The only scene I can think of that comes close is when Imhotep withdraws in fear after being confronted by Rick holding a housecat, followed by some explanation about ancient Egypt and cats that sorta-kinda held together.
Interestingly, the DVD commentary for that scene (which I recommend generally for anyone interested in the making of action movies) talks about how they wanted to cut an earlier conversational scene between Rick and Evie, but couldn’t because it introduced the cat and without this, its appearance during the battle was too sudden and arbitrary.
I don’t remember it either, but I’ve seen The Mummy only once. I’ve seen Army of Darkness more than once, and I think I remember that scene from there.
But a scene very similar to that, with Imotepp’s bride (as a bandaged and wrapped Mummy) completely freaking out does exist. I’m pretty sure, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, but I remember that.
well, I laughed all the way through “Die Hard with a Vengeance.” Don’t know if that was the opposite of what they were going for or not, but I enjoyed myself.
I’ve got an answer for the OP, but it’s from television, “The New Adventures of Old Christine”. It’s billed as and is supposed to be a comedy. But I gave it 3 chances, and each time the effect it had on me was to make me sad. The main character has such a sad, hopeless life, that no amount of one-liners by quirky supporting characters could undo the uneasy feeling I got from this “comedy”.
[post=6468498]Bond has issues.[/post] Also, even a superficial analysis of Goldfinger indicates that Bond is completely incompetent, and succeeds only due to Auric’s utter hubris.
Pretty Woman had me rooting for Gere to get away from this unstable, crazed prostitute who flaked on him after making a fiscally rewarding agreement. And those Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan “romantic comedies” are really a study in pathological stalking behavior.
I know how people hate to hear the truth about Casablanca, but Ilsa was a manipulative grifter through and through, setting up Rick like a windup toy to get her and Laszlo out of Casablanca before Strasser had him offed, and instead of feeling all optimistic and hopeful I’m just relieved that Rick was shed of her before she destroyed him completely.
Skald the Rhymer has said it already, but the point of that whole monologue is that Jessup is right about an awful lot. The problem is that he’s an egomaniac who feels like he’s got the right to play God in his corner of the world, consequences be damned.
You’re supposed to agree with him to a point, but you’re also supposed to come to the conclusion that his execution of his authority is dead wrong.
I don’t know about you, but I’d be scared to serve under Jessup.
(as an aside, A Few Good Men was originally a play, and I highly recommend it)
It’s been said before, but Rent deserves another vote. Its oh-so-last-century tired tale of evil capitalists (and their running dog lackeys, too!) vs the Noble Suffering Bohemian might have been palatable if the Bohemians had a shred of nobility to them… but, alas, they did not, highlighting instead the worst whiny and pouty tendencies of 20-something Gen-Xers.
Throughout the entire film my thoughts ran like this:
<Scene where some guy’s mom calls, asks him to come home for Christmas dinner, and he blows up (either during or after the call) in some bizarro angst about the entire thing)> WTF? You can’t be bothered to show up for dinner and be polite? Is it going to kill you to listen to uncle Arnie talk about his decorations? Will you really be ‘oppressed’ if you go to church with your parents? Can’t you be bothered, for one day a year, to make your mother happy? You’re whining about what horrible people they are, but let’s face it: it’s you who is acting all out of proportion to what she called about. Grow up!
<The rent issue>: Grow the f** up, people! You got to live in Manhattan for a single year, RENT FREE!!! Yeah, it’s nice that you made it into some ultra-cool Bohemian Utopia™, but that’s some pretty pricey real estate that you’re sleeping on for gratis… and the free lunch, er, rent is over. Pay or move.*
<During the Viva la Boheme song> *What the hell? Every single person at this table is a miserable, whiny, piece of slag… and now they’re going to celebrate the very behaviors that brought them to this point: addicted, broke, nearly homeless? This is akin to watching a gambling addict celebrate the losing of his house because of a “few bad guesses”.
This movie is stupid.
I’m going home.*
I do not think that my reaction is what the makers of the film/play intended, to be honest.
The lyricist/composer/writer of RENT, Jonathan Larson, very famously died just before the show opened and became a huge hit. I’ve a feeling that had he lived to receive the millions and millions in royalties that have come into his estate since, RENT’s sequel might have been called TAX SHELTER (and you can be pretty sure he wouldn’t live in a coldwater walkup).
Exactly. There are a number of details in the movie that bugged me, but none managed to rise above the overwhelming feeling that he went right past Devoted Dad Territory and well into Extremely Creepy Guy Land in the first twenty minutes of the film.
Speaking of bad parents, Home Alone. The rest of the flodnak household loves this movie, but it infuriates me. Kevin acts like an eight-year-old under pressure, the other kids get together to pick on him until he rises to their bait, and then he catches all the cr@p for it. Hell, I’d want that family to disappear, too. And I say this as the mom myself of an 8-year-old boy who can be pretty damn picky about what goes on his pizza, as well, although he’s pretty good at packing a suitcase as long as he has a list of what he’ll need.
The movie I wanted to mention was **Patch Adams. ** The movie, which is basically another version of the Asshole Bucking The System movie Robin Williams had already starred in a few times, presents us with a cardboard villian and a hero who is just a transcendently arrogant asshole of the first order. Even if you don’t know the real story, it’s obvious, sitting through the movie, that they’re sugar-coating the story of a guy who’s both a colossal prick and a quack.
With respect to Rent:
When the play opened in Toronto, there was an article in the Star about “Rentheads,” people who went to see the musical many times. All of those interviewed described in essentially like this: “It just totally speaks to me about how you have to suffer for your art. I’ve been trying for three years to be a painter/actor/interpretive dancer and I totally know what they’re going through.”
Every one of them was an upper middle class white kid.
If it wasn’t for the fact that “Rent” is based on “La Boheme,” and in any event was worked on for years and years and barely resembles its earlier forms, I’d say it was a deliberate satire. It’s impossible to take it seriously.
What I personally think Aaron Sorkin was trying to put across was that true soldiers like Jessup, Kendrick, and Dawson are abhorrent, and we’d all be better off if we could get rid of them. In the world we live in, they’re unfortunately necessary though, so we must hold our noses and tolerate them. Kaffee is only to be admired for bringing one down. I think he wrote that speech to be ironic - anyone who could believe such a thing must be insane.
I agree though - Jessup & Kendrick broke the code themselves when they left Dawson & Downey to take the blame for something they ordered them to do.
Watching the first four seasons of the *West Wing * would disabuse you of this notion. Sorkin has a complex approach towards warfare and its neccessity, but he shows nothing but respect - even awe - for the U.S. armed forces.
That’s okay, because except for brief instances, it wasn’t intended to be a comedy at all, except in the ironic, self-effacing sense. Unfortunately, the Hollywood marketing machine doesn’t know what to do with this kind of film and so it was pimped as your standard issue buddy-road-trip-cum-romantic-comedy when it was actually in diametrical opposition to those genres. Sure, you could have made Sideways into a road flick staring Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider with just minor changes (add a few scat jokes, a fat chick to make fun of, and a happy resolution) but instead Payne played it straight, and what humor there is points uncomfortably close to home, and the characters are thickly drawn enough to be real but not sympathetic enough to root for.
I commonly hear the same complaint about Billy Wilder’s The Apartment: “It stops being funny halfway through, and the Jack Lemmon character is more creepy than romantic.” Well, duh; Wilder is taking the conventions of a standard romantic comedy and forcing the reality of disappointment, disillusionment, and genuine human emotion upon them, which makes the viewer realize just how jerkish, juvenile, and contrived most characters in romantic comedies really are.
That’s great!