Who’s Responsible For the Revival of Shitty Teen Sex Comedies?

A little bit of music to set the mood:

I had the pleasure of watching The Virginity Hit trailer. There’s even a red band one. The movie is a mockumentary about an awkward teen nerd who is losing is virginity. He and his friends have a ritual of taking a bong hit from a unique bong they only take a hit from when they lose their virginity. Apperantly, virginity is still serious business. Jokes include “You look like a child pornographer”, “Strangers also blow other strangers.” and a guy getting filmed performing oral sex on a doll or something.

There’s also Easy A coming up. It’s about a girl who pretends to lose her virginity with an insecure gay dude.

With all due respect to stupid teenagers who believe virginity is a matter of life and death, what the fuck is this? Seriously, who the fuck greenlit this crap? To quote the John Malkovich character from Burn After Reading, whose ass didn’t I kiss? What did I do that I have to face the existance of such shitty movies?

Let’s not pretend. Both movies revolve around the basic ideas that sexual organs are, somehow, funny. I still haven’t figured out the joke. I’m not sure if you can consider it a joke. Why the fuck people find it funny? Are people still emberassed by sexuality, even though they spend most of their fucking time thinking about it?

It seems ever since Judd Apatow made “dirty” comedies cool again, we now have to suffer this wave while the critics praise it. Could it be the critics fap to this shit and then give it a positive review?

Nevermind, I want to say how shitty The Virginity Hit looks like. Can there be a film that’s more desperate to appeal to teenagers than this? I don’t know about you, but if a friend of mine wanted to tape me and my girlfriend having sex for the first time, I would take her Breaking Dawn volume and slam him with it. 800 pages to his fucking head. The film looks more sad than funny. Am I supposed to feel good while watching friends simply treating each other like shit? This is not the Coens’ black comedy. This is mean-spirited in the bad way. The premise isn’t doomed from the start. Give it to Easton Ellis and he’ll scare you shitless. Give it to Palahniuk and it will be funny.

I know I sound like an arthouse fag and an elitist, but my choice of mindless fun is Commando and other dumb action movies. At least these movies aren’t pretentious. Yes, I just called these shitty teen sex comedies “pretentious”. They think they’re funny, because there are tits and dicks, but it’s not.

As for Easy A, am I supposed to buy the fucking premise that there’s a high school where having sex is considered a bad thing among the teens? The school doesn’t look Catholic too. The trailer’s punchline is “You will be judged by a higher being” “Tom Cruise?”. Don’t tell me it doesn’t come out of the school of Aaron Seltzer & Jason Friedberg.

I have no idea how to finish this rant so I will tell a Yo Dawg joke:

Yo dawg I heard you like dick jokes so I put a dick in your mouth so you could suck dick while you tell a dick joke.

Why Shane Dawson’s “Telephone” Parody Is a Failure

Watch it here.

Before anybody starts crying and telling me that if I don’t like it, I shouldn’t watch it, he posted it on YouTube. He posted it on YouTube for our entertainment. Therefore, we can express our opinions regarding it, both negative and positive. Of course, criticism which goes like “It sucks” or “You’re a fag” is invalid. That’s why I’ll present the reasons why it’s bad. He can learn from it if he wants to, or not.

Strike #1 – Funny Voice
Using a funny voice in comedy music is generally an automatic failure. Funny voices need to sound genuine, as if they’re real and the speaker is dead serious. Onyx is a great example. Their over-the-top voices and behavior is real, and doesn’t try to be funny. Snoop Dogg, at least in his Doggystyle days is also a good example. His delivery isn’t exactly dead serious, but he plays it straight. When Shane does the funny voice, he tells us this is a comedy. Therefore, all the stupid stuff that happens is for comedy and he’s not stupid. It’s more of a sign he’s afraid than a sign of a good comedian.

Strike #2 – Funny Faces
Again, the problem with people making funny faces with the intent to make us laugh is that we already know it’s a joke. It’s just not funny when it’s obviously fake. Shane’s face screams “I’m acting stupid for the sake of comedy, I’m not really stupid!”. I’m starting to repeat myself, but this is a sign of fear and not of a good comedian.

