'Exhibit A' Of Where We Are Now In Comedic Films

Rating: 2/10 (18 September 2008)

I don't think any genre of films has changed more over the years than comedy.
THEN - Those pun-filled Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields or Laurel & Hardy classics, the sappy-but-Innocent "screwball comedies," and the slapstick of Abbott & Costello, The Three Stooges, the subtlety of Cary Grant or Irene Dunne, etc
NOW - Nothing but crudeness and an obsession with bodily functions and sex.....film after film. The crudeness, not the sex, is the shocking part and filmmakers "push the envelop" each year, getting away with as much as they can in these PG-13 rated comedies. "The Love Guru" may have hit an all-time low in this regard....until another film worse comes out next month.
Mike Myers funny in his "Austin Powers" films until he got carried away with the final one of the three. That film now looks like Mary Poppins compared to this one. Myers fills the screen, almost non-stop, with penis jokes, poop, farting, boogers, every kind of sexual preference and acts known to most people. He spends 30 seconds imitating someone with diarrhea, spells out "blow job" on a blackboard and so many other similar "jokes" I'm not going to help him out by plugging them here. Most of them will have you shaking your head in disgust. You can be "dirty" and still be very funny, but Myers consistently crosses the line and is just plain gross.
At least he did get me to laugh out loud a half dozen times. Stephen Colbert's character is downright stupid and provided no laughs. He's the "Hockey Night In Canada" announcer. (If you want to hear humorous lines from a TV sports commentator, check Fred Willard's job in "Best In Show," not Colbert here.)
The other members of the cast are equally lame but the saddest thing is to see Ben Kingsley, a fine actor, participating in this farce by playing an idiotic cross-eyed guru. He must have no pride in whatever roles he takes. You expect cheap laughs from Myers or Colbert....but Kingsley? Just watch this film and it will demonstrate how little the status of "knighthood" apparently has become in Britian.
"Extremely immature" might be the most apt description of this comedy, which is geared for 16-year-olds, and immature ones at that!