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This is some David Lynch dream sequence poo poo, I must have yawned right at this bit and missed it.
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Jun 3, 2021 21:34
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I’ll do it
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Jun 3, 2021 21:39
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Schweinhund posted:Larger Than Life (1996) I don't know what your criteria here was exactly, but this wasn't any worse than anything else that I picked up from the Awful movie reviews, including ROTOR and Futuresport. I guess I wrote this in the same style. I wanted to compare this movie to "Operation Dumbo Drop", thinking that there were several surplus elephants available around the time of this movie, and thus I could compare and contrast a bit on how they use the elephant in the story. I don't really want to re-watch Dumbo Drop again to do it. That movie seemed to be about an international incident indirectly caused by the Nestle corporation, when a Crunch bar sparks violence that leads to several long scenes of an elephant traveling the country, roadblocks abound, before being ultimately dropped from an airplane to save its life, returning it to the wild. That movie was based on an apparently real occurrence, so I thought maybe here we'd get a taste of story or plot too. I think this was still in the era of releasing similar competing movies, and maybe the two films could be competitive in the category of family elephant films. I can be a bit over the top dry and not necessarily appreciative of family movies. Forgive me for being critical of what's quite possibly a movie geared towards children, or at least the young teen audience. As I normally do, I started this movie by passing initial judgement based on the tone set within the first few minutes. Larger than Life started off with an absurd setup, followed by actor Bill Murray air loving as he probably realized someone is once again going to pay him to be in a film, where he can act his role as quasi-douche. Don't get me wrong, he's a classic douche in "Ghostbusters", and played his role as guy pretty well in "Lost in Translation". I'm not really big on actors and actresses so you'll forgive me for not recognizing who we're dealing with here otherwise.  Apparently successful lecture circuit jockey Jack Corcoran (Bill Murray)'s father, Kirby, a circus clown or elephanteur, passes away in his hometown (?) of Gridley, MD. Left behind is his trained elephant and life-long companion Vera. I guess he had been spending time here with no money and no where to go? Hard up for $35,000, despite his lifestyle, Jack needs to get Vera to San Diego so she can go to Sri Lanka to participate in a gene pool experiment (?). His father leaves him a will but there's really no purpose to this, since he's never really met his father, and we don't know anything at this point. I assume someone on set made this up with a grease pencil or something.  As opposed to trucking across Vietnam, this movie takes place with a cross country series of 'funny' moments. Kind of like that Godzilla movie that was actually about riding a train with a nuclear weapon on it for most of the film. Jack (as well as pretty much everyone else) maybe isn't cashing in on the self-help circuit since everyone's learned his key life mantra "Get Over It", and they really don't react to the elephant at all. Joking aside, I honestly think at this point (T+30) that this is the focus of the movie. Jack has to 'get over' himself and be real, and the elephant is just his burden that sits on things, or makes that classic elephant sound, and it simply doesn't matter to everyone else. Jack's self-image is really just his own problem to 'get over'. Maybe. Almost. Anyway, the journey starts out on the good old prompt, accessible, and convenient to use American rail system. Riding out to the midwest, hoping to reach Kansas City. If he can make it, Jack thinks he can learn more about Vera and his father (who hasn't really concerned him much to this point) from an old circus pal Blockhead. For a minute we see a man and his elephant, consigned to be together, spending time bonding. There hasn't been any sky humping in at least 25 minutes and I'm beginning to think the movie is going to take a serious turn. At least most of the filming appears to involve an actual elephant, and not models, sets, or a blurred out painting of an elephant in the background.  About a third of the way through we're getting some serious history now on the family from Blockhead and his wife Luluna. Jack's dad Kirby led a successful elephant trickery business for years with Vera (elephant), and met up with Vera (wife) out by SUNY Brockport. After they'd married and she became pregnant with Jack, they split before she could become indoctrinated in circus life. Honestly, I stopped here and looked. Kirby died at 66, elephants can live up to 60 years, and apparently breed between 15 and 40. The movie made a point to "check" if the elephant was at prime breeding age, and I got curious. I guess it could work?  Jack learns the basics of Vera's training. Vera opines for the circus life supposedly and, unlike Dumbo Drop, no one seems to believe that returning an elephant to nature is a good idea. Here we find out that Jack really isn't a big success and makes a few grand per engagement, and unlike, say, Tony Robbins, he's pretending to be a success. Doesn't stop him from trying to do what he needs to do and take responsibility, so we watch Jack jerk off a stick shift for a while as he makes his way west. The elephant has been eating candy bars for a while here so I'm waiting for le epic elephant dump scene.  It's a 1990's movie, and we can't get through it without something that would be considered family offensive. Some sort of insane truck driver makes a minute+ long rant about the government and pig dicks with a slur or two thrown in for good measure. They hit the road, and after a discussion about elephant sex Jack spends enough time staring at "Tip" the truck driver that I'm beginning to wonder just how much Jack wants to change things up in his life. Jack tries to beat Tip off the side of a mountain.  