Alphabetical Movie – Innerspace

Every generation has at least one comedian who ends up being popular in films in spite of the fact that they are almost universally despised.  Or so it would seem.

Take Martin Short, who stars in Innerspace.  At the time the film came out, he was a fairly popular comedian and most of the people I knew could never figure out why.  His spastic characters grew tiresome very quickly and while he had the likable nerd thing going on, Rick Moranis did it way better.

Yet he kept making movies and they did well enough for him to keep making more movies.  He was never a big star but I questioned why he was any sort of star at all.

It’s kind of like Rob Schneider.  Does anyone like Rob Schneider?   It isn’t just that he stars in terribly unfunny films.  No, it’s that his presence as a supporting character in films that are funny make them less funny.

Comparing Short to Schneider is unfair, though.  Short didn’t ruin films with his presence.  I just him tiring.

Innserspace succeeds, at least in part, because it tempers Short’s traditional character.  It forces him to play things a little more reserved (most of the time) and as a result, most of the stuff that annoyed me about his acting didn’t annoy me as much.

Man do I wish Rob Schneider would do that.  Just once.

I’m not asking for an Adam Sandler Punch Drunk Love moment but something similar would be most appreciated.

Not really.  Anything that would give Schneider some sort of legitimacy is not OK in my book.  He’d probably end up making another Deuce Bigalow movie and none of us need that.

At this point, I think the most annoying thing about Martin Short is that he’s making me think of Schneider.

Short hasn’t done much lately of note.  He sort of faded after the late 80’s/early 90’s.  The most recent film I remember him ruining was Treasure Planet.

I mean, the film was kind of a mess from the get-go but when Short’s insane robot turns up, things go dramatically south.  He seems to be trying to channel Robin Williams’ performance in Aladdin but he forgets that he’s not Robin Williams.

I’m hard on Short and it isn’t really fair.  It’s not his fault that I don’t like him as a comedian.  I never liked Rodney Dangerfield either but I don’t consider his presence in Caddyshack to be a problem.

And for every person like me who hated him in Treasure Planet, there is someone who hated Robin Williams in Aladdin.

Comedy is very personal.  We all have comedians that make us laugh and comedians that just don’t.  Our tendency is to blame the comedian when the plain fact that people are laughing at them would suggest the problem is within ourselves.

Not that it is even a problem. I never found Martin Short funny.  So what?  A lot of other people did.  That’s why he could keep making movies.  That’s why Adam Sandler and Robin Williams and Jerry Lewis and Rob Schneider were all able to make a lot of movies.  Somebody thought they were funny.

Except for Schneider.  Nobody thinks he’s funny.  I have no idea what the fuck that’s about.