Customer Reviews

Life Stinks

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

No, this is not your typical Mel Brooks comedy; loaded down with relentless slapstick comedy and sight-gags! IT'S TEN TIMES BETTER! Life Stinks, unlike other Mel Brooks movies, has real heart and soul. Yes, it's funny; but it's also very touching. In the movie, you get to "meet" some homeless people, who make you realize that; hey, they have real feelings and personalities too! I don't feel the movie pokes fun of the homeless; instead, it pokes fun at the rich guy who loses his cloak of money and then can't deal with the "realities" of life -(thus proclaiming, Life Stinks)! Again, this movie is NOT typical Mel Brooks, if that's what you're expecting. However, if you ARE expecting a movie that is wonderfully entertaining and worth viewing over and over again, then you definitely WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED! BUY IT, AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF!

Life Stinks is an amazingly funny comedy and one of Mel Brooks' best. He is a comedic genius! I laughed my head off after watching it the first time and decided to buy it. I highly reccomend it to those who are ready to laugh!

Loved this movie and was cracking up through most of it. Brooks may have peaked during Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein but this movie is very funny and I'm going to buy it now (after seeing it on tv).

This is one of my favorite movies. A few scenes are so memorable that it is a must have in your video collection. It is, after all, Mel Brooks! Where is the DVD???????

This flick has the usual Mel Brooks unashamed look at homelessness with all the expected "middle class" stereotypes included. Leonard Maltin missed the big picture in his review--This video isn't funny because it pokes fun at the homeless-It's funny because it pokes fun at the clueless-ness of the "haves". Sorry, but Mel is funny.

Mel Brooks is the greatest filmaker of all time. He's hilarious. LIFE STINKS is a charming, touching, warm, funny movie. I can't say enough good things about it. It's unlike any other movie because its daring and true. This movie is not fake. I HIGHLY RECCOMEND it!

When you name your movie "Life Stinks", and the movie isn't a comedy classic like "Blazing Saddles" or "Young Frankenstein", then you get set up for harsh remarks like "This Movie Stinks". And that's too bad, because this is a smaller film with more heart & soul which doesn't try to BE those comedies. This one has a different tone & purpose. It's not a genre parody like Brooks' past work, but one which addresses a real life issue: That of society's division between the wealthy and that of the impoverished. Brooks casts himself as multi-millionaire Goddard Bolt, a callous, uncaring man who sets his sights on bulldozing 2 1/2 miles of Los Angeles' most destitute property--which happens to be the "home" of the homeless. But first, Bolt must secure the other half of ownership from his business rival, an even more unscrupulous (and sneaky) man played with controlled oiliness by Jeffrey Tambor. A bet is made based on whether Bolt can survive on these same streets for thirty days (of course, Tambor tricks Bolt out of his fortune during this time). What transpires as survival for Bolt is also a life lesson as he learns firsthand how harsh life is for these homeless people. Along the way, he befriends a feisty bag lady (Lesley Ann Warren, who made a one-note character in "Victor/Victoria" hilarious, and works the same magic here), a spindly old man named Sailor (a surprisingly restrained performance from Howard Morris), and a lanky, boozy bum (Teddy Wilson). The dramatic scene when Sailor is left for dead on a sidewalk--and no one seems to care--speaks volumes about society's views of the homeless. Of course, the movie isn't without some wonderful highlights: The joyous dance between Brooks & Warren in a warehouse full of rags; Brooks, having hit rock bottom, in an overcrowded hospital hallway, being repeatedly pumped full of thorazine by an absent-minded doctor; an outrageous slap fight between Brooks & Rudy DeLuca (delivering a very funny performance here as a ranting, delusional bum); Brooks, after finding his rival has broken him, tries to walk out of his former mansion with valued (and bulky) posessions; and a climactic battle between Brooks & Tambor, using cranes in a scene which plays out like a dinosaur fight.
The bottom line: If you want a raucous, rowdy comedy that's belly laughs from start to finish, then watch "Saddles"; if you want something more genteel & sweet between the laughs, then watch this one.

