Of course the worst stories (like these) are disproportionately non-white people…. which makes me wonder just how deliberate this type of targeting is.

So glad I took all my money away from these assholes, and dropped it in a local credit union instead!

Everyone should follow suit.

LINK URL: http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/05/22/wells-fargo-tries-to-foreclose-on-homeowner-for-making-early-mortgage-payments/

PLOT SUMMARY: Worst. Funeral. Ever.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Illegal drugs lead to complications.

QUIRKS: A remake of Frank Oz‘s original movie. Yes, the original movie was made by Bert / Grover / Cookie Monster / Yoda / Fozzie Bear / Miss Piggy. But this guy can make movies, too. He made The Dark Crystal, Little Shop Of Horrors, The Stepford Wives. So he knows how to make a good movie. However, it was still remade 3 years later, as the original was a UK movie.

In fact, this remake is almost a scene-by-scene identical remake. In this case, that’s a good thing. I was scared they would butcher it.

PEOPLE: Directed by Neil LaBute, who did The Wicker Man remake. With Keith David (Goliath from Gargoyles, Gamer, Coraline), Loretta Devine (Muriel from The PJs cartoon, Cougar Club, Boston Legal), Peter Dinklage (who was in the original version, as there aren’t a lot of little people to cast in such roles, and was also in Nip/Tuck), Luke Wilson (Idiocracy, Blades Of Glory, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Old School, The Royal Tenenbaums, Scream 2, Bongwater), Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Uhura from the Star Trek reboot, Pirates Of The Carribean), Regina Hall (Superhero Movie, Scary Movie 1-4, The Honeymooners Remake), Chris Rock, James Marsden (Cyclops from the X-Men movies, Zoolander, Sex Drive, Superman Returns), Ron Glass (the priest from Firefly/Serenity), Martin Lawrence, Columbus Short (Quarantine), Tracy Morgan (Superhero Movie, Half Baked), Regine Nehy as the just-turned-18 hottie, Kevin Hart (Superhero Movie, Epic Movie, Scary Movie 4, The 40 Year Old Virgin), and Danny Glover (2012, Blindness, Be Kind Rewind, Saw 1, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lethal Weapon 1-4).

VISUALS: Not much going on, but one scene is really gross looking.

MORALS: If you fill a pill bottle up with pills that aren’t what’s on the label, maybe you should remove the label.

GOOD STUFF: Incredibly awkwardness; drug-related hilarity; funeral-related hilarity; gay-related hilarity. This version is a bit more relateable to Americans the the British version.

BAD STUFF: A *lot* of people are turned off that they simply “copied” an existing movie. The thing is, nobody saw the original (‘cept us). This gave a chance for a great story to be told to an American audience. A lot of people have problems with the cast being replaced by black people. Initially, I thought this might detract from the movie, as a lot of the funny British situations are due to their dry culture. But the British version was FAR from dry, it was a crazy story. It worked really well with black Americans as opposed to white Brits. In the end, it didn’t really matter that they changed everyone to black. Big fucking deal.

A lot of people hail this as being unfunny, unlike the original. BUT THEY ARE THE SAME FUCKING MOVIE. Scene by scene, character by character. This is one of the most faithful remakes I’ve ever seen. I can’t fathom how someone would love the original and hate the remake. It’s just a form of elitist snobbery.

CONCLUSION: Loving the original and hating this remake constitutes a stupid opinion — they are, scene by scene, character by character, the exact same movie. The difference are slight — this is one of the most faithful remakes I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s simply no reason to not have a consistent opinion between the two. I thought I wouldn’t like this nearly as much as the original, but as it turns out, I liked this MORE than the original. I am pretty consistent in enjoying anything Americanized more than the original. I thought this would be an exception, but nope. I liked this better than the original, which we watched in 2008. We almost didn’t watch this; I’m glad we did.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.

We weren’t as good at rating movies back when we watched the original. When I went back to Netflix, I saw it was rated 3/5 stars. I was kind of surprised we rated the original that low.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 5.0/10, Netflix: 3.3/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.7/5 stars). Very low. But then you have to take into account that 20% of people voted 1/10. These are remake haters who voted 1/10 without watching the movie. IT’S PRACTICALLY THE EXACT SAME FILM. If you throw their votes out, you get a rating closer to the original.

The native public rating for the original: IMDB: 7.3/10, Netflix: 3.7/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.4/5 stars).

So Netflix did accurately predict that we’d like the remake better than the original. Which is funny, because I thought for sure, replacing all the British people with black people would make it less funny. Try not to interpret that as racist, please — we all have our preferences.

RECOMMENDATION: Check it out! Check the original out too! They are 2 sides of the same coin.

MOVIE QUOTE: Ryan: Look at Martina, man the girl’s all grown up.
Aaron: You mean little Martina? She’s like in the 12th grade.
Ryan: Well she may be in 12th grade, but that ass is in grad school.

Mood: annoyed
Music: NoFX – Just The Flu