The funniest movie you'll ever read.
Casa de mi Padre (House of my Father or simply My Father's House) a 2012 Spanish-language comedy film. A parody of Spanish soap operas, it stars Will Ferrell, and is directed by Matt Piedmont and written by Andrew Steele. (With all three reuniting for the similarly absurdist, equally specific Spiritual Successor The Spoils of Babylon.) It tells the tale of Armando Álvarez, who works on his father's ranch. However, they are in financial trouble. The whole family counts on his brother Raúl to fix their financial woes. It's also in Spanish except for a few lines, despite the star never speaking a word of Spanish before shooting.Casa de mi padre provides examples of:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: In the trailer, Will Ferrell is called Will Ferrell.
- Affectionate Parody: Of telenovelas.
- Alliterative Name: Armando Álvarez
- Battle Discretion Shot: A fight between a coyote and a giant white cat (That turns out to be an onza) suddenly out of nowhere cuts to a still screen with a legal disclaimer from the second assistant cameraman scrolling by, telling the audience that for legal reasons, the fight scene can't be shown.
- Bilingual Bonus: Any scene with the DEA turns into this.
- Big Bad: The Onza (The person, that is. Not the giant talking hallucinogenic cat)
- Big Damn Heroes: Armando coming to Raúl's aid in fighting La Onza. Later, Esteban and Manuel save Armando.
- The Cameo: Molly Shannon
- Chewing the Scenery: Everybody gets a nibble in this, true to its Soap Opera roots.
- Chekhov's Gunman: You can easily forget him, but DEA Agent #2 saves Armando.
- Disney Acid Sequence: After being left for dead, Armando goes through one of these, which includes a talking onza.
- Dragon Their Feet: The DEA agents are still around after the death of La Onza.
- Eagleland: The DEA in the movie.
- Evil Laugh: The talking onza just as the end credits start to roll.
- Flash Back: One to the death of Amrando's mother.
- Funny Background Event: One of the guests is still sitting down and smoking while most of the others have been shot dead.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Armando smokes hand-rolled cigarettes, and La Onza smokes two Canadian Slims at once.
- Gorn: It's probably one of the bloodiest comedies you will ever see.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: A whole movie of it. One of the central jokes is Will Ferrell trying his damnedest to sound like a native Spanish speaker and not quite sticking the landing.
- Left the Background Music On: Dramatic music occurs as Armando enters the building during the final act. This turns out to be on the radio, as one of the people in the room immediately turns it off.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: The second camera assistant during the above Battle Discretion Shot example.
- Mayincatec: A lot of Mesoamerican imagery shows up during Armando's dream.
- Mood Whiplash: When Sonia Lopez is first introduced, there is a pan across her body from the ground up accompanied by background music, but this background music instantly stops with the next camera cut. These sudden stops in the soundtrack happen more often throughout the climax as well.
- My Name Is Inigo Montoya: "Yo soy Armando Álvarez!"
- No Fourth Wall: See Battle Discretion Shot.
- New Old West: A parody of the style.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted - the Big Bad is nicknamed "The Onza", and Armando is driven to motivation during a Disney Acid Sequence involving an actual onza. Which talks.
- Overly Long Gag: Armando, Esteban and Manuel laughing.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The immigration officers.
- Product Placement: Parodied with several fake products."Not all dirty ranchers like Canadian Slims."
- Recycled In Space: This film is in many ways for Spanish telenovelas what Black Dynamite is for Blaxploitation films.
- Rural Gangsters: Set in rural Mexico, it features narcs that produce their drugs there and then send them to the USA.
- Sexophone: The soundtrack uses this when Sonia first appears. This is immediately followed by the above Mood Whiplash.
- Special Effects Failure: Throughout and intentionally, but special mention has to go to the model of the city, which has Hot Wheels cars dragged by strings.
- The talking onza is a very obvious animatronic, especially during the ending shot as the credits start to roll.
- Close-up of Armando and Sonia riding horses.
-
Spiritual Successor: The Spoils of Babylon, another absurdist, specific Affectionate Parody created by director Matt Piedmont and writer Andrew Steele and starring Will Ferrell. - Stylistic Suck
- Talking Animal: The other onza during the Disney Acid Sequence example, and just before the end credits roll.
- Those Two Guys: Estaben and Manuel, the two ranchhands.
- Villainous Incest: La Onza with Sonia.
