The Brady Bunch Movie
First screened in the late 1990s / Most recently screened in August 2024
Director: Betty Thomas. Cast: Christine Taylor, Jennifer Elise Cox, Christopher Peter Barnes, Gary Cole, Shelley Long, Paul Sutera, Olivia Hack, Jesse Lee Soffer, Henriette Mantel, Michael McKean, Jack Noseworthy, Jean Smart, David Graf, Alanna Ubach, Shane Conrad, RD Robb, Marissa Ribisi, Steven Gilborn, Florence Henderson, David Leisure, RuPaul, Eric Nies, Barry Williams, Ann B. Davis, Davey Jones. Screenplay: Laurice Elehwany & Rick Copp and Bonnie Turner & Terry Turner (based on the characters and television show created by Sherwood Schwartz).VOR:③
I doubt there'd be any hole in the culture if this movie hadn't materialized, but I also doubt anyone's working this hard today on a comic TV homage.
It's so impressive and honestly kind of wild that The Brady Bunch Movie is so funny, and that director Betty Thomas and her game cast poured so much wit and comic detail into what could have just been a quickly forgotten two-weekend moneymaker at the limp February box office. As Jan, Jennifer Elise Cox does farcical stylization even better than Mira Sorvino did it the same year in Mighty Aphrodite, to the tune of an Oscar for which Cox was never, ever remotely considered, but might well have been.
Also kind of amazing that the movie Brady Bunch most resembles in its embrace of color and its uncanny simulacrum of the original is Gus Van Sant's Psycho? Except funny? If Norman Bates had an older, better-looking brother who constantly stole all his thunder, even though he's the one who'd do anything for Mother, you'd get this film.
Also, while I have you: since Tuesday, I've written 80 letters for Vote Forward to registered but infrequent voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, who lean Democrat when they do participate. We're not allowed to advocate for a particular party or candidate, but I believe this program is effective in the ways I want it to be. I'm urging these fellow citizens to show up this fall and vote their own minds, and I'm inviting you all to participate!
Wait, is this Letterboxd? Sorry, I got distracted by the existential threat to U.S. democracy and global welfare, which of course one election can't safeguard by itself, but one election could spray U.S. democracy with acid blood and then blow it out the airlock if, in our complacency, we allow that. Just look how the actual Earth is cracked in half right there on the Brady Bunch Movie poster. Those eight (plus Alice!) tend to have their heads in the clouds, but even they subliminally know what's at stake.
What I meant to say, since this is Letterboxd, is that Christine Taylor and Gary Cole also bring their A-game to The Brady Bunch Movie, which is hardly essential viewing but a really bright, gratifying, well-made comedy, and that's nothing to take for granted. Perfect for a re-watch while you're doing other things, like trying to save America, Pennsylvanian by Pennsylvanian, though I'll also be writing more letters to Arizonians, Nevadans, North Carolinians, Wisconsinites, and Georgians. Michelle Obama told us to "DO SOMETHING," so I'm doing this, just like I did in 2020, when I wrote a couple hundred letters to Georgia (including the Warnock runoff), Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. I was pretty happy with how three of those four turned out. Who knows if I made any difference at all, but I very much enjoyed feeling like I hadn't just opted out of trying to rouse probably-likeminded and historically under-represented voters to action. Do you remember how close some of those tallies were? Sheesh! Writing letters in front of the TV sure seems more productive than just going HAM on a box of Cheez-Its, which I do occasionally do.
Mrs. Obama also spoke about us "not having time for the foolishness" of expecting an engraved invitation to do an obvious and urgent civic duty, and she's obviously 1,000% right (did you see that speech??), but I also understand feeling marginalized or disheartened out of electoral involvement, or just too busy getting by to keep it front of mind, so if you can goose a few hundred people's day with a personalized outreach, why not? And you could do it in front of The Brady Bunch Movie.
Oh, and I forgot completely over the last three decades that Jean Smart and RuPaul are both in The Brady Bunch Movie. She's funny, and so is Ru's wig. Also, I was trying to figure out why I recognized Mike Brady's boss, and of course, he's Carol White's doctor in Safe! Also, if you don't take the trouble to really read the frame when you watch a movie, you miss great gags, like The Story of O being one of the books on Mike's bedside table.
Thanks, everyone. And a special word to American readers: please don't let us go out this way, even if you can't be involved in election work full time. Just do something. Start where you can.
And yay, Brady Bunch Movie! This has been a Letterboxd post about a movie. Grade:B
(In case you missed it, I originally wrote this review on Letterboxd.)
