‘A Vomit Soaked Entertainment’ That Can Spark Uproarious Laughter, 1999’s ‘Guest House Paradiso’ Comes to Blu-Ray

There is, as has been said over millennia, no accounting for taste. This is especially true when it comes to comedy. Thinkers of all stripes have considered it seriously — Socrates had his doubts about comedy’s moral character; Freud thought it assuaged the psyche — but attempts to explain why people laugh at certain situations or turns-of-phrase are a fool’s errand. When someone asked Stan Laurel what was funny, he was aghast: “What is comedy? I don’t know. Does anybody?” All of which is critical rationalization for writing about “Guest House Paradiso” (1999), a limited edition Blu-ray released by Powerhouse Films. There are a lot of bells-and-whistles included in the package — outtakes, essays, interviews, a “making of” documentary, trailers, and the “original 5.1 surround sound and stereo audio tracks” — and it has also undergone a full 4K restoration. You’d think the savants at Powerhouse were releasing a paragon of the cinematic arts and not, as it’s being advertised, “a vomit soaked entertainment.”As someone who rues the prevalence of on-screen vomiting in mainstream movies and television shows, I don’t consider this a strong selling point. Yes, I know, the picture’s screenwriters and stars, Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall, were paying homage to such precedents as “The Exorcist” (1973) and the Mr. Creosote portion of “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life” (1983). And, yeah, the whole point of the vomit-abundant denouement is its unapologetic gratuitousness. Still, a bit much is a bit much.Having said that, I laughed uproariously throughout “Guest House Paradiso” — an indicator that the picture is, I insist, worthy of aesthetic delectation. As a product of the human imagination, the movie was crafted by stellar hands. Production designer Tom Brown finished “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) before working on the film, and performed similar duties on the recent “Dune” pictures. Composer Colin Towns is no slouch, having written a raft of music for British television, including programs like “The World of Peter Rabbit” and “The Wind in the Willows.”Adrian Edmondson in ‘Guest House Paradiso’ (1999). Via Powerhouse FilmsCinematographer Alan Almond draped the entirety of “Guest House Paradiso” in the gauzy golden light of the films on which the title makes hay, “Hotel Paradiso” (1966) and “Cinema Paradiso” (1988). Editor Sean Barton propels the action with a nuanced touch for comedy, keeping the rhythms simultaneously sharp and light, and does a better job here than on “Return of the Jedi” (1983). As for supporting actor Simon Pegg: He went on to co-create “Shaun of the Dead” (2004) and became a mainstay of franchise properties like “Star Trek” and “Mission Impossible.”Yet what an egregious picture this is, what a triumph of scatalogical hijinkery and slap-happy hyperbole. Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall were part of the team that achieved a synthesis of the Three Stooges, “Fawlty Towers,” and the Sex Pistols in a cult BBC comedy series, “The Young Ones.” Mr. Edmondson and Mayall, who died in 2014 at age 56, had previously been performing together as The Dangerous Brothers. Their “violently unhinged” comedy eventually resulted in their own series, “Bottom.”Whereupon stems “Guest House Paradiso,” though we should be thankful the pair’s television characters, Eddie Elizabeth Hitler and Richard “Richie” Richard, underwent changes of name. Actually, the name of Mayall’s hotelier is now a Britishism that can’t be published in a family newspaper. The mispronunciation of said appellation is a running gag throughout the picture. Leery as I am to admit it, the joke never stales. The thunderingly obvious can be its own reward.Our two stars run a dilapidated rooming establishment just down the road from a nuclear power plant. The former is, for all intents and purposes, a haunted house; the latter, a futuristic monolith circa-1957. Guests arrive, suffer the ministrations of our heroes, and, well, that’s about it. There’s a plot strand involving Italian movie starlet Gina Tortellini Carbonara (Hélène Mahieu, stunning and game-as-can-be), but the main point is to watch Mayall navigate his duties while wearing an oversized pair of rubberized, sea anemone-like underwear.Then there are the radioactive fish, the ever-tipsy Ms. Hardy (Kate Ashfield), and Bill Nighy as a disgruntled guest. So, yeah, a blanket recommendation is difficult for “Guest House Paradiso.” But if you like your comedy dotty and with a dash of grand guignol, this unflagging picture will tickle, smack, and otherwise flagellate your funny bone.

‘A Vomit Soaked Entertainment’ That Can Spark Uproarious Laughter, 1999’s ‘Guest House Paradiso’ Comes to Blu-Ray

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