The_Triple_Lindy

Three things: 1. I was under the impression that Team Sanity's position is that Fred is a real, independent entity, not just that the movie sucks. 2. Since you brought poetry into this ... true literary criticism holds that an author's intentions for the work is irrelevant (that's called the Intentional Fallacy). Ergo, if 95% of the work is delivering the author's intention, but the remaining 5% undermines that reading, then the work is flawed. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the work isn't flawed, but for critics, judging how near or far a work comes to achieving "organic unity" is the whole point, not to assess the enjoyability. Perhaps the distinction between the teams is that Team Sanity is taking a critical approach while Team Fred is just taking a personal response where being overly critical is a detriment? Personally, I can be incredibly critical of things I totally enjoy. I just didn't enjoy Drop Dead Fred nearly as much as I've enjoyed coming to this board and mixing it up with everyone. 3. People who experience something as a child can enjoy and defend their enjoyment as adults, but it would be remiss not to point out that the same thing can be said about cults. Is it time for tuxedo football yet?

Most practical jokes are cruel. But either Fred is being cruel to Lizzie because he's a dick, or Lizzie dissociated in order to be cruel to herself because she's severely mentally unwell.

Interesting enough about the alternate ending. Everything you say is 100% accurate, but it doesn't discount that the movie goes out of its way to show other imaginary friends like Fred. Lizzie cannot see them -- this is a moment where we are completely in Fred's perspective. And in order for Fred to have a perspective, he must exist. Cogito ergo sum. Again, this movie is trying to have its cake and eat it, too. I think everything you describe is what someone, somewhere wanted this movie to be, but then someone else decided to make it a kids' movie and the mental health allegory got ruined. Nevertheless, this is the final product that Hollywood presented us with, and it's ... it's just a mess. The letter scene is a pivotal moment in this debate, because the interpretations of both sides to fit their arguments may equally be valid. If Fred is real, he wrote the letter and tricked Lizzie. If Fred is Lizzie, then Lizzie wrote the letter and sealed it in an envelope, opened and read it at a later time, responded to it as though she didn't write it, gets excited by it and shows it to others, then rushes over to meet the person who she tricked herself into thinking wrote it, and was heartbroken when he wasn't there because the person who wrote the letter was really herself. Now, I'm not saying the second option isn't valid. But the work it takes to rationalize this is considerable. This is the behavior of someone who is completely untethered. She's not the kind of character to build a kids' movie around.

Who here needs a pallet cleanser, eh? Better Fred Rhyme -- Drop Dead or Right Said. GO.

It was the chaos and also the humiliation that gave me anxiety. The fact that so much of the humor was based on Lizzie being put into embarrassing or humiliating situations by the daemon limey monkey god. For me, it's why I don't like The Office. All the humor is Michael Scott debasing himself with cringe-worthy lack of self-awareness. Actually, I think DDF and The Office are a shared universe, where all of Michael Scott's bad behavior is being caused by his own Drop Dead Fred.

Fully Team Fuck This Movie. It's tearing us apart!!!!

