Classically Shitty: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Hilarious? Were there jokes in this movie? I must have missed them.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of those “classic” movies you are supposed to like because film-fags said so. But it’s awful. I can’t think of a single redeeming aspect of this movie. Sure, it has George Peppard of A-Team fame, but that doesn’t enhance the movie. Maybe if halfway through Mr. T burst through a brick wall, gold chains glittering, a machine gun blasting, bullets ripping Holly Golightly’s flesh into threads, the movie could have been cool. But that didn’t happen, so it’s a piece of shit.

The actual breakfast at Tiffany’s is the first scene of the movie. But it’s so vague you have no idea what the fuck is happening. Holly stands outside the store some time before it opens and eats a pastry. That’s it. That was the breakfast at Tiffany’s. Well, the breakfast outside Tiffany’s at any rate. I guess you could end the movie right there. It would be preferable to the non-stop shitfest that follows. And believe me, it is a shitfest. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is boring, has shitty dialogue, a retarded protagonist, and it’s incredibly racist, too. It really has it all. 

Breakfast eaten. Movie over.

Essentially, it’s about this countrified twat named Holly who leave her Podunk small town for the allure of the big city. Unfortunately for her, living in New York City is expensive. Way more expensive than an uneducated talentless hick with no discernible job skills can afford. So, Holly does what any other respectable girl would do: immediately turn to a life of drug smuggling and prostitution. And not the awesome kind with mountains of cocaine like in Scarface. It’s just sort of barely there, in the background, like the writers didn’t think a life of crime would make for an interesting story. So, instead of drug-fueled orgies (which is what every scene should have been), we are “treated” to dull meandering conversations, gossip about neighbors, catty jealousy, and over-the-top racism.

Yeah that’s right, racism. Micky Rooney plays a caricature of a Japanese person. He has squinty eyes, wears yellow makeup, speaks with a really bad Engrish accent, and sports a huge pair of big fake buck teeth. The character isn’t so much a stereotype as he is an outright racist statement. He is what old white Hollywood Fuckos think Japanese people are like. Yeah, all those years spent living in California, none of them probably ever even saw a Japanese person, what with them in the internment camps and all.

"Herro?! Herro?! Terephone very hard to use!"

Basically, nothing really happens in this movie. The drug-smuggling plot goes nowhere, the prostitution plot goes nowhere, Buddy Ebsen shows up for a couple of scenes just to cash a paycheck, and Holly acts like a spoiled, clueless bitch. The central “focus” of the movie (and saying it has a focus at all is being generous) is a bland, watered-down romance between two generic white people. It’s impossible to give a fuck about either of them.

I can’t say why Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a popular movie when it was released. I guess film-goers had lower standards back then. Well, not that they have good standards now, but at least today we have a lot more options. What I can tell you is why the movie remains popular to this day. There is only one reason, and here it is:

She smokes in every scene in this movie.

That’s it. That picture of Audrey Hepburn is the only reason why anyone gives a flying fuck about this movie. They like the look she has. She looks classy and mysterious and kind of fun all together. She evokes nostalgia of a time gone by for people who never lived in that time. It is so famous that it appears on all sorts of things, in all sorts of places it doesn’t belong. For example:

*facepalm*

Hepburn’s iconic image elicits a romantic view of what life in late 1950s/early 1960s New York City was like. But guess what? It wasn’t like that at all. Here’s what it really looked like:

Just an average day in NYC.

I’d bet money that 90% of the people who have that fucking Audrey Hepburn picture hanging somewhere (or own the tacky glassware) have never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s. If they had, they’d get rid of that shit immediately. But I suppose it’s better they haven’t seen it, and go on blissfully unaware of how terrible it is. It’s better that no one actually watch this rotten turd of a movie.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is billed as a “hilarious romantic comedy” but it isn’t romantic and there is no comedy. I can’t remember laughing once. I can’t remember there being any jokes. Unless you count the overt racism as comedic. Or maybe in the 1950s they thought prostitution and drug-smuggling was inherently funny? I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. It’s like they didn’t know what to label it as (“piece of shit” wouldn’t have brought in film-goers), so they just chose a random genre. It’s like billing Robocop as a “fantasy adventure” film.

I would totally watch this movie.

Holly Golightly is a terrible protagonist. She’s jealous and catty. She smokes like a chimney. She’s a drug-smuggling prostitute. Are we supposed to feel bad for a drug-smuggling prostitute when things don’t go her way? Give me a fucking break. The romance is stilted and ridiculous. It isn’t funny. It’s racist. Worst of all, it’s incredibly boring. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a non-stop shitfest. This movie is a waste of time, and all copies should be burned immediately. No one should ever have another breakfast at Tiffany’s. You know what we should have instead? Breakfast at Awesomely Shitty. I’ll bring the Batter Blaster.

This rules.

Verdict: Shitty

Check out these other entries in the Classically Shitty series:

The Hustler

2001: A Space Odyssey

January 29, 2012 – Irony Update

On WordPress, after you publish a new post, a sidebar appears with a bunch of shit I could care less about. However, when I posted this review, a quote appeared that I could not ignore. It was from Truman Capote, the author of the book Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The quote from Capote is, “That isn’t writing at all, it’s typing.” Of course, in the context here it is incredibly ambiguous. Does he mean my review of the movie is just nonsensical “typing”? Does he mean Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a piece of shit? Could it be he means the screenwriters of the movie turned his book into a steaming turd? Or WordPress might just have some algorithm that pulled a Capote quote when it saw the title of the post contained the words Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Whatever the case may be, I think it is hilarious that Capote should bring me a message from beyond the grave as I trashed his work for all the Internet to see. Thanks for the irony bomb, Capote. It made me laugh. Maybe next time I will berate some of Shakespeare’s works and see if a zombie version of The Bard comes after me.