Dear Farrelly Brothers: You Can Derilique My Balls
I’ve been looking for the new trailer for The Heartbreak Kid online, ever since a friend told me about it. I was going to give up and try to describe it in words, but here it is online. It is the second video from the top, the one called “mother-in-law.” I think it speaks for itself.
Why do you have to be such a douchebag, Ben Stiller? Stop tainting my love for Zoolander and your episode of Extras. Or maybe I should blame the Farrelly brothers, since they wrote the thing. Wait a minute, they also wrote that “love letter to fat people” called Shallow Hal. AHA! Now do you believe me, Shallow Hall defenders? I knew that wasn’t a love letter to fat people! I knew it!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Fat Suits, Fatism, Humor, Movies, Tidbit, Video
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I do not like Ben Stiller and his smugness, and this movie leaves a bad taste in my mouth. that trailer just confirms it. But the other thing is the idea that as soon as you commit to a woman she goes craaaazy. Oh and I hate the part in the trailer with the mariachi band.
Yeah, your wife will always balloon if her mother is fat. Except that fat is totally not possibly genetic. That’s just an excuse. BOTH OF THESE THINGS ARE COMPLETELY TRUE SHUT UP
In an amusing twist, I totally missed the “fat mother-in-law” joke (I use the word in its loosest sense) that’s being used in the commercials, where she says the girl is wearing “the very same dress” that the MIL wore to her wedding. I was like, “what’s wrong with that? I think it’s nice to wear your mom’s wedding dress.” My boyfriend was like “um, the ‘joke’ is, she’s very fat.” OH. Uh… funny?
I think Shallow Hal’s a pretty good movie. It didn’t know if it wanted to make fun of fat people or shallow people so it does a little of both, but in the end it’s basically a sweet-natured love story. And I always enjoy Jack Black.
The Heartbreak Kid looks like crap, though.
BOTH OF THESE THINGS ARE COMPLETELY TRUE SHUT UP
Hee.
And a second hee to the headline, Mo Pie.
I don’t know. I like Ben Stiller and I liked Shallow Hal (I LOVE Jack Black). I have to agree with Rose and also say it was a cute love story.
There are also movies that feature male characters that lose it once they get married. First example is ANY feature on the Lifetime Movie Network. Every other film is about a woman marrying a “perfect” guy only to find out later that he’s crazy, homicidal, etc. Another example of this is that movie “The Stepfather”; it’s about a man who charms his way into the life of a woman and her children, marries her, then flips out and kills everyone in the family because they don’ t agree with his puritan values. Lifetime movies are schmaltzy at best, and “The Stepfather” wasn’t that great either. Then again, “The Heartbreak Kid” doesn’t look like an oscar winner either. Not sure what to say about the scene with the fat mom, though. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
This is actually a remake. The original version which was made in the 1970’s, is more about class issues. The lead male character (played brilliantly by Charles Grodin) is made out to be shallow and fickle, the kind of guy who is only about the chase. Once he gets what he wants, he is disillusioned.
The Heartbreak Kid looks awful. Ben Stiller did some funny stuff early on, but it seems like most of the stuff I’ve seen him in lately sucks.
Am I the only one who thinks both Ben Stiller AND Jack Black are horribly over-rated, one-note actors? They’ve both done stuff I’ve liked and stuff I’ve not liked, and neither of them seem to have any real acting range. I don’t hate them, but… meh.
This movie makes me cringe, but for other reasons completely. I work with couples in therapy and the idea that someone would marry someone before they’ve taken a roadtrip together, or met one another’s parents (unless there is a very valid reason, like the parent is caught in a warzone or something) is just hard for me. You marry the person and their past and it takes time, sometimes to see this.
That I think is the difference between the “Lifetime” movies where men are painted in a manipulative and sinister light…a whole other issue that kind of gives me chills sometimes.
I love the original Heartbreak Kid, the one with Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd and Jeannie Berlin. Neil Simon wrote the script, one of his best, IMHO. This is like having Triumph the Comic Insult Dog rewrite Annie Hall. (Please note that I saw this film many years ago and do not remember any fat jokes in it; my memory may well be faulty.)
