Word: devito
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Directed by Danny DeVito...
HITCHCOCK meets the Looney Tunes in Throw Momma From the Train, actor Danny DeVito's feature film directing debut. Momma is a bizarre, funny, offbeat romp from beginning to end, an irreverent farce inspired by the best and worst from pop culture...
Those who can't do, teach. While teaching a writing class at a local college, Donner meets Owen Lift (DeVito), a rumpled, childish lunatic tormented by his mother. In a conversation about how to write an exciting murder mystery, Owen misinterprets Larry's advice and decides that Larry wants to swap murder targets with him. He plots to get rid of Margaret, convinced that Donner will bump off his Momma in return...
...laughs in this movie, and there are many, stem from its broad, broad comedic style combined with some of the most irreverent camera work since the Coen brothers' farcical Raising Arizona. DeVito has enough smarts to realize that the unlikely plot machinations of Momma call for unconventional visual tricks and he also has enough imagination to pull them off. The camera swoops and pans at dramatic moments and will pull right up to an actor's face for a gag line. When Donner collapses on the floor after a particularly exhausting encounter with Momma, the camera spirals slowly upwards...
Most of these visual gags are references to Hitchcock and in particular to his classic 1951 film Strangers on a Train from which the plot of the movie is partially lifted. But DeVito also has a strong instinct towards the comic hyperbole of the Three Stooges, say, or Bugs Bunny. The sound effects in the film are as exaggerated as cartoons. In one scene when Larry is scrambling to stay on a building ledge, the noise sounds like the sound Fred Flintstone's feet make when he accelerates...