Funny People

In light of our casting pods at the tv vs film issue on the most recent Podcast Of Love I have elected to waste my virgin Naked Crusaders blog entry on reprinting an old blog of mine that explores this subject in then real time. Then time. Better than real time because it was then. I wrote this in the exciting then-ness of life right after I had seen Pineapple Express and shortly after seeing Tropic Thunder. I even reference Brandon, though not by name. So it comes full circle. And it goes something like this...

...Two fairly hyped comedies have come out the past week. Both were pretty well reviewed as these things go. I speak of Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. I’ve seen them both. And I have to say, if, as has been put forth by writers of greater acclaim than I (meaning they were acclaimed at all), these are the funniest movies of the past year, I think it is no wonder I don’t laugh much anymore.

THis should probably make me feel good. I was worried my life had stripped me of whatever receptivity to humor as well as ability to engender laughter I had. But maybe it’s not me. Maybe there just really isn’t anything all that funny out there. If this is the apex than Sweet Bloody Christ On A Stick we’re an unfunny people.

I guess it’s possible the worrying about the decaying of my own sense of humor and wit could be responsible for not thinking these movies are brilliant comedies. But I still think I have some review chops and good instincts left over even if I lack the hope, meaning, and purpose that used to drive them. And these aren’t great movies. And judging by the crowds I saw them with I wasn’t the only one not prostrate with guffaws.

And if you’ve ever been prostrated by a case of the guffaws you know what a bittersweet affliction this can be.

Now neither of these flicks was horrid. Pineapple Express is a stoner comedy from the Freaks And Geeks alumni associated with Judd Apatow. It’s in that vain. Apatow’s movie’s themselves have been acclaimed as the great comedies of our time. They are supposedly this generation’s John Hughes.

If so I weep for the future.

That’s a line from a Hughes movie by the way. If 10 people read this maybe 3 will have known that. If they are under 30 probably none of them will.

But who cares? Life moves on. Moves pretty fast even. If you don't stop and take a look you just might miss something and all that. Fine. But still if these movies are someday looked at as the Breakfast Clubs or Ferris Bueller’s of their time I gotta think we’re missing something and great comedy can now only be found on You Tube and Fox News.

And perhaps at the Country Music Awards.

Seriously, just the idea of it. Awards for the best Country music!

Shit that’s funny stuff.

Anyhow, Apatow’s Superbad was very well thought of last year along with Knocked Up. Both were ok. Really, really ok. But Knocked Up was pretty boring upon a second viewing on cable recently. And Superbad rarely prostrated me. It was a mostly guffawless experience even if a modestly pleasant one. It’s pleasantness I suspect was mostly due to Michael Cera who kicks all kinds of ass and who deserves to fuck every starlet in Hollywood starting with Megan Fox whom he should impregnate and then force to give the baby up to Angelina Jolie in return for Cera letting Jolie fuck him too. Because Michael Cera should violate every starlette in Hollywood and leaving them a quivering mass of ruined flesh. Because that's his nature.

Speaking of him, Juno even got an Oscar bid. Solid movie. Labeled a comedy. But again, not especially a prostrating experience. Same goes of those I watched it with in a theater in Rheinbeck. And if anyone knows comedy it’s the 6 figure salaried folks of Rhinebeck god damn it! I mean their Hannaford is so freaking clean and stately it’s got to be some kind wry ironic joke. These are a gifted people. And yet there were only appreciative chuckles.

Chuckles i say!

And I don't say chuckles often.

But I heard Juno talked of as a Say Anything for this generation. And I could kind of see that. But I still couldn’t help thinking this is sad. Say Anything wasn’t hilarious but it’s eternally quotable. Will youngsters today be quoting Juno 20 years from now? Probably not. They’ll have their work cut out for them just keeping track of all Michael Cera’s love children as they start coming of age and impregnating starlets at an exponential rate that future mathematicians will have to come up with a formula to track. This formula will feature the critical equation MC= S x F squared where MC is Michael Cera and S and F starlets and fucking that Cera has done.

Squared.

And at a velocity to be determined by his mass at the time.

If you know what I mean.