Strike #3 – Your Friends Are Funnier Than You
Do I need to elaborate? The friends play the stupidity straight. They’re not experts, but they’re more believable than Shane himself. They can actually make me crack a smile. I’ll talk about the guest rapper when I’ll discuss what Shane gets right.

Strike #4 – Obvious Fake Anger On The Girls’ Faces
I feel like I’m discussing a B-Movie here. Anyway, this goes back to the point that comedy works best when it feels real. Why is a man that accidenty falls off a bike is more funnier than a man that falls off a bike on purpose? Because the former man’s fall is real.

Strike #5 – Mimicking Masturbation Moves
Sexual imagery is the last refuge of those who don’t understand comedy. It’s an attempt at being random. The problem is, we’re so familiar with sex nowadays it’s no longer random. Sex is nearly everywhere, and everybody’s talking about it. It’s not hard to make everything sexual nowadays. The randomness, therefore, is non-existant. Even Anime, where sexual imagery is pretty big, knows to use other topics/subjects for randomness.

Strike #6 – Mentioning Porn
It’s another complete failure at generating randomness. If porn was funny, people would be too busy cracking up to masturbate.

Strike #7 – Terrible & Unfunny Face On The Girl With The Pink Shirt That Makes Me Want To Listen To Brokencyde
That joke was so bad it deserves its own strike. There’s also a girl giving a middle finger. I’ll be nice and won’t give it a strike. It’s still a terrible joke.

Strike #8 – Girls Acknowledging The Situation’s Absurdity While Letting Us Know That It Is a Joke
It would’ve been a whole lot funnier if the girls pulled out a line such as “Are you practicing for Dancing with the Stars?” or, “Who sings that terrible song?”. Their reaction is too predictible.

Strike #9 – Zero Writing
There are about zero verbal jokes in the parody. It comes from Selzter & Friedberg school of “No joking, only referencing”. Other than mentioning porn, I don’t think Shane attempted to make us laugh because he actually said something funny.

EDIT: After rewatching the video (I’m practicing in case Jigsaw’s students come and get me) I noticed Shane seems to be smiling at his own joke, during the “Drinking Hennesse” part.

Shit That Shane Actually Gets Right

It’s fun saying how terrible something is, but I’ll give Shane credit for the few things he gets right.

Win #1 – Guest Rapper Who Plays It Straight
I can’t complain about the guest rapper with the sunglasses. He could’ve joined The Lonely Island. He raps good, he plays it straight, but his lines aren’t amazing. I already mentioned that Shane didn’t bother to think of anything funny to say, but at least this guy had the delivery.

Win #2 – Fantastic Editing
The writing and comedy is terrible, but I can’t say the same about the editing. Whoever directed this video did a great job. It looks like a real comedy song that occasionally appears on MTV. They also use repitition of syllables, in the form of “eh-eh-eh-eh-eh” and they do it fantastic. That was the only way you would notice that Shane tries hard. I might think his comedy his terrible, but he is trying in a way. He’s a better version of Seltzer & Friedberg, if it means anything.

For those who want to listen to good comedy music, I recommend The Lonely Island (who actually rely on writing, even during their dirty moments), the australian rock band Regurgitator, and Goldie Lookin’ Chain “Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do”. I haven’t heard the rest of their catalogue.

The Lonely Island – We Like Sportz
Regurgitator – My Ego
Goldie Lookin’ Chain – Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do

Family Films That Hate Your Family

According to Wikipedia, Family Films are supposed to appeal to a variety of ages, and thus to the whole family. It means they’re supposed to be inoffensive, but at the same time they need to have some sort of wit. Of course, this definition suits Pixar, but even lesser-known family films such as Disney’s The Sword in the Stone (Which is kind of nice) delivered what was needed.

A new kind of family films is making a revolt.

