You slipped and put a "her" in there near the end—I guess because the movie is so Godsawful you lost your pronouns:
"Oh, and at a certain point Pat becomes the popular host of a radio advice call-in show due to her genius for saying blunt and colorful things on air, not unlike a distaff Loqueesha from the film of the same name."
That you're comparing this movie to LOQUEESHA tells me what a fucking trainwreck it must be.
According to Wikipedia, Quentin Tarantino was the uncredited rewriter on this mess. It's kind of hilarious to think this was his last movie before Pulp Fiction.
Have you seen the Showtime tv series Work in Progress? The protagonist is a lesbian who has tauntingly been called "Pat" many times in her life. During the course of the show, she actually makes friends with Julia Sweeney, playing a fictionalized version of herself. Weird Al plays himself as well, though in this reality he's married to Sweeney. It's an excellent show, so naturally Showtime cancelled it and removed it from its streaming service.
An aside - has any true comic talent been worst served by their choice of projects than Dave Foley? One look at News Radio or The Kids in the Hall and you just know he has it, and bits like his bitingly bleak "Apocalypse DJ" from the new series prove he still does. But his filmography is filled with some of the worst comedies of all time. This. Run, Ronnie, Run. Monkeybone. The post N'Sync Lance Bass and Joey Fatone movie. He did Freeberg-Seltzer movies for god's sake!
I stumbled upon Julia Sweeney at UnCabaret when I went to LA many, many years ago. It's an amazing company that attracts so many interesting performers that are working out new stuff. Or just chatting. I went a few times, and always found it mesmerizing.
I left the show thinking that Julia Sweeney is just a great person that I root for.
I will probably never see this movie, because I imagine I would spend much of it flinching in sympathy for her. But not because she doesn't haven't talent, not because the character isn't interesting [as someone who would appear in a single sketch]. It's just a very bad idea to have this character in a full movie. Maybe it could be done well, but it wasn't done well here. But probably it was always going to be a Failure.
Even though I felt the same way about "Stuart Saves His Family", before I saw it? Yes.
I'm not sure I'd call that one a Secret Success, but it certainly had some very well thought out moments, and had some some legitimate insights. Behaviors and relationships I hadn't noticed before, in the family of friends, and maybe even with some members of my extended family. And then parts of the main character sometimes seemed a bit familiar. Troubling stuff. But did some of it feel "real", and was it worthy of discussion? Yeah!
Is Mr. Saturday Night considered an SNL movie? I thought the Buddy Young character got its start in Billy Crystal's stand-up outside of SNL. I know he and others (like Martin Short's Ed Grimley) brought their characters to the show, but I wasn't sure this was one of them. It's been a long time since that single season, so I really don't recall.
I took those five minutes and from accounts from Playbill, you are correct, he was created for the special. I have a feeling the line "Don't get me started" showed up elsewhere in his standup, but would have to dig through old albums, etc. to verify... and who has that kind of time 😁
I remember the special "Don't Get Me Started" with Rob Reiner reprising Marti DiBergi from Spinal Tap, but I thought I had seen or heard the character and his catchphrase before that as well. Not that I've taken 5 minutes to look this up or anything. FWIW, Mr Saturday Night is also now a Broadway Musical starring Crystal. I know it was running last summer as I was in NY, but haven't checked to see if it's still going. Usually his shows are limited engagements.
I remember catching about the last 3/4 of it late night on Comedy Central. Maybe it was the commercial breaks or the shear awfulness (maybe both?) but it seemed like it was much longer than 90 minutes, even the part I saw. It's one of those fever-dream movies that's so bad it's hard to allow your conscious mind to believe that it's real.
This was a weird one to write in part because I did not know which pronoun to use so I went with They.
I don't know whether Pat is a man or a woman. Nor do I care.
You slipped and put a "her" in there near the end—I guess because the movie is so Godsawful you lost your pronouns:
"Oh, and at a certain point Pat becomes the popular host of a radio advice call-in show due to her genius for saying blunt and colorful things on air, not unlike a distaff Loqueesha from the film of the same name."
