Funny / Death Becomes Her

• Songbird! is actually quite a good musical, and Meryl Streep knows how to sing. So how do they make sure that the audience would think it's awful? Aside from the egotistical lyrics, at one point, the song just devolves into "Do The Hustle", complete with "Woop! Woop!"
  • The movie opens up outside the theater with people literally walking out in the middle of the show, talking about how crappy it was. One guy even says I Need a Freaking Drink. Inside the theatre it's even worse, the show has barely even started yet, and the audience is leaving in droves. If you look closely when the camera pans over the crowd, one guy is asleep!
  • The sole exception? Ernest, who's completely mesmerized by Madeline's performance.
    Ernest: (whisper to Helen) She's sensational!
• Fat Helen's life. She's a Crazy Cat Lady who eats frosting with her hands from the can, and watches Madeline playing a character getting murdered on screen over... and over... and over... and over... even when she's being forcibly evicted she rewinds to watch her get murdered as she's carried away, laughing.
• Helen in group therapy at the mental hospital.
  Helen: I would like to talk about... Madeline Ashton!
  (The rest of the group starts screaming.)
• The sheer contrast between Madeline's and Ernest's breakfast tables can count as this. Madeline is served tea, apple slices and yoghurt on elegant china complete with a flower vase and magazines. Ernest? A large Bloody Mary and a container of Ibuprofen.
• Ernest and Madeline's housekeeper trying to rouse a drunk and unconscious Ernest on the floor. Instead of smelling salts, she uses a Bloody Mary! Even funnier, after he wakes up and takes a drink, he complains that it needs more vodka.
• Madeline's Freak Out at the beauty parlor when she's denied a skin procedure, which you're not supposed to get more than once every six months. She insists it's been almost that long. It's been three weeks.
• The look of pure disgust on Helen's face when she goes to kiss Madeline's cheek.
• When Helen tries to manipulate Ernest, telling him that Madeline was responsible for him leaving her:
  Helen: She's a woman, Ernest. A woman... from Newark, for God's sakes.
  • Even funnier? Helen and Madeline grew up together — meaning Helen is from Newark too.
• Madeline goes to see her young lover after having her ego take a beating at Helen's book party. He attempts to lie his way out of Madeline finding out he's not alone but she very clearly knows:
  Dakota: She's a friend of the guy who was here to fix...
  Madeline: OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, AT LEAST LIE QUICKLY!
  Dakota: I am trying to!
• The Now You Tell Me moment ("NOW a warning?!")
• When Madeline asks Lisle what the price for the potion, in her case, would be, Lisle takes a piece of paper and writes something, looks at Madeline again, and keeps writing before showing her. It's subtle, but it's implied that the second glance at Madeline told Lisle she could get away with tacking a few more zeroes onto the bill, and that's what she's writing when she turns back to the paper.
• Madeline becoming younger involves her breasts and butt becoming firmer, raising with an audible "Pop!"
• Madeline, after noting that her head is on backwards. Which took her a long time to do so, including being VERY visibly confused about having to walk and move backwards since she's now facing the opposite direction. It takes Ernest having to tell her to look down for her to realise what's wrong:
  Madeline: My ass... I can see... my ASS!
• Madeline's medical exam with the doctor. He checks Madeline for a heartbeat with a stethoscope in a typical doctor's manner...and when he finds nothing, he taps the tool with a finger. Cue a sudden and loud THUD THUD as the audience hears that!
• When Ernest is convinced Madeline's survival of a fatal injury is Divine Intervention, he announces "IT'S A MIRACLE!" like Dr. Frankenstein announcing his Frankenstein monster is alive, complete with Dramatic Thunder. This earns him a dull Aside Glance from Madeline.
• "You're a fraud, Helen! You're a walking lie, and I can see right through you!" (which Madeline does, literally, through the hole in Helen's abdomen).
  • While the women are sparring, Madeline throws her broken shovel handle at Helen like a javelin and sends it right through the hole, failing to do any damage and impaling the couch behind her. "YES! NO! Oh, DAMN!"
  • This exchange right afterwards.
    Madeline: This is pointless! Wait a minute, wait a minute! This is ridiculous. We can't even hurt each other! We can't even inflict pain!
    Helen: "Pain"?! (gives Madeline a good hard WHACK over the head with the shovel) I'LL TELL YOU ABOUT "PAIN"! Bobby O'Brian. Scott Hunter. Ernest Menville. That's pain. I loved every one of them, and they loved me... (notices that she hit Madeline with the shovel so hard that it sunk her head partway into her neck, with only her eyes peeking at her) ...I will not speak to you until you put your head on straight!
