The Caiman/Il Caimano (2006) - Moretti's unfunny political comedy - strictly for Italians

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The unexciting poster for Nanni Moretti's The Caiman

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Il Caimano is the title of a film script that our aging producer protagonist takes on as a new project, which, however, comes apart, more or less as his marriage, as he learns that the film is really about Italian political leader Silvio Berlusconi.

Unfortunately for The Caiman, the movie in the movie is considerably more interesting than the low-spirited, far-fetched, politically spongy, unimpassioned, mostly unfunny film that co-writer/director Nanni Moretti (We Have a Pope/Habemus Papam (2011)) has created around it. It is marred by ugly photography, bad music and unexciting characters and conflicts. The Caiman is a fairly poor parody of the depressing situation of things in Italy, back in 2006.

Michele Placido in the middle as the Silvio Berlusconi-sculpted character in Nanni Moretti's The Caiman

Watch the terrible trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 6.7 mil. € (Italy only)
= Uncertainty
[But most likely a minor hit. The film was shown in Cannes and premiered in Italy around the beginning of their 2006 election, in which Berlusconi lost. It was one of the biggest hits in Italy in 2006. In France, 202k people paid admission.]

What do you think of The Caiman?

2001: A Space Travesty (2000, video) - Nielsen and Goldstein's sci-fi spoof flop

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The undeniably silly-looking but also worryingly inept poster for Allan A. Goldstein's 2001: A Space Travesty

A clone of Bill Clinton has taken over the governing of the United States of America, and agent Dick Dix has to solve this by bringing back the real Clinton from his imprisonment on the Moon.

Travesty has little to do with Stanley Kubrick's (The Shining (1980)) science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which the title parodies, and it is populated with b-actors in c- and d-material, incomprehensible gags and embarrassing 'comedy'. The only remedy in the SF spoof/farce is Leslie Nielsen (Airplane! (1980)), the wonderful Danish/Welsh/Canadian actor turned comedian.
Brooklyn-born director Allan A. Goldstein (Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)) is a fringe director if there ever was one.The film is scripted (poorly) by Italian Vince Di Clemente (The Lost World (1998), additional dialogue) and Alan Shearman (The Shrimp on the Barbie (1990)).
2001: A Space Travesty is not worth writing home about. A film mostly for Nielsen completists.

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Mentioned film: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or, Humanity and Space

Watch Leslie Nielsen enter space in this 4-minute clip from the film

Cost: Estimated 26-45 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (likely a mega-flop)
[2001: A Space Travesty premiered 31 October (Tokyo, Japan) and runs 99 minutes. It was shot from July - September 1999. It wasn't released theatrically in many countries, including the US, where it was rolled out direct-to-video. Nielsen himself allegedly called his experience on the film, "the worst experience I have ever had." The film must have been a huge commercial bomb as well, although without any numbers, it is impossible to say just how big of a flop it really was. Goldstein returned with One Way Out (2002, video) and theatrically with Pact with the Devil (2004). Nielsen returned in The Wonderful World of Disney (2000, TV-series), Pumper Pups (2000, TV-series) and theatrically in Camouflage (2001). 10,797 Rotten Tomatoes users have given 2001: A Space Travesty an average rating of 2.2/5.]

What do you think of 2001: A Space Travesty?