Life Stinks

Life stinks--and if by "life" you mean this movie, then here indeed is truth in advertising. Mel Brooks totally missed the boat with this attempt at a comedy about life in the greedy Reagan years. He plays a heartless tycoon who bets that he could easily survive for a month on the streets of L.A. without a penny to his name, and then gets tricked out of his fortune. He winds up learning how the other half lives and it isn't funny. Literally. Watching this film, it's hard to believe it was made by the same man who wrote and directed The Producers. What does it tell you that this film was loved in France? --Marshall Fine