Last night, after recovering from a day of guitar-playing and steak-eating, my family and I settled in to watch "The Death of Stalin". Not to be confused with The "Death of a Salesman". Completely different movies, although people die in each one. Unfortunately, they do not die via one of RodeoSchro's Approved Methods of Film Death.

Have I not listed RodeoSchro's Approved Methods of Film Death? Let's rectify that oversight now!

RODEOSCHRO'S APPROVED METHODS OF FILM DEATHS

1. Death at the hands of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham or James Bond (the cool James Bonds, not that poor imitation that Daniel Craig does). Or Dolph Lundgren. Or, really, anyone I consider a bada**. Tom Cruise is on this list, pending my viewing of "Mission" Impossible - Fallout Boy" which should take place in less than 5 hours! *See below

2. Death at the hands of a monster. But only a cool monster. Lame space monsters like Transformers and Pacific Rimsters don't count but other space monsters that are cool - like Alien or Predator - definitely do count. Obviously monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman are at the top of this list. Use them as examples of what cool monsters are

3. Death at the hands of a supervillian. But only if it's a minor character we don't care much about, AND/OR the supervillian is cool enough to be hated. Uncool supervillians like Marvel Comics supervillians don't count because if they are uncool, then they can't really be supervillians, can they? Cool supervillians would be people like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger

4. Death via a method that makes me laugh. Self-explanatory

As I mentioned, there is death in this...movie. Now you are asking, "RodeoSchro - why the ellipse? Is your keyboard stuck? Clearly this is a movie! It's not some stupid Hitler documentary from NetFlix!"

No, it's not some stupid Hitler documentary from NetFlix - but it's close. The ellipse is because I don't know what kind of movie this is supposed to be.

Is it a comedy? It starts off as one but then there's very little comedy after that. And the things that make you laugh are not readily identifiable as comedic pieces. It's confusing. All these horrible Enemies Of America are just bad, bad guys - in both the movie and in real life (did you see this movie, President Trump? I bet you were rooting for Bariya, weren't you????). It's kind of hard to laugh at stuff that Steve Buscemi says in his portrayal of Khruschev, when you know that Khruschev was a mass murderer.

Is it a documentary? If so, it's not a very good one. In addition to the comedic attempts (which are not usually found in a documentary), it doesn't really seem like this version of events is historically accurate. It's just weird. One of the weirdest things is how they handle Stalin's Death Lists. First with (attempted) comedy, then with subterfuge. The Molotov guy was on a Death List when Stalin kicked the bucket. He was one of the Communist Council members and unbeknownst to him (at the time) all his fellow Communist Council members knew he was on a Death List. When Stalin died, that meant that Molotov was no longer on a Death List. Now, you would think he'd be mad that none of his buddies warned him about being on a Death List - or at the very least, not trust them. But no! After they give him his wife back, he acts like nothing has ever happened. Not being on a Death List, not getting back the wife that he had condemned to death - none of it mattered to Molotov. Weird. I was expecting some cocktails of the Molotov variety but I was disappointed.

Is it a period piece? I guess, if you accept a bunch of very very British actors playing Russians but using their very very British accents in their dialogue. No one in this movie speaks with a hint of a Russian accent. Steve Buscemi is the only American in a major role, which seems even more weird when you compare his accent to that of all the high-caliber British accents everyone else uses. Here's a rule - if you're going to use Steve Buscemi as a Russian but keep his American accent, you need to temper that with additional squeaky-voiced actors like Gilbert Gottfried and Bart Simpson.

When you don't know what a movie is, it's very hard for that movie to be any good. And that's the problem with this movie.

The death of Stalin was a good thing, but "The Death of Stalin" only gets 1,500,000 Stalin Death Lists out of 5,000,000 Stalin Death Lists.

* "Mission: Impossible - Fallout Boy" Update - The plan was this: (1) I was going to watch the movie, while across the street (2) my wife decorated on of our producer's office for their birthday (we go nuts for birthdays at our office. Too nuts, in fact. I've had to resort to near physical violence in order to stamp out the use of confetti. Confetti is the tool of the Devil). Then she would go home and bake a birthday cake, picking me up when the movie was over. Literally JUST AS WE WERE PULLING INTO THE PARKING LOT I made the fatal mistake of asking my wife if she needed my help with the office decorating. She looked up at me with sad, puppy dog eyes and said, "Well, what if I wanted to see the movie too?" I replied very intelligently, "You said Friday that you didn't want to see it. Plus, I'm still hearing it from you and my son about 'Equalizer 2 - A Distressingly Small Amount of Equalizing- and our son didn't even go to the movies with us that night". Perfect logic, right? I thought so too - until she replied, "I only meant I didn't want to see 'Mission Impossible - Fallout Boy' on Friday night. But I really do want to see it".

