Bill Slocum A weak movie that celebrates weak movies, "It Came From Hollywood" presents clips from more than a half-century of movies, most bad, some not, presented in the form of themes hosted by popular comedians of the day.Sometimes, the result is amusing. Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy Chong work their stoner screen personas to solid effect watching clips of famous drug cautionary films like "Reefer Madness." I don't care for Cheech & Chong generally but found their work here entertaining in a low-burn way.A clip from the Ed Wood classic "Plan Nine From Outer Space" features Dudley Manlove pondering an attack on mankind: "As long as these humans think, we'll have our problems."Cut to Chong at the ticket window: "I want my money back." Alas, that's as much as I can offer in the way of positive comment about the interstitial sketches which make up the original content in this film. That's a shame because I am a fan of both Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner from their "Saturday Night Live" heyday and John Candy of SCTV. They make up the other three players introducing the recycled content here. Seeing Gilda and Danny relive their small- screen glories playing SNL characters like Judy Miller and a short- fused detective should be more fun than it is.Some reviewers here see a connection between "It Came From Hollywood" and "Mystery Science Theater 3000," which ran bad movies over caustic commentary that was often funny. But the blog Dead 2 Rights has it right: This is a cracked remake of films of the prior decade like "That's Entertainment." Producer-directors Andrew Solt and Malcolm Leo are out for cheap yuks.Instead of overblown reverence, you get easy scorn for silly B- movies about rampaging gorillas and brains that fly around and attack people."C'mon, honey, you want it and you know it," Aykroyd says over footage of a woman being jumped by a brain in "Fiend Without A Face." "Don't be a brainteaser."Chuckles do come, but never develop into anything more, the way they so often did on MST3K with their zany sketches and running gags. The clips are more interesting for curiosity value, like a chance to see Rosey Grier try to sell the idea of having Ray Milland's head attached to his body in "The Thing With Two Heads.""This picture started the black street fad of wearing middle-aged white men," Aykroyd explains.The inclusion of clips from classic films like "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and good genre flicks like "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" is annoying, though, as are any of the sequences featuring Radner, as lost here as she did in any other movie she made."The movie theaters just show scary monster movies so you drop all your popcorn and candy on the floor and they put in back in the boxes and resell it," she explains as her Judy Miller character.A decent sequence showcases two Ed Wood films, "Plan Nine" and "Glen Or Glenda?" It's hosted by Candy, who makes the fair point that it's hard to make a movie when there's no budget. If the rest of the film followed this more explanatory approach, rather than generally commenting on the weak plots and overacting, it could be worth your time.To be fair, "It Came From Hollywood" came from 1982, the year of David Letterman's late-night debut when snarky irony became suddenly fashionable. Snarky irony is mostly what you get here, and while it works at times, it isn't enough to make it that interesting.

mark.waltz Consider this science fiction movie history 101, not quite in the serious vein as "Watch the Skies!", the more professional and non-sarcastic documentary aired on TCM about 10 years ago. Then consider the fact that the narrators of this are all veterans of the original company of "Saturday Night Live" with "STV's" John Candy thrown in for good measure. In order to understand the cult following of such deliciously bad science fiction movies as "It Conquered the World" and "Plan Nine From Outer Space", you also need to be able to compare it to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "War of the Worlds". Great time and artistic effort was put into creating those masterpieces which stand the test of time, while the others stand the test of time because they are so delightfully silly you can't help but turn them into comedy classics that just happen to involve outer space creatures.Then, there's killer trees, wobbling rocks that manage to crush their victims even though they stroll around on turtle time while human beings can certainly outrun them (if they would only stop wasting their time trying to shoot them!), white furred apes, creatures from the sea that look like they are trying to break the Coney Island record for eating hot dogs and various other inhuman beings that can't remotely compare with the artistic talents which went into making "The Creature From the Black Lagoon". Giant turkeys, leeches, lizards, insects and even vegetables pounced up on our drive-in movie theater screens, making the giant ants of "Them!" and tarantulas seem like classics, much like the original "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" were 25-30 years before most of these movies were made.The funny thing about these bad movies is the fact that once you get past the idiotic subplots, you really find yourself enjoying them. They are extremely clever in their own inept way, maybe unintentionally, but some filmmakers must have known that their subject matter and monsters were ripe for ridicule. Some of these films make Ed Wood's notoriously bad turkeys step up a notch. I guess you could say that there's an art to making bad movies. Some of the narration here truly is bad, but it will be the film clips that you'll want to experience here, not the dumb quips from the original not ready for prime time players.Two specialty segments cover "teens gone wild" and the bad musicals of the golden age of Hollywood. Certainly, the teens gone wild segment is truly funny, totally reminding me of the Lois Bromfield spoof, "Sorority Girls From Hell", but it is the musical sequence narrated by Gilda Radner which struck my interest. Main-stream movies such as "Sunny Side Up" and "Wonder Bar" get included with two truly campy production numbers. The "Sunny Side Up" number, "Turn on the heat!", shows dancing girls making bananas grow on the vine just by wiggling their chests at them, while "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule" strikes controversy today with its depiction of blacks in a small section of heaven (the white section is three times as large) eating pork chops right off the tree, plucking chickens and frying them, and most tastelessly, a giant watermelon which opens and has a tap-dancing Hal LeRoy in black face popping out. Other musical segments aren't really from musicals; One of them is actually from an MGM Technicolor short from the mid 1930's, and the rest are silly brief song interludes from some of the worst Z grade adventures ever filmed. So the film is a mixed bag of clips, but there is something here for everybody to enjoy and it might inspire future filmmakers to go out and research these films to try new ideas of their own.

vampi1960 It came from Hollywood features clips from some of the best b movies ever featuring;plan 9 from outer space,attack of the 50 foot woman,the killer shrews,glen or Glenda,son of Godzilla,the thing with two heads, Frankenstein meets the space monster,horror of party beach,and much more.but some of the movie clips shown are a list movies like day the earth stood still,war of the worlds,and the incredible shrinking man. hosted in segments by;Gilda radner,Dan ackroyd,john candy,and cheech and chong(they host getting high in the movies)its a fine hodgepodge of classic movie clips.it was put together very well and hopefully soon they will release this to DVD.i remember them showing this in place of Saturday night live once and they chopped it up.the getting high segment was missing of course and the racy clip from sunny side up with AL Jolson in black face was snipped.if you never seen this and you love Hollywood's b movies and some a list movies you will enjoy it came from Hollywood.and like john candy says in the beginning there's dirty parts too,not really its pg rated and there's no nude scenes.some adult language but thats it.bevare of the scene from glen or Glenda with bela Lugosi its a trip.some of the other films are i married a monster from outer space,mars needs women,amazing colossal man,cyclops,crawling eye,the manster,incredible melting man,attack of the mushroom people,Santa Claus vs the martians(with Pia zadora)beginning of the end,the giant claw,reefer madness,marijuana,and many others i didn't list.i recommend it came from Hollywood.its fun and its funny.10 out of 10.

Brian Washington This film still has me rolling whenever I see it. This film not only makes fun of the grade Z stinkers, but in it's on weird way, pays tribute to these films at the same time. The only problem I have with it is the fact that it includes two classic sci-fi films, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and "War of the Worlds". Other than that this is one funny film, especially Cheech and Chong's look at the anti-drug films like "Reefer Madness" and "High School Confidential".