I think in 1993, this might have been a bolder movie. In 2023, not so much. I didn’t even find the big monologue from America Ferrera to be a big truth bomb or anything. The movie feels kind of after its time.
I liked Murder by Death (“Listen! Cow on wall speaks!” “Moose! It’s a moose, damn you! And use your damn prepositions!”) more than Clue, but they are kind of apples-and-oranges.
Haven’t seen Barbie yet, but I’ve heard good things about it (including from my youngest son, who saw it with friends this weekend), and I expect I’ll get around to it eventually.
I found both Murder by Death and Clue disappointing. They were both a bit try too hard, with a lot of annoying mugging. I found the Psych parody of Clue funnier than either movie.
All right, to heck with all of you, I really enjoyed Clue. We haven’t seen Murder by Death, though after watching the trailer just now the whole Chinese accent thing is probably going to feel ugh anyway.
I saw Clue ages ago, and the Chinese accent thing was cringy then. It’s gotta be worse now.
Murder by Death you mean? That’s the one with Peter Sellers as “Sidney Wang”.
The problem I have with Clue and Murder By Death is that you can’t solve the mystery, because MBD is just surreal, and Clue has multiple solutions. I want a murder mystery parody to also be a decent murder mystery.
Yes. I’ve seen them both, and they tend to merge together in my brain.
I presume the reason that it’s set in France is that Anderson has lived mostly in Paris since 2005.
Well, the parts not set in Kansas…
Oh, FFS! Not directing this at you in particular but since there have been similar comments from others, let me say first of all that Peter Sellers is doing a Charlie Chan parody, so of course it’s a Chinese-accented English dialect, and the fun is directed at the original stereotyped Charlie Chan portrayal. Secondly, it’s hardly a major part of the movie – he’s just one of a roomful of parody “famous detectives”, among them Peter Falk playing a stereotypical American gumshoe, and at least three – Alec Guinness, David Niven, and Maggie Smith – playing stereotyped British detectives.
Are we also to be offended by Peter Sellers as the stereotypically French Inspector Clouseau, or the French knights in Monty Python’s Holy Grail? It would be a terrible loss to comedy if we so easily took offense at everything that we misconstrue what is actually being parodied or entirely lose our sense of humour. Murder by Death may not be for everyone, but it’s a great work by the great Neil Simon and a group of very fine actors and I unreservedly recommend it.
I noticed that in the trailer for The French Dispatch. No idea if that was intentional though! It was like spot the actor from a Bond film.
I’ll dip my toes in.
Clue is one of the greatest comedy movies of all time and I believe it may be the movie I’ve seen more times in my life than any other. One of the great movies of the 1980’s and certainly a top 5 or top 10 comedy.
Murder by Death was lame.
Looks like the “Barbenheimer” phenomena is a real thing. Barbie and Oppenheimer have a combined weekend box office of more than $500M worldwide, in the fourth largest opening weekend in box office history. And neither film is a sequel, prequel, or part of a franchise.
A contributing factor seems to have been that a large part of the audience decided it made sense to try and see both of these films during the weekend. Quite a pairing.
If you had told me before this weekend that one of the films was going to make more than $150M and the other more than $80M, I’d have guessed Oppenheimer for the larger box office.
There have been many Barbie movies.
to peccavi regarding the ticket gross:
Really? “O” is rated R which restricts the audience a great deal. There is no attraction for “O” among young teens and children. And the promotion for “O” is, “best seen in IMAX” which limits theaters. Only 30 worldwide can show the 70mm reels; just 19 in the US. I’m sure it fine on the 35mm IMAX and even on a widescreen but I’m going to our local 35mm theater this coming weekend.
Barbie is a family show with a few different levels.
And that was a relief! Finally an original story (Barbie). At the viewing we saw there was a trailer for yet another mutant superhero movie, and the reaction in the theater was just flat. I hope that’s a sign that that trend is at an end.
We are big Marvel fans but even we have lost enthusiasm for most of the MCU offerings these days. Though I will say Across the Spiderverse was outstanding. It’s really hard to overstate how original and compelling it is.
The other stuff? I can’t remember the last one we saw before that. We ran out of steam during a long string of Disney TV shows. Not even my favorite superhero, She-Hulk, was worth watching.
I’ll keep going with Marvel, but Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was terrific and kind of felt like an ending, at least for that group.
I don’t think the movies will ever have a definitive ending. It will just fizzle when no one wants to go anymore.
Oh, yes! I forgot about that one. I thought it was really well done.