Genre parodies are useful for lifting film types out of complacency, by highlighting and lambasting the tropes they over-rely upon, causing audiences to no longer take them seriously. Surely Airplane! can be partially credited with stopping disaster films dead for a good long while, and don’t call me Shirley. With such potential power, a spoof has the opportunity to rise above pastiche, even above jocular beat-for-beat parody, into genuine satire, exposing the false assumptions underneath a form.
To talk of contemporary genres that are ceaselessly stagnated, bereft of ideas, founded upon poor illusory notions of the world, and just generally needing the piss taken out of them, the date movie is high up on that list…Actually, let’s call ‘em “chick flicks” (a slightly different form, really) or “romantic comedies,” though Date Movie calls ‘em “date movies.” Why such an asinine designation? Eh, ‘cause Scary Movie did it – and ignore that originally that was Scream’s working title, now proclaiming _____ Movie is simply a shorthand way of indicating “this is a parody movie, and one you’re well worth avoiding.” Yeah, god forbid ya hafta devise an actually clever title, one that starts the genre undermining, when the target audience of preteens is likely to be so ignorant of satire, it wouldn’t register anyway.
Lest that title Date Movie be not clear enough, Fox’s marketers further stack the deck by proudly, shamelessly proclaiming “From two of the six writers of Scary Movie!” [their exclamation point]. An enticement, or a warning of doom? You decide. So be it, Not Another Teen Movie didn’t feel the need to claim likewise, though it could’ve, and the Wayanseseses are ostensibly enough of a draw by name to not need such a tag. Nope, the two asshats in question are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who “wrote” Scary Movie in the sense that they wrote some Scream parody, and had their script bought out and gutted, completely disregarded, as a preemptive measure against plagiarism lawsuits (what for all the originality underlying Scary Movie).
God, so _____ Movie, “from two,” all that B.S. is some soulless burglary of other people’s success, an effort to make Date Movie seem like something it isn’t. To get a sense of Seltzer and Friedberg’s skills, one must look back to Spy Hard, which was by 1996 a low point in Leslie Nielsen’s career. Man, unable to get humor from Nielsen in a James Bond parody? As though the Naked Guns didn’t point out the exact way to do that! But Spy Hard might’ve well been the fault of director Rick Friedberg (evidently Jason’s relation). We mustn’t hold it against this other Friedberg (and Seltzer), and hope that Date Movie does little to offend, now that the duo’s directing.
Alyson Hannigan in a fat suit –
[Ostensibly comical, out-of-place record scratch!]
Starting with fat suit comedy? Really? The underlying assumption of putting an attractive actor in a far suit (or also Mike Meyers) is that obesity is automatically hi-la-ri-ous, and to see this technique deployed as intended parody fast on the shallow heels of Shallow Hal is mighty dispiriting. But wait, maybe they’re leading to something.
Hannigan’s Julia Jones (Julia Roberts cum Bridget Jones’ Diary, I gotcha, witty satirists!) nears a wedding altar, nearing her One True Love, who turns around to reveal –
Ostensibly comical, out-of-place record scratch, and I mean actually on the movie’s soundtrack this time – It’s Napoleon Dynamite!...From Napoleon Dynamite?...Not a romantic comedy? Napoleon (or semi-legal non-equivalent) wears a “DON’T Vote For Pedro” T-shirt (satire!), says “God!” a lot, runs off, and…
It was all just a dream.
Thirty seconds in, and I’m longing for the fart joke which opened the Scary Movie saga. It was at least identifiable as a joke! Here, a lookalike and the word “Don’t,” plus that e’er tired record scratch – Does anyone nowadays even recognize that as anything more than an arbitrary comedic signifier? – reveal the S&F mode of kommeddey: Bring up another movie in as obvious a way as possible, do nothing more with it than to just outright say “It sucks, is lame and dumb, retarded fagz,” or replay a gag from that movie in a broader idiom. I am going to get very sick of finding new ways of phrasing that over the next several days.
And then (this phrase, applied liberally, makes the whole plot more coherent) Julia goes out into the street…and dances. To “Milkshake.” Okay…two problems (at least!): One is the progression of fat jokes. We got blubbery foley noises, earthquake shaking, close-ups of fake (yet still disturbing) cellulite, weight jokes, and…breasts spinning all the way around Julia’s torso?! If one is being extremely generous, one could claim S&F are attempting some sort of commentary on the standard Hollywood image-obsession, or trying to satirize the Fat Bastards and Sherman Klumps of this cinematic world. This is a dangerous road to walk, to lampoon these excesses by making them more excessive. Besides, evidence later in Date Movie suggests S&F are eternally juvenile in their consideration of femininity anyway, presenting Sophie Monk-enabled cheesecake T&A evidently sans commentary or gag. It’s an assumption of the audience dim enough to go watch Date Movie, that they want poopy and boobs, somehow forgetting that the Internet better provides for all puerile tastes.
