by Jeremy Meckler and Nicholas Mangigian
Comedy has often had a rough shake in terms of critical praise. While a few near-perfect comedies are hailed as masterful, most of those lauded examples incorporate dramatic elements. Annie Hall may have won an Oscar and have some jokes, but that doesn't make it a comedy. There's a line drawn in the critical sand between movies to be taken seriously and those to be laughed at, and even the best crafted comedies those are still seen as excellent comedies, never to be regarded without the qualifier. Most have the reputation of being mere popcorn flicks and “serious” film scholarship rarely stoops to look at the likes of Dumb and Dumber. Yet the history of comedy film goes back to the invention of the medium, with many early films taking their form from vaudeville acts and gags. From the earliest days of cinema, humor has been an essential element. At the start, visual gags were a staple of the film apparatus–from bizarre formalist shorts like The Big Swallow (1901) to the early cinema comedic masters, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harry Lloyd, and comedy has always had its fingers on the pulse of cinematic innovation. Think for example of those quippy 40s screwball comedies, as emblematic of the era as film noir, or 80’s broad raunchy farces like Caddyshack or Animal House.
Once in a while, through some kind of alchemy, comedies can elicit moments of transcendence that go beyond their serious peers. What begins as a gag or a joke can become one of those touchstone moments that percolates into your life, a word or phrase around which ideas shape themselves. It’s no coincidence that comedies become the most quotable films in our daily lives; some of the most transformative cinematic experiences can sneak in through comedies, where you let your guard down enough to let these moments in. Maybe this is why comedy films have been so great at defining entire cinematic generations.
While the last few decades have spawned some acclaimed comedic work (the skyrocketing of Judd Apatow’s critical esteem with films like Knocked Up and Superbad or the directors who have essentially invented their own genres–Christopher Guest with his mockumentaries and Sacha Baron Cohen with his semi-documentary performance art) most "unserious" films have escaped critical attention or renown. In order to correct that, we dove into the deepest depths of badly received comedy to see what diamonds we could find in the rough.
Here follows those shiniest diamonds–films with “rotten” scores on Rotten Tomatoes that hold within them a beautiful glimmer of side-splitting joy, and hopefully a bit of that transcendence that marks the very best comedies.
While the last few decades have spawned some acclaimed comedic work (the skyrocketing of Judd Apatow’s critical esteem with films like Knocked Up and Superbad or the directors who have essentially invented their own genres–Christopher Guest with his mockumentaries and Sacha Baron Cohen with his semi-documentary performance art) most "unserious" films have escaped critical attention or renown. In order to correct that, we dove into the deepest depths of badly received comedy to see what diamonds we could find in the rough.
Here follows those shiniest diamonds–films with “rotten” scores on Rotten Tomatoes that hold within them a beautiful glimmer of side-splitting joy, and hopefully a bit of that transcendence that marks the very best comedies.
| Beerfest (2006) Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar DVD |  |
Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers (2001) is probably their best known comedy–mostly notable for the games these small town Vermont cops play with hapless civilians they have pulled over on the highway–but Beerfest is more ambitious. The film follows the ordinary Broken Lizard comedy troupe, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Kevin Heffernan, and Jay Chandresekhar, joined by comedy legend Cloris Leachman, as they try to reclaim the von Wolvhausen family’s secret beer recipe by winning an international drinking competition in Germany. What makes this film ultimately fascinating is its otherworldly beer drinking competition, and while the film’s plot is a little too juvenile even for this list’s standards–too close to becoming an American Pie spinoff with gratuitous boobs and barf–the drinking competition, shown twice in the film, is fascinatingly bizarre. Shot inside a timber-walled space that looks like a boxing ring from the Victorian era, the contest pits teams against each other, each representing a different country. The result just needs Isabella Rossellini to hobble in on beer-filled legs to be The Saddest Music in the World and the strange spectator-driven aspect of the event is bafflingly hilarious.
This film also masterfully breaks one of the tenets of screenwriting, by really messing with the audience. At one point a character–part of the American drinking team–is murdered, only to be replaced moments later by his identical twin brother, played by the same actor wearing a cowboy hat. While this gag is so simple and stupid, it’s oddly refreshing in the story-obsessed world of Hollywood. They throw any care for the film’s narrative out the window in favor of more and varied gags, and it pays off. While the film as a whole may be weak (on the weaker end of this list for sure) its glimmering moments are bright, in between all the dude-bro drinking jokes.
