The 'burbs

Well, for a movie born from a writer's strike, it could have been a lot worse. I enjoy it, though.

I really love this movie as well. Sure, its not the strongest film ever, and I'll admit that I have a lot of love for Dante films (namely this, Innerspace, and Explorers) but it definitely has a certain charm to it. The actors seem to be having a blast, and it features a quirky, memorable Jerry Goldsmith score (love the riffs on his own Patton theme and the western theme for Ray.) I remember discovering this as a Saturday afternoon matinee on tv when i was a kid, and thats what it works best as.

I love this movie.

Really charming and perfectly casted - You can tell everyone had a lot of fun with this one.

My personal favorite moments are Hanks' "It's not THEM! It's US!" flip-out, Corey Feldman assembling an audience for his neighbors and assuring them that he's called the pizza dude, and the Femur discovery.

I Love Hanks' seemingly innocuous note, too:

"Walter. I have your dog - Ray."

This movie introduced me to the great great Ric Ducommun. I even like Corey Feldman in it. Love it...

This move was a staple of my childhood, and it's followed into my adulthood. I love this movie a lot, and I will continue to love it. Tom Hanks Bruce Dern, and Ric Ducommun are a great trio, and have a lot of chemistry on screen. This a really great underrated film in the Hanks oveure, much like The Money Pit.

One thing I find funny is when Bruce Dern says to his wife, that Corey Feldman is a meatball, and several years later he was in Meatballs IV.

I also love the little gags, like when Rusmfield is scratching the wallpaper in the house, and rips off a piece, and when he starts to turn around the painting, Rick Ducommun proceeds to eat breakfast at Tom Hanks' house, and when he starts eating the ribs Hanks just has this funny serious look on his face.

The 'Burbs definitely makes my list of favourite movies. Watched it non-stop in high school with my sister and we quoted it constantly (mostly about pizza dudes coming). Have to admit I was addicted to the Coreys as well and anything with either of them in it made my list back then, The 'Burbs remains on my list. I recently bought it on dvd and have re-ignited the fun I had back then.

I do love at the end when they tell Duccomen his house is on fire and his wife is home and he goes off about his wife being home.

God I love this street!

I'm gutted the dvd doesn't have the original ending on it. With Hanks basically getting killed and the klopecs getting away with it. I'm glad with the one they went with because to be honest thats probably a bit more downbeat than the film deserves.

I have big love for the film as well, being a die hard Dante fan, but I have to confess I would have preferred the original ending. Dante himself has gone on record saying that's the ending he preferred and only really went with the one we got because it was a studio controlled picture.

I've never actually been able to get the whole Sardine/Pretzel thing out of my head.
It disturbs me.

One of my favorites. I watch it probably once every two-three months. A perfect relaxing Saturday afternoon type of movie, just like Ferguson says above.

In college whenever anyone would tell us some bullshit story my friends and I would yell out, "Oh, well Ricky Butler said!"

JS

"Do you know what this is?"

"It's a bone."

"It's a femur."

"It's a femur BONE."

"A femur just happens to be a human thigh bone!"

Hilarious.

I just love how when they show the wide shot of everyone in the room, Dern is off in the corner by himself, scratching the wallpaper. While everyone is together in the center of the room. That never fails to make me laugh.

The other bit is when Dern says "maybe that was brother down there knocking on the basement ceiling" and Uncle Rueben replies with "Who knows" that line delivery always cracks me up, and the elephant sound that Hanks makes when he blows his nose after eating the sardines has always puzzled me. I guess it was just put in for a weird laugh.

Venkman, are you sure your dvd doesn't have the alternate ending? Cause I found this about easter eggs on The 'Burbs Region 1 dvd:

http://www.hiddendvdeastereggs.com/films/38.html

Have to agree with everybody about how great this movie is. Genre fans love Joe Dante's work on Innerspace, The Howling, and the Gremlins movies, but The 'Burbs is his most funny movie. Love the bit with Dick Miller and Robert Picardo as the garbage men.

I will never tire of this movie.

Red Rover Red Rover send Art on over.

This is a movie that I have watched lots of times, and I will continue to watch it. It just never gets old for me.

Edited to add: This movie also gets major props for being released on my birthday in '89.

Corey Feldmans overuse of the word "dude" makes me cringe everytime i see the film. Other than that, i really like The Burbs.

I especially love Art's chanting. "I want to kill everyone, Satan is good, Satan is our pal!"

The good moments never end, like when Art and Mark go to get Ray, and they act like a couple of kids, while Carrie Fisher acts like she's Ray's mother.

God, I do love this film. It never fails to elicit a good "What the fuck?" look in a favorite movie discussion but...the rewards are far too great.

I'm genuinely reassured by Ricky Butlers' prescience in preventing a party-killing McDonalds run.

"I already ordered pizza."

Good looking out, Feldman.

I have the "I wanna kill everyone"-mantra on my answering machine.

"Ray... this is WALTER"
"NOOOOO!"

"My brother... The Doctor."

"In Southeast Asia we called this kind of thing bad karma."

"There go the goddamn brownies."

"Hey, pizza-dude!"

"Look, the world is full of these things: black masses, mutilations, MUTILATIONS, the incubus, the succubus, I'm telling you, Walter was a human sacrifice."

"You imbecile you moron youuuu!"

There's almost too much to love in The 'burbs.

I showed this one year to my seventh grade lit. class as a compare and contrast assignment after reading "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." Turned out to be a great assignment with some interesting reactions.

Jerry Goldsmith' score is brilliant. Does anyone know if there's an OST-album available? I got the opening and the end credit-tunes ripped, but it would be cool to listen to the whole thing.

