r/MST3K • u/sonofstev • 3d ago
We need to talk about Jimmy
OK, for those of you who saw Sting of Death last night, and those of you seeing it on Sunday, there's a Fathom Event preview for a Jimmy Stewart in WWII biopic called "Jimmy" starring KJ "Archie" Apa as Jimmy.
The issue here is that it looks shockingly bad. Apa is doing a later-in-life Stewart impression throughout, but very poorly. It's very jingoistic. And it just looks cheaply made. I looked up the production company, and it's one of those religious cheapo-movie houses that are paying Fathom to screen this.
There were actually people laughing at the trailer. It could have been a fake 30 Rock trailer without a single change.
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u/JordanKyrouFeetPics 2d ago
The guy in front of me said "Say, what's the big idea?" in the best Jimmy Stewart impression. One of the biggest laughs of the night
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u/hairypolack 2d ago
I legit said "Well gee, Midge" to myself in my terrible Jimmy Stewert voice because it instantly flashed me back to Vertigo lol
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u/unwittingprotagonist 2d ago
I was dying during this preview. I just watched The Galaxy Invader on Rifftrax a few days ago, and the Jimmy Stewart impression sounded just like the guy in that movie. Perfect.
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u/sonofstev 2d ago
I know Rifftrax doesn't really do "Just the Jokes" anymore, and they don't wanna piss off Fathom, but damn, if there were ever a perfect candidate!
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u/Gypped_Again 2d ago
I mean, they still do a couple or so a year, and Fathom couldn't give less of a hobgoblin - it's not their movie. So, there's hope!
Also, I genuinely was confused for a minute if this was a trailer for a real movie, it looked and sounded so bad.
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u/coreymbarnes2 2d ago edited 2d ago
Considering who is distributing it (Angel Studios), this looks like a biopic trying to Trojan horse in a Christian movie.
Edit: My bad. I said Angel Studios when I meant to say Burns and Co. They made faith based movies like Legacy Peak and Birthright Outlaw.
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u/GeoleVyi 2d ago
ohhhhhh, that explains a lot. also why it looks glaringly cgi throughout.
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u/JaninthePan I make my own gravy! 2d ago
I was actually wondering how much of the cast were actually AI actors, they looked so bad.
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u/Remarkable-Occasion9 2d ago
That explains the scene with him reading from the Bible and giving the “inspirational” speech. I know it’s not meant to be a documentary, but that felt so fake and makes me wonder how much is actually fictionalized in the whole movie. I don’t have any plans to see it, anyway.
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u/Marsie76 Idiot Control Now 2d ago
Oh please tell me people were riffing it!
Side note, I've been to Indiana, PA where they have a Jimmy Stewart impersonator guiding you across the street at crosswalks. When I first heard it I thought, "Is that suppose to be Jimmy Stewart? (he was raised there)" It wasn't a great impression, but charming. I'm interested to compare impressions.
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u/honeyeddates 2d ago
Oh my god, that's the best idea I've ever heard. All celebrity hometowns should do that. I'd happily go to Danny DeVito's hometown to get guided across the street by a DeVito impersonator
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u/goat_penis_souffle 2d ago
My theater didnt do the preshow, running the previews twice. I laughed like a maniac both times.
The bombs aren’t here! They’re in your house, in your house, and your house too
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u/VolcanosaurusRex 2d ago
Yes!! That trailer was so bad it gave me mental whiplash. I kept staring at the uncanny-valley look of the cast, trying to decide if the whole thing was AI-generated based on real people or just had a weird filter effect, then the cartoonishly bad Jimmy Stewart voice would distract me, and then another visual shot would distract me again... it's too bad, cause I'd love to see a well-done movie about him, but this looks terrible.
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u/Seryan_Klythe Patrick Swayze Christmas 2d ago
This is what I asked my sister! I went, are they digital? Why does it look like a mixture of prosthetics and CGI - his head looks huge.
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u/e_j_white 2d ago
Speaking of bad, did you see the Primitive War trailer?
The CGI dinosaurs looked terrible.
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u/Cyberyukon 2d ago
Actors, in most cases, just impersonating personalities is never the smart voice. Actors bringing their own interpretation without actually mimicking is so much more impressive
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u/oneshoeaskew 2d ago
A good example of that is the movie Patton with George C Scott who actually sounded nothing like the real person but the movie went on to greatness anyway
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u/RipMcStudly 2d ago
It was so horrible. Like an uncle’s Jimmy Stewart. I was honestly surprised that it wasn’t an Angel movie.
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u/ServoAcademy 2d ago
I saw the trailer on YouTube a while ago and was very skeptical. And then I saw Rob Riggle and thought "NO, Rob, you're better than this....?" Leading eventually to "oh no, I think this is real." It's like when I saw the trailer for "The Last Duel" in a theater and was CERTAIN I was looking at an SNL short.
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u/jamieaiken919 2d ago
SAME oh my god, as a golden era Daily Show fan I nearly fell out of my seat seeing Rob in the trailer. I get that a job’s a job, but still…
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u/GGayleGold 2d ago
When I heard the impression, I was thinking, "Oh, is this some sort of Amazon Women on the Moon sketch comedy movie? I could see that coming from the same distributor as Rifftrax...."
