one time there were two magician movies

what's up with that

http://i2.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article6732294.ece/ALTERNATES/s1023/Hugh-Grant-MAIN.jpg

is that randall flagg? shit

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)
Observe & Report (2009)

There is I think a particular term for simultaneous but separate invention/conception, but I can't think of what it is. Anyone?

A Bug's Life (1998)
Antz (1998)

im pretty sure the generic Blart was probably more enjoyable than O&R

Deep Impact
Armaggedon

both 1998

Mirror Mirror (2012)
Snow White and The Huntsman (2012)

does dantes peak (1996) volcano (1997) count?

plausible deniability maybe

or wait the opposite of that

Turner & Hooch (1989)
K-9 (1989)

haha my summer camp took us to see K-9 on a field trip taht year.

^yes indeed that is the paradigmatic example

The end of the 80s also had a lot Vietnam movies come out in rapid succession, but that doesn't really fit squarely into what we're going for here.

Capote (2005)
Infamous (2006)

An American Werewolf In London and The Howling and Wolfen (1981)

My Dinner With Andre and Bustin' Loose (1981)

hercules
the legend of hercules

!!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/61/72/1f/61721fabca5666be7051ae77eab44f43.jpg

First Daughter (2004)
Chasing Liberty (2004)

Hoop Dreams
Poop Dreams

i always mix those up

Tombstone (1993)
Wyatt Earp (1994)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DuelingWorks/Film

i seen one of the magician movies it was fucken stupid i can only imagine how fucken stupid the other magician movie is with alfie zulu in it

They're both okay, but the twist in the Edward Norton one is easy to guess, and since half of the movie rests on that "shocking" revelation, it kinda diminishes it. Whereas the the two major twists in the Christian Bale/Hugh Jackman one genuinely come out of the left field, which makes it more fun to watch, if not super memorable.

Can't remember the Norton one, but I guessed the Prestige twist and it didn't affect my enjoyment of it. Also I didn't know a certain cameo was going to be in it so that really made my day.

the prestige was so good.

There was even a third magician movie around the same time, by the peep show guys

Another borderline case:

The Truman Show (1998)
EDTV (1999)

Probably much too far apart to count but...
Porridge (1979)
Escape to Victory (1981)

Robin hoods

Famously there was a British Robin Hood film that ended up being completely eclipsed by prince of thieves

Xpost!

Feels weird to include that because there have probably been years when there have been like 7 Robin Hood films produced

War of the Worlds (2005) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407304/
The War of the Worlds (2005) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425638/
War of the Worlds (2005) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449040/

the first one is the Tom Cruise one, the second is the english version set at the same time as the book, the third is a knock-off rushed out on video ahead of the Cruise version to confuse people into buying it.

The General (1998)
Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)

Both based on Irish gangster Martin Cahill

I thought it was normal to have certain themes be popular in certain years. Not sure what determines it , unless it is just competition within the industry. Or industries, do publishing houses do similar?

a second time there were two magician movies

the incredible burt wonderstone (2013)
now you see me (2013)

Because they were such anomalies at the time (two psycho-killer movies today wouldn't be notable), and because of the stature of the two directors, Psycho and Peeping Tom, both 1960.

I watched the British Robin Hood movie a few years ago, and it was really quite good, certainly better than Prince of Thieves. Possibly even the best Robin Hood feature film since the Errol Flynn era?

i kind of feel like

things to do in denver when you're dead (1995)
the usual suspects (1995)

should qualify but there were so many, so many tarantino knockoffs produced in the 90s that at least two of them would necessarily (emphasis) had to have bryan ferry, with his floppy, insouciant hair and sharply, elegantly disarrayed suits, as a former gangster trying to go straight but he's dragged back into the crimeworld for one last job to save his flailing enterprise but it goes disastrously wrong with an ensemble cast and interpersonal quibbling and banter that i'm not really sure if it does.

Another one that's maybe a bit of a stretch but I think fits: the two grand-diva movies of 1950, Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve.

California Split and The Gambler, 1974.

Catch-22 and MASH, 1970--not just war films, but a very specific kind of Strangelove absurdist black comedy.

Also both given a "not Vietnam, but we're really talking about Vietnam" gloss by their directors.

The Prestige has Bowie-as-Tesla in it
The Illusionist is a bad movie but has Philip Glass' best score ever

bridget jones' diary (2001)
legally blonde (200))

a blonde zaftig protagonist shows up at a party dressed in a bunny costume because they thought it was a costume party but it wasn't, but she wins the day despite things

The Illusionist wasn't even the best movie named The Illusionist in recent times

legally blonde also 2001, not 200)

Catch-22 and MASH, 1970--not just war films, but a very specific kind of Strangelove absurdist black comedy.

― clemenza, Friday, March 25, 2016 9:11 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

speaking of, Strangelove and Fail Safe prob fit

Lambada (1990)
The Forbidden Dance (1990)

Breakin' (1984)
Beat Street (1984)

Like Father Like Son (October 1987)
Vice Versa (March 1988)
Big (June 1988)

18 Again! (April 1988)

Style Wars
Wild Style

if wins the day wasn't an emo combo out of omaha circa 2004 that had a #27 alt rock chart hit with "i'm okay, stop asking" i'll seppuku myself

elaction (1999) was a fillum about a female secondary character that has a scene where she swings on a swing set to
represent the tension between lost youth /coming of age dynamics and i swear there was another contemporary joint that utilized the same device so they're the same movie but i can't remember what the other one was just now, but i randomly watched them in succession so it counts

Lambada (1990)
The Forbidden Dance (1990)

Breakin' (1984)
Beat Street (1984)

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 25, 2016 2:22 PM (20 minutes ago)

These are the two cousins who fell out, right? So the two competing films were at least intentional, w/ them trying to outdo each other.

The two Lambada movies actually came out on the same day! (Also, one starred future Mulholland Dr. co-star Laura Harring, and the other starred Melora Hardin of The Office fame.)

the phrase "lambada, the forbidden dance," is indivisible in my memory. which is the wellspring and which is the pretender?

*ahem*

These are the two cousins who fell out, right? So the two competing films were at least intentional, w/ them trying to outdo each other.

Their company split and they both wanted to continue work on the idea for a Lambada film, so they raced each other to the cinemas. (Sorry for not providing loads of detail but the story is slightly fuzzy in my mind.)

Gene Siskel was a fan of Lambada.

also Da Grande (1987). Seems like we couldn't get enough body swap movies in the 80s

No mystery, this pair:

Nineteen eighty-four (1984)
Brazil (1985)

all those stevejobs movies

Body swap films could prob be its own thread. Remember seeing one called switch (man becomes woman) from around that time

Xp weren't there two hawking bios in relatively quick succession?

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
Requiem (2006)

both based on the real life case of Anneliese Michel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel

Deep Impact / Armageddon is often said to be one the archetypes of this phenomenon BUT Deep Impact involved a comet; in Armageddon it was an asteroid. TOTALLY different things, you guys.

there was this one year when loads of fucking superhero films came out

Lol I was genuinely gonna make a comment along those lines cause istr an instance where that happened and it actually seemed notable

A long time ago obv

There are always two boxing movies coming out

The big one before Deep Impact/Armageddon happened was the two Christopher Columbus movies that both came out (and flopped) in 1992.

within a few years this phenomena will have escalated to 12 fucking immortal twats in daft costumes movies at the same time

xp think you mean three Christopher Columbus movies that came out in 1992

http://www.moviepostercompany.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/P3051671.jpg

(assuming that the two you were referring to are 'Christopher Columbus: The Discovery' and the Ridley Scott film)

yeah--the Carry On movies never really crossed over here, and tbh I didn't even know they were still happening as late as '92.

genuinely thought you were talking about the director of home alone at first

^^ Me too

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DuelingWorks/Film

― Tuomas, Friday, March 25, 2016 4:10 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tuomas dropped a nuke on this thread

I wonder what happened to the two proposed Jeff Buckley biopics.

Knew soref would have some valuable input itt btw

Apparently there are two Jungle Book movies coming out soon.

this is funny to me cause i was recently thinking about a terrible poll idea where you'd have to pick the best pairing of (1) armageddon and volcano (2) armageddon and dante's peak (3) deep impact and volcano (4) deep impact and dante's peak. (obviously 4 is the right answer but not by much.)

superhero movies kinda more like a genre/trend though right? like it's kinda like saying "there were all these years when a million westerns came out" or whatever. disaster movies were everywhere in the early/mid 70s, grand car race movies in the late 70s/early 80s.

but it's interesting when they seem to pop up out of their element, like the astro-comet movies and the volcano movies didn't seem like part of a disaster movie trend (though maybe in hindsight they were?) but as astro-comet and volcano movies and very weird for that. as for big car chase movies - - - maybe the gone in 60 seconds remake and the first fast and the furious, but those were admittedly a full year apart (june 2000 - june 2001). i think the most interesting ones are where you can sorta work backwards to how it might have happened - like clearly there must have been a big mid-90s time magazine story about scientists predicting an asteroid could hit the earth and it set some screenwriters' wheels turning. one went for a conventional disaster movie with people in different walks of life dealing with shit (and played up the what-would-you-do-if-you-knew-the-world-would-end angle, though not as effectively as it might have) while the other is really a team-on-a-mission movie with a more emotionally manipulative but godawful stupid set of plot developments and aerosmith.

volcano and dante's peak is weirder, because dante's peak (though the slightly better-constructed and considerably more watchable movie) feels more like the ripoff: we've heard these other guys are doing a volcano movie, what have we got? and they dust off a shelved early 1980s script inspired by mount st. helens but vetoed for budgetary or "disaster pictures are old news" reasons. but then "volcano" is the one without anything like an actual volcano which makes me wonder if THEY heard about dante's peak and decided they had to make theirs more different. also they could save money that way. man what a stupid movie.

wyatt earp/tombstone on the other hand, i think just reflects the mini-wave of 90s westerns. picking the same old west guy as protagonist is a little funny but i could see how it would happen by accident. there aren't THAT many famous sheriffs.

