A really cranky movie review

[cosmolinguist]

On my way to the tram station I walk past a big poster with two goonish, grinning faces on it. Space not taken up by their ugly mugs is consumed with very large black letters saying things like "UPROARIOUSLY FUNNY" or "THE MOST HILARIOUS FILM OF THE YEAR!"

Now, I know that propaganda for movies like this always contains such sparkling praise.* These days the posters (for comedies) all look like this. This one warrants mentioning only because it happened to be for The Wedding Crashers, which I saw last week (it wasn't our fault! we were told we could see Madagascar, and then we couldn't!), and which, I can tell you, is not uproariously funny. It is not the most hilarious thing I have seen all year.

I read a review of this movie (after I saw it; I don't even think I'd heard of it before I saw it) that started out promisingly: "Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn seem to show up in a new movie every month, and their shtick is getting old. They're Johnny-One-Notes. Wilson is always the diffident, soft-spoken, semi-stoned surfer dude made adorably vulnerable by a nose that goes in, like, six different directions. Vaughn is the really tall, sleazy, jabbering gonzo wild man. The poster for Wedding Crashers makes it clear that the film will be more of what we've come to expect, and it is."

Then it messes up with the next sentence: "The difference is that it's funny." And it just gets weirder from there: while recognizing that it's formulaic, sexist, sappy and conventional at the end, and "probably a one-sentence pitch", the reviewer praises the scriptwriters and the director, even compares Wilson and Vaughn favorably with Groucho Marx.

To be fair, I did laugh at the movie a few times. It was adequate for what it's supposed to be--which is, actually, what the review seemed to say; I don't think the movie surprised either me or this reviewer. I guess we just disagree on whether "what it's supposed to be" is a good thing.

Didn't Mark Twain say something like "Man is the animal that laughs"? Someone said that. Anyway, I'm reminded of the response this notion gets in Stranger in a Strange Land (so Robert Heinlein said it, if no one beat him to it) when Mike, the human raised from birth by Martians, is brought to Earth and tries to figure out this odd race. While it's true that his Martian upbringing has kept him from learning how to laugh, it's not just the sound Mike's missing, it's the whole concept.

Eventually he figures it out: "They laugh because it hurts ... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting." The dumb human he's with, of course, doesn't get it: "laughing is what you do when something is nice ... not when it's horrid." "Is it?" he replies. "Perhaps I don't grok its fullness yet. But find me something that makes you laugh, and we'll see if there isn't a wrongness in it somewhere, and if you'd laugh if the wrongness wasn't there."

Anyone who's watched a modern American sitcom or comedy film with comradexavier comes to the inescapable conclusion that the humor is all based on the characters suffering, and much of that suffering takes the form of embarrassment. If the theory is that audiences can't help laughing at thinly veiled (or not at all veiled) pratfalls, it's backfired on comradexavier, who so identifies with the victim that he can't bear to watch--sometimes literally; many were the occasions when a Frasier rerun or a movie like Elf would have him hiding behind my shoulder or burying his face in a pillow as soon as it became obvious that deep embarrassment was imminent ... every few minutes, in other words.

Watching stuff with him made me more sensitive to this, and I started to find much American "comedy" even less fun than I had before. Even if you're not debilitatingly empathetic, such humor quickly loses what little appeal it ever had and become merely tedious.

I don't get it: there are other ways that things can be funny! I know ths because I've seen silly things, clever things, actual funny things that are a delight to watch, listen to, read, or whatever. Some of them I come back to and still laugh just as much even when I know what's coming, rather than not laughing the first-and-only time because I know what's coming and it wasn't funny even in my mind, which is what happens with stuff like The Wedding Crashers.

The combination of boredom and feeling bad for maltreated characters is not exactly what I'd call fun. I don't want to pick on this movie particularly--it didn't do anything to me (well, nothing I didn't already know it would do)--it's just that I can't figure out why people like it, why it's better than others of its type, when it's a type I never find likeable.

---

* With suspiciously subtle and clever use of ellipsis points; for all you know, that reviewer actually said, "This movie is as far from uproariously funny as you can get. Rather, everyone involved with it even tangentially is obviously a moron, and the only advice I can give you, the unsuspecting public, is to stay away." The studios would just go "Ooo, good, someone said 'uproariously funny,' we can use that!"

Comments

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued you seem to think of it as an American thing. British comedy has for absolutely donkey's years been predicated on having grotesque characters who make one cringe, and watching in acute embarassment as they cock it up time and time again. And they tend to be nasty. (Fawlty Towers/The Office/&c&c..)

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

And comradexavier appears to be my comedy-watching twin; I can rarely sit through an entire episode of one of those comedies without walking out until the excruciatingness is over...

[cosmolinguist]

I've seen him actually run out of the room on occasion. Yes, that's partly theatrics, of course--if he'd been alone, he probably would've just walked! :-) And, theatrics or not, I'm sure he was much happier in the other room, doing something else.

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, I run away from 'comedy' when I'm alone, too. Just yesterday, I was looking for a movie I hadn't watched, when I remembered that I have a ridiculously bad stolen copy of 10 Things I Hate About You that I filched from the network my first year in college. Oddly enough, I mostly like the movie, but even yesterday, alone, I at least twice ran away into my bedroom and stuck my head under a pillow.

Nevermind that I could have just skipped the video forward...

[cosmolinguist]

I thought that, for what it is, 10 Things I Hate About You was actually decent (I had a copy myself, taped off TV; I wouldn't pay money for it but it was okay to have around). Though I can think of a few parts that may make you run away.

