Year 17, Day 37 - 2/6/25 - Movie #4,937
BEFORE: Today's film is another one that was on my always-crashing DVR, so I lost access to it when I upgraded my equipment. Really, I think the cable company (you know the one) should have designed the DVRs better, so that if something went wrong with the equipment, they could swap out the drive to a new box, or have some way to download those files and then upload them to the new box. They're just files on a drive, after all, and I paid for them, so I should still have access to them. But that's just not where we find ourselves, is it? All that money being spent on working out how to send people to Mars, and I can't keep the movies I downloaded to my DVR. Yes, it's all about me.
Heather Graham carries over from "Hope Springs" (2003). I will make, umm, an alternate method of watching this film tonight, just so I can cross it off my list and maintain the chain. I take no pleasure in doing this, except for the joy that comes from crossing the title out with a pen.
I was at 31 seen out of 70, and I've seen NONE out of today's 12? Yeah, that's not good. I can't believe I never watched "Love Story", I should probably do something about that. And "Three Faces of Eve" is another classic, now I wish I'd recorded "Rachel, Rachel" so I could do a Joanne Woodward double-feature on a DVD. I should really get out ahead of this thing - but you know, TCM just keeps running the same movies over and over again, so there will be other chances in the future. Anyway now I'm at 31 seen out of 82, so I'm way down at 37%.
THE PLOT: Jo and Gilly date, but then find out that they're brother and sister. Jo moves away, but then Gilly finds out that he's not Jo's brother and also that Jo's getting married. Can he stop the wedding in time?
AFTER: Well, maybe the DVR crashing was a sign, maybe it was the universe trying to tell me to not watch the films I had on it, especially this one. I should have listened. Although this is not a film directed by one the Farrelly brothers, they're listed as producers, and clearly this film was made to cash in on the success of "There's Something About Mary", which was released three years earlier. It feels like one of their films, because the film is all about a desirable young woman, and portraying several people pursuing her like she's a piece of property, and meanwhile everyone else is doing unfunny things that were clearly MEANT to be funny, but also meant to find fun in disgusting things like pooping and ejaculation. Sorry if that makes this film feels unappealing, but in many ways it is.
The main topic is incest, or at least perceived incest, and really, there's a fine line between ALMOST incest and actual incest, right? I mean, there's that feeling you get when you first meet someone and you feel right at home, very comfortable with them, and then you find out that you're actually long-lost siblings, and everything kind of makes sense for the first time in your life. Ha ha, but you already slept together, so you didn't really know what the situation was, and now you've slept with a family member. Hilarious, right? Eh, maybe not so much as they intended. Ha ha, but it was all one big misunderstanding. Is it funny yet? Well, no, but by all means, keep trying, just beat that dead horse until you can't beat it any more.
There's a whole list of things in this film that just are NOT funny, but they tried to make them funny. Roadkill animals - not funny. Animal shelters - not funny (though the current sitcom "Animal Control" is at least watchable). DNA tests to confirm parentage - not funny, because if you need to rely on these, that means there's a serious situation of some kind. People with bad haircuts - this SHOULD be funny, but then there's an ear sliced off, which is just not funny. Anything used as a plot point in a David Lynch film can't be funny. Getting your arm stuck inside a cow, this also feels like it SHOULD be funny, but then the cow looks so damn fake, and the sound effect is so disgusting that again, not funny.
Oh, the list goes on and on - candid nude polaroids, stealing a woman's panties for self-pleasure, people having strokes and not being able to talk without one of those voice-box things, someone putting pubic hair on his face to disguise himself with a fake beard - none of this is funny. Poor Richard Jenkins, who had to play Jo's father, who had a stroke. He had to spend most of the movie pretending he couldn't move or talk, and it's just sad, even when he swears, it's not funny. How badly do you have to write a movie so that somebody dropping F-bombs and calling people "jerk-offs" isn't remotely funny? Comedy is all about tone, and the tone here is all screwed up. They're trying too hard, maybe that's the problem.
Also, poor Orlando Jones, who's another genuinely funny guy, and he's got to play this weird pilot character with a very strange accent, and he's got two artificial legs (also, not funny, there's really no humor to be found in disabiliities, I don't know who told the screenwriter otherwise) and also he's supposed to be either high or falling asleep 90% of the time. I guess he did the best he could with that character, but really, it was a lost cause. Everything here is sad or pathetic or exploitative in some way. And some of it didn't age well - like Jo is set to marry a marijuana farmer in Oregon, and he's an evil guy who runs the town and cheats on her, also treats her like an object that he needs to own and be in control of. Sure, marijuana might have been illegal then and legal now, but painting all weed farmers with the same brush doesn't really get us anywhere, I'm guessing most of them are just decent, hardworking growers who just want to run their business the right way, and not also control the police department in their area. But I'm not really an expert on this, either.
So yeah, really more misses than hits tonight, the whole film kind of makes you feel like you need to take a shower afterwards, I guess this was considered ground-breaking somehow because it tried to find comedy in people with disabilities, people falsely accusing someone of being a sex offender, people appearing like they're going to commit suicide, and one guy who's somehow in love with a car? That's all low-hanging fruit, however, and the harder they tried to make me think all of that is funny, the more unfunny it all became. Yesterday's film found comedy in a small-town's historical festival, a corrupt mayor, and people having hotel sex, and I don't know, that all felt more wholesome, somehow? This one just kind of stands out as being borderline offensive, and worse, that was all done on purpose. No points for trying to push the envelope of comedy here, sorry.
I can't even take this seriously, not even a bit - I mean, a guy has sex with a cat, who's hidden under the blankets? And he doesn't know that it's a cat, he thinks it's his girlfriend? Really? He can't tell the difference between a 10 pound cat, and a full-sized human, just because it's under a blanket? I don't even want to get into the mechanics of this, because it's not only disgusting, it doesn't make any sense on any level. So the gag doesn't work at all, how did it not get cut?
Well, my romance chain can only really go UP from here...
Directed by: J.B. Rogers (assistant director of "Blockers")
Also starring Chris Klein (last seen in "We Were Soldiers"), Orlando Jones (last seen in "House of D"), Sally Field (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Richard Jenkins (last seen in "Dear John"), John Rothman (last seen in "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire"), Jack Plotnick (last seen in "Down with Love"), Eddie Cibrian, Mark Pellegrino (last seen in "The Hunted"), Brent Hinkley (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Henry Cho, Richard Riehle (last seen in "Prelude to a Kiss"), Brent Briscoe (last seen in "The Minus Man"), Ezra Buzzington (last seen in "Secretary"), Julie White (last seen in "Hello I Must Be Going"), David L. Lander (last seen in "Love to Love You, Donna Summer"), Lin Shaye (last seen in "Cellular"), Barrow Davis-Tolot, C. Ernst Harth (last seen in "American Dreamer"), Courtney Peldon (last seen in "The Ice Storm"), Matthew Peters, Sarah Silverman (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Greg Kean (last seen in "Black Christmas"), Alejandro Abellan, Martin Morales (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Dolores Drake (also carrying over from "Hope Springs" (2003)), Jackie Flynn (last seen in "Movie 43"), Zahf Paroo (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Colin Foo (ditto), Jordan Weller (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters"), Danny Murphy (last seen in "Hall Pass"), Christopher R. Sumpton, Austin Stark, Alicia Calvo, Charlene Harns, with a cameo from Suzanne Somers (last seen in "Serial Mom").
RATING: 2 out of 10 patients in a therapy session at the mental hospital
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