Yeah, right. This was nothing more than a ploy to get me to help ruin...uh, decorate, someone's office in such a manner that they won't be able to do any work until someone (me, obvs) cleans it up. I will probably never see "Mission: Impossible - Fallout Boy". But if I do, I already have the perfect opening line. You know how I hate to waste an original thought! (I know, I don't have many of them.)

.

[Edited 7/29/18 16:41pm]

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

RodeoSchro said:

Last night, after recovering from a day of guitar-playing and steak-eating, my family and I settled in to watch "The Death of Stalin". Not to be confused with The "Death of a Salesman". Completely different movies, although people die in each one. Unfortunately, they do not die via one of RodeoSchro's Approved Methods of Film Death.

Have I not listed RodeoSchro's Approved Methods of Film Death? Let's rectify that oversight now!

RODEOSCHRO'S APPROVED METHODS OF FILM DEATHS

1. Death at the hands of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham or James Bond (the cool James Bonds, not that poor imitation that Daniel Craig does). Or Dolph Lundgren. Or, really, anyone I consider a bada**. Tom Cruise is on this list, pending my viewing of "Mission" Impossible - Fallout Boy" which should take place in less than 5 hours! *See below

2. Death at the hands of a monster. But only a cool monster. Lame space monsters like Transformers and Pacific Rimsters don't count but other space monsters that are cool - like Alien or Predator - definitely do count. Obviously monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman are at the top of this list. Use them as examples of what cool monsters are

3. Death at the hands of a supervillian. But only if it's a minor character we don't care much about, AND/OR the supervillian is cool enough to be hated. Uncool supervillians like Marvel Comics supervillians don't count because if they are uncool, then they can't really be supervillians, can they? Cool supervillians would be people like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger

4. Death via a method that makes me laugh. Self-explanatory

As I mentioned, there is death in this...movie. Now you are asking, "RodeoSchro - why the ellipse? Is your keyboard stuck? Clearly this is a movie! It's not some stupid Hitler documentary from NetFlix!"

No, it's not some stupid Hitler documentary from NetFlix - but it's close. The ellipse is because I don't know what kind of movie this is supposed to be.

Is it a comedy? It starts off as one but then there's very little comedy after that. And the things that make you laugh are not readily identifiable as comedic pieces. It's confusing. All these horrible Enemies Of America are just bad, bad guys - in both the movie and in real life (did you see this movie, President Trump? I bet you were rooting for Bariya, weren't you????). It's kind of hard to laugh at stuff that Steve Buscemi says in his portrayal of Khruschev, when you know that Khruschev was a mass murderer.

Is it a documentary? If so, it's not a very good one. In addition to the comedic attempts (which are not usually found in a documentary), it doesn't really seem like this version of events is historically accurate. It's just weird. One of the weirdest things is how they handle Stalin's Death Lists. First with (attempted) comedy, then with subterfuge. The Molotov guy was on a Death List when Stalin kicked the bucket. He was one of the Communist Council members and unbeknownst to him (at the time) all his fellow Communist Council members knew he was on a Death List. When Stalin died, that meant that Molotov was no longer on a Death List. Now, you would think he'd be mad that none of his buddies warned him about being on a Death List - or at the very least, not trust them. But no! After they give him his wife back, he acts like nothing has ever happened. Not being on a Death List, not getting back the wife that he had condemned to death - none of it mattered to Molotov. Weird. I was expecting some cocktails of the Molotov variety but I was disappointed.

Is it a period piece? I guess, if you accept a bunch of very very British actors playing Russians but using their very very British accents in their dialogue. No one in this movie speaks with a hint of a Russian accent. Steve Buscemi is the only American in a major role, which seems even more weird when you compare his accent to that of all the high-caliber British accents everyone else uses. Here's a rule - if you're going to use Steve Buscemi as a Russian but keep his American accent, you need to temper that with additional squeaky-voiced actors like Gilbert Gottfried and Bart Simpson.

When you don't know what a movie is, it's very hard for that movie to be any good. And that's the problem with this movie.

The death of Stalin was a good thing, but "The Death of Stalin" only gets 1,500,000 Stalin Death Lists out of 5,000,000 Stalin Death Lists.

