MOVIE 43: this is guaranteed to be hot garbage, right

*WAS old enough to rent

should also be noted that kentucky fried movie and the ten were both a bunch of sketches by one comedy team, not from 12 directors and 15 writers

also, like theres this whole new generation of things that are "more dirty than funny" like the billy eichner subway posters that say GET QUIZZED IN THE FACE

production-wise this is really more of an anthology like New York, I Love You

So this will probably be The Underground Comedy Movie for a new decade?

god I hope not

if this was coming out the pre-Shallow Hal Farrelly Bros days, ILX would be fyucking psyched about this

that is a not-insignificant qualifier there

that'd be impressive considering shallow hal was 2001

trying to imagine a bunch of freaky trigger writers and readers christening a forum with "MOVIE 43 WOOOOOOOO"

ah yes, i remember those early days of ILX when Me, Myself & Irene was a cornerstone of the board's comedy canon

every time i read this thread title i keep thinking Hot Garbage would be a totally awesome name for this film

leave it to the boards two onion a/v club stans to break down a "i remember when people in our general circle had goodwill towards the farrely brothers" post into a feverish blend of wikipedia sleuthing, sad pedantry, and Freak Trigger fan fiction. Good work, guys!

I can definitely imagine a younger whiney being psyched about this with "Falling Away From Me" playing in the background

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Trident_II_missile_image.jpg/220px-Trident_II_missile_image.jpg

tell me more about "Freak Trigger" *opens notepad*

whiney you're always pulling this "we all used to love adam sandler movies, admit it" shit, speak for yourself son

man use Word, get with the now

xpost

hey I still love Billy Madison xpost

if you never fucked with dumb and dumber the problem is not with me, breh

i fucked with dumb and dumber but if i also know pedantic clowns in their early 30s is but a subset of a terrarium that is ilx

i love Dumb & Dumber! that movie was already pretty well in the rearview mirror by 2001 though.

damn Micc-Daddy with two solid parries back to back

sorry, some dude. i should have asummed a guy who spent the 90s riding for They Might Be Giants and Soul Coughing must have jumped right to the Kieślowski trilogy, by bad

you just described jjjusten

maybe there's a 300-post "anticipate OSMOSIS JONES with me" thread i missed

holy fuck this is the Agassi - Sampras of meta-insult thread derails

haha i still don't know who nino carter is

BJO

Super Troopers has a small core cast and a plot that runs through the whole movie, with lots of comedic tangents. does this look like that to you?

all I was trying to say is that when it comes to movies that are really just a series of sketches, Super Troopers was the only one I can think of right now that really make it work because the plot was in the movie enough to be coherent but didn't require an unfunny 10-15 minute stretch to work things out (even Office Space was guilty of this). I don't think MOVIE 43 will resemble this, at all

by the way, I remember reading that Epic Movie grossed over four times its budget, so expect a lot of these movies in the following decade. at least this one doesn't seem to be stuffed with pop culture references that are dated by the time the thing hits the theatres!

the point some dude was making is that there is no overarching plot to this movie

also I just noticed this: Aasif Mandvi as Asif

lol

also Super Troopers was awesome and I'm betting this one...won't be.

some dude otm as well.

Super Troopers is not "really just a series of sketches," any more than like 80% of comedies released are these days

i mean it's basically Ghostbusters on the plot vs. disconnected tangents scale

yeah I mean it's not like it doesn't have one very clear narrative throughout ("omg our police dept will be shut down, UNLESS....").

it doesn't look anything like stitched together vignettes, so no idea what david frogsby is on about

cuz there's not really a single stretch in that movie that isn't funny, because they have the characters talking about story while other things are happening (like the scene where Mac is wearing the bulletproof cup), a lot of comedies just don't do that

really my point is that I'd rather we talk about super troopers than this "underground comedy movie" wannabe

also as bad as "underground" was it did give us Vince Offer which is a plus

by the way, I remember reading that Epic Movie grossed over four times its budget, so expect a lot of these movies in the following decade. at least this one doesn't seem to be stuffed with pop culture references that are dated by the time the thing hits the theatres!

