RE: The Last Movie You Watched
November 16, 2020 at 1:34 am
(This post was last modified: November 16, 2020 at 1:34 am by Rev. Rye.)
This week in the Deep Hurting Project is Sean Connery's last film: Sir Billi, or, as Amazon calls it, Guardian of the Highlands.. Having retired in the wake of the disastrous reception of The LEague of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he was coaxed out of retirement to work on what would be Scotland's first animated feature film. And it got such a shitty review that the SNP actually endorsed Brave over it.
And, since we're still on genre cycles, I figure I may as well ask for your input on the comedy I'll take on next week:
- And the movie starts off in a depressingly obvious way: by a faux James Bond title, with the title song composed by Patrick Doyle and sung by nine other than Shirley Bassey. And instead of the sort of haunting atmosphere her Bond themes had, this is just fucking boring. And one of the most brain-breaking art decisions of the film is foreshadowed, even as most of the figures are in shadow: every living thing in the film, human or animal, has a head that looks like a bong.
- Why are there so many beavers in Scotland that they need several camps and an entire dedicated police unit to keep and quarantine them all? And for that matter, why the fuck are they the bad guys? Like it or not, there's a good fucking reason the authorities try to not fuck around on introduced species. I could talk about how the Cane Toad has wrought untold damage onto the Australian ecosystem, or how the European Starling was introduced to the Americas because someone thought expanding its range would be a good idea on the basis of (I shit you not) its being mentioned in Shakespeare (and not even in a positive context), but here's one article about the American Mink and what it's done to... roughly the general area of Scotland where this movie is set.
- Why is there a duck in a biplane and barely keeping her hand on the wheel? And why is she talking to the audience? Is she supposed to be the narrator? God, I hope not. Fortunately, no, she's not. She has a peripheral importance at best in the rest of the film.
- Why is St. Andrew's Cross on everything?
- And why does the goat dress like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill? And why is he coded gay?
- Beaver! Beaver! Where are you?
- Huh. I thought the whole thing about lemmings jumping off cliffs was a myth invented by Disney. But then again, they never said anything about rabbits jumping off cliffs to express their envy over beavers bobsledding through trenches in a cliff on trashcans pulled by logs.
- And did they just call Bessie Boo the Beaver Billi?
- Wow, way to be discreet about the Baron's gambling issues while threatening to unveil them out loud in front of the entire town.
- And somehow, the goat's wardrobe isn't the only time he's reminding me of Kill Bill, because he also does this:
And, technically, she only moves her foreleg, but the result is the same. - And, of course, the Admiral is German for some reason. Fucking Hell, the other part of my ethnicity I've latched onto hasn't been saved.
- McQ makes gadgets for Sir Billi. Yet another obvious Bond referenc- Is that a Russian nuclear sub off the coast of the highlands? And, no, Sir Billi, that was another Bond who was on the Russian submarine.
- Huh. They used the word "ass" in this movie and donkeys aren't even involved.
- And then, we have a long, pointless good times montage that mostly consists of the goat acting out scenes from musicals, and acting like a dog. I was briefly concerned that they were referencing ACO. Fortunately, it was just Singin in the Rain.
- He's not a real policeman for taking a beaver?
- Goddamn, do all these acrobatics hinge on some ludicrously precise calculations.
- Okay, so, somehow, I doubt that the charges the cop was arrested under would stick, Given that laws about interfering with wildlife on private property were to get rid of an invasive species, and I'm not sure about the law in Scotland, but I'm fairly certain they reserve the right to commandeer cars, although I don't think they followed proper procedure.
- Wait, he's never ever dated, but he's got a daughter?
- And why is there another weird music video? And why is this the worst version of the dance party ending cliche that I've ever seen? And why is there a stereptypical Mexican?
- Why does everything in the credits look like it was made out of clay?
And, since we're still on genre cycles, I figure I may as well ask for your input on the comedy I'll take on next week:
- Chairman of the Board (Wherein someone decided that Carrot Top would be a compelling star for a film and almost immediately regretted it.)
- Breaking Wind (Wherein Craig Moss decides to make fun of Twilight and somehow fucks it up.)
- Dirty Love (Wherein Jenny McCarthy decides to do a topless dance with vomit covering her tits.)
- F The Prom (Wherein two YouTubers decide to make a relatable teen movie and fail spectacularly.)
- Hottie and the Nottie (Wherein Paris Hilton builds an entire movie around insulting people who are less attractive than her... even though her most attractive qualities were her fame, her money, and her refusal to wear panties.)
- InAPPropriate Comedy (Wherein the Sham-Wow guy decides to make a movie that's half a ripoff of Movie 43, half a ripoff of his previous movie, The Underground Comedy Movie).
- Loqueesha (Wherein a white guy decides that the key to success is pretending to be a black woman.)
- Lower Learning (Wherein Rob Cordrry has to turn the worst school in America around in a single day.)
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.