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Coneheads (film)

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Coneheads
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySteve Barron
Screenplay byTom Davis
Dan Aykroyd
Bonnie Turner
Terry Turner
Based onConeheads sketches from Saturday Night Live
by Lorne Michaels
Produced byLorne Michaels
Starring
CinematographyFrancis Kenny
Edited byPaul Trejo
Music byDavid Newman
Production
companies
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • July 23, 1993 (1993-07-23)
Running time
87 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$30 million
Box office$21.3 million[2]

Coneheads is a 1993 American science-fiction comedy film from Paramount Pictures, produced by Lorne Michaels, directed by Steve Barron, and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Michelle Burke. The film is based on the NBC Saturday Night Live comedy sketches about aliens stranded on Earth, who have Anglicized their Remulakian surname to "Conehead". Michelle Burke took over the role played by Laraine Newman on SNL. The film also features roles and cameos by actors and comedians from SNL and other television series of the time.

Three years after the release of Coneheads, screenwriters Bonnie & Terry Turner and star Jane Curtin revisited the premise of aliens arriving on Earth and assimilating into American society with the TV show 3rd Rock from the Sun, with Curtin instead playing a human character.

Plot

[edit]

Upon discovering a UFO in American airspace, the National Guard sends fighter jets to investigate, who fire on the unresponsive craft and cause it to crash into the Atlantic Ocean, near Manhattan. The aliens from the planet Remulak aboard, Beldar and his wife Prymaat, survive. Assigned by Highmaster Mintot, Beldar was to conquer the earth for Planet Remulak. Beldar becomes an appliance repairman, and upon discovering his undocumented status, his boss Otto gets him a false identity from local gangsters, which quickly alerts the INS. Ambitious INS agent Gorman Seedling and his sycophantic assistant Eli Turnbull unsuccessfully attempt to capture the couple. Prymaat informs Beldar she is pregnant. The Coneheads are informed that a rescue ship will not be arriving for many years, and despite their odd appearance and metallic voices, attempt to blend in to human society. Beldar and Prymaat save a lot of money by moving to the suburbs.

After their daughter Connie's birth, they adopt the surname Conehead and buy a home and move to suburban Paramus, New Jersey, where Beldar opens a driving school. Meanwhile, Gorman terminates his pursuit of the Coneheads after getting a promotion, but a U.S. Senate inquiry, citing the heavy expense, demands the case be properly concluded.

The now-teenaged Connie, who has grown up among Earth's norms and culture, simply wants to fit in with her peers, though her father greatly objects, especially when she begins seeing auto mechanic Ronnie Bradford.

Gorman and Eli track the Coneheads to their home, posing as Jehovah's Witnesses to enter. During the conversation, Prymaat discovers their communication device to Remulak is beeping and notifies Beldar that 'the Big Phone' has contacted him, causing him to promptly eject the two. He is then notified of their approaching rescue vessel.

After Connie is told of their imminent rescue, she informs her parents she wants to stay on earth with Ronnie. The INS arrives to arrest the Coneheads. Ronnie helps stall the agents while the rescue vessel arrives just in time, and Gorman and Eli are taken aboard with the Coneheads.

On Remulak, Beldar is welcomed home, presenting the Highmaster with various Earthly 'gifts', including Gorman and Eli as slaves. Initially satisfied with Beldar's accomplishments, Mintot notices that Beldar's sharp teeth have been capped (something Otto had advised Beldar to do to blend in), accuses him of treason and sentences him to fight the ferocious Garthok, greatly distressing Prymaat.

After the Garthok easily and gruesomely kills other condemned criminals, Beldar uses his Earthly golfing skills to hit a rock into the Garthok's mouth, causing it to choke. The Highmaster pardons Beldar and honors Beldar's request to return to Earth and have Gorman as his slave. Eli stays behind and becomes Mintot's new flunky. Departing for Earth with Prymaat, Connie, and Gorman in tow, Beldar soon prioritizes Connie's feelings over planetary conquest by faking an Earth attack, ordering his invasion force to retreat and proceed to their secondary target in another part of the galaxy, while making it look like a superior weapon has destroyed his spaceship. For rescuing him, Gorman agrees to give the Coneheads Green Cards. The Conehead family settles down to a happy life on their adopted planet.

Cast

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In addition to Jane Curtin appearing as a regular cast member, Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman, Julia Sweeney, Kevin Nealon, and Laraine Newman all appeared as guest stars on 3rd Rock from the Sun, which was created by Coneheads co-writers Bonnie and Terry Turner and featured a similar premise of aliens making efforts to assimilate into American society. Additionally, co-writer Terry Turner cameos in the film as the sketch artist that Seedling describes Beldar to.

Production

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Tom Davis, who created the characters on Saturday Night Live, wrote the first version of the screenplay. He was unhappy with choices made by the producers, including setting the Remulak scenes in a gladiators' arena, rather than the suburban environment that he envisioned.[3]

While there are some differences, Coneheads mostly follows the same plot as in the animated special that was created ten years earlier. Similarities include the Coneheads being stranded on Earth, Beldar working as an appliance repair man, and Connie dating an earthling named Ronnie.