  • During the scene where Helen finally admits she found Madeline cheap, she sits on the impaled couch... with the handle perfectly going through the hole in her torso!
• Madeline reveling in killing Helen.
  Ernest: She's dead!
  Madeline: (mock gasp) She is? (gleeful) Oh. These are the moments that make life worth living.
  • Then:
    Ernest: Life in prison? Know what that means to a person in your condition?
    Madeline: So negative. (eyes glittering) Can't you just let me enjoy the moment?
  • Then:
    Madeline: Ain't nobody who can play dead like me!^note Oh, Madeline. If only you knew...
• (Helen rises from a pool with a huge, gaping hole in her chest)
  Helen: Look at me, Ernest! Just look at me! I'm SOAKING WET!
• Madeline mocking Helen for that hole, advising her to avoid two-piece swimsuits the next time she goes to the beach. This earns Mad a BONK to the head with a shovel, which breaks her neck again. Her only response is an annoyed "Damn, I just fixed this."
• When Madeline's head gets knocked one too many times, it keeps flopping downward, annoying Helen, who refuses to speak to her until she fixes it, as Mad gives a weak "I'm trying!" It's incredibly macabre and ridiculous.
• While Madeline and Helen talk it out and apologize to each other, sharp-eyed viewers may notice a tribal-looking bust wearing a stacked necklace on the coffee table between them. In the next scene where they apologize to and convince Ernest to give them one last touch-up before he leaves, Madeline is wearing the same necklace to keep her broken neck upright.
• The Imagine Spot as Helen goes over her plan to kill Madeline: she pours alcohol all over Madeline's car and then dumps the bottles inside, revealing dozens of bottles and alcohol everywhere.
  Helen: We'll make it look like she's had just a little bit too much to drink...
• Ernest returning to Madeline's hospital room, only to find her missing:
  Ernest: Where did you put my wife?
  Doctor: (sympathetic) She's dead, sir. They took her to the morgue.
  Ernest: The morgue? She'll be FURIOUS!
• When Lisle first tells Madeline the price for the youth potion, she laughs...until Lisle demonstrates what the potion does.
  Madeline: Check okay?
• Ernest trying to break up the fight between undead Madeline and Helen:
  Ernest: Girls, girls, calm down. I'm sure we can settle this peacefully— WOAH!
  (Quickly ducks as shovels clash together over his head. Madeline and Helen begin circling each other, shouting and swinging shovels.)
  Ernest: ...I'll just be upstairs.
  • Madeline's and Helen's insults towards each other while they're sparring are equally hilarious;
    Madeline: You should learn not to compete with me, I always win!
    Helen: You may have always won, but you never played fair!
    Madeline: Who cares how I played, I won!
    Helen: Yeah, that's because you can raise your legs higher, and wider than anyone!
    Madeline: AND BETTER!
    Helen: Well look at you now, you can't raise an eyebrow without major surgery!
    Madeline: I've raised a lot more than an eyebrow in my day, you skinny, phony, HOLLOW BITCH!
    Helen: Yeah, well you lost your one and only talent!
    Madeline: Which was one more talent than you had, you former FATSO!
• Chagall greeting the guests at Lisle's party, reminding them of the necessity of staging their own deaths.
  Chagall: We have a very strict policy against popping up in public... to grab a few headlines. (Pause.) I won't name names. (Waggles finger at audience.) You know who you are.
  (Crowd turns to look at Elvis, who glances down at the floor and mumbles guiltily.)
  Elvis: Hey, I was just havin' some fun...
• Lisle's assistants are Tom, Dick and Harry.
• Ernest narrowly escapes Lisle's assistants but has to make his way through the hall full of her guests, with Madeline and Helen among them. Helen spots him and notices he still looks the same, to which Madeline comments Lisle must not have given him the good stuff.
• Madeline and Helen dissolve into hysterical laughter at the Dramatic Irony of their situation (both of them wanted each other dead, now they're both physically dead and only have each other to rely on for eternity) after they fail to catch Ernest before he escapes and Lisle has banished them from her group, before reality sinks in for them.
• Madeline and Helen's literal downfall at the end of the film, after Helen trips and loses her balance on top of a flight of stairs over a spray paint can Madeline had dropped earlier. Madeline refuses to save Helen and smirks at her instead, causing Helen to pull her down as well and their rotting bodies tumble and smash into pieces at the bottom. Helen's response as her head rolls next to Madeline's?
  Helen: Do you remember where you parked the car?
• The eternally youthful Lisle asks Madeline to guess her age. When Madeline correctly answers 38 (Isabella Rossellini's real age at the time), Lisle's smug smile turns into a murderous glare before Madeline hastily corrects herself down to 28, then to 23.