Monday, August 14, 2017

Against The Crowd Blogathon 2017: A Guest Post by Joel


The notion of good things or bad things coming in threes is merely superstition influenced by our perception of good and bad and our awareness of the things happening around us. However, four is different. The number four takes us back to our roots, to nature. Each year, there are four seasons. We travel in four primary directions. Four major elements sustain us. And now, this is our fourth Against the Crowd Blogathon.

I'm no fool, though. I don't want to abandon the guys who has brought me luck the third time around. See what I did there? Anyhoo, that means KG and Joel are back with me.

For the second year in a row, KG of KG's Movie Rants serves as my co-host. Please check out his blog this week, and going forward. He is a very insightful writer whom I enjoy reading.

As for Joel, or as I like to call him Super Reader Joel, this is his eighth guest post on this site. And he has brought me lots of eyeballs with all of them. Of his previous seven guest posts, three are among the top 10 most viewed posts on this blog. His great comments have sustained numerous conversations here over the last few years, but as a provider of content, he's been even better. That tells me I should just shut my mouth and get out the way. Before I do here's a quick reminder that if you want to play along, just click here to find out how.

Take it away, Joel.







What a Way to Go! (1964)


I really don’t understand critics sometimes. They seem to forget that while movies are meant to be enlightening at times they should always be entertaining. Sometimes you want to unload the weight of the world and watch something fluffy, pleasant and disarming and not feel bad about it. Which brings me to this film that I love but somehow has managed an inexplicable zero score.

What a Way to Go! stars a very young Shirley MacLaine as Louisa May Foster a female Jonah who, despite her rapacious mother’s harping about marrying a rich man, just wants a simple life. Problems arise when despite her best efforts she ends up fabulously wealthy because the seeming failures she marries (and marries) become successes owing to innocent suggestions she makes and then bite the dust soon after leaving her bereft but dripping in clothes and jewelry. (The movie cost $20 million in 1964 dollars-that would be over 480 mil today!). She decides she wants to give her $200 million fortune to the government and thinking that she’s nuts they send her to their psychiatrist where she tells her tale in flashback.

So off we go on a crazy ride where Louisa falls for a series of misfits and lives with them in contentment until they either decide they want to do more for her despite her protestations to the contrary or some felicitations of fortune befall them and the next thing you know they’re pushing up daisies!


Simple and silly enough but what makes this so much fun is that as we work through Louisa’s marriages each one is interpreted in a spoof of a different movie genre (silent, foreign, movie musical, etc.) each more elaborate than the one before. My personal favorite is the Lush Budgett production which culminates with Shirley and her present husband on a fur bedspread in an enormous champagne glass!

In a role originally slated for Marilyn Monroe before her untimely death Shirley, an expert comedienne gives it all she has and the role gives her ample opportunity to display her abundant talents and charm the audience. Another big plus is that all the husbands and an ardent suitor are played by a raft of superstar men, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly and Dick Van Dyke all enjoying their chance to play extreme physical comedy.

So what if it’s not Chekov or an O’Neill play and it doesn’t “mean” anything it’s an engaging little comedy that goes down easy with enough star power to drive ten movies. There are plenty of days when that’s enough.







The Spectacular Now (2013)


How fervently I hate this movie! For about 95 eye gouging minutes we watch a total douchebag mistreat just about everyone who has the misfortune to cross his path and a dull simp of a girl let him treat her like dirt and yet the movie expects us to find it compelling and romantic. That would be a NO!

He gets her drunk, he uses her both for her brain and sexually, he whines and vomits. What a keeper! He has a bad home life with two wastrels for parents so he’s angry and bitter…blah, blah, blah. Not only is that unimaginative it’s trite. I spent the entire movie yelling at the screen “Dump him and find a better guy!”


I mean Aimee is a washed out doormat but she seemed like a nice enough girl and certainly more intelligent than to tolerate the odious behavior that this tool puts her through. Then after treating her like leftover lunch the entire movie he almost gets her killed and she still pines for him. WHAT!!!!! That just made me both sad and mad and I fail to see how the audience is supposed to be charmed. It doesn’t help that the lead actor and actress are two of the most vapid, personality free so called performers around. I actually had a headache at the conclusion (why I watched it to that point I can’t tell ya) from my frustration at wasting so much time on such a worthless pile of glop. The Spectacularly Awful would be a more appropriate title!


27 comments:

  1. This looks so great Dell! Love Shirley reaction shot when she's all decked out in pink. It inspired me to watch the movie again. Thanks for letting me participate!

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    1. Glad you like the presentation. Thank you for the content. I haven't seen What a Way to Go!. On the other hand, I have seen The Spectacular Awful and I am in complete agreement for those same reasons plus a few more. I think you already knew that, though. Thanks again for participating.

