With the Scary Movie 5 team already tending to the long-delayed duty of ribbing Black Swan, prolific, mushy-skulled parodists Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are devoting their efforts to the more pressing task of lazily assembling some Hunger Games references into something they'll call a movie.
Mushy-skulled parodists Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have made themselves a two-man factory dealing solely in the manufacture of lazy, slapdash spoof comedy. Together, they've haphazardly assembled references into no less than seven scripts, themselves co-directing five of those, including Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, and most recently the half-hearted Twilight parody Vampires Suck--recipient of a dismal 4% rating on RottenTomatoes. They are, clearly, two of our worst humans, and they're showing no signs of improvement, today announcing plans for another reference melange they're calling The Biggest Movie of All Time 3D.
If the title and above poster didn't make it clear, this time their loose focus is on Avatar--James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster that until now had somehow avoided any and all criticism or parody--because, as they note in the official press release, "what could possibly be riper for satire?" Well, if we're defining "ripe" as both hugely popular and not-at-all timely, maybe Gone with the Wind is riper? But, alas, parodying that film would not allow for the big innovation they're planning this time around: 3-D!--"making it the very first spoof movie ever in this format [and] a perfect showcase for our outrageous sight gags, physical comedy and audacious stunts that will make for a hilarious film and uproarious audience experience." So if you thought 3-D was tiresome already, just imagine what it will be like when used as a vehicle for a joke about how big Kim Kardashian's butt is. Or just wait for the trailer.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the America's beloved cinema jesters that have brought about such greats as all those "[Genre] Movie" films, have a new hilarious tale to delight us: Vampires Suck! The film, as you may have derived from the witty title, builds its belly laughs around the foundation of the Twilight franchise, meaning we get four Shirtless Werewolves Are Gay jokes for every Alice (of Wonderland) arbitrarily taking a bullet! But don't worry, it's not all pop culture references with little to no payoff outside of characters literally just showing up to get hurt: there's also Fake Edward heaving people--three times in ten seconds in this trailer! Throwing people is funny!
Only watch this if you want to feel brain pain or see that Ken Jeong will apparently do anything for a paycheck.
No longer will The Twilight Saga remain a universally-respected, completely un-mocked, horror-romance franchise. Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg--the take pride in attaching their names to Date Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc.--reportedly have decided glittery vampires and hunky werewolves are ripe for parody, and have a still-untitled "comedy" coming out in August that will finally take aim at the seemingly-untouchable series thanks to 20th Century Fox. Take that, Twilight! I always knew there were jokes to be made about you! And now it seems those jokes will come in the form of Carmen Electra pretending to act, some references to homosexuality, and, most likely, farting. Yay!
Sex sells, so it's no surprise that, like Superhero Movie before it, Disaster Movie attempts to bring in viewers unaware of ways of procuring actual pornography (i.e., the internet) by promising a brief, cleavage-filled wrestling match. But what makes this clip astounding is how writer-director duo Friedberg and Seltzer are somehow able to make a cleavage-filled wrestling match so intensely frustrating. The secret? Beginning the catfight with a Wanted quote to give the illusion that humor and/or parody are involved (they aren't).
The press release promised a "hilarious new clip from DISASTER MOVIE with a sexy shout out from Carmen Electra." Was briefly referencing Twister the hilarious part? And was the aging sex symbol's half-hearted shilling really the sexy part? I have the feeling whoever writes these descriptions has given up even more than I have.
I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that when you're dealing with a movie comprised entirely of lazy references to other movies, the poster is basically going to look like a grotesquely visual works cited page, but it seems pretty daring to present what I'd guess is every "joke" in the movie in a single image. They've just totally ruined the gag where Indiana Jones is a midget, and the gag where the Chipmunks look like nightmares, and the gag where Hellboy is... present.
Click the poster for the large version. But really, don't.
When I began the trailer for Disaster Movie, the new fading-pop-culture-reference film from the makers of Meet the Spartans (who are now calling themselves "the guys who've seen way too many movies" rather than the more accurate "the two despicable retards whose sense of humor is derived entirely from recognizing impressions"), I had already assumed that when it was done, my brain would be clenched in a tight fist, flailing at my skull with the impotent rage of a child unable to come to grips with his parents' divorce. WHY??? HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING???
As it turns out, that wasn't really the case. Instead, the entire experience left me feeling as empty as the deserted street corner set used in every single shot. How else could you feel after watching a trailer composed entirely of recent/future movie characters getting hurt in inexplicably cartoon ways? A cow falls on Iron Man, crushing him with a Photoshop squeeze effect. That a joke. That actually happens. Who does this appeal to? Someone whose sole aspiration is to see the Joker get hit by a frying pan? If you are that person, this delivers in spades.