Made the choice not to click the tv tropes link cause it ruins the parlour game bank holiday shitlisting but also because I find that site depressing xps

agreed

I think maybe the volcano movies were part of a mini disaster movie trend but my only evidence for this is twister

superhero movies kinda more like a genre/trend though right? like it's kinda like saying "there were all these years when a million westerns came out" or whatever. disaster movies were everywhere in the early/mid 70s, grand car race movies in the late 70s/early 80s.

Agree with this. Though having said that, there's something nagging at my mind that, was there a very similar film to Duel that came out around the same time? I'm sure my brain is telling me there was but I don't know if I can trust myself on this one.

I remember one called The Car, I think that was similar.

scratch that, it was '77

Well, as my memory is so bad it could be what I was thinking of, though having looked it up on wikipedia I don't think it was that as I'm pretty sure I'd remember the detail of it being some sort of demonic car that couldn't enter consecrated ground.

Goodfellas and My Blue Heaven both from 1990 and both based on the life of Henry Hill

according to wiki While Goodfellas was based upon the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, the screenplay for My Blue Heaven was written by Pileggi's wife, Nora Ephron, and much of the research for both works was done in the same sessions with Hill.

Ephron also wrote the script for Cookie which was another mobster comedy from 1989 idk if that was another mini-trend

late 90s mini disaster movie trend is pretty much there, with roland emmerich as the critical irwin allen figure without whom there's no trend at all: independence day, day after tomorrow, i guess godzilla, and then the late hangover of 2012. rewatched twister a few years ago and man that hasn't dated well at all - effects lookin' real shabby but also almost all the dialogue is bill paxton repeating himself: "we've got to go! (pause) we've got to go now!" etc. also a truly thankless role for jami gertz as the citified new fiancee who somehow doesn't know anything about or understand bill paxton's driving life passion of chasing tornadoes with his folksy ragtag bunch including philip seymour hoffman and an extremely doomed quirky den-mother character. basically paxton seems like an asshole. screenplay was by crichton which makes me wonder if jurassic park might be understood as something like a disaster movie.

elaction (1999) was a fillum about a female secondary character that has a scene where she swings on a swing set to represent the tension between lost youth /coming of age dynamics and i swear there was another contemporary joint that utilized the same device so they're the same movie but i can't remember what the other one was just now, but i randomly watched them in succession so it counts

The Ice Storm?

Ha I have this whole thing in my head about twister and jurassic park that I'm not good at expressing but the tornado is the T. rex

Mostly sonically cause the cry of the tyrannosaur in Jurassic park has this metal-on-metal squeal that you hear a lot in twister

i mean it's definitely as much a post-JP greenlight as congo.

mix of "audiences go for this kind of thrill ride" and "we have the technology now!" thinking.

(Twister is a bad film obv, yeah)

Twister is no good, but it was less painful than its contemporary Independence Day.

Which reminds me, '96 also saw two "John Travolta is magic" movies.

Kind of love independence day

How bad was Summer '96 for movies? I actually remember enjoying The Rock.

man, a phenomenon / michael double feature might be the least appealing billing of any of the pairs mentioned on this thread so far. tbh i've never seen either one but i remember both just radiating "touching" in a really depressing way.

independence day is super problematic but super watchable. certainly way more memorable scenes, characters, visuals, jokes than any of the other 90s disaster films.

I remember lots of people pointing out at the time that Mars Attacks! and Independence Day have very similar plots/concepts

Even back when I was the audience for most of the big releases (I was 17-turning-18 in '96), I still knew well enough to avoid that Travolta twofer.

Nathan Rabin is braver than I.

Dissuading details from Wikipedia: Contrary to popular depictions of angels, Michael is portrayed as a boozing, smoking slob – yet capable of imparting unexpected wisdom.[1]

Xxxp Jokes is the main one imo, it's the only one where emmerich's strict adherence to "in every ____ ever" formula lands, because the actors sell the types

Also remember outside of the states the July 4th stuff plays as comedy, 100%

it plays as comedy to me too! i mean i am definitely not putting it forth as a movie that'll really stir your heart and make you proud to be an american or whatever. but man is it fun watching will smith and company flying jet fighters at UFOs, or bill pullman in the creepy area 51 basement with the slimy tentacle alien and brent spiner.

michael rogin's BFI book on the film is a good read too btw.

Would read

Also remember outside of the states the July 4th stuff plays as comedy, 100%

This reminds me of something I've been thinking about for a while. All the foreign films that make it to the US and get reviewed by the mainstream press seem to be of the "good for you" variety - earnest dramas about prejudice and sorrow, heartfelt tales of the human condition, blah blah blah. But I'm convinced other countries produce just as many dumbshit popcorn movies as America, proportionally - I just never hear about them. So in other countries' big dumb action movies, is there the same amount of hyperbolic nationalism and flag-waving? Is there a French equivalent to Michael Bay? And without totally hijacking this thread, what are the stupidest, most crowd-pleasingly boneheaded foreign movies folks can think of that I might want/need to see?

Feel like American chauvinism expressed via Hollywood is a fairly distinct phenomenon with few analogues? But as regards dumbshit patriotic films we could be here all day

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysbbPStfWw

There was also a Sylvester Stallone disaster movie in 1996 or 1997 where people got caught in a car tunnel, I remember seeing that one at the cinema.

Daylight!

That came just after cliffhanger - in both he plays a character haunted by flashbacks of a disaster he failed to prevent

Oh yeah, Daylight, that was from 1996 too.

It seems weird that several neo-disaster movies came out in 1996 already: Daylight, Tornado!, Independence Day, Twister... Considering the production time for your regular feature, it seems like there should be some ur-example that inspired this fad? Maybe it was indeed Jurassic Park? Or Speed? Or maybe they were all already anticipating Titanic, which must've been in the works for quite some time?

xp and that disaster was called "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!"

THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT

xpost
Was the success of Titanic always a foregone conclusion, though? I mean, the odds were in its favour--Cameron had been having a monster 90s (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think The Abyss was his only major film that underperformed according to expectations), but it was still a wildly expensive production featuring two non-superstar leads. Hard to imagine now, of course, but I think there was always the potential for it to flop.

Everyone thought it would flop iirc.

Including me (and my parents), when we saw it during its like first or second week. Like people in the theatre (a suburban multiplex, not at all some hipster enclave) were laughing at the dialogue, Billy Zane's acting, etc.

Dark city, matrix, existenz, gattica

Yeah famously it had been building up a follywood rep before its release xxp

there were 2 near-simultaneous Hitchcock biopics a couple of years ago

seem to recall 2 Truman Capote biopics a couple of years before that?

Yep

Despicable me and megamind

megamind wasn't about truman capote

black hawk down / behind enemy lines (both 2001)

Braveheart (1995)
Rob Roy (1995)

dont tell me there's some comic book guy called the Magician

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/0/3125/1197318-fb19.jpg

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/e/e5/Zatara_001.jpg

The Double (2013, adapted from Dostoevsky's The Double)
Enemy (2013, adapted from Saramago's The Double)

Both deal with doppelgängers and identity.

Nice! That's a perennial of course. Does anyone remember double take, the film about Hitchcock, Borges and doubles? Written by Tom McCarthy!

The Football Factory (2004)
Green Street (2005)

Followed by hundreds of terrible football hooligan films available at tesco

you can find some of those films if you scroll right to the very very bottom of netflix's british films list

i have never watched one but it strikes me as the sort of thing one might do in pursuit of the fake real

Platoon (1986)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Hamburger Hill (1987)

There are shitloads more from the 80's Nam boom, but these were the Oscar bothering type ones that ran concurrently.

Hmm, the academy stopped liking Kubrick after Barry Lyndon, and FMJ only got one nod, for Screenplay, so I dunno if I would count it as "Oscar bothering." Also, while FMJ is the only one out of the three of those that I've seen (never saw HH) that I actually like, any trend that can swing as wildly from FMJ to GMV has something more going on in it than the usual spikes in the popularity of disaster flicks.

yeah i mean, kinda not very surprising that there would be movies about vietnam being made in the 1980s!

they were probably attempting to bother the oscars I should have said, fuck 'em anyway cos Barry Lyndon is a great movie.

World Trade Center (2006)
United 93 (2006)

there was a Flight 93 in 2006 too!

let's roll (the cameras!)

Went The Day Well (1942)
Saboteur (1942)

oops forgot the question mark

Deep Star Six (1989)
Leviathan (1989)

Oh, man:

Terminal Velocity (1994)
Drop Zone (1994)

Competing skydiving thrillers!

Without Limits (1998)
Prefontaine (1997)

(Both pretty good, actually)

Mission to Mars(2000)
Red Planet (2000)

touching the void was alas a full 3 years after vertical limit xp

In The Last Starfighter (July 84), a humanoid space-fighter pilot teams up with a vaguely reptilian alien; through adversity they become close friends.

In Enemy Mine (Dec. 85), a humanoid space-fighter pilot teams up with a vaguely reptilian alien; through adversity they become close friends.

too much distance and it basically ends up being casablanca --> to have and have not, the latter film clearly riffing on the former, maybe improving massively on it etc

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iSjnlF6CQBc/Tk67Fu8mpAI/AAAAAAAAENo/pVW7VEdIuXA/s1600/liz%2Bman2.jpg xp

BTW To Have and Have Not is a fun movie. Was you ever but by a dead bee? Put your lips together etc.

