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[–] 87 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Everything Rob Schieder started in.

None were very well liked even when they were fresh, but things like "Big Stan", in which his pipsqueak convict character has to go on a karate-kid-style journey to learn martial arts from David Carrodine in order to fend off rapists before he heads off to prison is kind of a case study in a whole genre that could be called 'damn, you really thought that was funny?'

Norm MacDonald and some of the other SNL folks dabbled in some of the same jokes, but were much more talented, so some of this stuff feels a little forgivable. Schneider though... oof.

Also: I haven't seen it, but I'm going to guess that 2008's "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" -- in which Adam Sandler stars as an Israeli Mossad super ninja who wants to be a stylist -- probably didn't age great.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago

    he's the one that hasn't aged well. gone off the deep end, he has. antivax, transphobe, trumpette, pimps for moms for liberty.. you name it. actually got pulled from the stage in Regina (ca) during an event two years ago, in the middle of his routine, due to piss-poor taste and 'inappropriate' (to say the least) content. src

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    [–] 79 points 1 month ago (13 children)

    Having forgotten pretty much everything about Ace Ventura: Pet Detective I tried to watch it with my nephews and immediately had to turn it off lol

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  • [–] 37 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Pet Detective aged like milk. When Nature Calls is still classic.

    It's in the bone!

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It's dumb slapstick comedy, then and now. OP's tastes changed.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago

    I disagree. The core of the film is very much anti-trans with characters on screen becoming physically ill at the notion of transgenderism. It is very much the sort of script that would be discarded with great alacrity these days.

    Many of the one-off jokes in the film are slapstick of a decidedly Jim Carry nature for sure, but the sequel does it better with less punching down and more giggling with rather than at.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    The other thing about it now is they cut the scene in every version of the film that establishes Ace is using his "powers" for good: when he pretends to be a trainer of dolphins to head off the reporters. Without that scene, he's just an asshole the whole film.

    Ace Ventura: Heinz Getwellvet. I am trainer of dolphins. You want to talk to de dolphin, you talk to me.

    Reporter #1: What happened to the regular trainer?

    Ace Ventura: Vat happened to him? Vat happened to me? Seven years I am wit Siegfried.

    [he holds up only four fingers]

    Ace Ventura: Ve are making de dolphins disappear, und den Roy is coming wit ze tiger und ze shtuffing in de pants und den I'm gone.

    Reporter #2: [skeptically] Where is Snowflake?

    Ace Ventura: Why do you care about Snowflake? Do you know him? Does he call you at home?

    [shouts]

    Ace Ventura: Do you have a dorsal fin? To train ze dolphin you must zink like ze dolphin! You must be getting inside ze dolphin's head. I am saying to Snowflake, "Akay!... Akay Akay Akay?" und he is saying "AKay Akay!" und he is up on ze tail "Eeeeeeeeee!" und you can quote him!

    [Ace spits]

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  • [–] 182 points 1 month ago (22 children)

    There is no competition: Idiocracy, because it isn't funny anymore when you are in it yourself.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • [+] -37 points 1 month ago (17 children)

    It's also pro eugenicist anti-poor nonsense.

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  • [–] 60 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    It's a fair criticism but imo it's not too hard to write off that bit of absurd narrated exposition at the beginning and instead think of it as being about anti-intellectualism and broken institutions, since the rest of the movie seems like more of a satire of those things, and the plot doesn't really land on eugenics as a solution to its problems.

    Mike Judge made a statement about it in an interview:

    We live in polarized times, which means that for every ‘Idiocracy is a documentary!’ take that goes around, there’s also a critique that argues that Idiocracy is a celebration of eugenics. Have you thought about that interpretation of it?

    Well, yeah. I mean I’ve actually read that a couple of times. But to me, I thought the opening made it very clear that whatever side you take, nature and nurture are both covered in that. That guy is clearly not a good father. I mean, there’s a kid with a motorcycle in the front yard, and no one’s paying attention to this. He’s just irresponsibly knocking up different woman, and proud of it. It’s not like he’s a good, upstanding role model for the kid. So I think it’s pretty clear here that, whichever one it is, [nature or nurture], there’s some combination of both. I obviously don’t believe in eugenics. I think you could look at it both ways—you have this couple that’s trying to be so responsible that they end up never having kids. Then there’s another couple who just irresponsibly keeps having them and not raising them right. So, you know, if the other couple adopted the other kids. I’m sure they would probably be better off.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Yeah the eugenics take always seemed a weird one. No implications that the family reproducing like rabbits shouldn't have any children, just that maybe it would be good if they had a reasonable amount of kids responsibly. Also the couple that never had kids despite wanting kids shouldn't have been so cautious as to miss out.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The thing is, the movie itself is fine. It is self contained satire that never tries to pass itself off as more than an absurd joke. It's that everyone is citing it as prophetic or relevant that's the issue. Ironically, the people that can only process real events through their favorite fiction aren't nearly as smart as they think they are.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago

    The opening scene has no mention of genetics. Just that stupid people raise stupid children. Yes, in real life, a child can break free of bad parentage, but it's rare and outside the scope of an 84 minute movie. In real life, the stupid people would be way, way more mean spirited, but that would make for a bad comedy.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Aren't the wealthy in Idiocracy also, well, idiots?

    I thought the thing was everyone was an idiot

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  • [–] -4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Yeah, but it is because the rich people in modern times didn't have kids while poor people were, even having significant resources given to them to allow them to survive and reproduce.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I don't know if they were portrayed as "rich", but just a couple that was very careful and considered about everything. A clean and organized and empty house being a consequence of that. While trying to fit children in "properly" they never found the time.

    Certainly the two preserved people were not rich.

    Also, I don't think the message was that "poor people" should not reproduce " as your eugenics claim asserts, think the takeaway would be that folks should find some happy medium, the people let planning and anxiety get too in the way of having the children they wanted, and the other example needed at least some more responsible sensibilities.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    We live in a society. We depend on each other to keep that society functional.

    We resent the effort it takes to maintain life, because that prevemts time being spent on the less.mundane stuff.

    Humanity built rules and morals to keep us on track, but nature doesnt loose - it reroutes the river. Controlled breeding looses out to hornyness. And Entropy eventually topples the sand castles of humanity. Like giant avalanches of garbage.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    The non-producing couple were portrayed as being yuppies, which would be upper middle class. This is conveyed in how they dressed, their home, and how they spoke. It isn't the wealthy elite, but the professional class below them. This contrasts with the poor group living in a trailer park during a time when trailer park trash was a common expression.

    And I don't think that "poor people shouldn't procreate" was the message of the movie. However, the movie has a thesis from those first few minutes, intended or not, that making life safer and easier for everyone to predominantly lead to the dumb uncultured masses taking over well built systems until they degrade to the point where they don't work any more.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I tried watching it after hearing about it here a few times... I was shocked at how it's basically just a comedy for rich white conservatives. If anything its message is supportive of fascism; the whole premise is that poor people are stupid and rich people are smart, and humanity 500 years in the future has gotten stupider because the rich people failed to control the poors and got "great replaced" by stupid poor people...

    why anyone on Lemmy thinks it's good is beyond me

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago

    Though it showed the people who were not having kids, as middle class, and it showed the people having kids, as poor, it wasn't a point in the story that the rich got replaced, only the smart people.

    Wealth was never a point or even a subtle representation in the movie. It was certainly a movie written by a rich white man though, and can definitely be critiqued as having those biases.

    Judge has shown time and again that he is very against institutional controls and concentrated power in general. All the "pro fascism" stuff you're taking about are your own ideas for "solutions" to the problem Idiocracy poses.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    I don't see how it favors rich, white, or conservatives.

    The smart people are not explicitly described as rich. The couple in the intro just are overly cautious and miss out on kids. Certainly the two people preserved from the past are by no means rich.

    I also don't see conservative values as somehow aligned.

    I didn't see any racial split.

    There was no implications that anyone should have "controlled" anyone. To the extent there was a message, it was that some people are overly cautious and should love a little, and other people might could use a bit more self restraint and raise children responsibily.

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  • [+] 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (10 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    I really want a sequel where the ex girlfriend is fresh out of prison. I don't even care about the plot, I just need her to suffer

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    That movie was so forgettable.. remind me what she did again?

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

    It's a sex comedy about a guy trying to be sexually abstinent, and in the climax of the film he fails because a woman has explicitly non consentual sex with him, in a framing the film presents favorably.

    I haven't seen it, btw. This is the description I've heard.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    He's literally handcuffed to a bed and unconscious when she rapes him quite proudly

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago*

    That's because she wanted the cash of the pool. Remember? The colleagues were running a pool of which day he'd break and spank/wank/fuck. The ex- found the pool, placed a bet on night 39, where she raped him.

    The silver lining of the film is to make longer connections with women with sex less prominent, and it'll be better.

