Everything's Coming up Rosie

May 6, 2005 6:10 AM

Everything's Coming up Rosie Just further proof that Ms. O'Donnell is one of the finest actresses of this generation, nay, of this millennium.
posted by rokabiri (38 comments total)

Her performance is very reminiscent of Bob Odenkirk in "The Bob Lamonta Story" from Mr. Show. All Rosie needed to do to complete the homage is to yell "I'm strong! Like The Hulk! My shoes hurt!"
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:18 AM on May 6, 2005

Filthy's take: he did a combined review with some new movie directed by Fox Mulder that features Robin Williams as a retarded and wise janitor.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:27 AM on May 6, 2005

juliette lewis > rosie o'donnell
posted by Mach5 at 6:31 AM on May 6, 2005

What a horrible pair of movies.
posted by graventy at 6:36 AM on May 6, 2005

juliette lewis > rosie o'donnell

You can't really compare them: Rosie O'Donnell is acting. Juliette Lewis is actually retarded and therefore has an advantage.

You might think I'm being flip and cruel, but I present evidence of my allegation.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:36 AM on May 6, 2005

Before it started [watching Riding the Bus with my Sister] I was a dyed-in-the-wool hardcore atheist, but now, having watched it, I believe Satan is real. There's simply no other explanation for the existence of this cinematic turd.
posted by furtive at 6:43 AM on May 6, 2005

Interesting: almost all of the positive comments on IMDB come from people who work or know the developmentally disabled, while none of the negatives offer up any outside experience. Could be astroturf I suppose, or circling the wagons by groups that stand to benefit from greater awareness. Anyone seen a negative review from someone with experience of working/living with the mentally retarded?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:55 AM on May 6, 2005

There've been jobs I've had where there were mentally disabled people working there too, and while I didn't see the movie, what I saw in the ads seemed horribly overacted, almost parodic, which is ironic if the goal is to show these people with some dignity.
posted by jonmc at 7:06 AM on May 6, 2005

That made no sense whatsoever. Is there a backstory?
posted by mischief at 7:08 AM on May 6, 2005

I can't get the site in the fpp to load. It only loads the top part of the page, then stops either right after the ad banner or halfway thru it.

That said I saw the ads for this thing, and it was pretty clear how bad it was going to be. The underbite was a serious miscalculation, imho. What was in the ads was like a cruel caricature of a retarded person.

It can be done well - witness Mickey Rooney in "Bill" lo these many years ago.
posted by beth at 7:16 AM on May 6, 2005

I don't need Rosie O'Donnell to awaken me to the fact that mentally retarted people can have rich emotional lives and experiences. This whole movie--which I didn't watch, but I saw the clips--seems very, very condescending.
posted by tomharpel at 7:17 AM on May 6, 2005

I was waiting for Tom Hanks to jump out and say:

Are you crying? Theres no crying in retardation!
posted by dr_dank at 7:27 AM on May 6, 2005

dr_dank wins!
posted by ORthey at 9:05 AM on May 6, 2005

"Click on Rosie O'Donnell to play."

Words I never need to read again
posted by gurple at 9:06 AM on May 6, 2005

My husband has a degree in social work and has worked with disabled adults for years. When the commercial for this movie came on TV, he turned red, puffed out his cheeks and fell on the floor laughing. Now he runs around the house yelling, "I'm Rosie O'Donnell and I'm different!" Har.
posted by dual_action at 9:10 AM on May 6, 2005

Your husband is a wise, wise man.
posted by trondant at 9:12 AM on May 6, 2005

Mayor Curley, I checked out that link and wondered what she meant by "clear." Clicking that word brought me to this definition:

"Clear: a highly desirable state for the individual, achieved through auditing, which was never attainable before Dianetics. A Clear is a person who no longer has his own reactive mind and therefore suffers none of the ill effects that the reactive mind can cause. The Clear has no engrams which, when restimulated, throw out the correctness of his computations by entering hidden and false data. See Chapter 13."

Why is Scientology so damned weird??
posted by ktoad at 9:30 AM on May 6, 2005

consommé (adj.)-Urban Scientologist slang, descriptive of a clear individual: "J-Lew is totally consommé, my brothah."
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:45 AM on May 6, 2005

Why is Scientology so damned weird??

Because if it made any sense, you wouldn't have to buy thousands of dollars worth of books to decipher the bullshit.
posted by Jart at 9:46 AM on May 6, 2005

I have actually met Juliette Lewis and she is not, in fact retarded. An idiot due to scientology perhaps, but she appears quite intelligent and articulate in person.
posted by miss tea at 9:47 AM on May 6, 2005

I hear Rosie has one a them blogs, too, and a flickr photoset.
posted by fixedgear at 10:09 AM on May 6, 2005

Rosie O'Donnell holds one major record that won't ever be broken (except maybe by Tom Hanks). She's got a HUGE head.

