Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Ha, I loved the original MTV Beavis and Butthead and seen every episode many times over. But boy are those guys idiots Couch Fishing! I love that one.

Have you seen it? Some of the stuff they said belonged in a XXX film. At least this should have been rated NC17.

I've not seen it, no. However, I can't think of anything said, at all, which should belong in a XXX film

__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.

I haven't seen the new Vacation, but I like the originals.

The first had some blue humor (and some black humor as well, what with what happened to the dog & Aunt Edna strapped to the roof of the car!)

But I remember one F-bomb being dropped, and because it wasn't used throughout the movie, it was used to effect. It was at the point when Clark really started to lose it and Wally World was no longer a destination, but an obsessive quest for him. He used it as an adjective that was juxatopsed to the context of what he was saying & who he was saying to. (No, I'm not going to explain what that's supposed to mean!)

Cursing for the sake of cursing isn't always funny and becomes labored when overdone.
Most comedies today seem to think that saying the "eff word" the thousandth time in an hour is somehow hilarious. And as Rules pointed out, the gutter seems the only place most modern comedies get their material.
I hear over & over that there really are no good comedies anymore - they're all the same thing: continuous cursing, graphic sex jokes & toilet humor - but we have a generation of audiences conditioned to think that if these elements aren't included, then a movie cannot be funny.

I really like Ed Helms but I have no interest in the Vacation remake. The original is a top 10 comedy for me. I don't even care for the sequels.

Ocean's Eleven (1960) goes to show that just because a film is old doesn't make it a classic.

With a cast that includes the Rat Pack...Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop...along with other accomplished actors like Cesar Romero, Richard Conte and Angie Dickson....this has to be one heck of a great movie right? Wrong!

I've seen this before but couldn't remember a thing about the movie, and after watching it again last night I know why...There's nothing here to remember! The scenes are misplaced and feel incomplete. Nothing in the film makes much sense nor does it even try to be anything other than an excuse for the Rat Pack to make a film.


The first entire hour which dragged, is about gathering the 11 members for the casino heist. The movie doesn't even try to be dramatic or action packed. It's not comic or witty either and there's no romance, no fun.

The film is about the planning and execution of a daring robbery of 5 casinos simultaneously and the aftermath after the job is done. That should have made for a great film like the similar Stanley Kubrick film The Killing (1956). But here we see next to nothing of the robbery plans or of the robbery itself, so the film doesn't work.

This was a dull movie. Only three brief scenes where rewarding.
1 when Deano sings, Ain't That a Kick in the Head.
2 when Sammy sings, Eee-O-11.
3 the scene with a drunken Shirley MacLaine.


A very young Angie Dickson plays Frank's estranged wife. But with so many characters, she, like everyone else gets little screen time and so the film never gets deep or even fun.

Attachments

   

I wasn't a fan of the remake, and I never had much desire to see the original. That's despite my love for casinos.

I don't gamble but I still like movies about casinos. My aunt worked as a Change Girl in Harold's club for years, she might have been the oldest one there. And my uncle, her husband was the guy who collected the money from the gaming area and took it under heavy security to the vault. He had a title name too, but I forget it now. When I was a little kid we visited them in Reno and I got to go into the big casino, it was pretty darn cool.

Well said Captain. And you know I would have liked Vacation (2015) if they hadn't gone to the gutter so many times.

I loved the original Vacations and I'm OK if the f word is used in context for either extreme anger in a drama or as you described Chevy using it. But just to have a 10 year old saying it over and over is playing to the lowest common denominator.

Think about the TV show The Simpsons, it's ran for almost ever because it's funny and it's humor comes out of intelligences and wit.

I've never been able to watch Ocean's Eleven - started watching it once and got bored. And this is despite having a fondness for the Rat Pack. (For instance, I'll watch Robin & the Seven Hoods - which actually isn't a Rat Pack movie, but just Frank and Dean ... and Bing.) So I'm glad Rules confirmed that it's dull.

I've never watched any of the re-makes since I've never seen the whole original.

Now... some of that great coincidental trivia - I didn't know Dean sang "How Lucky Can One Guy Be?" in the movie. I love that song. Where did I first hear it? In Nat'l Lampoon's Las Vegas Vacation (see... we were just discussing the Vacation movies AND cricket mentioned casinos!)
I like the Vacation sequels, none as much as the original of course, but I have a fondness for Las Vegas Vacation probably because a lot of people dislike it. I think "European" is the weakest in the series, but still has some classic moments.

