I Can't Tell If Movies Are Being Serious Anymore
I recently learned all about "Poe's Law," from Cracked Editor David Wong. Poe's Law is a handy little concept invented by Nathan Poe in a religious Internet forum a few years ago. According to Wikipedia, the "core of Poe's law is that a parody of something is by nature extreme, [which] makes it impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism." In Nathan's case, the law applied to his inability to distinguish religious extremism from a parody of religious extremism. I don't hang around religious forums (court order), but I'm starting to feel like Poe's Law is just as applicable to movies. Something about movies changed over the last few years. Like Poe, I'm looking at the world around me and desperately searching for a joke that would be impossible to find.
I can no longer tell if movies are being serious. I used to be able to watch trailers and say, "This is clearly a parody" or "This is just a bad movie." But, these days, the gap between the two has become so blurry and thin, I'm like Nathan Poe, looking for some kind of winking emoticon that let's me know what's what. So many people will say that they love movies like Machete and Drive Angry and Snakes On A Plane "ironically" which is absolutely meaningless to me because A) I'm kinda dumb, B) irony as a concept was murdered by the Internet years ago and C) I only know how to like movies or hate movies genuinely. Some filmmakers are embracing this idea of movies being designed to be consumed ironically, while other filmmakers are just making shitty movies. And the frustrating thing is that there is no observable difference between the two. Once upon a time, I could finish watching a trailer and my only thought would either be "That was good" or "That was bad." Now, I watch most trailers and I just scratch my head, thinking, "Hey, filmmakers: Did you really mean that? Do you think shooting a movie where Nicolas Cage has sex on a motorcycle while he shoots machine guns is a genuinely good idea, or a patently ridiculous (and therefore 'ironically' good) idea? Is any of this a joke?"
To help illustrate my point, I watched three current movie trailers of films that are either terrible or hilarious from three different genres (Romantic Comedy, Comedy, Action), over and over again, all day. (My job is pretty cool.)
#3.
What's Your Number?: Worst Movie Ever, Or Worst Movie Ever And Also I Killed Myself
The Movie:
What's Your Number? is based on the novel I Taught My Nutsack How to Write a Book by some woman's nutsack, and it'll be in theaters later this year. Lead Female Character, Anna Faris, desperately wants to find a handsome husband as she feels hollow and incomplete without one -- because even though Romantic Comedies are aimed at women, the people who write them either have never met or aggressively hate women. She reads a study claiming that it usually takes 20 boyfriends before you find your soul mate (I think), so she decides to go back and meet up with all of her previous awful boyfriends to find out which guy was No. 20 (probably?). She enlists the help of her handsome neighbor (Chris Evans), and by working together they will learn that, spoiler alert, they've made a shitty movie. Anna Faris is, as always, lovable and adorable, but her character is a disorganized bag of hacky Romantic Comedy stereotypes and wide-eyed confusion.
"Riding a bike in a bridesmaid's dress! How quirky and unconven- Wait, hold on, am I shitting myself right now?"
Why It Feels Like a Joke:
Watch absolutely as much of the trailer as you can, and then come right back here. Back? Good. While you were watching a small portion of that trailer and then subsequently coaxing a brain aneurysm into submission, I built a robot designed to recognize patterns in Romantic Comedies. Its job was to go through every RomCom in history and find the most common and tired RomCom hallmarks. You might be shocked to learn that What's Your Friggin' Number? managed to cram every single tired RomCom trope into a single trailer. Most movies just overlap in one or two areas, but Number hits every damn mark. I don't know if it's because the movie is terrible, or because the movie is trying to symbolize the death of Romantic Comedies by exploiting all of its tropes, I just know I never want to see it because the ingredients still lead up to a shitty mean. Let's see what this trailer has ...
- A soundtrack full of chick pop music (check).
