The Jerk

[Rylander]

Sure, it's over 20 years old, but I just watched it again last night for the first time in a long while and really enjoyed it. I found myself enjoying a lot more of the little throwaway gags that I had forgotten more than the obvious gags.

Like Pizza in a Cup, for example.

Like when Emmett Walsh was trying to shoot him, just cussing up a storm and getting pissed off. Just like me stuck in traffic, cussing to the point of nonsense.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. How could you have known that was Iron Balls McGinty?"

- sounds like one of Nick's 10 grabs captions!

[Django]

Ah the movie which shows us what it is like to grow up a poor, Black child.

Love it.

[The Rain Dog]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3e/The_Jerk.jpg/393px-The_Jerk.jpg
Huh? I am not a bum. I'm a jerk. I once had wealth, power, and the love of a beautiful woman. Now I only have two things: my friends and... uh... my thermos. Huh? My story? Okay. It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi.


This was just on cable and even though it's my favourite Martin film, I hadn't watched it in years. Just a brilliant comedy that holds up fantastically 30 years later.

All the big jokes are still great ("He hates these cans!" is one of my favourite comedy lines ever), but its the lesser known ones that surprised me.

This had me on the floor:

You look so beautiful and peaceful, you almost look dead. And I'm glad, because there's something I want to say that's always been very difficult for me to say; "I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit." There. I've never been relaxed enough around anyone to say that.

I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.


While I love The Man With Two Brains and especially Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (I even went through an LA Story phase as a young'un), this is definately the funniest Martin has been on film for my money.

I miss 'wild and crazy' Steve.

We all love to cite the film output of the other late 70' SNL alumni, but this flick never seems to get mentioned, yet I rate it alongside Vacation, Animal House, Stripes and Caddyshack personally.

Any other fans?

[EdHocken]

That film features one of the best opening lines ever.

"I was born a poor black child."

[Judas Booth]

I still say that Martin's best and funniest movies are 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' and 'Bowfinger', but 'the Jerk' is pretty damn good. It isn't consistently funny, but it does have some pretty hard laughs in it.

[Ratty]

"I'm gonna buy you a diamond so big, it'll make you puke!"

[Lima Oscar Lima]

The Thermos Song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYM5rRL5u4U