I have over 1,200 DVDs, 3,000 CDs and a couple hundred books; over half of them the average person would be completely embarrassed to own. I, however, defend my purchases.
EPISODE 7: THE LADIES MAN
Movies based on Saturday Night Live skits tend to automatically come with the stigmata that they will suck. However history has proven that isn’t always true. While movies like Superstar and It’s Pat are so undefendably bad that even I won’t write That One Guy article on them, we shouldn’t ignore movies like MacGruber, Wayne’s World and Blues Brothers. Somewhere in between terrible and excellent are two SNL films that get a bad rep. Those films are Night at the Roxbury (coming soon) and today’s movie Ladies Man.
SNL skits tend to only have about 5 minute long shelf lives. After that, the jokes become stall and the catchphrases way over done. Movies that try to be 90 minute sketches will always end in disaster. What the successful movies did was take an established character and put them outside the realm of sketch.
Ladies Man was a sketch based around Leon Phelps (Tim Meadows), a talk radio show host. In the film however Leon is fired from his job at the radio station within 15 minutes. The film follows his adventures in job hunting, love and inheriting a large sum of money. Leon has been with hundreds of women, now down on is luck and jobless he gets a love letter from one of his past hook-ups. She misses him, loves him and is rich. More importantly she wants to run away with Leon. The downside is she hasn’t signed her name so Leon must go through all the past hook-ups in his life trying to find “the one”. While all this is going on; the now ex-husband of Leon’s last hook up has discovered an underground group of angry husbands. These men have all caught their wives cheating on them with Leon and want their revenge.
The problem with comedy and the way it’s reviewed is that sometimes critics forget to shut their brains off. This is not a good movie, it’s existiance hasn’t helped or hurt society. But if you check your brain at the door and just watch you’ll find yourself laughing a lot. Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie 11%… however the audience review is 42%. Neither rank a ‘fresh’ rating… but it’s clear that the average viewer liked it more than the critics.
With the exception of Wayne’s World, this is without a doubt the most quotable SNL movie. The lines are quick, bizarre and funny. Leon’s constant obsession with sex leads to some outrageously funny dialogue, such as this one.
A movie like Ladies Man truly incapulates what I made this column for. This isn’t me trying to defend a bad movie by saying it’s a masterpiece. It’s me trying to defend a movie that I think got shit on to quickly, got the cold shoulder from multiple people and has now become buried in obscurity.
Tim Meadows is extremely funny and had some of the best comic timing and delivery in SNL history. For further examples of his comedic brilliance watch his performance in Mean Girls. Sadly Ladies Man was his only ‘character’ on SNL; most of his career was based on impressions and background characters despite having one of the longest tenures as a cast member. Even sadder is that Ladies Man is his only starring movie role; a critically hated box-office bomb that has most likely tainted his career forever. I will however always have fun watching this film and hoping that Tim Meadows will get a second chance.
When Matt Kelly isn’t watching Tim Meadows comedies he’s writing in his blog Pure Mattitude, Producing his Podcast The Saint Mort Show or contributing to Ranker.com