Copper Mountain

If you go to Wal-Mart you have seen them. Big bins FULL of DVDs for $5.50.
$5.50! For those wanting to stretch their entertainment dollar, this is hard to pass up.

Inside the bin you will find several kinds of movies:

Studio films: A small portion of this bin consists of studio films that the studios decided to price low to boost sales. Titles such as 'The Truth about Cats and Dogs' and 'Elvira: Mistress of the Dark' are often in the bin.

Old public domain films: These are films where the owner decided not to pay to keep ownership of the film. These poor shortsighted souls never envisioned the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart.
On this front, I have purchased a 2 disc set of 10 different Roy Rogers' westerns from this bin.

God awful films that aren't worth $5.50: This is the type of film 'Copper Mountain' is.

'Copper Mountain' caught my eye because of the giant picture of Jim Carrey on the cover. I am a fan of Jim Carrey and have been since I saw him on 'In Living Color'. How could it be that I did not know of 'Copper Mountain'?

I assumed that that on this disk was the greatest Jim Carrey film ever made. An Ace Ventura on skis. To confirm my assumption was the two words below Jim Carrey: ALAN THICKE.

Alan Thicke.

The almighty 'King of Television', recognized by all as 'The World's Greatest Entertainer'.

ALAN THICKE stands at 6'2" but he might as well be 8 feet tall as he stands head and shoulders above everyone else in show business.

Who can forget his legendary films and TV shows? Or his multi platinum music career with such hits as 'Your Pal Alan' and 'Thicke of You'? Or the best selling line of action figures including 'Thicke on a Stick' the number two selling toy of all time after the Rubik's Cube.

Yes, Thicke and Carrey are such a formidable duo that 'Copper Mountain' should have been the greatest thing since sliced bread (or at least the greatest Alan Thicke film since his 1998 film 'Alan Thicke Slices Bread'.)

Once I started the film, I realized I was wrong. 'Copper Mountain' may be the WORST film I have ever seen. With a running time of less than 60 minutes, I am not sure it even qualifies as a film.

But, whatever 'Copper Mountain' is, it is the worst one of those I have ever seen!

The film starts out grainy and poorly shot. We see Jim Carrey and Alan Thicke arrive at a beautiful ski lodge. Within minutes Thicke is putting the moves on the ladies and Jim is impersonating Sammy Davis Jr.

Really, and not just a brief impersonation, Jim sings the entire song Mr. Bojangles as Sammy Davis Jr. Then he tries to pick up ladies by wowing them with his ability to impersonate Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H.

Oddly enough it doesn't work.

Perhaps the women weren't into the brown knitted whale sweater he wore. Seriously, fashion of the early eighties aside, WHY would some one knit this. A brown sweater with tan WHALES knitted on it. Was there a market for such a sweater?

While Jim works his impressionist magic, Alan enters a ski competition.

Meanwhile, Rita Coolidge and a few other early eighties musicians perform ENTIRE songs on a stage set up outside the resort. In a movie less than 1 hour in length, giving 10 minutes to Ronnie Hawkins’ music seems WAY too excessive.

Suddenly the end credits roll. In the end some lessons were learned:

Jim learns to be himself, and he can get women (2 ACTUALLY!!) without impersonating others!

Alan learns not to judge fat people after he loses a skiing match to a man who he said was "so fat he probably can't get up the mountain."

And, I learned to BEWARE OF THE $5.50 BIN!!!!