DSL's Movie/TV Reviews and Discussion

[AlabamAlum]

I have not heard of this expression. Somebody please tell me what a Shaggy Dog story is.

A shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story

[Dr. Strangelove]

Someone did a video (I may have even posted it at some point) discussing the writing on the Simpsons during the mid-90's and how hard they all worked in the writing room to build joke atop of joke. A Get Smart reference is cute, but it doesn't really make you laugh (at least not me). It's the joke at the end to punctuate it that makes you laugh.

But an example the video used was a scene where Bart almost gets run over by a street sweeper. I remember the scene vividly but don't even remember what episode it's from. There's like 4 jokes in 10 seconds.

A street sweeper runs over Bart's bike and you think, oh no! It's trashed! But the sweeper spits it out looking perfectly polished and brand new (Joke #1)

Bart hops on and it immediately falls to pieces (Joke #2)

Bart hears someone laughing and it's the guy driving the street sweeper, laughing like a madman at his misfortune (Joke #3)

The sweeper doesn't pay attention to where he's going and wrecks by falling down some subway stairs (Springfield has a subway??) (Joke #4)

[iam416]

Right, AA, re shaggy dog.

DSL — ah, when The Simpsons were genius

[froot loops]

I have not heard of this expression. Somebody please tell me what a Shaggy Dog story is.

TV tropes definition is - a plot with a high level of buildup and complications action , only to be an anti-climax or ironic reversal, usually one that makes the entire story meaningless.

That definition is close to the one I remember from an English class on story structure from long, long ago. I bring up Lebowski and The Big Sleep because if you were to ask a critic of a modern one El Duderino is one they might go to and in The Big Sleep nothing in the plot is really resolved(Howard Hawks asked Raymond Chandler during the filming about who killed the chauffeur and Chandler said "Dammit I don't know"). The Coen Brothers do like those type of plots, Burn After Reading is another one.

[Hannibal]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story

And that's Raiders of the Lost Ark? 😕

[Hannibal]

Burn After Reading is another one.

There is no brilliance greater than this.

[CGVT]

There is no brilliance greater than this.

Fantastic movie.

[AlabamAlum]

Right, AA, re shaggy dog.

DSL — ah, when The Simpsons were genius

Yes. Genius. Funny and fearless. And “South Park,” Family Guy” and “Rick & Morty” are often just as fearless. Some of the non-PC humor those shows get away with is kind of amazing.

[froot loops]

Yeah that scene is an even better distillation of the term. They kind of flirt with it at the end of No Country as well, with Anton Chigur getting hit by the car and that ending scene by Tommy Lee.

[Hannibal]

South Park was great, for the most part, up until Trey Parker and Matt Stone got Trump Derangement syndrome.

[CGVT]

South Park was great, for the most part, up until Trey Parker and Matt Stone got Trump Derangement syndrome.

Haha! They always poke fun at stupidity. Trump is an easy target.

[AlabamAlum]

They make fun of everyone. Liberals, conservatives, woke, Scientology, just everything.

[Hannibal]

They make fun of everyone. Liberals, conservatives, woke, Scientology, just everything.

They dedicated probably two seasons worth of episodes making fun of Trump in ways that he has already been made fun of a thousand times. All of their Trump episodes were boring.

They were always at their best when they found new angles or satirized stuff that hadn't been made fun of before. The episode where they ask the City Wok owner to build a Great Wall to protect the children was piss-in-pants funny and the anime episode was fantastic.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Welcome_to_Me_poster.png

WELCOME TO ME (2014)
d. Shira Piven
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Robbins

I watched this months ago and realized I had never spoken about it. Your ability to stomach this movie probably depends on how much you enjoy Independent comedies. Nearly all the humor is of the cringe variety -- it's "funny" because the situations are so awkward and embarrassing.

Kristen Wiig plays a woman with some sort of serious personality disorder. She's obsessed with television, talk shows in particular. She wins nearly $100M in the lottery one day. After moving permanently into a casino hotel, she decides to buy airtime on a local access tv station. The station (owned by James Marsden and his brother) is financially struggling and near bankruptcy. When Kristen Wiig offers him $15 million in exchange for producing 100 episodes of a "talk show" for her, he jumps at the chance.

What follows is a bunch of very cringe-worthy scenes where Alice (Kristen Wiig) uses her tv show (called 'Welcome To Me') to air many grievances from high school, attack most of her family and only friend, and has live on-camera meltdowns on a near daily basis. She develops a cult following that thinks she's some sort of avant-garde artist when in reality she's just very disturbed. In my opinion the movie can't decide if it wants you to laugh at Alice's antics or just feel uncomfortable and creeped out. During one meltdown she walks around the casino she lives in completely naked. So if you ever wanted to see Kristen Wiig fully nude (you shouldn't), here's your chance.

After one of the directors and James Marsden's brother both quit in disgust over her exploitation, what finally breaks the camel's back is an episode where Alice neuters a number of dogs on live tv. The studio gets sued by a bunch of people claiming slander and the county health board. Alice ends up losing most of her remaining fortune to settle the lawsuits and gives the remaining few million to her only friend that she humiliated on live tv. She then returns to her previous life and for the first time in over a decade, turns off her tv.

This is a weird unsettling film and I can't say I enjoyed it but wouldn't call it complete shit either. Wiig's pretty good, I will give her credit for that. The cast for this thing is surprisingly impressive since I imagine it was very low-budget. A lot of favors must have been called in.

[Tom W]

Fantastic movie.

As opposed to Licorice Pizza, which is not.