Of course I like the Burbs, and I'm pretty sure I'm on the same page as Bodhi as far as watchable classics from 1985 to 1995.

A couple underrated moments that haven't been mentioned include: at the very end when Hanks dramatically comes out of the crumbling house barely alive, the way he walks or should I say shuttles down the stares is pretty amazing. And along with Dern, Ducommen, and a cheesily good Corey Feldman don't sleep on the perfect casting of Courtney Gaines (last seen in Can't Buy Me Love) as the hillbilly young man who wanders around looking weird and inspiring Bruce Dern to make funny comments. What are some of the things Dern says about that guy?

"It came wit de frrrame?"

"Hey, Pinocchio! Where do you think you're going?"

I wish I could live in a world where Courtney Gains and Brother Theodore are household names.

thank you

I don't think that ending was ever filmed (probably because it's such a terrible idea, but still). It's definitely not the alternate ending on the DVD, which just involves Art and Rumsfeld opening the ambulance door to discover Ray wrestling with Klopek, followed by a cringe-worthy bit of exposition from Klopek.

We are on the same wavelength - i love those parts also. Also "Hey Pinnochio! Where do you think you're goin'?"

I just watched this again last night. I hadn't seen this thing since probably the early 90's and wow! It was not how I remembered it at all. Still a good time and Hanks was great as always. Feldman was great. Dern was great. I'd have to see this "alternate ending" along with the movie to know how I'd feel about it. It seems like it could work though. Given Hanks' speech/rant at the end.

 

All around a decent little flick. And yeah, Hanks face when seeing his neighbour shove all that food down his throat was priceless.

I haven't seen The 'burbs in a long time, but I enjoy it every time I've seen it. As far as I'm concerned, Bruce Dern is the film's MVP. I love his rant about Walter's dog crapping in his yard.

What was the day in July that Tom Hanks started his 'staycation'? I really want to watch this thing again but I want to wait til the proper day to do so.

 

I love this friggin' movie so much, glad to see people feel the same here. 

I don't think the movie mentions it. 

 

I just got done watching this again today (It's become annual viewing). It's great but the ending still bothers me. I know it's a comedy and I should let it go but I can't help thinking it would be better if it's a bit more ambiguous. In fact the whole ending is about all the guys being wrong, until for no reason whatsoever the The Doctor tries to kill Ray. But the Klopeks have won! Everyone is on their side. Ray admits he's wrong, the police are not convinced the Klopeks did anything and the neighbour shows back up fine (Though it's odd that they were picking up his mail). 

 

They really have to try and force that happy ending out. Though I will admit it's still a fun way to end the film, and without it we wouldn't have got that great scene where Rumsfield tackles Hans. 

When I met Carrie Fisher I told her this was my favorite of her movies.  She thought that was great.

Probably my favorite movie of hers as well. Her role is one of the more unsung ones. Everybody talks about the trio of Hanks/Dern/Ducommun, but she and Wendy Caplan do the great subtle comedy that shines so brightly.

I watched The 'Burbs again the other night after buying it in a three-pack along with Dragnet and The Money Pit. The movie was just as good as it was back in the day.

I love this movie but the ending ruins it. I don't like the way it made the Klopek's villains and feel that this should have been more like "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street". I would have also preferred if Art got the weather spike through the chest because he was such an insufferably obnoxious fucking asshole that I wanted to see him dead. This should have been about a good man (Ray) ruined by paranoia and suspicion fueled by those two morons he listened to. The ending I would have had is Ray in the back of the ambulance and Mr. Klopek asks him why he was in his home. Ray explains all the weird shit he saw and Mr. Klopek gives perfectly reasonable answers (digging in the backyard for worms because his brother likes to fish etc...), you know, totally mundane. Mr. Klopek gives him an injection. Ray asks what it is and he says it's just a sedative and leaves Ray as he convulses and dies.

This is easily my favorite film from Hanks' comedy era. By a long, long stretch. And I typically fucking DISDAIN films that are specifically about or heavily revolve around life in the suburbs with a passion usually (this and the original Poltergeist are two of my few, few exceptions to this that immediately spring to mind). I didn't grow up remotely in or near the suburbs at all and am so personally disconnected from the iconography of them culturally that I find most films about them a complete, patronizing chore to sit through; it way too often feels like I'm having somebody else's idealized nostalgia shoved down my throat, which is never fun (and also why outside of Poltergeist, I kinda fucking despise the whole "Amblin" vibe in general, which I know is some kind of cinematic heresy: I get it Steven, life in the suburbs was innocent and heartwarmingly cute and sweet... fucking gag me now).

 

Not here and not this one though. This one's too bent and hilarious and has far too many awesome and spot-the-fuck-on comedic performances for me to hate on.

 

Also this film's continued proof for me that anything that has Bruce Dern in it is never, EVER bad. I love that man to pieces, along with Henry Gibson for that matter. Also Ducommun's finest hour without question. Also love that Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2's got a cameo in there.

 

I'll definitely agree though that having the Klopeks actually be psychos was a pretty big fucking cop out, and having it all end with the Klopeks as nice, normal people brought down tragically and undeservedly by the dumb, busybody paranoia of the rest of the neighborhood would've made for a far stronger ending and overall film (depending on how it's played at least: that too could easily come across as far too obvious and on-the-nose depending on the execution, but I certainly love the idea in theory at least). Even if Gibson plays the "murderer" reveal so damned well that I almost don't care (plus it gives Bruce Dern that awesome line delivery of "Hey! Pinocchio!" when Hans tries to slip away, followed by that slick leg-sweep takedown and threatened-neck snap bit).

Edited by Jaquio - 4/19/12 at 9:43pm