Her acting? Meh, she makes my skin crawl so she should probably stick to Kathy Bates style roles where she tortures James Caan. She'd be excellent as a pyscho. Other than that, can she please die in the first three minutes of every movie she's in? Or how about just not putting her in movies anymore?

ktoad, scientologists are fucking creepy! I had a pal who did some stuff with them once and, for YEARS, he would get a monthly packet of hand written letters from people imploring him to come back. It was very unsettling.
posted by fenriq at 10:56 AM on May 6, 2005

Anyone seen a negative review from someone with experience of working/living with the mentally retarded?

There's that link at the top of the page, the one we're discussing. It contains several comments on the order of "I teach special ed, and this disgusted me."

Now to put her and Pauly Shore and Tom Arnold on a rocket to the sun...
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:14 AM on May 6, 2005

There's that link at the top of the page, the one we're discussing.

Ah, I just watched the vid, didn't scroll down to the comments.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:18 AM on May 6, 2005

I used to manage a group home for mentally retarded adults and yes, in my opinion, this show sucked.

Incidentally, I thought the extra special performance by McDowell was just as bad as Rosie. This kind of schlock makes me feel nauseous, kinda like when I hear someone say, "some of my best friends are black." Yeah, I am proud of you for not stating at the wheelchair folks any more, you've matured a lot, you're a real hero.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:30 AM on May 6, 2005

Direct link to 2mb quicktime file.

This is painful. And inaccurate.
posted by quiet at 12:04 PM on May 6, 2005

I HAVE NO MOUTH, YET I MUST SCREAM self-link.

I bravely condemned the film based on the ads.

The wife and I did tune in just to sip the horror. It was indeed mind-wrecking. A "friend" of ours taped it and swears he will make us watch it.
posted by Skot at 12:32 PM on May 6, 2005

I had heard how bad Rosie was going to be, so maybe my expectations were too high, but she wasn't all that bad. I mean, the whole backstory of her grabbing and propelling this project for obvious "Serious Role" cred is still bad, but the characterization, other than the reminders of Pee-Wee Herman, wasn't so bad as I expected.

On the other hand, I agree completely with Pollomacho about Andie MacDowell. It was either her or Huston's direction, but her Rachel character seemed completely opaque, jerking from one plot milestone to another without any intelligible motivation. It may be partly because I know the real Rachel, who is much more effusive, that she came off so cardboard-y to me. But that's how it seemed from my vantage point, anyway.
posted by soyjoy at 1:19 PM on May 6, 2005

PST: for the record, my comment was meant to be said with wry amusement, not nasty venom.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:51 PM on May 6, 2005

Ms. O'Donnell is one of the finest actresses of this generation

Surely you jest
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:20 PM on May 6, 2005

PST: for the record, my comment was meant to be said with wry amusement, not nasty venom.

BUT IT HURT ME IN MY HEART.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 5:01 PM on May 6, 2005

MRK: well...................yeah.
posted by rokabiri at 5:40 PM on May 6, 2005

I didn't see it. Seems like she really did her research. Loud. Bad hair. Goofy walk. Yep. That's retarded all right.

Did she run amok?

Everybody KNOWS that Retards have super ape-like strength and can spontaneously fly into rages like when they see shiny objects. Or you take away their pet stuffed rabbit. Or deny them petting a puppy. Etc.

Safety note: You have to scream "RETARD AMOK! RETARD AMOK!" to warn people when this happens.

I know that's insensitive. But if you yell "Mentally disabled adult physically out of control!"

Well... you get halfway through "MENTALLY DIS..." And those crazy bastards have already chewed off somebody's leg!

So. Did she? Like, over-turn cars and shit? You know. For accuracy sake. Otherwise she'll never get that Emmy.
posted by tkchrist at 5:52 PM on May 6, 2005

PST: I'd give you a hug to make it all better, but I assure you that you don't want whatever bug I have now.

you get halfway through "MENTALLY DIS..." And those crazy bastards have already chewed off somebody's leg!

This is why in Texas, we have the good sense to execute our amokular retards. *spit* No doubt our industrious legislators in Austin are right now beavering away at a bill that would allow us to just gather them up into a big ball Katamari Damacy style, take off, and nuke the ball from orbit (or perhaps Oklahoma).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:57 PM on May 6, 2005

I don't think it's as much an issue of Rosie O'Donnell's questionable acting skills as it is about the fact that her portrayal of a mentally-disabled person isn't much different from how she acts in real life.
posted by riffraff at 12:33 AM on May 7, 2005

tkchrist -
Safety note: You have to scream "RETARD AMOK! RETARD AMOK!" to warn people when this happens.

That comment made a big goober of snot fly out of my nose and onto the back of my hand.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 9:49 AM on May 7, 2005

Myself, I'm just upset that "Everything's Coming Up Rosie" isn't O'Donnell's bestial porn extravaganza along the lines of the legendary "Animal Farm".
posted by howfar at 10:55 AM on May 7, 2005

I've heard they like cake.
posted by cytherea at 11:40 PM on May 7, 2005