- A woman behaves impossibly awkwardly and even though she is likable, attractive and charming, she can't seem to land a man:
- An equally attractive and charming man -- who is her polar opposite emotionally and intellectually -- shows up and they form a bond that everyone except them knows will inevitably lead to a perfect relationship:
- WACKY DATE MONTAGE!:
- A wedding where our plucky, optimistic protagonist is of course a bridesmaid, never a bride:
- WACKY COSTUME MONTAGE!:
- A series of brilliant comedic actors being wasted in terrible, underwritten supporting roles:
This is all awful, but the moment that made my robot actually weep came at around 30 seconds into the trailer, when Anna asks, "How many relationships do I have to have before I find the right guy?" into a phone while walking down the street in a city. That, in a sentence, is the central conflict of every single female-centric Romantic Comedy that has ever existed. Single woman in the city, talking to her best friend/confidant and complaining about how she can't find Mr. Right. That is an academic deconstruction on the idea of Romantic Comedies, but instead of showing up on a college paper in some pretentious Theories On Romantic Comedies In Pop Culture class that I absolutely would've taken if they'd offered it at Rutgers, the lead actress is actually saying it out loud.
"Honey, I'm serious, this movie is making me shit myself."
And that's why this movie can't be real to me. For this to be real, at the very least a screenwriter, director and actress had to read a line of dialogue that could have been pulled from literally any Romantic Comedy ever and said, "Yes, I will sign on to make this fresh and original movie." No. No no no. This is clearly a very clever fake trailer designed to expose the crappy paint-by-numbers approach to modern Romantic Comedies. It has to be a fake, because the alternative is that multiple people were paid to make it.
"Baby I swear to God if we don't leave soon I might never stop shitting. This movie is a witch."
#2.
Hangover II, Is Like The Hangover Meets The Hangover
The Movie:
It's the sequel to the movie that, statistically speaking, you saw in theaters and own on DVD.
I really liked The Hangover. I enjoy all of the main actors involved, I thought the jokes were solid and it felt like a fairly original story. Mysteries have been done before, sure, but drunken comedy mysteries with Zach Galifianakis? That's a new thing. So I really had a blast watching it. I left the theater happy, because I thought, Good, now all of these funny actors that I like can break out and do a bunch of other movies.
Or, hey, they could just do The Hangover again and again, and never change a thing.
Why It Feels Like a Joke:
The Hangover: Part Two is less a sequel and more of an almost shot-for-shot remake, albeit in a different setting. If you think I'm exaggerating the similarities, go ahead and watch the trailers for Part One and Two back to back. Or screw it, I'll just show you.
Both trailers open in the exact same way, with Zach Galifianakis' character doing something embarrassing and wacky in front of people. In the first, he stands around wearing a jock strap and, in the second, he tells an inappropriate story about Stu during his rehearsal dinner.
At about 36 seconds into the first Hangover trailer, the main characters all get together and raise their glasses for a toast. In Part II, this happens at about 40 seconds in.
Each of these scenes is then followed by a blurry, rapid-fire, wild party montage, a pure white screen and a close-up on one of the main characters' faces as he wakes up on the floor ...
... followed by a scan of the demolished hotel room ...
... followed by Ed Helms' character realizing that there is something horribly different about his face. A missing tooth in Hangover, a face tattoo in the sequel (and, in both cases, Bradley Cooper's character raises a hand to his mouth and tries to stifle a laugh. Both. Twice. Two times.)
- At this point in Part One, they stumble upon a baby that they then have to carry around, in Part Two it's a monkey they have to travel with.
- Next, they realize they're missing an important part of their group (the groom in Part One, the younger brother of the bride in Two).
- 1:23 into the Part One trailer, when the guys realize what trouble they're in, they all get worried except Zach Galifianakis' character, who lets out a short laugh and happily says, "We were messed up." 1:33 into Part Two, when the rest of the guys realize what trouble they're in, he lets out a short laugh and happily says, "We love to party," with the exact same inflection and, in both trailers, the background music cuts out the instant he says his line.
- They decide that the only way to find their missing person is to follow a series of clues based on what they have in their pockets. They treat this like a brand new discovery in Two even though they clearly made the same realization in One.
- At just around the 2:00 mark, an angry woman is on the phone demanding answers from the guys. I didn't specify which trailer, because it happens in both, at the same time.
And so on. A bunch of wacky stuff happens, some jokes are thrown in, Ed Helms screams, "What is going on," and the trailers end.
I understand that the first movie was very successful, and when things are successful in Hollywood, no one wants to mess with the formula, but come on, they're basically daring us to pay money for a movie we've already seen. This could basically be the exact same script with every instance of "baby" crossed out and replaced with "monkey."