Two biopics called Harlow in '65

also two biopics about isadora duncan in the space of about a year from ken russell & karel reisz.

In 2003, Ned Kelly, a $30 million budget movie about Kelly's life was released. Directed by Gregor Jordan, and written by John M. McDonagh (brother of Martin McDonagh), it starred Heath Ledger as Kelly, along with Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, and Naomi Watts. Based on Robert Drewe's book Our Sunshine, the film covers the period from Kelly's arrest for horse theft as a teenager to the gang's armour-clad battle at Glenrowan. It attempts to portray the events from the perspectives of both Kelly and of the authorities responsible for his capture and prosecution and throws in a romance between Kelly and an married upper-class Australian woman. It was not a success; one review dismissed it as fiction.

That same year (2003) a low budget satire movie called Ned was released. Written, directed and starring Abe Forsythe, it depicted the Kelly gang wearing fake beards and tin buckets on their heads.

Was there two westerns with all/mainly female protagonists in the mid/late 90s

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Bad Girls? (I don't think the former is actually a 'western' but might fit?)

Sharon stone?

I need to take the time to research this is lazy stuff from me

Your talking about The Quick and The Deadly

Ya!

Really a single female protagonist, that one

Nah that was Bridget Fonda and Jennifer jason leigh

lol that is almost a candidate for this thread but it's more part of a micro-trend

Would recommend anyone who hasn't seen Went The Day Well ? To check it out, it is one of the best and better than the Hitchcock one from the same year.

rookie of the year (july 1993)
little big league (july 1994)*

*nb i was in this

wait waht? really?

I loved LBL when I was a kid, RotY was fuckin dumb

i slid into third base in the opening scene

i made $1500 for three days work, carefully secreted away by my parents, later blown on CDs when i was in college

that's awesome!

Two junkie movies in 1971: Panic in Needle Park and Born to Win.

that rules, gbx.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Bad Girls? (I don't think the former is actually a 'western' but might fit?)

― emil.y, Saturday, March 26, 2016 8:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Even Cowgirls Get tHe Blues is a contemporary set film about a hitch-hiker with over sized thumbs that contribute to her spectacular success at hitchhiking.
It's also a ROIR tape of John Cale live in around '79 a time I really like his live recordings from. Tend to be intense guitar driven stuff.

Gummo (1997)
Kull the Conqueror (1997)

?

Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Valmont (1989)

Christine (2016)
Kate Plays Christine (2016)

the world's end (2013)
this is the end (2013)

this might have been mentioned in the 77* "skipped" messages.

*ayo!

True Romance (1993)
Natural Born Killers (1994)

Antz was a ripoff of A Bug's Life that Katzenberg rushed through production when he left Disney.

Some of these are ideas that Hollywood does every few years and it just so happened that two studios gave two of them similar release dates. often happens with disaster movies.

True Romance (1993)
Natural Born Killers (1994)

Past Midnight (1991)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
True Romance (1993)
It's Pat (1994)
Four Rooms (1995)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Jackie Brown (1997)

True Romance (1993)
Natural Born Killers (1994)

There was also another road movie about a serial killer couple that also had juliette lewis

Kalifornia (1993)

One I happened across:

A Woman Called Sada Abe (1975)
In The Realm Of The Senses (1976)

Had never heard of the earlier film before I picked it up at the library this weekend

Colony (2009)
Vanishing of the Bees (2009)
Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? (2010)

All docs

Re the swing set similar scenes & the already mentioned Dark City: Dark City (1998) & Requiem for a Dream (1999) both feature Jennifer Connolly in very similar recurring dream/visionary scenes on a pier, apparently just a strange coincidence.

Dark City also has elements reproduced with some similarity in the Buffy episode Hush (1999).

Nicotine Bees (2010) lol

i kind of love this phenomenon

Platoon (1986)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Hamburger Hill (1987)

There are shitloads more from the 80's Nam boom, but these were the Oscar bothering type ones that ran concurrently.

― calzino, Saturday, March 26, 2016 11:25 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i remember this run weirding me out when i was a kid

Leviathan (2012)
Leviathan (2014)

.. and also Leviathan (1989)

I realize not entirely apt, but ...

Showgirls (1995)
Striptease (1996)

More recently:

Experimenter (2015)
Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

Batman v Superman (2016)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)

both movies with franchise superheroes punching each other

That will be like 30% of what Hollywood produces next year.

Kramer vs kramer (whenever)
Super troopers (whenever)

Both have casts and credits and everything

American Ninja (1985)
Gymkata (1985)

http://www.cracked.com/video_19950_6-bizarrely-specific-trends-in-hollywood-history.html

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7315484/
&
a quiet place

the world's end (2013)
this is the end (2013)

Also: Rapture-Palooza (2013), an Anna Kendrick vehicle in the same vein, co-starring This Is The End's Craig Robinson as The Devil.

existenz and gattaca

At the time many people lumped Existenz and Matrix together, since they came out in the same year, they're both mostly set in virtual reality, and both ask questions about the nature of reality. Though obviously their approach to VR is very different.

Churchill (2017)
Darkest Hour (2017)

Also (hopefully not already mentioned above) I just saw the documentary on the Marquis de wavrin, Belgian explorer & ethnographer who filmed indigenous tribes in South America in the early c20, & it reminded me that a couple of years ago we had:

Embrace of the serpent (2015)
Lost city of z (2016)

https://www.slashfilm.com/1992s-two-columbus-movies-head-to-head/

I haven't seen Lost City Of Z yet buy I can't even fathom how it might be similar to Embrace Of The Serpent

Only in subject matter really, they’re quite different otherwise

Embrace of the serpent (2015) = Herzog
Lost city of z (2016) = David Lean

Tuomas, have you seen The Thirteenth Floor? Also 1999 and even closer to The Matrix in subject matter.

I was quite enjoying embrace of the serpent until the derivative death cult bit, which I felt brought the movie down to predictable-netflix-type-bollox standards.

Christine (2016)
Kate Plays Christine (2016)

Already submitted upthread

Operation Dunkirk (2017)
Dunkirk (2017)

probably for another thread where Asylum rush out hilarious z-movies that turn out to better than the ones they rip off.

Oh yeah mockbusters deserves to be (or already is) a separate thread, think I might have said so before itt

The Mercy (2017)
Crowhurst (2017)

dark city/matrix

What’s that, the sixth time some combo of dark city matrix gattaca existenz has been mentioned itt

http://24.media.tumblr.com/4f52d14e7e6387fce38cd44163aed8f3/tumblr_mmsvus5N1U1sp0gj9o1_500.gif

Deep Star Six (1989)
Leviathan (1989)

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, March 26, 2016 2:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and The Abyss the same year! these are the kind that i really find fascinating... you can imagine at least one being a rush job based on rumor that the bigger studio is doing a deep-sea alien movie...but with three in play you have to figure out what was in the water (yuk yuk) that led to this. see my remarks upthread on how you can imagine two screenwriters both reading a mid-90s article on what would happen if an asteroid hit the earth, and cooking up substantively different takes on how that could be made into a movie. there's also just a perennial problem with hollywood buying into deep-sea sci-fi movies, which never seem to quite connect with the public the way they expect. sphere (1998), deep blue sea (1999) and virus (1999) also reflect this impulse i think.

Different media but leftovers and left behind (both 2014) definitely counts

Btw wow @ a quiet place/the silence, that one seems like a case of the aqp writers ripping off the source material for the silence wholesale

So thankful that the producers of God's Not Dead rushed out an adaptation of Little Women for us this year so we don't have to wait for that slowpoke Greta Gerwig to finish her own adaptation.

Shazaam (1995)
Kazaam (1996)

Sorry

(This is where I initiate my plan to further promote confusion by insisting to all and sundry that both films were total rip-offs of the 1994 Sherman Hemsley tv movie entitled Abracadabra.)

New World Pictures tried to make an Ant-Man movie in the late 80s because they knew Disney was making Honey I Shrunk the Kids. There's a story in "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story" about Stan Lee always pitching an Ant-Man movie and everyone else pointing out that Ant-Man can go through keyholes and that's it.

RBG (2018)
On the Basis of Sex (2018)

Everyone cites Ghoulies (1985) and Critters (1986) as examples of the spate of Gremlins (1984) ripoffs but it seems there is an argument for their inclusion in the magician movie canon

Although widely believed to have been made to cash in on the success of the similarly themed Gremlins (which is also owned by Warner Bros.),[1][2][3] director Stephen Herek has refuted this in interviews, pointing out that the first Critters script was written by Domonic Muir long before Gremlins went into production and subsequently underwent rewrites to reduce the apparent similarities between the two films

and

Ghoulies is often considered a cash-in on the success of Gremlins, as was Critters. Was that movie an influence in any way and how did you feel about these comparisons?

The truth is, we were in production at the same time. We were curious about them, and they were curious about us. They were so curious about us, in fact, that Warner Bros. briefly sued to stop us from using the name – they lost. Part of the reason that Gremlins came out first, is that Charlie Band ran out of money halfway through shooting, so a few months went by as we all scrambled for the money, allowing Gremlins to open first. Strategically, I think Charlie positioned the release that way, as well.

