The greatest movie ever!

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Comedy double acts over the decades have usually consisted of two men - Little & Large, Cannon & Ball, Morecambe & Wise, Laurel & Hardy and The Two Ronnies to name but many. French & Saunders however were a female double act, and probably the first female double act to be seen on British television since Victoria Wood and Julie Walters. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders first made it big at the Comic Strip Club in Soho before joining 'The Comic Strip Presents' and 'Saturday Live', as well as appearing on 'The Young Ones' and 'Happy Families'. It therefore seemed only natural to give the two their own show. In 1987, the BBC snapped the duo up. Dawn was the heavy set, over-excitable one whereas Jennifer was the slimmer, more laid back one. One certainly could not deny how popular the show was, as well as influential, but personally I just did not care much for the show. Whilst there was the very, very occasional funny moment, overall the shows were largely hit and miss, with more misses than hits.Various stock characters were born, such as two filthy old men named Jim and Jim ( Dawn and Jennifer in drag ). Also included were sketches of Dawn and Jen as themselves sitting in a bare living room which would not have looked out of place on 'Alas Smith & Jones'. Spoofs were a regular source of humour too, these included 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?' ( or as it was called here 'Whatever happened To Baby Dawn?' ), 'The Exorcist', 'Misery', 'The Silence Of The Lambs' and 'Titanic'.Many talented people worked on the show such as Robbie Coltrane, Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson ( husband of Jennifer Saunders ), Lenny Henry ( Dawn's then husband ), June Whitfield, Harry Enfield, Joanna Lumley and Helen Lederer. Musical guests included Kirsty MacColl, Lulu, Jools Holland, Alison Moyet, Toyah Wilcox and The Proclaimers.'French & Saunders' ran for a total of six seasons, spawning the sitcom which Saunders would become famous for, the atrocious 'Absolutely Fabulous'. Fortunately, Dawn moved on to do the sublime 'The Vicar Of Dibley'.

There is no doubt that French and Saunders is by far one of the best sketch comedy shows in the history of television. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders- formerly the Tampon Sisters- are considered comedy royalty in Britian and recently received a well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Comedy Awards.Although not what it used to be in the 80s and (especially) the 90s, French and Saunders are still near the top of the food-chain of comedy. The magic of earlier episodes is you didn't need to know what they were spoofing to bust a gut. In later episodes, you almost need to know what they're spoofing and watch it forwards and back. For example, a Kill Bill sketch featuring decapitation made five viewers send off letters of complaint. Had they seen the Kill Bill movies, it is more than likely they would have understood the joke.French and Saunders will probably be around until the end of time and even then, there will still be new episodes.

Having loved several 80's British comedy TV shows that made it to the U.S.A. (including Young Ones and Black Adder Goes Forth), I decided to give the F&S: Material World DVD a try. The DVD is a collection of short skits from the series, which includes many parodies. Jennifer Saunders (with some help from Dawn French) later made her mark with the show Absolutely Fabulous, a show I didn't care for.Unfortunately, I didn't recognize some of the parodies, rendering them ineffective. A music video by 'The Raspberries' (Cranberries) was strange, not initially recognizing the group or the significance of the song, with the laugh track painfully reminding me of the jokes I was missing.In general, the comedy is a mixed bag of over-the-top skits. In the Batman parody, the evil villains (the 'Krankies') used jokes as a weapon to someone else's uproarious laughter ("What do you call a man with a car on top of his head - Jack!" ). In more inspired moments, Batman (Saunders) forgets the voice he used to open the Batmobile, and so tries a Dalek voice (Dr. Who), and eventually fails. Later, when a woman offers to be Batman's love interest, Batman confesses he doesn't know what to do, not even being able to 'get the car started'.One comic tool F&S use is to portray actresses in a production, sometimes slipping out of character to complain when something goes wrong. In the opening sequence of the Loveheart (Braveheart) skit, Saunders is credited for Liam Neeson, and French is credited for Mel Gibson. Other comic targets include attempting accents, Ireland and Scotland, special effects gone wrong, and playing male characters (using overtly masculine or feminine personifications).One sketch was Lord Of The Rings, where F&S made extensive fun of the special effects (such as making hobbits appear small). While it was one of the funniest sketches on the DVD, there was a lingering awkwardness in that they were making fun of movie effects that were superb - not exactly cannon fodder for parody.Thick British accents (especially when comically exaggerated or muted) complicated viewing by making some dialog difficult to understand. Unfortunately, there were often no subtitles to come to the rescue.Highlights included parodies of Batman, Madonna, Lord Of The Rings, and Baywatch, all of which were worth seeing despite some comic unevenness. Others that didn't work as well included "The Gulf" and "Tripping", both of which were dated. Cute references to other British shows can be found (including 'The Prisoner' in the Batman skit).Watch it someday if you can, but don't expect any mind-blowing revelations. Just make sure to have the remote handy to skip over dull moments.

This show has provided years of belly laughs, satirizing television, films, the arts, pretentious society types....if something's ripe for parody, they pounce on it. In the earlier series, the motif was a VERY low-rent variety show, complete with weekly guest stars, WAY past-their-prime dancers, and the cheesy 2-man band Raw Sex. The pathetic show-within-a-show was interspersed with comedy sketches, the funniest of which depicted a pair of extras in various show business locales (a war hospital film, a production of Carmen, the background of a Sports News show); regardless of their importance (or lack thereof) to the show, the two managed to get in the way and disrupt the production (always with the "props bahsket" in tow). Later series were more straightforward random collections of sketches. Film and TV parodies combined with skewering of pretension are their specialty; it's these later seasons you can see on the videos available for purchase, including the skit that spawned "Absolutely Fabulous." In any case, fans of anarchic British comedy should love this show.