Steve Martin films: The Eighties POLL

Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Parenthood

It's one of these imo

planes, trains & automobiles is such a classic

kinda torn between all of me, roxanne, & PTA. DRS and pennies from heaven are pretty sweet flix too.

i love the down on your luck theme song that plays whenever he runs into more travel difficulties

As a kid, I drove my parents nuts watching Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid over and over again (though, they were kind enough to rent it at the video store for me). The new story built around scenes from old Hollywood still strikes me as an amazing concept.

I know the real answer is All Of Me, but 13-year-old me wants to vote The Man With Two Brains, which I used to watch on HBO every time it aired.

tough poll, voted all of me. love three amigos but it's not as much of a "steve martin" movie. dirty rotten scoundrels was definitely an option too. i have no idea what "movers and shakers" is.

This is my favorite Steve Martin scene ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJJbMZ782zc

I've got friends who swear by The Three Amigos.

In descending order:

All of Me
Pennies From Heaven
PTA
Roxanne
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

you have no idea how many times i have searched in vain for "three amigos" on netflix instant

probably a couple

My friends and I couldn't get enough of this in the 8th grade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy4K-qt0m1Q

PT&A for me. Dead Men is a great concept, but I wish the writing was better. Love Little Shop, but I don't think of that as a "Steve Martin movie." Have never seen All of Me.

Movers & Shakers isn't really a Steve Martin movie either. He just makes a small cameo.

You've gotta see All Of Me. All-time best performances by Martin and Tomlin, seriously.

Or comedically.

huh he had a better run in this decade than I remembered. All of Me is def some kind of peak, performance-wise, but Roxanne is so underrated, maybe the best directed/conceived film of his. DRS also underrated. PT&A way overrated.

maybe the best directed/conceived film of his

well outside of the Jerk, obviously

Planes, Trains is the only Hughes I can tolerate, but even then it is kinda overrated. Pennies from Heaven is one of the more enjoyably bizarre movies of the '80s, so I kinda have to go with that. (Looks like I'll have to see All of Me.)

my problem with PT&A is that Martin just seems wasted playing the straight man to Candy, it's really one dimensional

Pennies from Heaven ain't bad but it really pales in comparison to the original

Roxanne peaks with Rick Rossevich praising Daryl Hannah's knockers.

thought la story was 80s, guess not. pt&a, amigos or pennies

i thought man w/ two brains was hilarious

PT&A all the way, though i've seen and enjoyed most of these, and have a general preference for the less overtly wacky late 80s/early 90s ones. Roxanne is one of the all time great rom coms.

PT&A is great, but 3rd behind All of Me and Roxanne imo.

Yeah, PTA.

Need to finally see Pennies From Heaven, The Lonely Guy and Two Brains.

Need to re-see All of Me, Roxanne, Little Shop and Scoundrels, each of which I probably watched a dozen times each as a kid.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is kind of an awkward mess, but there's at least one huge laugh in it ("I hadn't seen a body put together like that since I'd solved the case of the Murdered Girl with the Big Tits"). I was surprised to see it making a significant appearance in Jonathan Lethem's "Chronic City."

I watched Parenthood again recently and was quite surprised at how well it holds up.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/aca94f6a869bd61ef774762021303e7c/tumblr_mk6itnE2z11rhxd21o1_250.gif

http://25.media.tumblr.com/01bdb9fe4f7a71d64bdf0c14d4eabd57/tumblr_mk6itnE2z11rhxd21o2_250.gif

http://24.media.tumblr.com/bc86d530eaad21eb8f2615489fc8a9cf/tumblr_mk6itnE2z11rhxd21o3_250.gif

http://25.media.tumblr.com/d886ea394450f9e4163a8b6bf527d0f9/tumblr_mk6itnE2z11rhxd21o4_250.gif

Parenthood for me

Parenthood's supporting actors are a who's who of who was riding a career wave.

for every 3 scenes you remember being awesome, there's 10 more

All of Me is his best film performance.

The other Carl Reiners and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels follow. Brilliant in Little Shop, but it's like 15 minutes, right?

