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Office Space
My favorite movie.
I showed it to my mom, who worked in an office and she brought my copy in to lend to someone. I got it back around 3 months later when eventually everyone on her floor had seen it.
Airplane
The Princess Bride
Is that a kissing movie?
yes, you’re very smart… shut up!
To blaaathe…
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Life of Brian, too. I also love The Meaning of Life, but I recognize it’s not as popular.
Idiocracy. started as a comedy, evolved through time in a documentary.
In Idiocracy, people take a crisis seriously, the state is actively looking for experts to solve the crisis, and defers to them quickly, and when evidence appears people change their minds. Finally they elect the person with the actual best plan for the future.
Idiocracy fundamentally has a wrong view of American stupidity. Idiocracy treats Americans as well-meaning but too complacent to care about the long-term consequences. It declares that society’s problems are from a (genetic) lack of useful effort.
But, as the past 10 years have made increasingly hard to deny, American “stupid people” are actively hostile to reckoning with the long-term consequences of their actions. Ignorance was only ever an excuse. It’s entitlement rather than complacency, and society’s problems come from (‘genetically smart’) people deliberately bending useful effort towards societal harm for personal gain.
But while it may not have been quite as grating, Idiocracy was already wrong when it came out. Civil rights were suppressed with “ignorant” excuses that were a fig leaf on the desire to do harm. The eugenics the movie takes as a premise - that “smart people” breeding leads to a smart world and inversely for “stupid people” - is itself a form of “ignorance” about genetics that was actively being used as a fig leaf for genocide in the US in the century before.
But no, I’m sure you “just don’t get” how Idiocracy is endorsing a genocidal view eugenics. It’s easier to “believe” brawndo makes the plants grow.
While you’re correct that the movie highlights a leader searching for a solution to a problem, you overlook the unspoken criticism of society within the movie: the plainly evident results of generations of stupid Americans who were too complacent, and actively hostile, to reckoning with the long-term consequences of their actions.
While the movie is funny you should know the basic premise is eugenics. Which might not be something to cheer on, given the current history repeating trend.
I don’t think enjoying the movie somehow supports eugenics. The premise is about the correlation between education level and demographic trends, which is a real thing. The reproduction rate is well-known to be correlated with women’s education specifically. Regarding eugenics, historically, the issue there was forced eugenics. That’s a much different thing.
Yeah, the eugenics thing is frequently repeated here. I guess the point is also that the premise rests on dumb people outbreeding smart ones, and dumb people are poor. But I always saw that as not being the message of the film.
I disagree, the issue with eugenics is that it’s absolute bullshit. Made up by racists and fascists to justify their views.
Genes simply don’t work like that, each person doesn’t just get the genes from their parents, but from the entire bloodline of each parent. Which means we get a huge mix of stuff, some of which will be expressed and a lot of it won’t be. This means children might be similar to parents (but also might not be), but after a few generations it’s very hard to track any kind of complex trait.
Most people are about as smart as one another, given the chance to develop and grow. Differences in perceived intelligence are often much more a product of the environment, than anything related to genes. Rich families paid for their kids to go to the best schools, thus their offspring is perceived as more intelligent.
So no the issue isn’t just forced eugenics, the issue is eugenics period. Genes do not make one person superior to another and there is no such thing as an Ubermensch or master race.
Yeah, but the general dumbing down of society is a complete fiction. In reality, someone born ten years after you should statistically have +3 IQ points.
Flynn effect.
Blazing Saddles, especially since, as they say, you couldn’t make it today. 'Course, now that’s less because you can’t say the n-word and more because all the anti-racism would trigger the MAGA CHUDs.
I wish I could find it again, but years ago I saw a video about why you couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today, aside from it already existing/permission/etc. It wasn’t the racism or anything, or how people today are too sensitive.
It couldn’t be made today because Blazing Saddles basically destroyed the entire genre.
Prior to its release, Westerns were everywhere. They were incredibly popular, with countless movies and TV shows released every year. Then this movie comes along, points out all of the overused tropes, and reveals the formula they’ve all been using. The genre of Westerns has never recovered. It would be lampooning obscure content with dated references that people don’t understand.
That’s the real reason it couldn’t be made today.
It’s not the actual main thesis of the video so I may be wrong but that sounds familiar to a portion of Lindsay Ellis’s video on Mel Brooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62cPPSyoQkE (unfortunately, I don’t have the spoons to try and rewatch the whole thing to double check, for sure).
thetickspoon.gif
That’s a reason it wouldn’t be made today. Not “couldn’t”
The only reason it “couldn’t” be made is that Mel Brooks won’t license his work for a remake. Everything else is “wouldn’t”, including any concerns about people taking offense. There are entire studios dedicated to doing exactly that.
Exactly! Always seems like the ‘you could never make it today!’ crowd is saying that the woke mob would get mad or some shit.
Do they think that Blazing Saddles isn’t woke? The whole fucking movie is making fun of dumb white racists!
making fun of dumb white racists!