This film also masterfully breaks one of the tenets of screenwriting, by really messing with the audience. At one point a character–part of the American drinking team–is murdered, only to be replaced moments later by his identical twin brother, played by the same actor wearing a cowboy hat. While this gag is so simple and stupid, it’s oddly refreshing in the story-obsessed world of Hollywood. They throw any care for the film’s narrative out the window in favor of more and varied gags, and it pays off. While the film as a whole may be weak (on the weaker end of this list for sure) its glimmering moments are bright, in between all the dude-bro drinking jokes.
| Booty Call (1997) Directed by Jeff Pollack DVD |  |
Booty Call features a pretty great Jamie Foxx performance, a number of funny gags, and a real sense of warmth. Movies have been well-received for less—much less. This is not the best-written film on this list; it hews far too closely to its high-concept premise when it could have abandoned it about halfway through in favor of more interesting storytelling waters. Many of these bad comedies started to lag when the narrative juice ran out—the gags usually weren’t quite enough to drag a movie across the finish line. In this case, the gags—and the likable cast—are enough. Jamie Foxx plays Bunz, the wild-living best friend of Tommy Davis’s more sober Rushon, who is looking to get into bed with his girlfriend of some several weeks, Nikki (Tamala Jones). After some solid wing-manning by Bunz with Nikki’s close friend Lysterine (Vivica A. Fox), it appears that the two of them will be able to realize their desired hook-ups. However, it being 1997, the girls are insistent on safe sex and the guys, I guess, are clueless about it. Hijinks to procure adequate protection ensue.
The movie shines when Jamie Foxx has the floor with Vivica A. Fox—especially early in the film, their banter crackles. And a lot of the physical comedy isn’t bad at all—for some reason, it is very funny when Foxx and Davis manage to encase themselves in saran wrap (saran wrap being essential to safe oral, apparently). The last third or so of the picture takes place in a hospital, and Rushon’s reproductive organs, thanks to a devious patient mixing things up, suddenly end up on the line. The movie, here, acquires some high stakes, and the combined efforts of the actors trying to save their friend possesses a certain quality of tenderness and joviality that feels appropriate to the story, but also feels like it comes from the actors just having a good time together. They become, in their way, rude mechanicals. The hospital sequence has some of the best lines and slapstick in the film—it leaves a warm, fond feeling in its wake, perhaps not unlike the best-case scenario for, uh, you know—the movie’s, ahem, titular experience.
The movie shines when Jamie Foxx has the floor with Vivica A. Fox—especially early in the film, their banter crackles. And a lot of the physical comedy isn’t bad at all—for some reason, it is very funny when Foxx and Davis manage to encase themselves in saran wrap (saran wrap being essential to safe oral, apparently). The last third or so of the picture takes place in a hospital, and Rushon’s reproductive organs, thanks to a devious patient mixing things up, suddenly end up on the line. The movie, here, acquires some high stakes, and the combined efforts of the actors trying to save their friend possesses a certain quality of tenderness and joviality that feels appropriate to the story, but also feels like it comes from the actors just having a good time together. They become, in their way, rude mechanicals. The hospital sequence has some of the best lines and slapstick in the film—it leaves a warm, fond feeling in its wake, perhaps not unlike the best-case scenario for, uh, you know—the movie’s, ahem, titular experience.
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What is your favorite Will Ferrell movie? A simple enough question to answer for most people who have dipped a toe into his overwrought ouvre. Anchorman (2004) and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) probably top the list, but hard as it is to believe, Casa De Mi Padre is better than either of them. Set in Mexico, and shot in Spanish with English subtitles, Casa De Mi Padre tells a familiar story of a family of ranchers (including Ferrell, the nincompoop younger brother) who get into trouble with a Mexican drug cartel. Something about Ferrell performing entirely in Spanish tempers his ordinarily grating screen persona, and his supporting cast–Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal–elevate the whole film’s acting to unrecognizable heights. The result is something like Ron Burgundy wandering through a Sergio Leone movie directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
And it’s just as beautifully shot as that sounds, with some of the focus pulls and horizon-enveloping tracking shots mimicking the camera finesse that makes Leone films feel so immense. The fight scene between a pack of coyotes and an ancient white puma–a creature that looks like it belongs in Labyrinth or The Neverending Story–is absolutely brilliant, as is the sequence that follows it, shot using the jarring tropes of experimental cinema. Some shots are quite tacky and clichéd–blood drips from a white rose, Will Ferrell rides on horseback toward a drug kingpin’s mansion–but they are shot with such sincerity and care that their beauty transcends their familiarity.