The kicker joke of the original is that even the “perfect” girl you idolize from afar once you’re married will bore the crap out of you once you’re familiar with her, if the only way you can ever care about a woman is if you can’t ever have her. The scene where Charles Grodin has dinner with Cybill Shepherd’s family and then asks her father (Eddie Albert) for her hand in marriage is so perfect, the idea of someone ruining it with fart and poop jokes just infuriates me. Not that I mind fart and poop jokes in and of themselves, but please, do we have to smear them on everything?
Agreed, Meowser. I’m waiting for the re-make of The Gradulate starring Dane Cook in the Dustin Hoffman role. Of course with more fat jokes, burping, farting and pooping! I don’t think the original had any farting at all! It really needs improving.
The difference between the original and the re-make seems to be that while Charles Grodin’s character was effed up, Stiller’s is more effed over: that is, he’s a poor victim of circumstance, and an evil fiancee/wife.
(Because we really need more movies revealing how bad men have it in this world.)
Oh, well–maybe part of it is the distance between 1972 and 2007, or maybe it’s the difference between a movie directed by the great Elaine May, and one directed by the repulsive Farrellys.
Every movie they’ve ever made has given me the twitches.
(Because we really need more movies revealing how bad men have it in this world.)
Or more specifically, how women are the cause of all of men’s problems, as opposed to culture, character and expectations. In the original, neither of the women are perfect (the first wife is goofy and somewhat obnoxious, the Cybil Shepard character is calculating and manipulative) but it’s more about how Grodin’s character sells himself on something and pursues it before he really knows much about what he’s pursueing.
I’m tired of Ben Stiller. All his movies kind of run together for me. He always seems to take cheap shots at people who are different – fat, disabled and the like.
I have mixed feelings about Shallow Hal. On the one hand, it seemed to have a nice message about loving people for more than their looks. But it also had some very stereotypical laughs at fat people’s expense. Like she drinks the whole milkshake they are sharing and causes practically a tidal wave by jumping in a pool. Then there’s the fat suit – which is especially over the top in this story — for the laughs, you know it. Even the mother in the story is wearing a fat suit. I do like Jack Black though.
I did like Fever Pitch. And even There’s Something About Mary and Shallow Hall, about which I have mixed feelings, have an underlying theme about men needing to grow up and get over themselves. (I think Shallow Hal would have been improved immensely by Fat Rosemary being played by a fat actress, rather than by Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit and the ugliest makeup job ever. But yeah, the breaking-the-furniture jokes don’t help much.) So who knows, maybe the trailer doesn’t tell the whole story here and maybe Stiller’s character, like Grodin’s, gets what he has coming to him. Hope so.
I detest both Stiller and the Farrelly Bros. I think they all make obscene amounts of money by making fun of people, and not in a friendly “everybody sucks” kinda way. It’s not even that it offends me (although it does); it’s more that it’s just unfunny and unoriginal and just plain lame. Like, the best they can do is make fun of women, fatties, and retards? Wow. That’s genius.
Somewhat off-topic, but wasn’t the actress who played the mother-in-law in that clip the same woman who played the mother in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Never mind, I looked it up on IMDB. It’s not her!
I like Ben Stiller, but I’m not a fan of the Farrelly Bros (even though I have to confess to liking Shallow Hal).
My 16 year old nephew and I usually go see Stiller movies together and so Heartbreak Kid was on our to do list. We were both so disappointed. It is a foul movie all around. There were a couple of chuckle worthy scenes, but for the most part, I was cringing and most of the other members of the audience were too.
I’ve honestly given up on Hollywood, but, and this may shock you, this is not the reason.
My reason is simply this; Hollywood movies, as a whole, do not deal responsibly with real people. You either get a bunch of fashion-models dancing across the screen, looking nothing like the characters they’re supposed to depict, or you get flippant nonsense, or you get anti-ethical propaganda.
Much of Shallow Hal was said flippant nonsense. It had a prime opportunity to tell a serious love story about an obese, beautiful young lady who has a pretty good life, really, and they wasted it on cartoonish nonsense and toilet humor.
Then we have this insanity, where fatness is used as the first in a long string of “warning signs” about a prospective spouse.
Seriously! Would it kill somebody to make a movie about a fat person who’s comfortable with themselves, even as they confront the issues facing them in the real world? I’ll write it! I’ll write it well! Call me!
And now I leave you with this cheery quote from, I think, a very reliable source…
“It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one.”