eddie murphy

Micah Cohen
Micah Cohen Posts: 2,022
edited July 2010 in Music & Movies
So, after we recently watched the mid 70s WITCH MOUNTAIN movies (Kim Richards, yum!) and the new Di$ney remake staring "The Rock," we watched the early Eddie Murphy movies.

This is what you do with Netflix when you're bored stiff by current movie offerings, ok?

We watched 48 HOURS , then TRADING PLACES and then BEVERLY HILLS COP . Knowing that TRADING PLACES is the zenith of Eddie's film comedy career, it was nevertheless surprising to find BHC so unfunny and uninspired.

48 HOURS, really more of a 70s cop flick than an 80s movie, is gruff and gritty, quick and watchable, and Eddie's acting seems natural and uncontrived, the very opposite of his performance in BHC. When he's funny in 48 HOURS, he's really casually funny, while in BHC he's always "on," and only really funny in two or three instances ("Can you put this in a good spot? All this **** happened the last time I parked here"). How did BHC win awards and spawn sequels when it's tedious and not funny?

As for TRADING PLACES, it's just another example of how John Landis is better director than even Orson Welles.

BEVERLY HILLS COP sucked.

MC
ultramicah@yahoo.com

"There's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight." - Lon Chaney
Post edited by Micah Cohen on

Comments

  • headrott
    headrott Posts: 5,484
    edited July 2010
    Personally, I disagree with what you say about BHC. I think there are many many very funny scenes in it. It is certainly pretty sarcastic overall, which could possibly mean you don't like sarcastic humor?? Try watching it a few more times as there are many little things you may not have noticed the first time. Not saying it will change your mind, but as I said I think it's one of Murphy's funniest movies.


    Greg

    Edit: Also, I believe BHC was better than Trading Places and 48 Hours. But, to each his own....
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  • Micah Cohen
    Micah Cohen Posts: 2,022
    edited July 2010
    Try watching it a few more times

    I won't make it. It's slow, I looked at the clock like four times. It's the beginning of the end for Eddie Murphy, especially in comparison to a brilliant film like TRADING PLACES.

    Is it Martin Brest's direction? I like Martin Brest. (I like, um, ****, too.) I like MIDNIGHT RUN, maybe his best film, and think it's a funny, quick romp with great performances by both DeNiro and Grodin. (But, he also made GIGLI, which he is probably embarrassed about.)

    I think the lighting was too "TV movie" in BHC, and that sort of ruined it for me.

    MC
    ultramicah@yahoo.com

    "There's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight." - Lon Chaney
  • shack
    shack Posts: 11,154
    edited July 2010
    OMG...I actually agree with Micah. I didn't like BHC and was totally ambivalent about 48 Hours. Trading Places was pretty good with the typical Landis cast (especially Aykroyd) and Jamie Lee Curtis actually provided some nice eye candy before she decided to start hawking intestinal "health" products.
    "Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right." - Ricky Gervais

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 7,658
    edited July 2010
    There are moments in Murphy's, "The Nutty Professor" that are among the funniest on film. The scene where he is playing all the Klump family is as funny as anything Chaplin did.
  • TNRabbit
    TNRabbit Posts: 2,168
    edited July 2010
    Eddie who?
    TNRabbit
    NO Polk Audio Equipment :eek:
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  • Micah Cohen
    Micah Cohen Posts: 2,022
    edited July 2010
    OMG...I actually agree with Micah
    Imagine how great the world would be... (No, really: imagine it. DO IT NOW!)

    TRADING PLACES is a true comedy classic, and it's probably the best on-screen performances by both Ackroyd and Murphy. It just works, lightning in a bottle, in ways that subsequent films don't. (Ackroyd has a couple more high points, BLUES BROTHERS and GHOSTBUSTERS, of course, but Murphy's classic youthful career is a dead fish after TRADER PLACES.)

    Landis is a really great director. The first three minutes of TRADING PLACES, the credit sequence, is a masterful scene-setting montage, good as anything Hitchcock ever did.

    Sez me!

    MC
    ultramicah@yahoo.com

    "There's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight." - Lon Chaney
  • shack
    shack Posts: 11,154
    edited July 2010
    Imagine how great the world would be... (No, really: imagine it. DO IT NOW!)

    I tried...but there are places my mind will simply not allow itself to go...and that is one of those places.

    Avoidance is a wonderful thing!
    "Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right." - Ricky Gervais

    "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible." - Stuart Chase

    "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." - Bernard Berenson