That you're comparing this movie to LOQUEESHA tells me what a fucking trainwreck it must be.
A movie consisting entirely of deleted scenes is also how I described Poitiers Tang after I saw it.
Sidney Poitier's Tang was arguably the weirdest celebrity drink. I had no idea he used to be an astronaut!
Autocorrect is the fucking worst.
According to Wikipedia, Quentin Tarantino was the uncredited rewriter on this mess. It's kind of hilarious to think this was his last movie before Pulp Fiction.
Have you seen the Showtime tv series Work in Progress? The protagonist is a lesbian who has tauntingly been called "Pat" many times in her life. During the course of the show, she actually makes friends with Julia Sweeney, playing a fictionalized version of herself. Weird Al plays himself as well, though in this reality he's married to Sweeney. It's an excellent show, so naturally Showtime cancelled it and removed it from its streaming service.
An aside - has any true comic talent been worst served by their choice of projects than Dave Foley? One look at News Radio or The Kids in the Hall and you just know he has it, and bits like his bitingly bleak "Apocalypse DJ" from the new series prove he still does. But his filmography is filled with some of the worst comedies of all time. This. Run, Ronnie, Run. Monkeybone. The post N'Sync Lance Bass and Joey Fatone movie. He did Freeberg-Seltzer movies for god's sake!
I stumbled upon Julia Sweeney at UnCabaret when I went to LA many, many years ago. It's an amazing company that attracts so many interesting performers that are working out new stuff. Or just chatting. I went a few times, and always found it mesmerizing.
I left the show thinking that Julia Sweeney is just a great person that I root for.
I will probably never see this movie, because I imagine I would spend much of it flinching in sympathy for her. But not because she doesn't haven't talent, not because the character isn't interesting [as someone who would appear in a single sketch]. It's just a very bad idea to have this character in a full movie. Maybe it could be done well, but it wasn't done well here. But probably it was always going to be a Failure.
Even though I felt the same way about "Stuart Saves His Family", before I saw it? Yes.
I'm not sure I'd call that one a Secret Success, but it certainly had some very well thought out moments, and had some some legitimate insights. Behaviors and relationships I hadn't noticed before, in the family of friends, and maybe even with some members of my extended family. And then parts of the main character sometimes seemed a bit familiar. Troubling stuff. But did some of it feel "real", and was it worthy of discussion? Yeah!
Charles Rocket had a great guest shot on Moonlighting as Bruce Willis' brother.
Is Mr. Saturday Night considered an SNL movie? I thought the Buddy Young character got its start in Billy Crystal's stand-up outside of SNL. I know he and others (like Martin Short's Ed Grimley) brought their characters to the show, but I wasn't sure this was one of them. It's been a long time since that single season, so I really don't recall.
He created Buddy Young for an HBO comedy special and it was pretty good, I must say, or, let's face it, at least for the time.
I took those five minutes and from accounts from Playbill, you are correct, he was created for the special. I have a feeling the line "Don't get me started" showed up elsewhere in his standup, but would have to dig through old albums, etc. to verify... and who has that kind of time 😁
I remember the special "Don't Get Me Started" with Rob Reiner reprising Marti DiBergi from Spinal Tap, but I thought I had seen or heard the character and his catchphrase before that as well. Not that I've taken 5 minutes to look this up or anything. FWIW, Mr Saturday Night is also now a Broadway Musical starring Crystal. I know it was running last summer as I was in NY, but haven't checked to see if it's still going. Usually his shows are limited engagements.
I remember catching about the last 3/4 of it late night on Comedy Central. Maybe it was the commercial breaks or the shear awfulness (maybe both?) but it seemed like it was much longer than 90 minutes, even the part I saw. It's one of those fever-dream movies that's so bad it's hard to allow your conscious mind to believe that it's real.
I remember back around when it was coming out hearing that Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite as a favor for Sweeney, a good friend.