There is so much bad acting in this film, including by otherwise talented actors, that it pisses me off. But it does have that scene with Levon Helm in it, which is a nugget of gold in the pile of crap that is this film.
History of the World - Part 1
Ooh, unfunny almost the entire way. A rare miss from Mel Brooks. It’s gags, it’s sketches, it has hilarious people in it, but it isn’t a funny movies overall. I’m sure I giggled a bit here and there, but mainly it lies there kind of flat. Embarrassingly unfunny at times. That is the thing about comedy. It is hard to make an “OK” comedy. If people don’t laugh much…it’s not good.
I had seen clips before, but never the full movie. I know the sequel TV series is now dropping on Hulu and I’ll probably check out parts of it here and there, but this is the least funny Mel Brooks movie I’ve seen so far and I’ve seen:
The Producers
Young Frankenstein
Blazing Saddles
Space Balls
Robin Hood Men in Tights
All funnier than this movie by a mile.
It’s just so uneven. Here’s a half hour sketch set in Rome and another set during the French Revolution, sprinkled with three short gags from the Stone Age, the Bible, and the Inquisition. The funniest thing in it is the preview for “Hitler on Ice”.
One of two movies I’ve ever walked out of. It was so unfunny that it was mostly cringe.
Yeah, just a huge misfire from Mel Brooks. I’ve never seen Dracula Dead and Loving It, but I wonder if it is even worse.
I just watched the first episode of the sequel “History of the World Part II” and indeed does deliver Hitler on Ice as an extended sketch.
“Give to Oedipus! Give to Oedipus! Hey, Josephus!”
“Hey, motherfucker!”
You guys are nuts. That movie is hilarious.
I personally couldn’t stand it. Scarlett O’Hara is an awful human being, and is the main protagonist of the movie. Maybe there are good things about it, but I could never get past that.
Be sure to check out High Anxiety. I’d place it above Spaceballs and Men in Tights. Though it’s been years since I’ve seen it - now I want to revisit it.
Re: Mel Brooks. It’s been a long time since I watched Silent Movie, but my memory of it is it was good.
Gone With the Wind was one of my favorite books growing up. But I never cared for the movie. The movie tries to be a romance, I think, and the book is the story of how this woman survived and evolved during the Civil War. (IMO) And yes, she is a terrible person.
Dog (2022) - A movie about a dog. It is completely predictable. But it is a movie about a dog. If you like dogs, well … it’s a movie about a dog.
I love GWTW*. I view it the same as The Godfather: a very complex, very long, very good movie about very bad people.
As for the thread, I just finally watched the newest Death On The Nile. I liked it. I’ve never seen any other version,nor read the book.
*I even made a Children of Tam allusion: “Scarlett, with the potato”, that I think is very iconic for our culture. along with “Rhett at the damn doorway”. 
My sister was a huge GWTW fan throughout my childhood, but I’d never seen the whole thing through until a coupla years ago. Certainly a sweeping epic, with a great cast and memorable lines, but far too caught up in racist Lost Cause mythology for me to enjoy it (ironically, a young MLK Jr. sang with his church’s Gospel choir at the segregated 1939 premiere in Atlanta).
My favorite line:
Mr. Hamilton: “Are you hinting that the Yankees can lick us?”
Mr. Butler: “No, I’m not hinting. I’m saying very plainly the Yankees are better equipped than us. They have factories, coal mines, a fleet that can bottle up our harbors and starve us to death. All we’ve got is cotton, and slaves… and arrogance.”
We’ve now seen all 10 Best Picture nominees, and I have thoughts. We went with a group that ranged from just 2 (me and my wife) up to 7, which was nice , since we could talk about the movies afterwards.
I already posted about AVATAR 2 above (56/100, which has maybe crept down a bit since then), so let’s do these in order in multiple posts…
2nd movie: TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. My wife and I looped back to talk about this Palme D’Or winner more than any other film we watched. It does a bunch of things fantastically well, and a few things very poorly. I won’t describe the basic premise because it’s a play in three acts, with different (linked) premises, but the theme is clearly about the effects of class and power.
I’m really going to have to spoiler-box a lot to talk about it.
Things I liked: really fun acting and dialogue, a 100% willingness to go to some extremes of visualizing the effects of seasickness on a ship that is starting to list to port, the change in power dynamic in Part 3, the continued ability to focus on the “main” character’s (Carl) weaknesses and get in his head. There’s also a conversation on economic theory that had me laughing.
