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Posts Tagged ‘parody’

The People’s Joker

Thursday, August 15th, 2024

Do you know about THE PEOPLE’S JOKER? It’s an unauthorized, extremely D.I.Y. riff on DC Comics about a trans woman Joker/Harley Quinn combo (director/co-writer/editor Vera Drew) trying to make it as a comedian in Gotham City. I may not have ever known about it if not for it somehow premiering at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival before receiving a firmly worded letter from Warner Brothers. After many cancelled screenings they somehow convinced the evil corporation that it was fair use/parody, the movie got a limited theatrical release and now it’s on VOD and on blu-ray and DVD from Altered Innocence. For THE PEOPLE!

I think the main reason it has lived beyond that initial grabbing of headlines is that beneath the gimmick and the many layers of goofiness it’s a very heartfelt autobiographical story about, among other things, coming of age as a trans woman. It’s dedicated “To Mom and Joel Schumacher,” and I strongly suspect that both the strained relationship with her mother (Lynn Downey) and the youthful confusion ignited by seeing Nicole Kidman in BATMAN FOREVER come from Drew’s real life. (read the rest of this shit…)

Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear

Monday, June 28th, 2021

You see, because it’s the second one, but they put a 1/2 on there so it doesn’t make sense. Because why would it be 1/2 unless it was a DVD release with added scenes but they didn’t have DVDs back then. That’s why it’s funny.

June 28, 1991

The Summer of 1991 was a big time for sequels, especially part 2s, so now I will attempt to write something about THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2: THE SMELL OF FEAR. The first sequel to 1988’s smash hit TV-spinoff-from-the-makers-of-AIRPLANE! NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! is another irreverent overload of tongue-in-cheek cop drama silliness where there’s no reason to take anything about the plot (police try to foil a scheme by big oil to replace a scientist pushing a solar energy plan) seriously, and nobody wants to read me just listing some of the jokes that are funny (I like when Jane [Priscilla Presley, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE] is singing “The Way We Were” to herself in the shower and the assassin creeping up on her [Anthony James, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER] is moved to tears and starts to sing along). But maybe for this retrospective we can look at it as a time capsule of some of the things that were thought of and joked about at that period in time. (read the rest of this shit…)