Those guys who do the [Genre] Movies don't exactly understand what parody is, so sometimes they'll just recreate a scene from an iconic comedy and just replace the original jokes with jokes of their own that, generally, are worse. That's not a parody; that's just redoing an already funny thing and changing the wording of the jokes. That's what this trailer felt like to me, and when your legitimate Hangover 2 trailer could pass for the trailer for Friedberg and Seltzer's Hangover Movie, you're in big trouble.
#1.
Fast Five, or Fast Times At Furiousmont Diesel (Working Title)
The Movie
Fast Five is the fifth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise, the most beloved film series among boners worldwide. The film stars Vin Diesel, The Rock, Paul Walker, many, many cars and about a metric ton of just butts. I haven't read a synopsis anywhere (I'm pretty sure IMDb describes it as "Vroom gun? Gun gun gun Tits. It's the most explosion you'll have this butt!"), but if the poster is any indication, it's about ... nothing? Everything?
The only thing that's clear is that none of these actors were in the same room when they were photographed for this poster. I'm sure a photographer just planted them in front of a green screen and picked the coolest-looking photo of each, except for Guy In The Back With The Needlessly Wide Leg Stance and Vin "No One Told Me What To Do With My Hands" Diesel. Paul Walker took care of his own hand situation by passionately pointing a gun at nothing in particular (in acting, this is called "having a terrible agent"). The Rock is moving slowly, which only highlights the fact that nothing about this poster is particularly fast or furious. People are mostly stationary and, at best, glaring somewhat angrily and, at worst, casually leaning on a car with their hands in their pockets. Interesting side note: The reason Paul Walker looks so out of place is that he, evidently, never showed up for this photoshoot, so the designer just copied and pasted his pose from an older Fast Five poster.
At any rate, if you're anything like me, you are going to see this movie this weekend, and you have no idea why.
Why It Feels Like a Joke:
I watched the trailer for this movie. A lot. I understand if you didn't; at a glance, it's a fairly heady and complicated trailer with a lot of twists and turns. It's just not for everyone, if you catch my (Tokyo) drift. While it may seem complex and perhaps too "involved" for someone who isn't in the industry of either speed or fury, I've learned that the two-minute trailer -- and I assume, the movie -- actually divides neatly into five easy-to-digest categories. These are the five things the director wants you to know about this movie:
Category 1: Cars
The movie is about cars, you see.
Takes Up: About 40 percent of the trailer.
This is obvious. People go to see these movies because they want to see cars driving super fast, and then eventually crashing into things in a variety of beautiful, physics-defying ways. The Rock's character seems to think that when Diesel and Walker get behind the wheel, they become magic. The director feels similarly. Whenever there seems to be a dull, quiet or otherwise non-car-filled moment, he likes to believe that filming a bunch of cars exploding will distract the audience long enough to forget that these movies are objectively terrible.
I sort of hate that he's right.
Category 2: One Liners
Staring at this picture while listening to Bruce Springsteen's "Secret Garden" is a totally different experience.
Takes Up: About 25 percent of the trailer.
As a small child, my approach to playing with action figures involved holding them high in the air and smashing them together while speaking exclusively in badass one-liners that I'd half-remembered from cartoons, and my nightly viewing of Die Hard (my parents are the best). I'd lift up Batman and slam him, head first, into Wolverine, and Batman would say, "If you like that, taste this!" Then Wolverine would hurl his whole body right into Batman's face while saying, "You and what army?!" Batman would quickly retort with, "I'm gonna enjoy this," and Wolverine would deftly counter with, "You can talk the talk, but look out, fella, I'm punching you!"
Someone associated with Fast Five recorded those early action figure adventure sessions and used them for the basis of this screenplay.
Category 3: Dem Butts
Takes Up: Like, 20 percent, which is seriously a lot.
Hella butts, y'all! Seriously, this trailer only interrupts the action for one reason: slow pushes on neat butts.
It probably goes without saying, but just in case, I should point out that these are not plot-forwarding butts. Vin Diesel never says, "Hey, Ludacris, Other Guy, get outta that car and come over here; we need to drive fast cars or those butts are going to explode!" The Rock never pulls over to the side of the road saying, "Damn, they're getting away with all of the car money. I'd be able to catch them, but I'm out of gas, and my car runs on butts." They serve no story function. Just butts for butts' sake. There are just enough gratuitous smash cuts to butt in this picture to make you think the director is fucking with you.