* "Mission: Impossible - Fallout Boy" Update - The plan was this: (1) I was going to watch the movie, while across the street (2) my wife decorated on of our producer's office for their birthday (we go nuts for birthdays at our office. Too nuts, in fact. I've had to resort to near physical violence in order to stamp out the use of confetti. Confetti is the tool of the Devil). Then she would go home and bake a birthday cake, picking me up when the movie was over. Literally JUST AS WE WERE PULLING INTO THE PARKING LOT I made the fatal mistake of asking my wife if she needed my help with the office decorating. She looked up at me with sad, puppy dog eyes and said, "Well, what if I wanted to see the movie too?" I replied very intelligently, "You said Friday that you didn't want to see it. Plus, I'm still hearing it from you and my son about 'Equalizer 2 - A Distressingly Small Amount of Equalizing- and our son didn't even go to the movies with us that night". Perfect logic, right? I thought so too - until she replied, "I only meant I didn't want to see 'Mission Impossible - Fallout Boy' on Friday night. But I really do want to see it".

Yeah, right. This was nothing more than a ploy to get me to help ruin...uh, decorate, someone's office in such a manner that they won't be able to do any work until someone (me, obvs) cleans it up. I will probably never see "Mission: Impossible - Fallout Boy". But if I do, I already have the perfect opening line. You know how I hate to waste an original thought! (I know, I don't have many of them.)

.

[Edited 7/29/18 16:41pm]

One method of movie death that is so clichéd that has to be out to rest immediately is the bad guy falling to his death. Think back to all the times the ending has the bad guy falling to his/her death. That is not a dramatic ending anymore. Well, not after the one millionth time.

No one will ever top this:

RodeoSchro said:

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

Someone should post a compilation of all the millions of endings like this. I think all of the Batman Films and Terminator films end with the bad guy falling. Most Disney movies end with the villain falling to his her death. It’s so lazy now lol.

With the exception of Die Hard or any movie with a high elevation premise at it’s core, it seems like they have to really try to come up with an excuse to end the film somewhere higher than ground level.


On a side note, I was recently reading the shooting script for Die Hard. Very fun read and very true to the final movie with all the details right there from the get-go
[Edited 7/30/18 13:32pm]

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

RodeoSchro said:

No one will ever top this:

Someone should post a compilation of all the millions of endings like this. I think all of the Batman Films and Terminator films end with the bad guy falling. Most Disney movies end with the villain falling to his her death. It’s so lazy now lol. With the exception of Die Hard or any movie with a high elevation premise at it’s core, it seems like they have to really try to come up with an excuse to end the film somewhere higher than ground level. On a side note, I was recently reading the shooting script for Die Hard. Very fun read and very true to the final movie with all the details right there from the get-go [Edited 7/30/18 13:32pm]

Somebody did! SPOILER ALERT - it doesn't include Sully from "Commando", so I'm glad I already posted that clip.

EmmaMcG said:

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

Someone should post a compilation of all the millions of endings like this. I think all of the Batman Films and Terminator films end with the bad guy falling. Most Disney movies end with the villain falling to his her death. It’s so lazy now lol. With the exception of Die Hard or any movie with a high elevation premise at it’s core, it seems like they have to really try to come up with an excuse to end the film somewhere higher than ground level. On a side note, I was recently reading the shooting script for Die Hard. Very fun read and very true to the final movie with all the details right there from the get-go [Edited 7/30/18 13:32pm]

Regarding villains falling to their deaths, yes, it does happen a lot but of the two Batman movies that count, only The Joker fell to his death. And of the two Terminator movies, it can be argued that neither had a villain fall to their death. The first Terminator was crushed and the T-1000 did fall but it wasn't the fall that killed him. It was what he fell into. And the Disney movies are kind of understandable. Most Disney movies are family movies. Young children will see them and Disney would probably rather not show the villains death on screen so simply having them falling out of shot is the best option. But aside from those, it does still seem like a cliché. Die Hard, Rush Hour, Batman, Commando (the "I lied" scene), it happens all the time.

Now I know you love "Commando" just as much as I do, so we have to clear this up!

The villian who was dropped to his death was Sully. Sully was in no way a major villian. He was at best a side henchman. Comedic relief. And you have to admit his death was VERY satisfying. In fact, one could make the argument that it was this scene that launched Arnold as an action hero with a comedian's sense of timing.

"Sorry to Bother You"

As an independent film, I liked it a lot. But it is not for everyone. The ending almost ruined it for me.

Unfortunately, I thought it was very stupid. Sorry.