What could prompt Heavy Movie Parking Lot’s return?

How about the partnership of Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen in a mother-and-son road movie called THE GUILT TRIP? Where’s the guilt in light entertainment you could take your mother too? Tristan considers Streisand’s comic schtick, stock road movie sequences, and people’s relationship with their mothers with special guest star Q an expert in buddy comedy dynamics and joke analysis. We also answer the question: “What was the last movie you took your mother to?”

Special engineer/sound bandit/remix producer: Q-biz’m.

Download Link: Eat your Streisand steak here! 

Why DO remakes get made? Is it just another capitalist scam? Is it to show how times change but ultimately people are the same? It is like covering a song? Like the new director can hit some high notes that the other director couldn’t, or is like what it is to turn a fast and flashy dance track into a folkish alt country croon to highlight the raw emotion of the original? (I’m thinking about the Fast and the Furious right now, and even though I have never seen the Fast and the Furious I would probably see a folkish alt country version of the Fast and the Furious, knowing me) But anyway, that’s a terrible and useless example/ analogy, because movies don’t get made like that. The remake will almost always or just plain always cost way more to make than the original. No one ever does a lo-fi version of anything in the movies. Only in Be Kind, Rewind, but that wasn’t real life that was a movie.

So, in cheap real life, Heavy Movie Parking Lot went to see a 2011 remake of a 1981 film, Arthur, a film about a heavy-drinking, high-fun-having heir to a considerable fortune that only comes at the cost of love.
It was OK. Not great, not terrible either. Let’s look at the costs:

2x tickets @ $18 each = $36
1x ipod for recording podcast = $79
Give or take a few bucks for candy bar treats (I’m not going to make a joke about how expensive candy bar food is, just in case you were expecting that, we’re just going to skip it), all in all this podcast cost about $120. Which, to me, seems like a high budget for a lo-fi podcast. Is it? Either way, there’s a lot to enjoy in this edition, like when I lay into Tristan for always describing lady actors as “the lovely/ fetching/ gorgeous ______” even though I actually refer to Greta Gerwig as a “babe” way before Tristan says anything. Hypocrisy! Like this podcast, it’s free.

SO. Remakes. Probably just another capitalist scam. But maybe try to find some enjoyment in them anyway?

Like by downloading the podcast? Everyone wins!

Heavy Movie Parking Lot parked its collective keyster on the green grass of a local park, shielding its eyes from the warm sun… Almost the time of afternoon for cucumber sandwiches and cups of tea…

“Hmm, a lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Rather!”

“Perfect really. Hey, why don’t we discuss that film we just saw about Islamic suicide bombers?”

“Jolly good idea!”

“Quite!”

Yes, Chris Morris who is better known to UK comedy nerds as a goddamn genius and media terrorist for all his past triumphs (On The Hour, The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam, Nathan Barley) finally directed a movie! Four Lions follows a terrorist cell living in London, a bunch of bumbling idiots bunging together a brave plan to blow themselves up. Co-written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain (the brilliant minds behind Peep Show), what follows is a sharp satire that features snappy patter that had audiences in an uproar before shocking moments of self-destruction had the laughs dying down as the seriousness of the subject matter snuck in. A jihad of the mind with a gesture that will mess ya, Four Lions basically had us nattering about how good it was complete with bad cockney accents and comparisons to other movies both serious (Paradise Now) and non-serious (The Full Monty, but twisted by the brain wrong of a man mental).

Walking through a parking lot slightly intoxicated, Heavy Movie Parking Lot attempted to imbibe the spirit of the classic comedian, Bill Hicks, reviewing the documentary on the man himself, American: The Bill Hicks Story, which screened at this year’s Revelation Film Festival. In this edition of our car-bound reviewing patter, which forever embraces the awkward and applauds the screwball, we come to terms with Leonie’s crush on Hicks despite his jerkish qualities, Tristan’s fear of Bill Hicks acolytes and getting Duran Duran stuck in your noggin when considering the presence of ABC radio personality, Russell Woolf. Personal highlight in the entire exchange is when Hicks’ hatred for New Kids On The Block is touched upon and  Leonie exclaims, “Awwwww, New Kids!”
p.s. Don’t be afraid to shoot your own Bill Hicks movie title puns to heavymovieparkinglot@gmail.com! Example: “Inglourious Bill Hicks.”