[cosmolinguist]

Well, I don't know if it's entirely American, I just don't know enough about the British stuff to feel that I can speak for it as well.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Well, the difference with those examples is that one is not meant to like Basil Fawlty, or David Brent, or Alan Partridge. One may sympathise with them slightly, especially Fawlty, but ultimately they are terrible, horrible people.
Plus, those things are usually the product of one or two creative, talented people sitting down to make something funny, so they usually end up being funny. The films Holly's talking about seem designed to make X million dollars at the box office. To me it's like the difference between Psycho and Freddie Vs Jason...

[arcane.livejournal.com]

That is very true. And if you look at the more successful American comedies (Seinfeld comes to mind) the characters are also horrible people.

This type of comedy goes way, way back. It has roots entrenched in commedia del arte which takes stock characters and puts them in situations in which they will be maltreated. In fact, the British farce is identified by the maltreatment of characters--Frasier was just a poor rip off of British comedy.

By the way, it's not the maltreatment that's the funny part is the reaction the character have to that treatment which makes it funny. Anybody can write a scene in which a person's pants fall down when you're having dinner with the Queen but it's the reaction of those involved (written and acted) that make us laugh. The problem with most American sitcoms is that they have so many rules they have to follow with producers and the writers are on such a time limitation you don't get a lot of creativity. And a lot of American film actors are cast more on their attractiveness than their comedy talent anyway.

[cosmolinguist]

it's not the maltreatment that's the funny part is the reaction the character have to that treatment which makes it funny.

True. I think the reaction of fellow audience members might have something to do with it as well--I noticed during the movie that the laughs would sometimes happen in little ripples, more people joining in when they heard that laughing was okay. And isn't that why we have laugh tracks--to tell us when it's funny? Everyone thinks they're stupid, but they still seem effective (as much as they ever were, anyway).

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware I was meant to like Frasier or Niles, though...

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't watch Frasier, because the exaggerated faux-Mancunian accent of Daphne makes me want to projectile vomit at the TV in the hope that some of it will get in the speakers and muffle her voice.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about this movie, which was actually given a pretty decent review in our local paper.

Imagine the randy boys of "American Pie" and "Porky's" all grown up. Now, imagine that they never grew up, just got older, and you get "Wedding Crashers," a profane, uproariously funny film that celebrates and chastises the aging womanizers at its center, played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

...Presented with comedy gold, Dobkin opts to just point and shoot.

...Confined to supporting roles the past few years, fast-talking funnyman Vaughn grabs the spotlight and sizzles with comic energy.


There is more, but you get the idea.

Perhaps, when compared to what airs on syndicated television, movies like this are actually what a person could call "good". It's better than what people view at home on a regular basis, so it's labeled "uproariously funny," and people flock to it.

*shudders*

I'm apalled by the combination of people's inability to discern what "good" is, and their sheeple tendencies to allow the media's dictation that things are "good," and going along with it without so much as a blink.

There's that 'uproariously funny' again...

[cosmolinguist]

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that "the guys from American Pie or Porky's, not grown up" is being made to sound like a good thing?

Am I the only one who doesn't consider herself a snob about movies but thinks Hollywood is out to make her one, just for wanting people to notice what's actually good, or funny, or at least worth your time and admission ticket?

Or are the film reviewers just being paid off so they'll say this stuff? :-) There are so few options available that make any kind of sense.

I mean, I can feel like quite a sheep sometimes, floating along on the prevailing opinion ... but even I stick up for what's important, like movies!

Well, okay, I write about it in my blog anyway. Not quite the same as going to my window, opening it, sticking my head out, and yelling "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!" but ... this is what I've got.

Anyway, that movie probably wouldn't even get made today. :-) And it's truer than ever.

Re: There's that 'uproariously funny' again...

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

No, you're not the only one who thinks the Porky's grown up reference is made to sound like a good thing. LOL! Ick.

I'm a movie snob, so I can't answer your next question. LOL!

You know, it's funny you mention film reviewers being paid off. SEVERAL years ago, sometime in the 1980's, I was watching a newsprogram, you know, like 60 Minutes, or Dateline, or one of those. One of the men on this program reviewed movies. Don't ask his name, because I can't remember, nor can I recall his appearance.

Anyway, he had been given GIFTS by the makers of films in exchange for good reviews! He showed all the stuff he'd received from the people who made one of the Die Hard movies. He said it was a dreaful awful film, and he hated saying bad things about it after being given something like $100 worth of stuff in the form of coffee mugs, posters, t-shirts, keychains, duffel bags, etc.---all from ONE movie! He said it was commonplace for movie studios to send him baskets full of stuff as a kind of bribe for favorable reviews.

[cosmolinguist]

Anyway, he had been given GIFTS by the makers of films in exchange for good reviews!

Maybe I should be surprised, but I can't manage it. I think the marketing executives know how aggressively they must promote these movies, because there's no quality or anything good to attract people to them, a lot of the time.

[elrestodemivida.livejournal.com]

would have him hiding behind my shoulder or burying his face in a pillow as soon as it became obvious that deep embarrassment was imminent

I have this exact same feeling. Anything where there's cringe-moments or embarrassment, like Frasier as you mentioned, but not only U.S. stuff - Alan Partridge is another example, but more recently (and much more strongly) The Office... i just can't watch. It makes me cringe too much to laugh or find it proper funny, it's actually really painful, even wrenching and nauseating, for me to watch... i can't enjoy it because i can't bear it.

Weird, eh? I know it's me who's unusual in this respect, not everyone else, but i honestly can't see how other people's misfortunate or stupidity can be entertaining.

[elrestodemivida.livejournal.com]

Bah, just read the other comments above, and realise i have said exactly what everyone else has said. Except i forgot to mention Fawlty Towers etc. I can't watch that, either.