My Man Godfrey

This week we watched My Man Godfrey, and to be brutally honest this film annoyed the crap out of me. In terms of camera work it wasn't really anything fancy or impressive, the storyline was all over the place, and the characters were pretty much all nuts. I mentioned in class how this film reminded me alot of Wedding Crashers, that is if the movie had been just about Vince Vaughn's story. In both films there is a main character guy who feels he is superior to the rich people around him and has very saracastic comments about it, there is also a crazy girl in both who is obsessed with this main character. The parents in both films are rich and somewhat oblivious to the way their children act, peticularly the crazy daughter. In the end of both movies that main character ends up with the crazy girl, even though it seems like a horrible match. In retrospect when someone else related the film to Arrested Development I totally agreed in that that show is of a way closer tie to My Man Godfrey then Wedding Crashers, and made me wonder if the show used that movie for something like a starting block.

The main reason why the film really grinded my gears, was because of the whole idea that Godfrey allowed the family to keep living rich while not really learning a lesson. Throughout the film you have a character who is educated, kind, patient, and overall just a good guy, Godfrey, and then at the same time you have this family that is arrogant, ignorant, insane, mean, and essientally stupid. As the movie goes on we come to realize that Godfrey actually descends from a rich family and chose to live as bum for some odd reason, and then suddenly he decides to strike back at the rich community by showing up to a scavenger hunt and calling them idiots. And then he decides to take it a step further and become their butler...which really doesn't make sense but we let it go because he claims to have a plan up his sleeve. The big plan? Oh its to handle the family's money without them knowing and make them richer then they were already. Great idea Godfrey, don't let the family that is nuts, bad with money, and depends greatly on their income, learn their lesson and be broke for awhile. No instead wait til the father of the family figures out oh crap were broke, then tell him its all good and then go and build a night club on the river by the garbage dump for homeless people to work at. Oh and marry that insane girl who is spoiled out of her mind. What?! This film is ridiculous, I don't know who wrote this but really it just doesn't add up to me. In the reading we were assigned about Screwball Capitalism really drives home what I'm taling about in the sense that the movie almost accidentally doesn't help with the money situation or that of the rich class in america, seeing as the moral of the movie appears to be If your rich and crazy, someone smarter then you will let you keep on being rich and crazy.