On the one hand, I have no complaints because butts are the best. On the other, and this is sort of my biggest concern with Fast Five, this movie is likely going to be number one at the box office this weekend and 20 percent of its trailer is butts.
Category 4: Punching
"You call that punching? How's this for punching! Punch!"
Takes Up: About 10 percent of the trailer.
The punching is included to remind people that violence can always happen, regardless of your resources. Sure, mostly they're blowing things up with grenades or throwing giant cars at trains (America!), but the filmmakers want to assure their audience that even when all of the cars are blown up, and all of the guns are out of ammo, big sweaty dudes will still be able to punch other big sweaty dudes until someone builds more cars. You didn't even need those cars, Vin. The violence was inside you the whole time.
Category 5: People Recklessly Jumping From High Things
Takes Up: Five percent.
Definitely the most oddly specific category on the list. Five percent might not seem like a lot, but it is kind of striking when you realize that there are only, like, four or five stunts in this trailer that don't take place in cars and every single one of them is a jump. You'd think the director would get tired of jumping, or you'd think the guy who edited the trailer would want to show off some other stunts or maybe toss a few more butts in, but you'd be wrong. They're really quite proud of their jumping, and they want you to know it.
You've got Vin Diesel jumping off of a roof ...
... Paul Walker and a woman jumping off that same roof ...
... Paul Walker jumping off of a train (onto a car!) ...
... Paul Walker and Vin Diesel jumping a car off of a cliff ...
... Finally, Paul Walker and Vin Diesel jumping out of the car they just jumped off the cliff ...
Jumping is the solution when punching isn't an option, which it always is, which is why the trailer also features a sequence where The Rock jump-punches someone.
So here we are. The big movie that kicks off the summer blockbuster season is just cars, punches, jump-punches, butts, one-liners, jumping, butt-jumps, leaping-quips, butt-carring and punch-punches. That's why I can't tell if this is an action movie or a parody of action movies or what. I ask people who want to see this movie if they're going ironically or because it genuinely looks good, and no one knows. It feels like there's a joke somewhere, but no one can find it. Meanwhile it's getting great reviews.
It's 2011, a time when action movies like Inception can happen, but the No. 1 movie this weekend is just going to be butts and cars. We're just like Poe, trying to find out if this movie is exaggerating and commenting on over-the-top action tropes, or if it is genuinely just a loud, dumb action movie.
Conclusion:
... There is none? I've learned there's no line between parody and extreme stupidity here on the Internet. I still have some questions. Does making a stupid action movie highlight how bad action movies have become in Hollywood, or is it just a stupid action movie? Is one of those options better? Does anyone want to see this with me today?
For more things Hollywood won't let go of, check out 5 Things Hollywood Reuses More Than Plots. And get you some more Dan in Why It's Time to Stop Paying Attention to Lady Gaga.
I honestly think the Fast Five part of this article was the best. It may or may not be because I love/d those movies as a kid/adult.
ReplyI think this problem recognizing irony can be traced back to the s****y parody movies that got made - all the retarded "Scary Movies" and their genre spin-offs caused each genre to jump its own f*****g shark and broke the irony meter in our brains and now we just accept every hackneyed stereotype as the definition of the genre. Basically, we've been clubbed into submission by cliche.
Replyi laughed so hard that people heard me great article
ReplyThis is one of the funniest articles that you have created. I have read it at least 5 times, and I still laugh at it, uncontrollably.
ReplyWhat gets me is that the original Hangover was a terrific movie. It had a cast of terrific actors and comedians that I respected so very much. The jokes were original and really pushed the edge of decency from a director who once sold autographed pictures of John Wayne Gacy to publicize and finance one of his first indie film. It was a work of art that seemed to never be equaled.
ReplyExcept that they did... In a terrible terrible way...
Martin, Martin, Martin... Why? It's bad enough seeing Stephen Fry and now Hugh Laurie being hoes for whatever advertisement company'll pay them, do you have to do the same? Must I have nobody to respect?
Reply(Even though that picture, quite hilariously, makes it seem as if he's giving her the 'Wtf?' look... Which redeems his awful choice slightly.)
