Undercover Brother (2002) is a blaxploitation parody starring Eddie Griffin which delivers a solid number of laughs. Denise Richards’ character is called “White She-Devil”, which gives you an idea of what to expect. Rotten Tomatoes (77%) approves.
This is one of a handful of movies–Vibes and Daredevil are two more–that failed because they desperately needed more of an SPFX budget than they got, someone cheaped out and the otherwise perfectly okay movie suffered for it.
I never understood why Almost Famous wasn’t a lot more popular than it was. It’s one of my favorite movies ever, and a lot of the bit players (Pauley Perrette, Eric Stonestreet, Zooey Deschanel, Jason Lee) went on to be bigger stars on TV. It’s criminal that Patrick Fugit and Billy Crudup aren’t household names. I guess its arrival kind of coincided with Rock’n’Roll taking a back seat to every other form of popular music, and MTV eschewing rock videos for awful reality shows. It also seemed a lot like Rolling Stone magazine producing/promoting a big love letter to itself. Such a great movie, though!
I liked 20 Dates, a faux documentary from 1998. Quoting a bit:
Myles is divorced in L.A. He wants a love life and a film career. So he decides to go on 20 dates and find true love in front of a camera, making his first feature. His patient agent, Richard, finds a $60,000 investor, the shadowy Elie. Myles starts his search, sometimes telling his date she’s being filmed, sometimes not. Elie wants sex and titillation, Myles wants it “real.”
I loved the names of all the characters:
Undercover Brother
Smart Brother
Conspiracy Brother
Sista Girl
White She Devil
The Man
and last but NOT least…Lance (what can I say? Affirmative Action)
Not really a “stupid little movie”, then, is it? (Though apart from that I agree with your assessment of it.)
How is it possible that we’re more than 100 posts into this thread, and no one has yet mentioned “Demolition Man”?
If I happen to see this while flipping through the channels, it becomes physically impossible to separate me from the TV.
Everyone remembers the Taco Bell and three seashells jokes. But personally the following bit is my favorite.
Undercover Brother walks around with a large “UB” belt buckle. Even though he’s, you know, undercover…
Yes, unaccountably obscure.
Josie and the Pussycats (2001) was far better than it had any reason to be.
I have seen a great MANY movies that claim to be loving, hilarious homages to the sort of cheesy fifties monster movies I love so much.
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Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra* is among the very, VERY few that I thought was both funny and pretty good. For some reason, them what makes homages simply seem to think if it’s a bad movie with a bad monster suit, that’s enough.
Nice thread, reads like a trawl through my DVD collectioni (Long Kiss Goodnight, Mystery Men, Undercover Brother, Pleasantville!). One that wasn’t mentioned is Speechless (1994). I found it a fun little movie about Geena Davis as a speechwriter, and Michael Keaton writing speeches for the opposing candidate. They fall in love and hijinks ensue. While not the greatest of comedies, part of the charm is the chemistry between the two leads who have a nice old-fashioned way of bantering and bickering.
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love in 1996 got mixed reviews: while they loved it for its lush and colorful set design, costuming, and cinematography, they criticized the thinness of its plot.
But the central importance of the Kama Sutra film is that it was the first to foreground women’s sexual desires in Indian cinema, where sex had theretofore been emphasizing rape. Mira Nair held women-only showings in India, which was important given the social strictures around gender and sexuality in public, for women to get a chance to see it unharassed.
Also, Rekha is not just a superstar of Bollywood, she is a legend. She was in Kama Sutra a few years after her retirement as the supreme leading lady of film, now appearing as a wise woman teaching women to be empowered with their own sexuality.
I just thought of two more movies that qualify here, both with Nicholas Cage.
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National Treasure* (2004) [6.8 IMDB]
Bangkok Dangerous (2008) [5.8 IMDB]
I liked both a lot, but not quite enough to make my personal Top 100 List.
Inspired by my own mention of it in this thread, I’m rewatching Bound right now. Very good IMHO.
As an “intellectual” exercise I may prune my Top 100 list to a Top Fifty! Bound is likely to make the cut.
Airheads (1995) - has 25% on Rotten Tomatoes and 45% on Metacritic making it woefully underrated. I love it start to finish, it’s so quotable. My roommate in college and I must have seen it shy of 50 times.
I notice that Bound was written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers (Andy and Larry) who have since become the Wachowski Sisters (Lilly and Lana)! Bound was their first movie. Next came The Matrix and its sequels, none of which I watched, and V for Vendetta, which I enjoyed. Jupiter Ascending is another film by the Wachowski Sisters — maybe I’ll watch it even though it gets a low IMDB score.
I believe Jupiter Ascending was the subject of an episode of How Did This Get Made? Watch the movie and then listen to the podcast!