The gags are sparse–most critics complained that it had too few jokes, but the film doesn’t need them. Génesis Rodriguez is excellent as Ferrell’s romantic foil, and a sex scene that involves 2 minutes of alternating shots of their butts–hers shapely, his flabby–is as ridiculous as it sounds. The finale is legitimately heartwarming and given the intermittent hilarity, one can only assume that this film’s critical and financial flop was the result of a language barrier. It’s just so good it’s hard to imagine any other reason it wouldn’t succeed.
And it’s just as beautifully shot as that sounds, with some of the focus pulls and horizon-enveloping tracking shots mimicking the camera finesse that makes Leone films feel so immense. The fight scene between a pack of coyotes and an ancient white puma–a creature that looks like it belongs in Labyrinth or The Neverending Story–is absolutely brilliant, as is the sequence that follows it, shot using the jarring tropes of experimental cinema. Some shots are quite tacky and clichéd–blood drips from a white rose, Will Ferrell rides on horseback toward a drug kingpin’s mansion–but they are shot with such sincerity and care that their beauty transcends their familiarity.
The gags are sparse–most critics complained that it had too few jokes, but the film doesn’t need them. Génesis Rodriguez is excellent as Ferrell’s romantic foil, and a sex scene that involves 2 minutes of alternating shots of their butts–hers shapely, his flabby–is as ridiculous as it sounds. The finale is legitimately heartwarming and given the intermittent hilarity, one can only assume that this film’s critical and financial flop was the result of a language barrier. It’s just so good it’s hard to imagine any other reason it wouldn’t succeed.
| Encino Man (1992) Directed by Les Mayfield DVD |  |
Encino Man features early starring performances from Sean Astin, Pauly Shore, and Brendan Fraser. Fraser, playing a recently defrosted caveman, turns in one of the great silent movie performances in the sound era, while Pauly Shore is actually given something to do in this movie other than mug endlessly. In some ways he’s the movie’s moral center. This remains the only film to ever successfully mine Shore’s strange, strange persona for something deeper and sweeter than the teen stoner archetype.
Shore’s weird coinages and catchphrases are given enough of a context here to stand out as the oddities they are— they would go on to drown every subsequent film of his in a bizarre unreality. The fact that Shore, in an unexplained feminine wardrobe and given to random gurgles, is actually playing an outsider in the context of the movie’s narrative, instead of as the kind of strange-but-cool burnout that his later movies would try to portray him as, is a relief, and actually feels like it takes a lot of pressure off the audience.
Whether it’s Shore and Fraser “wheezing the juice” under an Icee machine at a 7-11, or simply Fraser squirting mustard into his mouth, this movie is frequently really funny. It has an amazing dinner sequence with a throwaway line by Shore that ranks as one of the very best throwaway jokes in all of these bad comedies: when asked how his mother is doing (a character we never meet), he replies only: “she’s really bummed.”
And the movie has a storyline! The picture is basically interested in what it’s like to be an outsider, and the difficulty and necessity of accepting oneself. The subject matter is not so different from that of Heavyweights or Gentlemen Broncos, though it needs to be said that this film handles that subject matter with far less sophistication and urgency.
Supposedly Encino Man was made and released within about five months, and it exhibits both the unity and the ruggedness that comes with something made on a quick timeline. Given that its best qualities stem from Fraser’s physical comedy and Shore’s knack for quick, improvised humor within this relatively vanilla context, it seems likely that if director Les Mayfield and writer Shawn Schepps had any more time to make this movie, they would have ruined it. Thankfully, they didn’t, and the brilliant talent of these goofball stars remains perfectly preserved for future generations.