The elephant has become listless just sort of standing around at this point, and I really begin to empathize with the poor thing. I realize I've written too many words about this movie to no one's benefit, and the well is running dry. We've ticked over two thirds of the way through the film, and we're mostly back to stock elephant footage and pop quips from the Bill Murray character. He's not really excessively over the top which I'm pleasantly surprised, but something has to make noise. I'm not sure if the movie has given up showing Jack have a change of … life ?, or if it's just put it on pause. There's more chaos on screen from the speed crazed truck driver for the mass audience, but there's no purpose to this. Jack isn't contemplating his life in any major way to the viewer. I suppose until we get somewhere, we can enjoy the footage of an elephant walking, interspersed with the elephant standing or laying down.  Since this is family film, I guess its time to bring it back around in that direction. I thought the movie was more about Jack and what he's going through. Yet, we're going to detour to show the purposefulness of the elephant, which has been baggage up until now. This really almost the only part in the movie where the elephant does something with something else, and for a performing animal they worked it in reasonably well. I don't want to pan the trick. It probably took a lot of time to film this movie, and certainly wasn't any fun for the elephant. Vera performs a miracle and saves the town of Movie Set, New Mexico, from certain disaster.  I can almost see Jack's eyes light up with monetization opportunities. The elephant sort of listened to him, to the benefit of others who appreciated it and helped him out. I think the point is Jack begins to appreciate Vera, and as more than just an item he needs to deal with. But based on how this movie is going, I don't think so yet, and I'm not sure it's going to get there. We're still on our way to sell the elephant to another circus, or release her into the wild, I'm not sure which or that there's any reason to care still. On we go.  The movie sort of hits fast forward at this point as I guess they've run out of time to keep building towards whichever conclusion. America's vast rail network leads us directly into downtown LA so we skip more scenes of an elephant walking down the highway. We learn in about a minute that show animals aren't treated very well, and Jack decides that the extra few thousand he was going to get in this deal wasn't worth it for what Vera would go through. I guess we've given up on him being a performer, or Vera 'enjoying' circus life. Despite feeling for Vera, clearly loading her up on a cargo plane to Sri Lanka is the way to go. It meets Jack's goal of not having to deal with the elephant, and lets him resume his speech tour, or find $35,000, or whatever he is supposed to be doing at this point. There's not a lot of time left, so I'm hoping maybe he'll decide to become an elephant attache and follow the gene pool expert to Sri Lanka? I don't know. Thus far Larger than Life had managed to stay away from really any jokes about elephant turds, elephant piss, etc though elephant banging was fair game. It was about elephants which is what we came to see. But they're running out of film so they need to get one in before wrapping production. Bring on the methed up truck driver, while the elephant stands juxtaposed in its semi-comatose state. 9 minutes remaining, we hit that third humor rail, someone gets zapped in the taint and yells "Ow my rear end", and I think I'm done. The movie's checked out, the elephant has long checked out, and I think I have too.  I think they might deep fake this movie some day. The elephant can make the jokes Bill Murray does, and they can add in more farting, more crazy truck drivers, and it'll be a hit with the kids. For an ending, they can just splice in the last 60 seconds where Jack pretends to care. The elephant wanders onto the plane, and he turns his eyes to the pretty female scientist. Never mind his career, fiance, mother, debts, whatever. We just throw some words on the screen that just says everything worked out. I'm pretty sure he didn't pay the lawyer. I'm not really sure Jack learned not to just focus on himself and his own issues, or if there was a lesson. Checking out the credits, we see 'elephants provided by "Have Trunk, Will Travel"'. Unsurprisingly, a search of this company yields allegations of animal abuse. So I guess I want to conclude wondering how this movie was rated slightly better than Operation Dumbo Drop. Nothing much happens, and whatever concepts are introduced don't make it to the end substantively. I hit up IMDB to read the crowd, and a lot of the positive reviews painted the movie as cute, wholesome, lots of laughs etc. I guess that's a different kind of person getting those reviews. Certainly not someone trying to watch the movie armchair-academically. The wholesome wrap mostly appeared in the end credits, if that counts I guess? Operation Dumbo Drop was based on an actual story, and was less about cracking jokes to remind the audience there is a movie, as the elephant does not speak. Someone on IMDB also added a "goof" that the elephant would have been past prime sexual maturity. Great. Take off a couple of stars for that. Larger than Life wasn't really any worse than any other movie of this era I suppose. It didn't really have much going for it, and I am not sure it tried. If you have kids that like some noise and animals, and not much depth, they'll probably say it is okay, if not forgettable. If you're going to make it take three times as long as it needs to, because you're reflecting on the pain in your life through a film about an elephant and a flim flam man, well yes then also sure. I did it and you can too. Ultimately, 3.5/10, and only because they did sort of try with the elephant miracle, and pretending things ended Happily Ever After. They could have at least thrown some stock footage of elephants in the wild in at the end.
