What a waste of my time!!!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Richard Widmark, Diane Lane, Peter Riegert, Robert Culp, Olympia Dukakis, Christopher Lloyd, Henny Youngman, Rhea Perlman, ... all SHOULD NOT HAVE appeared in this movie! Watching an anthology film of these accomplished entertainers reading from the Hollywood telephone directory would be a vastly more enjoyable way for the viewer to spend 89 minutes, than attempting to sit through this awful waste of time and talent.We have all experienced movies which compel us to just finish watching the film we have started, because surely there must be a payoff. We think "I'll just hang in there because, hey, it can't get any worse, right?" Well, this film will elicit such a feeling by about 30-minutes in; if not well before that. The viewer should be forewarned: Oh, it DOES get worse. It gets MUCH worse! In fact, of the three film shorts comprising this anthology movie, the final segment is almost unwatchable. Which seems a cynical and intentionally sadistic decision by the film's directors and editor to deal-out lingering punishment to those viewers who stick with it to the bitter end!If one needed to build an argument for irrevocably destroying all record of a work of "art", this film would be exhibit number 1 of that argument. All copies of this movie, both electronic and physical media should be destroyed. And all of those associated with its creation should be provided humanitarian hypnotherapy, so that they too can erase all memory of their involvement in its creation, and end the terrible recurrent nightmares which undoubtedly haunt their lives.In addition to leaving an indelible black mark of shame on the résumés of these, and a couple of dozen other actors/comedians who made the terrible career mistakes of appearing in it, this 1982 fiasco also ignominiously taints the National Lampoon franchise which produced such classics as 'Animal House' and 'Christmas Vacation'.*** SPOILER ALERT *** Two things will be universal for those who make the serious error in judgment of sitting down to watch 'National Lampoon's Movie Madness': 1) You will be left with nagging regret for what you could otherwise have done with the hour and a half of your life that you wasted; and 2) By the time the third anthology segment begins -- a police story built around a running gag about a Rookie Cop who is shot, daily -- you will want someone to shoot YOU, or shoot yourself just to make it stop. Please, God, make it stop!!!A couple of parting thoughts: Richard Widmark lived another 10-years after the release of this film: Testaments to both his personal humility (for not spending those remaining years of his life as a recluse); and to his belief in the power of forgiveness (he didn't have his agent whacked!)IMDb, you really do need to give reviewers the option of rating a movie "0 of 10". Being required to give this movie a "1" rating, in order to post a review, has made me feel like I need to shower.

You can call this one a flop, and that's a very big one too! Quality isn't associated with the words National Lampoon, but at least the Vacation and Animal House entries were fun, but this offering has got to be their most inane feature to date that I've watched. Ugh! The three piece story crazily attempts to parody the clichés and stereotypes that flooded Hollywood genre films, which turns out to be completely unfunny and boorish dross."Growing Yourself." - Jason a corporate lawyer decides to quit his job and split up with his wife so they both can grow and do what they always wanted to do. That's life, as Jason sees it and he takes over looking after the children, but his decision to follow this path might not be the right one.Talk about leaden, boring and stiff. There only real interest is the small performance of the lovely Diane Lane. The satirical element here seems to be pointing out something than actually just delivering it. The silly humour is strained, flat and particularly senseless. Peter Riegert's keeps it very deadpan in the lead role and Teresa Ganzel bubbles along in her role."Success Wanters" - After just finishing collage Dominique Corsair gets a job as a stripper and is rape with some butter by the Dairy Company Presidents. For payback she becomes interested in the margarine industry and virtually works her way to the 'very" top.Probably the best one of the three, but the competition wasn't too great. The gags seem to want go more subtle with its sexual and power orientated tone, but still they do feel more tacky and forced. The idea had something promising and inventive to build on, but the languid pacing begins to wear thin by the end and disastrous dialogue don't do it any favours at all. The humour tries, but more often doesn't come off, despite the hunger. The seductively Ann Dusenberry is pretty cold and manipulative throughout (well after the painful ordeal) and likes to gracefully bare it all quite a bit. Even the skimpy stripper outfit seems to get full workout for the opening half of the story. Popping up in amusing minor cameos ranged from Dick Millar, Mary Woronov, Olympia Dukakis, Fred Willard, Robert Culp and a favourite turn by Joe Spinell."Municipalians" - A serial killer who leaves copies of his driver's licence behind after each murder, is being tracked down by an enthusiastically naive rookie cop and his old grizzled partner. However the young cop learns that being tough is the only way to go, when the pair encounter one situation after another.Stupid! Oh yeah. Sure if you're going to spoof something extremely over-the-top, make sure laughter will stream off it. Obviously they forgot that! Even at its 30 minutes running, boy does it drag! Robby Benson's gratingly mock performance got rather overbearing with a wearied Richard Widmark doing very little as his partner. Christopher Lloyd underplays the role of serial killer, but his creepily wry and sympathetic performance works well and pretty much shows up the other leads. Elisha Cook Jr., Rhea Perlman and Harry Reems appear. When the jokes come, they truly feel out of sync and get rather stale with its repetitiveness of making fun of these cop clichés.In all, the idiotic material laced with its skits comes across as disposable, and the unbearable script is basically inept and witless. Only one or two few gags make it out each segment, but really there's too many cheap stinkers or plain misses which stick in your head. This is because it virtually becomes what it's trying to poke fun at and this basically shows in each story. It loses sight. The performances range from hot to cold, but who can't deny the embarrassment that's felt on most of their faces. Director Bob Giraldi's first taste is a vapid one for "Growing Yourself" , but "Success Wanters" showed some minor flourishes of mild effectiveness. Henry Jaglom does a labouredly jaded job on "Municipalians" . Rick Meyerowitz's vividly crass drawings that opens the film, are neatly devised and go on to set the style and mood.This low-brow comedy flunks it by overplaying it, with the main interested being derived by the familiar cameos. But really, is it worth going through this putridly lame and restless get-up, just to spot them. Well, that's up to you.

