Scraping the barrel to find funny

Rating: 2/10 (11 October 2019)

Many years ago, I read a comment by a past great comic (I can't remember who it was) who said that modern examples of toilet humor just meant that the writers couldn't come up with real comedy. That might apply as well to writers of raunchy, distasteful and demeaning material. One hesitates to call it humor or comedy. I am aware, though, that there is a market for such material, so there are those writers (and producers, actors and others) who would want to cash in on it.
Thus we have this 1998 film, "There's Something About Mary." The cast leads in this film all have shaky records of success with comedies. That goes for Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller, especially. Matt Dillon's career is most promising with drama. Most of these comedies have not been box office hits. And for most such films, the efforts for comedy are primarily situational, along with the crude and crass dialog. There is minimal clever or witty dialog. It does seem that the writers for this film checked their minds at the theater doors.
Other reviewers noted the newness of the comedy approach in this 1998 film. And, while it was a big box office hit (probably because of the interest in the new comedy method), the brand didn't stick as a huge success. For that, there have been more failures (losses) than successes (profits). Most movie fans, it seems, still prefer intelligent, genuine comedy and clever scripts over the obscene and crude. The two stars are for a couple of funny instances in this otherwise dreary attempt at humor.