When you buy bootleg DVDs in foreign countries (or in New York, for that matter), you never really know what you’re going to get.  Especially when it comes to things like subtitles, synopses, and DVD jacket copy.  Bootleggers pretty much grab whatever they have access to, and when they don’t speak English… well, this happens.  It’s from the back of a Year One DVD that a friend of mine who’s stationed in Iraq recently bought.  Here’s the text:

Jack Black and Michael Cera playing themselves, yeah, where was that even considered funny? Now I absolutely adore these actors, Michael was a great choice in Superbad and Juno and Jack Black has proved he can do great comedy like Tropic Thunder and a good dramatic role like King Kong, even a more calm character like he played in The Holiday. But the main problem? They have no chemistry! You have this wild outgoing maniac who is eating poop(eeeew!) and the calm awkward overly shy nerd who pees on himself(eeew!) and what do you have? Every elementary school joke that could be put into a movie, Year One could have been written by a five year old and proves that top list actors will do anything for those millions that they make.

That’s right, the copy they used to sell a movie not only came from an IMDB user review, but an extremely negative one that rated it a 1 out of 10. It was written by “kristinedrama14″, who I’m guessing is in high school.  And they left out some of the best parts of the review.  The last sentence:

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Hey, remember back the late 80s when Victoria Jackson was on SNL, and people were like, “Aw, she’s a kooky, child-like blonde, that’s kind of a fun shtick.”  Fast forward twenty years, and now she’s a 50-year-old woman who wears a pink bow in her hair, and ultra right-wing whack jobs like to poke her with sticks and tell her, “Okay, Victoria, now say Obama is a communist, and try to sound like a drugged-up 7-year-old, people love that.”  Point being, she writes a column for Breitbart.com (presumably translated from crayon), and in it, she recently described walking out of Year One in tears.

It was the scene where the obese homosexual is fortune-telling by looking at the bowels of a sheep that has been sodomized by a person. I told myself this was a PG-13 movie and the writers were “lost” so they didn’t know how vulgar they were being. I asked myself, “Vicki, is this movie making you feel good?”  Myself replied, “This movie is making me angry, very sad, hopeless, and dirty-feeling.”  As the onscreen obese gay man poked at the bloody intestines and told the fifth anal sex joke, I looked at my daughter, and we got up and walked out.  I started crying in the parking lot as we walked to our car.

I had almost the same reaction Anal Sex Nurses 23.  I asked myself, “Vince, is this movie making you feel good?”  And myself replied, “This movie is making me feel good, but also confused, angry, and dirty feeling.  I’m about to come but I can’t stop crying. I worry the two might be related.  What’s wrong with me?”  To which I replied, “You know what’d make you feel better? A cigarette and some ice cream.”  And myself said, “Aw, thanks Vince, this is the best birthday ever.”

(Haha, get it?  Women be shoppin’ and men be hatin’ commitment! It’s funny ’cause it’s true!)

The Proposal earned $34 million to land a big number one on the box office chart, despite looking like a lame mashup of every crappy romantic comedy ever.  They make this movie once a month.  The only thing good about this one was that it didn’t have Kate Hudson or Matthew McConaughey in it.

The Hangover was number two with $26.9 million, only declining 18% from last weekend and holding better than just about any movie in recent memory (again, that’s movie blogger code for “I don’t want to look it up”).  So far it’s made almost $153 million on a $35 million budget, which is good news for anyone who wants to make or see an R-rated comedy.  The bad news is that without Todd Phillips and Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover would basically have been an Entourage episode.  So what’ll happen now is, they’ll greenlight a bunch of pandering, “raunchy” comedies which will suck (think American Pie sequels) and won’t make money, and then we’ll be right back to it being hard to make R-rated comedy again.  Also?  We’re all gonna be dead in 40 years anyway.  Happy Monday!

(full top 10 below)

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(Haven’t you heard?  It’s super lazy Photoshop Friday.)

Opening this weekend:

Year One
Jack Black and Michael Cera are cavemen, David Cross is Cain.  Seeing some bad reviews for this, and sure, I could’ve done without Harold Ramis planting the camera an inch from everyone’s face, and the endings of a couple scenes apparently never made it to the final cut… But whatever, it had its moments.  “You know what the best part of Sodom is?  The sodomy.”

The Proposal
Director Anne Fletcher’s long awaited follow up to 27 Dresses.  Two attractive people forced together by circumstance?  I wonder what will happen! She has to pretend to be attracted to Ryan Reynolds?  Ew, his chiseled features and washboard abs are so icky!  These romantic comedies are so unpredictable.  Betty White’s in it too.  Get it?  It’s funny because she’s old.

Whatever Works
Woody Allen directs Larry David.  I wonder if it’s about being neurotic and Jewish.

• I’d love to see a truth-in-advertising campaign for the Biffy Bidet.  “Biffy: It cleans the poop off your butthole.” [via Videogum]
• Borat/Bruno director Larry Charles next project will take on the topic of old people having sex. I say “take on” because it’s the kind of thing you don’t want to approach without a knife or a pool cue. [ScreenJunkie]
• Since I know many of you will be excited about this, Eastbound & Down has been renewed for another season. ..And that is why I am the BEST PERSON in THE WORLD.  So kiss my ass and suck my di- *please turn over to side two* [WarmingGlow]
• The only thing that would make HolyTaco’s tribute to girls cleaning cars better is if it were about girls cleaning my house.  [HolyTaco]
• Year One was given an R rating by the MPAA despite an appeal for leniency from Judd Apatow and director Harold Ramis.  Said Ramis following the ruling, “Yeah, well all those mother effing C essers can go eff themselves in the B.  Buncha jerks.” [THR]
• Al Pacino is set to play Napoleon in Betsy & the Emperor. Meanwhile, short Italian guys everywhere have been playing the part of Napoleon for years. In related news, Napoleon Bonerpart would be a sweet porn name. [Empire]

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