If they remake “Drop Dead Fred,” they should offer Phoebe Cates the role of the mother
The 1991 movie “Drop Dead Fred” is one of my favorite movies of all time. In the movie, Phoebe Cates played the daughter.
It has been announced that they will be doing a remake of the movie. I hope they offer Phoebe Cates the role of the mother. That would make it one of the more interesting remakes in recent times.
The movie trailer for “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn” contains a major spoiler!
This is the trailer for “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn,” a new Robin Williams movie that opens on May 23, 2014.
There’s a major spoiler at 1:36 in the trailer.
This spoiler can only decrease one’s enjoyment of the movie, and discourage people from seeing it, thus causing the movie studio to lose money. I’m not sure why they put the spoiler in the trailer, but it was a really, really, really bad idea.
Here’s the trailer. If you want to watch it but don’t want to see the spoiler, then stop it before it gets to 1:36.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ3Ev3xQcC0
My 100 favorite movies of all time
These are my favorite movies of all time. This list is arranged in order of preference, starting with my #1 favorite:
“The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete,” praised by Michelle Obama, is actually quite good
As I’ve explained in this 40,000+ word post, I am no fan of President Obama. So when I recently read this article where Michelle Obama praised the recent movie “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete,” I was expecting it to be left wing propaganda.
Boy, was I wrong.
Having just watched the movie, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it is heavily critical of heroin use, prostitution, and child molestation, and that it portrays education and work in a positive light. There’s even a scene that praises a big chain, corporate supermarket as being far superior to a mom and pop grocery store.
The two lead characters are boys named Mister and Pete, who are ages 13 and 10, respectively.
Mister’s mother is a heroin addicted prostitute. One day, Mister goes to the store, buys a newspaper, brings it home, circles a bunch of help wanted ads, and shows it to his mother. He tells her that he circled the ones that she’s qualified for, and that they probably wouldn’t care about background checks. She objects, saying that those jobs are beneath her.
The point of this scene is that any legal, legitimate job, even one with low wages, is deserving of respect. Her rejection of such jobs is portrayed in a negative light. The fact that she’d rather work as a prostitute is seen through the eyes of her son as being very sad.
In the real world, the radical left hates big chain supermarkets. For example, in Chicago, radical leftist activists prevented Wal-Mart from opening a new supermarket. So, Wal-Mart opened the new supermarket one block outside the city. 24,500 people applied for the store’s 325 job openings, and 98% of them listed Chicago as their address. Clearly, these radical leftist activists do not care about those people who applied to work at Wal-Mart, or about the people who are now happily choosing to shop there. These radical leftists are acting against the interests of the people who live in Chicago.
By contract, “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete” portrays a big chain supermarket in a very positive light. In the movie, the local mom and pop grocery store has rotting fruit, and is run a guy who falsely accuses Mister of being a thief. By contrast, the big chain supermarket in the movie is shown to have an abundance of high quality food, and the employee that Mister talks with is quite friendly toward him.
In real life, a movie director named Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. More than 100 people in the film industry, including Woody Allen, Terry Gilliam, John Landis, David Lynch, and Martin Scorsese, signed a petition calling for Polanski to be released from jail. This is sick, filthy, and disgusting.
By contrast, the child molestor in “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete” is portrayed in a very negative light. The devastating effects that molestation has on its victim, Pete, is revealed several times in the movie when Pete seems to have an obsession with “privacy.”
My point here is that conservatives and libertarians should not dismiss this movie just because it was praised by Michelle Obama. This is an excellent film, and it deserves to be seen.
Here’s the 1991 movie “Drop Dead Fred” with Phoebe Cates and Carrie Fisher
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this movie.
On the surface, it’s a very funny comedy, with lots of great slapstick.
At a deeper level, it’s a psychological drama about a woman who is trying to stand up to her bullies and take control of her life.
Critics hated – absolutely hated – this movie. But it’s got a strong cult following.
Rated PG-13 for sexual references, small amounts of profanity, and mild violence.
Movie review: Phantom of the Opera (1943)
I’m shocked – shocked – to see certain things in Phantom of the Opera that I did not see in other classic Universal monster films! For one thing, this movie has vermilion. It also has chartreuse and lavender. It has azure. It has ochre and magenta. It has aquamarine, maroon, and burnt umber. It has turquoise and saffron. Why, this movie even has crimson – even the Dracula movie didn’t have crimson! I tell you – seeing these things in this movie was totally unexpected. It defied my expectations of what I thought was a common characteristic of all of the films in this series. My preconceived notions and assumptions have been desecrated. I suppose that I will get over this eventually, but it will definitely take some time.
Here’s the brilliantly intelligent 2009 science fiction movie “Moon”
I’m not going to give away any plot spoilers in this post, although I will approve spoiler comments for the comment section.
