Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

But Brandon, I don't [italic]mean[/italic] to be a cunt.

Don't be a grade grubber

Thanks for the reminder, OP. I loved this film in my 20's and would like to see it again now that I'm in my 40's.

Todd whatsisname is an interesting filmmaker. I'll watch anything by him.

You think you're hot shit but you're just cold diarrhea.

I think ... oh, Steve. They're ALL so beautiful!

Just because he's a faggot, doesn't mean he's an asshole.

I like most of Todd Solondz movies, Storytelling and Life During Wartime are also good.

i love this movie. they used to show it a lot on IFC. I would watch it every time it was on.

Are you still going to rape me?

lol r10, that's a classic line!

Brendan Sexton III great example of cute kid turned UGLLLEEEE man.

Dawn, you do not leave this table until you tell your sister that you love her!

You can rent it on Amazon for $2.99

Have not seen it in years either R3, may just watch it this afternoon to see how it stands up.

[quote]You think you're hot shit but you're just cold diarrhea.

I used to say that all the time about the kids in the family across the street, who basketballed their way through high school and college and thought they were such hot shit.

r15

And are now in the NBA living the life, sleeping with babes on a pile of money.

r12

Good grief, I thought you were being a bitchy but you're not

Actually, r16, one burned out in high school. He was gay and his boyfriend killed himself. The other two, I have no idea, but I can imagine multiple marriages in which the wives left because they were tired of being punching bags. An entire family of assholes. Even their sister was cold diarrhea.

Wiener Dog sounds too sad to watch: a movie about a poor helpless dachshund dog who is passed along or discarded from one abusive or neglectful owner to the next one.

R17 seriously? I don't think he looks bad at all.

"We have a question for you, Dawn. Are you a lezbo?"

"LEZBO! LEZBO! LEZBO!"

Palindromes is crazy. I’ve never seen another film like it. Stuck with me like few others do.

R22 good movie, own it on DVD. Watch it once a year.

Loved Dollhouse, Happiness and Palindromes.

"Palindromes" did not get great reviews, but I loved it.

Don't watch Wiener-Dog if you're a dog lover. It has a terribly shocking ending.

All I remember is "I'm gonna rape you at 3 o'clock!"

You didn't come in here to wash your hands. You came in here to take a shit.

r12

I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it.

R27 my little brother and I started quoting that to each other after we saw the film. Our mom, who hadn't seen it, overheard us and punished us severely. She made us write "Rape is not a joke" on a piece of paper 1,000 times. (she was a teacher) and then put us on 'apartment mode,' which meant we were to stay in our respective rooms indefinitely, except to use the bathroom or to go to school. It was summer so we were fucked! I think we spent one whole week on apartment mode that time.

Heather Mattarazzo did not agree to return to a later film because Solondz wanted to turn Dawn into a school shooter and she felt protective of the character.

awesome movie.

whispering ..."Leave it...I want to make sure you shit...I want to see it with my own eyes."

....

I hated that Greta Gerwig got Heather M's part in Weiner-Dog.

I thought she died in Palindromes. A funeral scene at the beginning of the film?

r35, Weiner-Dog takes place in a different continuity, I think--Dawn is alive and well, working as a vet tech, and she even hooks up with Brandon again and appears to get a happy ending (unlike the poor dog). Damn you, Solondz!

One of the worst filmmakers of the last 20 years, as borne out by every subsequent movie since "Dollhouse."

This, and to a lesser extent Happiness, really is his best film.

Greta Gerwig is no Dawn.

I always got Brent Sexton mixed up with Brady Corbet.

LOL R40. That sounds like something right out of the movie.

Sorry meant R30

The whole thing is available online to watch now, in the obvious place.

I forgot Eric Mabius was in it.

Hated it and Happiness. Solodnz lacks any artistic sense. Ugliness for ugliness's sake. Life can be ugly but it's not all ugly and an artist recognizes that. He's been mainly forgotten and that's a good thing.

"'Special' means retarded, Dawn."

This movie made my stomach hurt when I saw it at the theater. It was like being back in school, a terrible feeling.

@ R30---I love the "apartment mode" concept. Your mom was alright.

Seriously, R46? R30’s mother sounds like the SJW version of Mommie Dearest.

