Cecil B Demented (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) |
The Robbins Report: "South
Park" meets "Bowfinger", without the
laughs. John Water's target is the movie industry. The film is about some independent renegade filmmakers who kidnap a Hollywood star and force her to star in their movie. She gradually comes to see their point. This case of the victim coming to identify with her kidnappers reflects, in a distorted funhouse mirror, the real-life story of Patty Hearst. In a delicious irony, Patty Hearst is in the cast. |
Do you know that feeling you get when you watch a Saturday Night Live sketch and it isn't working? There are no laughs from the live audience, and the pacing is all wrong? And it just keeps getting worse because they keep trying harder? Well, if you enjoy that feeling, you can maintain it for 90 minutes by watching this film. It's like 90 minutes of Colin Quinn trying harder and harder and harder to be funny. And then being even unfunnier when he jokes about how he's bombing. |
|
The only stuff I laughed at was
John Waters seems to be confused about the nature of humor. No matter how easy a target you have, It isn't funny just to say, "Dan Quayle sucks", or "Steel Magnolias sucks". You don't go to the improv to watch some smirky guy tell you the stuff that he doesn't like in a snide tone. But that's what this film is, simply a rant. Here's my take on the rant scale:
|
|||||
|
This
movie is about halfway between Gottfried and Blackwell.
You might like it if you agree with it, something like
the reason why people like Rush Limbaugh, but that would
be unrelated to the intrinsic quality of the project. In addition to being unfunny, it has no edge or bite of any kind. It's like listening to your sarcastic cousin tell you about the movies he doesn't like. Oh, you agree with him, but who cares about his unoriginal and uninteresting opinions? Most Hollywood films are more anti-establishment than this. So, here's the real point. When John Waters started making films, he was considered too radical and his humor too dark for mainstream viewers. The world has changed, and he hasn't. Now his work is too tame and white bread for mainstream viewers used to true gross-out humor and stylized violence. |
||||
|
Return to the Movie House home page