The Age of Commercialism

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Now that may sound misleading since Lovecraft had nothing to do with this Pryor, Gleason and Donner comedy, but there was so much in it that would be impossible to comprehend.First let's address the elephant in the room. Yes it's a rich white Billionaire buying a black man for his kid to play with. Yes by all accounts it's modern day slavery. Yes this pretty much became severely harsher in hindsight not just from those implications, but due to the recent events surrounding human trafficking. But what I like about the movie isn't just the comedy once you get past it. But the fact that they managed to get this movie made at all in spite of the implications. If a censor today were to look at this idea, they would probably have the human equivalent to Blue Screen of Death before going insane at how they managed to get away with that. And that's why I consider it a Lovecraft movie. Because it's that F***ing crazy.

Richard Pryor, Jackie Gleason, Scott Shwartz, Teresa Ganzel and Ned Beatty star in Richard Donner's 1982 comedy. Jack Brown (Pryor) is a writer who needs a job to make a down payment on his house and wants to be a reporter for millionaire, U.S. Bates (Gleason). He gets a job working as a cleaner for U.S. until his spoiled son, Eric (Schwartz) notices him goofing around and decides to buy him as a toy. U.S. learns what Eric has done and makes a deal with Jack to play with Eric for a week earning $10,000. Jack gets practical jokes thrown at him, but gets close with Eric and helps him and U.S. with their troubled relationship in the process. Ganzel plays Eric's stepmother, Fancy and Beatty plays Morehouse, one of U.S.' right hand men. I've liked this since I was a kid, Richard and Jackie were great in it together and I recommend this good 80's comedy.

The comedic might of Pryor and Gleason couldn't save this dog from the tissue-thin plot, weak script, dismal acting, and laughable continuity in editing this mess together. It has a very few memorable moments, but the well dries up quickly. As a kid I remember this as a Luke-warm vehicle for the two actor-comedians, but there was always something strange about the flow and feeling of what was being conveyed in each scene and how this ties to the plot overall. Watching it again after many years, it screams schlock-a-mania. I'm not so concerned with the racial controversy, as I wouldn't mind seeing a movie take that issue on with a little levity. The most obvious fault to me is that the scenes are laid out like a jumbled, non-related series of 2 minute situation comedy bits (any not very good ones at that), that were stapled together by the editor after an all-nighter at the local watering hole. Characters change feelings and motivations on a dime, without rhyme nor reason, between scenes and within scenes, making this feel as though no one had any idea of what to get out of the screenplay. Not that it was any gem to start with. I feel bad for the two actors whose legacy is marred by this disaster that should never have been made. Maybe my sense of humor has become too refined...

Me and my sister used to watch this when we were children and we loved it. In fact, the last time I saw it I was only 8 years old, but I remember why I enjoyed the movie. I was too young to understand the adult politics but trust me this is a wonderful film for kids to watch. If I was to watch it now it will not be as powerful, and I may not even enjoy it. The point is this was a film made for children, and as this is the case only a child, or an adult who watched it and remembers it as a child are able to accurately review and justify it. Pryor's performance was superb and it shows how diverse he was being able to star in a children's film and manage to be so convincing and never patronises the film by under-performing.