I've never seen Planes, Trains & Automobiles, bcz John fucking Hughes.

between parenthood and all of me

oh morbspaws

I've never seen Three Amigos either, cuz it looked like puke.

Parenthood was a middling sitcom. Pennies ain't a patch on the BBC series.

u look like puke

How do I do that greasemonkey script again

Morbz otm for the most part

thank goodness someone's finally willing to brave the storm and stick it to that beloved critical darling 'three amigos.'

john hughes, about time someone stuck a fork in that sacred cow.

The Breakfast Club was on AMC last week, and I watched it for the first time since whenever. A shame that statue didn't fall on Judd Nelson and his flaring nostrils.

;_;

i watched bfast club on tv not long ago too and i mean, i never held it in the highest esteem but man i couldn't believe how bad it was.

well, i guess i could believe it.

DAMN YOU

john hughes, about time someone stuck a fork in that sacred cow.

yeah, the guy who got a 10-min tribute on the Oscars when he cacked

Dead Men then Two Brains. Suppose I should finally sit down and watch All Of Me.

Mw2B has maybe as many laughs as AoM.

haven't seen all of me since when it was in theaters, loved it then but i was nine so who knows, i do know there was crazy oscar talk for him around it (i think kael was crazy for it also? could be my imagination) and usual 'the oscars and comedy' controversy when he didn't even get a nomination. roxanne seemed like blatant oscar bait but it's good (the really groanworthy comedian wants to be taken seriously stuff didn't come til later), still i was relieved when he did dirty rotten scoundrels, didn't think i'd see him doing something in that jerk vein again. parenthood's a good family sitcom, they cop out of course but credit due for having married middle class adults even momentarily consider abortion as a normal birth control option, i like the interplay between martin and robards. three amigos is a genuinely terrible movie but i can see how ppl have affection for it. planes, trains, & automobiles is pretty easily the best movie john hughes ever made (as opposed to the best 'john hughes movie').

voted dirty rotten scoundrels.

(i think kael was crazy for it also? could be my imagination)

by far her favorite SNL comedian. She adored PFH and Roxanne.

Parenthood is like Hollywood looking at the success of Hannah and Her Sisters and thinking it can be duplicated. I saw in its original release; the audience went crazy over Granny sucking on helium and her rollercoaster metaphor.

lol and Dianne Wiest got an Oscar nod!

89's a big year for fake woody allen between parenthood and when harry met sally

all of me has some dumb shit in it too (ie the wacky guru) but martin and tomlin carry it

yeah there's enough of what i can remember from all of me to prevent me from watching it again

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

This is my favorite Steve Martin scene ever:

OTM. But I'd say "All of Me," vs. "PTA" vs. ... gosh. I almost always love Steve Martin. "Little Shop of Horrors" is a great role

Cameo showdown!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S77hlCV1flk

http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/11/18/ptafreeze.gif

"What do you think the temperature is?"

"One."

all of me has some dumb shit in it too (ie the wacky guru)

eff u, Richard Libertini is the man. "Backinbowl!" Also played the Senor Wences-style general in The In-Laws.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0508844/

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/missoulian.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/f5/3f565e30-d1fe-11e1-8680-0019bb2963f4/5008a065cf4a1.preview-620.jpg

Martin and Sons.

"you need a cup of my Java.. "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Bjt0Z0psY

I am a huge Steve Martin stan and I love DMDWP and TMW2B but come on, no love for the casual surrealism of The Lonely Guy?

All of Me by a good way for me

saw The Lonely Guy for the first time a few years ago, didn't love it but appreciated the unique tone. Grodin better than Martin in it, though.

was he thinkin' baot things in it?

I skipped TLG cuz of the Neil Simon credit. He's one of three writers billed (the others are quality '70s sitcom guys), so I prob shd see it.

P,T,A
Little Shop
Parenthood

watched PTA last night because it's one of the few of these movies on netflix streaming. apparently i had never seen the whole thing? i knew the big setpieces but a lot of the in between stuff was not familiar at all. anyways, very funny movie obv. and calling martin just the straight man in it really underplays how good he is in it, his slow burn is masterful.

