They Came Together

THEY CAME TOGETHER (David Wain, 2014)

Among film genres the romantic comedy is not alone in relying on conventions, but it may be the most hidebound to them. While horror and action movies have predictable narrative arcs, they differentiate themselves more often through style and directorial voice. Romantic comedies tend to sand down singular qualities to the point that the films seem interchangeable. Settings and character names and occupations vary, although less than you’d think, but an overwhelming majority follow the same formula. Two people meet, fall in love, separate over a usually trivial misunderstanding or disagreement, and reunite via a grand display of affection. THEY CAME TOGETHER isn’t the first spoof to make fun of the genre’s clichés, but rather than torching romantic comedies, it simply and sweetly toasts them like a marshmallow.

Loosely resembling YOU’VE GOT MAIL, which was a remake of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, THEY CAME TOGETHER pairs up Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler). She runs a cute candy shop in Manhattan that distributes all proceeds to charity. He works as a development executive at Candy Systems and Research, which plans to open a superstore across the street and run her out of business. Their friends intend to introduce the cute, klutzy Molly and newly single, non-threatening Joel at a Halloween party, but they become acquainted when literally bumping into one another on the way there. Both are dressed as Ben Franklin, which suggests they must have plenty in common, but their ungraceful meeting and conflicting jobs endanger a relationship from being established. Luckily for the adorable twosome, Joel apologizes the next day, and they bond over usual first date chatter about Q-tips and communism.

THEY CAME TOGETHER isn’t far removed from something like DATE MOVIE, a supremely lazy 2006 parody film with the same target. The difference is that screenwriter Michael Showalter and co-writer/director David Wain construct jokes rather than using references to popular films as sloppy shorthand. (There may be a joke linked to Werner Herzog’s MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE, but if it’s intended, the number of people who get it has to be infinitesimally small.) Clearly THEY CAME TOGETHER is riffing on romantic comedies like WHEN HARRY MET SALLY and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, but the humor comes from ribbing overused narrative elements than requiring recognition of specific sources.

Among the things Wain and Showalter call out are how supporting characters’ lives exist completely in relation to how they can help the couple, how coincidences and the protagonists’ awful behavior are taken for granted, and how there’s always time for a ridiculous montage of trying on clothes. The easy laugh lines are clever and consistent enough to supercede the one-note nature of them. Rudd and Poehler are supremely likable and play off each other so well that someone ought to cast them in a romantic comedy that isn’t an ironic roast of them.

Although there’s plenty of obvious humor, like the jars of tennis balls and gumballs on a shelf just waiting to be spilled when Molly and Joel wreck the apartment when making out for the first time, some of the funniest jokes in THEY CAME TOGETHER are hidden in the margins. Joel’s apartment is my favorite. It has the stereotypical set decorations that are always seen in the living spaces of big city dwellers. Joel’s home is decked out with multiple clocks, a vintage Pepsi sign, street signs, reels, a small and enormous desk globe, a guitar, and a pinball machine. The film doesn’t comment on how the apartment looks; it just lets its absurd existence be on display as further evidence of the artificial and prosaic qualities too many romantic comedies settle for.

Grade: B

Wet Hot American Summer

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER (David Wain, 2001)

Hormones and emotions are running high at Camp Firewood on the last day of the summer of 1981. In WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER the teenage counselors and adult administrators are looking for love, especially if it’s been elusive during these muggy months, while their pre-teen charges are sad over the imminent separation from their new best friends.

Camp director Beth (Janeane Garofalo) has her eye on vacationing astrophysics associate professor Henry (David Hyde Pierce). Shy counselor Coop (Michael Showalter) is infatuated with Katie (Marguerite Moreau), but she’s dating resident bad boy Andy (Paul Rudd). Big-talking Victor (Ken Marino) is desperate to score with a ready and willing Abby (Marisa Ryan), but being assigned to take some boys a couple hours away for whitewater rafting may thwart his chance. Susie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Bradley Cooper) are preoccupied with organizing the evening’s talent show. Arts and crafts teacher Gail (Molly Shannon), whose marriage is in shambles, is about as stable as a macaroni art project.

Written by The State’s Showalter and David Wain, who also directs, and featuring other members of the sketch comedy troupe, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER unfolds in short episodes from the final day of the season. It begins as a straightforward spoof of late 1970s and early 1980s camp films, programming seemingly in heavy rotation on pay cable movie channels in the mid-’80s. (MEATBALLS, a clear inspiration for this film, is the most prominent example.)

True to The State’s absurdist style, the film evolves into something much weirder and more unpredictable. The humor is rooted in intentional continuity errors, non sequiturs, and montages riffing on films with no relevance to camp comedies. There’s a distinct hit-and-miss quality to the various ideas they’re playing with, but enough of these strange jokes connect for WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER to succeed. For instance, a pep talk before and team response to a big game subverts expectations. Rudd behaves like a petulant toddler when ordered to clean up the mess he makes in the cafeteria.

The execution and exaggeration of the counselors going on an over-the-top bender during an infrequent opportunity to go into town make the montage sufficiently funny, but what elevates the scene is how it reflects real camp life. The same goes for the talent show scene and its host Alan Shemper (Showalter), a Catskills comedian who hasn’t written a joke too hacky to tell. The gag is that none of what hits the camp stage is funny, but the insular community and campers starved for entertainment eat it up. The outsized reactions serve as the punchlines.

