Quasar Sniffer

I totally agree with you on Wet Hot American Summer, and I think that is another very unique case because it is such a huge ensemble cast, necessitating a very bare-bones plot (one parodying movies like Meatballs), and is in general so absurdist. I get the impression that there was a lot of improv on the set, but there was also some very distinct, well-defined characters (even if those characters were modeled after recognizable archetypes), combined with some very prominent brilliant bits of writing. It's a very unique combination, and while I wasn't a fan of the Netflix reboot, I do think it's also a pretty perfect comedy. I was wondering that as well, but at the same time, so many other sketch comedy-derived movies just don't work. I wonder what it is about Blues Brothers and Wayne's World that make them hit with audiences so spectacualarly, but movies from Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy to Night at the Roxbury to MacGruber don't hit. I know all those films have their audiences, but nowhere near the size of Blues Brothers or Wayne's World. All those films have astonishing levels of talent, both in front of the camera and behind, so it befuddles me why some of them work while most do not, as much as I might want them to. Maybe they use those pre-existing characters as a crutch rather than a framework to build something larger out of?

More comedy theorizing: I think EvRobert and grudlian are Smart Cookies and have a lot of interesting things to say, and Cameron H. is correct in that one bad gag can ruin a comedy. There is so much about tone that makes a viewer comfortable enough to even laugh at anything, so if you ruin that, if you break the mood, it takes quite an effort to walk that back. As far as improv from the UCB, Wain/Showalter, and Apatow crews in film, or any studio comedy, it can be a double-edge sword. A lot of these films are very plot driven (Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, the previously-mentioned Blockers). So the looseness in those films is very different from the looseness in something like Blues Brothers or Ghostbusters. The characters are much less defined because of the improv, as the jokes become more paramount to the characters and because the plot is so important, the characters are somewhat subsumed as well. Wayne's World is almost 100% its characters because, while it does have a plot of sorts, it literally throws its own ending away and comes up with fake ones because it's funny to watch those characters riff on cliche endings. But that kind of "riffing" is the opposite of improv riffing because that type of gag had to be planned out in the screenwriting stage. I'm not going to say that one approach is better than the other, but my favorite comedies of all time would probably be those with the most memorable characters (Young Frankenstein, Ghostbusters, Wayne's World, anything Muppets). Hell, my favorite recent run of comedies have been films like Goon, Superbad, Pineapple Express, or 40 Year Old Virgin because they were more about character relationships and how those characters interacted. Seth Rogen has such a persona, and more power to him because he is funny and smart and likable, so his roles become another Seth Rogen role rather than a character. I mean, is he playing Seth Rogen any differently in This is the End than his role in Knocked Up? But since something like Pineapple Express has such distinct characters (and is an action comedy), it is just more memorable to me. I know This is the End is just as fantastical and high-concept as anything, and while I do like it, I would still put it below the other films I mentioned. On the other hand, a high-concept comedy like Ghostbusters is, in my opinion, about as perfect as a movie can get because the alchemy of character, crazy-vision, and direction all sync beautifully. It also helps that I am a horror fan, so a comedy with ghosts is always going to tickle me. AND SPEAKING OF SUPERNATURAL COMEDIES, What We Do in the Shadows is also perfect and is almost entirely improv and has such distinct characters and is throwing MY WHOLE THING out of whack. Damn you New Zealand! The Big Sick is another unique case because so much of it is the characters waiting for one of the protagonists to not be in a coma, those characters better damn well be strong and memorable, even if Kumail is essentially playing himself. I love that film too.

Your Muppet Movie analogy is a good one, and I completely agree. The style of "stringing together characters and filling out the world without concern with a plot" I think is also present in a movie like Wayne's World, moreso than Ghostbusters, so that extends the lifeline of this style a bit, but not by much. Comedies today really seem to be plot heavy with characters that go through necessary motions to serve the story. Blockers was very good, but it certainly had no character as memorable as Jake and Elwood, Wayne and Garth, or even Orson Wells's ten seconds in the Muppet Movie.

I think that the comments about 1970s SNL are interesting because, being born in 1984, I am obviously too young to have watch it when it was on, but similar to my parents having Blues Brothers music on vinyl, they also had "Best Of John Belushi" and "Best Of Dan Aykroyd" on VHS. So like the music from this film, I was already familiar with bits like the Samurai Taylor, Land Shark, and the Aykroyd's bloody Julia Child. So I guess this movie was stacked in my favor. I mean, I have a sense memory of watching this movie in my room when I was 10 or 11 on my BRAND NEW TV (and by "new," I mean the then-25-year-old 12" wood paneled gremlin that my grandparents were about to throw away). Even remembering that stuff now seems weird because my mom really does abhor violence and hates horror movies, but for some reason, bleeding-to-death Aykroyd tickled her funny bone to no end:

Another thing I appreciate about this movie, and as much as I love it, I also love the Blues. And if you have a movie about two white guys performing Blues covers, the concept of cultural appropriation is going to rear its head, even if this movie was made in an era before that term came to be. So where do these guys go first? The very first place they stopped at on their mission from God? An all black church, a place much of this music's ancestry comes from, being preached to by James "Godfather of Motherfucking Soul" Brown. They go on to get food from Aretha Franklin and instruments from Ray Charles. It's like they are gathering the necessary tools they need to commence on their Chicago hero's journey. They have to acknowledge their predecessors before they can venture forth. it's the hero's journey by way of Muddy Waters and Johnny Lee Hooker.

