Blast From the Past

Dir: Hugh Wilson, 1999 (8.9*)

This fish out of water tale is one of the funniest recent comedies. Christopher Walken plays a paranoid, right-wing suburban dad who expects the Russkies to nuke us at any minute so he has a fully loaded state-of-the-art nuclear fallout shelter built beneath his house with supplies for the 35 years he calculates will be necessary to ride out the nuclear winter, and due to an accident (during the Cuban missile crisis), he seals in himself and pregnant wife Cissy Spacek, who puts up with all this with the quiet patience of a proper 50's wife, and after the 35 yrs are up, afraid of what they'll find, Walken discovers a world "populated by hideous mutant humanoids", so he decides to stay holed up, sending now grownup son Brendan Frasier out for supplies and a wife, armed with some baseball cards, shares of IBM stock, a love for Perry Como - well, you get the picture. Alicia Silverstone is attracted to his nerdy but trusting personality and takes him under her wing, not sure where he really came from. Refreshing, original and very funny, has a 40's Capra quality to it, rare these days.