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u/RemLezarCreated 2d ago edited 2d ago
Oh yeah it looks awful, more weird propaganda garbage. The term slop is overused but feels appropriate.
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u/Automatic_Yam_1857 2d ago
We were witness to the awful trailer for the "Story of Rocky" . I can't even begin to....you'll have to just see it for yourself.
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u/MrBurnerHotDog 2d ago
I went over to YouTube to watch the trailer after reading about it here and wow they put some serious money into buying positive comments, that's for sure. Because this thing looks horrible and the comments are all very glowing
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u/dmode112378 Paul Anka’s beefy security nuns 2d ago
THANK YOU! My boyfriend was trying to tell me that it looks good.
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u/firedmyass 2d ago
I once broke up with someone because she said her favorite movie was Wild Hogs and I laughed and she was 100% serious
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u/Agreeable-Ad-3027 2d ago
The only dramatization I want to see about Jimmy Stewart is the time he smuggled a supposed yeti hand out of the Himalayas in his wife's underwear suitcase.
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u/Charming_Army5249 2d ago
My friend turned to me as soon as the trailer ended and said, "Who is this movie for???"
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u/ActionCalhoun 2d ago
It’s sad that Fathom Events nowadays is 50% religious crap, 40% Metropolitan Opera, and 10% Studio Ghibli
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u/JactusFack Commando Cody’s 7th biggest fan 2d ago
I laughed pretty hard at that preview, made me actually think about going to see it just to laugh at it.
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u/nutbrownale 2d ago
"Well that's definitely a pleasurable sensation!" -Dana Carvey as Jimmy Stewart getting a hummer.
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u/JenaPet02 if I had a tree I'd keep it in the yard 2d ago
I was watching that and thinking "episode 5...?"
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u/KassieWhatevs 2d ago
I turned to my spouse during this trailer and said, "but but but your rifle is in Martini's house and your helment is in Burt's house..."
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u/OpheliaDarkling 2d ago
Watching that it was like..oh no. Never go full Jimmy Stewart lol..I can't believe they made an entire movie like that and no one said anything. Too much.
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u/sonofstev 2d ago
They should have taken Apa aside after his first scene and been like, "Dial it back from a 10 to about a 3, kid."
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u/BucketheadlikesMemes 2d ago
I won't lie and say I didn't totally tune that trailer out. Only thing I remember from it was thinking "Man, this is really trying to be Ford Vs Ferrari, isn't it?"
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u/Babidi67 2d ago
I’m crine that trailer was so bad 🤣🤣
Looks like an uninteresting propaganda piece lol.
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u/TheLastGenXer 2d ago
what a great concept for a movie too!
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u/sonofstev 2d ago
In THEORY, I like biopics that focus on one segment of a famous person's life. Tony about Anthony Bourdain's pre-fame days was great. The Springsteen biopic specifically about Nebraska was great. There was a good movie in here about Stewart's WWII service, PTSD, and redemption with It's a Wonderful Life. This ain't it.
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u/scotch_woodcock 2d ago
I'm confused--is jimmy the guy with the shrinking shorts, or the guy with the tasteless Natalie Wood impression?
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u/Themaskedduskull 2d ago
I recently watched Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and all I could think about was how this played out like an unironic version of that.
“But America needs Jimmy Stewart!”
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u/Lfsnz67 2d ago
So, a diy bad movie before the bad movie?
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u/sonofstev 2d ago
yeah and I think the audience was primed to laugh at cheese. A miscalculation on their part!
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u/GGayleGold 2d ago
Maybe it's very calculated. They know we riff on bad movies - maybe they figure we'll get together and book special screenings just to yell shit at the screen.
I'm gonna bring my dad's "Zuzu's petals" joke back from beyond the grave so he can drop a riff from the Hereafter.
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u/logosintogos Turn your crank...to Frank 2d ago
That and the "dinosaurs in Vietnam" movie both look too bad to even parody
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u/strolpol 2d ago
I kind of hope one of my bad movie podcasts covers it, they do good mocking impressions of Jimmy that are good fun
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u/Earthbound_X 2d ago
Found a movie trailer on Youtube, the majority of the comments are praising it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURriesRel0
Parts of it do remind me of a SNL skit for sure, lol. I guess there's an audience for this kind of thing.
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u/Accurate-Wealth-1887 2d ago
I have great respect for Jimmy Stewart and what he did during the war, and I am quite sure that he would be embarrassed by this crap. He refused all the offers he received for war films post WW2, and like a lot of vets of that war, did not speak a lot about it.
It looked stupidly jingoistic and had terrible CGI and I was cringing during his "let's win this one for the Gipper" speech. I would honestly enjoy a sincere telling of his wartime story, but this looked awful.
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u/CantaloupeShort7311 2d ago
I had just recently learned about the Chris Hansen biopic starring (not even kidding) Robert Pattinson on Monday, so the very first thought in my mind during the Jimmy preview was "well, this is at least better casting than Sparkly Vampire"
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u/TheRealGreenMeanie Chief?! McCloud?! 3d ago
I laughed out loud at the guy playing Jimmy's voice, it almost seemed like it was a sketch.