Now that I went and read about it, I've never seen Las Vegas Vacation, I need to see that one. So that's another Captain recommendation for me

I don't remember Deano singing How Lucky Can One Guy Be? in Ocean's Eleven, but if you read it, I'm sure he did it. Maybe as a background piece? and not as a performance scene.

One more thought on the Vacation remake - I know the fact that Rusty & Audrey were never played by the same actors became a running joke (in Las Vegas Vacation, Chevy practically breaks the fourth wall with a joke about how he hardly recognizes the kids anymore!) But shouldn't they have offered the role of Rusty to Anthony Michael Hall?
(Maybe they did, but I don't feel like looking at the remake's trivia.)

P.S. I like Christina Applegate. Did she help redeem the movie in any way, at least visually?

Ocean's Eleven was just the Rat Pack getting to hang out in Vegas while they shot a film. Possibly the first instance of that that I can think of. Or, at least, which I'm aware of. Famously Michael Caine did the same thing with Jaws: The Revenge. First page of the script opened in Bermuda and he thought, "Yep. That'll do me."

My mistake, Rules. It's the same song!
The title is Aint That a Kick in the Head?
The first line of the song is "How lucky can one guy be? I kissed her and she kissed me."

And heck... we might as well all have a listen...

They broke the fourth wall in Vacation 2015 when the dad tells the family he wants to go on a road trip like he did as a kid. So then the kids say things like so we're just redoing it again? How's this going to be different than the first one? That part was actually funny.

Did you not read my review (joking) Yes! She was excellent as Mrs Griswald, I liked her better than Beverly D'Angelo and I DID like Beverly. Christina not only looked great, shes very funny. I wish she had a better script

BTW Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo make a cameo. I would never had recognized Chevy he looked like David Crosby.

And... (I'm really going on tonight! Too much coffee!) ...
My love for the song Aint That a Kick in the Head? is derived from how it's used as a background piece in Vegas Vacation (not from Ocean's Eleven, since I've never seen the whole thing).

And it's perfectly used too... right after Clark loses a hand of black jack and is comically berated by the dealer, the music cues up and you hear Dean singing "How lucky can one guy be?" and the movie moves into a montage of the Griswald family members situations in Las Vegas all set to Deano's snappy tune!

...In a couple of hours I will have a nice cold beer Then I will write my third review for the day! A movie you recommended a week ago....will it be a smash! or trash?

I've actually been waiting for that with baited breath (come to think of it, I have no idea what that expression means... "baited breath" ...sounds like a job for Listerine!)

Anyway, I have an idea which movie it is (since you "Ruled" out sci-fi).

I've actually been waiting for that with baited breath (come to think of it, I have no idea what that expression means... "baited breath" ...sounds like a job for Listerine!) Ha....Sounds like what a seal would say after a dinner of sardines.

Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Director/Writer: P.J. Hogan
Cast: Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Hunter
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Length: 106 minutes
Indie Film

What an awesome movie this Indie Australian film is! This is like no other movie I've watched. Sure it's a comedy, but it has a real serious side to it too. Muriel (Toni Collette) lives in a small Australian town, Porpoise Spit, and lives with a dysfunctional and lazy family. This could have turned out to be just another wacky comedy, but nope this film takes a lot of chances.

First off let me say Toni Collette is freakin amazing in this! She's overweight and has never had a date and spends here days locked in her room listening to ABBA. Like a lot of people in her situation she tries to fit it and make friends with the popular girls, but they reject her, brutally reject her.


What I love about this film is, it has no limits. Muriel is not a saint and does some very questionable things, and yet we can still understand why she does them. And her actions also impact her family, which causes a very interesting side story to take place. This is a very intelligently written film! It's not always a happy film either.

I loved all of the very real and colorful characters, especially Muriel's family and her one friend. The way various ABBA songs are weaved through the movie, becoming a focal point, has to be seen to understand it. I'm not even a fan of ABBA but the soundtrack really added to the movie.


Muriel's Wedding is one of those unique Indie films that really strikes pay dirt. Every scene is memorable and has something relevant to say. There's a lot of real life in this comedy-drama.

Attachments