As I was watching Joker I was thinking more about The King of Comedy and how similar certain parts were (even having RDN albeit in the Jerry Lewis role this time), it was only afterwards reading reviews and others’ thoughts on it that I also realised how much inspiration it must’ve taken from Taxi Driver. Probably should be posting this in the ‘Obvious Things…’ thread instead!
I felt like something light and silly and got a double dose of it …
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988). Some Steve Martin comedies aren’t very good, but this one has Michael Caine in it so I gave it a shot. What a terrific, funny movie! Much of it thanks to Caine but Martin does a pretty good job, too, and the script is great!
Caine is a big-time high-flying con man in the upscale French casino village of Beaumont Sur Mer, where he makes a fortune preying on rich women who visit there. Martin is a small-time con man who considers it a victory if he can just get a woman to pay for his dinner.
When Martin’s character shows up in the village and seems determined to get in on the action, Caine hatches a variety of schemes to get him out of his territory and hilarity ensues. Ultimately they make a bet: whoever first extracts $50,000 from a wealthy American woman gets to stay, and the other has to leave town permanently. Very funny and a nice twist at the end. Highly recommended.
Meet the Parents (2000). This I believe is the first of what became the Meet the Fokkers franchise. Ben Stiller is Greg Fokker, a young man anxious to marry his fiancé, but family tradition requires that he ask her father’s permission. The father (Robert De Niro) is a strict no-nonsense retired CIA agent who is hard to please.
Absolutely everything goes wrong for poor Greg – and then it gets worse! Well, I wanted silliness, and I got it. This has nowhere near the relative sophistication of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but it does have lots of funny if silly moments. Recommended if you’re in the mood for light silliness.
Meet the Parents. A wonderful comedy, I can watch over and over!
Yikes, I initially got the movie title wrong, thanks! Just enough time in the edit window to fix it!
Also worth checking out (NOT if you’re in the mood for light silliness!) is the original low-budget indie version of Meet the Parents from 1992. It goes places the big-budget version wouldn’t dare, from accidental pet drowning to deceptively attributed suicide.
1991, actually. Was this actually released to movie theaters nationwide? It appears from the entry in the IMDb that it was only played in a few movie theaters?
Scattered theaters, apparently.
How Hollywood buried the original version of Meet… | Little White Lies
I absolutely loved Dirty Rotten Scoundrels when I was a kid. The scenes with ‘Ruprecht’ had me in hysterics.
May I go to the bathroom?
Dark Knight…damn Nolan does spectacle like no one else.
On Netflix for a few more days.
Speaking of original versions, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a remake of the 1964 film Bedtime Story with Marlon Brando, David Niven, and Shirley Jones.
Saw Bubba Ho-tep from 2002.
I was lurking at the Thomas Pynchon subReddit, and someone recommended this as a Pynchonesque movie.
It is a weird tale that should be ridiculous, but has a strange dignity to it. A guy in a nursing home who believes himself to be Elvis Presley—the movie gives a semi-plausible backstory that might make that believable—together with his fellow patient, who believes himself to be JFK—likely improbable because, among other things, he is black—join forces to fight an ancient mummy who is preying on the other residents.
It is dumb, but smart. Silly, but melancholy. Strangely moving. Would recommend!
I agree with both @wolfpup and @Mahaloth. Bring Her Back is definitely horror but their is a lot of sadness and genuine drama. Sally Hawkins’s portrayal of Laura, while excellent, diminished my pity in short order. The younger boy broke my heart, and I was worried about the cat.
Wolfpup, which scene are you referring to as the “most realistic, gruesome”? Because there were a few that made me cringe, and some (on the video) that I couldn’t make out. Also, I read the following on Wikipedia It is revealed that Oliver is possessed by a demon called Tari, which Laura summoned through an amateur occult resurrection ritual learned from a Russian VHS tape. When the hell did that detail come out? I mean, we do get the general idea, but I don’t recall an explicit explanation, and definitely not that name.
Lots of movies try their best to be more gruesome than the last, but sometimes it’s just so over the top that it’s more comical than gruesome. The scene I was referring to was when Ollie sticks the big kitchen knife in his mouth and begins cutting himself. Call me a wimp if you must, but I actually had to look away.
Aye, I thought it might be that one. That is some effective horror. I tried to comfort myself by thinking “oh, how fun it must have been to play that part, knowing your gonna freak everyone out”.
Well I found the third one a bit of a hot mess and it looked like a budget trim. There was a feel of getting back to roots as an action comic with the punchups but also awfully disjointed
Had it’s moments, Anne Hathaway was very good in it and introducing Robin clever.
Michael Caine finally bows out - what a run he had
Freeman seems never to age.
This is a fair review - not up to The Dark Knight
The 4k was flawless except for one long freeze that resolved itself. The transfer was superb…it will be one I try when I get the replacement player.
Even nearfield it was smooth ….maybe it came via iMax transfer
No CG…that’s impressivee
To be fair, limited CG, not no CG. CGI was used to enhance or clean up some scenes.
Source material by Joe R. Lansdale, who also wrote the Hap & Leonard books. I love Joe.
My wife is ill and wanted to watch Happy Gilmore 2 and who am I to tell a suffering loved one no. It was fine. I’d give it a B-. Obviously if you hate Adam Sandler and his more famous comedies you won’t like this. It’s far from his most classic work but it’s also far from his worst. Got some laughs out of it and was mildly entertained throughout. It was a showcase of nostalgia and stunt casting and could have been a half hour shorter in editing but overall it was fine for a mindless comedy.
One weird plot hole, and yes I’m spending time worrying about a plot hole in HG2, is that they never address a negative to having your ligament cut to make super-drives. I expected some dire repercussion would come up in the final ten minutes but aside from being icky, they never really made it out to be a terrible idea.
The Lady from Shanghai (1947). A good old-fashioned melodrama of the kind so typical of the 1940s. Stars Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles. Hayworth is the young wife of a very successful and wealthy criminal lawyer, Welles a free spirit who is enticed to work on their yacht as they cruise from one coast to the other via the Panama Canal. During the cruise, the strange relationship between the lawyer and his wife becomes apparent, and the wife falls for Welles. Back on land, a murder plot goes wrong and the Welles character is falsely accused of murder. He is defended at trial by that same lawyer who, although he’s never yet lost a case, fully intends to lose this one. Fine performances by two of the leading actors of their day. Recommended for those with a fondness for classic oldies.