Well, it appears that my prediction that the next poster would feature a farting Hulk and a tagline saying something about the "green movement" was wrong. Instead, Disaster Movie has chosen the route of referencing either a year-and-a-half old international poster for Knocked Up or simply the biological act of sperm fertilizing an egg--your choice. It's funny because "getting off" can refer both to physically removing oneself from Earth or to ejaculating. I guess "cumming soon" and "LOL comets looks like sperms!" were deemed too obvious.
Man, these guys can't miss! First the reference-tastic team of Seltzer/Friedberg tore Matt Groening and co. a new one with a one-sheet that perfectly replicated The Simpsons Movie poster, save for changing the name and replacing the donut 'O' with Earth in cookie form; now they've implied that Indiana Jones has been hit by a meteor! Hah, he's dead! Sadly, I can barely appreciate the wit in the "rock on!" tagline (there's literally a rock on him) because I'm so filled with anxious giddiness for their probable parody of this Hulk poster, which I anticipate will be the Hulk farting over the tagline "The 'Green' Movement Stinks!"
Hah! Get it? This poster looks like the poster to The Simpsons Movie for some reason--even though The Simpsons was not a disaster movie, and the series is already itself known for incisive parodies. Still, this poster vaguely reminds me of something else, and is therefor funny. Don't question it too much. Everything makes sense.
Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are the two mercilessly humorless writers who brought you Meet the Spartans and all of the other [Genre] Movie-titled parody films of the last decade. Now they have another one coming out titled Disaster Movie (the irony of which is too obvious to state). Since they've started coming out with at least one a year since 2006, this comes as little surprise--they're essentially a second, shorter Academy Awards, both serving as joyless ways to remind yourself of the year's films as filtered through cleavage and painful attempts at humor.
But I was a bit taken aback looking at this poster (my exact words were "f***. me.") and learning that their latest attempt is disaster-themed. Wasn't their next stab going to be Goody Two Shoes, based around Superbad and still-unreleased summer films? God, is this a second spoof film they're doing this year? Why would reason allow for that?
Thankfully, I don't think that's the case. The IMDB lists only Disaster Movie as filming, with the threat of several other projects resigned to the trivia section. More likely, Seltzer and Friedberg simply cast their parody net so broadly that a few extra shots of pop culture icons dying in natural disasters allowed for a complete shift in focal point.
I really hate these guys.
As we sit idly by, waiting for the world to improve itself, the know the writing/directing/side-splitting team of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (the Meet the Spartans guys!) are hard at work on yet another excuse for Carmen Electra to consider herself a "comedienne". But outside of the predicative spoofs they've already stated (in which entire parodies will be based on some trailers), and that the framework will be built around Superbad, we barely know what pre-existing material will be referenced as jokes in the next Seltzer/Friedberg laff-fest. How do we know what material to study, so that when a man in a giant flower of a dress stumbles into a manhole, we can say, "I think that was meant to be the Sex and the City lady randomly dying"?
Oh well. At least with this on-set shot from their latest, Goodie Two Shoes, we can start taking guesses. Looks like we've got a parody of Juno (hah!--she totally did look sort of like that), a parody of celebrity, and an exploration into how funny it would be if Jonah Hill were black? Am I missing any?
Oscar Bound! [Faded Youth]
Now that Meet the Spartans writers Seltzer and Friedberg have spoofed nearly every possible movie and pop culture reference of the last five years--with whatever crumbs they dropped swept tidily into the comic dustpan that was Superhero Movie--what's a modern-day reference-writing team to do? Speculative parody, of course!
Moviehole reports that the duo have made plans to write and direct Goody Two Shoes, another reference-as-mock-comedy showpiece that will parody Superbad, then fill in the gaps with guessed parodies of not-yet-released films like Hancock, Sex and the City, and The Love Guru. Apparently when your jokes consist entirely of loud, brief impersonations, a teaser trailer is more than enough to provide a basis. Can you imagine how funny it will be when someone who looks vaguely like Will Smith, dressed as hobo superhero Hancock, receiving a makeover from a man in a dress (their version of Sarah Jessica Parker)? No need to imagine--it's most likely a featured scene!
Shockingly, Friedberg and Seltzer are also reportedly looking to fill the following roles: "a ‘Jessica Simpson’, a ‘Justin Timberlake’, a ‘Prince’, a ‘Flava Flav’, a ‘Dr Phil’, a ‘Angelina Jolie’, ‘Paris Hilton’, and, of course, a ‘Michael Jackson’." So hopefully someone will finally stick it to those guys with a biting impression or two.
SuperBAD Movie [Moviehole]
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I Watch Stuff is a movie and video blog dedicated to bringing you the best and worst that Hollywood and the Internet have to offer and then, more often than not, making fun of it because it sucks.
