Stars who bashed their own comedy films.

[Leej88]

He said those comments after the Sandy Hook Massacre which Kick-Ass 2 more press.

[Gulftastic]

I quite enjoyed that, it's a very silly movie but a surprisingly watchable one.

Yeah, it's enjoyable enough.

[DrGreggles]

I haven't seen Cop Out but I can't imagine how it could be any worse than North, Four Rooms, A Good Day To Die Hard, Striking Distance, The Jackal , Hudson Hawk or all the other terrible films he's been in (including ones which I've heard are fucking shocking like Color of Night, Bonfire of the Vanities and Air Strike.

That's his best one!

[Poison To The Mind]

Or Fierce Creatures? Or is that too indefensible?

In 2008, asked what he would do differently if he could live his life again, Cleese offered, "I wouldn't have married Alyce Faye Eichelberger and I wouldn't have made Fierce Creatures."

I haven't seen Cop Out but I can't imagine how it could be any worse than North, Four Rooms, A Good Day To Die Hard, Striking Distance, The Jackal , Hudson Hawk or all the other terrible films he's been in (including ones which I've heard are fucking shocking like Color of Night, Bonfire of the Vanities and Air Strike.

Four Rooms is good, it has The Misbehavers in it. (Man From Hollywood is a slight but amusing 20-minute Dahl adaptation.) Color Of Night is a very entertaining silly movie, Hudson Hawk has more than enough Daniel-Waters-and-Michael-Lehmann stuff in it, and REG and Sandi B chewing scenery, for two films worth of enjoyment, even if Willis and Aiello are doing their best to sabotage it. Bonfire has DePalma's best long oner until Snake Eyes (anyone who thinks Nic Cage is a bad screen actor should watch that one just to track how he consistently finds his light), but is pretty dire outside of that.

Cop Out is just a generic pissweak cop comedy, but Willis is aggressively trying to stop it even existing through pure inertia. 

[Jake Thingray]

Hm, well, takes all kinds, I suppose. (Unless it's been subject to some overall cultural/critical revisionism that I've not been aware of.)

Not so much overall/cultural revisionism as not much referred to these days, and this is just my opinion, but at the time silly people like me believed it had set Cleese up to be the next solo British comedy film star to make it big in Hollywood a la Peter Sellers, and therefore the world market, but he did not build on its success (regardless of Fierce Creatures' merits or lack thereof, it came along too late) and he ended up going back to being best known for Python, no-one likes being reminded of being disappointed.

[kidsick5000]

I haven't seen Cop Out but I can't imagine how it could be any worse than North, Four Rooms, A Good Day To Die Hard, Striking Distance, The Jackal , Hudson Hawk or all the other terrible films he's been in (including ones which I've heard are fucking shocking like Color of Night, Bonfire of the Vanities and Air Strike.

Cop Out was the one of the first instances of Willis getting called out for being a nightmare on set.
Pretty soon after the film's release, too iirc. While I'm no fan of Kevin Smith films, I don't begrudge the guy straight talking and saying that attitude just doesn't belong.
Soon after was that One Show interview that went viral, where he seemingly tried to stare out the presenters.
I take it that's why he's barely employable in mainstream Hollywood anymore. His IMDb for the past 3-4 years is littered with unheard of releases that get to use his face for a day and fill in the rest with bald body doubles.

[kidsick5000]

Not so much overall/cultural revisionism as not much referred to these days, and this is just my opinion, but at the time silly people like me believed it had set Cleese up to be the next solo British comedy film star to make it big in Hollywood a la Peter Sellers, and therefore the world market, but he did not build on its success (regardless of Fierce Creatures' merits or lack thereof, it came along too late) and he ended up going back to being best known for Python, no-one likes being reminded of being disappointed.

Honestly did not realise how much later Fierce Creatures came out. Nine years. I thought it was only four or five.