Shore’s weird coinages and catchphrases are given enough of a context here to stand out as the oddities they are— they would go on to drown every subsequent film of his in a bizarre unreality. The fact that Shore, in an unexplained feminine wardrobe and given to random gurgles, is actually playing an outsider in the context of the movie’s narrative, instead of as the kind of strange-but-cool burnout that his later movies would try to portray him as, is a relief, and actually feels like it takes a lot of pressure off the audience.
Whether it’s Shore and Fraser “wheezing the juice” under an Icee machine at a 7-11, or simply Fraser squirting mustard into his mouth, this movie is frequently really funny. It has an amazing dinner sequence with a throwaway line by Shore that ranks as one of the very best throwaway jokes in all of these bad comedies: when asked how his mother is doing (a character we never meet), he replies only: “she’s really bummed.”
And the movie has a storyline! The picture is basically interested in what it’s like to be an outsider, and the difficulty and necessity of accepting oneself. The subject matter is not so different from that of Heavyweights or Gentlemen Broncos, though it needs to be said that this film handles that subject matter with far less sophistication and urgency.
Supposedly Encino Man was made and released within about five months, and it exhibits both the unity and the ruggedness that comes with something made on a quick timeline. Given that its best qualities stem from Fraser’s physical comedy and Shore’s knack for quick, improvised humor within this relatively vanilla context, it seems likely that if director Les Mayfield and writer Shawn Schepps had any more time to make this movie, they would have ruined it. Thankfully, they didn’t, and the brilliant talent of these goofball stars remains perfectly preserved for future generations.
| Gentlemen Broncos (2009) Directed by Jared Hess DVD |  |
Gentlemen Broncos is likely the funniest film on this list, the most quotable, and the most affecting. It deserves comparison with the early films of Wes Anderson, particularly Rushmore, yet it is probably this list’s least known. This is probably what happens when your first two films are widely appreciated for all the wrong reasons.
Walter Chaw, of Film Freak Central and one of the smartest critics working, likened Jared and Jerusha Hess’s interests in Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre to those of a school bully, laughing at the dweeb stuffed into a locker. Chaw’s usually on the money, but in this case he’s off: underneath all of the Hess’s films is a deep concern with what it feels like to be that outsider—the person uncomfortable in their own skin, and frequently made fun of for it. It’s what saves Nacho Libre from being as offensive a catastrophe as it could have been, and it’s what animates much of Gentlemen Broncos, a film about a young man who is just beginning to come into his own as a science-fiction writer.
Benjy Purvis, the protagonist, lives in a geodesic dome with his mother, a designer of “modest lingerie” and played, inexplicably, by Jennifer Coolidge. He lost his dad, glimpsed as a rugged outdoorsman, and has written a science-fiction epic titled Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years as a kind of tribute. The book is good—so good, in fact, that a down-on-his-luck but big-name sci-fi icon (Dr. Ronald Chevalier, played by Jemaine Clement) plagiarizes it when it crosses his desk at a writing contest. Throughout the movie we see both Benjy’s and Chevalier’s versions dramatized, with Sam Rockwell playing two different versions of the hero.
Benjamin Purvis is a winning protagonist—he’s a good kid, not exactly bridling under the yoke of his mom, who asks a lot of him. He seems to get that she’s in a tough position as a single mom, and he tries to have her back. He has a mix of confidence and vulnerability when it comes to his writing, which has the ring of truth to it—if you’re going to write, so often it’s a kind of insane, compartmentalized, confidence that keeps you typing. We rarely see these awkward adolescent years portrayed in shades of gray—he’s not a self-dramatizing, spoiled teen. He’s a young man with some serious problems in his life, and he’s just doing his best.
There is a fair amount of gross-out humor, which can be jarring, but for my money it coheres as part of the film’s larger aesthetic. There is a first kiss scene that involves vomit, and it will break your heart every time; it sounds like a disaster, but Gentlemen Broncos is its own rare breed of high-wire act. Because the film is so nuanced in terms of how it handles its storytelling, and yet at times so gross, a lot of critics whiffed on it. Don’t let yourself be one of them: this film is a winner.