Anyway, back to recent well received comedies. I saw the first Harold And Kumar movie recently. Netflixed it.

With all these recent comedy viewings of mine you can probably tell by now that I have been pretty desperate to find something to laugh about here. And laugh I did. Occasionally. And decidedly without prostration.

When the fuck is someone going to do something for my prostrating needs!?

But the White Castle movie was still pretty damn formulaic and the humor nothing all that special. And yet it, along with the aforementioned comedies are highly thought of. At least for their time. So that’s why I wonder if we’re in unfunny times and if that’s contributing to my inability to form a smile.

Anyway I will touch on the Tropic Thunder controversy and say that protesters, and this includes my old sometimes current per diemey agency UG-ARC (as I found out tonight from a friend who works there), are really a bunch of whiny ass liberals without any sense of humor.

Now this may sound hypocritical in light of the previous passages of this post as well as my own ill formed attempts at humor in said post. But these people haven’t even seen the movie. It’s really not taking shots at retarded people. It’s making fun of Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, and all the other pretty boy actors who turn in sugar coated version of the mentally retarded that have little to do with reality. But of course ours is a culture that deals in reality the way a cat deals with a mouse: pounce on it, kill it, consume the evidence and call it a meal.

Or something more analogous.

People don’t want truth and Hollywood is glad to not give it to them.

But some of these self involved do-gooders want to sway people from seeing a movie because they’re more liberal about retarded people now than about free speech. The Simple Jack and whole “full retard,” segment was one of the few truly funny and observant aspects of the movie and these idiots want it removed!

So is it all me or are we dispossessing ourselves of real humor? Did Carlin take it with him? Fuck, even he wasn’t always that funny. But he prostrated me at times and damn it what more can one man ask of another?

Back to retarded people: I frakking work with these people. Manage a program of 10 of them. I truly care for some of these guys. Have affection for them even. And the “full retard,” segment with Robert Downey Jr and Ben Stiller rang true and was damn straight on funny. Also echoed things I’ve said about Hollywood depictions of the mentally disabled.

And let me just say this now that I bring him up: Robert Downey Jr is the most watchable actor in film. Bar none. He rocks. Without him this movie would have been a total waste of time. The other great moment came with his, “For 400 hundred years,” speech to the other black actor, an actor probably destined to be known as that other black actor despite being the only black actor. This in itself is a bit of genius that redeems a movie that needed more funny and less blowing things up.

Speaking of good parts. Pineapple Express’s crucifixion joint was pretty funny. So was “Fuck Jeff Goldblum.” A few other things as well, but this still wasn’t as good as an episode of Freaks And Geeks of which this could have been a mini reunion with just the two freaks Rogen and Franco getting together and possibly not remembering that they hung out together in school and had a band before one became a seller of weed and the other a process server who smokes a lot of it.

But is was ok. And that seems to be good enough today. I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok. But I don’t feel ok and though I’m not prepared to blame this on Seth Rogen or Ben Stiller, or even that Kumar fellow who was a terrorist on 24, I am serving notice.

But back to the greatness of Robert Downey Jr. In a recent interview he had the following to say about The Dark Knight:

“My whole thing is that that I saw ‘The Dark Knight’. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart. It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I loved ‘The Prestige’ but didn’t understand ‘The Dark Knight’. Didn’t get it, still can’t tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high brow and so f–king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’ You know what? F-ck DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.”

Agree or disagree this guy is awesome and should have lots of babies. IF he were a woman he would be a perfect genetic incubator for Michael Cera DNA. But he, at the last, is a man. And a magnificent one who must merely stand side by side with Cera as sexual avatars of our humorless age.

And with Entourage about to start it’s 5th season next month it occurs to me that Jeremy Piven as Ari should be Michael Cera’s agent and help sign him to lucrative deals to fuck and impregnate starlets. Because that’s what Michael Cera needs to do and Ari would understand this and get it done. If you take nothing from this post let it be this that you take the least of: Michael Cera is too much man for Hollywood to contain for long. His seed is a the seed of the ages and it must be spread by the best and hottest women celebrity has to offer us.