First of all, there is Furry Vengeance. The trailer hints at a PG-rated torture porn. The reviews claim it consists of Brendan Fraser getting tortured by animals. All that was missing is “I want to play a game”. Does it look like a film you would see with the whole family? Nevermind that Berndan Fraser is pretty good at family roles (I liked Center of the Earth), was it necessary to put him through this? The movie looks like it was made by Selzter&Fiedberg crew. It has the exact same type of comedy, only PG-rated.

Then, we have Marmaduke

Oh my. Who decided that dancing dogs are funny? The ending of the trailer made me want to cry. The film looks like a Garfield wannabe. It’s based on a comic strip, too. While Garfield is kind of charming, Marmaduke is ugly, including the name. It suits an Evil Genius from a Arnie Schawrz film, rather a talking animal. The jokes involve Marmaduke doing chaos (hahaha) and William Hacy getting kicked (I really liked him in Wild Hogs). Why is he in the movie? I hope they pay him well. Again, it’s very mean-spirited, has a slighlty sadistic vibe about it and it’s just plain braindead. It’s the stuff Selzter&Friebderg would do lowered to PG. I thought we kept them out of the theaters. Are they ghostwriting this shit?

It’s worth noting I did see the trailer for the sequel for Cats & Dogs, a film I never knew existed until the sequel came. Anyway, it doesn’t look bad, to be honest. It looked like the people behind it tried to make a good family film. I’m not sure if it will be good because it does look pretty dumb, but I damn sure prefer than to the previously mentioned films.

Thankfully, Pixar is dropping Toy Story 3. I think everyone already decided it will be good.

Why “Kick-Ass” Is Going To Suck

The hypemachine was in full effect last year. Up In The Air came quite early. District 9 was the classic. Pixar dropped another amazing movie with Up. The Oscars proved their banality yet again by declaring a War Film as the best picture, and All About Steve, along with Old Dogs made critics suicidal. In 2010, the hypemachine took a break. No movie was seriously hyped this year. How To Train Your Dragon has 98% on RottenTomatoes but it doesn’t count because it’s an animated film. Now, Kick-Ass arrives and all hell breaks loose.

The movie will be crap

The premise is good. It’s not amazing, but it’s good. A kid wants to be a superhero but has no superpowers (I think I saw this on a cartoon before). He wears a custome that screams “Isn’t that funny?”, Nicolas Cage and some kid appears and there’s violence.

So far, it sounds like a worthy addition to our Grindhouse library. We had Crank, Death Race, Gamer and From Paris With Love to give us badasses with guns and explosions. What’s wrong with another one? Well, Kick-Ass is, apperantly a Very Clever Satire that is Very Funny because it Makes Fun of Cliches. When a movie is stupid but pretends it’s smart, that’s where it’s truly bad

In the trailer, we also get to know the main character’s only superpower – being ignored by girls. Apperantly, being subtle isn’t part of the agenda. Nicolas Cage is barely in the trailer, so I can’t comment on him. I did get to see Chloe, the actor for Hit Girl in the trailer, and she was as bad as I thought she would be. Like many actresses in this day and age, Chloe honestly believes she’s Mel Gibson or Jason Statham. So, she says lines such as “Let’s see what you can do”, tries to look bad-ass and also has a very unfunny custom. I’m getting tired of every single actress trying to look badass. Also, sources claim that she kills a lot of people and says plenty of bad words. That means that a) It’s a pathetic attempt at shock value b) It’s a very unfunny and lame joke.

I do have to admit the snippets of action looked good. They were stylized, no-holds-barred and reminded me of The Matrix. Also, whoever plays the Bad Guys is bound to be the star of the show. The only truly witty moments of the trailer was anytime a bad guy appeared. Yes, I did find it funny when they said “It’s a little kid”. Maybe they supply the comedy.

I will still watch the film. I’m going to give anything a chance, and I get a kick out of saying a movie sucks. For now, though, I can only fantasize how bad this will be. In fact, it reminds me a bit of South Park, and I hate South Park.

By the way, Roger Ebert also hated the film, giving it one star. I guess I won’t be alone