Why I love it when Hollywood doesn’t take itself too seriously

We were recently shopping and stumbled upon a rack of $3 movies. There is some sort of law that requires us to then browse the entire rack and purchase at least one title. As we were looking through we stumbled across a movie that had a remarkable explanation for its R rating (I don’t remember what the movie was and it is, frankly, beside the point).

As you can see, it is rated R because of language and “werewolf attacks” – not violence, not gore but specifically “werewolf attacks.” I can’t quite explain why this cracks me up so very much, but it does. This is a tiny little thing – most people would probably not even notice this, but I find it hilarious.

I also love when there are little easter eggs hidden in the credits because, let’s face it, how many people actually read the credits. Nowadays many people will wait through the credits to see if there is a hidden scene or outtakes or something like that, but it doesn’t seem that many people (though obviously there are some) who actually read them. I have a habit of doing this. Not in depth and not every line, but I love looking for odd names or misspellings (if you look at the end of Dante’s Peak they misspell Pierce Brosnan’s name once) or anything else out of the ordinary. This paid off recently with Frozen when there was a disclaimer that “The views and opinions expressed by Kristoff in the film that all men eat their own boogers are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Walt Disney Company or the filmmakers. Neither The Walt Disney Company nor the filmmakers make any representation of the accuracy of any such views and opinions.” I love that someone took the time to put that little bit of nonsense in. And that I caught it in the theater!

Another one that I have always appreciated was in the credits of the animated feature Cats Don’t Dance (which is an absolutely fabulous and much-overlooked film that I should write a post about soon). In the credits there is a disclaimer that “No animals were harmed in the making of this film. Although some were erased and had to be redrawn.” I mean, come on. That’s brilliant.

These are the kinds of things that make me love the movie industry. I’ve been thinking of this because Oscar season is upon us. And while many of the films that are recognized by the Academy are wonderful films and I have nothing against it, the thing that has always bothered me about the Oscars is how very serious everything is. Sure, they get someone to host it who tells some jokes or pokes fun at things, but the selection of the films and those that win always seems very narrow to me. There are a lot of wonderful movies that are Action/Adventure or Romantic Comedies or Science Fiction that rarely get a nod much less a win. I think if the industry could just take itself a little less seriously (like some of these films) things could be a bit more entertaining.

*Disclaimer: This is just my opinion and if you like the Oscars the way they are, that is perfectly fine. I just have issues 🙂