Kinda-Sorta Funny in a Who-Caresy Sort of Way

Patton Oswalt used to have a bit about going to open mics when he was a younger comedian, saying there were essentially three types of performers you’d see there: people who had a voice and potential, people who were funny-but-who-cares, and lunatics. Sacha Cohen always used to seem like an intriguing 50-50 combo of potential genius and complete lunatic, and that makes it all the more disappointing to see him in The Dictator, the ultimate “funny, but who cares” movie. He even reuses some of his old jokes, like the one about how a woman in politics is like a monkey flying a plane. (Here, it’s a woman in education is like a monkey on roller skates).

I liked that joke a lot when it was in Borat, but you know a joke’s not specific when it can be used for two different characters. The Dictator is just the broadest of broad comedy. It’s like a 90-minute MTV Movie Awards sketch. Its one saving grace is that it spends the first bit so drastically lowering your expectations that you eventually accept the hammy inconsistency enough that by the end you can just chuckle along with the jokes that are so-so (and if you’ve read my writing on this website, you know I have no problem with a so-so joke). I did enjoy the shot from inside Kathryn Hahn’s vagina. That was a highlight.

It’s hard to compare documentary-style comedies like Borat or Bruno to the fully-scripted Dictator, because with the former, the plot can be the most basic, predictable framework, and that’s okay, because with people who aren’t in on the joke always standing around, there’s always the possibility of something unexpected happening. That element doesn’t exist in The Dictator, but even if we’re comparing apples to apples, the fully-staged, “running of the Jew” scene in Borat is 100 times funnier than anything in The Dictator. That was creative, wildly politically incorrect, and above all, specific. Making fun of a Muslim strongman isn’t even politically incorrect. In fact it’s probably the most politically correct. The Dictator just couches all its jokes in vulgarity to make it seem politically incorrect. It’s kind of like shitty fake punk, where you scratch your pick across the strings and grimace even though the song’s about holding hands with girls at the Dairy Queen. Jokes in The Dictator, like Admiral Aladeen saying he wants to get home so he can watch “The Real Housewives of Ahmadinehulalabajad” just don’t have the same punch as throwing money at cockroaches in case the Jews are shapeshifters. I love poop/fart/vagina humor, but less so when it’s just a crutch to prop up lazy pop culture references. HAHA, FUNNY ACCENTS AND LINDSAY LOHAN! Honestly, how much different is that than Ashton Kutcher’s Pop Chips ad? Other than that Sacha Cohen is a talented comedian and Ashton Kutcher is a buffoon, and that beard-face is acceptable while brown-face isn’t, they’re actually pretty similar.

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A Shiny Coffin Filled with Farts

In Dark Shadows, Tim Burton boldly challenges the notion that movies are a medium for telling stories. He flips the entire paradigm on its head! F*ck you, story! Thing happens! Reaction shot! That’s all you need! The whole thing is basically Tim Burton screaming gibberish at Johnny Depp to make him confused, because it’s cute when Johnny Deppp cocks his head to the side like a puppy.

"Chevy?"

Well, it is.

Good B-movies and schlock (and the kind of fancy Disney-goth Tim Burton used to be a master of) almost always hook you with an over-the-top premise, then, once you’re in the tent, reveal nuance, and engage you in such way that the characters start to feel real. You start to actually care about them – this wolfman, does he have nards? Dark Shadows does nearly the opposite, where a compelling-ish premise leads to a series of increasingly baffling situations happening to people who might as well be random passersby. By the end, I felt like Royal Tenenbaum, shouting “Characters? What characters? All I saw was a bunch of actors wearing costumes!”

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Oh, just the Hulk disemboweling a plane, nbd.

(No, There Aren’t Any Spoilers)

The first thirty minutes of The Avengers are painfully boring, but then the Hulk starts smashing stuff, and there’s a giant robot space worm that jizzes flying demon bikes and after that it was awesome! Perhaps this won’t win me any Pulitzers, but that’s my professional opinion.

“We have a Hulk!” Tony Stark yells in the previews. Yes, they do, and thank God. Without him, this wouldn’t be much of a movie. The first act is every bit the esoteric circle jerk the Whedon haters worried it would be, a mish-mash of nonsensical comic-book procedural minutiae, periodically interrupted by winky in-jokes ranging from the sorta cute-funny to the nauseatingly kitschy.

“Loki has stolen the tesseract! It looks like he’s planning to implode the hydro weapon and use gamma rays to create ion fusion!

“But if he creates ion fusion, it could….”

“That’s right! It would awaken the Chitauri and bring about terra forma!”

“SOMETHING SOMETHING MACGUFFIN, WE HAVE TO REVERSE THE POLARITY!”

(*Tony Stark looks directly into the camera*)

“…F*ck yeah we do.” (*lip bite, hip thrust, gun fingers*)

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“BROS! Wouldn’t it be TOTES AMAZEBALLS if we went back to our high-school reunion, and all the 18-year-old sluts in town wanted to do us and we couldn’t do them because we were married and stuff so we just beat up their boyfriends and let them blow us while we high-fived each other and listened to Chumbawumba?? SO AWESOME, BRO! Sack tap! Last one to the jetskis sucks dicks!”

That is to say, American Reunion is an extremely specific type of wish fulfillment, and I’m ashamed to say that it mostly worked on me. I am that demo, and I hate myself for it. For years, I’ve ridiculed the Baby Boomers for turning most of pop culture into their own self-congratulatory circle jerk for the last 30 years. Now, I realize that my own generation is going to be EVEN MORE ANNOYING. We’re ALREADY getting nostalgic about shit that happened like FIVE YEARS AGO! As smug and obnoxious and terrible as the Boomers were, at least with them, things happened – the war, the sexual revolution, the Civil Rights movement (you know, debates we’re constantly forced to re-argue long after they’ve lost all relevance, but that’s another story). MY generation’s version of a watershed moment? “HEY, BRO! REMEMBER THE VERVE PIPE??”

WE ARE THE WORST, AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSER. Did you see Ferris Bueller hawking minivans?

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Pretty Girl Makes Graves

“In a world… where TRIPODS have become obsolete… and SHAKY CLOSEUPS ruled the land… TWO ATTRACTIVE ACTORS did stuff and blah blah blah TWILIGHT.”

Okay, so that’s not exactly the plot, but close enough. 70-some years ago, in some vaguely-defined dystopian future, the “districts” rebelled against the “Capitol,” and every year since, one boy and one girl from each district are chosen to FIGHT TO THE DEATH in the Capitol because Running Man. But first, they must undergo a vaguely-sexual, co-ed boot camp because Starship Troopers, where they learn that winning the audience is just as important as fighting, because Gladiator. This is known as “The Hunger Games.”

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in District 12, where she divides her time between daydreaming about escaping a vaguely defined “they” with her boyfriend, and hunting in the forbidden forest with her bow. She seems to be the head of the household, as her dad’s dead, her mom’s catatonic, and her useless crybaby sister does nothing but cry. Primrose has just turned 12, the first year she’ll be eligible for The Hunger Games lottery, and she’s convinced that she’ll be picked. Katniss gives her a charm, a “mocking J pin,” whose importance seems to have gotten lost somewhere between the book and movie, telling her that as long as she holds onto it, “nothing bad can happen.”

TAKE THIS. IT'S IMPORTANT OR SOMETHING.

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