I got to see Dead Men for the first time twice.

When I first saw it as a kid, I laughed at him shaving his tongue and the whole cheese thing at the end.

Then later, I was all "Wha? You mean those were all scenes from old movies?"

omg i used to love the man with two brains as a kid!

i swear, this guy

Man with Two Brains would be my second, I can't help but feel like he was going gently downhill after Roxanne

voted DRS because it never fails. but then again several of these never fail. it was a tough one.

i love the lonely guy, but my love for grodin almost overshadows steve in that one (someone upthread mentioned something similar).

am a huge three amigos fan, but similarly don't ever think of it as a steve martin movie in the way some of the others def are steve martin vehicles. once, in high school, at some kind of fundraiser, two friends and i lip-synced the theme song. "...we are the three a-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...." a video existed of this ill advised performance. would love to see it, then destroy it.

haha oh yeah...a couple of years ago went down to a local video store (RAO, pplains, which the owner has claimed was the very first rental place of its kind in the country) with the intent of renting three amigos. it's a notoriously unorganized place, so i just asked for it at the counter and the guy brought it to me. got home and popped it in and it was indeed the three amigos. this one: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301934/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM3MTI1MjM1NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjE3NTgyMQ@@._V1_SY317_CR3,0,214,317_.jpg
doh!

Martin's jump-the-shark moment is My Blue Heaven

Freddy Soto!

that a large number of you haven't even SEEN All of Me... smdh

three people said they haven't seen it

man i loved my blue heaven when i was a kid. was it not 80s?

ah, 1990

Yeah, My Blue Heaven and L.A. Story just miss out on this poll being from 1990 and 1991, but they're of a kind with the rest. And great!

i'm taking those 3 ppl as reps for the lurkers, git me

LA Story would get my vote if released two years earlier.

pointy birds,
o pointy pointy.
anoint my head,
anointy-nointy.

Home sick from work today, rewatched All of Me. It's kind of slight as a film, but Martin's and Tomlin's performances were really really charming.

l.a. story would totally fit here esp considering how much of his nineties and beyond is either kasdan level oscar fodder, mediocre extensions of parenthood, or depressingly awful reboots of characters that were played by irreplaceable geniuses

I've seen all of these except for The Lonely Guy, Movers & Shakers and Parenthood. Not sure how I'll vote, but it'll be between Dead Men..., ...Two Brains and All of Me, all of which I saw in theaters (my dad was a fan).

in the late '80s I saw him play Didi in Waiting for Godot opp Robin Williams

http://www.robin-williams.net/images/plays/godot/image03.jpg

wow!

i wonder if anyone got that on tape?

I remember that. sounds torturous.

they were both good, esp Williams I thought; directed by Mike Nichols. I stood in a standby line for 7 hours for it. There's a few minutes here:

http://www.robin-williams.net/godot.php

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

just wrong

pretty good if you erase #1

which you haven't seen

Roxanne doesn't really hold up for me, sadly. A few big laughs ("Afraid of WORMS?!"), but too much time wasted on those stupid firefighters (and yet not nearly enough shots of Matt Lattanzi in uniform) and Schepisi's direction is way too lackadaisical.

roxanne i haven't seen since high school, when i thought it was slow, but "he's got the whole world / in his nose" passes across my brain like monthly.

i don't love planes/trains/automobiles and take more or less the morbz view of john hughes in general but n/a otm upthread about martin's slow burn. learned from the devil's candy last week that he was suggested more than once for the lead in bonfire of the vanities, which would hardly have saved anyone but which i thought was a sharp idea.

various people otm that the real cap to this run is l.a. story. just loled at this stray quote (from 1999) in the wiki for all of me: My mature film career started with All of Me and ends with L.A. Story. anyway, all of me.

Goodbye to my greatest mentor in movies and in life. Thank you, dear Carl. https://t.co/H7A4ZwIqfc

— Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) June 30, 2020

<3

About 20 years ago when I was living in L.A., there was a screening of Pennies from Heaven followed by a talk with Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Jessica Harper and others. One of them said this was the first time they attended a screening where the audience actually liked the picture.