Latest Updates - Marsha Mason

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

I think a lot of this humour would have gone over my head if I had been ten years old when watching it first time, but I was - er - 16, according my reckoning, so I thing I was a bit betwixt and between, and it seemed odd, basically, like a very particular kind of British humour shoe-horned into a Hollywood production, and I don't think they matched the two elements at all well.

(After all, we were all used to Rik in Young Ones, as Lord Flash in Blackadder, and later in Bottom, which is kind of the performance he gives here, which would probably leave a lot of jaws hanging elsewhere in the world, and lacking the former context, it's a little jarring.

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Comment by alexlincs:

@Magic Marmalade
I'm a big fan of Rik Mayall and it was his attempt to break America. I think Phoebe Cates was a great choice, but as you say the script was too vulgar and mean to have a huge international appeal.

However, I saw it when I was about 10 years old and loved it then. I'm not doubting the acting is great from all involved and the plot hasn't really been done since. I can see the Tim Burton style, as well as Alice in Wonderland and Rik Mayall's own violent brand of slapstick.

I think where Rik Mayall failed to break America Simon Pegg succeeded. Both appeared in Guest House Paradiso which I found disappointing and they were both distributed by Vinegar Syndrome.

I think ultimately Rik Mayall was seen as a bit of an unlikely sex symbol and the best vehicle for him for international appeal might have been his Rik Mayall Presents series.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

There seems to be an attempt underway to redeem, or position this as a "cult classic".

Cult... maybe. classic... no.

Rewatching it after all these years, it's just as disappointing. The music, cinematography, and dialogue are cheap, and bad sub-tv standard. Effects look equally cheap, even for the time too.

The real problem is Rik Mayall's manic, gross out for-kids performance looks embarrassing in this cheap environment, and the subject matter is too adult for kids, but the execution is too juvenile for adults, especially when it tries to deal with topics concerning "mental health issues", and it is therefore borderline insulting.

Phoebe Cates characterisation too, of the woman who's childhood imaginary friend returns later in life when she is having a hard time in life - Overbearing mother, philandering husband, losing her job etc. is too flat, and monotone - no evident sadness when depressed, no apparent joy when happy (er), which only serves to highlight, in a negative way, how loopy Mayall is.

The dialogue is grossly misjudged, seeming spiteful and psychotic , in attempting to say things kids who don't know what the meaning of what they are saying really come from the mouths of adults, which is just plain sinister.

There are a couple of good points though, such as the other imaginary friends of patients in a psychiatrists waiting room can each only be seen by the people who's imaginary friend they are, so to those people, their imaginary firend appears to have an imaginary firend... which is quite original. And the end, too borders on the poetic.

But it is an obvious attempt to try and make a Tim Burton style movie, by someone who isn't Tim Burton...oh dear.

I can't help but imagine how truly great this story could have been if Tim Burton himself had actually made it.

Remake, anyone?

But this is mostly rubbish.