At some point we are going to have to reckon with what exactly went on wrt

The Sopranos (1999, pilot shot in 1997)
Analyze This (1999)
National Lampoon’s The Don’s Analyst (1997)

I still don’t understand how/why Octopussy and Never Say Never Again came out the same year

I saw both at the cinema as a wee nipper, didn't realise it was same year. Heady times.

weird james bonds rights issues - this guy who cowrote Thunderball essentially had the right to remake Thunderball, using any elements that already appeared in Thunderball, as many times as he wanted. clearly he found some money/producers who realized this, along with connery's enduring popularity, could be leveraged into a hit. and probably that, versus putting it out in a bond off-year, it would do better if marketed as a clear choice: connery vs moore, c'mon, who do you really wanna see folks?

this year:
two movies involving a british minority group member and classic rock -- yesterday and the springsteen movie with a boring title
two movies where the manson murders get rewritten -- OUATIHBBQ and The Haunting of Sharon Tate

two movies about superheroes maybe? can’t remember the timing

Two John Z. DeLorean movies out this year: Driven (Lee Pace as JZD) and Framing John DeLorean (Alec Baldwin as JZD).

Two Fox News/Roger Ailes things this year: The Loudest Voice miniseries on Showtime, and theatrical film Bombshell w/Theron, Kidman, Robbie etc.

Has anyone mentioned the dueling Fyre Fest docs?

There were the 2 JT LeRoy documentaries too, but I think they might have been a year apart

The David Crosby movie and Echo In The Canyon.

one time there were two Yeti cartoons

three, counting Smallfoot (2018) as well as this year's Missing Link and Abominable

i guess Missing Link was a bigfoot movie but still

oh I wasn't sure which was which I just knew there seemed to be a lot of Yeti cartoons

I mean more than there really needs to be probably

i assume the two CG yeti ones reflect schemes to make bank in china, the new one especially. missing link, being stop-motion, must have taken a LOT longer to develop and doesn't seem motivated by much of anything. story had that problem also but at least it was stunningly gorgeous to look at about a third of the time.

Yeah I think the latest one was co-produced by a Chinese studio

just wanted to amend my earlier comments as i just remembered that the climax of Missing Link takes place in a lost city of yetis, high in the Himalayas. So truly, one time there were three Yeti cartoons.

There were almost two Ferrari-related films out now, but Ford vs. Ferrari stands alone, as the Enzo Ferrari biopic is still in development.

this year there was a dc captain marvel movie and a marvel captain marvel movie

Two Roy Cohn docs this year: the theatrical release Where's My Roy Cohn, and HBO's Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn.

https://thewhisp.mommyish.com/entertainment/movies/twin-films-movies-with-same-plot-same-year/38/

great listicling

Paid by the exclamation point!

If made-for-television films are acceptable ITT, I would like to offer:

Amy Fisher: My Story (December 28, 1992)
The Amy Fisher Story (January 3, 1993)
Casualties of Love: The 'Long Island Lolita' Story (January 3, 1993)

That one time there were two Chicago-based hospital dramas on tv:
ER
Chicago Hope

Last we had a feature film from Clint Eastwood about Richard Jewell, and now CBS has picked up a cable mini-series about him which they premiered tonight.

Last Year...

There is something rich and strange and generous in Matteo Garrone’s new live-action version of the Pinocchio story ... his father-creator Geppetto is played by the exuberant Roberto Benigni, who himself directed a Pinocchio film in 2002 ... Next year, Guillermo del Toro is due to bring out his own version of Pinocchio and it is inevitably rumoured to be “darker”, while Robert Zemeckis has his own adaptation in mind with Tom Hanks as Geppetto

not the same year (or decade for the benigni version) but wtf

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/14/pinocchio-review-matteo-garrone-live-action

there are always like three Pinocchio projects on the Hollywood back burner, oddly

https://i.ibb.co/KmcZrcV/MV5-BNGY4-MGJl-Zjgt-Nj-Rh-NC00-MDlm-LThi-MDct-Zj-Mx-Ym-I1-ZGU1-Zj-Fj-Xk-Ey-Xk-Fqc-Gde-QXVy-MTQx-Nz-M.jpg

If I was doing a Pinocchio film and then I heard Del Toro was doing one as well I probably wouldn't bother with mine.

Movies about the porn industry in the '70s:

The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
Boogie Nights (1997)

Atlantic Records, much to the disappointment of Myles for whom the song had been written, gave the song to country artist Robin Lee to record. In the United States, Myles' version was released in December 1989, while Lee's version was released two months later in February 1990. This led to Myles being promoted by Atlantic on the pop and rock radio stations, and Lee on the country radio stations. Lee even filmed a videoclip of the song very similar to Myles' video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m47mRr9OP8

speaking of doppelganger videos, i've just now clocked that 'Love Is a Battlefield' and 'Beat It' came out within months of each other and were both directed and choreographed by the same people!

Not exactly this phenom but it’s wild to think we have TWO sparks films out this year: the Wright doc & Carax’s Annette

And both look good!

Depths of my E Wright dislike run pretty deep but the Sparks movie looks good yes

I’m not a huge fan but looks like he was a good choice for this

It’s funny they’ve had ambitions to get into film forever, they were meant to make a film w Tati but then he died, there was the ingmar bergman musical they were trying to get made for years & years (also got Tsui Hark to recite his filmography on a track lol) & suddenly this in the year of our lord 2021

The Sparks doco uses their film interests as a throughline, also covering the six years they lost on the Mai The Psychic Girl adaptation, but is so short that only one of the attached directors gets mentioned.

Oh cool! Hopefully covers fright night valley girl and ROLLERCOASTER then

The seduction of ingmar bergman always felt like it had so not gonna happen written all over it tbh but bless them for trying

ONE of those is included

Two Aretha Franklin bio pics this year: The "Genius: Aretha" miniseries on National Geographic with Cynthia Erivo; and Respect, the theatrical one with Jennifer Hudson.

last night i found it confusing that there is a film call Licorice Pizza and a film called Gunpowder Milkshake

Both sound like they taste the same

I had never heard the phrase Gunpowder Milkshake before the film though

The Diana & Charles season of The Crown, and upcoming theatrical film Spencer w/Kristen Stewart as Diana.

...and there's also a Netflix film of the impending Diana Broadway musical due October 1st.

what a time to be alive

the entire musical occurs during the car crash

I remember really clearly this happening a lot on TV. The one that springs to mind most readily (aside from Chicago Hope / ER, already mentioned) was Steven Bochco launching two separate and nearly-identical legal series' in 1995 (Murder One on NBC, Murder In The First on TNT)

(Sorry, Murder One was on ABC)

When this phenomenon was first identified, I think I was told that it was a way of competing studios trying of fuck with each other, but it seems more likely to me now that there's a natural spill-over in passive cross-promotion

The time is ripe for at least two more simultaneous Steve Prefontaine movies.

wish they'd get to Postfontaine already

wish he’d Post Ma-LESS!

kids in the hall: brain candy (1996)
austin powers: international man of mystery (1997)

one time there were two movies with colons in the titles in which the canadian sketch actors (who had worked under lorne michaels) portraying the antagonists were just doing their lorne michaels impressions. mckinney over myers for style points but myers just really went there, didn't he?

i need to rewatch the ice storm to see if it was the other teen girl on a swing thing. i thought i checked it out after tuomas' imput and it wasn't it but now i don't remember. tv tropes has a category labelled trauma swing, and its inverse, swing low, sweet harriet, but those aren't the same thing. the first is bad things happening and the latter is joyous remembrance but the tammy metzler from election i'm thinking of is lachrymose and introspective, yet forward-looking. transitional, people, i'm not a girl, not yet a woman (britney reference). i only bring this up because i feel i introduced the concept of minor detail that links two otherwise unconnected movies as a sub-category to the original thread concept of nearly identical movies and if i can't support my assertion in that instance thn that appelation is invalid and i prefer teen girl on a swing over elle woods/ bridget jones goes to party in a playboy bunny outfit because she mistakenly assumed the shindig was a costume party.

there was a time when i had hollywood video and blockbuster video memberships and i was just renting everything that looked necessary and relevant and burning all of it and then watching random movies in succession after i'd compiled so many because you kinda have to or why are you doing this and that sort of jungian synchronicity where there was a really specific intersection popped up often enough but probably of course it would. it's still fun when it happens.

Girls5eva and Queens: TV shows about fictional 90s Girl Groups getting back together.

in the span of 18 months the man was in two entirely different movies about the zodiac killer, one a masterpiece and the other a piece of junk, because that's just what our great character actors did goddamn it https://t.co/CThWB4CSI6

— Jess Harvell (@cheaptrickrules) June 13, 2022

Vietnam-era movies about stateside Navy lifers dealing with the vagaries and unfairness of "The System": Cinderella Liberty and The Last Detail (1973):

There was a wave (get it?) of penguin movies in the mid 00s

March of the Penguins - 2005
Madagascar - 2005
Happy Feet - 2006
Surf's Up - 2007

Do songs count?

Space feat. Cerys Matthews - The Ballad of Tom Jones (1998)

Fun Lovin' Criminals - Love Unlimited (1998)

Ode to the life-and-marriage-saving properties of a disco era crooner in novelty single form

Also, The Munsters and The Addams Family to thread.

