Stay ConnectedHere on the Large Marge Sent Us podcast, Sweety and Sweetie are our names and nostalgia is our game! Once a week (or more if you’re lucky!) we watch movies from the 80s and 90s that shaped our childhoods and then have a sisterly chat about them. We usually sing songs and there’s about a 100% chance we’ll crack up with bouts of laughter. We hope you will too! So come join us and step back into a time when life was good and the movies were even better
Logo created lovingly by Frankie Donlon.
From 1991, Nothing but Trouble is a Dan Ackroyd written, directed and starred in movie that is nothing but a big old creepy mess! Winner of several Razzies and probably one of Roger Ebert's worst reviews, the movie stars Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy and features yuppies getting pulled over in a podunk town on their way to Atlantic City, only to be taken to the local justice of the peace to be arraigned for their crimes. Chaos ensues because the justice of the peace is some weird dude with giant babies who wear diapers as his grandkids and also has this weird pseudo horror house that they must escape from. This movie is a little bit comedy, a little bit horror movie but not enough of either of those to make a successful film. It's also one we don't recommend watching while you're eating because yeah it's gross. We'll talk about where good ole Danny boy went wrong with this one, early 90s GPS systems and our thoughts on the fruit punch concoction Hawaiian Punch!
1986's American Tail is one of the few non-Disney cartoons that we remember from childhood, though one we weren't totally game to watch often since it's A. kind of scary B. kind of sad! Starring the voice talents of Dom Deluise, Christopher Plummer and Madeline Kahn, American Tail is an immigrant story about a little Russian Jewish mouse who immigrates to the US but gets separated from his parents when he gets swept out to sea on the way there. Luckily they all make it to New York, but they have the means streets of the Big Apple, killer cats, and really mean orphans to contend with before they can be reunited. We'll talk about the history of Don Bluth - aka the alternate to Disney cartoon guy from the 80s/90s and how his movies differ from Disney's, how scary the Mouse of Minsk was, and how if only mice were this cute in real life (and wore hats, and shoes and played the violin), Sweetie wouldn't hate them so much.
1996's Matilda is a pretty great adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's book that the Sweeties held near and dear to their hearts, the little bookworms that they were. Starring Mara Wilson, the IT cute girl of the mid 90s, Danny DeVito (+ he directed it and provides the narration, yo give someone else a job Danny!), Rhea Pearlman, and Embeth Daviditz as Miss Honey, the best teacher you never had. This movie does a great job combining the whimsical, grossness of most Roald Dahl stories but also made us never want to eat chocolate cake again. Poor Brucey! We'll talk a lot about Roald Dahl, telekinesis, and the importance of bathroom books.
Happy New Year! Our big announcement this week is Sweetie is pregnant and we'll be welcoming Sweetie Jr. to the podcast in early July! In celebration, we watched She's Having a Baby, a not often thought of John Hughes film that should be called He's Having a Breakdown, because Kevin Bacon's Jefferson "Jake" Briggs is having a mid life crisis ... and he's just 25! This movie was weird guys, and really wasn't about babies at all! It was about a not great marriage with not great people and many, many dream sequences that really took the movie to a bad place. However, you'll enjoy lots of John Hughes' movie alumns in this, enjoy Kevin Bacon's cool 80s wardrobe and the soundtrack wasn't half bad! Plus Alec Baldwin is at his sleeziest and man it is gross. Tune in to us talk babies and Bacon!
This week we're covering one of the few Christmas movies that can also be filed under the action movie genre with 1998's Die Hard. Bruce Willis plays John McClane, a cop from New York City who finds himself bound for California on Xmas Eve to visit his estranged wife, meeting her at her office Christmas party. Unfortunately some German terrorists show up, eager to break into the company safe and steal $600 million dollars. Unbeknownst to the terrorists, McClane is a bad ass and not the person you want stalking around barefoot within the building trying to foil your every move! This is one of the titular action movies of the 80s and one that spawned many, many sequels and it's well deserved. Both clever and exciting, hilarious and touching, this movie has it all! We'll talk about how we've seen this movie just once before (shame shame on us) but barely remembered anything about it, whatever happened to hostage crises and how we suddenly think Bruce Willis is pretty hot. Also, so many Large Marge alum in this movie! A Fratelli brother + the mom from Goonies, Betty Spaghetti and Vigo the Carpathian!
