Daddy & Them
|
List Price: Our Price: $13.75 You Save: $1.24 (8%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.19 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Daddy & Them
Movie Review: a must
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent movie-very funny. If you like the Big Lebowski, check this out.Movie Review: Humorous Southern Style Soap Opera
Summary: 4 Stars
For fans of Billy Bob Thornton, this is a great film, because he gets a lot of screen time. After all he wrote the screenplay. There is a shot of him in cut-off jeans with no shirt and a little further into the movie he wakes up with a shirt on, but with his bluejeans (full-length jeans) down to the top of his, what else?, cowboy boots, and later still we get to visit him in the bathroom where he is wearing a shirt, and well....a magazine. Those are the highlights of his wardrobe as I recall them, keeping in mind a lot of discussions with Laura Dern (wife Ruby in the film) took place before going to sleep..don't know what he wearing below the chest, but mostly he didn't sleep with his shirt on. But enough about Billy Bob's wardrobe, down to the film now; be prepared to laugh when you get to see 'Daddy & Them". Especially if you happen to be from the south. You are going to feel right at home among the Montgomery family.
The script is cute and touching and it made me laugh out loud lots of times... I haven't done that in a movie for a long time. Being a southern girl by birth, I could readily relate to the communication problems this family was facing.
I like the way Thornton thinks, writes, and acts. He's a keeper for his talent, no doubt about it.
This is the story of a dysfunctional southern family with a lot of personal history.
Claude Montgomery (Billy Bob) now married to Ruby (Laura Dern - Billy Bob's ex-girlfriend), once dated her sister Rose (Kelly Preston - Mrs. John Travolta). Claude and Ruby, accompanied by sister Rose and Claude's mother-in-law, Jewel (Diana Ladd) go home to help out Claude's bother, Alvin (John Prine) and the family patriarch, O.T. (Andy Griffith) when O.T.'s brother Hazel (the late Jim Varney) gets arrested. O.T. unfortunately suffers from attacks of dementia and has a difficult time recalling exactly which sister Claude married. Ben Affleck and Jamie Lee Curtis appear as married lawyers hired by the Montgomery family.
All this sudden southern togetherness erupts in confusion, discussion, memories, and changes.
There is an accident scene that is very, very funny. Good ole boy Claude, as portrayed by Billy Bob, is really a romantic guy at heart. The dual-dueling-jealous competitions between Claude and Ruby are priceless.
I wished the font on the credits has been easier to read. Still the credits are well worth watching in order to hear the John Prine song, "In Spite of Ourselves" being sung over the credits. It's great!
So was the film, if you like to laugh and aren't expecting an Oscar caliber film. You will have double the pleasure if you happen to be southern.
Movie Review: Hillbillies and their Discontents
Summary: 4 Stars
Its a little known Billy Bob Thornton film, put out by the Weinsteins,
I assume, in their days at Miramax before Disney dumped them out of the
company. I've never heard of it. It must've went straight to video.
Billy Bob wrote and directed Daddy and them. It seems a little
autobiographical.
I'm just a little way into the movie. Laura Dern and her husband Billy
Bob are down and out and living in a little house with no money.
Billy Bob is 52 but he's playin' a guy about thirty. Laura's nearing 40
in reality, but she's playing someone who is a post-teen.
It opens with Billy Bob wearing a hat backward and chasing Laura around
the yard. But its primitiveness is what makes this movie worth talking
about.
Their dialog is so remorselessly hillbilly that I have to share. Laura
complains that Billy Bob's tattoos aren't tattoos at all but cover ups
of the names of former loves he's had that he don't want Laura to see
anymore. He replies that he wouldn't have bothered coverin' em up if
she hadn't bitched so much about them.
Which leads her to complain that he shouldn'ta f****d her sister like
that, it makes bein' married to him extra hard. To which Billy Bob
replies, "Sure I f****d your sister, but what was I supposed to do? You
was only 13 at the time and if I'da f***d you, theyda put me in the
hoosegow."
It goes on like that. I suspect the Weinstein Brothers sent this one
straight to video cause it was too embarrassing to release. I'd call
this an unintentional comedy, only I don't think it is. Billy Bob
intended for this to appear to be an unintentional comedy.
Billy Bob doesn't like her folks, including Diane Ladd, Laura's
real-life actress mother and Bruce Dern's ex-wife. The movie is one
long dysfunctional family feud. Billy Bob emphasizes family and its
discontents. Andy Griffith is O T Montgomery, Billy Bob's Daddy.
Its about family, you see, and it don't get much better than that.
It has an extraordinary cast. Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Blethyn, the
English Actress who played Mrs. Bennett recently in Pride & Prejudice,
and Ben Affleck.
I haven't actually finished watching the movie yet, but with its mix of
bowling alleys, liquor stores, family dinner tables and just down home
country, I just got a feelin' this one can't go bad on me.
Movie Review: "Theys 6 or 7 car hoods out in the front yard..."
Summary: 4 Stars
I always thought Laura Dern was pretty hot, and she is, until of course you stand her next to Kelly Preston!
This has to be the greatest film to document the stereotype of Southern white trash to ever come out of Hollywood. Ironically, its all TRUE! I cant stop laughing, hell I even have a pair of identical cowboy boots to the ones Billy Bob was hanging off'n that car hood. haw haw haw
Almost perfectly cast, although they were near almost done in by a pick-up dropped Molly Hatchet tape. I got 3 uncles that could have played Andy Griffith's role as Daddy, it was refreshing to see him in something different knowhudahmsayin? Just a few days in the life of a typical Arkansas family. Summed up perfectly by the British sister in law psychologist...."you're all alcoholics and you're all f__ked up!" OK, so maybe if you're not from the South you wont get it, but I do by God and its hilarious. I cant believe this thing went straight to cable, its a real hidden gem. Even Jamie Lee Curtis and Ben Affleck were hilarious, misplaced as they were.
By now everybody is semi-familiar with Billy Bob's work, and he hit this sumbitch out of the park. My only disappointment with this flick is John Prine who can write songs and sing with the best of them, but he has got to be the worst actor I have ever seen. Nice try boys, almost anybody off the streets of Little Rock would have been better as Billy Bob's brother. Oh well, that didn't ruin an otherwise stinging comic portrayal of White-Trash-O-Rama Arkansas style.
Too bad Jim Varney had to go out on Showtime, maybe it was this film's transition into a sentimental love story that finally did him in and personally I could have done without that introspection, however..... I still liked it. 4 Dancin' Monkeys
Movie Review: If you're looking for laughs, give it a try.
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched this film when it appeared on TV, with NO expectations, since I'd never heard of it. (It had a miminal theatrical release, mainly in a few film festivals where it won some rave reviews and high rankings in the audience-favorite votes.) Actually, I had negative expectations since Showtime's description made it sound like yet another "Hollywood Makes Fun of Hillbillies" movie. But I thought the cast listing made it worth a try, and I ended up laughing out loud repeatedly while watching it. I taped it and hesitantly showed it to a group of friends, all very sensitive to hillbilly stereotyping -- they all loved it. It's quirky enough that you'll probably love it or hate it, but I bought the DVD as soon as it was released, and plan on buying several more as gifts. Granted, it's not Shakespeare, but it has a wonderful set of characters, all very well acted, and just enough of a plot to let them shine. If you're looking for laughs, give it a try. And, as another reviewer noted, be sure to catch John Prine's song, "In Spite of Ourselves," during the credits at the end. It's such a hoot that I bought the Prine album on which it appears, even though I generally hate country music and it's a country album.