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But on the plus side, no raisins! William Hung released multiple albums and a Christmas EP. He's arguably on par with Florence Foster Jenkins for success.

Raisins are for bathtub coleslaw!

Maybe in a hundred years there will be a biopic about how William Hung sang "She Bangs" on American Idol that one time.

Today I learned Susan Sarandon isn't her birth name and that she was married to Chris Sarandon.

This is probably a similar point to Cameron and Tom's but basically, I just didn't care. There were some funny moments that made me laugh, but I think for a biopic it just didn't feel like it mattered. Which I think is important for a biopic. I don't know enough about Jenkins, but I think you could make a biopic of her that at least alluded to history or metaphorically related to today somehow. But instead it was just sort of "here's this lady, and a thing she did."

I didn't see any chives in the bathtub potato salad.

I gagged when they revealed the bathtub potato salad

Rich People Problems: The Movie We watched:

From what I’ve heard, Chris was chosen because his speaking voice sounded close to Danny Elfman’s singing voice. He was probably trying to match Danny’s voice in his performance. It did blow my mind to see him Child’s Play this year.

Off-Topic: I still can't believe it's Chris Sarandon doing Jack Skellington's speaking voice in The Nightmare Before Christmas. When I think of Chris I think of Prince Humperdink and the vocals don't match.

In case anyone is interested....

When I was a kid, my best friend's mother kept her ex-husband's last name. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it's just easier than changing it again or maybe it was so it would be consistent with her kids' names. But, I get it for a celebrity. Susan Sarandon kept Chris' name. I think sometimes it's just the name you get known by and it's easier than trying to get everyone to recognize you by a different name...

I agree with this. There wasn't enough background as to why she was a "sensation" before the end. Wikipedia says Cole Porter was a frequent attendee of her performances so her surprise at the end of the movie is incorrect.

Time Magazine reviewed the real Florence Foster Jenkins

I think my biggest issue with this movie - and as a fan of HDTGM, MST3K, And Rifftrax, I recognize the hypocrisy of what I’m about to say - is that it felt like it wanted you to laugh *at* Jenkins. There was almost a cruelty in that it was basically presented as buffoonery. But then, without warning, it wanted you to suddenly sympathize with her - which never felt wholly earned. Also, I never got why people seemed to genuinely like her. Like, in a MST3K way, I got why the soldiers ended up digging it, but not the people at the Verdi Club. Things are hinted at (e.g. pretension of bourgeois, deafness of the audience, etc), but the movie never really settles on anything. And maybe that was the point. Maybe the writer was like, “I don’t really know,” but I felt it kind of weak not to at least speculate. And since it doesn’t commit to anything, in my opinion, the movie lacks a strong point of view. Orherwise, it was enjoyable, just not entirely satisfying.

Not a biopic but still... William Hung: Hangin' with Hung

Hugh Grant, for all his sweetness and "loyalty", was one-note. Every problem could be solved with enough application of money. I also wondered how long he had been dating Rebecca Ferguson. I thought he was married to her at first, not to Florence. (Although the marriage to Florence was probably not legitimate since she could never prove she had been divorced.) Also, why did she keep the name Jenkins even though she basically was separated after she got syphillis?

I wondered if it was because if people were nice to her, she would add them to her will? Her will at the end looked reaaaally thick. Overall, it was a fine enough movie, I guess, but none of the emotional punches landed on me. And this is the first movie we covered where I'm straight up "no thanks" to the movie soundtrack.

My problem is that the movie goes on way too long. It feels like it really only has a couple things to do. Once you've heard her sing, it doesn't really change. It's a different audience but it's the same reveal...again. The only real change after "lol she's terrible... can you believe it?" is pushing just how sweet Hugh Grant is by going this distance for her. I quite like the buildup to her reveal. I like the emotional bits at the end. But that's maybe an hour of movie and this is nearly two hours. I know you need to have a middle section but could it have been shorter?

I'm going to throw this out there, I feel we've been talking a lot about the role and appropriateness of violence in this movie are for its themes. And we keep referencing its themes a lot, but I think I've only seen one or two posts attempt to spell out its themes. I think I saw @sycasey 2.0 and one other poster actually try to express what they felt the overall theme/thesis/point of the movie is. It might not hurt to take a moment to actually articulate something, just to make sure we're actually talking around each other. Other people first of course ;). Because it's midnight here and I have work tomorrow. I've also forgotten to do the list comparisons for both this and Sophie's Choice. I'll try to get to that tomorrow night. I might also try to do some of the comparisons of how the different Kubrick films rank compared to this on the different lists (partially because it seems like a lot of us wish a different Kubrick film was here instead of ACO, and partially because I knew off the top of my head, that happens to be more of the case for the BFI list). If time permits tomorrow, I'll also finish that bullet point list of blood in the movie (for reference) and give some thoughts on it besides just a factual account, but these things do start to eat up time.

Perfect Stranger is gonna be up this week, which will hopefully be followed by another Halle Berry movie in Swordfish, which will hopefully be followed by another Hugh Jackman movie in Van Helsing!

Rocky II in a way continues the story of what actually happened to the guy that Rocky is based on, who tried to turn his fame from both his fight with Muhammad Ali and this movie into a cash grab, and only became more destitute in the end, so much so he was reduced to freak show fights to earn a living like when he boxed a bear, I would have loved to see Rocky do, although they did recreate Wepner's fight with Andre the Giant by having Rocky fight Hulk Hogan in Rocky III. Though they went for a happier ending in the film for the reasons that have been stated, it is a big step up from one of the original endings for Rocky which saw him die in the ring because his body couldn't handle the onslaught of a world class athlete. Also if you haven't watched the movie Chuck, starring Liev Schreiber as Chuck Wepner, do so as it's a great biopic about a man who's story we all know because it belongs to someone else at this point. Yeah with my rankings, while the top 5 are not tied, the things separating the rankings are razor thin, because I thought Balboa was great and carried the best part of V, his relationship with his son so well. IV is easily the first Rocky movie that should be covered by the show for the fact that Paulie, the most deplorable character in movie history, is fucking the ever loving hell out of that robot to the point where I believe he talks about having its tubes tied. That along with Rocky basically ending the Cold War would make for an amazing live show. It is possible because combat sports like boxing and MMA are the epitome of the "any given night" saying because at any point the fight can end, prime examples being Buster Douglass, the 42-1 underdog, being the first man to professionally beat Mike Tyson or Holly Holm, who had just as high of odds, completely starching Ronda Rousey from the opening bell of their fight to when she knocked her into the following week with a headkick. While Chuck Wepner was a nationally ranked heavyweight fighter when he fought Ali for the title, EVERYONE saw the fight as being one of a few warmup fights for Ali to get him ready for his rubber match with Joe Frazier, yet Wepner would shock the world by not only knocking Ali down, one of the few men at the to have accomplished that feat, and then be 19 seconds short of going the distance with arguably the greatest boxer in history before the ref called the fight after an extremely bloodied Wepner got knocked down.

BUMP. I don't know if this is awful or brilliant. But I know I watched it approximately 30 times when I was a kid.

Howdy Y'all!

You are all invited to my pirate party ps: some good eps this week edit I was going to wait until next week and then post a bunch of pirate gifs, but after I posted this I forgot why . There will probably be no pirate party