The Big Picture

🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

🎙️ EPISODE 271: 06.12.20 To start things off, let's get this horribly dated "joke"–especially in light of everything happening in the world–out of the way...

When people talk about systemic racism, this is it, albeit distilled. Straight from the very liberal minds of Hollywood, a throwaway line, 31 years old now, but it speaks volumes. That this would register as "funny" even then is how and why things don't change now. It runs that deep. It's almost too plainly stupid to take seriously and that's kind of the point. It's that perverse.

Anyway, not trying to throw anyone under the bus for it, especially Martin Short (who is the best part of this movie by a mile), just thought it was worth pointing it.

Let's get back to the clips! Like I said, Martin Short is the best part of this movie and this is how he makes his entrance...

What is that look?

He plays Agent Neil Sussman in a weirdly uncredited role that, while small, certainly registers as more than a cameo (maybe he has a time machine and knew how bad that joke was gonna age and wanted disassociate as best he could??).

Anyway, here's that first scene in full, condensed just a tad...

This film, the directorial debut from mockumentary legend/O.G. Christopher Guest (with a script he co-wrote with Michael McCean, is full to the brim with visual gags and dreamlike stylistic departures that run the gamut between Zucker bros esque farce and more nuanced artful fun, like this little thimble stop-motion dance...

The flipside of that coin is, naturally, Teri Hatcher in lingerie running a dustbuster over Kevin Bacon's torso...

The Big Picture's issue is that it doesn't know what kinda movie it wants to be.

The story is mostly trite (young creative's vision stomped down by the suits, to conform for marketability's sake until said young creative is corrupted, left for dead, no better than them, forced to sacrifice, scrape, do anything)

and yet, also "ABE & THE BABE" ...

It comes at "the farce of Hollywood as Hollywood farce" from all angles; it starts to work in starts and fits, but mostly fizzles. Thankfully we have about five perfect minutes of Martin Short (minus that cringey joke) and that absolutely ridiculous thing he does with his face...

The moral of the story is that everything will work out as exactly as you truly, down deep wished it would, so long as you can make it through all the hijinks and dream sequences and bad wigs and caricatures and that's Hollywood, baby!

It's also worth noting that this is Peak Era Kevin Bacon. He is more than serviceable and clearly comfortable carrying a movie, even a disjointed affair such as this. He even gets the damn Charlie Chaplin treatment...

Charlie Chaplin treatment? Sure. That's a thing. You know what I mean.

And, oh, John Cleese shows up in one scene for the CREDITED role (lol) of bartender and gets to turn It's a Wonderful Life from black and white into color because: metaphors.

Honestly, this was just an excuse for me to post (basically) every second of Martin Short's screen-time. The script has some OK ideas and there are a few humorous gags, but honestly–minus Short–this thing would've been a colossal dud. It's a fantastic performance from a comedic actor at the top of his game, and it saves the film.

Otherwise, it's only noteworthy for being a stepping stone from Spinal Tap to Guffman for Guest and a fanciful blip in the filmography of Bacon. (And, fine, "ABE & THE BABE" is pretty great too.)

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 270 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 272 ⫸

---