Wow. I read about this movie and it sounded so awful that I had to see it, and my gosh, I can smell it in St Louis. Where do I start? National Lampoons was trying to follow up 5 years later on the success of Animal House, but they completely missed the mark. I'll go chronologically with these short flicks.Short Film #1 Poor Peter Riegert (Boon from Animal House). Apparently, he wasn't working back then, so the boys at National Lampoons probably called and said "hey, we're making a c**ppy movie, wanna be in it?" Peter was like "well, I'm not doing much these days, why not?" He was a great side character in Animal House, but he couldn't carry this sorry short flop for 5 minutes.POSSIBLE SPOILER The premise is funny enough, with Jason Cooper (Riegert) telling his wife to leave him, she needs to find herself. It's too weird that they're actually in a happy marriage. So he chases her off, there she goes, and Cooper is in charge of the kids. This, off course, leads to him burning the house down, losing several of the kids, and sleeping with an assortment of New York bimbos (including an ever so young Diane Lane). Then the wife comes back, wants the kids, and the film ends with a coin flip that'll decide the fate of the children. The idea was actually somewhat clever, but the director stunk. The characters all seem like they're falling asleep, they HAD to be doped up. Sorry Boon, your legacy was tarnished with this flop.Short Film #2 MORE SPOILERS Enter Dominique Corsaire. Pretty girl, recently finished college, not sure what to do with her life. So she becomes a slut, starts sleeping around with some mega rich guys, takes their money when they die, and she doesn't stop until she beds the most powerful man in the world, Fred Willard (Ooops, I mean the president of the United States). Once again, it could have been funny, and though I was happy that Corsaire (Ann Dusenberry in real life) wasn't afraid to bare all, her acting was horrible. What a waste of time.Short Film #3 I can't believe I made it this far. Here's the rookie cop Brent Falcone (Robby Benson) with veteran Stan Nagurski (Richard Widmark). Falcone is young, naive, thinks he can really help people, though he becomes cynical after being shot several thousand times. Nagurski, really, has just given up caring. He watches muggings, assaults, you name it, and never intervenes. He figures the world is lawless and he'll probably get sued if he does anything. Even Christopher Lloyd (at the end of Taxi's run) gets in on the action, getting the police called on him, committing a crime, but having his lawyer there to protect him. God bless America!!Once again, could have been funny, the performances were intentionally campy, but goodness, no energy whatsoever. Henry Jaglom and Bob Giraldi should be ashamed of having their names on this schlock. I think the writing wasn't bad, the ideas were there, but the execution was pulled off as well as the rescue attempt in the Iranian hostage crisis. If I had been a part of this film, I would want my name removed, it's horrible. Then again, that's why I watched it.The only good thing about this garbage is that Dr John did the film score (repeating "Going to the Movies" over and over again) and the film isn't much longer than an hour and a half. Show this one in film classes with the heading "what you should NEVER do in film-making." This script should have been left on the shelf because yep, it's that bad.

I chuckled a few times during this movie. I laughed out loud during the notarizing of the margarine company handover (pun intended).There are three segments in this movie. The first one is supposed to be a spoof of "woman 'grows up' and launches career" movies. The Tampax® box was the funniest thing in this segment. Most of the cast members aren't listed here on IMDb. They are the lucky ones. Few other people will be able to connect this thing to the ruin of their acting careers.The second segment is a spoof of "sharkish woman sleeps her way to the top and seizes control of huge industry" movies. Robert Culp has several funny moments, all physical humor, including the aforementioned handover. After his character dies the segment sinks lower and lower as Dominique Corsaire rises higher and higher. By the time she becomes First Lady I wanted to rip the cable out of the TV and watch "snow." I switched to Pakistani music videos instead. I don't understand Urdu, or whatever language the videos were in. It was still better than listening to the dialogue in this painfully dull "story."Then came "Municipalians" with the *big* stars, half of them on screen for less than a minute: Elisha Cook, Jr., Christopher Lloyd, Rhea Perlman, Henny Youngman, Julie Kavner, Richard Widmark and ... *Robby Benson.* It's supposed to be a spoof of "young cop teams with hardened, substance abusing older cop who needs retirement *badly*" movies. The horizontal flash bar on the police car is very impressive. It was interesting seeing old RTD buses, and a Shell gas station sign, and an American Savings sign -- none of them are around anymore. Nagurski's "Never stop anywhere you might have to get out the car" made me smile momentarily. Then they discuss how boring the young cop is. A lot. Back and forth about how boring he is. That was as boring as this description of how boring it is. Nagurski's Law Number Four, "Never go into a music store that's been cut into with an acetylene torch," made me think that the music store is a real business at the actual location the dispatcher gave. Thinking about that was more interesting than the set-up for the gag which followed. Young Falcone (Benson) gets shot. A lot. He becomes a hardened cop like Nagurski. The segment keeps going. On and on. And on. It won't stop. It rolls relentlessly onward no matter how many times you wish he'd just *die* already so this thing will end. It doesn't. It goes on and on and on.... Then a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode which I've seen four times already comes on. Thank God! This abysmal movie ended while I went to get the mail.