Walter Chaw, of Film Freak Central and one of the smartest critics working, likened Jared and Jerusha Hess’s interests in Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre to those of a school bully, laughing at the dweeb stuffed into a locker. Chaw’s usually on the money, but in this case he’s off: underneath all of the Hess’s films is a deep concern with what it feels like to be that outsider—the person uncomfortable in their own skin, and frequently made fun of for it. It’s what saves Nacho Libre from being as offensive a catastrophe as it could have been, and it’s what animates much of Gentlemen Broncos, a film about a young man who is just beginning to come into his own as a science-fiction writer.
Benjy Purvis, the protagonist, lives in a geodesic dome with his mother, a designer of “modest lingerie” and played, inexplicably, by Jennifer Coolidge. He lost his dad, glimpsed as a rugged outdoorsman, and has written a science-fiction epic titled Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years as a kind of tribute. The book is good—so good, in fact, that a down-on-his-luck but big-name sci-fi icon (Dr. Ronald Chevalier, played by Jemaine Clement) plagiarizes it when it crosses his desk at a writing contest. Throughout the movie we see both Benjy’s and Chevalier’s versions dramatized, with Sam Rockwell playing two different versions of the hero.
Benjamin Purvis is a winning protagonist—he’s a good kid, not exactly bridling under the yoke of his mom, who asks a lot of him. He seems to get that she’s in a tough position as a single mom, and he tries to have her back. He has a mix of confidence and vulnerability when it comes to his writing, which has the ring of truth to it—if you’re going to write, so often it’s a kind of insane, compartmentalized, confidence that keeps you typing. We rarely see these awkward adolescent years portrayed in shades of gray—he’s not a self-dramatizing, spoiled teen. He’s a young man with some serious problems in his life, and he’s just doing his best.
There is a fair amount of gross-out humor, which can be jarring, but for my money it coheres as part of the film’s larger aesthetic. There is a first kiss scene that involves vomit, and it will break your heart every time; it sounds like a disaster, but Gentlemen Broncos is its own rare breed of high-wire act. Because the film is so nuanced in terms of how it handles its storytelling, and yet at times so gross, a lot of critics whiffed on it. Don’t let yourself be one of them: this film is a winner.
| Heavy Weights (1995) Directed by Steven Brill DVD |  |
Is the word out on Heavy Weights? Does everybody already know about this movie? It got a lot of airtime on the Disney Channel around the turn of the millennium. It features a gleefully unhinged Ben Stiller performance—maybe his best after Zoolander. Paul Feig, the creator of Freaks and Geeks, and director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, has a large acting role in this movie (and is great). The script was written by a (then-unknown) Judd Apatow. And the cast of child actors (including a young Kenan Thompson) deliver their lines with the self-knowing, world-weariness of forty year old men (and most of them kind of dress like that, too).
The critic for Variety accused Heavy Weights of sidestepping the issue of childhood obesity in favor of a blandly feel-good message. This is a pretty good example of what being famous gets you, though, because nobody accused Apatow’s Superbad of sidestepping the issues of being a teenage loser in favor of a blandly feel-good message. They’re two different issues, sure, but Apatow’s thematic concerns do tend to run towards self-acceptance. Even when watching Heavy Weights as a kid, I thought the movie had something deeper going on in its moral universe than the typical bland messaging.
It does feel a little too neat in terms of its storytelling. Apatow would later find ways to make his films a little stranger and narratively more surprising, but working basically within the constraints of a Disney movie-of-the-week, the film is some kind of masterpiece, and a decent argument for what old-fashioned storytelling can get you all on its own. What vindicates Apatow’s approach to comedy here, and in general, is twofold: he cares about his audience, and he cares about cinema. He wants to communicate something beyond simple laughs, and he deeply respects and understands the storytelling powers of the medium. Even in an early picture like this, one that is clearly not his best work, a lot of Apatow’s strongest qualities are apparent: most singularly, a commitment to finding the ways childhood, in its infinite strange painfulness, can only make us laugh.
The critic for Variety accused Heavy Weights of sidestepping the issue of childhood obesity in favor of a blandly feel-good message. This is a pretty good example of what being famous gets you, though, because nobody accused Apatow’s Superbad of sidestepping the issues of being a teenage loser in favor of a blandly feel-good message. They’re two different issues, sure, but Apatow’s thematic concerns do tend to run towards self-acceptance. Even when watching Heavy Weights as a kid, I thought the movie had something deeper going on in its moral universe than the typical bland messaging.