What I will say in this post is that this move is very cerebral and highly thought provoking. It’s slow paced, calm, and quiet. There is plenty of breathing room for contemplation. The character development is exceptionally well done, and some of the scenes are genuinely heartbreaking and moving. And then when I watched it a second time, I loved it even more.
You can watch the movie in its entirely at this link. I use the Firefox browser, and did not have any problems when I watched it as this link. I did get a few pop ups before the movie started, which I was easily able to close without any problems. Do not click on anything that has the words “play” or “download” because those buttons are not what they claim to be – they are actually links to ads. However, the arrow that’s on the middle of the film image, and the arrow that’s directly at the bottom left of the film image, do work, and will make the movie play.
Movie review: “Elysium” is implausible, because it’s based on a medical device manufacturer that does not employ any salespeople
Elysium has too many loud, noisy action scenes, and not enough calm, quiet, reflective scenes of thoughtful contemplation. It didn’t have any lines of dialogue that I can see myself wanting to quote in the future. None of the characters were particularly interesting. And if I was a child, I couldn’t see myself wanting to buy any of the action figures that might be based on this movie.
The machine that instantly cures cancer seems perfectly plausible. However, in the entire movie, we never find out the name of the corporation that manufactures this machine. And apparently, there is no team of trained salespeople traveling all over the world trying to sell this machine to hospitals in big cities. And that brings up the most unrealistic thing about this movie: Since when has there ever been a medical device manufacturer that did not employ any salespeople?
In this movie, there is no Bill Gates-type character who donates huge amounts of his own money to help the poor get medical care. In this movie, there are no rich people who massage their supersized egos by having entire hospital wings named in honor of their massive donations.
While it’s easy for me to imagine that a bunch of rich people would want to live in their own private space station, there’s no way that every rich person would want to live there – there would always be some holdouts who preferred to remain on earth. But in this movie, there are no holdouts.
If they wanted to make a point about poor people not being able to afford health care, the following would have been a lot more realistic: a poor person gets cancer. They go to the hospital, where one of these machines instantly cures their cancer. Then they get a ridiculously large bill that they could never possibly afford to pay. They lose their house. Their life savings is wiped out. They declare bankruptcy. That would be realistic.
But the idea that on the entire earth, there wouldn’t be even one hospital that had one of these machines, is completely ridiculous.
The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon (hilarious trailer for a movie that doesn’t actually exist)
The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is a trailer for a movie that doesn’t actually exist. It’s the trailer itself that is the complete work. It’s ten minutes long, brilliantly hilarious, and violent enough that the fake opening says it’s for Restricted audiences, i.e., if it were an actual movie, it would be rated-R. So it’s definitely not for young children, the squeamish, or anyone else who might be offended by such content. Personally, I loved it.
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Open letter to Roger Ebert: Please read this and explain how you can still support President Obama
August 18, 2012
Dear Roger,
Before I get to the political stuff, I’d like to point out that as far as I’m aware, you have never reviewed “Drop Dead Fred” or “Princess Caraboo,” films which I consider to contain Phoebe Cates’s two best performances. Please review them.
In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I will be voting for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Roger, please read this list of things that Obama has done, and then explain how you can still support him:
Japan nuclear accident causes mutations in butterflies
ABC News reports:
“Japanese scientists say ‘abnormalities’ detected in the country’s butterflies may be a result of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year.”
“The Emperor’s New Clones” is the best “Star Wars” parody that I have ever seen
The Emperor’s New Clones was created by some very talented people at an organization called “Backyard Productions.” With its wonderful sets, costumes, and special effects, I was stunned to find out that the total cost of making this was only approximately £3,000.
Here’s “From A to Z-Z-Z-Z” and “Boyhood Daze,” two of the greatest Looney Tunes ever made.
Both of these animated shorts from the 1950s are about a boy named Ralph Phillips, who has these extraordinarily amazing daydreams. These are two of the greatest Looney Tunes cartoons ever made. Both were written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones.
I fear that if a child acted this way today, he would be put on Ritalin, and have all of his creativity forcefully removed.
Can you count how many “politically incorrect” things there are in these two cartoons?
Here’s the Three Stooges’ most violent scene
This is from the Three Stooges’ 1943 film short They Stooge to Conga. I grew up watching these guys on TV, and now I enjoy watching them on DVD. (more…)
They’re doing a remake of Drop Dead Fred
I love the 1991 movie Drop Dead Fred. It incorporates hilarious slapstick comedy into a very serious psychological drama about the harm that’s caused to children by verbal child abuse. The movie is funny, smart, touching, moving, and ultimately, uplifting because of its beautiful ending. (more…)
My 50 Favorite Movies
1. Star Wars (original 1977 version)
2. The Empire Strikes Back (original 1980 version)
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
4. The Usual Suspects (1995) (more…)