So the wacky date montage goes:
ReplyVentriloquist!
Disaster at a resteraunt!
Black guy!
"because even though Romantic Comedies are aimed at women, the people who write them either have never met or aggressively hate women" This Is What Beta Male White Knights Actualyl Believe
Reply3. I'm not a big fan of rom coms, but in my experience it seems these movies are about the ride more than the destination. The producers likely know that the ending is obvious to everybody, but the jokes peppered throughout the story are what actually sell tickets.
Reply2. Same idea here: ride > destination. Hangover 2 wasn't nearly as good as the original, but it was still fairly entertaining.
3. It's an action movie. It's basically in the same category as porn. It's not going to be a great cinematic achievement; it's just there to satisfy our most basic and carnal desires, namely titties and explosions. Not our most sophisticated desires, but desires nonetheless.
Right, it's just a collection of movies and we should just accept that even crap movies are somehow good because TV tells us so.
Seriously, a copy of the plot of a movie is not a sequel, it's milking it. No action movies are not just mindless porn. Dark knight was an action movie. Watchmen was an action movie. Diehard was an action movie. Total Recall was an action movie. Seriously, if you like these movies fine but saying that you know they suck but nobody should complain because "It's about the ride, even if the ride is predictable and boring" then you need to start thinking for yourself. It's ok to not like an action movie because it's mindless and pointless and instead pick up a movie you will enjoy. Good movies exist, telling people they should just shut up and eat the s**t they are given is just passive consumerism.
Martin Freeman, what are you doing?
ReplyYou're The Hobbit now, as well as Doctor Watson in a brilliant TV show. You don't need to be in s****y "comedies" anymore!
I know, I know... It makes me want to cry. Or puke. Or both simultaneously.
"I'm sure a photographer just planted them in front of a green screen and picked the coolest-looking photo of each, except for Guy In The Back With The Needlessly Wide Leg Stance and Vin "No One Told Me What To Do With My Hands" Diesel"
ReplyHahaha oh my god. Laughing so hard I can't breathe.
Patton Oswalt referenced this article on Walking the Room podcast...CAN'T....STOP.....NERDGASMING
ReplyI stared at that picture of Vin Diesel and The Rock while listening to "Secret Garden." I wanted them to make out.
ReplyI feel your pain DOB. I sat through Fast and Furious 5 as well and all I was thinking was "What a cheap piece of hormone fueled crap."
ReplyGive me tits and ass any day over DeCrapio blabbing on about having to dream harder any day. Inception sucked
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesYou never gave a valid reason for Inception "sucking". I expect you're one of the people who saw it, couldn't comprehend it, so it automatically sucked in your eyes?
Oh, don't do that. People are allowed to dislike movies, even Inception. Just cause slackass didn't like it doesn't automatically mean he didn't grasp the deep, philosophical message the movie was attempting to portray.
It's ok slackator... Some people dont realize that ridiculously over complicated plots don't make good movies. So don't be insulted by these hipster hobknockers, there just attempting to insult your intelligence to get over the fact they have bad taste. :)
You are all missing the point, slackator has never even seen the movie and is just jumping on the bandwagon. The "philosophy" of the movie wasn't too deep to grasp for anyone, it was actually pretty simple and even bland in that regard for anyone that has done even the tiniest bit of research regarding philosophy in general.
But the point here is that the movie didn't have a single scene of DiCaprio talking about "dreaming harder" and you would seriously watch a s**t movie for a few minutes of partial nudity?
You are on the internet, what is going on in that head of yours?
Difference between Inception and "Fast Five" or any fast and furious movie? Inception was unpredictable (except for that last part, lets not pretend we didn't all expect something like that even before starting the movie) and had crazy and creative action scenes. Fast and furious has people driving fast and shooting at other people which would be awesome if it wasn't for the fact that the editing is so sloppy and random that you have no real understanding of what is going on besides the fact that two groups you rarely get too see in the same shot are trying to beat each other in some contest of speed or violence on a level that can easily and usually is matched by a standard TV series.
Seriously, if you had a real reason for liking the movie fine but saying tits and ass is all you need to eat up s**t and like it is pretty sad. Again, you have the internet if you are that lonely.