this already happened and most of the stuff flopped--Friedberg/Seltzer alone had three movies like that after it, and two of em tanked, let alone the "Dance Flick" shit from the Wayans brothers

yeah the "expect a lot of these in the following decade" was a fair statement when epic movie came out almost six years ago

i may have said this elsewhere on ilx but my college girlfriend told me about how she enjoyed super troopers not long after we broke up, and the idea of her watching some silly movie without me got worked up in my head, and i'd get weirdly upset whenever someone would say "hey you wanna check out super troopers?" which happened more than a few times when visiting a video store in around 2003. finally saw it years later and got bored after 30 or so minutes (which is weird since i really like club dread) but anyway NO WE CAN NOT TALK ABOUT SUPER TROOPERS DON'T ASK WHY JUST LET IT GO

hahaha

even Dance Flick turned a profit. it's not like they have even a medium budget.

also holy shit @ epic movie being six years old

lol right after i posted i remembered the Wayans have the Paranormal Activity spoof coming out today, so I guess I can't underestimate how cheap/profitable these things are

i would thiiiink shit becomes less profitable when you pay 12 directors to make 12 short films starring a ton of stars, rather than have one director make one film with zero stars, but it's possible all these celebs worked for scale for the chance to talk about poopie and whatnot

i feel like a cast like this is assembled as a result of increasingly absurd studio demands. "mintz-plasse or the project is dead!"

also this is one of those movies that tends to shock everyone by grossing $120 million. i'm interested though I really do not ever want to see it.

IMO they should have gotten Clooney, Pitt and Damon into the mix and made it Ocean's 43.

Already have a tagline: "Stealing from the Casino is easy... when the whole Casino is in on it!"

has there ever been a hit anthology movie? like actual blockbuster hit?

not some new years eve/mad mad world thing, but a bunch of little short films

I just can't believe that not one, but two fucking Paranormal Activity spoofs are coming out

I don't think Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is a blockbuster hit but it received huge critical acclaim and I'm sure turned a profit.

wiki on this is p revealing

Development

Wessler first came up with the idea for an outrageous comedy made up of several short films in the early 2000s. "It's like Funny or Die, only if you could go crazy," judged Farrelly, "because with Funny or Die, there are certain limits. And we just wanted to do that kind of short and go much further than that." Charlie Wessler affirmed that he "wanted to make a Kentucky Fried Movie for the modern age".[5]

Wessler then recruited three pairs of directors—Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, and David and Jerry Zucker—to sign on to write and direct one-third of the project each. He then began working out a deal with a studio for the project, but the project did not stick. "They ended up calling me about a month after we started negotiating the deal and said 'we can't do it' because they had political pressure to not make R-rated movies that were marketed to teenagers," claimed Wessler. He then went to multiple other studios, but, according to Wessler, "no one could understand what [he] was trying to do".[6]

In 2009, Peter Farrelly and producer John Penotti took their pitch—along with about 60 scripts for the vignettes—to Relativity Media. At that meeting, Wessler, Penotti, and Farrelly presented one short that they already had shot, starring Kate Winslet as a woman going on a blind date with a seemingly successful and handsome Hugh Jackman. "They just looked at me and said, 'Go for it,'" Wessler told The Hollywood Reporter. "It takes a lot of balls to make something that is not conventional." Relativity funded a mere $6 million for the film, but no other studio would sign on. "Other potential backers", Farrelly revealed, "didn't believe it could happen—a movie with Kate Winslet for $6 million?"[6]

The film officially began shooting in March 2010, but due to its large cast, producer/director Farrelly told Entertainment Weekly that "This movie was made over four years, and they just had to wait for a year or two years for different actors. They would shoot for a week, and shut down for several months. Same thing with the directors. It was the type of movie you could come back to." Shortly before principal photography, writers Parker, Stone, and David and Jerry Zucker backed out of the project.[7]

