Comments on: Friday Fun Thread

By: aaron law

aaron law — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 03:56:51 +0000

David,
I have yet to see Bamboozled, but have heard that it is quite good, and will watch now soon as refracted throug the lens you suggest. I don’t know what I think about the juxtaposition of the church with the slapstick scene. Sturges’ talent certainly warrants a more textured reading. Yet, viscerally that scene hits me like Birth of a Nation (Yet I have even heard people suggest that this film can be viewed as critique as well). I guess I privelege Lee as a source of socially-conscious satire more readily than I do Sturges, and as a result, the slapstick scene complicates my feelings for the film. The Lady Eve, on the other hand IMO, is easily one of the most perfect films from all ages.
thanks for your response.

By: David Fiore

David Fiore — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:53:22 +0000

Aaron-- I'm of the opinion that the slapstick scene in Sullivan's Travels cannot be read (or cringed at) in isolation from the rest of the film--it's part of a much more complicated (though still, to my mind, unsatisfactory) racial discourse... it gets even better if you ponder the relationship of Sturges' film to Spike Lee's Bamboozled

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 16:40:29 +0000

CC, I lived in Minneapolis for 3 years and found a lot of Fargo’s gentle spoofing of Upper Midwestern language and customs really spot-on and funny. But I still don’t get the restaurant scene. You can find American-born Asian Americans who speak with any given regional American accent…what’s funny about that eludes me.

By: cc

cc — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 16:06:29 +0000

Re that restaurant scene in Fargo:
The hilarity is from the Asian guy speaking wid da Norvegian accent, ya know? The whole movie was a send up of people who live in the upper upper midwest—they way they talk, act, and believe.

By: lth

lth — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:30:36 +0000

I’m with David and rilkefan – that scene was the best in a terrible movie, not the other way around!

By: rilkefan

rilkefan — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 06:06:35 +0000

Re SM-2: “I think that scene puts the rest of the film to shame…”

Yep. It was odd to find oneself watching a major summer blockbuster and seeing a quiet scene with a nobody, non-conventionally beautiful woman just being human. The scene is the culmination of a series of brief glances and shows the hero has other options without hitting us over the head with its message.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 04:13:44 +0000

Good scene in Bad movie – The Fall of the Roman Empire (roughly the same story as Gladiator – why are epics so attracted by Commodus?)was wearily long and of zero interest, except that at the end they have a scene where commodus and not-crowe are fighting with javelins inside a square of soldier’s shields, and that is just fantastic – luckily it’s included more or less in its entireity as a trailer on the DVD of El Cid, so I no longer have to weigh up recommending that people waste several hours of their lives to see this one scene.

By: Geoduck

Geoduck — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:09:18 +0000

Good scene/Bad movie:

Disney produced a lackluster animated adaptation of The Sword In The Stone, the first part of T.H. White’s Arthurian The Once And Future King. The movie isn’t bad, exactly, but just plods sluggishly along from plot point to point.
Except for one scene, where Merlin and the young Arthur run into a gleefully evil villianess named Madame Mim. Mim and Merlin engage in a all-out shape-changing Wizard’s Duel in the middle of a swamp, and for about five minutes the film kicks into glorious high gear. As a final bonus, Merlin’s method for winning the duel is both non-lethal and quite clever. Sadly, all too soon, Mim is defeated, and back into snoozeville the movie plunges…

Bad scene/Good movie

The recent Dawn of the Dead remake is a nicely gory horror flick which wisely didn’t try to be a carbon-copy of Romaro’s seminal original, but followed a no-frills, straight-ahead, entrail-strewn plotpath. (The opening credits montage is particularly inspired.) It does great right up until the closing credits, where it tacks on a totally unneeded and unpleasant coda. As one reviewer put it, when the boat pulls out from the dock and you hear the gunshot, turn off the movie. You’ll be glad you did.

By: David Fiore

David Fiore — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 21:08:48 +0000

Bad scene, good movie:

In “Spider-Man 2”, the daughter of his Russian/Eastern European landlord comes up and asks Peter Parker if he wants some chocolate cake.

I thought this was such a bizarre scene—I kept wondering if I’d missed something earlier in the film.

interesting Timothy—I think that scene puts the rest of the film to shame…occasions the thought that there was a completely different (and—almost certainly—better) way to tell this story…

By: aaron

aaron — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 07:41:18 +0000

Bad scene in a great movie:
Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels bears the anachronistic blight of the African American cook playing up the worst of stereotypes. Otherwise, great film.
Good scene, bad movie:
In the poor Hitchcock knock-off Niagara with Marilyn Monroe the scenes with the chimes are chilling. Everything else is pretty much leave it, including what may be the worst line ever for the end of a movie: “It may be the first time that someone said, ‘scuttle it!’ as a prayer.” “And had it answered.”
Honestly, it is so bad, it’s worth seeing.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:59:56 +0000

Bad scene, good movie:

In “Spider-Man 2”, the daughter of his Russian/Eastern European landlord comes up and asks Peter Parker if he wants some chocolate cake.

I thought this was such a bizarre scene—I kept wondering if I’d missed something earlier in the film.

By: lalala

lalala — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 00:00:08 +0000

Good scene, bad movie: In “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” – a really really awful movie – the scene where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are playing themselves filming a sequel to “Good Will Hunting” is hilarious, or at least I remember it to be so.

By: DT

DT — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:33:48 +0000

Bad scene in a good movie: Billy Crystal as Miracle Max in the Princess Bride. Terrible humor, and Crystal sticks out like a sore thumb. In the midst of a wonderfully clever movie, they’ve plopped down Billy Crystal hamming it up.

By: Catch -- catch.com -- Blogging Hardcore from New York City

Catch -- catch.com -- Blogging Hardcore from New York City — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 17:24:26 +0000

[...] I’ll pick up the baton from Ted Barlow over at Crooked Timber and offer up two great scenes from not [...]

By: Xn

Xn — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 13:43:30 +0000

Good scene in a bad movie.

In the middle of the movie “Say Yes,” a failed and often embarrassing (for all involved in making it and for the viewer who for some reason continues to watch) attempt at a Blake Edwards style screwball romantic comedy:
The hero, who aspires to be a concert pianist, has a room with several pianos for him to practice on. The heroine sits down at one and tentatively tinkles out a few remembered tunes from her piano lessons as a child. Each time she does this, the hero plays a variation on the tune, and gradually it turns into a duet between the two.
It’s an extremely charming little scene, and I really hope some enterprising screenwriter has the decency to plagiarize it and put it in a better movie.