I think one problem we've run into here is that the *teams* (teams are stupid, btw ... in this board and in most IRL cases) have become cemented by what the cast have said. Specifically, Team Sanity has become the de facto mom apologists just because Paul and Casey defended her, which is dumb. Fred is real, and the mom sucks ... more than one thing can be true. Buuuuuuuut ... I'm going to go out on a limb and defend Polly, the mom. Not to say she's great -- she sucks as a person, generally -- but she is also presented to us as a more complex figure that anyone here gives her credit. She's snobby, materialistic, and generally unpleasant. But then, she has a child who, regardless of Fred's real/figment status, is bringing down large amounts of emotional turmoil and property damage. And let's not forget that, when Fred suggests that they cut the mother's head off, Lizzie is ALL FOR IT. This is, for my money, 100 degrees of magnitude worse if Fred is a figment because that means it's really all just Lizzie wrecking her life and calling for her mom's murder. Plus, if Fred isn't real, it must be Lizzie shouting "Yeah, cut mom's head off" while Polly is in the next fucking room. This is a nightmare scenario for any parent, and if you're already prone to being shitty, then it is really easy to let yourself say something awful to your child, purely out of frustration. Parents are human. My own child has had stints of sleepless nights and bad behavior, and as much as I love my child, there are a few times where I've said to myself, "This kid is ruining my fucking life right now." Selfish? Perhaps, but human. And my child is, generally speaking, the absolute jackpot of kids, so if an angel can bring a generally even-tempered person to curse their existence, imagine what a maniac child like Lizzie could do to a generally contemptible person like her mom. What is really killing me about the Team Fred folks is that, since Team Fred posits that all of Fred's behavior is really Lizzie's, they seem to accept that Lizzie behaves like a complete asshole the entire film, because she's acting this way due to the trauma that she's endured, while being generally unforgiving of anyone else. Assholes like Polly aren't created out of thin air -- she's expressing her own past trauma in her own way. We just don't forgive her for it because her trauma isn't being expressed by a sexy British avatar. That ending, where she tells Lizzie that she'll be lonely if Lizzie leaves -- that's some emotional, heartbreaking stuff if you're willing to see it from a parent's point of view. It doesn't excuse her behavior, but it mitigates her awfulness ever-so slightly, IMHO. ***At this very moment, my child is throwing a tantrum because we're trying to get out the door to go on vacation, and my frustration with her is growing because she's not letting me type a silly post. If she were breaking windows or sinking my house, I might let my tongue run away with me, too. This is the most true statement made on the board so far. The father sees the mother treating Lizzie badly and, rather than removing Lizzie from the situation, he just leaves so that he doesn't have to witness it? Bullshit. If you want to blame anyone for adult Lizzie's regression into childishness, blame the dad.

YES! Actually, Livingston gets a "Story by" credit, whereas the writers were Carlos Davis and Tony Fingleton. And it blows me away that June would go to bat so hard for a movie that tries to represent the coming-of-age of a young girl which was written by two hack men, one of whom is known more for being a swimmer, and the other who never did anything else of note (EDIT: Aside from Hurricane Heist, I guess). I tried to find out more about Livingston and came up with bupkis. She's written a few other short stories, all having some supernatural elements to them, but never made another splash as big as this. I would just hate to think that she had a real bildungsroman that got crapped on by this movie.

I am firmly Team Who Gives A Shit. What Larcen says above was essentially my whole thesis about why this movie is a trainwreck. Fred is treated as both an absolute independent entity and an abstract representation, and he simply cannot be both. Fred clearly exists in certain scenes, especially in the scene where we see other imaginary friends. I also read online that one deleted scene took place at a bar where all the imaginary friends hung out while they were off work. But in other scenes, things that are perceived as Fred are either meant to represent Lizzie doing these things (the mud pies and property damage) or they are explained away, such as when Lizzie and her husband are in the bedroom and we hear what we think is Fred trying to open the door but then it ends up being the nurse, who gets accidentally bonked on the head. This movie is trying very hard to be a clumsy metaphor for growing up and Fred is treated as representation of that, but he is also treated as a real entity, one imaginary friend in a world full of them, in order I suppose to make it more kid-friendly and less deeply metaphorical.

I get that. I went a different way ... it took me a few minutes to finally see he wasn't Tim Roth.

Can't make it tomorrow, but could probably do next week. Of course, that's assuming that Rabbit is still up then, so carry on tomorrow if you need to. I hate that it's going away ... Speed 2 was dumb, but I remember viscerally disliking Tiptoes.

There was no guest in Charleston either. Maybe they just had an easier time managing the trip without having to worry about guests. It was still an incredibly fun time.

Boesky was busted for insider trading, which is sort of a con, I guess.

