Tommy Boy

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:22 pm

Today, I've got a particular ax to grind, against this ridiculous joke of a movie. It's stupid, completely stupid. First of all, what the hell is this movie named after- an Irish drinking song? Or is that Danny Boy, who cares?! Strike one! Like all of Chris Farley's comedy (which I believe was a huge part of what killed him, read on), this movie is one big assault of dumb, fat animal jokes. Tommy is already such a big, dumb, stupid guy without the constant fat jokes. And they are humiliating of Chris, though for some messed up reason, he's game in doing all of them. A guy making this much money really didn't have to kill himself for fame. I'm not talking about his physical death, that was more of a mistake brought on by an inner death wish than anything else. I'm talking about what eventually drove him down that dark road, he tried to get people to take him seriously and they refused to, because he had already dove headfirst into SNL's big/dumb/fat stereotypes. So in his film career, he revelled in them.

Did this make anyone respect overweight actors who sometimes played it dumb? No. And Chris surely found a great deal of fame while he was alive. The fact was that, not only didn't it last, but 1) it practically lead to his rampant, psychotic drug use, which later killed him, and 2) now that he's dead, his films are treated like works of genius... all because now he is dead. Is that fair? Really now, you know it's wrong.

Was Chris Farley funny? Sure... for about 10 seconds of his endless breakdowns. But the fact stands, as plain as day and as solidly as stone, that he should never have made a movie based on this stupid SNL character (all his SNL characters were exactly the same!!!), let alone several. Tommy Boy may not even be the worst of the bunch, but it's regarded as the best. Which is wrong, to the point of praying for the healing of humanity as a whole. What Tommy Boy as a movie was, killed itself. Why is it so popular? As hard as this is for people to swallow, some people are just not intelligent enough to understand the inadequacies of a film like this. Their liking it does not lessen this fact! Not in the slightest.

Back on the subject of the movie itself... The character is impossible to take seriously. The movie might have amounted to a lightweight Animal House, if it hadn't made the final fatal mistake of trying to be sensitive toward Tommy, trying to make him lovable, or sympathetic. They might have made it a little easier on us by lightening the amazing load of immature sex jokes the guy tells, when it's pretty obvious he would have only managed to bag dumb sorority girls. And the fat jokes... First of all, "fat guy in a little coat"... This got one of the biggest laughs in the movie, and proves single-handedly how stupid audiences can be. The coat is going to rip! We all know it is, only the smart ones in attendance know that that's where the movie will get it's laugh. Or maybe it's in that the coat is Richard's favorite or his only one... Either way, this joke is shameful and ridiculous.

We can only interpret "ugh, I can hear you getting fatter" as outright cruelty, Richard is bashing Tommy because... of his weight?! Now that's just an example of how incredibly artificial the comedy is in this film. You know who got the biggest kick out of lines like this? Richard Simmons! Tony Little, Tony Horton, Chuck Norris, Jane Fonda, that shaved head Sinead O'Connor-looking chick, and Randy from the Bowflex infomercials. The fitness nazi's, who would have been enemies to Chris Farley. Who's he pandering to? People who hate fat people. Do I hate fat people? No. I went to school in the 90s and we had self-examining and personal analytical faculties that cut through BS like that. I learned a little something: don't laugh at people you could ever consider freaks and don't laugh at exploitation unless you want to be exploited yourself. Long story short, would you want to be fat? It's one thing for an overweight person to laugh at our society as a way to cope. But this film is an obnoxious case of an audience laughing at a freakshow.

The whole movie is a freakshow. From the fat jokes, to the failed melodrama, to the sex jokes, starting with the age-old incest analogy. Of course in this movie, it's not an analogy because we discover the mother-and-son crooks aren't really mother and son. And of course, this movie doesn't know a thing about analogies and metaphors, it's that dumb! The set-up is the catalyst for the dregs of incest jokes from the audience, giggling like school children who don't know better. You should know better than to think that it's really funny, especially since it's reduced here to a sight gag. It's certainly a sight that's squeezed dry of any comedic potential whatsoever (like Ace Ventura's discovery of Lois Einhorn's "secret"). And truly the most shameful of pun opportunities: the sexy girl skinny-dipping in the pool. This was taken right out of National Lampoon's Vacation, and degrades quite naturally, into a forade of masturbation jokes. When a movie relies on a set-up like this for laughs... you know it's time to press the eject button, or walk out of the theater.