We are Quote Bros! To answer your question, I had to really think about it. Jake and Elwood are so different from me (transient, unclean, artistically talented), but their genuine desire to do a Good Thing, to help the people around them, is endearing and makes them totally watchable, even as they fuck up. Even with they get that miraculous paycheck, the use all of it to pay the orphanage, to Ray, and to the band. They choose to stay poor to do the right thing because as long as they have each other and their music, they are happy. I think that's great. Now if they can just not piss off Carrie Fisher, they'd be perfect...

This movie, for me, just sort of... invites me in to its world. I want to spend as much time as I can with these people. I appreciate how the movie lets the song performances go on for the full song length and I love every single one of them. I love all the cameos, from John Candy to Ray Charles, and I love the supporting characters, from Steven Wilson as one of the state troopers to Kathleen Freeman as Sister Mary Stigmata (the Penguin). And of course, Aykroyd and Belushi as Elwood and Jake. What I would say is that this movie does have too many endings and that the car crash gags go on for too long, but other than that, I AM INTO THIS MOVIE.

Dudes and Dames, even exempting all the great comedy and the musical performances, this is a movie in which Carrie Fisher gets to wield a rocket launcher, a flamethrower, and a machine gun. AND we get to see dipshit neo-Nazis get their comeuppance. This movie is perfect.

Many thanks to Paul for going to the unnecessary trouble of reading all my SAT rant nonsense. I just couldn't help but try and think of ideas to make the events in this movie, you know, matter.

I've never seen Blues Brothers 2000. I've loved the original since I was a kid. My parents had the soundtrack on vinyl and would play it in the house to try and cheer me up when I was a small child, before I even knew this was a movie. Hell, it was probably this soundtrack/album that made me aware Saturday Night Live was something that existed. As such, I have always avoided the sequel because I just don't want to see performers I love, inhabiting characters I've known since childhood, doing a movie I am 99% sure is terrible. I still don't want to see it. And since I haven't watched the original in years, I'd rather not sully the rewatch even by knowing a Blues Brothers 2000 viewing is in store for me. So.... That's my take! Maybe I like movies too much? I'll still listen to the soundtrack though.

It's like this choice was pre-ordained....

Ok, I WAS finally going to finally complete the Religious Based Musicals Directed By Norman Jewison duology and pick Fiddler on the Roof, but then some other outside influences really put me in the mood to watch a very different movie, one that is a change of pace from what we've been watching recently. Put on your sunglasses and ties, it's time to fight neo-Nazis and dance with Aretha Franklin because we're watching...

What makes the SAT conflict even less substantial is that the SATs are an industry, a product that is sold to students and schools, so it behooves them to have as many kids as possible take the test every year. They are also not dumb-dumbs and know that students who are in the process of applying to college are probably KINDA FUCKING BUSY, so there are multiple test-taking opportunities every semester for most school districts. Even if students can't make it to the test session in their own school district, or their school is too small to host one, they are given the opportunity to travel to a neighboring district to take the test. What would have made Helltrack have more urgency is if there was a SAT session later that afternoon and Cru agreed to take the test after he finished the race, meaning he would have to rush to the nearest school, on his bike, to make it in time. Maybe that was a stipulation that his mom could give him for participation in Helltrack; that he take the the SATs that semester or else she would not sign the consent form. That way, you establish a better relationship between Cru and his mom, make Cru more sympathetic because he is willing to acquiesce to the VERY REASONABLE request from his very patient mother that he at least take the SATs, and you eliminate the unnecessary business of trying to forge his mom's signature. Maybe you still include a gag about his sister saying, "oh, well now I don't have to forge her signature for you AGAIN" or something. Also, you could have the already-exhausted Cru racing to get to the school to take the SATs, which itself would be another test of his endurance and BMXing abilities, above and beyond any of the other Helltrack competitors. Pass one test to take another!

More on BMX Bandits from the GOD DAMN DIRECTOR, legendary Aussie B-movie craftsman Brian Trenchard-Smith:

Hmmm... pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if those references to American musicals like The Harvey Girls with Judy Gardland are hints that Gene Kelly wanted Garland for the title role, or at least had her in mind at one point. They had been collaborating since 1942, so maybe this film was originally conceived very differently....

I mean, this movie is 148 goddamn minutes. You think it could spare a couple of those to establish its central relationship.

