RE: The Last Movie You Watched
September 2, 2020 at 4:44 pm
(This post was last modified: September 2, 2020 at 4:44 pm by Rev. Rye.)
This week in the Deep Hurting Project, Dwegons and Leprechauns. And frankly, I have no idea what to expect except that it's shit.
- Well, one thing I'm sure of: the animation is absolutely horrible:
And somehow, the models in Food Fight actually look better than this. There's a mix of CGI realism and more traditional stylisation that fucks both up spectacularly, and they don't even have the excuse of having all the animation deleted halfway through production. Well, at least the hand-drawn photographs look halfway decent. - So, a bunch of Irish immigrants are in a wagon circle (despite there not being any attacking native Americans) around 1849 (which may or may not be an anachronism) and one kid gives a donut to a similar, smaller, wagon train inhabited by a race of creatures called Dwegons. What are Dwegons? Evidently, they look like a combination of gargoyles and the California Raisins. Apart from that, we have no idea, except maybe that they exist to help the Fitzgerald clan. To make sure that this wasn't just creatures from some mythology I didn't know about, I googled the term. Apparently, they're based on statues. And the actual sculptor was not involved.
- Why does the old Irish guy sound like Meatwad or Henry Zebrowski's imitation of David Berg?
- Who the fuck thought keeping an ox inside a home is a good idea?
- Yep, a Dwegon is openly lusting over an Irish grandma.
- Fucking God, Ervin Drake gave his approval over this piece of shit.
- Well, it's nice to see that the Edna Mode-looking guy from The Lorax managed to do whatever caused Oskar Matzerath to start growing again in the second half of The Tin Drum. And perfected his Peter Lorre impersonation.
- You know, given that Trolland promised a look at another world under the surface and this film didn't, it at least has that going for it.
- So, I'm about a third of the way through this film, and here's what I can guess the plot is: A) a family inherits a shack somewhere in California and a bunch of Dwegons help them. B) One Dwegon decides to show their kid the world of the Dwegons underneath the surface. C) There may be some not-Boris and not-Natashas trying to steal some diamonds.
- So, it turns out there's an actual backstory for the Dwegons: they were leprechauns who emigrated to America around the time of the 1849 California Gold Rush. For whatever reason, only male leprechauns made the journey (which apparently took the strangely impractical route of going directly from Ireland to California), and so their landlord set them up with local fairies, they bred, and thus were born the Dwegons. Also, they've been hoarding all the gold there.
- Goddammit, having a working piano as a walkway sounds like it would be really impractical, especially if you actually are a musician, and while you're practicing, there's some interloper walking around and they're walking and plunking out of time and possibly out of key.
- Also, "Free Chicken livers in every room"? "Our Outhouses are not as smelly as others"? Adding that to the ad copy and Grandma gives it her blessing?
- Why introduce the family to the Dwegons to the kid when the grandma already knows about them? That doesn't help matters when they introduce him to Dad by tying him the bed and demanding they stop construction on their home.
- So, they demand that he keeps the Dwegons a secret, but they insist on calling it the "Dweg Inn" in the same minute?
- Is credit card not a thing in this world?
- And why would you get a guillotine, which was first used in 1792, with five medieval bedroom sets?
- Dental hygeine equipment? How does this not arouse suspicion? Oh, that's right, Dad is an idiot and all that matters to him is their money.
- Also, they're claiming their homeland is Alabama when they're clearly Slavic? Every fiber of me is telling me to reply with this, even if they are actually speaking in German:
- So, let me guess, there aren't any leprechauns outside of that one flashback scene, are there?
- And what was the point of the Dwegons taking the Prague Sun and bringing it to Dwegonland? Besides, of course, setting up a big climax sequence in Trolland?
- So, apparently, the Dwegons are structly forbidden from using guns, but one of them had a potato gun in the beginning, and the kid brings it back and reminds them of this.
- Also, apparently, they kidnapped Malebolgia from the Spawn movie and renamed him Davargan.
- You know, you managed to get the girl to electrocute Not-Boris-and-Natasha with her guitar playing, but they never even seem to consider that an option for the rest of the movie.
- And the credits consist mostly of the original Dwegon sculptures that inspired the film, some conceptual art that looks far more appealing than the finished films, and one of the Dwegons interrupting the credits telling the audience to not leave and trying to extort the audience. What's that? My girlfriend is cheating on me? Joke's on you; I've been in quarantine with mine for the past six months and she's an inanimate object. Or are you talking about Mark Neveldine, who's married to the actual version of her?
- Also, surprisingly, they don't credit "It Was a Very Good Year"
- And the last credit of the movie is a listing of the entire Sofia Symphoniker. That's some oddly comprehensive listing for a movie.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.