The current cinema, "perhaps a blackout would be preferable" edition

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• Lurkerdodo says:

  May 25, 2011 at 12:24 pm

  First! And at a good oppor­tun­ity for Glenn to resolve my love/hate rela­tion­ship with Armond White:
  http://npaper-wehaa.com/nypress/2011/05/26#?article=1272737
  It’s pretty rich that he equates love of slob-coms with “con­tempt for the gen­er­al pub­lic”, espe­cially giv­en the $277 Million recep­tion the pub­lic gave the first. Any more riff­ing would be appreciated.

• JREinATL says:

  May 25, 2011 at 12:56 pm

  Did they man­age to make II as ugly and miso­gyn­ist­ic as the first one? I’ve always liked Rachel Harris and am still pissed about the indig­nit­ies that she had to suffer.

• Mr. Ziffel says:

  May 25, 2011 at 1:13 pm

  I was glad to see you wer­en’t impressed by the first one either, Glenn. Although almost every­one I know loved The Hangover, I was truly under­whelmed and wondered if I was miss­ing some­thing. I thought Pineapple Express was a much bet­ter idiot-buddy comedy/action flick (or “slob-com”, whatever we’re call­ing the genre). I saw The Hangover well after the ini­tial buzz and was reminded of a sim­il­ar instance when see­ing Beverly Hills Cop back in the day after many friends had raved about it (one guy had the auda­city to claim it was super­i­or to 48 Hrs!). Truly a “WTF?” moment, well before that acronym entered pop­u­lar usage.

• bill says:

  May 25, 2011 at 3:05 pm

  I won­der how many people real­ize that “mis­andry” is actu­ally a word.

• Fabian W. says:

  May 25, 2011 at 3:09 pm

  “a plot mach­in­a­tion more or less lif­ted whole­sale from crime writer Charles Willeford’s under­ground clas­sic “The Shark-Infested Custard”
  I’ve heard that Drive-In cinemas are all the rage in Thailand.
  (G’d, what a ter­rible thought. I feel dirty.)

• bill says:

  May 25, 2011 at 3:14 pm

  Oh heck, I haven’t read the review yet and there­fore was unaware of the Charles Willeford/SHARK-INFESTED CUSTARD men­tion. Noice!, as a guy at a frat­house might say.

• John M says:

  May 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm

  BEVERLY HILLS COP is super­i­or to 48 HRS.
  There.

• Tom Block says:

  May 25, 2011 at 3:37 pm

  “Midnight Run” kicks the shit out of both of ’em put together.

• John M says:

  May 25, 2011 at 4:03 pm

  I won’t dis­agree with that.

• Mark Diorio says:

  May 26, 2011 at 8:16 am

  Yea, someone else does­n’t like The Hangover! People tried to make me think I did­n’t appre­cite funny because I thought the movie was filled with easy, tired gags had hardly laughed. The Jack Black clone is annoy­ing as hell. Let’s hope this one flops so that a third isn’t thrust upon us.

• Mr. Ziffel says:

  May 26, 2011 at 10:45 am

  BEVERLY HILLS COP sucks.
  So double there, and no backsies!
  (I do love MIDNIGHT RUN, though.)

• Joe says:

  May 26, 2011 at 11:22 am

  Sounds like Mr. Gleen Kenny should stick to review­ing ‘foo foo’ films, as he terms them. Guess what? ‘The Hangover’ series isn’t made to intel­lec­tu­al­ize! If you don’t like gags with men behav­ing like juven­iles, then don’t review or pat­ron­ize these movies. Jeez, it’s not like you did­n’t know what you were going to get, going in.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  May 26, 2011 at 11:29 am

  Lighten up, Joe. You’ve got Josh Rothkopf on your side. Do you really need EVERY crit­ic to like “Hangover” movies? And I enjoy gags with men behav­ing as juven­iles just fine, if they’re FUNNY, as they are in “Animal House,” “Caddyshack,” “The Wedding Crashers,” etc. The “Hangover” gags did­n’t strike me as funny. And, not to put too fine a point on it, they’re not gags involving men behav­ing like juven­iles. More like assholes. But even so…

• Kent Jones says:

  May 26, 2011 at 12:41 pm

  GK, I know you wer­en’t a big HALL PASS fan, but com­pared to THE HANGOVER it’s MY MAN GODFREY.
  Why is it that whenev­er someone expresses their dis­like of some­thing “pop­u­lar,” they’re instantly accused of “intel­lec­tu­al­iz­ing?” Or, of being a “disin­genu­ous snob?” As you say, why does abso­lutely every­one HAVE to like it?
  What’s odd to me is the num­ber of people who assured me that the first HANGOVER was “really good” and (I’m still try­ing to fathom this one) “well-directed.” One HANGOVER was enough for me.

