Cheap Odd Jobs (Video) (Mark Story) Price

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Customer Reviews of Odd Jobs

If you like Monty Python, this movie is for you!
If your sense of humor leans toward Monty Pythonesque silliness, this movie is for you. Its amazing that most people have never even heard of this movie, when it is insanely funny. Previous reviews have already covered the cast and story, so suffice it to say that this is one of the funniest movies produced in the 80's. So many classic lines and gags from this movie can be quoted, and its worth watching several times in order to memorize them. My favorites: <
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>"Whatcha got there, ROOOOOOOOOOY?" <
>"You needs a MAN'S name......like Chuck." <
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>and that all-time classic: <
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>"Where are you....Knucklebeak?" <
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Lame with one or two decent gags
This is a pretty lame comedy, though it contains a few moments of freshly outrageous humor, such as a guy going door-to-door selling "nuclear vacume cleaners," one of which he explodes as we see newsreel footage of a mushroom cloud. The plot, such as it is, involves a young, eighties-coiffed Paul Reiser and a group of other misfits getting summer jobs after college. Most of these involve outlandish, disgusting weirdoes as bosses, and the boys soon get fed up and start their own moving company. All the while Reiser tries to get back with his old girlfriend, which he could accomplish in two seconds if he ever just sat down and talked to her but instead it somehow takes a whole movie to happen. The movie is loosely narrated by the guys as they look back in retrospect, though this device is merely a means for them to forcedly transition between the rather jumpy scenes. Too much of the film's humor relies of things being merely bizarre rather than actually funny, and the characters are stock misfits who aren't especially likeable. Good for a rainy afternoon, but that's about it.

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Underrated comedy...RELEASE IT ON DVD!!!
This video came out in theatres in January 1985, but only made it to video in 1999...and is YET to be released on DVD. This situation needs to be fixed and SOON!

On to the review. First, the cast list...a very young Paul Reiser, Robert Townshend, Julianne Phillips, Rick Overton, Richard Dean Anderson (McGyver!), Scott McGinnis and Paul Provenza. A great collection of comics and actors that seem to keep popping up in TV/Movies pretty frequently.

The movie is about a group of college buddies and what they're going to do over the summer, namely work. They start out as waiters, caddies, nuclear vacuum cleaner salesman, and movers. Of course, all of these fall apart and Max (Reiser) decides to start his own business...Maximum Moving ("Max...M-A-X...that's me..."). Max learns a little about life and moving from Wylie (Leo Burmeister), who decides that Max is a "tutti-frutti" name and states, "From now on, your name is CHUCK". Max hits the road with Wylie while working for Cabrizzi Bros moving, a company who doubles as a car theft ring. Once Max and his buddies go into business for themselves and steal some of the Cabrizzi's business, things get destroyed in short order.

The story is okay. The scenes along the way are hilarious. Some of the highlights:

--Woody isn't called Woody because of the toothpick

--Bryon lives with Dwight (Townshend) and decides he wants to fit in by talking about his parents "serious crib", grits that are actually Rice Crispies "snap crackle and pop rockin in my bowl...they spinnin on their heads". Then dons an afro wig at the dinner table.

--Dwight and Bryon work as caddies and insist an extremely elderly man who whiffs on a tee shot and throws his club through several car windows "...really has his sh** together"

--Roy visits a backwoods redneck family to sell them the Monty 2000, a nuclear vacumm cleaner. This is easily the funniest scene from the movie, a classic!

--Any scene with Wylie trying to "make Max a man!"

--Any moving scene with that "Body by Jake" guy...one in particular where he's moving a desk and pushing Max along with it..."heeeeeey, you're a pretty strong guy...you lift weights?"

Those are the highlights that I can recall off the top of my head after watching this movie dozens of times. This is one that you and your friends will revisit over and over...many of my college buddies still call each other "Chuck" because of this movie.

One more time. PUT THE DAMN THING OUT ON DVD ALREADY!