Then of course, was their just ONE screwball/buddy comedy in the 90s that didn't have a low-blow gag? The only value of a scene like this would be that it happened to Rob Lowe, who only did these movies to skewer his bratpack image in films he made over a decade before this one. And by this point, though he still has a lot of sex appeal and steams up small scenes like he and Tommy's girlfriend in the mailing room when he loses his shirt (oh yeah!), he's a little too old for all the jokes he participates in to work. Seeing him, for instance, being electrocuted while urinating on a fence, has all the appeal of Mickey Rooney being attacked by a pack of lions. A better villain or a younger rival, or just a more hateworthy guy, would have made a much more appropriate target for these bullseyes. Plus, though Rob had a few cute moments in Austin Powers 2, he peaked doing this sort of thing in Wayne's World.

Don't you also love how the movie makes Tommy's love interest an obsessive compulsive(?), as though it takes a freak to love a freak. But of course they keep her obsessiveness to a minimum so as not to lose our belief that she is perfect for him. After all, she is pretty, just like Nicolette Sheridan was in Beverly Hills Ninja (and totally out of his league). Though what she is certainly makes her a bit of a freak, the movie uses mean jokes to make Tommy a freak. Not that his overracting doesn't aid in tacking the final nail in. Do they make a good match? It doesn't even matter, and that's the real reason it's pointless to even add her as a character, which they only did to up the possibility the mainstream audience will ultimately find Tommy lovable, in spite of his being fat, which again is the main reason behind this movie. Just look at all the posters and photo ads for the movie. It's all psychological. He must have been goated by the photographer into leaning back to eccentuate his gut even more, and then standing next to spade, no one cares which one Tommy is, they go for the dirty jokes.

Why did people wait until the Scary Movie series to start harping on the fact that dumb / sex comedies (they were truly indivisible in the 90s) had at least 6 different writers each? This movie might have started that trend, or just have been another notch in SNL movies that had multiple writers. Yet... can't they write funnier or smarter jokes? I want to call attention to possibly the worst scene in the film: Tommy sells his first breakpad order, to a guy who's main selling point is the guarrantee they slap on a box. This guy has never done business with Callahan (Tommy's father and supplier of the parts he has to sell) before and he's already skeptical of picking up a product he's never sold and doesn't have a guarantee on the box. He's also a busy guy who supervises his whole factory, whether or not he has to. He dismisses them automatically after taking a look at the box and explains his policy, then after Richard gives Tommy a word of encouragement Tommy suddenly lights up (PLEASE! had anyone been watching his behavior prior to this scene?!) and manages to stop the busy man to listen to the most retarded logic for re-evaluating his guarantee policy, but because it's direct and to-the-pointless point, the guy caves in. However, crucial to the scene, he just says "okay, I'll buy from you" without actually thinking the logic over. This is not the type of guy to just do that, but it's a joke, get it? The movie creates a problem we're supposed to care/worry about, then uses the ultra-easy way out.

Movies like this didn't give Chris Farley a chance to be funny, they perpetuated the joke that became his desperate life. Even though it was inevitable, he shouldn't have died. More than anything else, just because history of this kind of career gave us the tragic example of John Belushi. He was the hottest thing on SNL, than he lost that to become a movie star. When that didn't work out, and when he wasn't able to make anyone serious about him beyond the image everyone else bought into which didn't allow him to be human, and just showed him as a dumb fat moron, he turned to the easiest method of coping for a rich bum : drugs. His human life spiraling out of control, him cashing all his fame chips in. In the end, all for nothing. No one thought about it until it was too late, no one was there for him he could trust. The people who wrote and directed this crap were not ready to share Chris's private pain, they instead profited from it. And so did Paramount and NBC. But it's all blood money. And if you buy the Tommy Boy: Holy Schnike Edition for any reason other than a sociological study guide or perhaps to donate to the Chris Farley memorial, than you have blood money on your hands too.