This was also my big stumbling block with this movie. I'm not normally a Streisand fan, but she was terrifically charming in this movie. So I just wish there was an actual character development here with Dolly, or at least showing the history of the relationship between her and Horace and why she wanted to marry HIM. It seems like the entire state of New York was in love with her, so she could have had her pick any Rich eligible bachelors. And she was still clearly in love with her deceased husband, even if she was ready to move on with somebody else. What made Horace a worthy successor to what seems to have been the love of her life?

All of this. I think I was never more incredulous when watching this movie than when Will opened up that fucking tray of sandwiches he's been storing for days, then offers Maggie Grace a share of his leftovers like he's managed to squirrel away tins of caviar and premium vodka. Hell, this guy makes a living driving around and launching drones into the world's most extreme weather events, shouldn't he have some non-perishable food items in there too? Granola or protein bars, beef jerky, crackers, anything canned. some god damn trail mix?!?! Nothing. Just PB&J on garbage white bread, which by the way, would disintegrate if it gets anything more then a drop of moisture on it. Probably not the best choice of foodstuffs in a FUCKING HURRICANE.

100%. If Paul, Jason, and June give the Harry Potter movies the HDTGM treatment (don't get me wrong, I love all of those films) as a sort of behind-the-paywall bonus, it would finally get me to sign up for Stitcher Premium.

I am also very intrigued by the new Halloween. I like that, instead of another reboot or sequel, they are taking the characters people love to watch (i.e. Michael Myers and Laurie Strode) and approach the franchise from a different angle. We've had a ton of attempts at reboots and sequels, so it's cool to see something like this.

If I could just say some things about Mia and Seb's relationship... I think when I saw this movie for the first time, I definitely just had this sort of knee-jerk sympathy with Mia. I know that a logical response might be to her frustration/desperation with constantly getting rejected is "find a new job in which humiliating rejection isn't something you experience 9 times a week!" But I think that is the lot people who choose to make art as a living, especially acting, face in their profession. Let's face it, people who make art (writing, acting, painting, whatevs) need approval from their peers and their audience to function as artists. If they didn't need it, crave it like I crave the caress of Chris Hemsworth's luscious blonde locks, they would be satisfied with creating their art in a vacuum, plastering their bedrooms with it, and leaving it at that. At the same time, they are the most prone to the feeling of dejection and defeat upon being rejected. It's an effective system Hollywood has set up: become a city that manufactures dreams to attract dreamers, create a process that requires those dreamers to have their dreams crushed 1,000 times before they can fulfill one dream. It might not be as purposeful or malicious as all that, but it's certainly how Mia feels. There's such a hard-wired insecurity in a lot of artists (not all, but it's true for meeeeeeeeeeee) about themselves and their work, but there is still a need to do it. TO MAKE SHIT. So even if we know it is unhealthy, our desire to create will make us smash our heads into the gatekeepers of that particular art form. Or just not do it. It's why so many of the Most Successful actors are actually sort of well adjusted (Benedict Cumberbatch, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie); they don't need that validation, or maybe they never did. They are secure enough in themselves and their abilities that they can create their own validation (those millions of dollars help too). See also people who transferred performing into creating like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The latter is what Mia tries to do with her one-woman show, but it is initially a failure, which is all the more devastating to her, even if her planning (as elucidated by posters more eloquent than me) was less-than-ideal. This is why Seb's lack of attendance is such a bridge too far for their relationship. I am on the side of Cameron H. in that I see him as being supportive and encouraging of her at certain points in the relationship, but this is where he just utterly fails her. She needed him to be there, to be the one bulwark against the crushing defeat of her poorly-attended baring-of-her-soul, and he wasn't. At that moment in her life, it is almost unimaginable for something to have a more piercing thrust into her deepest insecurities. Is it fair or healthy for her to depend so heavily on the support of her boyfriend for her mental well-being? Probably not. Is this relationship poisonously codependent, which is doubly hazardous when one party is frequently thousands of miles away? MAYBE. But it was SUPER IMPORTANT for her, and it's the job of people in love to support each other. So even if they weren't truly in love, they kind of thought they were. They were caught up in this whirlwind of passion for each other and their chosen art and they got eviscerated like so many heist-pullers being sucked through a mall ceiling during a Hurricane Heist.

I agree. I think Mia went on to have a very different type of relationship with Shades, one that could support a family both financially and emotionally. That must have been such a divergent experience from her relationship with Seb that I could definitely see her needing to live a new life, not just in Paris, but in her human contacts.

She would found unheralded 1980s Metal bands? Sorry, "Necropolis" was the first word that I thought of when I read your post and this song is a real ear worm for me. I keep contributing nonsense jokes to these fascinating discussions. My apologies.

I think, like the title, it is all of these things. Literal stars because many of the memorable scenes take place under the stars (or at the Griffith Observatory), Hollywood stars because that is what our characters (and so many in LA) are trying to be, and "stars in their eyes" because that is how dreams are expressed in metaphor in stories told by and about places like LA.