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Agatha Trunchbull: My school is a model of discipline! Use the rod, beat the child, that's my motto.
Harry Wormwood: Terrific motto! Matilda
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 Released: 1988
When two bumbling businessmen, Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman), alert their boss, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), to an expensive discrepancy in the company books, he invites them to his home on the beach with the intent to have them murdered. However when they discover that their boss has been murdered prior to their arrival, they attempt to convince people that he is still alive to avoid suspicion for his death, leading to all kinds of wacky mishaps. Iotis Erlewine
Weekend at Bernie's is a jokey, popular curiosity and cultural reference that persists in the collective consciousness, despite staggering evidence of its insipid emptiness. The film that made Terry Kiser the most famous corpse in show biz demonstrates to what ludicrous lengths "high-concept comedy" can be bastardized. Audiences have developed an attitude toward it hovering between indignation and guilty comfort; people do like it, but they are quick to couch their approval in the language of kitsch, because no other perspective would be defensible. It's implied that screenwriter Robert Klane thinks his characters are brainless idiots, since they spend hours sitting next to a non-responsive companion without even considering that he might be deceased. What's a bit more insidious is that he reserves the same contempt for the audience, believing they will lap this up even if he does nothing to make it credible. Weekend at Bernie's is supposed to be a satire of social discourse, a wildly farcical depiction of the notion that people are so self-absorbed that they won't even notice if the person they're talking to is dead. At least, that would be the generous academic reading. But this film bends reality so vigorously that disbelief can't just be suspended; it must be expelled. Whether audiences are willing to do that depends on how far they let the comic energies of Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman carry them. And that may not be far when Kiser's comic inertia usually one-ups them. Derek Armstrong
Andrew McCarthy - Larry Wilson
Jonathan Silverman - Richard Parker
Catherine Stewart - Gwen Saunders
Terry Kiser - Bernie Lomax
Don Calfa - Paulie
Catherine Parks - Tina
Eloise Broady - Tawny
Gregory Salata - Marty
Louis Giambalvo - Vito
Ted Kotcheff - Jack Parker
Lisa Sherrill Gannon - Beach Girl
Steve Howard - Plastic Surgeon
Rachel Lewis - Beach Girl
Cindy Foster Jones - Girl at Ambulance
Tina Diane King - Girl at Party
Stephen Fischer - Man on Elevator
Nello Tare - Party Man
Leslie Sternchak - Girl at Party
Mark Smaltz - Security Officer
Michelle Vincent - Girl on Boat
Dan Wargo - Party Guest
Jean Liles - Girl on Dock
Tim Perez - Mugger
Lorri Lindberg - Aukthoress
Ronald Ross - Man at Table
Dan Preston - Exercise Trainer
Patricia Roseman - Female Model
Jason Woliner - Bratty Kid
Margaret Hall - Secretary
Lou Criscuolo - First Islander
Jack Hallett - Tennis Pro
Mert Hatfield - Cop
Bruce Barbour - Beach Bum
George Cheung - Gardener
John Bennes - Harvey
Jack Canon - Murray Rose
Edwin Little Dean - Water Taxi Driver
Richard W. Boucher - Handsome Man No. 2
Augustina Berlings - Larry's Pick-Up
Joyce Bowden - Fashion Designer
Dan Cox - Handsome Guy
Bob Horen - Maitre'd
Anthony Mannino - Superintendent
David Arey - Male Model
Stefanos Miltsakakis - Body Builder
Polly Segal - Woman in Elevator
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