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atomic-chronoscaph · 11 months

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John Goodman - The Flintstones (1994)

#the flintstones gif #john goodman gif #90s comedies #90s fantasy movies #hanna-barbera #yabadabadoo #cartoon characters #fred flintstone #brian levant #90s movies #1990s #1994 #gif #chronoscaph gif

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90smovies · 8 months

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#The Flintstones 1994 #John Goodman #Rick Moranis #Rosie O'Donnell #Elizabeth Perkins #Brian Levant #Steven E. de Souza #Jim Jennewein #Tom S. Parker #The Flintstones #90s

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acmeoop · 2 months

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The Bedrock News: All The News That’s Fit To Chip “The Flintstones” (1994)

#90s #amblin #hanna barbera #live action #90s films #the flintstones #movie prop #prop newspaper #newsslab #fred flintstone #Brian Levant #universal pictures #univershell

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nine-frames · 2 years

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“Yabba dabba doo.”

The Flintstones, 1994.

Dir. Brian Levant | Writ. Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein & Steven E. de Souza | DOP Dean Cundey

#the flintstones #brian levant #us film #family film #1990s #10 frames

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watching-pictures-move · 2 years

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Movie Review | Beethoven (Levant, 1992)

This is a mostly harmless family comedy about a big fluffy dog, and on that level, it’s enjoyable enough. It helps that dog is big and fluffy (except when we first meet him, when he’s small but still fluffy) and those who are not impartial to the charms of big or small fluffy dogs should find him an agreeable presence. It also helps that the dog is paired with Charles Grodin, who brings enough of that classic Grodin magic in playing off this dog. This is a family movie so he can’t show the full extent of his contemptuous sneer, but you do get a fair bit of exasperation from him, including this rant as he imprisons the dog in his kennel (the dog’s, not Grodin’s):

“You've ruined my life! You've ruined my furniture, you've ruined my clothes! My family likes you more than they like me! Why? All you do is drool and shed and eat! But you're never getting out of there again! Never! Do we understand each other? Do we?”

It isn’t quite the “Look at me like a human boy!” rant from Clifford, but it’s very much in same vein. The latter movie satirizes the tropes this movie deploys in earnest, and it too is named after a dog, so one could say that Beethoven walked so Clifford could run. I can only assume some very confused parents took their kids to the latter.

All that being said, I do have to take some issue with how the premise plays out, in that Grodin’s family warms to the dog way too easily and he seems to be the only voice of reason for the majority of the runtime. In plenty of households, one parent tends to be more of an authoritarian than the other one, but you would think Grodin’s wife would take some issue with the kids letting the dog piss and shit and make a damn mess all over the house. Noooo, it’s the dog’s house now and Grodin can take it or leave it. Of course the movie wants us on the side of the dog by making him sufficiently fluffy. But imagine if this weren’t a dog. Imagine if it was a human instead. The movie would play like a home invasion movie. Imagine if in The House on the Edge of the Park (which is not a good movie, but useful for my argument) that David Hess came into this house, and instead of the family being terrified of Hess as they should, they decide they actually love him more than their real father Charles Grodin, and screw you Charles, David Hess is our dad now.

Of course, the dog doesn’t just antagonize Grodin, he makes everyone’s lives better. He saves Grodin from a shady business deal with David Duchovny and Patricia Heaton in one of the more slapsticky moments. (This plot point makes this place interestingly alongside Clifford and Taking Care of Business in its exploration of white collar anxieties.) He helps the eldest daughter become more popular and catch the attention of a hunky male classmate, and given that her name is Ryce (pronounced “Rice”), she needs all the help she can get. He also helps the son stand up to bullies, and given that he looks like Bill Gates, he needs all the help he can get. So maybe his presence is offensive to Grodin through implication as well. There is a pretty weird development here in that the dog’s presence convinces Grodin’s wife that she should stay out of the professional world and instead stay home and look after her kids, which I found struck a weird note in this mostly inoffensive movie. The wife is played by Bonnie Hunt, whose involvement made me misremember how many kids Grodin had in this, likely because she’s also in that one movie with Steve Martin where she had a dozen kids. I think it was called Steve Martin Doesn’t Pull Out. Okay, that joke was a bit crass for this review. The raciest this movie gets is the classic bit where the dog slips into Grodin’s bed and he mistakes the dog for his wife. I knew it was coming, and I still laughed.

Alas, the filmmakers didn’t have enough confidence in audiences enjoying a movie only about Grodin reacting to a dog, so they put in a subplot about a shady veterinarian (Dean Jones, very much channeling Christopher Lloyd) who kidnaps dogs to use as test subjects for what sound like hollowpoints. I don’t know how Smith & Wesson test their wares in real life, but I suspect they don’t outsource to dognappers. Why the hell anyone thought this was a good idea for a kids movie I do not know, but I can confirm nobody points their gun sideways at a dog at any point in the movie. I will also note that we get a cover of “Roll Over Beethoven” by Paul Shaffer and the World’s Most Dangerous Band (I assume it came out of Grodin’s legendary Letterman appearances) and a bit of stylistic flair courtesy of low-to-the-ground wide angle dog’s POV shots. And I must reassert that the dog is indeed quite fluffy.

#film #movie review #beethoven #brian levant

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erstwhile-punk-guerito · 2 years

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#the flintstones #john goodman #rick moranis #elizabeth perkins #rosie o'donnell #kyle maclachlan #halle berry #elizabeth taylor #brian levant #1994

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schlock-luster-video · 1 year

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On December 12, 1996 Jingle All the Way debuted in Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovenia and Slovakia.