It does feel a little too neat in terms of its storytelling. Apatow would later find ways to make his films a little stranger and narratively more surprising, but working basically within the constraints of a Disney movie-of-the-week, the film is some kind of masterpiece, and a decent argument for what old-fashioned storytelling can get you all on its own. What vindicates Apatow’s approach to comedy here, and in general, is twofold: he cares about his audience, and he cares about cinema. He wants to communicate something beyond simple laughs, and he deeply respects and understands the storytelling powers of the medium. Even in an early picture like this, one that is clearly not his best work, a lot of Apatow’s strongest qualities are apparent: most singularly, a commitment to finding the ways childhood, in its infinite strange painfulness, can only make us laugh.
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Before Hollywood was overrun with bad, low-budget, Carmen Electra-helmed parody comedies, (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc.) there was Not Another Teen Movie, the beautifully crafted goof that was the prototype for that derivative drivel. Taking on the tropes of some of the most hallowed teen high school dramas (those 80’s John Hughes melodrama masterpieces) and trashy 90’s raunch (American Pie et al) with equal aplomb, Not Another Teen Movie strikes that perfect balance between homage, ridicule, and authenticity.
It follows a teenage gaggle led by Captain America himself, Chris Evans, as high school jock Zack, who enters into a bet to turn hapless nerd Janey (Chlyer Leigh) into a prom queen. While the film ironically lists iconic moments from dozens of teen movies, often with (very poor quality) fart jokes in between, it does so with a sense of self awareness that makes this film an early adopter of now-common meta-comedy. The hyper-sexualized relationship between Zack and his sister (Mia Kirshner)–a vague, incomplete reference to Cruel Intentions (1999) or 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)–is particularly over-the-top and bizarre, taking on a life of its own far beyond its source material.
But unlike the Scary Movie franchise, that paved the way for Not Another Teen Movie, it treats its characters and plotlines with respect and care, no matter how ridiculously they are caricatured on the screen. What Scream did for horror–ushering in a new era in which horror films that aren’t self referential feel passé–Not Another Teen Movie did for the teen coming of age drama. Films like Mean Girls and Saved! couldn’t have been anywhere near as formally playful if Not Another Teen Movie hadn’t paved the way, and any excuse to see a 20-year old Chris Evans with a banana shoved in his butt is always worth a look.
It follows a teenage gaggle led by Captain America himself, Chris Evans, as high school jock Zack, who enters into a bet to turn hapless nerd Janey (Chlyer Leigh) into a prom queen. While the film ironically lists iconic moments from dozens of teen movies, often with (very poor quality) fart jokes in between, it does so with a sense of self awareness that makes this film an early adopter of now-common meta-comedy. The hyper-sexualized relationship between Zack and his sister (Mia Kirshner)–a vague, incomplete reference to Cruel Intentions (1999) or 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)–is particularly over-the-top and bizarre, taking on a life of its own far beyond its source material.
But unlike the Scary Movie franchise, that paved the way for Not Another Teen Movie, it treats its characters and plotlines with respect and care, no matter how ridiculously they are caricatured on the screen. What Scream did for horror–ushering in a new era in which horror films that aren’t self referential feel passé–Not Another Teen Movie did for the teen coming of age drama. Films like Mean Girls and Saved! couldn’t have been anywhere near as formally playful if Not Another Teen Movie hadn’t paved the way, and any excuse to see a 20-year old Chris Evans with a banana shoved in his butt is always worth a look.
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Pootie Tang is a film so committed to an egregiously stupid idea that it reaches brilliance from the other side. This is a film about an action hero–Pootie Tang, a recurring character on The Chris Rock Show–who fights crime using only his wits, his ponytail (which he uses to deflect bullets), and his daddy’s belt with which he can expertly whip criminals with frightening speed and accuracy. He also speaks in an obscure nonsensical jive dialect so cool that we don’t get one comprehensible sentence in the whole film. The inflection is there, but the language is so convoluted and just plain made up that every line is meaningless.
