The Parody Movie Movie Marathon A comedy article
by Dan Seitz 919 11 09/06/2010 04:59 PM 25162 views
Anyone who loves movies bemoans the careers and very existence of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, writers and directors of the painfully unfunny Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, and Meet the Spartans. Every one of their movies has been certified "rotten" by hundreds of critics on RottenTomatoes.com, who have given them a mind-numbing 3% Tomatometer rating, on average.
A mashup of fleeting pop-culture jokes, and dumb parodies of even dumber movies, these are pretty much the worst movies of our time, created by two modern-day Ed Woods: Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg.
Seltzer and Friedberg apparently watching someone else's movie
How bad are these movies? We at ZUG recently decided to watch all four of their movies back to back, and see if they were really as terrible as the critics warned.
Spoiler warning: they are. In fact, they're worse than you've ever imagined. Seltzer and Friedberg are what happened when AIDS rapes cancer, and the resulting hellspawn is beaten regularly and raised by Juggalos. Seltzer and Friedberg aren't just mercenaries looking for a quick buck. They hate cinema. They hate art. They hate you. Why? Because Frost you, that's why. You exist. That's good enough for Seltzer and Friedberg. They want your blood and your tears, for only this will sate them.
And God help me, I walked in willingly and took three friends with me.
At least, they were my friends
The Preparation
Guests: My friends Sam, Drew, and Amanda all watched these movies with me. None of them are speaking to me anymore.
Alcohol: Two twelve-packs of Magic Hat, a six-pack of Long Trail, a pint of Jack Daniels, and some coffee brandy (to keep us sedated, but awake).
Movies:Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, and Epic Movie were easily secured from Hollywood Express. Date Movie, on the other hand, hadn't been rented in a year and a half. Somebody, probably somebody sworn to protect the human race, had stolen it. This movie was so unwanted that I spent an entire Saturday visiting every record shop, DVD store, and video rental place, trying to find a copy of this horrific comedy.
Finally, after walking half the Boston metro area, I located a video store that had Date Movie, only for their system to go down. The clerk looked at me and said, verbatim, "You know what, dude? Just take it. The only reason we still have it is because we tried to sell it and nobody would buy it."
That should have been my first warning.
"Date Movie"
Beers opened and firmly in hand, we started Date Movie.
The first thing that becomes immediately apparent is that these guys hate women. No, seriously. This isn't just "ha-ha, vaginas are stupid" misogyny, where it's obvious the "comedian" has mommy issues and fears feminism. No, these guys want to live in Penis World and Ball Country.
The second thing I noticed is that they think their audience is too stupid to get even the most barn-broad references. If something, anything, shows up as any sort of reference, you'll have somebody saying a line that includes a title drop immediately after the reference -- and sometimes you will literally have characters say something like "Just like in 'Bridget Jones's Diary!'" And this happens over, and over, and over again. Later on, they will say "It's just like 50 Cent's tattoo" when a character pulls up his shirt to reveal a giant "50 Cent" on his goddamn back. If that makes no sense, you're starting to understand what we went through.
To call this mind-numbing is to insult the phrase "mind-numbing." We were uncomfortably numb. Fifteen minutes into the film, we ran out of jokes at this movie's expense. We had no snarky comments, only the slow dawning horror of what we had agreed to do.
The one saving grace of this movie is Alyson Hannigan, who tries really hard to find the comedy in a movie that asks her to explode a huge zit, then interact with Tony Cox, who you know as Hollywood's standard go-to black midget. God bless you, Alyson Hannigan. We hope the check cleared, and that your sleep is untroubled by memories of this production.
Alcohol Consumed: 8 beers
Ratio of Date Movies "Parodied" to Non-Date Movies "Parodied": 2:1
Saddest Cast Member: Jennifer Coolidge, an experienced improv comedienne (you know her from Christopher Guest movies like Best in Show), who probably got hired not on her talents but on being Stifler's Mom.
We had one movie down, but little did we know the epic awfulness we would have to endure next.
Store
919 
11 
