TMFTT
Throw Momma From The Train – I remember loving this movie the first time I saw it. Watching it with my 10-year-old son wasn’t all that great – the laughs were dark, and few and far between otherwise. But Danny DeVito is somehow charming in this film about a slithery, rodent-like pest of a man who writes bad prose and befriends a downtrodden writer who’s trying hard to make a comeback (romantically and professionally) after his bitchy ex-wife makes a fortune from stealing his book. Wow!
Somehow, Billy Crystal comes off as a geek, a nerd, a creep, with the creepy Owen shining as a shattered mama’s boy. Anne Ramsay is stunning as a rotten harridan of a mother, and she’s fully of real nut bar lines.
Somehow the movie takes its inspiration from Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train, and off they go. Fortunately, the film has enough heart to spare the depressing ending, and everything ends… darkly… happily ever after. Always nice to expectations reverse.
The DVD comes with a few extras, which are good fun – more scenes of Owen stalking Larry, some intellectual conversations (in passing), and other great fun. Love it.