Flick Pick

Mel Brooks's none-too-funny parody of Star Wars, 1987's Spaceballs, was released at the low ebb of the great comedian's career. Two of Brooks's most inventive movie hits, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, were already ancient history, buried back in the 1970s chapter of his life, and Broadway wouldn't reinvent the...

By Bill Gallo

June 12, 2003

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Mel Brooks's none-too-funny parody of Star Wars, 1987's Spaceballs, was released at the low ebb of the great comedian's career. Two of Brooks's most inventive movie hits, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, were already ancient history, buried back in the 1970s chapter of his life, and Broadway wouldn't reinvent the third one, The Producers, as the toughest theater ticket in town for another fifteen years. Forced and silly, Spaceballs was Brooks's ill-considered attempt to cash in again on movie parody. Seen in the light of the current Brooksian revival, it is now a perfect midnight movie -- a project gone wrong, with all the makings of a comic cult. The cast includes the late John Candy, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, a then-unknown Bill Pullman, and Brooks himself in a series of one-liners and low sight gags meant to mock George Lucas's sci-fi oeuvre. Thanks to the midnight movie crowd's firm grasp of postmodern irony, it all gets better with age. On view at midnight this Saturday at the Mayan, 110 Broadway. For information, call 303-744-6796.

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