(both 1964)

Two movies about the Bling Ring thieves: a Lifetime TV movie (2011), and a theatrical film directed by Sophia Coppola (2013), both entitled The Bling Ring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films

Producer Bingham Ray recalls a conversation where the screenwriter of the 2006 Truman Capote biopic Infamous phoned to announce that his script had been finished. Ray said "I know, I've got it on my desk!" before realizing that he actually had the screenplay to Capote, a biopic by a different writer.[5]

forgot abt this one

Christine 2016 Kate Plays Christine

Kerouac adaptations: On The Road (2012) and Big Sur (2013)

...and then there was also Howl (2010), which is part adaptation of the Ginsberg work and part dramatization of the obscenity trial, with all the Beat legends present and accounted for.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011)
The Thing (2011)

To Sir with Love (released June 14, 1967)
Up the Down Staircase (released June 28, 1967)

Citizens Band (1977)
Convoy (1978)

Empress Elisabeth of Austria:

The Empress (TV series) (2022)
Corsage (Film) (2022)

This was one of two films about Wilde released in 1960, the other being The Trials of Oscar Wilde. They were both released in the last week of May 1960.

possibly connected to this among other things

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenden_report

This is a little less concrete, but A Face in the Crowd came out May 28, 1957, followed by Sweet Smell of Success on June 27, 1957: both meditations on celebrity, phony patriotism, and Joe McCarthy.

there’s a third current Empress Elisabeth of Austria thing going on too - a tv series called Sisi.

Loose adaptations of the Russian novel The Twelve Chairs: 12+1, 1969 (Sharon Tate's last film), and The Twelve Chairs, 1970 (the second film by Mel Brooks).

candy (2022) hulu
love & death (2023) hbo

both about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Montgomery

I think this basically fits: Air and BlackBerry (Canadian) both opening right now. They're separated by 15-20 years on a timeline, but, based on seeing the trailers and what I already know about the products, there would seem to be a lot of overlap.

There's also the Taron Egerton movie Tetris on Apple plus.

The new inspirational movies are about how moguls starting making bank. Assume the bezos one is coming soon. Maybe an "irreverent" one about musk in a decade or so.

Just back from BlackBerry--definitely lots of overlap with Air, starting with a note to myself to take a break from films where people shout at each other for two hours (BlackBerry the much more egregious offender on that count).

Also that there's a Mario movie, a Tetris movie, a DnD movie and a Barbie movie all out at the same time. Not exactly the same, but seeing them all up there on the cinema board was like a list of "Christmas most wanted list 1988"

I have no idea what this Blackberry movie is going to entail, but I'm just imagining someone looking up with a mad look in their eyes during a boardroom brainstorming session saying: "Wait a minute, I've got it. Let's include ALL the letters"

I'll have to figure out a thread for posting about it, but it really wore me down before long.

Lol dog Latin

After the great cultural achievement that is Minecraft: The Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHY8NKj3RKs

I am just gonna hold out for Candy Crush III: the Crushening

Minecraft, Minesweeper, whatever

Frogger 2: The Froggening was pretty good tho

That Minesweeper thing is great

Remember: Mine is money.

In the tradition of "Air" and "Blackberry," I just saw a trailer for "Flamin' Hot," a movie about Cheetos.

Can’t tell if serious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it7sNRloq-A

when there's a movie about Flamin' Hot Monster Munch, I'll allow it in this thread

I completely forgot that I saw a David O. Russell movie about a mop.

can't wait for the Swiss Cheese origin story

there are two different kinds of pastry known as nun farts: pets de nonne from france, and pets de sœurs from canada

there are probably many documentary films online about nun farts but i expect they are unrelated

The great thing about the Flamin' Hot movie is that the story it's based on is, of course, wrong

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot-cheetos-richard-montanez

Flamin’ Hots were created by a team of hotshot snack food professionals starting in 1989

they should make a movie about this, too, and just have sooooo much cocaine in it

o snap i guess they already did:

An internal promotional video for the Cheetos brand from the first quarter of 1991 serves as further proof that Flamin’ Hots were already out in the world.

The nearly nine-minute video, which Lukaska shared with The Times, is a Day-Glo green-and-pink time capsule, with Frito-Lay execs in fashionably baggy suits touting the latest and greatest snack aimed at kids, Cheetos Paws. At one point, two DDB Needham advertising executives perform a “New Jack City”-era rap about the coolness of Chester himself. Flamin’ Hots appear in the video for less than a second, in a rapid-fire slideshow set to MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” alongside two other minor brands of the day, Cheetos Curls and Cheetos Light.

Every once in a while, my career puts me in touch with people who do things like that (devise and market snack foods, novelty ice cream products, energy beverages, etc.).

I do kind of wonder what their inner lives are like, and whether they laugh or cry when they reflect on the sheer silliness of it.

A few examples:

I worked for the person who came up with the slogan "soup is good food." Research indicated that mothers had underlying anxiety about feeding children meals that had not been prepared from scratch; Campbell's play was to alleviate this using the simplest, most direct possible language. The underlying lesson, I think, was that sometimes a lack of cleverness is a type of cleverness.

Much later I worked with the people who came up with the Taki's box-with-one-chip-in-it campaign. Ordinarily, companies want to communicate value, bounty, abundance. This was an instance where a manufacturer decided to go the opposite direction and sell scarcity.

There is a nice poem by Stephen Dunn with a line about how helping National Biscuit sell biscuits is wildly comic. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=36748

this all just reminds me when they made a big-budget movie based on the battleship board game and everybody was like "a movie based on a BOARD GAME god movies really have sunk to a new low", and all i could think of was how people said the same thing when the movie based on the board game clue came out in 1985. plus it had three different endings depending on which print you saw. total gimmick film.

except of course that film is fucking AMAZING.

if you make a good film on a stupid premise it will probably take longer for it to get appreciated but it will probably eventually become a cult classic. see also for instance the wachowskis making a film on the pretty bad '60s anime "speed racer" or rian johnson inexplicably deciding to make a movie in the trashy "star wars" series of films

I worked for the person who came up with the slogan "soup is good food." Research indicated that mothers had underlying anxiety about feeding children meals that had not been prepared from scratch; Campbell's play was to alleviate this using the simplest, most direct possible language. The underlying lesson, I think, was that sometimes a lack of cleverness is a type of cleverness.

― sane clown posse (Ye Mad Puffin)

a classic counterexample, someone who came up with ideas too clever for their own good, is stan freberg. he came up with this extremely elaborate busby berkeley extravaganza to promote a line of soups called the "great american soup" intended to compete with campbell's... people saw the ad and thought it was for campbell's soup. also see his ad campaign for the airline company that had just had some high-profile crashes... sophistication and irony are maybe not the best qualities for an ad campaign... it was nice to see daniel clowes getting work mind you.

Good post Kate.

Now I feel like maybe we have enough material to make a musical about canned food, which will be called...

Wait for it...

SOUP OPERA.

that made me think Ouija Boards were originally a board "game" made by Parker Brothers and imdb lists

1. Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
2. Ouija (II) (2014)
3. Ouija House (2018)
4. Ouija Seance: The Final Game (2018 TV Movie)

so we are back on topic 8)

the second Ouija was actually really fucking good.

Elvis (2022) & Priscilla (2023)

Oh no, but he’s not a hero

Indies about three dopey dudes who thieves and pull off a big heist after some enept smaller robberies: Bottle Rocket and Palookaville, both 1996

"who become thieves and try to pull off a major heist" & "inept smaller robberies "

The two O.J. projects (F/X series + 8-hour ESPN documentary). O.J.: Made in America screened at Sundance on Jan. 22, 2016; The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story debuted on Feb. 2, 2016, 11 days later.

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=41

lol

Hah

I thought this was going to be about

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODBhZTFiOGItNjk4ZS00Y2VkLWJkNGQtNTk5NzZlNThlM2I4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzQwMTY2Nzk@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTM2NTU1ZTktNjc4YS00NjNhLWE4NmYtOTM2YjFjOGUzNmYzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODE5NzE3OTE@._V1_.jpg

From 2011:

“La Guerre des Boutons” (“The War of the Buttons”) is a comedic remake of a 1962 blockbuster about spirited boys fighting with catapults and wooden swords. It was released Wednesday in French theaters.

But in an unprecedented development here, a more melodramatic film of the same story, with the similar title “La Nouvelle Guerre des Boutons” (“The New War of the Buttons”), comes out just a week later.

Both scripts are based on the same book, “La Guerre des Boutons,” written in 1912 by Louis Pergaud. Both have the same co-producer, the privately owned television channel TF1, and the same budget, about 13 million euros, or nearly $18 million.

https://www.critique-film.fr/la-guerres-des-boutons-2-films-differents/

https://archive.is/IIjHG

I suppose this sort of thing is going to keep happening as books fall out of copyright

a 1912 book by someone who died in 1915 would've been public domain for a while though

for some reason it didn’t enter the public domain until 2010, not sure why

Once upon a time there were two Jean Harlow biopics released five weeks apart:

Harlow (1965)
Harlow (1965)

came on here to post this but emil.y beat me to it 8 years ago lol

emil.y at 3:42 26 Mar 16
The Double (2013, adapted from Dostoevsky's The Double)
Enemy (2013, adapted from Saramago's The Double)
Both deal with doppelgängers and identity.

RIP Christopher Priest, without whom there would have only been one magician movie.

RIP. He wrote a lot of great stuff.

I have yet to watch the movie or read the book, been saving it up.

Still need to finish Nina Allan’s The Rift as well, which starts out grebt.

Immaculate
The First Omen

Haha I just said the same thing to my friend.

Bizarre how similar they are

Not just in "nun" premise but the first half hour of movie too

Two films based on the story of Bernard Jordan, escaping from his care home to attend D-Day anniversary.

The Great Escaper with Michael Caine, 6th October 2023.
The Last Rifleman with Piers Brosnan, 5th November 2023.

I’d seen the cover for The Last Rifleman and with Brosnan in it assumed it was a thriller of some sort.

