Cam Bert

I've almost picked this so many times. Daft Punk is top three if not top one for music for me.

I think the biggest question I have about this movie is why does Jerry Orbach decide to steal money now? His reason is simply "it's a lot of money." He's a captain in the Los Angles police department, I'm sure there are cases he's come across or dealt with that have much more money at stake. Heck, there is probably more money in evidence that he could also easily steal. He says he's only been working 25 years so retiring early and keeping the money sounds smarter than faking his death. After 20 years of service in the Los Angles police department if you contribute to a pension plan your pension equals 50% your average monthly pay. For every year beyond that it goes up 3 percent to a maximum of 90%. So after 25 years of service he could retire and get 65% of his annual pay as pension. He'd still be making about $104,000 annually. Wouldn't it have been better to keep that money, and slowly use it to supplement your rather generous pension? Who's to say he wouldn't run out of the money he stole? He's clearly not going to be working in Mexico.

To me by far the worst part of this movie is that Gnorm was voiced by Rob Paulsen aka Yakko Warner aka Raphael aka Donatello in the newer cartoon aka Pinky aka a million voices of my childhood! I did not need to hear him talking about about nice asses.

UHF is great. Their appearance... is literally doing the exact same thing. It's an example of how weird the show they are watching is within the movie.

I liked the music. I have no problem with it

As I stated in my Letterboxd review I think I get what they wanted to do with this movie. They liked the classic animation style of Max Fleischer aka Betty Boop and that rubber band animation style and they wanted to do a weird live action version of that. However, much like another film that I loathed that HDTGM did, Velicopastor, they want to do a send up of something without understanding what it was they were sending up. Like Fleischer cartoons were not pushing bounties when it came to being offensive, they pushed them a bit it terms of suggestiveness perhaps, so when they had a blackface character it wasn't being edgy it is just what people did at the time. The women were sex bombs and suggestive but they didn't just have their tits out. It just seemed to me that idea was a hook to hang their hat on and what they really wanted to do was just be weird for the sake of being weird and offensive because it's easier to be offensive than come up with actual jokes. Doing things on the cheap and trying to get away with it, crouching offensive humor behind a guise of "Well these people do drag" or "this man is gay" to justify just cheap and shoddy jokes. Fun fact I own two copies of this movie but didn't watch it until the other day. Both were gifted to me by people that know I like weird movies and I like bad movies. To be fair to them on paper it does seem like something I would enjoy. If I was 20 years younger I may think different as I do now. The funny thing is earlier this year I watched a documentary on the band The Residents and they talked about this movie briefly in it. The Elfmans were friends with The Residents and they were filming it in their space. There is a difference in what the difference between what the The Residents were doing and what Forbidden Zone was doing. One is actual art with something to say. The execution comes off as weird but they are trying to say something. Forbidden Zone wants to be that but has nothing to say. Heck, Holy Mountain and El Topo are bizarre surrealist movies but again they are trying to say something.

Does anybody else think it is crazy trusting of MJH to name every cookie in her bakery after members of her family? Like to me this is just asking for somebody to straight up try and steal my identity by figuring out my mother's maiden name and my date of birth and any other information about me I happen to name a cookie.

I'm down for whatever as long as you fine folks are there.

At the end of the movie after Chip reverts back to doll form he's wearing a sash and a scarf. This brings up two questions. First, he can turn things into miniature doll form? Like the scarf she bought him was not magical yet he puts it on and because he's wearing the scarf it too shrinks down with him? Why did he even put the scarf on? So she knew it was him? She'd already put it together so now he just ruined a perfectly usable scarf. Second question, what's up with the sash? He never once in the movie wore a sash. He didn't have one in the box he came in either. Where did this sash come from and why put it on when turning back into a doll?

Yea, it's crazy. The first day in the bakery on the board is "6 Days to Christmas" and it ends on Christmas so technically it takes place over 6 days!

HouseShare is a shitty app or company. First of all the actual HouseShare person was suppose to come five days before Christmas. They don't show up but MJH thinks Chip is that person so doesn't say anything about them being missing to the company. Then two days before Christmas the company texts her to say the client cancelled due to illness. This is a full three days after the original HouseShare guest was suppose to be staying with her. Shouldn't that message been sent on the day of their scheduled arrival? Also why specify illness, that doesn't affect anything unless illness is a cause to not have to pay. If that is the case HouseShare is terrible. If I booked an AirBNB and got sick and phoned them three full days after my original booking the owner isn't just going to eat the cost of those days. Also showing up a day early does not get you a free night's stay either.

To me that was one of the weirder things. They keep talking about how hot Chip was and all I thought is "He looks good for a man of his age." To me it seems like all the parts were written for characters about 10 or 15 years younger and they didn't bother changing it once MJH got involved.

I think I was slightly put off by it in the first number, then I came around on it. I get that being a big hurdle though and I think probably was the thing that hurt the audience reception the most.

Okay. Question time! I imagine one of the thing, glum story aside, that put off a lot of people were the musical numbers. Most probably went in expecting the actors singing and not just lip synching. Ignoring the meaning behind the characters lip synching to already recorded songs, if we wanted to make this movie a marketable success do you think having the actors actually sing the songs would have helped it at the box office?

Yes I feels so right yet he has done nothing (criminally) wrong. I think it's because we've seen him selfishly ruined two people's (three depending on your stance of where life begins) lives that there is a lot of emotional anger towards him that seeing him die is cathartic. The other thing I will say is while he did nothing to the girl I did get creepy vibes from their meeting. When he tells her that she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen I just thought "how is he going to ruin her?" Wasn't sure if he was being honest of had ulterior motives but it just made me uneasy. I think therefore subconsciously blame him for her death that just meeting him jinxed her.