Day: June 2, 2009

“Okay, I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong,” writes Marshall Fine. “I apologize for calling Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian the most witless, humor-challenged movie of the summer. The winner and new champion: Land of the Lost. At least there’s truth in advertising. See it and you lose your time, the money you spent on a ticket and, perhaps, the ability to walk upright without dragging your knuckles on the ground.

“With this film, Will Ferrell officially signals the end of his 15 minutes. Indeed, if it weren’t for Matt Lauer, there’d be nary a laugh at all in this excruciatingly lazy and unnecessary film. I repeat: The biggest laughs belong to Matt Lauer.

“Dinosaur urine and poop are the best they’ve got? Oh, wait — I forgot the numerous times the monkey man groped Anna Friel’s breasts. Apparently director Brad Silberling thought it got funnier every time. He was wrong.

“I propose that there should be criminal penalties for wasting $100 million on a movie this dreadful. Maybe someone can implement Hollywood’s version of the hockey penalty box for actors and directors who knowingly make one. Sorry, Will, you’ve got to sit the next one out.

“How could they not know? Probably they didn’t notice because they were too busy standing around on the set, cracking each other up and congratulating themselves on what comic geniuses they are, while collecting massive paychecks. The movie is filled with weak ad-libs, by Ferrell and costar Danny McBride — which makes you wonder how bad the script was, if they thought this stuff was funnier.

“At one point, there’s mention of the YouTube video in which a monkey pees in its own mouth. I’m here to tell you that the 38 seconds of that video is more entertaining than all 106 minutes of this movie.”

“Perhaps more than anyone else in the business, Zach Galifianakis embodies the rebellion against the outmoded Comedy Club circuit — the exposed brick, the two-drink minimum, the indifferent audience, the ‘regular guy with an attitude’ routine — which has come to be labeled the ‘indie comedy’ movement. ‘Zach is so conceptual,’ Sarah Silverman, who has known and worked with Galifianakis since the mid-’90s, told me. ‘He’s definitely part of the excitement of this shift, this idea of comedy as art. Whether he’s at his piano, offering deadpan one-liners, or trying out some brand-new conceptual piece — like the ways he uses musicians, or flip-board messages, or the first thing that comes into his head — he is so totally original and thrilling to watch.” — from Jon Wray‘s 5.28 profile of in the N.Y. Times.

It’s been alleged that somewhere on Tumblr, the blog of MTV Awards comedy writer Scott Aukerman, is a confession that the Bruno/Eminem incident was “yes, staged. That’s all anyone wants to talk about, so let’s get it out of the way. They rehearsed it at dress and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show.”

Over and over the enacting of outrageous/uncomfortable/socially disruptive confrontation scenarios between GenY/late GenX entertainers. Over and over the moment-after suspicions that what we all just saw was staged. Over and over the confirmations arriving a day or two later that we saw was indeed rehearsed and staged.

So for GenY/late GenX comedic entertainers, the enacting of outrageous/uncomfortable/socially disruptive confrontation scenarios is not just a signature thing. It reps a shift in the zetigeist, a movement, “comedy as art.” Putting people on in a somewhat dry and unrevealing manner is all they do in front of audiences — it’s pretty much the whole conceptual magilla with not that much else in the bag. Whatever you think may actually be happening isn’t happening — it’s theatre, bro. And we are going to keep doing this until you’re literally down on your knees and begging for mercy. Because what we do isn’t as much funny as it is fun to talk about afterwards over coffee.