"Roller Boogie" and "Skatetown U.S.A.", both 1979

This is a pretty loose one, but in the early '70s there were several movies about or involving on on some important level radio personalities/DJs:

WUSA, 1970
Vanishing Point, 1971
Play Misty For Me, 1971
The King of Marvin Gardens, 1972
American Graffiti, 1973

in that vein, i did see Vanishing Point and The Warriors closely together recent and thought the dj aspect was similar (Warriors was a bit later - '79)

I worked for the person who came up with the slogan "soup is good food." Research indicated that mothers had underlying anxiety about feeding children meals that had not been prepared from scratch; Campbell's play was to alleviate this using the simplest, most direct possible language. The underlying lesson, I think, was that sometimes a lack of cleverness is a type of cleverness.

whoa i remember being told that i went to college with the offspring of the person who invented this slogan but i have no recollection who that person was. what a strange intersection!

I think that a lot of that work was done by Molly M. at Porter Novelli.

The Warriors maybe pairs up better with The Fog (1980).

Might be stating the obvious, but I think radio DJs were just a bigger part of life back then, with a stronger presence as individuals, and (correct me if I'm wrong) more actual time of their voice on the air saying stuff. They were surely more prominent as local figures, and the intimacy of them being in everybody's cars and ears can't be discounted. So it makes sense that there'd be a lot of them in movies, just like having a lot of newspaper reporters, or politicians, or local business owners.

This is a pretty loose one, but in the early '70s there were several movies about or involving on on some important level radio personalities/DJs:

WUSA, 1970
Vanishing Point, 1971
Play Misty For Me, 1971
The King of Marvin Gardens, 1972
American Graffiti, 1973

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain

There's also a low-budget Canadian entry in that same vein and timeframe: "Slipstream", starring Luke Askew as the DJ

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream_(1973_film)

And the movie FM, now only remembered because Steely Dan wrote the theme song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=316mipUnA-M

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM:_The_Original_Movie_Soundtrack

The Warriors and The Wanderers work together too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrRbcQuNl8

Dana Gould on "Soup is good food"

FM lines up a little with WKRP on TV (both 1978).

There's certainly an analog in the characters:

Micheal Brandon/Gary Sandy
Martin Mull/Howard Hesseman
Cleavon Little/Tim Reid

I remember seeing some comments about how that was merely coincidental, that radio stations of the era were all like that, with a burnout DJ, a hip Black guy, the frustrated program director etc.

Another one that lines up with FM is American Hot Wax, Floyd Mutrux's 1978 biopic of Alan Freed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLAx5lIqfsg

Not commercially available.

Two junkie movies in 1971: Panic in Needle Park and Born to Win.

― clemenza, Saturday, March 26, 2016 5:07 PM (eight years ago)

Dusty and Sweets McGee as well.

American Hot Wax probably could lineup with The Buddy Holly Story (also 1978).

...and also Dead Man's Curve, a 1978 TV biopic with Richard Hatch & Bruce Davison as Jan & Dean.

Old army buddies plan & execute a major heist in 1960:

Ocean's 11
The League of Gentlemen

Europa Europa (1990, Agnieszka Holland)
Europa (1991, Lars von Trier)

This confused the hell out of me at the time

Cannonball! and The Gumball Rally, 1976

The former is a race from LA to NYC, while the latter is one from NYC to Long Beach.

Movies about women getting across LA by any means necessary to attend a party: Izzy Gets The F*ck Across Town, 2017; and Booksmart, 2019.

On that tip, movies featuring a supporting role for Molly Gordon and are about young people in LA doing whatever to attend a party : Booksmart and Good Boys, 2019

This confused the hell out of me at the time

It was released in Australia and the US as “Zentropa” for this reason

Movies telling fictionalized stories about the business of American Pop Music in the '60s (complete with retro soundtracks composed by All-Star rosters of contemporary & classic talent): Grace of My Heart and That Thing You Do!, 1996.

Didn't realize That Thing You Do! is so old, I would have guessed mid-oughts

It's that old. Gave a nice little boost to Fountains of Wayne, whose debut was released the same week as the movie.

Don't forget Backbeat, which I genuinely enjoyed at the time in part because of 1) Dulli and 2) Beatles and 3) Sheryl Lee

i guess that wasn't fictionalized though
still it was enjoyable and was 60s-based

Backbeat is close enough.

Also qualifying, albeit in a very roundabout way, is Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Velvet Goldmine also linking up to Almost Famous (2000).

Ralph Bakshi’s American Pop (1981) epitomizes this. It also speed-runs through HUAC, the Vietnam/Amerucan War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and cocaine chic. I love it, although many find it problematic

Actually, Breaking Glass (1980) fits as well

oh god. Biden just confused Friends with Benefits (2011) with No Strings Attached (2011) pic.twitter.com/RC27GPIl2R

— nicole boyce (@nicolewboyce) July 12, 2024

XP Another late '90s Classic Rock one: Still Crazy (1999)

Hip Hop satires: CB4 & Fear of A Black Hat, 1993

Comedic African-American Super Hero Movies: Meteor Man, 1993 and Blankman, 1994

one time there were two concept albums about amelia earhart (Public Service Broadcasting, Laurie Anderson)

Louder Than You Think (2023, 2024)
Pavements (2024)

Right now in the US there are two different TV ads (Rooms To Go and a car company) running on microwave rotation featuring "Move Your Feet" by Junior Senior. I literally just saw them in a commercial break separated only by a political ad.

It's good to see them getting paid! Seems like they said hello and waved goodbye some time ago.

I literally just saw them in a commercial break separated only by a political ad.

don't don't don't don't stop the beat

microwave rotation?

I get it

Heh

Movies about the goings-on in and around major events in Rock history that happened in New York City: American Hot Wax & I Wanna Hold Your Hand, 1978

NYC/Brooklyn, actually

Turn of the Screw (2020)
A woman joins a production of The Turn of the Screw the night before opening night, and her first dress rehearsal is more real than she is comfortable with.

The Turning (2020)
A young governess is hired to look after an orphaned girl, but the return of the girl's problematic brother uncovers secrets from their past. A modern take on Henry James' novella "The Turn of the Screw."

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry hires a young American nanny to care for his orphaned niece and nephew who reside at Bly Manor with the chef Owen, groundskeeper Jamie and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose.

(there's an Opera North version dated 2020 as well listed under Henry James in imdb)

Two time-travel slasher movies: Totally Killer on Amazon Prime and Time Cut on Netflix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZkQUgrQ3Ik

Movies where Judd Hirsch is related to Michelle Williams: Showing Up & The Fabelmans, 2022.

Actually, the former is from 2023.

Punk Rock Girl Movies:

Out of The Blue, 1980
Times Square, 1980
Ladies & Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, (mostly filmed in 1980) 1982

the latter could pair with Starstruck - a little more New Wave i guess, but still

Sex Pistols movies: D.O.A. & The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle, 1980

The Who movies: Quadrophenia & The Kids Are Alright, 1979

I know that it's not exactly in the spirit of the thread, but I find it interesting that 2024 saw both the debut season of a well-liked TV series called English Teacher and the debut album from a well-reviewed band called English Teacher.

Wtf is up with both a Pharrell Williams animated musical biopic and a (at least semi) animated Robbie Williams animated biopic? It's like they asked chatgpt, hey robot, who are the least compelling subjects for an animated musical biopic in 2024?

The US reaction to the Robbie film not doing well at the box office is amusing - of course it's bombed in America, no one's heard of him. Surprised it hasn't done brilliantly in the UK though - perhaps it's the wrong time.

He was inescapable throughout the late-90s and early 2000s, so the producers are probably thinking about milking the current Y2K/Oasis revival, but I'm guessing Robbie isn't really seen as cool or relevant or world-widely appealing enough.

Without wanting to stereotype too much, his key fandom skews strongly female, British, between 40 and 50, and generally a bit "normie" overall, so the choice to have him played by a CGI chimp might be just a bit too off-the-wall, I dunno.

That said, while I generally HATE music biopics as a rule, the trailer made this look just interesting enough for me to prefer to see this than Chalamet cosplaying as Bob Dylan.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has been done either - Frank (2014) fictionalised the history of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band but relocated to the British isles and featuring a recontextualised Frank Sidebottom. I don't know how this idea made it out of someone's head, let alone got greenlighted for production, but for a leftfield low-budget film it was a success. While Better Man set its sights a bit higher than Frank, I at least applaud it for trying something a bit different rather than just thumping out another We Will Rock You

Did the Parrell lego movie do well? I remember seeing the trailer for that with my daughters and they seemed kind of vaguely interested, because it's a lego movie, but they didn't know who Pharell was (I'm sure they recognize some of his songs, but they aren't really interested in celebrities) so ultimately didn't care that much. Alternately, I can imagine the kind of person who is a fan of his music and likes music biopics not really wanting to see a lego movie.

They also saw the trailer for the Robbie Williams monkey movie and just seemed confused (as was I).

my take on the Robbie Williams film is that he's had an interesting life and it sounds like a good, creative way to make a film about it, but the prospect of having to listen to a single minute of his music or Take That makes it an instant nope.

I would have thought it was accidentally canny - the Boybands Forever documentary on the BBC last month was great (as was his response), and I came out of it thinking "I'd really like to see a fourth episode which was just an hour of Robbie" - which would not have been my guess going in.

But I suppose a good documentary would be different to "my story starring me, brought to you by me"

Frank (2014) fictionalised the history of Captain Beefheart

Hold on... what?

Well kinda, lots of parallels

With Michael Fassbender as Frank Sidebottom!

