How low I have fallen
Aug. 5th, 2010 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaLast night, in lieu of doing anything useful, I watched TV. Several hundred channels and the best thing I could find to watch? .... Cannonball Run II .... Now if that isn't a sad statement about television, I don't know what is.
It's an incredibly 80's movie, and I use the term loosely. It's really more like a cartoon with live-action actors. It's barely coherent at all, held together mostly by being on the same chunk of celluloid rather than anything like narrative or continuity.
I definitely would not say it's a good film but it is kind of interesting to me just in it's sheer badness. I kind of wonder what happened to films like this? Bad, stupidly campy films with literally dozens of recognizable stars in it. ... For that matter, what happened to the dozens of recognizable stars? I don't mean the ones from the film. Most of them are dead. But... In TV. I mean yes, there's a couple but really, the majority of current actors look very alike to me. I can identify a couple but they're not nearly as visually recognizable as a lot of the older comedians. This movie had plenty of star power in it. I couldn't believe how many faces I recognized. I guess in part a film like that couldn't be made today due to the contracts and licensing issues.
Another thing that surprised me was the use of the term 'partners' (in the gay sense) And an interesting observation. While there was some gay and trans* stuff played for laughs, it really felt more like the 'laughing with you' than 'laughing at you' sort of laughs. Similarly, there's a muslim character in the film but he's the jovial eccentric rich stereotype but also utterly fearless and quite likable. I remember this stereotype of 'arab' men from a number of shows in the 80s and I'm sort of wondering when this depiction vanished and was replaced with the hateful and fearful one that tends to dominate now. The combination of these two depictions and some other things have left me contemplating the assertion by the right that 'liberals' tried to 'sanitize' culture with political correctness when in truth, it feels to me more like people with an agenda have pushed for more hateful stereotypes that just weren't funny and they failed on those grounds.
And finally of course, I'm left with the disturbing realization that I apparently believe that the addition of Dom Deluise to any film would make it better. Seriously... Think about it. Dom Deluise as Citizen Kane. Dom Deluise stars in Debbie Does Dallas. Dom Deluise in Silence of the Lambs. Dom Deluise as Patton. Dom Deluise as Jesus in The Passion of Christ. Can you name ONE film that he wouldn't make better? I tried all night and couldn't come up with any.
It's an incredibly 80's movie, and I use the term loosely. It's really more like a cartoon with live-action actors. It's barely coherent at all, held together mostly by being on the same chunk of celluloid rather than anything like narrative or continuity.
I definitely would not say it's a good film but it is kind of interesting to me just in it's sheer badness. I kind of wonder what happened to films like this? Bad, stupidly campy films with literally dozens of recognizable stars in it. ... For that matter, what happened to the dozens of recognizable stars? I don't mean the ones from the film. Most of them are dead. But... In TV. I mean yes, there's a couple but really, the majority of current actors look very alike to me. I can identify a couple but they're not nearly as visually recognizable as a lot of the older comedians. This movie had plenty of star power in it. I couldn't believe how many faces I recognized. I guess in part a film like that couldn't be made today due to the contracts and licensing issues.
Another thing that surprised me was the use of the term 'partners' (in the gay sense) And an interesting observation. While there was some gay and trans* stuff played for laughs, it really felt more like the 'laughing with you' than 'laughing at you' sort of laughs. Similarly, there's a muslim character in the film but he's the jovial eccentric rich stereotype but also utterly fearless and quite likable. I remember this stereotype of 'arab' men from a number of shows in the 80s and I'm sort of wondering when this depiction vanished and was replaced with the hateful and fearful one that tends to dominate now. The combination of these two depictions and some other things have left me contemplating the assertion by the right that 'liberals' tried to 'sanitize' culture with political correctness when in truth, it feels to me more like people with an agenda have pushed for more hateful stereotypes that just weren't funny and they failed on those grounds.
And finally of course, I'm left with the disturbing realization that I apparently believe that the addition of Dom Deluise to any film would make it better. Seriously... Think about it. Dom Deluise as Citizen Kane. Dom Deluise stars in Debbie Does Dallas. Dom Deluise in Silence of the Lambs. Dom Deluise as Patton. Dom Deluise as Jesus in The Passion of Christ. Can you name ONE film that he wouldn't make better? I tried all night and couldn't come up with any.
