Download this episode here. (34.7 MB)
Email F This Movie! at fthismoviepodcast(at)gmail.com
Subscribe to F This Movie! in iTunes
Become a fan of F This Movie! on Facebook and follow F This Movie! on Twitter
Also discussed this episode: Network, The Hangover Part II, Bad Teacher, Shark Night, The Raven
That Jeffrey Combs/Stuart Gordon version of Poe in the Black Cat form Showtime's Masters of Horror really is one of the high points of that series. Interesting, kind of sad story, excellent performance by Combs (amazing how good the resemblance is too with just a bit of nose putty) and definitely worth checking out. Combs and Gordon occasionally do a Poe live show that I've heard very good things about.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued that in the Sam Raimi discussion, no one brought up A Simple Plan, which I think merits some thinking about as his best film (I'd still go with Spider-Man 2, but Plan definitely would be in the running.)
ReplyDeleteI would put A Simple Plan in Sam Raimi's top 5. Maybe even his top 3. It only didn't get brought up because I knew it wasn't his number one, at least as far as I'm concerned. But good call, and good movie.
DeleteI'll triple the praise for "A Simple Plan" as one of Raimi's masterpieces (and very underrated and unseen by most of even his diehard fans). It's a shame afterwards he zig-zagged between inferior "Simple Plan"-wannabes ("For Love of the Game") and masterpieces ("Spider-Man 2") with some in-between good movies ("Drag Me To Hell") to diminish the dullness of his really bad one's ("Spider-Man 3"). Oh well, there's always the good old days of "Darkman" and "Evil Dead 1 & 2" to remind us how off-the-charts good this guy used to be.
DeleteI'd also point out that the original novel of Simple Plan, by Scott Smith, is pretty damn good (Smith also wrote the excellent horror novel, The Ruins, that got turned into a middle movie as well.)
DeleteI'm by myself in suit and tie inside an empty conference room at a new company where I'm applying for a job (out of work as of April 30). Nothing better to do while I wait for the owner to finish his many other meetings, so I'm listening to the podcast up until you stutter... I mean, talk about 'Roger Rabbit' which I've never seen. Can barely contain from laughing out loud, which in an echo-ey conference room would probably ruin my work chances. Gotta open the DVD copy of "Roger Rabbit" I bought... ohh, 5 or so years ago that I still haven't gotten around watching.
ReplyDeleteDoug, no hard feelings for not liking "Network" as much as me or JB (super cynical creatures). It was the 70's, you kind-of had to be there to 'get' some of the shit Payefski/Lumet were going for. You like "It's A Wonderful Life" so that proves you can like old B&W movies when they suit your personal tastes.
Will write something when I get around watching "Roger Rabbit." Wish me luck when I get out of this conference room and, hopefully, into a new career as... I wish I knew! :-P
G-g-g-good luck!
DeleteTh-th-th-thanks! :-)
DeleteAnother great podcast, gentlemen (I use the term very loosely) - I went to a fair amount of movies as a kid but rarely with my Dad (not a theatre guy) and I think Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the second one he took me to (Gremlins was the first - we almost got kicked out for being loud and laughing too much - what the hell?) and I remember it being a great time in a theatre packed with parents and kids. In retrospect there were probably a lot of HORRIFIED parents who were wondering what the fuck kind of KIDS movie it was supposed to be - as with Gremlins MY dad was probably just glad it wasn't the kiddy crap the other parents were expecting. Anyway, loved it at the time, but I don't really have anything to say about it now that you guys didn't cover. I will say that often times after I listen to one of your F'ings it really makes me want to watch the movie - not so much this time. Not a comment on you guys, I think it's just one of those movies that hasn't aged particularly well - this is probably the first time I've even thought about it since I last caught it on TV 5-10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteSome other points to comment on:
Running Time on DVD Cases - Seriously, what the fuck - running times were always featured prominently on VHS tapes - why are they such a bitch to find now? I consider it very important info as sometimes I've only got an hour and a half or whatever and by the time I've found one that fits my time budget, I no longer have enough time to watch it, so I end up reading a fucking book or something. Hear that Hollywood? READING. Not only are you not defeating it, you're making it stronger.
Hmmm...Hitler a Jew...not sure if that's more offensive to Jews or Nazis. For the record it has never really been established if Hitler had Jewish ancestry, though it's certainly possible. I think the bottom line would be that it takes more than heredity to be Jewish, so no, Hitler was not Jewish; i.e. he was not a follower/believer of Judaism. Nor am I, so yeah, there's some common ground I share with Hitler - THANKS for bringing THAT up!
Re alternate casting for Bob Hoskins - I made the same Eric Stoltz joke in my head moments before Doug did but I had already laughed with myself so it kinda fell flat. In the future, please try to record less jokes in the past that I've already made...in the present?
Thanks for the feedback, Sol. From now on, ONLY FUTURE JOKES.
DeleteHere's an internets post titled, "Was Hitler Jewish?" [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitlerjew.html] The answer, "PROBABLY NOT." Talk about anticlimactic.