The film was forced into being by the will of Chris Rock, who put then-unknown writer named Louis C.K. at the helm, as both writer and director. Pootie Tang’s plot is about as nonsensical and mish-mashed as Pootie’s speech pattern, and the studio, mortified by C.K.’s initial cut, pulled him off the project and re-edited it–like studios did to so many of Orson Welles’ films–tacking on a self-aggrandizing narrator onto the already labyrinthine mass of plot. Paramount must have been hoping for something more conventional, something like Undercover Brother which would come around the following year; when they were instead delivered a strange performance art piece with a nonsense-spouting lead no one had ever heard of and an emotional scene where Pootie recognizes a forlorn ear of corn to be the spirit of his dead father, they panicked.
The re-cut studio version of Pootie Tang is, according to C.K., a far inferior product, but even denatured by these senseless hacks, the film is uproariously funny. It’s one of those polarizing films that critics either “get” or feel the joke is on them, perhaps accounting for its low score on Rotten Tomatoes (Ebert wrote “Pootie Tang is not bad so much as inexplicable.” in his ½ star review). One can only hope that one day, as they did with Touch of Evil, film historians will go back and restore Pootie Tang to its intended glory, but until then it is still a ludicrous romp, and the only film that comes to mind in which the main character speaks only in gibberish.
The film was forced into being by the will of Chris Rock, who put then-unknown writer named Louis C.K. at the helm, as both writer and director. Pootie Tang’s plot is about as nonsensical and mish-mashed as Pootie’s speech pattern, and the studio, mortified by C.K.’s initial cut, pulled him off the project and re-edited it–like studios did to so many of Orson Welles’ films–tacking on a self-aggrandizing narrator onto the already labyrinthine mass of plot. Paramount must have been hoping for something more conventional, something like Undercover Brother which would come around the following year; when they were instead delivered a strange performance art piece with a nonsense-spouting lead no one had ever heard of and an emotional scene where Pootie recognizes a forlorn ear of corn to be the spirit of his dead father, they panicked.
The re-cut studio version of Pootie Tang is, according to C.K., a far inferior product, but even denatured by these senseless hacks, the film is uproariously funny. It’s one of those polarizing films that critics either “get” or feel the joke is on them, perhaps accounting for its low score on Rotten Tomatoes (Ebert wrote “Pootie Tang is not bad so much as inexplicable.” in his ½ star review). One can only hope that one day, as they did with Touch of Evil, film historians will go back and restore Pootie Tang to its intended glory, but until then it is still a ludicrous romp, and the only film that comes to mind in which the main character speaks only in gibberish.
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At the bottom of the critical barrel lies The Master of Disguise, Dana Carvey’s sole screenwriting credit and a film that was lambasted beyond recognition. Contemporary critics took issue with everything from the quality of the impersonations (Jonathan Rosenbaum said “George W. Bush in the flesh would have been much funnier than this movie's impersonation.”) to the entire format of the film, attacking it for being a one-note character, a gag that never pays off. Whatever film they all saw is not the same one that exists today. The film follows Pistachio Disguisey (Carvey), an immature goofball who is heir to the illustrious title of “Master of Disguise” and a near-magical ability to disguise himself as anything or anyone he chooses, but he wastes his gifts on ridiculous, unbelievable figures like the turtle man featured heavily in the trailer.
This is buffoonish physical comedy at its best, sharing more with The Pink Panther’s Inspector Clouseau or any of Adam Sandler’s defining roles than it does with Carvey’s SNL impersonations. The gags are delightfully childish, all playing into the whimsy that defines the character of Pistachio–an outrageous, weird, boy gifted with tremendous powers that he can’t even begin to understand. While some of the Italian stereotypes, especially Carvey’s lilting accent, are definitely in poor taste, the film is silly and Carvey’s script is delightful specifically because it is so juvenile and immature. Perhaps this film suffered by being released in a world too saturated with Austin Powers to accept another bonehead character-driven comedy, but Carvey’s effort is on par with Myers’s own and definitely deserving of reevaluation.