And R30 went to school in the summer? Must have failed and had to go to summer school. Sad!

"Ugliness for ugliness's sake."

You have no sense of humor whatsoever. His movies are comedies.

Comedies that aren't funny aren't exactly comedies.

R47 yes, my mother is very SJW. Always has been. This was the '90s and we weren't allowed to say 'gypped,' for example, because it was "disrespectful to the Romani people." My mother was like the "Nice White Lady" skit MADtv did that spoofed movies about white teachers trying to save inner city students. We were comfortably middle class and resided in an all-white town, but she taught in another city with immigrants, mainly Hispanic. She also taught ESL to adults and at one point became very involved with the local Hmong population who had escaped Vietnam after the fall and whose children were first-generation American.

R48 LOL! I didn't go to summer school. I meant that since it was the summer when the incident occurred, we were only allowed to come out to use the bathroom. This was hell to a teenager who doesn't want to spend the summer practically locked up in his room. At least when we were punished during the school year, going to school was a respite of sorts.

R51, are you in Minnesota?

R52 Massachusetts.

I had the biggest crush on Brandon Sexton in this movie.

R51, my mom was very similar to yours...she loved teaching ESL because the students were so eager to learn, unlike her high school students.

She let us cuss as kids as long as we did not use slurs. For example, we could say fuck, goddam, ass & shit. But we were not allowed to use the N word or say fa*got.

I told a friend this & she asked me what kind of trouble we’d get in if we used those words. I had to think about it. We never got in trouble for saying them because we never said them. Why would we?

I love how Heather Matarazzo realized she was a lesbian while filming the movie. She realized what they were calling Dawn, was the truth about herself. I also remember Heather in a good tv movie about some high school football players raping a retarded girl with a plastic baseball bat, and nearly getting a way with it. Ally Sheedy is also in it as her lawyer.

R55 you just reminded me. I have a younger brother who is also gay, and we bonded over reruns of GOLDEN GIRLS. One time, my brother blurted out to me "We was po'!" at the dinner table, and our mom punished him because she thought he was making fun of black people. We never used racial slurs, though.

As for profanity, we had to pay whenever we swore. A dollar a swear word. We didn't get an allowance -- according to her, "I shouldn't pay you to be part of the family" -- but she would keep tabs of the times we cussed, so whenever we earned some money (e.g., odd jobs around the neighborhood), she took what we owed her. If anyone was wondering, my two brothers, younger sister, and I are estranged from her. Only our eldest sister still keeps in touch with her, inexplicably.

hilarious I also liked "Happiness" and I see the male lead in the grocery store - he's the one whose dog licks his cum off the wall

r51, your mother sounds, overall, like she has a good heart.

Love "Dollhouse" and "Pumpkin Head"!

R59, a “good heart”?? Taking her kids’ money even though she won’t give them an allowance? Locking them away for a month for quoting a movie?? Idealizing the poor children she teaches while treating her own kids like crap?

No, R51’s mother sounds like the batshit crazy virtue signaler from HELL.

As my grandma used to say, “a person’s ACTIONS, not his words, tell you who he really is.”

R51, sorry you and your siblings had to grow up with that.

I was shocked that this movie is considered a comedy. The characters and storyline are horrible. The scene where they first show her locker was gut wrenching. I did laugh, however, at the surfer drums that were played when Dawn was angered. But the movie is just icky. After watching it, you want to take a shower.

I tried to watch it when I was in my late teens/early twenties and failed, I just found it too excruciating. I might find it easier now in my 30s but I'm not going to try.

I watched it when I was 15. Hit VERY close to home. I had a crush on Brandon. It was excruciating to watch.

20 years later it's a little warmer than I recalled. Dawn is a fighter, and in spite of her self-pity, she never gives up.

R28 I can smell you.

Reunited!

Great photo! How long ago was that?

This is one of my favourite movies - even after all this time it still is fantastic. The other two though are awful.

[quote][R51], sorry you and your siblings had to grow up with that.

Thanks. It was hell living in that household, especially without a male influence. Dad was a deadbeat who split after the divorce. But mom ran that house like a dictatorship and was particularly harder on us boys. She got along swimmingly with our eldest sister but her favorite was our younger sister -- the only one she helped with her license, her first car, and with college. It's kind of funny that that sister now hates her guts. But I digress. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread.