The other problem is “Milkshake,” an R&B single in S&F’s T&A B.S. What is it doing here?! Julia’s dance already has nothing to do with date movies (we’re doin’ real well here, Date Movie), nor does that genre traffic in hip hop and R&B standards. This music proliferates the movie’s moronic soundtrack, usually played at full blast – in sight gag-driven sequences, eliminating the need for dialogue. None of S&F’s aesthetic or aural choices seem indicative of their chosen target genre. Musically, it just reeks of whiggerism, a problem which inundated Scary Movies 3 and 4 as well…and the Seltzer/Friedberg combo pack is perhaps even more lily-white than David Zucker. Behold the two shitheels!
This is about the only actual image of the duo, leading to many a conspiracy theory. I believe those two human males are mere decoys, like Keira Knightley in Episode I. It’s an insurance against assassination, like George W. Bush hiring Dick Cheney as his vice president. But I digress.
Visually, Date Movie cannot ape the visuals of even the romantic comedy – perhaps one of the least visually daring of genres. It’s point-and-film, and S&F mess up point-and-film. We’re generally subject to the Fox backlot simply as it exists, not dressed up, not made to look remotely realistic, or even like any fake movie from the past 36 years!
Soundtrack: bad. Visuals: bad. How’s ‘bout that plot, that parody? Well, many a spoof film will select a major film, representative of its entire targeted genre. Zero Hour! for Airplane!, Top Gun for Hot Shots!, Scream for Scary Movie. Date Movie does not do this…even while it offers up some longer-than-average detours into pastiching Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers and…um, My Best Friend’s Wedding, I think, and possibly some other forgettable nonentity from that genre (that’d be My Big Fat Greek Wedding).
Okay, fine, you don’t need a specific parody target. Arguably, a better spoof could be made from identifying a genre-wide storyline, one so formulaic, you could just follow it…like Black Dynamite just doing blaxploitation in general, or Hot Fuzz with cop movies. Surely romantic comedies are about as formula-heavy as slasher flicks, so…S&F don’t even do that! Beyond the basic skeleton of a boy and girl falling in love, marrying, there seems to be no readily apparent logic driving Date Movie, except for a pop culture checklist.
Pulling back and speeding up, let’s see how a “story” is wrangled from Julia’s unmotivated obesity street crumping. She – a fat, sperm whale-shaped beast of a woman, let us be continually reminded – seeks love, driven by no concept stronger than “fairy tales.” (There is the most infinitesimal critique of romantic comedies in this motivation.) Seeking advice, Julia goes to Hitch, who…
[Record scratch.] “Oh hell no!”
God, is there any more obvious way to signal “comedic shit just got real” than that combo of clichés?! (Well, there is the laugh track, which is wholly unacceptable for theatrical releases…so it’s glommed onto the movie’s DVD instead.) Hitch – and mind you, the name “Hitch” is apparently common enough that calling a black love adviser “Hitch” is somehow not infringement upon the movie Hitch, and I say it this slowly to indicate how S&F trot the idea out – Hitch is played by Tony Cox, Hollywood’s black dwarf, who gets work because he is a black dwarf. So…little people and the obese. Way to pick deserving targets!
Yeah, so the “joke” with Hitch is that he’s small, which is presumably joke enough to eliminate the need for any further gags. Pausing for an artless detour, casting-as-joke dictates a great mass of the main characters. Julia’s parents are Eddie Griffin and Meera Simhan – a black man and an Indian woman, parents to a white girl. Oh, and her sister’s Japanese. Okay, as a one-off gag, an intentional subversion of logic in the grand ZAZ style, that might fly…barely. But when Eddie Griffin is a top-billed actor, appearing throughout the movie, it’s harder to get beyond the initial gag, when we’re now supposed to buy Eddie Griffin of all people as a stand-in for Robert De Niro. Suuuuuure. You know, if a joke does overstay its welcome, it better damn well be one cutting reworking of a trope, otherwise you simply have the underplanned abstractions of a flunking third grader, as we see here.
Right…so…back to plot! Hitch announces that for Julia to meet a man, she must go on a reality show…Why? So S&F can briefly mock “The Bachelor,” then move on. Yeah, it’s not like the “meet cute” is a major part of the romance genre anyway; yeah, let’s just lose it for a pre-dated reality show goof.
