Diagonaldi Very well executed

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues Mel Brooks won't one of my favorite filmmakers but this time he gets to the target in this dramatic comedy and pay tribute to those invisible people who lives in the streets as human remains,scorned by the society and must to be hidden to landscape,people like "Sailor" who bring to character homeless's heart and end up died on the sidewalks of the cities,Mel leave a sublime message to the audience and this critic to society and how says the tittle life stinks!!! Resume: First watch: 1996 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5

Bryan Kluger When you hear or see the name 'Mel Brooks', your mind usually tells you to laugh and think of his spoof comedy work, including 'Blazing Saddles', 'Spaceballs', 'Young Frankenstein', and 'Robin Hood: Men In Tights'. There are many other films that fall into this spoof category that Brooks has made, but back in 1991, Mel wrote, produced, and directed a dramatic movie with comedy elements. It was more of an experimental film for him, as he wanted to explore other genres and make a satire of the class system in America.This movie was called 'Life Stinks', and unfortunately it was met with unfavorable reviews and even worse box office receipts. Don't get me wrong, there are a few slapstick moments, but they don't come often, and is a sidestep from the director's usual line of work. In short though, 'Life Stinks' just doesn't work all that well. The usual funny dialogue Mel writes for his parody films just doesn't fit into this movie, and the way the script is written to make jokes about the homeless people and their families, simply doesn't work. A good example of how to shed light on these subjects was with the film 'Trading Places'.It seems like Mel wanted to make the same movie, but was incapable of producing something of that valor that perfectly mixes comedy and drama, while shedding light on the lower class and homeless people of America. Mel stars as Goddard Bolt, a billionaire businessman who is planning on tearing down all the slums in Los Angeles, only to build high end condos and shops. The catch is that he only owns half of the land. The other half belongs to a man named Vance (Jeffrey Tambor), who doesn't want to sell.Hell-bent on his plan, Bolt makes a bet with Vance that if he can survive for 30 days in the slums on his own without leaving, Vance will sell him his half of the land for super cheap. The bet is on, and Bolt heads to the slums under three rules, including, he has to be penniless, he cannot leave the slums, and he can't tell anyone who he really is. Throughout this 30 days, Bolt learns all the life lessons he never knew, mostly being that being rich and having material things isn't what life is all about. Meanwhile, Vance has a sinister scheme in play that will destroy Bolt.'Life Stinks' could have been a better film if was written and executed in a different way. The slapstick comedy and the intent on trying to bring laughs to issues such as homelessness, just doesn't work with this movie. The dialogue is painfully bad, and the characters are clichés of themselves. That all being said, you have to give Mel Brooks some points for stepping outside his realm to make something different than his usual shtick.

stevenackerman69 This year is the 20th anniversary for Mel Brooks' underrated comedy Life Stinks, which was a departure for Brooks in that it was the first straight story he had done since The Twelve Chairs in 1970. It wasn't a parody of a genre like Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, and High Anxiety. This was a story trying to show us the plight of the homeless, which is all around us. How many panhandlers do we see on the subway going to work or outside a McDonald's that we brush off? What about the people who wipe windshields down at the Holland Tunnel? These are people who have been thrown away by the system that seems to thrive on keeping the rich in power and not understanding that as Brooks' character says, "Every person has the right to have a place to live." Brooks is showing us that it isn't easy out there and there are dangerous elements that we need to take care of. So why don't we try to deal with this problem? I have the answer from George Carlin's 1992 HBO special: There is no money to be made off the homeless. You need to have a solution that ends homelessness and have the corporate guys steal money in the process instead of just trying to care for your fellow man through human decency, which isn't going to happen because we are a selfish species who only care for our own welfare. As to this film, the best moment to me is when Brooks' character sees a homeless friend has died and he is just being taken away to the morgue. Watch how Brooks is acting in the scene. He realizes that there are many like his friend who have become victims and it is almost due to his past being uncaring about them, as he was in the opening scene, when he doesn't care about consequences to actions he is taking in tearing down people's homes. So why didn't this film do better in this country? Well, yeah, it was released under MGM, which had financial problems and still does, but I have the feeling that even if it had been released on 2000 screens at once, people would not have wanted to see a film that criticizes its country. Brooks himself mentioned how the film became a big hit overseas for him. I guess other countries were more open to our problems. We should not be patting ourselves on the back saying we're a great country. We have our own faults too and we need to look at them. It is so ever true today. The whole bit where Tambor's character bribes Brooks' lawyers to join him in betraying Brooks is just like the Wall Street meltdown of 2008. These guys could have been on Wall Street doing the same thing. I would've loved to have been a judge disbarring the lawyers that pulled this stunt on Brooks. Anyway, this is a film that should've won Best Screenplay at the Oscars as well. I hope that people seek out this film and realize, "There but for the grace of God, go I." In this day and age, this film was an omen.

hintjens Brilliant over-acting by Lesley Ann Warren. Best dramatic hobo lady I have ever seen, and love scenes in clothes warehouse are second to none. The corn on face is a classic, as good as anything in Blazing Saddles. The take on lawyers is also superb. After being accused of being a turncoat, selling out his boss, and being dishonest the lawyer of Pepto Bolt shrugs indifferently "I'm a lawyer" he says. Three funny words. Jeffrey Tambor, a favorite from the later Larry Sanders show, is fantastic here too as a mad millionaire who wants to crush the ghetto. His character is more malevolent than usual. The hospital scene, and the scene where the homeless invade a demolition site, are all-time classics. Look for the legs scene and the two big diggers fighting (one bleeds). This movie gets better each time I see it (which is quite often).