In addition to the actors already mentioned, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER also features Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Meloni, and Michael Ian Black. Like FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and DAZED AND CONFUSED, the cast is a remarkable assemblage of future stars. Many are now bigger names than those top-billed during the film’s 2001 release.

With a cast decked out in ringer tees with iron-ons in Cooper Black font, tube socks, puka shell necklaces, muscle shirts, and midriffs, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER evokes warm memories of movies that likely weren’t very good. Oddly, the film plays better when thinking back to it than it necessarily does while watching it. That quality likely owes to the scattershot nature of the humor, but it also indicates that like the best comedies, it improves over time and repeated viewings.

Grade: B-

Casa de mi Padre

CASA DE MI PADRE (Matt Piedmont, 2012)

The sweet but stupid Armando Alvarez (Will Ferrell) is delighted when his brother Raul (Diego Luna) returns home to their father’s ranch in CASA DE MI PADRE, but their reunion may rip the Mexican family apart.  Although he wouldn’t dream of betraying his brother’s trust, Armando fights a strong attraction to Raul’s fiancée Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez).  Of greater concern is the revelation that Raul’s business success comes from dealing drugs.  Armando feels that Raul’s actions bring great shame on the family, not to mention that it makes them targets of rival dealer La Onza (Gael García Bernal).

CASA DE MI PADRE succeeds at mimicking the look and feel of inspirations as varied as Mexican melodramas, spaghetti westerns, and schlock cinema.  The painted backdrops, cheap sets, and overheated dialogue are parts of the joke and parts of the simple charm.  It’s a strange, ambitious film that feels as much like an affectionate experiment in Z-grade moviemaking as GRINDHOUSE even if the aim is to poke fun at the sources rather than venerate them.

Continuity errors, bad splices, mannequins utilized as extras, and an actor noticeably breathing while his character is supposed to be thought dead are employed for laughs, but these gags are inserted without scare quotes.  Cast and crew fully commit to being good at making a bad film.

For all of the rigorousness put into recreating lackluster movies of yesteryear, CASA DE MI PADRE often misses in one key area.  It isn’t funny for significant stretches. Director Matt Piedmont, screenwriter Andrew Steele, and the actors identify the unintentional hilarity when sincere efforts yield terrible results but aren’t able to add to it with consistently good jokes of their own.  After awhile CASA DE MI PADRE begins to play as a conceptual exercise rather than a legitimately funny movie in its own right.

As best as I can tell--which is to say, not very well--Ferrell performs respectably speaking Spanish for the whole film, and he’s to be commended for venturing into left field for CASA DE MI PADRE.  Many screen comedians who have reached his level of success tend to play it safe.  While CASA DE MI PADRE comes up short in the laughs department, it’s a suitably weird project that demonstrates Ferrell has retained his adventurousness.  Here’s hoping next time around the creative risks he takes are funnier.

Grade: C

Meet the Spartans

MEET THE SPARTANS (Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, 2008)

At the risk of praising with faint damning, MEET THE SPARTANS isn't the worst film I've ever seen; however, I'm not suggesting that this feature-length parody of 300 is good in any way. It's as unfunny and cheaply constructed as expected, but co-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer set the bar so low with DATE MOVIE and EPIC MOVIE that they needed to reach NORBIT-like depths to provoke greater hatred for their latest work.

As in 300, Leonidas (Sean Maguire) and his fellow Spartans leave home to fight the Persians. Rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat, they battle in a STOMP THE YARD-styled dance competition. That's pretty much the gist of MEET THE SPARTANS: borrow one film's framework to reference other movies and make fun of them in the lamest ways imaginable. Unlike many recent parody movies, at least this one has the semblance of a through line. Story is obviously unimportant, but an organizing principle in a sketch film like this is welcome. It provides clues as to how much longer the misery must be endured.

The shelf life for MEET THE SPARTANS is relatively brief. The film functions as a time capsule storing pop culture targets from November 2006 through September 2007. Although riffing on material no older than little more than a year, the filmmakers are at pains to explain anything the audience might have already forgotten. Don't recognize Ken Davitian as Xerxes? Never fear. The narrator will tell you that the character looks like the fat guy from BORAT (because it is!)

In essence MEET THE SPARTANS isn't terribly different from VH-1's BEST WEEK EVER, except for the lack of self-conscious irony and smugness. It stands above (or below) the culture and takes potshots at easy targets. The triumvirate of celebrity bad girls are mocked, Spartans are totally gay for each other, and reality TV judges are self-absorbed clowns. Finally, someone has the bravery to speak the truth!

Considering the humor's juvenile nature, MEET THE SPARTANS plays like something study hall students would scribble in their notebooks and pass around the table instead of doing their homework. Then again, that's not fair to the kids. They could probably write something funnier and more inspired than what passes for jokes here. It wouldn't take longer than fifty minutes to write.

MEET THE SPARTANS is so bereft of ideas that it pauses for ads, usually in the guise of poking fun at the commercials, and boasts two scenes with "I Will Survive" sing-alongs. (THE APPRENTICE/SPIDER-MAN 3 scene from the trailer is nowhere to be found unless I blacked out for a period or it popped up deeper in the end credits.) Find a friend and make wisecracks while watching ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT. You'll save the ticket prices and laugh a lot more.

Grade: F