Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Meet the Parents (2000) - Roach, Stiller, De Niro and Co. make comedy gold

8/23/2020

Meet the Parents (2000) - Roach, Stiller, De Niro and Co. make comedy gold

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The hilarious polygraph test scenario from the film makes up this great poster for Jay Roach's Meet the Parents

Greg is a male nurse who is about to propose to his girlfriend. But before that he'll have to go through her parents, which is easier said than done.

Meet the Parents is written by Jim Herzfeld (Meet the Deedles (1998)) and John Hamburg (Safe Men (1998)) and directed by great New-Mexican filmmaker Jay Roach (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)). It is a remake of the same-titled 1992 independent comedy by Greg Glienna (Desperation Boulevard (1998)), co-written with May Ruth Clarke.
Meet the Parents is a classical broad family comedy that works, creating mirth and eventual successful feel-good affect from feel-bad, anxiety-driven situations, as Ben Stiller's (School for Scoundrels (2006)) sympathetic Gaylord 'Greg' Focker has to pass through terrible ordeals to get his bride. Stiller and Robert De Niro (Everybody's Fine (2009)) as the intimidating ex-CIA operative father-in-law both give very accurate and highly amusing performances in many scenes in the film, where they successfully play against each other.
Meet the Parents is a rare treat of a comedy full of bizarre scenes and major laughs.

Related posts:

Jay Roach: Bombshell (2019) - Toxic US culture laid bare in Roach's great drama
Trumbo (2015) - Good actors and a thrilling true story make this biopic work
Dinner for Schmucks/Dinner with Schmucks (2010) - Carell carries Roach's flawed but utterly hilarious comedy

Watch a short trailer for the film here

Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 330.4 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned its cost 6 times)
[Meet the Parents was released 6 October (USA) and runs 108 minutes. Steven Soderbergh, Steven Spielberg and Jim Carrey were in talks to head a new big-studio version of the 1992 film, before Roach and Co. got the gig. De Niro got 13.5 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from November 1999 - February 2000 in New York, including New York City, and in Illinois, including Chicago. The film reportedly had a 33.9 mil. $ marketing budget. It opened #1 to a 28. 6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, a new October opening record and De Niro's career's biggest opening up to that point. The film remained #1 in the following 4 weekend and then spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#4), grossing 166.2 mil. $ (50.3 % of the total gross). The film's international earnings sheet is regrettably not complete at Box Office Mojo, but its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets appear to have been the UK with 21.5 mil. $ (6.5 %) and Germany with 17.5 mil. $ (5.3 %). The film was nominated for the Best Song Oscar for A Fool in Love by Randy Newman, lost to Things Have Changed by Bob Dylan from Wonder Boys. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. The film enjoyed tremendous video sales, generating reportedly 200 mil. $ in North America. It inspired reality show Meet My Folks (2001) and sit-com The In-Laws (2001), and 2 sequels were made; Meet the Fockers (2004) and Little Fockers (2010). Roach returned with Austin Powers in Goldmember (2004). De Niro returned in 15 Minutes (2001); Stiller in Mission: Improbable (2000, TV short), P. Diddy feat. Black Rob & Mark Curry: Bad Boys for Life (2001, music video) and theatrically in Zoolander (2001). Meet the Parents is certified fresh at 84 % with a 6.93/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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8/23/2020

Meet the Parents (2000) - Roach, Stiller, De Niro and Co. make comedy gold

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