Sunday, February 15, 2009

Step Fucking Nutsac Brothers Drumset Ha Ha But We're 40!

That may as well have been the title of Step Brothers, because it was basically the crux of every joke. And John C. Reilly sucks. And is not funny.

I reason:

Gratuitous Sex Jokes: I am not a prude, nor am I high-minded or even smart. However, the jokes in this movie were pathetic. How many times will this Apatow guy go back to the dick/pussy joke? We get it; people have sex, and sex jokes are funny, but you punched yourself out in Superbad. And his annoying little habit of making the joke go one step further is just that, annoying. Usually, his little quip isn't funny to begin with, so when it lasts an extra 3 minutes, it's infuriating.

Manufactured Jokes: This trend began with 40 Year Old Virgin, which is hilarious, but came to a head in this shitty piece of shit. Apatow, to me, is the guy that thinks of these great zings!, but lacks the artistic creativity to insert them at the appropriate time. Instead, he just lumps them all into one script, and hands that script to Reilly and Will Ferrell and says, "here, make a joke about kissing Kenny Rogers on the mouth, and we got a hit!"

Adding Fuck Doesn't Always Work: I agree that adding fuck before phrases or words can sometimes be funny or effective dramatically. However, when you add it to every single line, it loses its luster, so to speak. We get it, even old people say fuck.

John C. Reilly Licks Camel Penises: OK, that was sort of funny. Still, this guy, is not. He wasn't in that Ricky Bobby movie, and he wasn't funny here. He tries to play the same old, tired schtick as Ferrell, and he's about half as funny. He is fast becoming the Rob Schneider to Ferrell's Sandler. He's less funny than that Tex asshole from Anchorman. 'Have some chicken, maybe some sex. OH MAN I TOTALLY LOL'D!'

Forced Dialogue: This is a comedy. I know. But would it kill you to sort of base the dialogue in reality? People never, ever talk like that. Ever. For one, no one is quick-witted enough to drop a perfectly executed 45 second "quip." That's why they're quips, or one-liners. Also, you can't make characters too insane or removed from reality. If you do, people can't draw from their own experiences. The funniest part of the movie was when they acted normal at that really big event that got no build-up so it didn't make sense in the movie's context, because this film had...

Zero Plot: Again, I don't intend to be the Ebert of Rant-tastic, but what was this movie about? 40 Year Old Virgin had a point, Superbad had a point, Ricky Bobby had a point. Again, this was just like Apatow's joke cemetary: a place to get all his hilaaaaaaaaaarious jokes to the world. Or Ferrell's jokes, for that matter. A lot of them had his stamp on it, so maybe I'm unfairly giving Apatow the business. Ferrell's falling off. And I yield to a man much wiser than me to explicate such a controversial stance. You can go ahead and ignore the part where he says John C. Reilly's hilarious.

'Oh Look, He's Swinging a Bicycle': Awful.

In closing, the chick from Clifford is a hot old woman. Clifford. Now that's a movie!

7 comments:

Bick Rozich said...

Has living in Bloomington left you without a soul?

Thom said...

I guess you tuned into Step Brothers expecting it to be well acted with a great plot. I just thought it would make me laugh and provide some quality one-liners. It delivered that for me. You need to change the subtitle of the blog to "I hate everything."

Gene Parmesan said...

That's the problem, Thom. The one-liners are forced and out of context, because there is no context.

Thom said...

I'll forward your critique to Farrell and Apatow. Might as well let them know now that The Academy won't be calling their names this year.

My thoughts on your rant can best be summed up by one of the many out of contex one-liners:

"You are fucking high!"

Bick Rozich said...

The storyline is a classic tale of growth, or Bildungsroman.

Both characters are grown men trying to grow up. The problem is, they're both in their 40's and still living with their parents. Their parents have a chance encounter and decide to get married. So, they are linked by fate.

The resolution is that each finds a job he loves, and they both move on as adults.

Did you want some sort of "Sixth Sense" twist at the end? I'm just not sure what you expected.

Sadly, although both receive Wookie masks at the end, Brennan's is not movie production quality.

Gene Parmesan said...

Look, it sucked. The plot sucked, there was no climax, and, worst of all, it wasn't funny. Other movies get away with having no plot, because they are funny enough (Napoleon Dynamite, for instance). It's a shitty movie. Stop defending it; you're embarrassing yourself.

Thom said...

Look culture maven, we can disagree here without either of us embarrassing ourselves. I thought is was funny, you did not. Fine. Moreover, I think the climax was the divorce....or maybe Baron Davis' dialogue on the version with commentary. Either way, keep it up and I'm going to t-bag one of your valuables in the near future.