well as cringe-worthy moments that send mixed signals. The verdict remains unknown about whether the show has legs for a good run.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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