COUNT ME OUT! I will have no part in this.

memnv · Post by **memnv** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:39 pm

I think this was a very funny movie

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:41 pm

Why am I not surprised?

memnv · Post by **memnv** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:42 pm

I forgot you have no taste in movies

Disney-Fan · Post by **Disney-Fan** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:46 pm

There there. We all have different tastes. No need to bite each other's heads for a difference of opinion.

buffalobill · Post by **buffalobill** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:48 pm

Gee, tell me how you really feel. Really, I mean don't hold back.

As Roger Ebert has pointed out, a comedy has one job and that is to make people laugh. It can be Tommy Boy, Airplane or a really big budget sophisticated comedy. This movie made me laugh & you won't make me feel bad that I'll be the first one at Circuit City's door for the 2 disc SE along with the Tommy Boy t shirt. It's a funny movie TO ME & apparently a lot of other people or they wouldn't be releasing a 2 disc SE. That's why they don't make just one flavor of ice cream. Talking people down because they like a movie isn't going to make them like it any less, just resent you more.

memnv · Post by **memnv** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:50 pm

nicely stated buffalobill

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 3:10 pm

buffalobill wrote:As Roger Ebert has pointed out, a comedy has one job and that is to make people laugh.

That's just an excuse. And memnv, again I find myself telling you something over and over again (why is that?), I would not want you to think I have taste in movies. Your taste is nonexistent, and your standards of what's good, are pretty sad. And extremely low.

buffalobill · Post by **buffalobill** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 3:24 pm

Lazario wrote:
buffalobill wrote:As Roger Ebert has pointed out, a comedy has one job and that is to make people laugh.
That's just an excuse. And memnv, again I find myself telling you something over and over again (why is that?), I would not want you to think I have taste in movies. Your taste is nonexistent, and your standards of what's good, are pretty sad. And extremely low.

First of all it's not an "excuse" it is the opinion of the only movie critic to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. What exactly are your high and mighty movie review credentials that you can put memnv's taste in movies down & tell me that I'm making an "excuse" for finding a movie funny. I don't need an excuse or to read a long diatribe from you on why you find a particular movie not to your taste. Why don't you spend some time doing something positive? Write a screenplay!

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 4:21 pm

buffalobill wrote:First of all it's not an "excuse" it is the opinion of the only movie critic to ever win a Pulitzer Prize.

Why don't you spend some time doing something positive? Write a screenplay!

That's a very astute suggestion. However... Roger Ebert gave Tommy Boy 1 star, so I think your reference is lost.

memnv · Post by **memnv** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 6:16 pm

Lazario wrote:
buffalobill wrote:As Roger Ebert has pointed out, a comedy has one job and that is to make people laugh.
That's just an excuse. And memnv, again I find myself telling you something over and over again (why is that?), I would not want you to think I have taste in movies. Your taste is nonexistent, and your standards of what's good, are pretty sad. And extremely low.

your one to tell me I have no taste, Now that is very funny. Coming from a 14 year old little boy like you. One thing that is nice is every person has the right to decide for themselves if they like a movie or not. I bet the Majority would like Tommy Boy, and not care what any critic would say. If everyone went to see what the Critics recommend then alot of movies that have done well at the box office and in Video/DVD sales would not have had a chance.

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:08 pm

memnv wrote:your one to tell me I have no taste, Now that is very funny. Coming from a 14 year old little boy like you. One thing that is nice is every person has the right to decide for themselves if they like a movie or not. I bet the Majority would like Tommy Boy, and not care what any critic would say. If everyone went to see what the Critics recommend then alot of movies that have done well at the box office and in Video/DVD sales would not have had a chance.

You are so full of it. And all of it stemming from the incorrect assumption that I'm 14. I'm not 14, I haven't been 14 for nearly a decade. And even if I were, that's a more mature, intelligent, insightful, knowledgable, and better 14 than you ever were. Unless you're 12 or something now... And furthermore, who are you to talk? You wimped out and refused to allow your name to appear in the Recast game, so go jump in the Kiddie Pool where you belong.

