BASEketball Review

I wanted to hate the living shit out of this movie. I wanted to come in here and slam that little Hallenbeck twirp against the wall and tell him he doesn't know anything. Ya see, I have hated everything that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have done (except ORGAZMO) and I'm sick and tired of seeing those turd droppings (aka SOUTHPARK characters) on a billion damn t-shirts. I'm tired of Quint doing the voices, I'm in complete utter dread of their further conquering of the universe. And to ensure I was invulnerable to their comedic powers I took those that are most stuck up and proper (Father Geek and Robogeek) to protect me. They failed.

I kept myself far away from Quint, knowing he would do nothing but encourage the humor (sorry for using the word) of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I wanted to write a scathing review, to savage both Hallenbeck and a film, it's been so long, and well this looked like a likely candidate for slaughter.

As the line formed the line person known as Kwita (I don't think that's how you spell her name) was talking about how she hated Southpark and how she wasn't sure why she was here. Ahhhhh a good start. Then for some inexplicable reason I found myself putting a shadow of a wanger on 'Flick' on the BUG'S LIFE leaf standee. I started giggling. Then the KHFI people started causing confusion by splitting up the audience into two theaters. Then they moved the theater we were going into ta another. At this point I began picking on Robogeek. Ya see he was leaning on some booster seats, and given his heighth challenged nature, I began talking about his need for booster rockets. Robogeek has this smug deathray that will come out his blood red corneas, but it is often defused by my witty repartee, of which he finds himself in dire need.

Soon we found ourselves inside with a fairly sparse crowd. So the AICN crew took an entire row. Stretched out to one end was Quint and what looked to be a 3 footer he caught for breakfast. And at the other was Robogeek. Ahhhhh an entire row of uncrowdedness. Streeeeeeeetch....

Robogeek and I talk a bit about some cool projects in the works, mainly stuff we hear may be shooting in the local area. We often get excited about this, because... well it means we get a chance to watch how it is being shot. Always exciting. Then all of a sudden, without warning, Robogeek makes the sudden announcement that he is leaving to get internal lubrication and do we want any. Now I don't know about you, but when a rusty fella like Robogeek asks ya about internal lubrication... well, ya forget about it.

No sooner had he left than Paul (yeah the Voices one) arrives. He's all excited about a new position/job he's gotten and he's possible European journey. Envy sprouts from every oriface on my body. The rows behind us leave. Just the brief stint I had in Paris was enough to whett my appetite, and I'm dying for an extended adventure, but Paul, the daring trailblazer that he is, might be leaving the continent in search of some sort of treasure. What? I don't know, but two people may be accompaning him on this quest, and he won't answer too many questions.

As I began digging, Robogeek arrived soaked in soda. Now obviously he had bought his soda and spilled it on himself due to his drinking problem, but he says that some idiot moron rammed into him dousing his circuitry with soda. It is unknown whether or not Robogeek told the fella, "Would 60 Gallons Be Sufficient?"

Robogeek is now the wounded bird of the night. Ya know how usually on an adventure or a trip there is one fella who, for whatever reason, just isn't having the day he felt he should be having. We today this describes Robogeek.

The lights dim...

THE PSYCHO Recreation- trailer. The hostile crowd started booing the trailer. When Van Sant's name appeared on screen a fella behind me uttered "Hack". Man, I sure wouldn't have remade PSYCHO (of course I'm a chicken shit). I would love to see an in depth interview with Van Sant as to his motivations and feelings about remaking the film that noone thinks should be remade. I love Van Sant's films, and respect him as an artist, but this feels more like an exercise instead of a film. We'll see.

BASEketball

Ok, like I said I wanted to hate this film. Especially since Hallenbeck's damn quotes are appearing everywhere, and are being quoted as coming from Aint-it-cool-news.com, which is true, but I'd rather they credited Joe Hallenbeck, then the Site. But nonetheless he went off heaping tons of praise upon the film. Personally I felt he was talking a bit out his ass. And here's why.

The film, while certainly funny, is funny in a very tired way. And I think a lot of it falls on the Zucker comedy formula which is so reliant upon the sight gag. In THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY we had extensive use of the site gag, but more than anything the sight gags had ramifications. For example say you lit a fart in the "Mary" film. It wouldn't stop with you burning your ass, it would continue with the formation of blisters. Then people would be called in to fix your ass, there would be puss humor, rubber gloves, the removal of the dried puss-filled underwear, thereby causing great pain. Then there would be people making fun of you burnt ass, things would continually ram into the ass, until finally someone would place a kick me letter on your back, and when someone finally kicked your ass, it would be drenched in fresh puss.

In this film, the fart would catch fire, burn your ass, then a bucket of water would be thrown on it, and that would be that. No ongoing ramifications. It's kinda like the difference between Star Trek and Babylon 5. So much of what happens to characters in episodes in the Star Trek universe doesn't carry over to the next episode, whereas on Babylon 5 it does.

Also you couldn't really associate with any of the characters in this film, whereas in "MARY" one could sympathize and associate with Mary or the Ben Stiller character.

Another problem I had with BASEketball was that the film felt a bit like SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, in that once they had a tired joke, they'd continue beating it. (Hey wait a second, isn't this what you said MARY did? No, Mary had fresh humor)

Harry, I thought you liked the movie?

I did, but for a reason completely unrelated to the movie. The character of Kenny/Squeek/Lil' Bitch reminded me of someone. RoboGeek to be precise. First off I thought there was a resemblance. Robogeek denies this of course. But mainly it came from the way Matt Stone and Trey Parker treated him. The character of Lil Bitch is very much like Robogeek. He's intelligent, probably more so than the stars. He dresses nicely, he once had a job and he's always being picked on by these guys.

When I drew the comparison and told Robogeek about it, he professed adamantly, "I am not the Lil Bitch!" he exclaimed. But then there would be moments in the film where the character of Lil Bitch was so perfectly Robogeek, that I caught Robo with his lips pursed tightly and his temples pounding. He was the lil bitch. Then there is a scene concerning Lil Bitch and a Pineapple Suit. I started dying as I looked at Robogeek and started giggling. He wanted to kill me. He thought death was in order, but he himself was giggling, while his mind pondered why he was here, and not at the THIN MAN movies.

For me this was a film that I left behind instantly upon leaving the theater. In fact I went home and watched a video I was sent of a film called SKIPPY. This flick stars William Sadler and that badass knife dude from Desperado, along with a first timer. And it is incredibly stupid, but for me it made me laugh a bit more. Hopefully Zucker will change his style before his next comedy. For me I've grown up on his humor and it has been slowly slipping. With every Leslie Nielson comedy, Charlie Sheen comedy and Zucker comedy the laugh pool dilutes a bit more and more. He needs some fresh water and a new pool, because this one is just too funky anymore.

I will say this though, I'm not a huge Trey Parker and Matt Stone fan, if you are you should love this. But me, I just don't get that excited by it.