This is buffoonish physical comedy at its best, sharing more with The Pink Panther’s Inspector Clouseau or any of Adam Sandler’s defining roles than it does with Carvey’s SNL impersonations. The gags are delightfully childish, all playing into the whimsy that defines the character of Pistachio–an outrageous, weird, boy gifted with tremendous powers that he can’t even begin to understand. While some of the Italian stereotypes, especially Carvey’s lilting accent, are definitely in poor taste, the film is silly and Carvey’s script is delightful specifically because it is so juvenile and immature. Perhaps this film suffered by being released in a world too saturated with Austin Powers to accept another bonehead character-driven comedy, but Carvey’s effort is on par with Myers’s own and definitely deserving of reevaluation.
Honorable Mention:
| Hamlet 2 (2008) Directed by Andrew Fleming DVD |  |
While not quite “rotten” on its tomatoes score, Hamlet 2 is certainly underrated when compared to its real merit. The film features Steve Coogan (two years before his “discovery” by cinephiles for his performance in The Trip) as Dana Marschz, a high school drama teacher in Tuscon who regularly stages adaptations of trite Hollywood films. (The film opens with a stage performance of Jerry MacGuire.) Yet, when faced with a huge influx of students into his class–mostly Latino kids kicked out of the class they would prefer due to school budget cuts–he writes an original play to try to save the drama program, though that original play is a sequel to Shakespeare's "Hamlet."
Racking up great performances from Melonie Diaz, Joseph Juan Soria, Elizabeth Shue (as herself), and Catherine Keener (as Dana’s much-suffering wife), the film has talent to burn and some of the gags are outrageously funny. A personal favorite is a 4th grade theater critic who Dana continually turns to for advice. When Dana, struggling with the process of writing this original script, asks the critic, “What if it sucks?” the 9-year-old replies, “Isn’t that a question every artist must ask themselves?” It is perhaps a perfect example of emotional transcendence in comedy.
The writer/director, Andrew Fleming, is something of an unrecognized genius. He is also the creative force behind The Craft (1996) and Dick (1999)–a film that remains Kirsten Dunst’s best performance. And coming out the same year as the contrived Synechdoche New York, Hamlet 2 serves as the perfect foil to that film–both focus on unsatisfied theater directors trying to write their best original work and both feature Catherine Keener as the wife who leaves, but where Synechdoche is grandiose and pretentious, Hamlet 2 has low-budget emotion and humor. It is the good version in every way.
The final performance of Marschz’s play–a scene that could have derailed the whole film if it were weak–only elevates it above the first 80 minutes. From the musical performance of “Rock me Sexy Jesus” to sword fights, wire work, special effects, and an emotionally gripping finale, “Hamlet 2” seems like it would be nearly as good a play as Hamlet 2 is a movie, and it would follow that same delicate balance between transcendent humor and childlike naïveté. Coogan’s understated dry humor pairs perfectly with the over-the-top theatricality of his character making the film beautiful and hysterical in equal parts.
Racking up great performances from Melonie Diaz, Joseph Juan Soria, Elizabeth Shue (as herself), and Catherine Keener (as Dana’s much-suffering wife), the film has talent to burn and some of the gags are outrageously funny. A personal favorite is a 4th grade theater critic who Dana continually turns to for advice. When Dana, struggling with the process of writing this original script, asks the critic, “What if it sucks?” the 9-year-old replies, “Isn’t that a question every artist must ask themselves?” It is perhaps a perfect example of emotional transcendence in comedy.
The writer/director, Andrew Fleming, is something of an unrecognized genius. He is also the creative force behind The Craft (1996) and Dick (1999)–a film that remains Kirsten Dunst’s best performance. And coming out the same year as the contrived Synechdoche New York, Hamlet 2 serves as the perfect foil to that film–both focus on unsatisfied theater directors trying to write their best original work and both feature Catherine Keener as the wife who leaves, but where Synechdoche is grandiose and pretentious, Hamlet 2 has low-budget emotion and humor. It is the good version in every way.
The final performance of Marschz’s play–a scene that could have derailed the whole film if it were weak–only elevates it above the first 80 minutes. From the musical performance of “Rock me Sexy Jesus” to sword fights, wire work, special effects, and an emotionally gripping finale, “Hamlet 2” seems like it would be nearly as good a play as Hamlet 2 is a movie, and it would follow that same delicate balance between transcendent humor and childlike naïveté. Coogan’s understated dry humor pairs perfectly with the over-the-top theatricality of his character making the film beautiful and hysterical in equal parts.
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