Product: Date Movie [UMD for PSP] (2006)
Rating: 2.0
The five GOOD things about Date Movie
1. ALYSON HANNIGAN. She's very attractive, and I don't see enough redheaded ladies in films. Plus, she doesn't look that bad in a fat suit.2. GRANT (Adam Campbell) USING A SHOTGUN ON THE CONTESTANTS IN "THE BACHELOR" PARODY. It's amusing just because I like to imagine myself using the shotgun on Friedberg & Seltzer, and unlike this bloodless sketch, it would be graphic.3. THE LITTLE BOY LEARNING PIMP SIGN LANGUAGE. It happened on the "Meet The Parents" parody. The kid was cute when he learned the gestures of keeping his pimp hand strong and to shiv on the kidneys.4. THE 'ANTI'-COMMENTARY. Yea, that's all the in-movie good stuff I could think of, but the DVD extras are certainly worth the purchase. This commentary has two critics, Scott Foundas and Bob Strauss, discussing the awfulness of this film. I only heard bits and pieces of track whenever there's nothing going on in the movie (which is 60% of the time), and it was quite illuminating. They talked about how the directors are being too accepting with their parodies, or inconsistent gags, and the massive padding this film fluffed to reach the minimum feature-length duration. Certainly worth listening for those who liked to know why this film's bad.5. THE LAUGH TRACK. Another cool DVD extra that I heard bits and pieces of. It didn't make the film funnier (or just funny in general), but I think this audio track goes into the mindset of the directors. Hearing giggles and 'awws' during pivotal stupid moments made me realize just how disturbing the directors are.With "Epic Movie" (urgh!) and this movie, I come to understand a little more about a common preset for the [blank] Movie franchise: include lots of popular references whenever it can (regardless of context and even if the reference won't matter after a brief period of time), incorporate a dance sequence and/or sing-a-long somewhere in the film, someone's face has to be covered in body hair or doo-doo, have the gags extended as long as possible, end the movie with an annoying hip-hop song, and add Carmen Electra. It's this recurring preset that many people largely denounce the film as sacrilegious material.But to be frank, "Date Movie" is slightly, partially, minimally, sort of not terrible. I could be saying that because Alyson is hot, but it's also because among other films by 2 of the 6 "Scary Movie" writers, this film is the most faithful in having parodies that actually follow the genre it's lampooning ("Kill Bill" and "Napoleon Dynamite" notwithstanding), rather than just throw in a bunch of pop-culture jokes that have nothing to do with the theme. That's the big issue with later films, but just because this is the 'better' film, it doesn't excuse itself from being repulsively bad.