After being criticized for producing mostly spoof movies, Mel Brooks departed from that genre and returned to the semi-real world of his early two films "The Producers" and "The Twelve Chairs." "Life Stinks" is a Chaplinesque fable that focused on the very real problems of America's homeless. While it was met with indifference by the moviegoing public and critics took turns hurling brickbats, practically inviting derision due to the title, there were a few perceptive reviewers who recognized that this was Brooks' most sincere and daring effort in years. Perhaps if the title of this film had been "Life Is Beautiful," it would have met a different fate. Nevertheless, this film is an important entry into the Brooks canon. Putting his money where his mouth is, Mel Brooks made a strong social statement as well as an entertaining film. It's his most personal work since "The Producers."

First watched Mel Brooks' "Life Stinks" many years ago and came back to revisit it on Amazon to obtain a permanent copy. Love to watch this movie again from time to time. Mel Brooks plays an over-the-top greedy developer who is forced to live as a homeless person in a blighted neighborhood. The story of his experiences manages to be both touching and hilarious. Nothing can get too serious in a Mel Brooks movie, but the charactors are engaging, the story brought forth as moralistic with a big dose of Mel Brooks-style sarcasm! If you like to laugh, give it a try.

...message of "Life Stinks," a warmhearted new comedy from Mel Brooks.

It's easy to sit inside an air-conditioned car and feel scorn for some poor wretch who is trying to earn a quarter for wiping a rag across the windshield. But if we were out there on the streets without a home or money, what bright ideas would we come up with? Donald Trump can make millions selling condos to other millionaires, but could he make 10 bucks in a day if he had to start from scratch? The conventional wisdom in these situations is that the poor and homeless should get a grip on themselves, should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But if they have no boots, what then? Wasn't it Anatole France who said that the Law, in its magnificent equality, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges and begging in the streets? What Brooks does with this idea is tell a fable of a rich urban developer who finds himself on the streets, in the ghetto, wondering where his next meal is coming from.

Brooks plays the rich man himself. His name is Goddard Bolt, and he intends to buy a large, wretchedly poor area of Los Angeles, tear it down, and start over - at immense profit to himself. His archenemy in business is a predatory capitalist named Vance Crasswell (played by Jeffrey Tambor with oily superiority). They get in a bidding and bluffing war, and it finally all comes down to a bet: The Brooks character bets he can live for 30 days, by his wits, as a homeless bum - without ever stepping foot outside the area.

This is a premise Brooks and his writers have borrowed from "Sullivan's Travels," the 1939 Preston Sturges classic in which Joel McCrea plays a Hollywood director who went on the road as a bum. But the streets are a little meaner in 1991 than they were in 1939, and the affluent are stingier. It is sometimes all Brooks can do to make his movie seem like a comedy, when the desperation of the homeless is so evident in every scene.

But he pulls it off. He gets mileage out of his own efforts to emulate the panhandlers he sees - he wipes a windshield, he dances and hopes people will toss coins into his hat - and he makes some friends on the street, who steer him toward the nearest soup kitchen. And he meets some kindred spirits, like Molly (Lesley Ann Warren), who lives in an alley that she has furnished as her living room. The movie's best scene is one in which, together, they transform poverty into fantasy, in a dance inspired by the old MGM musicals.

"Life Stinks" is a new direction in Brooks' directing career. The typical note in most of his earlier work was cheerful vulgarity, as he went for the laugh, no matter what. He has made some of the funniest movies I've ever seen, including "The Producers," "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein." This is not one of them. It has its laughs, but it's a more thoughtful film, more softhearted toward its characters. It's warm and poignant.

Brooks, as usual, is his own best asset. As an actor, he brings a certain heedless courage to his roles. His characters never seem to pause for thought; they're cocky, headstrong, confident. They charge ahead into the business at hand. There is a certain tension in "Life Stinks" between the bull-headed optimism of the Brooks character, and the hopeless reality of the streets, and that's what the movie is about.