We did a Christmas adjacent movie this week guys! Meet Me in St. Louis from 1944 is responsible for that little melancholy diddy, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", but there's so much more to it! Following The Smith family for a year in early turn of the century St. Louis, this movie takes place across all four seasons and one Sweetie loved to bits when she was little. From the costumes to the quaint songs, Judy Garland's glamour and just the general vibe of director Vincent Minnelli's masterpiece, we are still digging it! We'll talk about the infamous Halloween scene, how John Truett is kinda of ehhhh, and how crazy it is that they thought Rose was a dried up old hag at the age of 18 because she wasn't married yet. But hey that's 1903 for ya! Plus, we'll chat about Judy Garland's strange eyebrows in this but goddamit she's still beautiful in every way!
Hooray it's December, time for holiday movies! From 1996, Jingle All the Way finds Arnold Schwarzenegger as "bad dad" Howard Langston, a workaholic mattress salesman who drops the Christmas ball, if you will, by forgetting to get his son Jamie the coveted Christmas toy of the season - Turbo Man. Christmas chaos ensues as Howard spends Christmas Eve on the hunt for the elusive toy, and will do whatever it takes to fulfill his son's Christmas wish! Also starring Rita Wilson, Phil Hartman, Jake Lloyd and Sinbad as the unhinged mailman nemesis also looking a Turbo Man for his son. We'll talk about some quintessential 90s thangs (Suburbans! Long cord phones! Pay phones!), our own real life remembrance of toy hysterias from history, and run through a list of some our favorite toys that we requested for Christmas back in the day!
Happy Thanksgiving week guys! While not a "Thanksgiving movie", Funny Farm was our choice to get you through this turkey and stuffing eating, Black Friday shopping, Zooming with everyone you know week! From 1988, Chevy Chase plays a slightly smarter, albeit possibly even more narcissistic version of Clark Griswold in the sports writer turned wannabe action adventure author Andy Farmer. When Andy and his wife Elizabeth leave their New York City life for the country dreams of Vermont, they get more then they bargained for, including an honest look at their marriage! We'll talk about how psycho Andy Farmer is and agree to disagree if Elizabeth is equally as bad, if the proper way to drive over a rickety as f covered bridge, and what exactly are rocky mountain oysters? Cue the deer!
From 1953, Disney's Peter Pan is an older cartoon that we grew to love fondly as children. The boy who would never grow up, Captain Hook and cute little Tinkerbelle were certainly a big part of our childhood. However viewing this movie now, as mid 30s women, we're somewhat troubled by its misogynistic overtones and racist portrayal of Native Americans! Nearly 70 years later, Disney has realized that the movie is pretty racist in its depiction of Native Americans, and has a nice little disclaimer to note this when the film begins, which is all well and good, but where does that leave us with Peter Pan? We sure enjoyed the nostalgic jolt to our system and Nana will always be the best character in the movie. We'll talk about how Wendy gets treated like crapola the entire movie but is still pretty bad ass, what exactly is the relationship between Tink and Peter, and why the hell that crocodile can never finally swallow Captain Hook?
Welp, we made it through the election relatively unscathed and certainly happier than the 2016 election! So we thought it was apropos to do a political comedy and we picked Dave! From 1993, directed by Ivan Reitman (of Ghostbusters fame) and starring Kevin Kline as presidential look-a-like Dave Kovic. Dave impersonates the president and then finds himself the actual president after real President Bill Mitchell has a heart attack and falls into a coma after an aggressive boning sesh with his secretary! While the president's chief of staff think he's just a dopey gooder, turns out Dave actually makes a much better president and intends to really use this new platform he has to better the country. This one has a great cast and is super clever and fun and while it may capture a very sunny, optimistic politics is mostly good side of things, we'll take it, especially in this crazy political world we have now. We'll talk about how great we think Kevin Kline is, how we'd decorate the Oval Office if we were president, and Sweetie gives us all a history lesson about the time that Woodrow Wilson was basically incapacitated just like Bill Mitchell!
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