I needed a funny city name and, having just drove to upstate Michigan recently, Ypsilanti was fresh on the mind. I kinda think Ypsilanti is one of those cities that I first heard mentioned on Looney Tunes, like Cucamonga or Walla Walla or Albuquerque. (And just to harken back to a previous board discussion about whether or not Bugs Bunny et al were still relevant -- see previous sentence for QED) If that's true, then that's part of the movie's whole problem right there ... "Deadfall" isn't zippy enough. Maybe if it were "the Des Moines Deadfall" ... That felt like they were describing the roles to be played in the con, not the con itself. I could be wrong. But even the title Ocean's Eleven proves my previous point. The formula is simple, Hollywood, jeez ... Proper noun + abstract noun = successful heist movie.

All cons have a flashy name, so what is this -- the Philly Fake-cake? The Caribbean Cakewalk? The Ypsilanti Icebox?

I'd be awesome if Nick Cage just never learned his lines, so he's just reading his lines off the extras' clothes. Like, if one of those people were wearing a "what are you looking at, maaaan?" t-shirt that we just can't see. Or another one that just says "[throws drink]."

They hypothesize on the podcast that he was paid by the uncle (or maybe the father, as it works out) to do ... something something. As far as I could tell, his role is never really clarified. Sam Peckinpah is a director. He made westerns, like The Wild Bunch, so that was not actually that guys name. Eddie was talking about Sam Peckinpah in the bar, beard guy heard him, and then told Eddie that was his name as a little "go fuck yourself" line to go out on, I guess.

During the scene when Eddie finds out that Joe paid Baby's debt with his own money and screams "FUUUUUUCK!" in the middle of the strip club, did anyone else see the guy wearing the T-shirt that says "Fuck" sitting on a stool behind him?

My daughter rides the carousel at our local zoo all the time, and the guy there just turns it on with a foot switch. Seems that lever might just be a case of typical Hollywood over-dramatization. He should've added the line, "This ill-fitting toupee is a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom to look completely foolish." I love PCU. Sarah Trigger was also one of the Princesses from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

I'm blown away that the Movie Bitches thought they'd go to Detective Pikachu and get Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which is easily a top 5 all-time fav, but I'm also blown away that they think WFRR? is a kids' movie? Murder, alcoholism, a truly frightening main villain, tons of sexual innuendo and Jessica goddamn Rabbit? It seems more like a nostalgia movie for boomers who grew up with Looney Tunes and Disney and wanted to see them in a more mature setting. Who Framed Roger Rabbit -- a kid's movie: Yeah or nah? EDIT to add: Not that kids can't enjoy it, because I surely did, but I just don't think Zemeckis really had kids in mind when he made it.

I bet those abs looked amazing in 3D.

I don't feel it's that uncommon for people to take past trauma and turn it into career ambitions ... kids with infirmities becoming doctors, kids suffering abuse becoming counselors, kids whose parents were murdered becoming Batman, etc.

This movie and the way Dennis Quaid and others tend to throw caution playfully to the wind and jump into the water fully clothed makes me nostalgic for a time when one might hurl oneself wantonly into a pool or body of water without regards for things like cellphones. Such whimsy tends to be expensive these days.

Personally, I think everything in this movie pretty much holds up, except the stunt skiing, which I was confused and underwhelmed by. First of all, the girls that climb up the pyramid are wearing skis at first, but then just kick them off when they start to climb, so ... how do they get their skis back? Do skis just float? I legitimately don't know. Secondly, what's the end game of the pyramid stunt ... they form this impressive visual and then, what, just ski around like that for a while? Do they not do any other tricks, or do they jump off a ramp or anything? Seems like kind of a one-trick pony show, if you ask me, although a few minutes on YouTube seem to reveal that the group stunt skiing world hasn't really evolved beyond this one trick, so maybe it holds up better than I think. This video was from 2006 and people are losing their shit over it: Although, if you notice, the folks on top start out on top, thus risking no lost skis, so I guess the industry has learned a few tricks since the 80s.