Raising Arizona (1987)

Raising Arizona is a hoot.

Filmmaking siblings Joel and Ethan Coen made their debut, to much critical praise, with 1984's Blood Simple.

LOTS OF LAUGHS AND PLENTY OF SLAPSTICK

Raising Arizona, their third film, could very well be the most slapstick effort from this talented duo.

H.I. McDunnough (Nicholas Cage) is a small-time thief with a penchant for holding up convenience stores and then getting quickly caught.

He takes a fancy to Edwina, 'Ed', a female police officer, who takes his mugshot after each failed hold up attempt.

McDunnough vows to reform. She leaves the force. They marry and try, repeatedly, to have a child. Edwina can't conceive. They're devastated.

NO CHILDREN, PLENTY OF CHILDREN

When they learn unpainted furniture king Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) and his wife have quintuplets, H.I. and Ed reason that's too many children for one couple. They steal one of the five boys, possibly Nathan Jr.

Their dream is finally realized, but troubles soon arrive. Deciding on a consistent story about their son is one.

When McDunnough's boss and his wife, Glen and Dot (Sam McMurray and Frances McDormand), they bring their destructive brood. Dot besieges the new parents with concerns ranging from health care to financial planning.

Add jailbirds, and brothers, Gale and Evelle Snoats (John Goodman and William Forsythe) and Leonard Smalls (Randall 'Tex' Cobb), a bounty hunter possibly from Hell, and the McDunnoughs are overwhelmed with challenges.

There's hints of the Coens remake of True Grit with poetic language from several of the characters. Besides plenty of pratfalls and frantic chases, there's plenty of great dialogue to savour in this film.

GREAT WORK FROM SUPPORTING ACTORS

Several supporting performances are top notch too including Wilson's Arizona, eager to promote his business even when his child is abducted, and McMurray's Glen, a boss with a penchant for Polish jokes and open marriages.

Raising Arizona also offers some very interesting perspectives on human emotions - from the need for love to outright greed. Many characters have a genuine affection for baby Nathan, but a $25,000 reward for the boy's return encourages greed too.

John Crowder's yodeling is a treat throughout the film's 94-minute running time. Even with all the silliness, the ending is a warm treat.

RATING: 8/10

FUN FACTS: Cage's character finds a job at Hudsucker Industries. The Coens made The Hudsucker Proxy in 1994. M. Emmet Walsh, a key actor in Blood Simple, has a small role as Cage's very talkative co-worker. Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld became a director himself helming films such as Men In Black and Addams Family.

Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)

Deathbed promises can be tricky things.

Bea Singer (Anne Bancroft) wants her son Jack (Nicholas Cage) to vow he will never marry. "No girl could love you like I could," she tells him just moments before her demise.

Jack's promise, and his day-to-day encounters with marital infidelity as a private eye, convince him to hold off from marrying his long-time girlfriend, Grade 2 teacher Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker).

PRIVATE EYE CAN'T SEE GETTING MARRIED

She's patient, to a point, but wonders if he'll ever decide to settle down. It takes an ultimatum from Betsy to finally convince Jack to take the plunge. On the spur of the moment, he decides the New York couple should fly to Las Vegas and get married.

No sooner do the couple check into Bally's (for fun, count how many references are made to the well-known Sin City hotel in the film's 92-minute running time) then Betsy catches the eye of professional gambler Tommy Korman (James Caan).

Betsy is a virtual lookalike of his dead, and much-missed, wife Donna (also played by Parker in flashbacks). Korman sets up a card came and invites Jack to attend. When the private eye loses a spectacular amount of cash and is in debt to Korman, the grieving card player offers him an out.

Let me spend a few days with Betsy and the debt is forgiven.

Here's where things get interesting.

Korman treats Betsy royally. He wants to get married and have children. These are all things Betsy wants, but Jack just can't commit himself to.

He finally takes action, including enlisting the help of a bunch of skydiving Elvises, to win his girl back.

FEW BIG LAUGHS, BUT THERE ARE GOOD ONES

For a comedy, the laughs are on the modest side. But there are about a half-dozen true laugh-out loud moments in this film. Cage is at his most amusing when he goes ballistic in his frustrated attempts to get Betsy back.

There's a running gag of a client of Singer's who's convinced his wife is having an affair with Mike Tyson that also generates some good laughs.

SOUNDTRACK BOASTS PLENTY OF PRESLEY

The soundtrack is solid, with plenty of tunes from the King of Rock and Roll himself to covers of Elvis Presley's greatest hits by major talent such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Amy Grant and Travis Tritt.

Besides Bancroft, there's also small roles of two other much-missed actors. Peter Boyle is pretty much wasted as Chief Orman, a Broadway-loving eccentric tucked away in a rundown shack. Pat Morita, from The Karate Kid and Happy Days, is taxi driver Mahi Mahi.

Honeymoon in Vegas is a rare directorial turn by Andrew Bergman. He directed six films between 1981 and 2000 ending with Isn't She Great.

Rating: 7/10

Cast: James Caan, Nicholas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pat Morita, Peter Boyle, Anne Bancroft.

FUN FACTS: Cage and Bergman reunited for It Could Happen to You. Bruno Mars, who appeared as Little Elvis, has written several songs that have appeared on the television show, Glee. Robert Kim, Oriental Elvis in Honeymoon in Vegas, appeared as Det. Steven Lim in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That film starred Parker's eventual husband, Matthew Broderick. They married in 1997. A year before Ferris Bueller's release in 1986, Parker appeared in Girls Just Want to Have Fun based on Cyndi Lauper's hit song. One of her co-stars was Helen Hunt.