The film ended up with 13 directors and 19 writers tied to it, each one co-writing and directing different segments of the sixteen different storylines.[8] Farrelly directed the parts of the movie with Halle Berry and Kate Winslet.[6][7][9]
Casting and filming

Wessler spent years recruiting actors for the film. Many turned down the project because they were asked to work for scale. "Most agents would avoid me because they knew what I wanted to do—what agent wants to book their big client in a no pay, $800-a-day, two-day shoot?" he said. "The truth is, I had a lot of friends who were in this movie. And if they didn't say yes, this movie wouldn't have gotten made." In the end, most of the actors were willing to take part because the film only required a few days of their time and often allowed them to play a character outside of their wheelhouse.[6]

Hugh Jackman was the first actor Wessler cast. He met the star at a wedding and then called him some time later and pitched him the short. Jackman read the script and agreed to be a part of the film. "He called me back I think 24 hours later and said, 'Yeah I wanna do this,' which I think is, quite frankly, incredibly ballsy. Because you could be made a fool of, or you could look silly, and there will be people who say, 'That's crazy; he should never have done it.'"[6]

After talking to the multiple agents of Kate Winslet, she eventually agreed to take part. The Winslet-Jackman sketch was shot shortly after, and became the reel to attract other A-list stars.[6]

John Hodgman, who plays opposite Justin Long in one sketch, signed on with no knowledge of the project. Long, Hodgman's co-star in the long-running series of Apple's commercials, asked him what the project was, and he then signed on, without still knowing too much. Hodgman said, "I got an e-mail from Justin that said, 'I'm going to be dressing up as Robin again. Do you want to dress up as the Penguin?' And I said yes. Without even realizing cameras would be involved, or that it would be a movie."[6]

Others were not so affable. In fact, some stars hedged: Richard Gere, a friend of Wessler's, said yes—but also said he would not be available for more than a year. So Wessler waited him out, convinced his sketch was good. Gere eventually called Wessler and told him he was free to shoot, on just a couple of conditions: They had to do it in four days, and they needed to relocate the shoot from Los Angeles to New York.[6]

"They clearly wanted out!" judged Farrelly. "But we wouldn't let them. The strategy was simple: 'Wait for them. Shoot when they want to shoot. Guilt them to death.' It didn't work on everyone." Colin Farrell initially agreed to be in the Butler leprechaun sketch—as Butler's brother, also a leprechaun—but then he backed out and Gerard Butler did the sketch by himself. Farrelly said that when he approached George Clooney about playing himself in a sketch (the gag was that Clooney is bad at picking up women), Clooney told him "No fucking way."[6] There were to be two sketches written and directed by Bob Odenkirk; one that starred Anton Yelchin as a necrophiliac who worked at a morgue and had sex with the dead female bodies that was shown at a test screening of the film, and another starring Julianne Moore and Tony Shalhoub as a married couple being interviewed by a detective about their missing daughter. Both sketches were cut out of the final film.[10] Producer John Penotti said that the sketches would be seen on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of the film.[6]

Because the filmmakers worked around the stars' schedules, the filming of the whole movie took several years. While so many A-list actors were on board, most were not completely aware of what other sketches would be included in the film, which features 13 vignettes tied together by a story of a mad screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) pitching ideas to a movie producer (Greg Kinnear). Penotti said many of the actors did not ask many questions about what else was going on in the film. "They were attracted to their script, and as long as that tickled their funnybone, that was enough," he revealed.[6][11]

the story of the making of the movie interests me SO much more than the movie itself

wondering if I would have wanted to watch it any more if the Zuckers and Parker/Stone were still on board (secret answer: YES)

almost half of these are up to the level of "snl sketch after weekend update" (fwiw) but the ratio feels even worse because of the bracketing story.