Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Python Hyena Modern Problems (1981): Dir: Ken Shapiro / Cast: Chevy Chase, Patti D'Arbanville, Mary Kay Place, Dabney Coleman, Nell Carter: Innovative high strung comedy that takes average daily issues and jacks them up on steroids. Chevy Chase plays airline controller Maxwell Fiedler whose girlfriend moves out because of his jealousy issues. Central plot regards the telekinesis power he develops after some sort of toxic spill from a truck. The film fails to have fun with this and instead is reduced in a dark tone that doesn't work. Chase has fun moments where he arrives at a restaurant and cause his ex-girlfriend's date to have a massive nose bleed, or the ballet that he totally wrecks. Patti D'Arbanville plays the girlfriend whom he is trying to win back. Mary Kay Place has a nifty supporting role as Chase's ex-wife who drags him to a nightclub where he unfortunately encounters D'Arbanville with a cocky date. Dabney Coleman plays an egotistic novelist who insults Chase and makes a play for D'Arbanville to the point of disrobing casually in her presence. They all get together at a beach house where the telekinesis hits a high sending Coleman through the ceiling. Nell Carter has an idiotic role as a maid doing voodoo on Chase but to no avail. While it is not as funny as it could be and certainly misses a grand opportunity, the theme addresses stress and all other modern problems that lead to bizarre incidents. Score: 7 ½ / 10

bevkoonce-37-595793 My husband and I have loved this hilarious movie since it came out years ago! The people who gave a bad rating seemed so negative and up tight. There are so many funny scenes that are just priceless. Dabney Coleman is great. This has to be one of his classic roles. He has so many funny lines, what a character! His line "I'm a damn good looking man" is an all time favorite! Chevy is just great being Chevy. He always makes me laugh and has such a great dry sense of humor. Nell Carter as Dorita is just a charm with her voodoo. What a character! All the actors are so perfect and funny. I recommend this to everyone who likes a funny, quirky and great movie from our past! Enjoy it like we have all these years!

MetalGeek "Modern Problems" was one of those movies that got a lot of play on HBO when I was a kid in the early 80s, and since I was a big Chevy Chase fan at the time, I watched it over and over again. Nearly 30 years later, the film had all but faded from my memory except for a few random bits so when it turned up on Fox Movie Channel over the weekend I decided to give it a shot.90 minutes later I'm sitting here thinking to myself "Wow, this was pretty bad wasn't it?", and I'm not sure if the film hadn't aged well, or if it simply wasn't a very good film to begin with. All I can say is that I remember enjoying it a heck of a lot more as an easier-to-impress 12 year old.Chase plays Max, a stressed out Air Traffic Controller who's got serious relationship problems. He's recently broken up with his live-in girlfriend, and his ex-wife (Mary Kay Place), whom he apparently has kept a friendly relationship with, is now "schtupping" (that's an exact quote) an old friend of his from high school (Brian Doyle-Murray, aka Bill's brother). As if that weren't enough, a chance meeting with a leaky Nuclear Waste truck on the highway one night splatters him with radioactive goo, and he wakes up the next morning with telekinetic powers.You'd think that this would be a license to do a totally go-for-broke slapstick comedy but oddly enough very little is made of Max's newfound abilities till the film is almost over. Chase isn't his usual wild-and-wacky self either, preferring to mope around mooning over his girlfriend (Patti D'Arbanville). Eventually the dysfunctional foursome (Chase, D'arbanville, Doyle-Murray, and Place) go off to Murray's beach house to spend the weekend, joined by one of Murray's clients, an insufferable self-help author played by Dabney Coleman. Coleman is the funniest thing in the film, as his constant jabs and insults finally poke Chase's character into a full on telekinetic meltdown that can only be stopped by a voodoo ritual (?) performed by Murray's Haitian housekeeper (Nell Carter)."Modern Problems" tries to be quirky and wacky but spends most of the film falling flat on its face. It's got a decent cast and an interesting premise, but its greatest sin is that it casts a gifted comic like Chase and then tells him to be morose and unfunny for much of the run time (till he finally explodes towards the end).There are a few good bits (Chase using his power to give a guy a massive nosebleed in the middle of a swanky restaurant is a highlight, as is the entire "voodoo" scene) but otherwise "Modern Problems" isn't very "modern" anymore. Easily skippable even for hardcore Chevy Chase fans.

cdorschel then we're in serious trouble. I realize this is not to be taken seriously, but the bottom line for me: if you find others' physical pain funny, you've got some SERIOUS issues. Chevy Chase plays a pathetic, selfish, sexist, homophobic, coked-up loser who rightfully so loses his girlfriend. He's given a self-destructive gift as a vehicle for humor in the end teaching him a valuable lesson? Giving his ex-girlfriend's date a serious bloody nose?!?! Sending a ballet dancer flying across the stage and exploding his crotch?!?! THIS is supposed to make me laugh??! If anything, it demonstrates the lack of intellect and decency in American audiences. I don't find this humor humorous, even if it is a sci-fi movie. It's drenched in sexism, homophobia (bringing a gun to ward of homosexuals? nice), and seriously BAD special effects and dialog. The only thing funny now is how much make-up Patti D'Arbinville is wearing and Nell Carter's character (rest in peace Nell, but what were you thinking?). It seems to draw a fan base of anti-social heterosexual men that fantasize about killing everyone that wronged them because they're pathetic. Nice! Should have never been imagined let alone produced...