I don't like Robbie's music and don't want to hear it but I have heard so consistently how good the movie is that I'm considering racing to go see it today as it's dropping to 11am screenings only tomorrow.

xp Can’t say I ever twigged the Captain Beefheart connection with Frank Sidebottom.

It's been a long time since u watched Frank, and I've been meaning to see it again cos the first go round felt like a fever dream. Like, I don't know what it actually had to do with Frank Sidebottom other than someone dressed as him who sounds and acts nothing like him is in the film

Since I watched the film

See, maybe that is the problem (x-posts). I was aware of Robbie Williams here for a minute, but then the tap just dried. That's me/the US, fine; there hasn't even been any residual trans-Atlantic talk of this dude for decades, afaict. But even as far as the UK goes, if someone told me he died or retired a couple of decades ago I would have believed them. Setting aside a placeholder Christmas album, looks like he hasn't released a studio album since 2016! So as far as subjects go for $110 million (!!!) semi-animated biopics, imo Robbie Williams seemed like a stretch to begin with, even as far as has-beens or hacks go. Maybe that explains why it flopped hard everywhere? Is he still even a tabloid staple or anything like that?

Pharrell, he seems more successful and visible than Robbie Williams. In fact, he's been working hard to reinvent himself as a personality (funny hat) and solo artist ("Happy" and in particular "Get Lucky" were/are more ubiquitous than almost all his Neptunes productions), but even then he never struck me as someone I needed to get to know better, let alone via an animated Lego movie, and apparently the feeling was nigh-universal. To be fair, the movie only reportedly cost $16 million (and still flopped), but from minute one came off an indulgent lark of a glorified EPK.

Animated or semi-animated def. seems better suited to cult/dead acts, like Frank Sidebottom, or Beefheart, even.

Another thing is that Better Man is competing against Nosferatu, A Real Pain and A Complete Unknown, so while there's curiosity there, it's a tough break

Xp yeah Robbie hasn't been relevant in a long time, but he's literally one of the biggest popstars of all time. I read somewhere that he comes second only to the Beatles in terms of album sales. I'd say at his peak he was there with David Beckham as one if the most famous people in Britain

Xp yeah Robbie hasn't been relevant in a long time, but he's literally one of the biggest popstars of all time. I read somewhere that he comes second only to the Beatles in terms of album sales. I'd say at his peak he was there with David Beckham as one if the most famous people in Britain

Nobody in the UK knows who Pharrell is. Who the hell is that? The bloke who sang that "Happy" song? Why are they making a film about him?

I think *Frank’s* parallel to Beefheart was his band and his relationship to it. The “real” Frank Sidebottom had just his Casio and Little Frank.

The real Frank Sidebottom had a touring band with Jon Ronson in the late 80s, then Jon Ronson wrote an article about his experiences, then he adapted it into the film.

If you were to ask me in 2000 who the biggest star was in music it would have absolutely been Robbie Williams. Could not stand him or his music but still. Closest I can think of on a US level is Justin Timberlake.

I remember "Angels" and "Millennium" getting some decent radio play, but that's about it, he disappeared pretty quickly after that it felt like, in the US anyway.

It seemed like Americans became annoyed by him very quickly.

relatable!

He never really annoyed me but he certainly annoyed plenty of other people!

important context for the Pharrell movie: in 2020, Universal struck a 5-year deal with Lego to make Lego movies (separate from The Lego Movie franchise). and then they didn't make any for a few years. I've heard speculation that the Pharrell movie was thrown together to at least have something to show for it, and to allow the possibility of renewing the deal before it expires.

That would track. But like I said, at least it was cheap to make! It's weird to me that *anyone* would want to see (let alone greenlight) biopics in *any* form focused on Pharrell or Robbie Williams in 2024/2025. Hell, I don't think biopics of much more culturally prominent/relevant acts like Bieber or Beyonce or hell, fading (?) but still active stars like Timberlake or legacy pop acts like Mariah or whomever would fare any better. It's kind of wild in retrospect that there was an Eminem biopic starring Eminem at the height of his popularity that was both good and wildly successful. How did *that* happen?

Isn't there a Madonna movie that's been in development hell? I wonder if a Taylor Swift biopic would fly? Like, an anti-"8 Mile," about her comfortable suburban Philly upbringing, lol. Swift on the mean streets of Redding, PA, going to clothing outlets, hanging out in upscale malls, dreaming of her big break.

There's the Bruce Springsteen biopic (starring Jeremy Allen White) coming out soon

Yeah, that's another one that I sort of side-eyed. Like, why this story? Why now? It's kind of similar to the Dylan one, really. A snapshot of a particular time in a particular (still alive and active) artist's career.

I could totally see (and would totally see) an animated Stevie Wonder biopic, narrated/voiced by Stevie!

I have to assume part of the appeal of these "narrow window in time" biopics is that you only have to worry about casting for a small sliver of history and don't need to cast multiple actors for the aging star or expensive prosthetics/CGI that will probably look like shit anyway.

And don't underestimate the, "let's only show them when they are young and attractive so we can cast a 'hot' lead" factor.

The kind of biopic I'd like to see is of a non-famous person with no notable achievements, however that's unlikely to get made as the audience would be limited to me and possibly a few other people.

I have to assume part of the appeal of these "narrow window in time" biopics is that you only have to worry about casting for a small sliver of history and don't need to cast multiple actors for the aging star or expensive prosthetics/CGI that will probably look like shit anyway

But Robbie Williams is a CGI chimp in his biopic.

last 3 words superfluous

The Pharell movie is quite insidiously evil in many ways, writes Kelis out of the story, creates a reconciliation with Chad Hugo that Pharell went back on as soon as he got his friend's interviews for the film.

Did laugh a lot at Pharell after being Corrupted by the Biz getting an epiphany from a Carl Sagen speech about how small the human race is to get his act together and using his spiritual awakening to...record a single with Daft Punk.

Relatable. Whenever I find myself contemplating the vast scale of the universe and human fragility, I go record a single with Daft Punk.

Doesn't everyone?

Nobody in the UK knows who Pharrell is. Who the hell is that? The bloke who sang that "Happy" song? Why are they making a film about him?

Despite my instincts, I’m going to take this post at face value and post this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharrell_Williams_production_discography

I think it was a joke

(It was)

...or was it?

But fr I'd be willing to bet if you were to take a straw poll of UK people and asked them if they knew who Pharell is vs who Robbie Williams is, there'd be a huge difference. Pharrel is known by the general public for Blurred Lines, Happy and Get Lucky - not so much the Neptunes stuff and his other production stuff (which did chart ofc), but, like, I doubt my mum or any of my immediate family for that matter know who he is

Put it this way, a few years ago at Christmas we were playing this "guess the personality" game:

My mum (Drawing a card): "Oh... uh... He sings! He sings! He sings! He has tattoos!"

My sister: "Robbie Williams?"

Mum: "Yes!

chariots of fire
Streets of Fire

(Streets of Fire had Willem Defoe, Rick Moranis AND Lee Ving... can't say that about a lot of movies)

My * for "Robbie Williams is a massive star in the UK" is that most people under 25 are probably much less aware of him. Like my kids are 10 and 13 and I'm pretty sure they have no idea who he is, and not just because I've refused to bring his accursed music into our home.

I did say it was against my instincts!

Even if nobody knows him for his Neptunes stuff, Blurred Lines, Happy, and Get Lucky were massive, massive international hits, likely much more successful than anything Robbie Williams ever did (someone else can Google), so if that's all Pharrell ever did, it would still make him more famous than most people.

I kind of like the idea of Robbie Williams making a movie about himself as a CGI monkey specifically to introduce himself to the tween and under set.

Do we have to explain to you what pop stars are

yes

robbie just discovered snapchat filters, be nice to him

Get Lucky was big but you never heard a literal entire room full of drunk people singing along to Angels in 199whatever while teenage Dog Latin earnestly collected glasses around a provincial pub for his little sixth form job.
This was Mr Brightside on three lines of prang and five pints of Stella and a fight at kicking out time with someone's girlfriend shouting "Leave it Liam, it's not worth it". It was inescapable. It was the soundtrack to that time. I don't think there's another song that epitomises the UK at that particular time in any other way.

Capitol tried and tried, but they just couldn't make Robbie Williams happen over here.

Still, we got this near the end their attempts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF5PTmVMWu0

...and if you're wondering (and I'd totally forgotten about this before looking at that clip), NBC did a promo stunt that day by having Jay Leno & Katie Couric swap places, so she hosted The Tonight Show and he co-hosted The Today Show that morning.

Movies wherein Jimmy Buffett appears as himself and performs "Livingston Saturday Night":

Rancho Deluxe, 1975
FM, 1978

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_Yotsuya

The Ghost of Yotsuya may refer to:

The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959 Shintoho film)
The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959 Daiei film)

Movies wherein Jimmy Buffett appears as himself and performs "Livingston Saturday Night":

Talking of artists who were total unknowns on the other side of the Atlantic.

(that yotsuya page links to a 'twin films' page on wikipedia which has a bunch of these, some quite tenuous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films)

Not exactly copycats, but I sense something in the air with pop stars as a thriller trope. The TV show "Swarm" was about an obsessive pop star fan. "Smile 2" centered on a pop star. "Trap" took place at a pop concert. The upcoming A24 movie (with Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich) is about a crazy reclusive pop star (or might be another cult movie; those things are trending, too, along with rich crazies on an island movies, though that is more of a perennial trend.)

somewhat comedic dramas where family members visit poland and holocaust sites:

A real pain (2024)
Treasure (2024)

The <Other> Pharrell movie scrapped in post-production: https://www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/pharrell-williams-michel-gondry-scrap-musical-golden-post-production-1235093027/

fwiw My kid got really excited by the trailer for the Pharrell Lego movie, and he wanted to know all about Pharrell and his music, which led to him getting really into Daft Punk and electronic music. So cool trailer at least.

