The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2024-12-31 07:00:06 +0000 UTC
Hello everyone and Happy New Years Eve! I hope you had a wonderful holiday! 😊 Mine was so busy, but very good and it was nice to take a lot of time away from the PC. The week ahead is also a busy one for me, so what I had communicated in the "After Christmas" part of the last schedule is what will be released this week! I am not sure why I put "- Dec 29" in the title of that post, but that's been fixed to reflect my intentions properly. I'll be back to the "normal" scheduling next week.
Sharing first.. a Reactr request courtesy of Tyler Foster! Guess what, yet another movie I hadn't heard of before! This one was an intentional New Years Eve watch. [Direct link here.]
This was a fun one. 😁 Please enjoy! Looking forward to your comments.
Wishing you ALL the best today as we transition to another year. Though tbh, I often still feel like it's 2019.
✦ KL
Nice, thanks so much for watching along! It makes me so happy when people comment on older reactions.
kaiielle
2025-02-28 17:19:40 +0000 UTC
I'm thrilled that you watched this one! I'm a long time YouTube viewer, but I joined Patreon when I saw you were doing The Wedding Singer because I didn't want to watch it with all the songs cut our.
Anyway, I was doing some scrolling to look for something to watch one morning and stumbled upon this movie! It's on of my absolute favorites and I haven't done a rewatch in years! You were a joy to watch with too! It's so much fun when someone finally finds out what the circle is!
Brina Blue
2025-02-28 14:20:56 +0000 UTC
They've been lax on notifications lately
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2025-01-08 03:54:34 +0000 UTC
Thanks for the request Tyler!
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2025-01-06 17:28:01 +0000 UTC
Just now getting to this one, I got SO far behind on everything over the holidays 😆 This was a first time watch for me too so this is what I wrote on Letterboxd:
Solid 3/5 for me. I could see what they were going for, poking fun at the chaotic and often ridiculous red tape of corporate greed. There were times, however, when the film felt like work more than entertainment. Satires are, first and foremost, entertainment. I did enjoy it, I'm glad I saw it, and I would definitely watch it again. I would even recommend it, especially for the wit of the dialogue and mannerisms.
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2025-01-06 17:27:21 +0000 UTC
One more note about Amy Archer. Yes, JJL is channeling a few actresses, Katherine Hepburn especially, but the character, and partially the performance, is based on Glenda Farrell, who played reporter Torchy Blane in seven of nine second features for Warner Bros. between 1937 and 1939.
Jason Chirevas
2025-01-01 08:12:22 +0000 UTC
:D I'm always recommending this movie and no one ever watches it!!!! :D :D HURRRAAAAYYYYY thank you!
MoulinNoir
2025-01-01 05:47:21 +0000 UTC
Welcome back. Hope you had a good break. This is a fun one and epitomizes 90s movie wackiness. Definitely an underrated Coen Bros movie.
RichieRich
2025-01-01 00:16:30 +0000 UTC
Since I'm taking the rest of the week off, I figured I could survive one sleep-deprived day and I watched this immediately after it went up, even though that was when I normally go to bed.
Although the score for the movie was composed by Carter Burwell (who is credited as composer on all of the Coen Brothers' movies with a composer, including No Country For Old Men, which seems like it has no score but has the slightest bit of music, as well as a piece over the end credits), it is based on Aram Khachaturian's ballet Spartacus, using "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" and "Sabre Dance" for key parts of the film.
I agree that Jennifer Jason Leigh is great in the movie. A film I know you've seen her in based on your Letterboxd would be Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where she played Stacy, who I would say is one of the two main characters. Bruce Campbell, who played her fellow newspaper man Smitty, said he was in awe of her work ethic and the way she'd memorized every single line when she came in. She said in interviews that she really loved the script and was desperate to get the part. She based her performance on many famous actors from the 1940s, including Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, and Jean Arthur. Personally, I can't help but hear Myrna Loy, who was famous for co-starring in a series of comedy/mystery movies called The Thin Man back in the 1930s and 1940s (I think it's safe to tell you this, since I'm guessing you haven't even heard of Myrna Loy before). Very old movies aren't super popular, but The Thin Man and its sequel After the Thin Man might be something to put on your radar for a future Christmas/New Year's, as the first one takes place on Christmas and the second one picks up immediately after on New Year's.
I mentioned it in the note, but the Coens' old friend Sam Raimi co-wrote this movie with them, and he has a vocal cameo as one of the guys seen in silhouette trying to name the Hula Hoop. You can see elements of his style in some of the filmmaking too -- some of that montage, where the Hoop is being developed and constructed, the style of editing and fading, is something that Raimi would go onto use in Spider-Man sequences, such as the one where Tobey designs his suit.
After I requested this, I remembered that Peter Gallagher was on "The OC" and am pleased his little cameo got a big reaction from you. He is indeed doing his own singing, and is meant to evoke Dean Martin. There was also another little cameo that most people are sure to miss: when the movie shows an old-fashioned black-and-white theatrical newsreel about the Hula Hoop's success, the voice on the newsreel is the Coens' future Big Lebowski star John Goodman. Goodman is one of the most reliable members of their unofficial repertory company, having appeared in at least six of their movies, similar to Buscemi, who is in five.
Near the end of the credits, the following text appears: "The foregoing was a fictional account of the development of the Hula Hoop and the characters bear no resemblance to any real person or business concern. The Hula Hoop was actually developed by the founders of the toy company Wham-O, a true American success story. Wham-O was subsequently responsible for the development of the Frisbee and numerous other toy products." Joel Coen said in an interview, "We had to come up with something that Norville was going to invent that on the face of it was ridiculous. Something that would seem, by any sort of rational measure, to be doomed to failure, but something that on the other hand the audience already knew was going to be a phenomenal success." They also then credited the idea with bringing the whole movie together, integrating the circle motif into the story structure and also tying it into the big clock.
Also, she doesn't drug him or anything. She's going a mile-a-minute, so it's no surprise it gets missed the first time, but when they arrive at Norville's office she has a line about not liking Buzz, so he carried her several stories instead of taking the elevator, and being sort of a dummy (albeit a well-meaning one), he chokes when he downs his hard liquor in one gulp.
Tyler Foster
2024-12-31 16:54:48 +0000 UTC
So it's After New years basically.
Christopher simeon
2024-12-31 14:01:22 +0000 UTC
I have no idea what their hours are over the holidays. 😂 Not surprising you're seeing it here first!
kaiielle
2024-12-31 07:21:27 +0000 UTC
Ha, Reactr hasn't even emailed me about this yet.
Tyler Foster
2024-12-31 07:20:40 +0000 UTC