Things I disliked: could some of it be any more on the fucking nose? one rich guy makes shit; he comments on how another makes her money being attractive; a rich woman demands the entire crew goes swimming (what if they couldn’t?); and Chekov’s hand grenade is invoked with the arms manufacturers in a truly goofy way. I mean, this was so on-the-nose that even the Cannes Grand Prize Jury, most of whom have some wealth, were delighted in this mockery of rich people. I mean, that’s my main dislike right there.
This ultimately is comparable in theme to PARASITE, including the impact of shifts in power, but it was less subtle. I gave it 81/100.
3rd movie: EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE. Yeah, I’m one of the few people who hadn’t seen this.
I’ll start with the score, 87/100. One thing I like in a movie - and this also goes back to my previous post - is loving movies where I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. I like to be not just delighted, but surprised and delighted, and EEAAO pulled that off completely. Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis deserve all the praise they’ve gotten, as does Stephanie Hsu, as all three of them pulled me into whatever scene they were in. I’m also glad Ke Huy Quan had a chance to be in this, I guess I’d just say he was fine in a role that demanded a little less than the others. Oh! And James freaking Hong. I just saw him in a 1962 Perry Mason!
I didn’t really dislike anything. I’m not sure this movie will stick with me like some others have, so it’s not perfect, but it’s really, really good.
4th movie: TÁR. Mild spoilers below.
Well now. Fantastic acting from Cate Blanchett. Mark Strong in a different kinda role. Really good classical music. Um…that’s it?
Look, the fictitious character of Lydia Tár is a terrible person. Really, really terrible. Awful. We learn that early on, and we see it over and over. She’s awful! And the world eventually sees and closes in on her awfulness. (have I made it clear that she’s awful? Todd Field certainly did, across 2 hrs 38 mins)
And that’s the film. Other than making a thinly-veiled movie about James Levine, I’m not even sure why Field wrote this.
I find myself asking whether I’d rewatch this or Avatar 2, given no choice. And I think the answer is this one, but it’s so very close. 58/100.
Interstitial: I watched THE MENU last night. It’s actually kind of like TRIANGLE OF SADNESS in theme, but not as compelling. I got a little bored about 2/3 through and maybe did some 10-second skips here and there, but did finish. I was kind of with Ralph Fiennes in spirit, I admit.
5th movie: WOMEN TALKING. We’ll start with the fact that I love Sarah Polley’s “Stories We Tell”, so I do start out a little biased. The idea of this film, which isn’t a spoiler and is based on a true story in Bolivia, is that a subset of women members of a religious group are trying to make a decision about what to do, during a brief respite while their incredibly abusive husbands are in jail. Their choices are flee/leave, fight back, or forgive, and there are some advocates for each (though many fewer for forgive).
I’ve seen this compared to 12 ANGRY MEN, but that’s not right…this is not a dynamic of the stubborn, evil traditionalists vs the ethical modernists, and some key decisions actually get made early on. What this is is a lot of very raw discussions about power, and community, and what evil does to its victims. It’s both painful and amazing, and the acting and direction are genius.
95/100 for me.
6th movie: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. Seeing these two movies back-to-back was interesting: both of them on dire topics, but the second one not moving me much. The problem is that AQOTWF basically wrote half the tropes for future war movies, and while this movie wasn’t too faithful to the book, it was faithful to the tropes. The acting was good (one character in particular, Kat, was great), the cinematography a joy in places, and the battle scenes were, well, familiar, and perhaps indistinguishable from sections of 1917. I was a little disappointed in myself for that reaction, I mean it’s a grim fucking topic, and yet I still wouldn’t recommend it. 60/100.
7th movie: TOP GUN: MAVERICK. From the first notes of electric piano & synth at the beginning of the movie, you know this is going to be a massive nostalgia trip, and that they’re going to hit every single fucking familiar beat they can. I really do like Tom Cruise movies, I find him fun to watch, but this was incredibly cynical. I get why people like it, I absolutely got caught up in the flight scenes, but everything from the attack on NoNameIstan to the tearful homages to two characters from the first movie did not work for me, so I was often sitting there waiting for the next scene. I think there might be something wrong with me, but I’d watch AVATAR 2 again over this schlock. 40/100.