Jesus I wonder how bad that movie was for them to totally give up

Golden has a stacked cast for something that got scrapped. Gondry's post Eternal Sunshine/Block Party career has been a bit of a disaster, no?

Circling back to Better Man, Taylor Tomlinson is a fan and wants to share:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXL4zdo289A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaofNC-HLvc

Two films about Keith Jarrett’s 1975 Köln concert. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/feb/10/koln-concert-keith-jarrett-jazz-masterpiece-piano

Journalists chronicling upheaval in foreign lands:

The Year of Living Dangerously, 1982
Under Fire, 1983
The Killing Fields, 1984
Salvador, 1986

Also (sort of):

Missing, 1982

kind of a political fiction trend? writers getting tired of the paranoid conspiracy theories from the 70s, looking at the rest of the world for actual plots, inserting white characters for the audience to identify with.

Out of Africa (1985)?

I guess that one's in the related genre of westerners going to the third world:

Gorillas in the Mist
The Emerald Forest
The Mosquito Coast

Where the River Runs Black

The Mission

Return to Paradise (8/14/98)
Brokedown Palace (8/13/99)

... in which young Americans on holiday in southeast Asia get hit with drug charges and confront interpersonal and moral dilemmas as they navigate the unfamiliar legal system.

The Beach (2/11/2000) seems in the same vein, even if the plot is a bit different

one time there were three movies that went beyond Beyond Rangoon

Christian Bale and other rebellious teens dance against a historical backdrop:

Newsies (April 1992)
Swing Kids (March 1993)

Was thinking about this yesterday for some reason:

American Fiction (2023)
The Holdovers (2023)

Two movies about curmudgeons disappointed in the world's declining standards. One of them was good.

soref otm 8 years ago about my blue heaven and goodfellas, but look at this banger from 2009, from the keyboard of Myonga Vön Bontee:

Right, since nobody asked:

GoodFellas - Released September 1990
Miller's Crossing - Released September 1990

GF - Italian/Irish/Jewish mobsters
MC - Irish/Italian/Jewish gangsters

GF - Irish protagonist, Jewish wife
MC - Irish protagonist, Jewish paramour

GF - Morrie known for his toupees
MC - Rug Daniels known for his toupee

GF - Henry pukes in the forest while excavating Billy Batts' corpse
MC - Tom pukes in the forest while looking for Bernie's corpse (which he knows isn't there, but never mind)

GF - Tommy shot in face specifically for purposes of disfiguration
MC - Ditto Mink

GF - Morrie sings "Danny Boy" to Henry
MC - Leo listens to "Danny Boy" on his victrola

GF - Karen ineffectually threatens Henry with a gun
MC - Ditto Verna/Tom

GF - Morrie threatened, choked with telephone cord after falling behind on gambling debt
MC - Tom threatened, beaten; same reason

GF - Spider shot in foot, and then shot again, fatally
MC - Anonomous would-be assassin shot in ankle, then shot again, fatally

GF - Lois separated from her lucky hat, sends Henry to retrieve it
MC - Tom separated from his own hat, goes to retrieve it himself

GF - Starring Mike Starr as Frenchy
MC - Starring Mike Starr as Frankie (and "Frankie" = "francophone" = "French-speaking" = Frenchy!)

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Wednesday, 1 April 2009 01:15

Troubled White People Throw Weddings:

Margot At The Wedding, 2007
Rachel Getting Married, 2008

and in a roundabout way...

Up In The Air, 2009

"I guess that one's in the related genre of westerners going to the third world:

Gorillas in the Mist
The Emerald Forest
The Mosquito Coast"

There was also Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Which predates the others by a year or so, and it's a technically a period drama, but it comes across as one of those quietly influential films that's mostly forgotten nowadays. e.g. a dark and dead serious take on a fundamentally camp original.

I have to say that Ian Holm looks fantastic in that film. He's ripped! And frequently topless. But then again he was a pretty intense actor. I imagine him doing clenching exercises before every take.

Famously Andie MacDowell's voice was dubbed because she wasn't English. Instead the producers hired Glenn Close, who was born in Connecticut. Which raises the question of whether non-English dubs of the film use MacDowell's local voice actor, or Glenn Close's. Or if they just replace her dialogue with ape grunting.

Louder Than You Think (2023)
Pavements (2024)
Range Life (2025)
...
Slow Century (2002)

The Return (2024) (adaptation of The Odyssey)
The Odyssey (forthcoming) (adaptation of The Odyssey)

Ten years in the making and only Matt Damon survived

Pavements (2024)
Range Life (2025)

not sure I agree with you 100% on your police work there iiuc

Troubled White People Throw Weddings

On closer inspection, this is more precisely "Troubled Protagonists Go To Their Sister's Wedding"

Quirky All-Star Comedy/Satires About An Asteroid/Comet Ending Human Life On Earth:

How It Ends, 2021
Don't Look Up, ''

Remember that time there were two zombie movies?

Rodeo/Rancher Movies:

J.W. Coop, 1971
Junior Bonner, l972
Pocket Money, 1973

Actually the latter one is '72 as well.

Also: The Honkers, 1972

...and then a few years later:

Rancho Deluxe, 1975
Mackintosh and TJ, 1976

'60s Rock stars play down & out versions of themselves (but not as themselves!) in the '80s:

One-Trick Pony, 1980 (Paul Simon)
Comeback, 1983 (Eric Burdon)

Simon was mimicking Woody Allen in this regard, I think

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)
The Thing with Two Heads (1972)

American History X (1998)
Apt Pupil (1998)

Both about a teenage boy and the older Nazi in his life.

(I was doing Cinematrix just now and trying to figure out why I thought McKellen was in American History X.)

Films about struggling/'difficult' actors turning to drag in order to get work:

Victor/Victoria, 1982
Tootsie, ''

^^both of which where later adapted into modestly successful Broadway musicals.

Brainstorm, A Nightmare on Elm Street - Coupla 1984 films about penetrating people's dreams to kill them in their sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRYp3LPL0bc

How to Get Ahead in Advertising,1989
The Icicle Thief, 1989

If I recall correctly, both over the top postmodern farces of consumerism. There’s probably a few more circa ‘89 too, right?

oder doch has it right - that's not the plot of Brainstorm, but it is the plot of Dreamscape. Brainstorm is more like Strange Days, where you can play back recorded brain-tapes of other people's waking experiences... Douglas Trumbull had hoped it would be a showcase for his patented high-frame-rate, high-resolution film format, but this didn't work out so instead the film just changed aspect ratios when it goes to the recorded experiences.

XP

Crazy People (1990) as well.

So UK, Italian, US advert/consumerism farces. Gotta be a French one too, right?

Bless those times when too much advertising on too many TV channels, and eating at McDonalds were the big ethical stresses of the day.

Yep, I was confusing Brainstorm with Dreamscape, thanks

Many xposts

https://i.chzbgr.com/full/9762513408/hE9974E81/r-cists-who-have-hatched-plan-have-white-guy-steal-their-identity-shrek-2-list-like-28281-likes-000

Sex, Drugs & The Dandy Warhols (and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club):

Dig!, 2004
9 Songs, ''

the world's end (2013)
this is the end (2013)
Also: Rapture-Palooza (2013), an Anna Kendrick vehicle in the same vein, co-starring This Is The End's Craig Robinson as The Devil.

― The Greta Van Gerwig (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, October 31, 2018 1:19 AM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also:

It's A Disaster (2013)

Michael Ritchie's Smile (March 20, 1975)
Robert Altman's Nashville (June 11, 1975)

One time there were two movies that used venerable American institutions--the beauty pageant, country music--to make big statements about the country as it headed towards the Bicentennial.

^^Not only that, but they both use the narrative device that begins with everybody coming into town for the event and then explicitly marking each day leading up to and including said event.

IIRC, Nashville started out at United Artists (the studio that made Smile) before moving over to ABC Pictures, who latched on because they wanted the soundtrack album.

Smile doesn't add up to quite as much as Nashville, but I remember appreciating the Bruce Dern character, a middling used-car salesman uncomfortable about joining the local business-guy fraternity. there's some good writing/performing in some of the pageant characters. tons of stuff that's now cringe-inducing though, in the way of mid-70s comedies.

Rats, I was hoping this was the Now You See Me thread

Teen Relationship/Sex Comedies With Loaded Contemporary Rock Soundtracks & An Abortion Plotline:

The Last American Virgin, 1982
Fast Times At Ridgemont High, ''

You could almost add The Bad News Bears to the Smile/Nashville pairing--Little League baseball the institution this time--but a) a year later, and b) I think Ritchie's more concerned with making a big statement about how awful parents can be when it comes to kids' sports than anything about the country.

tbf there was really only the one awful parent in that movie, right? At least when it came to sports. Seemed like a ton of absentee parents across the board, but that's not necessarily a sports thing.

It's been a while since I saw it, but I recall Matthau taking the other coach aside at one point (after realizing he'd lost all perspective himself) and saying something like "We need to stop this"). I took them as stand-ins for all parentsev, en though I don't think Matthau had kids himself.

I can send a typo-free translation of that, if necessary

Lefty Noirs By Blacklisted Directors That Climax With Scenes Of Violent Mob Riots:

The Lawless, 1950
The Sound of Fury/Try And Get Me!, ''

Punk Rock Westerns:

Dudes, 1987
Straight To Hell, ''