[willbo]

Cop Out was the one of the first instances of Willis getting called out for being a nightmare on set.
Pretty soon after the film's release, too iirc. While I'm no fan of Kevin Smith films, I don't begrudge the guy straight talking and saying that attitude just doesn't belong.
Soon after was that One Show interview that went viral, where he seemingly tried to stare out the presenters.
I take it that's why he's barely employable in mainstream Hollywood anymore. His IMDb for the past 3-4 years is littered with unheard of releases that get to use his face for a day and fill in the rest with bald body doubles.

I always thought BW seemed unpleasant, even in his glory days. I thought he seems like the epitome of that divorced, alcoholic, sports-obsessed angry uncle/brother in law everyone has to put up with at family events.

Not the nice divorced, alcoholic uncle - epitomized by the brother in "Everybody Loves Raymond", for example - you know the one - Hawaiian shorts, sketchy girlfriends, bare unfurnished flat full of comics and sport papers, jazz albums.

[willbo]

Kick Ass 2 is sort of a comedy and Jim Carrey bashed it for glorifying violence just before it was released. It's strange: Did he not see Kick Ass 1? He's barely in the fucking thing and it's a pretty dire film anyway but nothing to do with the violence.

I think that's unfair to Jim Carrey. He'd had some sort of breakdown and spiritual conversion in between making the film and it's release, and he was simply saying he didn't want to make violent films anymore, and didn't feel comfortable promoting the film in his new state of mind. He wasn't singling out Kick Ass 2 as being personally bad (in my interpretation).

[willbo]

Eddie Murphy has slagged off Best Defence on several occasions.

John Cleese has mentioned a couple of times that he thought the ending of Clockwise was a bit shit.

I watched Clockwise quite a few times as a kid, but I can't remember the end now. Doesn't he just finally make it to the event he was trying to get to and start shouting? I haven't seen it since the 90s

[PeterCornelius]

What the fuck did he say about Splitting Heirs?!
Or did he just remain silent and shit in the interviewer's eyes?

I went to see that when it came out. It was excruciating to sit through and there were groans when Idle and Zeta Jones had their bed scene. Oh and he wrote and sang the theme song. Which was utter drivel.

[dr beat]

I always thought BW seemed unpleasant, even in his glory days. I thought he seems like the epitome of that divorced, alcoholic, sports-obsessed angry uncle/brother in law everyone has to put up with at family events.

I'd need to check back, but from what I recall Willis didn't come across well in Richard E. Grant's autobiography, in the bit about the making of Hudson Hawk (which is the best bit of that book).

[Johnny Textface]

Hudson Hawk is actually great fun.

[Poison To The Mind]

Cop Out was the one of the first instances of Willis getting called out for being a nightmare on set.

Yeah, With Nails was more than fifteen years before Kevin Smith started talking about his experience making Cop Out.

[Icehaven]

Not to derail this into another Friends thread but the plot for Bruce Willis's cameo (although is it still a cameo if they're in more than one episode?) always struck me as particularly ridiculous. He hates Ross because he's dating his daughter despite her being a decade younger, then pretends he's forgiven him when he realises Ross overheard him talking to himself in the mirror, and presumably doesn't want him to tell Rachel. Ross overheard him because he was hiding in his bedroom, and Willis (can't remember the character's name) would have known this as there's no other way he could have heard him, so rather than kick off because his daughter's older boyfriend was hiding in his room and eavesdropping on him, he pretends he's fine with him now because otherwise he'll tell Rachel something that isn't even particularly bad or embarrassing. In reality he'd have punched Ross' lights out which would have been a much better conclusion.

[dissolute ocelot]

Not to derail this into another Friends thread but the plot for Bruce Willis's cameo (although is it still a cameo if they're in more than one episode?) always struck me as particularly ridiculous. He hates Ross because he's dating his daughter despite her being a decade younger, then pretends he's forgiven him when he realises Ross overheard him talking to himself in the mirror, and presumably doesn't want him to tell Rachel. Ross overheard him because he was hiding in his bedroom, and Willis (can't remember the character's name) would have known this as there's no other way he could have heard him, so rather than kick off because his daughter's older boyfriend was hiding in his room and eavesdropping on him, he pretends he's fine with him now because otherwise he'll tell Rachel something that isn't even particularly bad or embarrassing. In reality he'd have punched Ross' lights out which would have been a much better conclusion.