Ah hah!, but before we can even get down to business, first Julia must be made thin, attractive, so Miss Hannigan can get out of that fucking fat suit at last. You know, if you hadn’t planned 10 minutes of fat jokes to open your picture, this wouldn’t even be necessary. As it is, Julia’s makeover is done as a “Pimp My Ride” parody. It’s not like the makeover scene is a major part of romance movies either! I mean, okay, doing a brief call-out to “Pimp My Ride” at some point of a makeover sequence, that might have pertinence. Instead, S&F identify the first joke they can, then stretch that thing out into multiple minutes. It all ends, for no reason, with Julia emerging actually wearing a Darth Vader suit, ala Episode III – lose the out-of-context outfit, simply lift her up to John Williams’ score, that might get the point across but…I feel I’m criticizing to no end. And then we see Tony Cox, black dwarf, still pretending as he’s Will Smith, tatted up in a ghetto body shop outfit, in Yoda makeup. Look at this image, and identify where the satirical kernel started, and write a 1,000 word essay figuring out how we got to this point.
That out of the way, Julia goes on “The Bachelor.” S&F settle upon a mass murder joke as satisfactory. Then Julia is paired up with Grant (Adam Campbell). Grant Fockyerdoter, because that Fockers joke is sooo much funnier when made less subtle – satire! Grant is the romantic subject, and wholly worthless…which is in keeping with the genre, frankly, but nothing’s done with it.
Campbell isn’t very good. Suddenly we’re at “A Restaurant,” as Campbell, seated at a table, just makes strange noises and moves around unusually for well over a minute. Boy, that sums up Date Movie: Wail and flail, but not long enough to become a Rake Gag, and without a modicum of the dry deadpan wit needed to actually mimic the thing being lampooned. It’s well into Campbell’s strange seizure that I determine it’s an attempt to do Meg Ryan’s faked orgasm from When Harry Met Sally. And the joke is…a man does it?
Actually, yes! We now that, because it happens repeatedly throughout. It’s as though S&F aren’t really interested in romantic comedies (can’t really blame ‘em, especially when they refuse to acknowledge the good ones, like Annie Hall, or Some Like It Hot, or Bringing Up Baby, or Trouble in Paradise, or The Philadelphia Story, or His Girl Friday, or…okay, just about every movie made in the ‘30s). Consider Pretty Woman. Having decided you’ll mock it, what do you do, hotshot? What – do – you – do? Well – and this is thought up at the rate of fingers typing – you could address its material consumption, its comments upon beauty and Rodeo Drive culture. Hell, Richard Gere is in the movie, tasteless jokes should be easy!
Or if you’re Seltzer and Friedberg (or Friedberg and Seltzer, I’m not sure on their order), you just slap a dude in the Julia Roberts costume, call it a day and smoke a bowl. For this one moment of cross-dressing, it takes over a minute of screen time (in a 72-minute movie, discounting the 12-minute credits). This is not efficient jokery.
P.S. That image is of a fake shitting cat. The cat dominates Date Movie, and later engages in necrophiliac bestiality…then later just the regular kind.
Boy, I’ve dwelt upon a mere fraction of the overall misrepresentation of film comedy and human evolution that is Date Movie. Hopefully it’s like finding an individual in a massacre; one gets a personalized sense of the loss, to dramatize the greater tragedy. Date Movie is a vacant black hole of a comedy, resulting in but two facial expressions from me: my best Buster Keaton (thoroughly unmoved), or the audience for “Springtime For Hitler” (aghast). It fails to make either Fred Willard or Jennifer Coolidge funny. The fundamental format of Date Movie is counter to the humor-by-quantity-and-quality approach of David Zucker, sacrificing both – Why does an engagement ring lead into an extended Lord of the Rings goof, and more randomly, why does a wedding dress inspire Kill Bill? Both in weird, sketchy proportions which seems out of place.
This really is just checklist filmmaking, as S&F attempt to squeeze in the largest amount of film parodies possible, human decency be damned. Capping things off, here’s just some of what else they “joke” about, by replaying scenes from, only broader:
Legally Blonde
The Wedding Planner – Starring Jell-O. The gag: her posterior is oversized.
Michael Jackson – Because Scary Movie 3 did it
That Paris Hilton hamburger commercial – Timely!
The 40-Year-Old Virgin - Waxing
Wedding Crashers – That is, a guy shows up and says, essentially, “I’m a wedding crasher.” End joke.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith – Campbell fails to channel Brad Pitt.
Notting Hill – I’m taking their word on this one.
Dodgeball – A Kill Bill flashback…yeah, I don’t get it either.
Say Anything – Actually pertinent!
Britney Spears and Kevin Federline – Timely!
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days – The title of a book, with “Guy” changed to “Girl” – HILARIOUS
Along Came Polly – Gross joke from the trailer, now with extra hair and drool
What Women Want – It is called a “bad” Mel Gibson movie – yeah, stick it to ‘em!
King Kong – Tagged onto the very end with 0.000 justification, except spoof-goers by 2006 have been conditioned to expect Carmen Electra in a bikini at some point.
9/15ths of those films just listed are arguably romantic comedies – and I’m countin’ the bromances as well. That’s still 60% - a solid F. Yeah, that sounds about right!
Who greenlights this dreck anyway?!...Oh right, Fox. It’s all starting to make sense!
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