For those that don’t know, the nihilist who sacrifices her toe (for nothing) is Aimee Mann from the band Til Tuesday. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers plays one of the other nihilists.
I personally wouldn’t desrcibe Fargo (the film) as a comedy, although I can see why it might be described as a “dark comedy” or “black comedy.” (Wikipedia calls it a “black comedy crime film,” while IMDB calls it a crime thriller.)
Something Wild is in this category. Once Ray Liotta’s on the scene, the vibe changes completely.
“Voices Carry,” right?
for different strokes :
there was also one where kimberely and arnold cant get a cab after xmas shopping and they take a ride from a stranger who had a limo I think and go to his place and kim almost gets raped …
And another two part ep where sam the danny cooksey character from the last seasons gets kidnapped by a guy trying to replace a lost child for his wife
And yet another one about smoking where duddleys dad has to have a lung operation due to smoking and everything looks ok until the last scene where the dad lights up a cigarette showing he cant give it up …
in facts of life … i think it was the first or 2nd episode where blair almost gets raped by her bad boy date
and another where this big fashion photographer picks tootie out of al the girls at a big audition only to find out he’s a child pornographer
Yep, that’s her.
In Trading Places, an otherwise light comedy, the villain henchman Beeks gets hit on the head and knocked out, mouth taped shut, stuffed in a gorilla costume, and placed in a cage with a real highly amorous male gorilla, who is being sent back to Africa.
Aside from the “hurp derp gorilla rape is funny!” jokes, even assuming the male gorilla is so stupid that he mistakes a human in a suit for a real female gorilla, and even if he doesn’t rip Beeks limb from limb, Beeks is going to die from thirst before they even get to Africa. Or choke on his own vomit.
It really doesn’t fit the film, no matter how bad Beeks is.
And just prior that, Trading Places showed Dan Aykroyd in blackface. I don’t know if this was controversial when the film was released but today it would not be acceptable.
Not quite pornography. He was a High Fashion photographer, and wanted to photograph Tootie implicitly nude, because Art. Like, no naughty bits in the photo, but she would be naked for real in the studio. I think the issue was supposed to be two-fold: not just asking an underage girl to get naked, but the then-current fashion/advertising trend towards appealing to consumers’ inner pervs. I thought at the time, and I still might be right, that the episode was referencing Brooke Shields’ Calvin Klein jeans campaign. “Know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing!” Shudder…
Anyway, I came in to mention Roseanne. Fifth season, IIRC, we find out that Jackie’s current SO is not just an immature jerk; he’s a violent immature jerk.
Darlene: “What happened to Aunt Jackie?”
Roseanne: “Well, some say environment, but I think she was born that way.”
Darlene: “No, really – her back’s all bruised up.” Cue one of those tense silences from the audience. A well-done two-part episode.
And earlier in the film, his character attempts suicide twice.
Despite all of that, it (Trading Places) is still one of my favorite films.
I caught this a few days ago watching reruns of Dick Van Dyke.
Rob and Laura have a new neighbor and set him up with both Sally and Laura’s cousin. He’ll go out with each of them and see how it goes. Both dates went well, and that brings us to here (21:54)…
Spoiler, turns out he he hits women. I think they did a decent job of infusing some comedy into a situation that clearly made Rob and Laura uncomfortable. But why even go there on a show like this?
I should have thought of that one - I’ve mentioned it on the SDMB before
Just saw the Seinfeld episode where not only is Kramer amusingly assumed to be a serial killer in L.A. (where scores of women apparently are murdered every week so often it’s just another fact of life, like fender benders) but also in this episode there is a jokey conversation about someone catsitting, starving a cat to death and whether they have to pay for a new one. Vile. … I always defended Seinfeld but re-watching it now (it seems to be popping up on various cable channels lately), I can absolutely see why some people despised it so.
The whole third act of that movie really falls apart, which is a shame, because it’s so good up to that point. But everything about their plot to steal the orange juice report is just stupid. It takes a relatively grounded story, and turns it into an SNL sketch. Small credit that Beeks pretty much instantly sees through it, but the fact that any of the protagonists thought the plan would work just makes them look like idiots.
It’s a shame, because there’s enough stuff set up earlier in the film to make a really good heist scene at the end. Like, Beeks is on a train with a raucous NYE party. Instead of having Jamie Lee Curtis disguise herself as the girl from the Swiss Miss hot chocolate box, have her go on the train as a prostitute, of which there are likely plenty on the train, and have her “accidentally” run into Beeks, and remember him from when he bribed her to hit on Dan Aykroid’s character at the beginning of the film. Or instead of the dumb gorilla rape joke, when they need some muscle to subdue Beeks after he figures out the scam, bring back the big dudes that Eddie Murphy invited to his party when he first got rich. It not only brings back something that had been introduced earlier in the movie, but also completes an Arc for Murphy’s character from street hustler, to sell out, to reconnecting with his roots as someone outside the privileged wealth power structure, and using those connections to undermine the status quo.
Man, I’d love a remake of this movie. It’d be hard to find adequate replacements for the original cast, but the story deserves better treatment
Also, Stripes should have cut the whole thing with the armored Winnebago, and ended with them passing boot camp on their own.
Yeah, Stripes manged to have its own disappointing sequel as its third act.
There are a lot of movies where the first half is better than the second. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Full Metal Jacket, and The Princess Bride among them.
“First half is better,” isn’t really what I’m talking about, though. The first half of The Princess Bride is better than the second half, but the second half doesn’t suck, it’s just fails to maintain the high standards of the previous parts of the movie. Same with your other examples.
The third act of Stripes and Trading Places aren’t just not as good. They’re actively terrible, and feel like they come from completely different movies.
There is also the scene where Kramer is talking to the old lady who tells him a story about when she was an actress back in the old days, and was in a Three Stooges short where they kidnapped a baby and the baby died and they all wound up on Death Row and were executed…