In the theater while watching Fast Five I immediately thought of this and chuckled when Paul Walker jump punched somebody while running (and jumping) through the favelas. And I was holding in laughter when he turns the corner and immediately jump punches the next guy he sees.
ReplyI totally agree with the article but I don't understand how you can have a problem with Hangover II being Hangover, Die Hard was the same ridiculously implausible plot resurrected again and again and again and it's still so awesome that if corporeal violence had a ragegasm so hard that it replaced every single episode of My Little Pony with Rambo it would be described as "vaguely Die-Hardlike"
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesFrom my end, Die Hard is a good movie, they all are (excluding the 4th, and especially excluding any scenes with Justin Long), but the Hangover is just another in Hollywood's incredibly long line of comedy failures. Seriously nothing about that movie appealed to me or made me laugh.
Are you some kind of horrible fish-man? Because you may not have been the target audience
Die hard was not the same plot over and over. In the first movie he is fighting a small group of criminals in a tower rigged to blow, the second one was about a group of terrorists taking over an airport or something (not a fan of 2) and the 3rd was Willis trying to meet the demands (but eventually foil the plans of and kill) a relative of the first vilian that is setting bombs up around the city. Yes some themes are reused like the fact that it has Bruce Willis and stuff blows up but it's not the exact same plot. Mclain isn't in another tower being highjacked by another group of criminals.
Seriously it's obvious you never even watched rambo or die hard because they are not even close to similar. First Blood (what "rambo" was actually called, seriously calling the movie "rambo" is like calling Friday the Thirteenth "Jason") was about a guy returning from Vietnam, being harassed by the local police, and snapping into a Vietnam flashback. Ends up killing an officer so the police are hunting him down in the woods while he is setting up traps and finding animals to kill and eat.
The fact that people like you make assumptions about the "die hard" and "Rambo" films without even watching them is sad. Seriously that's like me saying Watchmen sucked because it's just a ripoff of the super friends. Not liking the movie is fine, judging a movie that you have never bothered to so much as watch a clip of or learn the title of is just obnoxious and makes it obvious you are just jumping on trends.
First of all I never said Die-Hard sucked I said the exact opposite. Every single movie was the same Bruce Willis, Terrorists, Not really terrorists EXPLOSION!
Rambo was in numerous movies, referring to all of them at the same time refers the pronoun Rambo. Also I wasn't talking about the movie I was talking about every episode of My Little Pony being replaced with the actual John Rambo.
D.O.B is dead on, and it obviously didn't take any foresight to know about Hangover 2. I just saw it with some mates, I sat there applying face to palm for about a laughless 85% of the movie while they roared. It's the exact same f*&cking movie.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replieswhy do good movies have to change? If something isnt broke why fix it and judging by the box office numbers Hangover 2 isnt broke and to expect Hangover 3 in 2 years for another 500 million dollars.
Why does every movie have to revolutionize movies they cant all be Dark Knights, sometimes you need Transformers.
@ Slackator, because it's boring and predictable. You sit through the entire movie reminiscing about how you felt when you saw that joke originally. While I am a true Hangover fan, you can't help but wonder why the writers, of great originality, couldn't be bold enough to break through the lines and surprise us.
nobody is saying every movie has to be new, just that if a movie already exist, no reason to make it again when we can simply rewatch it.
Do you get it now? Of course not. you have yet to learn the value of a dollar therefore you can't sense when something is a shameless ripoff. Keep throwing the money your parents gave you at a movie you have already seen before.
The "if it ain't broke don't fix it" line makes no sense here because if it ain't broke, why make a new one? Isn't that even more wasteful than fixing it?
Nobody is saying it should be fixed, just that the only reason the first was any good was because it was original and unpredictable. To say that it would be just as good a second time but with a monkey and a scene with a transvestite is just completely missing the point and simply saying you liked the movie because everyone else did.
If Fast 6 was exclusively about Category 3, I'd definetely watch it.
ReplyGod damn it. After viewing the trailer for that romcom chick flick s**t show and clicking back here, my laptop froze and I had to shut it off by holding down the power button, which is totally not good. f**k you, DO'B.
ReplyYeah, cause it's his fault you own a s**tty laptop...
Do you by chance have windows vista? Sucks to be your whiny ass.