TheRetroCritic

Released in 1981, Modern Problems is an off-beat comedy starring Chevy Chase as a loser air traffic controller who is dumped by his girlfriend then somehow gets covered in nuclear waste which leads to him acquiring telekinetic powers, for some reason. Chevy Chase is a comedian who could easily elevate silly or potentially bland roles to something special. While his movie career has stumbled since the late 90's, probably at least partly due to him having a bad rep with his peers and being apparently difficult to work with, he remains one of the most reliable comedy actors out there. It's a shame, then, that Modern Problems is not a better film. Made when Chase was near the peak of his career, it not only failed to capture the actor's comedic talents but failed to tell a funny, or at least entertaining, story. The concept, while random, could have translated into a really fun movie: Chevy Chase has superpowers, he uses them in silly ways, goes too far, has to redeem him

Review of the Chevy Chase comedy Modern Problems .

The only film directed by Dan Aykroyd to date, Nothing But Trouble was a dark comedy from 1991 which starred Chevy Chase as a businessman who is arrested for speeding then put on trial in the trash and weirdo-filled little town of Valkenvania, just off the New Jersey Turnpike. With a cast that includes John Candy, Demi Moore, Taylor Negron and Dan Aykroyd himself, Nothing But Trouble looked like a safe bet and its goofy plot had lots of potential. Unfortunately, the film was a massive flop, gathering only about $8M against a healthy budget of $40M, and the critics did not go easy on it. Nothing But Trouble was panned by everyone back in the day, including Chevy Chase himself, it was nominated for several Razzie awards and Dan Aykroyd would never dare direct a film again afterwards. Looking back, the movie's failure at the box-office is hardly surprising: sinking this much money into a story this bizarre was never going to deliver. The film itself, on the other hand, isn't

After two disastrous holidays, The Griswolds came back for yet another in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation , a 1989 sequel in which Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen Griswold (Beverly D'Angelo) attempt to host a Christmas dinner with the whole family. As ever, whatever Clark touches turns to catastrophe and every step of the way his plans are plagued by his own incompetence or just plain bad luck. Whether it's finding a suitable Christmas tree, checking out the attic, setting up Christmas lights or simply driving on the road, there's always a crash, a fall or an explosion around the corner. Written and produced by John Hughes, the film is right off the bat much better than its predecessor National Lampoon's European Vacation which looked cheap and was basically one stereotype after another with some cameos thrown in. Here, the premise is simple but the gags all pay off as Hughes imagines every single thing that could possibly go wrong on Christmas Eve and mak

Chevy Chase stars in this 1988 comedy about a sports writer who moves to the country with his wife (Madolyn Smith) in the hope of starting a new life away from the city as a novelist. What follows is kind of a cross between National Lampoon's Vacation and The Money Pit . As soon as they settle into their new house, they are met with all sorts of bizarre problems: a mailman who throws letters out of a moving car, a body buried in the flowerbed, a coin-operated phone inside the house that isn't there, a dog that never stops running. Add to that Chase's overeager attempts to fit in with the inhabitants of the small town close by which, of course, backfire in a big way and his failure to meet his deadline writing-wise and you've got yourself a fun set-up for a screwball comedy. The first two-thirds of the movie are exactly what you'd expect with Chase slowly but surely losing patience with the new life he's chosen and starting to act nutty. Then the film tak

Spies Like Us looked set to become one of the biggest comedy hits out there back in the day: you had Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase in the leads, John Landis directing and a promising plot about two idiots promoted to go out on the field as spies in order to serve as a distraction for a real mission. Despite mostly cold reviews from critics at the time, the film eventually gained something of a cult following and, although I do personally like the movie, I could definitely see why people might not like it. First off, it's very hit-and-miss. It's the kind of comedy where you basically know what joke characters are building up to like 5 minutes before the actual joke happens and when it does, there's no real surprise. It doesn't help that some of the jokes in the movie last forever. A classic Marx Brothers-style one involving a bunch of people saying "doctor" to each other (a lot) takes a while to conclude, as does one in which Chevy Chase's character att