Ya know, sometimes an email gives me a smile soooooo big, that I just bop around like a moron gleefully banging my head against trees and asking for another ounce of tomato juice. This was one of those. AGUIRRE, one of my top east coast spies, just won $1000, and it's in part due to some questions I fed him. Heh heh heeeeh. I take care of my own. Moriarty rigged the contest I'm sure. :)
Anyway, in addition to his review of THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, which is by those two dudes that did DUMB AND DUMBER and KINGPIN, Aguirre has also chimed in with news about Nick Park's first feature film, HE GOT GAME and the new SPIKE AND MIKE'S ANIMATION FESTIVAL. Soooo groovy!!! Congrats Aguirre, you deserve every penny!!!!
Hey ya' Harry it's Aguirre,
First off, THANK YOU HARRY!!!!! Remember those John Sayles questions you gave me about two months ago?
Well, the story I wrote about Sayles (which included a few of those questions) turned out okay. On a lark, I entered it in a writing contest for published work here in Boston. Guess What? I WON A THOUSAND BUCKS!!! I won my category!! Heh heh, see, AICN does pay!! I figure you deserve at least a little of the credit, that "sweat consistency in filmmaking" question gave me a good paragraph, and the Alaska info was a good way to end up the story. Man, thanks Harry. I'm completely serious about this, I really did win a thousand bucks!
Before the review- I got some cool news I don't know if you heard. Well, I guess one of the newest things he's (Jake Eberts) is doing is work with the guy who does Wallace and Grommit (Nick Park). It's going to be a feature length clamation film that is, quote, "like The Great Escape, but with chickens." Mel Gibson is going to voice the main chicken. Swear to Jesus. There were 3 other new films, but I can't remember.
Also- He Got Game, the Spike Lee picture, is pretty damn good. If I get the time (I'm still busy as hell, I gotta write a huge paper on Andjez Wadja) I'll send you a review before the film comes out.
And the Spike and Mike animation festival has great stuff this year. Well, just like every year. They have Geri's Game, though, and IT IS AWESOME!!!! Pixar did such a great job. That old man's face, man o man, its got character. Devil went down to Georgia (from last year) is awesome, and the new "Buckethead" is really, really cool.
I've rambled. Okay, here's the review. Hmmm, get some questions from you and then write the story...this could be a very lucrative venture. Actually, it already is.
Hey, it's Aguirre. I got to see a super, super, super early test screening of the new Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin) movie "There's Something About Mary" a couple of weeks ago.The film is supposed to come out mid-August, and the version I saw looked like it was plunked right off the avid; some of the colors were messed up, voices were a bit out of sync. A very, very rough cut. We were told that we were only the second group of people ever to see the film. Coool, I feel like I'm in on something. And I liked what I saw; it was basically a date movie done from a juvenille, dick-joke, sounds-immature-and-a-bunch-of-it-is-but-some-of-the best-stuff-rises-above-crotch-level-humor perspective. Of course, I'm from the school that thinks farts are pretty damn funny; c'mon, it's a stinky noise that comes out of your ass. That's funny. But I also appreciate the more subtle stuff. Anything is more subtle than a fart, actually. South Park is funny, but the Marx Brothers are miles funnier, and Buster Keaton trumps them all. Anyway, I only say all of this about my personal preferences so you know where this review is coming from. I can only speak for me. Hello, my name is Aguirre, I'm 21, and I think gas is funny.
Enough shit about me. This film is about a guy (Ben Stiller) who falls for a girl (Cameron Diaz, ei-chi-wa-wa, man she looks good). He looses her in high school and then spends the rest of his life pinning for her. Finally, he finds a way to find her, some crazy stuff happens concerning a private investigator who goes to find her (Matt Dillon) and, basically, Stiller has to go get her for himself, or rather, see if he can spark something with her by his own means. That really shouldn't give away too much of the movie. And again,this is a Farrelly brothers movie. It ain't Shakespeare, it ain't supposed to be, so if you didn't think anything in Dumb and Dumber or Kingpin was remotely funny you probably won't care to read the rest of the review.
Now, for all my brethren. I laughed hard during There's Something About Mary. So did the rest of the people in attendance. This is the Farrelly brother's funniest film, and also the one that comes closest to actually combining the emotional and potty elements, although I'm a bit remiss to say emotional because it's all done tounge in cheek. Farelly brother movies get their most potent humor from taking an idea that is deemed severly gross by its very premise and going way too far with it. It all gets so crazy that the basic gut reaction is to go "Oh my God!" and then laugh your ass off because you can't believe they just showed that. Same stuff in Mary, but to more of an extreme.
The film starts with a twenty minute sequence about Stiller in high school circa 1978. It starts a bit slow but gets very funny. Stiller wears braces and a giant, ugly wig and has zits all over his face. Not too gross, and some funny dialouge with Diaz early on. Diaz has a retarded brother named Warren (played by W. Earl Brown). His first scene seems more mean than funny- you feel bad for laughing at the poor guy when you realize he has a mental problem. That first scene, though, is the only one that made me feel bad for laughing.