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    2. I recall that you were not a fan of that horrendous piece of wasted celluloid!! If I remember properly you were appalled by the other characters indifference to Sutter's obvious rampant underage alcoholism which is another fault along with so many that the movie had. Argh! But it's nice to know I'm not alone in my distaste for it.

      Would love to hear what you think of What a Way to Go! if you watch it. It's an easy peasy nice and breezy way to pass a couple of hours.

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    3. It looks like a fun little movie. I think one reason for the low RT grade is there are only 5 reviews listed for it. That speaks to how obscure it is more than anything. That is very odd considering the cast. I'm left to wonder what critical reaction was to it back when it was released.

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    4. I'm not sure about that. I tried to hunt down some reviews from the period but no luck. It was popular with the public though, it just missed the top 10 for the year coming in at 11th. It was so costly I'm not sure if it made a profit but at least the money is all right there on the screen. I'm always baffled when I go see something that purportedly cost zillions to make and it looks cheap and muddy.

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  2. I do like The Spectacular Now though that shot of Shailene Woodley getting hit by a car is hilarious. What a Way to Go! could be interesting as I do like Shirley MacLaine and I saw that it did get a few Oscar nods. Besides, Pearl Harbor and Suicide Squad won Oscars so it can't be this bad.

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    1. Ugh...Pearl Harbor. I didn't mind Suicide Squad, but no way it should have won Oscar for makeup over Star Trek Beyond.

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    2. WAWTG! Oscar nods are totally deserving. Just the sheer breath of variety of Shirley's costumes throughout the different vignettes is amazing and some, particularly during the segment with Paul Newman as an avant garde painter are like some kind of fever dream. The art direction is incredibly elaborate as well giving each segment it's own feel but still making them make sense as a whole.

      Pearl Harbor, such a wasted opportunity.

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    3. Pearl Harbor, lol. There are two major problems with it. First, it's directed by Michael Bay. Second, he apparently saw Titanic first and decided to attempt a remake.

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    4. I could list so many things wrong about that piece of shit as well as the fact that a lot of the characters in that film were idiots, it took too many dramatic liberties, and is full of historical inaccuracies. It is among the many reasons why I consider it to be THE WORST FILM EVER MADE.

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    5. I won't try to talk you out of that opinion, don't worry.

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  3. I love Joel! Glad he did another guest post.

    I liked The Spectacular Now, I didn't *love* it and I definitely understand Joel's reasons for hating it. I've never seen What a Way to Go however.

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    1. I'm like Joel, I just couldn't get with The Spectacular Now at all.

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    2. Thanks Brittani that's a nice thing to say. I realize I seem to be in the minority hating that awful movie but that's part of what makes film going fun-the chance to look at something from different angles. Hope you get a chance to see What a Way to Go!

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  4. Hahahaha great post, Joel. I sadly (or luckily) haven't watched either of these films but What A Way To Go! does sound like an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. Its cast is definitely worth enough to get my attention. I think Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley are people who are more hype than substance at the moment. I find Teller slightly more tolerable but I don't think either have lived up to their promise...yet.

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    1. Interesting. I generally find Woodley far more tolerable. I'm not really a fan of Teller, but I do think he has potential thanks to his outstanding work in Whiplash.

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    2. Thank you! What a Way to Go! with it's bright sets and light comic attitude is a perfect rainy day watch and it's rare to get a cast like that nowadays.

      I think that's a good assessment of Teller and Woodley. They're flavors of the moment but they don't POP on screen the way stars have to do to last and they aren't distinctive in the way a character performer has to be to have any sort of longevity.

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    3. These days, casts like that are generally reserved for mid budget but high minded ensemble pieces like The Big Short or Spotlight. Excellent films, both, but lacking in the "fun" department.

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  5. I haven't seen the first movie, but YES!!! on your take with The Spectacular Now! I didn't know it has that high of a rating. In agreement with everything you said about it.

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    1. Congratulations! You are on the right side.

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    2. Always nice to find a shared opinion and discover you're not alone or truly missing something when others are raving about a movie and you think "That's garbage...what the hell are they talking about?!"

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    3. Especially when it really is garbage, I might add.

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  6. I have been laughing at that gif for solid 10 minutes. Woodley and Teller...Christ what a horrible pairing.

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  7. Your first pick sounds like fun, and what a cast list.

    The Spectacular Now has been something i have been avoiding succesfully since 2013 and long may that continue. Sounds like something i would hate

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    1. I highly suggest you keep avoiding it.

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    2. Fun is the perfect word for What a Way to Go!

      Absolutely spare yourself if at all possible from the disaster that is the other film!!!

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