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Jun 4, 2021 02:24
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Stumbled on a particularly boring piece of cinema you can partake in: Pledge Night (1990) If you hate yourself and believe in redemption through suffering.
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Jun 6, 2021 04:38
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By popular demand posted:Stumbled on a particularly boring piece of cinema you can partake in: Pledge Night (1990) You know what? I'll take it. Thank you.
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Jun 7, 2021 01:46
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I’m not participating in the movie reviews, but I want to share a couple of bad movies (that are actually quite fun bad) available on YouTube for other goons to watch and review. My Mom’s a Werewolf (1989) Starring Susan Blakely and John Saxon hamming it up as a pet shop owning werewolf looking for a mate. Night Tide (1961) Dennis Hopper’s first starring role as a sailor on leave who meets a woman who may or may not be a mermaid.
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Jun 7, 2021 02:51
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2 weekends have passed. Time to dish out the probations. *pending approval from LAPHOMO ERECTUS posted:Stay Away, Joe (1968) kntfkr posted:The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) Lobotomy Bob posted:The Devil and Max Devlin (1981) WILDTURKEY101 posted:Cancel My Reservation (1972) edit: that's all of them, everyone else did their review or posted after the probation rule was removed Schweinhund fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jun 7, 2021 |
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Jun 7, 2021 12:45
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Oh I thought this thread vanished I guess I can post my review then What happens when Joan Rivers (and the guy that wrote celebrity squares) writes and directs a movie that is just a string unfunny edge jokes strung along by a paper thin plot of a interesting concept? The Rabbit Test 1978  I tend to think the most offensive kind of comedy is the kind that isn't funny, edgy and black humor can be done very well and be very funny given its uncomfortable subject matter but this movie is just not funny which is unfortunate given how good Joan's other writing usually is. This is the kind of scenario where a good comic tries to stretch out their usually bite sized material to a whole movie and they just don't have enough good material to make it work but in this case it is probably the worse example I've seen. Also the copy on youtube is terrible sub vhs quality if you wondering why everything looks bad and why I'm not posting many pics and I'm bad at reviews and this movie doesn't have much to review unless you want me to just rate every joke. The premise is young postgrad man Lionel played by Billy Crystal is bad at dating so his cousin gets him hooked up at a USO giving one of the few interesting things in this film:  Well one thing leads to another and he ends up pregnant and then the plot sort of dies and it just turns into a long string of unrelated jokes while he and his girlfriend (who is one of his students he teaches English too in his spare time, not the person who got him pregnant) confirm and then deal with the pregnancy. The main problem with the movie (other than the plot not really going anywhere beyond a weird birth of Christ/inverse pro-choice analogy) is the jokes aren't very funny, I got a couple of chuckles and nothing else (the video quality meant I couldn't read most of the visual jokes). Also the jokes are really racist for even if they are going for edgy humor. Such as: one of his (undocumented) Mexican students giving birth in his class and him having to wrap the baby in an American flag, and  really short man in blackface with tribe of african stereotypes (The actor has an interesting history though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Barty) The movie which was partly funded by Joan herself made a profit but was so heavily panned by everyone and she never directed a film again. 1.5/10 just watch Junior instead points awarded mainly for the jokes on this poster for it 
Flannelette fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Jun 7, 2021 |
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Jun 7, 2021 13:43
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I have destroyed the offending posters, OP. Great thread!
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Jun 7, 2021 16:34
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Flannelette posted:The Rabbit Test 1978 Oof. Why is it called The Rabbit Test, anyway? I find the bizarre “rabbits” in the movie title to be very disturbing. Good job managing to watch this obvious mess
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Jun 7, 2021 22:46
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i'd try another one if theres more awful to be had
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Jun 7, 2021 23:01
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.random posted:Oof. Why is it called The Rabbit Test, anyway? A rabbit test was an old way of checking for pregnancy. They would inject a woman's urine in to a rabbit (previously mice) then dissect it to see if the urine had hCG, which would show enlarged ovaries in the rabbit.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:34
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LadyPictureShow posted:A rabbit test was an old way of checking for pregnancy. They would inject a woman's urine in to a rabbit (previously mice) then dissect it to see if the urine had hCG, which would show enlarged ovaries in the rabbit. …cool e: vvvv that clip is surprisingly mean-spirited without being even the least bit funny. I guess I’m impressed? .random fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jun 8, 2021 |
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Jun 8, 2021 01:07
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.random posted:…cool Then we switched to a particular frog which didn't need to be killed and the modern test is basically a synthetic version of that. The test appears in the movie at least which works on the common mistaken idea that the rabbit dying indicates pregnancies (the rabbit dies either way) and some bad racist jokes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t8ZoZWtOzI Flannelette fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Jun 8, 2021 |
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Jun 8, 2021 01:20
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