The nerve of some people

buffalobill · Post by **buffalobill** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:10 pm

Lazario wrote:
buffalobill wrote:First of all it's not an "excuse" it is the opinion of the only movie critic to ever win a Pulitzer Prize.

Why don't you spend some time doing something positive? Write a screenplay!
That's a very astute suggestion. However... Roger Ebert gave Tommy Boy 1 star, so I think your reference is lost.

My reference "for the reading impaired" was to his theory on comedy and not to his particular review of this film. As I am not his clone I do not have the same opinion on every movie he does. I make decisions based on my own experiences. It made me laugh. Now, you might want to get back to that positive project you're working on. You've certainly wasted plenty of time here trying to prove to everybody else that your opinion is the only one that counts and that we should all listen to your every word so we might glisten an idea of what movie is truly worth buying in your opinion (the only one that counts, as you believe).

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:19 pm

buffalobill wrote:My reference "for the reading impaired"...

I see I'm dealing with a real Z-grade comedian here, you're calling me reading impaired when you refused to read one sentence of my original post. I did not write my first post to turn this thought-provoking comment on retard-comedies into a lovefest for Tommy Boy. One of the most contemptable and reprehensible "comedies" of the 1990s. Okay, if you had read post #1, you would know how far your comments were going to get you. You're on my topic crying fowl of an opinion you don't like. I have the right of way.

Let's start over from where you assumed and didn't think: it's not about whose opinion counts. If you must argue with me on my topic, come up with a new point to argue. You're not going to win ground on my topic unless you address the same issues I did.

buffalobill wrote:I make decisions based on my own experiences. It made me laugh.

I care because... why do I care?

Nausica's biggest fan · Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:28 pm

Lazario all people do not think like you why do you care what memnv likes he can like what ever he wants and may I repeat all people do not think like you.

thanks

for you Lazario:

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:38 pm

Nausica's biggest fan wrote:Lazario all people do not think like you

I respect that opinion, Nausica, when it's relevant. But that's not what this is about at all. Don't tell me you didn't read my original Tommy Boy post either.

memnv · Post by **memnv** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 8:36 pm

When I was 14 Lazario you were barely out of the womb. I really don't respect your opinions. You seem to whine about most movies. If you dont like a movie that is fine, but why do you have to start a thread about it.
The Movie is 11 years old. It is not like you just went out and saw it today in theaters. When you were a kid I bet that you liked it. How can you expect a movie produced by Lorne Michaels from Saturday Night Live to be rated very high. They have one purpose and that is to make you laugh, which it does

Nausica's biggest fan · Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:12 pm

please don't call me Nausica every one please call me Nausica's biggest fan or dave.I'm a guy.

And if you think my opinion is not important why is yours on tommy boy. I'm saying people do not have to think like you and I think that is pretty important.

Lazario · Post by **Lazario** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:00 pm

Nausica's biggest fan wrote:please don't call me Nausica every one please call me Nausica's biggest fan or dave. I'm a guy.

Will do, Nausica's biggest fan.

Nausica's biggest fan wrote:And if you think my opinion is not important why is yours on tommy boy. I'm saying people do not have to think like you and I think that is pretty important.

I know what you're saying. But I think if you read my first comment, you'd understand why my opinion is important. Do that, then we'll talk. Your opinion is not to be regarded as an opinion on my topic until you give me an example of something proving you've thought about my view on this movie. No details, no service. Comprende?

I hate to go there again, but it seems everyone is guilty of not reading my post. Consider this a lecture that you're not allowed to walk in on until you've done your research.

Siren · Post by **Siren** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:06 pm

Never saw it. Never had the desire to see it. But since it seems to be focused as a fat comedy, I usually avoid these. They are degrading. I am overweight, not up to or over 200lbs, but I have seen a few fat comedies and its nothing but insults. The Nutty Professor was one of those sweet fat comedies. I was in near tears at one part, because yeah, I was there as a kid. But my favorite fat comedy was one I just saw the other day for the first time, that I avoided because it looked like it would be insulting. It was Shallow Hal and that was just a sweet movie. Not hysterical, but amusing all the same and sweet. Perhaps try those if you haven't already

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