Keith David and Markie Post play Diaz's parents. Post doesn't do much, but David is absolutely hilarious in a scene in the bathroom with Stiller, who does something so God-awful is made me wince in pain. Imagine the terror every man feels when he zips up his zipper. David is the funniest I have ever seen him in this scene, damn he's funny. I still laugh when I think of the look on his face when he asks Stiller if it's "his beans or his franks?" The scene almost turns into an Otto Muehel film when they actually, well, we see an extreme close up of a nasty situation.
Not to give away too much, but there's some hilarious stuff with Matt Dillon and a dog and Ben Stiller and the same dog in the film. It's done in such a damn funny way, man, it's awesome. The build-up between the romance between Stiller and Diaz is very good- just goofy enough to let the audience know that things aren't quite too serious in this world but not dumb enough that we don't believe it. The Dillon-Diaz stuff is really funny, and showcases how well Dillon can handle continuous humor. What a surprise, man.
I don't want to give away anymore of the movie, actually, so I'll concentrate on the performances and some possible stuff they can cut. The Farelly Brothers were at the screening of the film and talked about what could be cut with us for about an hour after the film. Rest assured, though, that there's a couple more very gross scenes- one concerning this withered old suntan hag that still haunts me when I go to sleep at night. It was simply the most vomit inducing scene I have seen in a movie ever. Oooo, this is Bunuel level, like the eye getting slit. Alright, shaddup, the Farrelly brothers are not Luis Bunuel, I know, I'm just sayin...but please, DON'T CUT THIS SCENE! Man, that's how sick I am.
Okay, Ben Stiller is really good here. His early stuff is so-so, but later it is much funnier. He pulls off the same whiny-despiration that he did in Flirting With Disaster. He's really good. Good scenes (a funny scene that they'll definitely cut with him in the bathroom working his manhood. I don't want to ruin it, but man, it's pretty funny).
Cameron Diaz. Cameron Diaz. Man...OH man. Good, and in one scene kinda necked. But she holds her own. She never seems whiny, she's tough and a good straight (wo)man to some of the humor around her. Polar opposite of her character in My Best Friend's Wedding because here she's the one everyone wants and she makes the audience want her too- and not just because of her looks. Again, good scenes, nothing missing.
Now Matt Dillon starts out pretty bland. His first scene didn't convince me that he was (a) funny or (b) a very good foil for Stiller. But as the movie progresses, the gets really good. A scene with him spying on a table full of women (including Diaz) is the turning point. By saying one word, exclaiming it perfectly, he totally makes the audience understand just where his humor is coming from. I never though of Dillon as a comic actor, but he ends up being really good here. He's funny, he's tough but stupid. I really liked him by the end of the film. He did a great job.
So those three characters were good. What could be cut? Well first off the character of Jeffery Tambor is not very clear and not very funny, and not intrinsic to the story in the version of the film I saw. The Farrelly brothers said that his character had already been cut down severly. It shows. His basic premise for being on screen is so we can laugh at him when he falls off the wagon. That's not funny, it's pathetic. I suppose it could be handled funny, but here it's not. It's somber.
There's a whole sequence with Stiller picking up a hitchhicker (Harland Williams). While funny, it really isn't important to the story. Harland Williams is funny here, but not as funny as he was in Dumb and Dumber as the cop. In fact, the sequence actually slows down the flow of the film. Some of it could still be salvaged, though; there's a quick scene at a rest stop that's funny.
Chris Elliot is Stiller's best friend in the movie. I love Chris Elliot, I though his show was great and and I think I'm about the only person in the western hemisphere who laughs at Cabin Boy. In There's Something about Mary, though, he really isn't too funny. As the part is written, he's just bland and doesn't get a chance to hold that crazy glare in his eye he's so good at. What the hell does that mean? I don't know, but some of Elliot's scenes are a bit long.
Lee Evans plays a guy who likes Diaz. I didn't think he was very funny. His final scenes border on okay, but his Brit architect just doesn't do anything. One of the people in the audience asked why Lee used such an "obviously fake accent." Peter Farrelly then said that, well, Lee Evans is British. The girl asking had a point, though; his voice does sound like he turned up the Brit factor ten points, and it's annoying.
Also, Johnathan Richman plays a minstrel who comes in and out of the action throughout the movie. It sounded good to me, didn't distract from the scenes. It actually built up the idea in the audiences minds that this was going to be a goofy movie...as if anyone didn't already know that. Whatever, just don't cut his scenes. They're fine.
There's some stuff in the film that's sure not to make it to the final print, including a joke about a certain New England critic who didn't like Dumb and Dumber. Maybe a little too self-indulging, but funny. Anyways, There's Something About Mary is really a fun flick that takes the basic idea countless chick flicks have been based on and have dealt with gently and sincerely and fucks it all up. It's great. It's sloppy and messy and nasty and probably uncooth, but that's the way I like it. I really have no position telling anyone how to cut their film, and I know I don't speak for everyone. But I'm pretty sure the Tambor stuff isn't too funny. But c'mon, who am I kidding? If you're going to go see a Farrelly brothers film, you go into the theater checking your maturity at the door and revel in how fun it can be, for a few fleeting moments of your adult life, to laugh at the dumb shit you laughed at when you were a kid. It's fun.
And Cam Neely was at my screening. How cool is that?!?