The film mostly takes place in Paramus, New Jersey. Some scenes were filmed in New York City and the New Jersey towns of Jersey City and Wrightstown.

Reception

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The film debuted at No. 6 on its opening weekend, while its domestic box office grossed $7,100,501.[4] By the end of its domestic theatrical run, the film had grossed $21,274,717.[2]

Coneheads received generally negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a low score of 35%, based on 31 reviews with a consensus that reads, "Listless, crude, and overall uninspired, Coneheads offers further evidence that stretching an SNL sketch to feature length can be tougher than narfling a garthok."[5] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[6] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+" on scale of A+ to F.[7]

Roger Ebert gave the film 1+1⁄2 stars out of 4, describing Coneheads as "dismal, dreary and fairly desperate" and the actors as unable to overcome an uninspired screenplay.[8] Janet Maslin of The New York Times said the film "has its dopey charms", and that it is suitable for people who found Wayne's World too demanding.[9]

The Los Angeles Times called it "an unusually companionable jape; in this world it makes perfect sense that the Coneheads' friends and neighbors never really register that there's anything terribly different about them. They're all-American eccentrics—even if they happen to come from the planet Remulak".[10]

The film received some critical re-evaluation during the 2010s, with multiple writers noting its satirical take on an immigrant family experience and immigration enforcement (meant as an exaggeration of Reagan-era politics) became eerily politically relevant following the September 11 attacks.[11][12]

Soundtrack

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Coneheads: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by
Various Artists
ReleasedJuly 20, 1993 (1993-07-20)
Recorded1992–1993
GenreSoundtrack
Length43:27
LabelWarner Bros. Records
ProducerVarious Artists
Singles from Coneheads: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
  1. "Soul to Squeeze"
    Released: August 19, 1993
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic link
Music Week[13]

The soundtrack for Coneheads was released on July 20, 1993, by Warner Bros. Records. It features the songs "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell, "It's a Free World, Baby" by R.E.M. and "Soul to Squeeze" by the band Red Hot Chili Peppers which would go on to reach 22 on the US Billboard Hot 100.[14] The album itself would peak at 162 on the US Billboard 200 chart.[15]

Track listing

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No.TitlePerformed byLength
1."Magic Carpet Ride" (originally performed by Steppenwolf)Michael Monroe and Slash3:40
2."Tainted Love"Soft Cell2:42
3."No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (originally performed by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer)Andy Bell and k.d. lang3:51
4."Kodachrome"Paul Simon3:30
5."Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (originally performed by Frankie Valli)Morten Harket3:43
6."It's a Free World, Baby"R.E.M.5:12
7."Soul to Squeeze"Red Hot Chili Peppers4:52
8."Fight the Power" (originally performed by Public Enemy)Barenaked Ladies4:05
9."Little Renee"Digable Planets3:22
10."Chale Jao"Babble4:10
11."Conehead Love featuring Beldar and Prymaat"Nan Schaefer, Bruce Gowdy, and Peter Aykroyd4:05
Total length:43:27

None of David Newman's score was included on the above album, but it was issued on a 2015 Intrada album paired with his scores for Talent for the Game and Itsy Bitsy Spider.[16]

References

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  1. ^ "CONEHEADS (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on June 15, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  2. ^ a b Coneheads at Box Office Mojo
  3. ^ Davis, Tom (2010). Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There. Grove Atlantic. p. 222. ISBN 9781555849160.
  4. ^ Fox, David J. (July 27, 1993). "Weekend Box Office : 'Poetic' Finds Its Place in Line". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
  5. ^ "Coneheads (1993)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on September 22, 2022. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  6. ^ "Coneheads". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
  7. ^ "Cinemascore". Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
  8. ^ Ebert, Roger (July 23, 1993). "Coneheads". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013. Retrieved December 1, 2012.
  9. ^ Maslin, Janet (July 23, 1993). "Review/Film; They're From Another Planet (Another Medium, Actually)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
  10. ^ Rainer, Peter (July 23, 1993). "Movie Reviews : 'Coneheads': 1-Note Joke With Legs". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  11. ^ Bahr, Robin (November 28, 2017). "Does 'Coneheads' Actually Suck?". Vice. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  12. ^ Etheridge, Steve (June 24, 2011). "The Coneheads Prophesy: How a Kind of Crappy Movie Predicted the Future of America and Ripened Into Relevancy". Vulture. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  13. ^ Jones, Alan (August 28, 1993). "Market Preview: Mainstream - Albums" (PDF). Music Week. p. 19. Retrieved January 30, 2023.
  14. ^ "Red Hot Chili Peppers - Chart history - Billboard". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 24, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  15. ^ "Original Soundtrack Coneheads". AllMusic. Archived from the original on November 20, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  16. ^ "CONEHEADS / TALENT FOR THE GAME / THE ITSY BITSY SPIDER". store.intrada.com. Archived from the original on December 24, 2016. Retrieved December 24, 2016.
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