Yes, this was one of those historical inaccuracies I had heard for years and never checked up on. I looked into it after we recorded the podcast and discovered it isn't true, even though there are still people who believe it to be so. That's what I get for coming up with theories on the fly. Certainly didn't mean to offend anyone.
DeleteIt takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. I am that man. Cool World is not good.
And Sol, I had already thought of your comment just before you made it, so it, too, fell flat. WHAAAAAAT?
That's okay - until recently I thought Richard Nixon was a self-loathing Cambodian.
DeleteFor Sam Raimi's best I would pick "Spider-Man 2". For his worst, I would say "For Love of the Game".
ReplyDeleteAnd Peter Jackson. His best is probably "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring". "The Lovely Bones" is definitely his worst.
I completely forgot For Love of the Game. I'm still going with Spider-Man 3, but that movie is not good.
DeleteI saw Roger Rabbit in the theatre at the age of 9 and liked it okay but not as much as I was expecting. I didn't see it again until I was 17 or so and I liked it way more from that point on, appreciating the Chinatown connection.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised by your criticisms because I think this film works gangbusters. I love that the film noir elements are played straight instead of parodied. Bob Hoskins totally anchors the film for me as a relatable straight man. Chris Lloyd may be the obvious villain after his first gruesome use of the dip but I prefer having a nasty villain over a bunch of red herrings followed by a surprise reveal. The finale in the warehouse works for me because Hoskins and Lloyd work for me. It's drawn-out but each beat keeps the tension mounting.
I don't think it's a family film but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Great show, guys. Most of the time I agree pretty much with everything you're saying, so that isn't the most interest comment fodder, but whatareyougonnado. I think Roger Rabbit works sometimes and doesn't work at others, which is pretty much right where you guys are too. I was totally waiting for someone to make a "Cool World" reference, and Patrick did not disappoint. If someone hadn't made that joke, I was going to. I guess I'll have to go for another live action/animation joke comparison:
ReplyDeleteWho Framed Roger Rabbit? Eh. It's no Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
By the way, I don't know if this will alarm you or make you feel warm and fuzzy, but I had a pretty good idea of which movies you guys were going to pick at the end of the episode during the game, even before you said them. You can't listen to a hundred and elevenfourty episodes and not pick up on the tastes of the hosts. Evil Dead is my favorite Raimi movie as well. There's something special and raw about it that makes it that much more impressive.
Thanks for the episode!
My new-to-me movie (and a podcast I finally can listen to in its entirety) for today, 2/5/13, is Robert Zemeckis' WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988) on Vista Series DVD. BTW, who knew when Patrick and Doug were talking about director David R. Ellis' "Shark Night" that the dude would be dead within a year? Talk about serendipity having a sick sense of humor.
ReplyDeletePatrick is right on the money that "Roger Rabbit's" biggest sin is not having a strong-enough excuse to justify the cartoons and the humans interacting in this particular movie universe (unlike, for example, the plot mechanisms of Disney's "Enchanted" or even "Star Trek IV" to get their characters into a 'fish out of water' situation). You're just supposed to go with it, but "Barton Fink" took less of leap of faith to buy than "Roger Rabbit's" convoluted 'movie noir' plot/setting. I immediately picked-up the "Chinatown" connections/vibes, then quickly realized that the 'toons' were being shoehorned into an adult narrative and that the end result was canceling the other one out. As impressed as I was to see all these licensed cartoon characters appear in "Roger Rabbit" it felt an awful lot like last year's "Wreck-It Ralph," which also got plenty of licensed guest stars and then proceeded to not give them much of anything remotely interesting to do. So yes, "Roger Rabbit's" influence continues to be felt in movies today.
The good, surprisingly, still makes "Roger Rabbit" worth seeing for virgins... to the movie (uhh?). This is a technically amazing piece of filmmaking with brilliant individual scenes and memorable moments (the 'dueling pianos' battle between Donald and Daffy particularly) sandwiched between many bad one's ('Patty Cake') along with failed/forced attempts at broad comedy that often fall flat on their face. When it connects though (and for my money the Bob Hoskins musical number at the end is hilarious precisely because it comes out of left field and he's so bad at it... he's dying out there, and so are the weasels) it really feels like Zemeckis is getting away with something. I personally can't stand Roger Rabbit being at the center of his own movie because he's so unlikable and hyperactive the animation, gags and other characters have to strive to keep-up that level of over-the-top energy for 105 min. (except when he's not on-screen, which is thankfully a lot of screen time). This being a Zemeckis movie you can see the evolution of his style from "1941" and "Used Cars" up until this point preparing him for the controlled chaos that he bottles into a family-friendly Spielbergerian fantasy.
A film that I can admire without loving, I can't wait to rewatch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" with the bonus features. It's both exactly what I expected (a mess) and what I didn't see coming (the feel/vibe this was made for and by grown-ups using cartoons as cover for their true intentions), and like Joe Hallenbeck says in "The Last Boy Scout," this is why I love America. :-)
Hi Patrick, again, a broken download link
ReplyDeleteYou can still get it here until the other link is fixed:
Deletehttps://archive.org/details/FThisMovie-WhoFramedRogerRabbit