• bill says:

  May 26, 2011 at 12:56 pm

  Come on, Gleen.
  But ser­i­ously. Among my movie-loving pals across this great inter­net, I feel like a recluse in that I did actu­ally sort of like THE HANGOVER, in that I laughed as much as I felt was neces­sary for me to feel okay about spend­ing money to see it. I like to think I have a pretty good ear/sense for com­edy, hence my feel­ings of loneli­ness here.
  Not only that, but I think ANIMAL HOUSE is a grind, THE WEDDING CRASHERS was fine I sup­pose, but bar­ring Ted Knight CADDYSHACK is a waste. Ted Knight IS there, though, and full cred­it for that. But still.
  All the talk about Todd Phillips being some genu­ine film­mak­ing tal­ent though is stu­pid, though, I agree.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  May 26, 2011 at 1:02 pm

  Well Bill, when Kevin Smith’s right, he’s right, and he sure was right when he said “Comedy is so fuck­ing sub­ject­ive, man.” See, “Animal House” is about my favor­ite “wrong” com­edy ever, and I can­’t ima­gine NOT being amused by such lines as “You fucked up. You trus­ted us,” “I anti­cip­ate a deeply reli­gious exper­i­ence,” and “You can take your thumb out of my ass any time, Carmine.” Whereas I could­n’t tell you a single sol­it­ary line from the first “Hangover.”
  I have to check out Mr. Phillips trash-talking of poor little David Poland, that sounds like it might be fun.

• bill says:

  May 26, 2011 at 1:33 pm

  HANGOVER’s not some­thing I’m going to the mat over, mind you. But I don’t actu­ally think that “com­edy is so fuck­ing sub­ject­ive, man”. That atti­tude implies that there is no such thing as a well-crafted, art­ful joke, or its oppos­ite. The prob­lem with bring­ing that up now is that I’m not about to use THE HANGOVER to make my case.

• James Keepnews says:

  May 26, 2011 at 1:34 pm

  When I still had my not-for-profit going in upstate NY in the 90’s, the first film I presen­ted was HATED, Mr. Phillips’ first film, a doc­u­ment­ary on the trans­gress­ive artist di tutti trans­gress­ive artists, G. G. Allin. Holy mack­er­el, did it ever “go there” where the late M. Allin is con­cerned and I’m sur­prised it remains as under­dis­cussed as it does, and not just where rock­docs are con­cerned. He was at work in a Voice-covered porn doc that I don’t believe ever saw the light of day. And as all cinephiles know, he was also instru­ment­al in the cre­ation of the NY Underground Film Festival, which at least in its first few years truly lived up to its out­sider name. As a res­ult, I was very curi­ous to see what he would do with Road Trip, and paid for my curi­os­ity accord­ingly. I did see some of The Hangover on cable, and was equally mys­ti­fied by its wide embrace by the movie-going pub­lic. I blame Zach and the absurdly fetch­ing Ms. Graham.
  But I don’t doubt Mr. Phillips’ tal­ent as a film­maker – I only wish he had­n’t cor­rectly sur­mised the degree to which his career would bene­fit from its sup­pres­sion. I real­ize such mer­cen­ary instincts are unheard of in American cinema.

• bill says:

  May 26, 2011 at 1:34 pm

  But, like, Albert Brooks…if someone were to claim that he was not a funny per­son, they would be wrong. This would­n’t be a mat­ter of opinion.

• will says:

  May 26, 2011 at 3:59 pm

  @bill: …yeah…it…would… (now Dave Chappelle on the oth­er hand…)

• jbryant says:

  May 26, 2011 at 4:06 pm

  I thought THE HANGOVER was reas­on­ably funny, even if it got by more on energy and out­rageous­ness than true hil­ar­ity. And I do think Phillips’ visu­al choices gen­er­ated a bit more cine­mat­ic interest than the aver­age mass-appeal com­edy (I gen­er­ally get the impres­sion that most main­stream com­edy dir­ect­ors don’t want visu­al beauty to dis­tract from char­ac­ter, dia­logue, jokes, slap­stick, etc.). Glenn, I don’t think I can quote any lines from it either, but the dia­logue is undeni­ably super­i­or to that of, say, MON ONCLE. So there! This con­cludes the damning-with-faint-praise por­tion of our program.
  Kent, I agree that there’s noth­ing more tire­some than someone decry­ing the sup­posed “snob­bery” of those who don’t cot­ton to the pop­u­lar hit of the moment, as if it’s a per­son­al affront that dif­fer­ing opin­ions exist. But there’s an oppos­ite phe­nom­ena nearly as puzz­ling (hin­ted at in Mr. Ziffel’s com­ment above) – the old “I’m the only one who did­n’t like ‘block­buster X’ ” phe­nomen­on. It’s invari­ably someone who came late to the party, sit­ting in the theat­er sniff­ing, “Okay, sup­posedly great movie, aston­ish me.”
  I also love it when someone says some­thing like “Apparently, I’m the only per­son who does­n’t like MAD MEN” (a show that, how­ever great, rarely gets more than 2 mil­lion view­ers per episode).