    There is the culture of NoFap, which seems to become an identity after the film so...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    ...Is part of her probation to not to have sex for a month?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Part of her probation is not being hit by a car, and she violates it twice.

    I have very strong feelings about her and her lack of comeuppance, and the many confused contemporaneous conversations I had about how fucked up her trespass was.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    OH GOD I just remembered Meet The Spartans exists.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    I actually liked the experience. No, not the movie, that was terrible LOL. But I remember watching it with my friends in highschool and we were the only ones in the theater aside from some other group, so we were quipping our own funnier jokes back and forth with these strangers making each other laugh lol.

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  • [–] 38 points 1 month ago (16 children)

    I nominate "Dude, Where's My Car?".

    I thought this was screamingly funny when it came out. It was the movie everyone quoted until "Napoleon Dynamite" came out. I tried rewatching it maybe a year or two ago and it's aged like milk. Too much of the comedy relies on unhealthy stereotypes & tropes.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago* (7 children)

    It’s purposefully stupid so the tropes don’t bother me, the reason it was funny at the time was because the tropes hadn’t been established as much. It’s like saying old art is boring cause everyone does that now not realizing it was the OG. I still liked it and we watched it for movie night once and my at the time 19 and 21 year old kids liked it, we all quote it now.

    ZULTAN!

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (6 children)
  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)
  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    It actually holds up better when you interpret the guy walking out of, and back onto the closet, without either of them aware, in one of the first scenes, as demonstrating the theme of the movie.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    I got free-ticket coupons when the film melted in the middle of (an inconsequential scene in) Shaft. We chose to see Dude, Where's My car?. I still want my money back.

    It's got two very quotable bits, but the rest I didn't like in the slightest. Both leads have done better work!

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    Seltzerberg's entire filmography. If you've seen Date Movie, you've seen Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, etc, because they're all the same thing with a different set of clothes on, as it were.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Epic Movie had a couple of good jokes in it but I walked out of the theater during Date Movie when the Pimp My Ride joke came up. They didn't even try to make that movie funny.

    For obvious reasons I never saw the remaining films.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Shallow Hal is a pretty good contender

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Dear god. Never seen that, watched the trailer just now and can't imagine that ever being funny.

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  • [+] 32 points 1 month ago (5 children)
  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Main exception being physical comedy. Some of those old silent films are hilarious, and just as funny now as when they came out 😂

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Not having a language barrier, or anchor for that matter, makes a significant difference.

    Like Mr Bean. I think the gags about cutting through photos of the royal family only get funnier with age.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    One of my favorite teen movies was 16 Candles, which I loved as a kid, and looked forward to showing my son, when he got old enough.

    The day came, and he watched it without cracking a smile. When it ended, he asked, "What did you think was funny? The underage binge drinking, the wanton destruction of a beautiful house, the Asian racism, or maybe it was the statutory rape? What exactly is funny about this movie?"

    He ruins everything.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Wait, you mean to tell me that 16 Candles was supposed to be a comedy!?

    Teenage me absolutely did not pick up on that tidbit when I saw it in the early 2000s. I just saw it as yet another crappy romance film from the 80s. I was so bored that I can't actually recall a single memorable scene from the film.

    Hate to break it to you, dude, but the movie was very much a product of its time. Anyone younger than Gen X isn't going to "get" the film. As a Millennial, I surely don't.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Anthony Michael Hall's character of The Geek was a comedy acting masterpiece. Easily the funniest teen character among ALL the great 80s New Wave Teen Comedies.

    It was John Hughes' first film, and it was a sloppy mess, but it was also an interesting concept because it flipped a lot of the standard teen movie tropes. The Main Girl was sweet and smart. Her parents weren't idiots, they were overwhelmed by circumstances, but they were good people who loved their kids. The Big Athlete turned out to be a sweet guy who genuinely liked the Main Girl. And The Geek turned to be the coolest of them all.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    As a fan of Home Alone, Ferris Bueller, and Planes/Trains/Automobiles, I get why you like the film, but from even a 20-year-old lens, it just doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny. But you're allowed to like what you like, so long as you acknowledge the fact that the whole sexual harassment subplot was fucked up then, and is still fucked up now. Poor Sam didn't deserve to be treated like an object.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I guess I've only seen that movie once and it was about 30 or 40 years ago, I don't remember a beautiful house being destroyed? I don't remember any statutory rape? I guess it was just considered a normal sex scene back then? Either way I don't remember that part either.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Remember the big party that was the centerpiece of the film? And the older guys were discussing having sex with the younger girls, one of them even saying "She's a child!" But the older guy went after her anyway.

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