I had the first stirrings of lust watching Brendan Sexton III.

Join the queue.

The shitty way Brandon treated dawn and the shitty way he talked to her gave me a stiffy as a young teen. I wanted to be maltreated by him.

The skip to 2:38. Is he family?

Based on this thread, I watched "Happiness" again last night -- I hadn't seen it since it was first released.

Maybe it's just that "The Office" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" have increased our exposure to squirm-inducing comedy, but a lot of it is marvelously funny, even the stuff that had people walking out 20 years ago. ("I wish I'd been raped as a child -- THEN I would know AUTHENTICITY!" declaims Lara Flynn Boyle.)

Marla Maples is really good with her brief part; who knows if that was the extent of her range, but it was great casting. And Jared Harris is hilarious as a scummy Russian cab driver. I'd forgotten this great exchange:

Lara Flynn Boyle: "Don't worry, dear, we're not laughing AT you, we're laughing WITH you."

Jane Adams: "But I'm not laughing."

I don’t have it on DVD and it’s not streaming near me. It needs to be a Criterion release.

The girl who bullied Dawn at school was a dead ringer for Taylor Hanson. That was a legit look for cool girls in the 90s who were kind of in between goths and jocks.

I rented this from a Hollywood Video circa 2002 when I was in junior high, and it left an indelible impression on me. There's nothing quite like it. I also had a major crush on Eric Mabius.

Don't be a thread grubber posters.

I disagree R12. He's not a Hollywood hunk but far from ugly.

R65 Leave the door open...I want to see you do a shit.

When Todd Solandz was casting for the role of Dawn he automatically rejected any youngster whose parents said it was a great screenplay and role.

He only looked seriously at young actresses whose parents expressed concern with the content. Smart guy.

Heather is fantastic in this. Actually, I've always enjoyed all her performances. She's one of a kind and in no way conforms to what Hollywood wants in a leading lady. She is a true legend.

Fuck Solondz for recasting Dawn with Type A Indie Theater Brat Greta Gerwig.

R82 To be fair given that Heather didn't want to play the character in any 'sequels' he had little choice. Greta was good but no match for Heather.

I also rewatched 'Happiness' the other day and I still love it - I first saw it at the movies on a blind date. Neither of us had researched the film and we never bothered with a second one. I knew it wasn't meant to be when he didn't laugh at the dad going on a shooting spree (and other assorted scenarios).

It's strange that Happiness's sequel, Life During Wartime, got the Criterion Collection but not the original.

I remember my first film by Todd. We were looking in the Voice for a movie and saw Happiness and thought it was a cartoon! We were in shock when we left!

Now it’s my favorite film of all time. It is so hilarious. It was shut out of the academy awards because of the subject matter. When I watch it now I just can’t stop laughing. The same with Story Telling.

I remember I loved it but it has been 24 years since I saw it.

[quote]Solodnz lacks any artistic sense.

What you don't know could fill a book.

Can you just imagine thinking Todd Solodnz lacks artistic sense??? Hahahahahahahaha

r79

No, he's major ugly. He's right above that girl who played Blossom.

Still can't get past that dog licking the boy's cum in Happiness. Todd Is a very fucked up filmmaker. I was surprised to learn he was gay. I wonder why he never wrote a single gay character (aside from the pedo dad).

One of my favorite filmmakers, alongside John Waters and David Lynch. I love every one of his films, and if you don't get him you're not worth knowing.

Wait, isn't Danny Devito's character in Wiener Dog gay? I'd love to watch a Solondz film where the main character is openly gay like he is.

Why does he need to write gay characters?

Why does he need to write gay characters?

Heather Matarazzo was not at her best in her tacked on "Scream 3" cameo or on "Roseanne."

I went to see "Happiness" when I was a grad student in New Jersey and Todd Solondz was there to speak afterward. He also produced from the audience the young boy who is molested in the film. It was an audience manipulation trick- "See, he's FINE, just fine." Some of my friends didn't like that.

I also liked "Palindromes" and thought it was done well.

