Just as an aside, I watched the first ep of John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s In L.A. last night. It’s a 6-part Netflix series in the form of a daily live talk show, with the city of Los Angeles as a general topic the show is exploring over a 6 day period. Mulaney’s first two guests were Seinfeld and a coyote expert (since LA has a coyote problem), brought on at the same time.
Seinfeld came across as a bullying asshole, every comment dripping with sarcasm. This is fine, aimed at Mulaney. Seinfeld said “this is the weirdest thing I have ever done” and made some sort of jibe at his past addiction problems. Fine, Mulaney’s fair game.
But the poor coyote expert was just an ordinary person and clearly very nervous to be there. Mulaney was asking him questions about how to deal with coyotes, and every thing the coyote guy said, Seinfeld had some eye-rolling, sarcastic comment. Mulaney also took call-ins, since it was originally live, and a woman had a pretty harrowing story about a coyote getting into the second floor bedroom of her apartment, and it was frankly much more interesting than the many attempts at funny things Seinfeld kept replying. I wanted to tell him to shut up and just let her tell her story, or reach through the TV screen and slap the asshole. He came across as a guy who mistakenly thinks he’s much more clever and witty than 99% of the rest of humanity, and isn’t afraid to let everybody know his opinion of that.
Seinfeld is having a rough time lately. I don’t think he is generally considered a hard-to-get-along-with type of guy, but he is not coming off well lately.
Note: Feel old yet? That 17 year old he dated way back during the Seinfeld days…is now 50 years old.
Seinfeld is successful and I guess pretty good at his stand-up style of observational humor that a lot of people like, so good for him there.
He just rubs me the wrong way however as he likes to present himself as some sort of aficionado on all things comedy. Maybe the failure of this film will teach him to stick with what he knows.
Wow, I’m getting a strong vibe of resistance here!
I never heard of this movie until yesterday, when my brother told me I had to watch it. I did. It’s diabolically funny, but only if you’re an American, and part of the Cereal Generation. And if you think you’re part of the Cereal Generation just because you ate cereal as a kid, think again.
This was a time when cereal ads on TV were everything. Every cartoon show was sponsored by processed breakfast food, and I knew them all and can still sing the jingles. Even the ones that flopped.
“The ‘O’ stands for the oats/ In Kellogg’s OKs/ The ‘K’ stands for Kellogg’s/ In Kellogg’s OKs” (Bonus points if you remember who was on the box of Kellogg’s OKs.)
Really, I’m disappointed in you Straight Dopers. It’s all “well I heard it sucked and I don’t like Jerry”. Fine, but if you’re part of the Cereal Demographic you WILL enjoy this movie.
you know funny thing is I remember the Hudsucker proxy not getting all that great reviews either back in the day , did people change their minds over the years?
The only thing that disappointed me about the movie is that it didn’t utilize what I feel is Melissa McCarthy’s vast comedic talent. Maybe they just wanted her name for its star power because they certainly didn’t need her for such a bland role.
Like one other poster mentioned, I loved the kids in the dumpster, and I loved the wicked representation of the children’s cereal industry. Let’s face it, nutritionally speaking, you are truly “dumpster diving” when you eat some of that awful stuff.
I liked it. As noted, it’s a completely ridiculous take on what was apparently a real tart related competition between Post and Kellogg’s. I can appreciate random lunacy, like a giant ravioli brought to life by sea monkeys, or JFK pitching Jackie O’s. Why not? It’s all in fun, and I’m willing to take a ride.
That behind me, DAMN is Seinfeld a terrible actor. I mean, I get that some comedic actors do pretty much the same thing all the time, but make an effort to inhabit your character.
The dumpster kids were amusing, but I didn’t find the movie to be a particularly biting satire of the cereal industry- I think it would have been a much better movie had it been that.
To me it was more of a silly, almost affectionate goof on the cereal industry in general, and the race between Kellogg’s and Post to come up with a breakfast pastry specifically. There were setups and themes that could have made for a funny movie or a biting satire, but nothing for me really hit. Like I said upthread, It felt like a promising framework for a comedy movie with plot device placeholders, meant to be filled in with actual jokes and humor later on, but they never filled in the actual humor. Kind of like defective Pop-Tarts that never got the fruit filling added. Or the frosting for that matter-- who as a kid ever liked the unfrosted Pop-Tarts?
And honestly, I enjoyed it a lot more than I did The Road to Wellville which, while a lot more historically accurate, kind of fell apart as a film as it went.
I gave it a try. As a non American who doesn’t like cereal and has never tried a pop tart, I thought I could be objective and neutral about it.
Some parts of it were mildly amusing, but not belly laugh funny. And the visuals and colour palette were impressive. It was nice to watch a film that wasn’t mostly grey.
But at times it felt like a series of individual sketches loosely bound by a common narative.They should have either been tighter with the links so that it felt more cohesive. Or gone the other way and made it more surreal like ‘Meaning of Life’. As it was, it kind of felt unsure of what it was trying to be.
And we did watch watch TRtW the following night after watching Unfrosted! I thought TRtW held up pretty well, myself, and as dubiously accurate quasi-historical parodies of the cereal industry go, is overall a much better movie than Unfrosted; the ‘Country Squares’ to TRtW’s ‘Pop-Tart’, if you will. But to each their own. I had read the T. Coraghessan Boyle novel of the same name before I saw the movie, and I thought the movie did it justice pretty well.
Originally a brawny Scotsman named Otis in '59-'60, then replaced with Yogi Bear. I guess some early 60s ad exec decided Otis was a bit too testosterone-y for the kiddies or something, and decided to go with a different kind of bear…
I think you nailed it. That’s the only explanation I can see for so many negative reviews of a film I thought was the funniest I’ve seen in a long time.
Actually it was Big Otis, but yes. Somehow Yogi Bear doesn’t say “build up arm muscles by eating refined oat flower shaped into letters but really just Cheerios” but Otis sure did—but he probably scared the kids.
Amazon Prime streaming was giving me fits last night, so I watched Unfrosted with my wife on a whim. Afterwards, she said, “Well…that was bad.”
My response was, “You know what it reminded me of? A Don Knotts movie. Not good, not awful. Just pleasantly inoffensive.” In fact, I was a bit surprised they would make a joke about Gus Grissom, but you’ve got to have some clinkers. However, I did almost laugh out loud at the funeral for Steve Schwinn.
And some of the outtakes looked more interesting than the movie itself.
Some did. And just as that one found its cult over the years after a disappointing theatrical run (like Reservoir Dogs, The Iron Giant, Office Space and lots of others), so will Unfrosted return after this oddly chilly reception and have its best lines quoted by wiseacres years from now. You know, for kids.