• Sammy105 says:

  May 26, 2011 at 4:10 pm

  Glenn… thank you! You’ve helped me real­ize how often lately I’ve been simply “going with the flow” and scared to real­ize I flat-out dis­like a film ’cause many friends online and else­where claim they like it! At some point, someone has to say something…
  I can­’t say I did­n’t like the Hangover at all… I can say that, though I brain­washed myself to believe it was funny before, it’s truly not. It does­n’t fit in the ‘com­edy’ genre, unless you call There’s Something About Mary a com­edy and Very Bad THings a com­edy… I walked out of the theat­er when the audi­ence laughed at a guy catch­ing his man­hood in his zip­per and holler­ing in pain… I felt sick to my stomach.
  I now say the same about the taser scene in the first Hangover. Those things kill and paral­ize people on daily basis with help of deranged cops. How was I to “enjoy” and laugh at a movie’s main char­ac­ters be elec­tro­cuted with 20,000 volts?
  But… what I liked about the Hangoever is the end­ing. It did inspire me to think out­side the box, and real­ize that a rel-ship I may be in, though seems stable, needs a lookover, and friends might be right.
  I agree with Glenn that Galifanakis’ char­ac­ter just does­n’t come off real­ist­ic. Then again… if the writers met a per­son like that in real life, I can­’t prove ’em wrong.
  There was a decent amount of mys­tery in the first HO, sus­pense and all that. No, it was­n’t funny nor real­ist­ic in many parts – a world-known box­er would punch a ran­dom guy? I think Tyson would simply get his damn tiger him­self and be on his way… he’s not the mafia, for cry­in’ out loud, that scene made him look bad.

• jbryant says:

  May 26, 2011 at 5:08 pm

  I have refused to watch any com­edy films since see­ing Charlie Chaplin slip on a banana peel in 1914. How people can laugh at such mis­for­tune is bey­ond me.

• George says:

  May 27, 2011 at 5:00 am

  “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
  “Eight years of col­lege – down the drain!”
  “Is it sup­posed to be this soft?”
  Animal House is full of mem­or­able lines. And I can­’t recall any lines from The Hangover, either.

• Mr. Ziffel says:

  May 27, 2011 at 8:16 am

  @jbryant: Ouch! Did you really hear me sniff? I did­n’t mean to come off as a pre­ten­tious dick­head, but you’re right – there was a cer­tain degree of “here I am now, enter­tain me” when I finally caught up with THE HANGOVER. Of course I real­ize I’m not the only per­son who did­n’t love the film, but among my par­tic­u­lar group of friends and fam­ily I was the exception.
  On the oth­er hand, it’s great to see a film with little or no expect­a­tions and be pleas­antly sur­prised. One instance in which this happened for me was when I saw AIRPLANE! the day it was released. I had­n’t read any reviews and it was one of those let’s go to a mat­inée to see some­thing, any­thing rainy days. A com­edy with a bunch of old TV stars? Eh, why not? We laughed all the way through the damn thing.

• Asher says:

  May 27, 2011 at 6:20 pm

  “I also love it when someone says some­thing like “Apparently, I’m the only per­son who does­n’t like MAD MEN” (a show that, how­ever great, rarely gets more than 2 mil­lion view­ers per episode).”
  Well, the people who don’t watch it don’t neces­sar­ily dis­like it. They just don’t hap­pen to watch it. I think that, among those who have watched three or more epis­odes, it’s extremely, and some­what undeservedly, popular.

• jbryant says:

  May 27, 2011 at 8:15 pm

  Mr. Ziffel (How is Arnold these days, by the way?): I did­n’t really mean to call you out. As I said, your post “hin­ted” at the issue I brought up, but you wer­en’t a “pure” example of it or any­thing. Thanks for being a good sport though!
  Asher: That was actu­ally my point, but I guess I did­n’t make it clearly. Obviously, one can­’t like (or loathe) MAD MEN without see­ing it. So why would any­one say “Everyone seems to like this thing except me?” Hyperbole, I know, and they prob­ably just mean that it SEEMS like every­one who watches likes it. But I think it’s some­times a way for the “hater” to seem icon­o­clast­ic – “I don’t let pun­dits or the zeit­geist do my think­ing for me! The emper­or has no clothes! Harumph!”
  Now you’ve got me pon­der­ing why MAD MEN is so pop­u­lar with me if it’s “some­what undeserv(ing).”