Author: Puppy

The writing/supporting cast are both upped a bit…if you hate complete nonsense, you’ll hate this.  But if you appreciate it, this is a very fine example of how complete nonsense can be funny.  It’s not quite to the level of ‘Airplane’, but close.

Tedious: Baseball song sequence, attempt at a “romantic” scene near the end.

Inspirational Quote: “And where the hell was I?”

Lots of cool cuts and one-liners and flashbacks and flashforwards and flasharounds and aspirations beyond the wonderful nonsense that has been proven to be his limit over and over again.

And it is.

But with Oliver Stone involved, you kinda figured it would rise above that.

But it doesn’t.

He called this a “positive” film???  Because you can go on an insane killing spree and not necessarily get gunned down at the end?  So aspiring serial killers and ultra-anarchists…there’s hope?  What horsesh1t.

Supposedly there’s some good “messages” here…like, violence is bad.  And, people that condemn violence and are supposedly horrified by it, yet pay to see it, hear about it, read about it, etc…are a bunch of stupid hypocrites.  Yeah no sh1t, Oliver.  I didn’t need to see this to know that.  And guess what?  NOONE who watches this who DIDN’T know that will LEARN that.  Either they’re too fcken stupid, or they don’t CARE in the first place.  I mean, you say so yourself in the script…you know, the snake story?

Also, there’s an anti-mass-media message, which is pushed so hard along with the violence that the whole thing comes across as camp, lowering it to the level of ‘Hobo’ or ‘Troll 2’ or ‘Manos’, except Oliver Stone is a REAL director and these are REAL actors making a worthless pile of sh1t masterpiece.

And hey Oliver…you’re condemning glorification of violence and the mass media by remaking ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, except fake?  Right…

Like so many other similarly violent and/or disturbing movies, most of the people willing and/or eager to sit through this don’t care about anything Oliver’s trying to say.  They’re watching this because they’re sick fcks, inside or out, or both, and they enjoy it.  Period.

Me, I’m done.  Fck em.

Totally unnecessary.  But well-done, I’ll give it that.

But you can only do the same joke so many times before it gets old.  And let’s face it, DeNiro’s done it plenty of times since then.  But even with that being said, I still really like this movie because DeNiro’s deadpan delivery of lines he knows are meant to be funny and self-effacing rivals that of Leslie Nielsen in ‘Airplane!’ and Idle/Cleese in the best ‘Flying Circus’ sketches.

And the comedy that’s intrinsic with self-parody is a great contrast to the extremely serious things that are happening…you know, people getting killed and all.

Dr. Sobel’s psychiatry is a bit out-of-date at this point, but Crystal does a good job holding his own.

Inspirational Exchange: The Fcken Doctor V. Primo Sindone

Grade: A-

He still doesn’t try very hard, but if he tried very hard he wouldn’t be Norm MacDonald.

Occasionally hilarious, and he’s a smart/amusing guy in his own apathetic way.

Even the soundtrack is good…Eric Clapton does what he does best- play some really cool notes without having to actually construct a song out of them.

Why, then, is it not rated even higher? 

There’s a limit to how good cop-buddy action films can be.

1:30:48- Cyndi Lauper!

Behold the damage caused by ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’.

Yes, it was brilliant, and inspired a lot of not-quite-as-brilliant-but-still-really-good comedy.

But THIS…THIS is what happens when someone (Terry Jones) is given complete artistic license to make a vanity project movie based on his own book SOLELY because he was a member of Python, albeit the least talented member.

I’m sure the executives watched this before agreeing to release it, just like they read the script before agreeing to fund it.  But when they found both of them dull and almost completely without humor, they just shrugged and said “Well, that’s what the critics said about Python…we don’t get it, but it MUST be funny…let’s give it a go.”

Well, this is like a mediocre Jones/Palin sketch, only worse because it’s got no Palin, stretched out to movie-length with no increase in the volume of laughs along with the volume of material.  The opening scene is the only thing I remembered from the first time I watched this, and that’s because it’s the only scene with “Python-esque” qualities, in the good sense(intelligent, well-written, funny, and in terrible taste).

The rest is, as cameo-appearance-for-old-time’s-sake John Cleese might describe it, “Irrepressibly drab and awful.”

Twistedly brilliant at times, morally ambiguous all the time, darkly comic and at times very disturbing.

They’re a bunch of ar$eholes and they don’t “Caaaaaaaaaaaaare…”

Near the middle it gets dull and repetitive for a bit, just like the lives of the characters.  But it picks back up enough near the end to make it necessary viewing for anyone that gives a fck about my ‘A List’.

Grade: A-

Yes, I watched the whole thing.  I still staunchly maintain that ‘Manos’ is worse than this, but I must admit…this SUCKS.  In a pretty funny way.  Better than ‘Hobo’, even…

‘Troll 2’ was written and directed on location in two vacant heads.

Inspirational Quote: “HOSPITALITY!”

Best Part: Brief clip of Norm MacDonald trying to get Hasselhoff to mention Germany.