“You know … morons.”
The common clay of the west!
Blazing saddles is a fun and wild ride. I came in expecting nothing and got kind off for blown off my socks! This movie is so much fun.
Idiocracy!
I think Dr Strangelove is still great satire that’s only gotten better as time goes by and the world has gone crazier.
my precious bodily fluids!
Yes. Dr Strangelove is practically a documentary, now. But still hilarious.
I worked at a (mostly) metal venue in college and I can confirm that ‘This is Spinal Tap’ was just as hilarious and accurate in the '00s as it was in '84.
And what did you make of The End Continues?
Can’t speak for zerocool but I enjoyed it… not nearly as much as the original, but it was cool to see how everyone had aged in our world of podcasts and rejection and legendary cameos…
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- Mars Attacks!
- Galaxy Quest
Ack ack!
:: yodeling intensifies::
Tropic Thunder is a relatively modern movie considering it could not be made today, which adds a lot to the hilarious madness
Everyone keeps saying they couldn’t make tropic thunder today but I don’t understand why? Other than tropic thunder having already been made, why couldn’t it be made today?
Is it because RDJ blacked up? It doesn’t seem to have hurt his career at all, it seems most people got the joke.
Is it because they use the word “retard” a lot? I don’t think that’s integral to the film, it’s more just something that ages it a bit and you could easily change the dialogue and have basically the same gag.
I really don’t see why “it couldn’t be made today”.
Yeah, my guess is the blackface. But they really lean into it, and honestly, many of my friends of color thought it was hilarious, rather than offensive. Small focus group, but goes to show it’s not a universally contentious topic.
And Tropic Thunder is a masterpiece.
Having to convince investors to back it. A lot wouldn’t touch a new movie without any potential controversy as it is.
Because these days people freak out more about those details. It was a very different time back then.
I don’t think that’s true at all. People say “tropic thunder couldn’t be made today” but nobody says tropic thunder is racist or homophobic or anything like that.
It’s not like the looney tunes cartoons from way back when where blatant racist shit was just the norm, TT specifically pokes fun at the racist stuff.
Put it this way, nobody has “cancelled” Tropic thunder, it’s still just as good to watch today as it was then.
Nothing has changed to put the film in a different light.
Dude… People freaked out about that stuff THEN.
Not like today.
We’ll never know.
I know
Your mom knows.
I think a lot of Mel Brooks and Zucker comedies (Naked Gun et. al.) have aged pretty well with their absurd and physical comedy although they can definitely fall flat sometimes.
Christmas Vacation also comes to mind. I think everyone can still relate to the holiday family dynamic.
Even older can still be good - thinking like His Girl Friday style screwball comedies, or Desk Set, Some Like it Hot etc. They still work as comedy, you’ll laugh, but they may also require a bit more cultural context to really enjoy, or interest in the period/fashion.
Christmas Vacation
knowing what an enormous asshole Chase was to work with has tempered my enjoyment of these but they are classic
There’s some joke in Naked Gun that are pretty sexist (forgetting the one with OJ)
Have some examples? I wouldn’t be surprised but the last time I watched I didn’t hear anything that I considered problematic. Admittedly, I’m willing to forgive a lot of generalization when characters are walking caricatures and say crazy shit regularly.
Airplane!
The Jerk
Naked Gun*
Spaceballs
Plains Trains and Automobile’s
Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Pao Enter the Fist
Clerks, Mallrats
Evil Dead* - Army of Darkness
Tucker and Dale VS Evil
Shaun of the Dead - Hot Fuz
The Big Lebowski
Plains Trains and Automobile’s
Hell yeah! Excellent road trip movie and one of the best holiday movies there is. Steve Martin and John Candy were brilliant together.
This is the only movie i watch almost every year. I don’t know if it’s just pure nostalgia, but i always just loved the movie. John Candy plays the fuck out of his character. Like Steve Martin legitimate felt bad after the scene in the motel where he gave him a lot of shit. Every time i watch it i think about how absolutely annoying he is, and after his monologue i go: well maybe it’s not that bad.
Apparently a lot of people hate that movie.
it’s so good. Candy’s character in PT&A and Home Alone are some of my favorites (he recorded all his stuff for home alone in a single fucking DAY of filming! with tons of adlibs that never made it into the final! as a favor to Reitmann and took only scale pay, so like, a few hundred bucks!)
The Jerk
Momma I can dance!
Lord loves a workin man. Dont trust whity. See a doctor, get rid of it!
I do need to re-watch Kung pao but I was trained wrong …as a joke.
Good list. I think the only one I’d disagree with is Mallrats. Clerks is still brilliant, but last time I put on Mallrats it didn’t hit at all.
Loved mallrats.
That kid is back on the escalator again!
I hope his pants get caught and a bloodbath ensues!
How you feel about Blazing Saddles?
Loved it!
Some OJ got in the wine for Naked Gun, so it’s more like prison wine.
Clue.
Just saw that with the score played live by a symphony.
Disqualified because of the homophobic running gag.