It's an excuse to laugh at fake-Willis for being vulnerable and pathetic, which only goes to accentuate how cool and manly non-fake-Willis is. Still one of the better plotlines of late period Friends though. Though anything involving Schwimmer getting punched repeatedly would certainly be comedy gold.

[Leej88]

A Fish Called Wanda is a classic.

[Poison To The Mind]

Which of the stars bashed it?

[Bad Ambassador]

Hudson Hawk is actually great fun.

In the nearly 100 episodes I've done of a podcast about unfairly-neglected films, Hudson Hawk was the one I decided was not only very fairly neglected but should be buried at the bottom of a Siberian salt mine under fifty tons of caribou shit.

I think Cleese's concern about the end of Clockwise wasn't the big, increasingly unhinged speech he gives at the end, but the way he simply walks out of the hall, is arrested and driven off in a police car, which is an oddly low-key and unfunny way to end an otherwise farcical and hilarious film.

"Know what I'm sitting on?"
"A bomb, I hope."

[zomgmouse]

In the nearly 100 episodes I've done of a podcast about unfairly-neglected films

What's your podcast?

[Bad Ambassador]

What's your podcast?

It's called Cinema Limbo and it's available in the usual places.

[zomgmouse]

It's called Cinema Limbo and it's available in the usual places.

Nice one

[stonkers]

I always assumed there must be an expensive divorce or a bad investment deal behind de Niro's decision to do most of his recent films.

Not to mention

[Blue Jam]

^^^ ahahaha amazing. That's just one rung up from Jummy White levels of deso.

[Keebleman]

Matthew Goode shat all over Leap Year. It was a rom-com that came out in 2012-ish (can't be bothered to IMDB it). It was the kind of movie where everyone in Ireland works in a rustic pub and sings songs. I believe Pat Mustard has a cameo in it.

I worked as an extra on A Discovery of Witches starring Mr Goode and overheard him slagging that off even while it was being shot. "The best acting I'll do on this is when it comes to press," he was saying to the make-up girls. 

[Blue Jam]

Three pages, lots of De Niro yet not one mention of Dirty Grandpa? Or has he never publicly denounced that one? Probably hasn't dared to watch it.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

^^^ ahahaha amazing. That's just one rung up from Jummy White levels of deso.

Stallone did a Warburtons ad too. He and his wife have been together for 24 years, so that discounts the expensive divorce theory. He's surely not short of a bob or two? I suppose doing ads is just an easy way of making a quick buck with the bare minimum of effort.

But it is odd when you see the likes of Stallone and De Niro hawking loaves of bread. "Mate, you've won an Oscar for fuck's sake."

[Blue Jam]

Any chance they got caught up in Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme? I know that's how Kevin Bacon ended up doing all those EE ads.

Isn't Robert De Niro a New Yorker? If he was flogging mass-produced bagels he must have been really desperate.

[Leej88]

Harvey Keitel as the Wolf in those Telephone adverts, Very embarrassing.

[Mister Six]

The edited programmes were shown to audiences and their genuine laughter taped*, aiui. The fact that every (? iirc) single episode of the series is told achronologically in various ways would make it physically impossible to get real laughs from a live audience: they would have to be penned up for two solid days, watching a bizarre concatenation of unconnected events set on different days and years and sets and in different clothing.

*probably both sweetened and mixed low because of the pacing, sure.

There was definitely some canned laughter.

But it's not that it's canned or not canned that's the issue - it's that the audience isn't present when the show is recorded, so the cast isn't able to pitch their performances properly.

If they wanted to do non-chronological storytelling they should have gone one-camera with no laugh track. Instead of what they did, which was making an enormous pile of dogshit.