I really liked "Welcome to the Dollhouse," but I think both Solondz and his fans would have been wiser had there not been this obsession to find out what happened to Dawn Wiener and continue her story. I felt by the end of "WttD" it was clear she was going to continue to have a miserable adolescence but that she would survive (as almost all rejects from adolescence do); I felt the need to continue her story resulted in him lashing back with the nasty opening of "Palindromes" (which no one liked), and then backtrack again with "Wiener Dog."

What was the sequel to Doll House? I forget?

I can see why a lot of people don't like Solondz, but I find him incredibly refreshing and unique. You certainly can't say there's another filmmaker like him. He takes the grimmest, most depressing stories and, somehow, manages to make them marvelously funny and human and attract top tier acting talent. I love him.

I can't wait for his next movie called Love Child, which will star Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez:

"Junior, a delusional aspiring Broadway star with an inappropriate obsession with his mother Immaculada (Cruz). After orchestrating an accident that nearly kills his abusive father, he encourages Nacho (Ramirez), the handsome man living in the family's guesthouse to court his mother and become his new dad. But when the two fall in love, Junior becomes so jealous that he is no longer the subject of his mother's attention that he hatches a plan to frame Nacho for his father's murder."

Saw HAPPINESS when it played at the old Laemmle at the Sunset 5.

My friend and I actually argued about the ending. I thought the son was crying because his father was a pedophile and she was adamant that he was crying because his dad wouldn't molest him but "just jerk off."

People walking past us at Buzz were flipping out!

[quote]What was the sequel to Doll House?

Not really a sequel but PALINDROMES tells us that Dawn committed suicide and we get an appearance from (original) Mark, her brother...who we find out has been accused of molesting his niece aka Missy the cunt's daughter. PALINDROMES is centered around Dawn's cousin, Aviva (a palindrome).

We also get to see Mark and his father pop back up in LIFE DURING WARTIME though played by different actors. In this new storyline we learn Mrs. Weiner is dead and there is no mention of Dawn or Missy.

Dawn pops back up in WIENER DOG, as a vet's assistant who takes the titular dog from her job to rescue him from being euthanized. She hooks back up with Brandon and they go visit his brother with Downs Syndrome. It is heavily implied that they will be a couple now and find happiness though with their own sets of baggage.

Solondz really likes to weave his characters throughout different films. See also STORY TELLING and DARK HORSE with Selma Blair's character.

r98

Yes, finally someone understands the saying, "Not every story needs to be told"

Christ, I barely remember Palindromes. I need to rewatch it. Is Selma Blair fucking the Black guy in Palindromes or is that in Happiness? That was an interesting scene.

R105 Its in Storytelling.

I did see Palindromes and about died on the scene where all the retarded kids are dancing. The black guy fucking Selma Blair in Story Telling was incredible too. The first story in Story Telling was incredible as well. There's that one scene where the maid is crying and the look on her face was hilarious. The part of the maid was played be a very popular, well known Mexican actress. I can't remember her name and I'm too lazy to look it up.

I met Heather M years ago at a club in Silver Lake. Man, she was a bitch. Still loved that movie.

[quote]My friend and I actually argued about the ending. I thought the son was crying because his father was a pedophile and she was adamant that he was crying because his dad wouldn't molest him but "just jerk off."

I think it's the latter as well, which makes it even more fucked up

Do you think Jonbenet Ramsey was based on the younger sister?

I haven’t seen any of these. I did attempt to watch Weiner Dog but got depressed into the second anthology and turned it off. Glad I did hearing how it ends.

I didn't mean he *needs* to write gay characters, but I find it odd he never does. Why wouldn't you write gay characters being gay yourself? I think Solondz is a very self-loathing person and his art shows it.

He doesn’t write black characters either, r112, unless they are a very specific type for a very specific sick joke.

Solodnz, like Lena Dunham, doesn’t see race, and likely doesn’t see sexuality either, .

There are a couple of gay characters in his movies -- Dawn's friend Ralphie, aka "Just because you're a faggot doesn't mean you're an asshole." And in Storytelling Scooby lets his gay friend blow him when he's stoned. I agree he's self-loathing but he makes art, comedy, out of that so who cares? Who wants to watch art about well-adjusted people, barf

Pretty sure Solondz is't gay. I always assumed he was but he isn't as far as I know.