Road Trip

Back when Tom Green started his show (actually a few months later) I saw the last minute or so of an episode. All he was doing was riding around on a tricycle and babbling. He just wasn’t funny at all. Yes, my opinion was formed in less than a minute, but it was an opinion that I was willing to stand by. Ok, it’s a bit closed minded…but I’m also big enough to admit when I’m wrong. I’m not saying he’s one of the funniest guys in the world or anything, but he’s pretty damn funny when he wants to be. Kind of like a 90′s/00′s version of Andy Kaufman, only he actually wants to be a comedian. He does things just for the pure spectacle of it even going so far as to exploit his sickness. (That’s something that I must admit helped his cause in my eyes.)

The biggest difference between Tom Green and Andy Kaufman is that Tom has actually made a good movie. (Ok, he’s been in two. Look for Clutch for a cameo. I don’t know if it’s available anywhere, though.)

This time around Tom plays Barry, a student/tour guide at The University Of Ithaca (of course, most of us call it Cornell) in NY. He also happens to be the worst tour guide in the history of tour guides. He doesn’t know anything about the college he’s been at for eight years and he’s not exactly the brightest peanut in the…yeah. Well, he makes up for it by being a good story teller. He busts out the story of his group of friends and their title activity.

Josh Porter (Breckin Meyer from Can’t Hardly Wait, Dancer TX, Clueless and Go) has a problem. He and his girlfriend of his entire school career, Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard from The Rage: Carrie 2 and the tv version of Clueless), are stuck living about 1500 miles apart. He’s in Ithaca and she’s right here in my lovely little hometown of Austin, TX at The University Of, uh, Austin. Just so you know, there’s no such college. They’ve remained faithful even though they haven’t seen each other in months.

Josh, however, has a not so secret admirer. Beth (Amy Smart from Varsity Blues and Outside Providence–luckily she’s finally in a good movie) is a popular girl in Ithaca who is just looking for a nice guy. But she’s got a kinky side that she shows Josh when she seduces him on camera. Things get a little confused when Barry accidentally mails the tape to Tiffany. Now it’s time for a little trip.

Josh and his friends take off in one of their cars. Actually, it’s Kyle’s dad’s car. Kyle (DJ Qualls) is the weakest willed of the weak willed. He lets his family control his life and freely admits that he’s never had sex…with a human. I don’t want to know. E.L. (Seann William Scott playing pretty much the same role he played in American Pie) is exactly the opposite. He’ll do anything that’s fun and gets mad at Josh for putting off Beth’s advances. Rubin (John Stewart look alike Paulo Costanzo) is the resident genius who can apparently teach anyone anything in 48 hours. He’s also a major pothead. Oh well.

Basically, everything that can go wrong on the trip does. They lose their car, they run out of money, they meet up with disgusting waiter, they butt heads with an inattentive motel attendant (Andy Dick in a very funny and actually understated guest appearance), walk into a frat where they just don’t belong and many more things that are just too strange to mention.

Meanwhile, Barry’s back in Ithaca reveling in the fact that he gets to feed a mouse to Rubin’s snake. (“Someone’s going to die tonight. Give in to the black abyss of death.”) Of course this brings up the now classic mouse eating scene. You know, I really think that this is a high point in cinematic history. Seeing a man stick a live mouse in his mouth is really something special!

So this movie is much funnier than it ever should have been. It looks like just a really stupid version of Animal House or something of that nature. Maybe an offshoot of American Pie. But it goes beyond that and almost (but not quite) becomes one with those movies. It’s not a classic by any means, but it could become a cult thing in a second. It shows a rather skewed version of reality, so don’t expect something quite as revelatory as the big Pie. But it calls attention to the fact that it’s unrealistic: Barry gets called on a scene involving coeds walking around the bathroom topless. It’s funny how that makes it all ok.

Yeah, parts of it are cliched. As soon as Kyle’s dad (Fred Ward) gets on the trail of the boys you know what’s going to go down between him and his son. We pretty much know exactly what’s going to happen with the love triangle when we find out that Beth is actually a nice girl and not just trying to get some. No great shakes in the plot, but who cares? This is some funny stuff. Who wouldn’t laugh at a guy sticking French toast down his pants? As long as I’m not the one eating it, it’s fun. There’s nothing wrong with a little dirty toast.

And it’s not just Tom who puts in a good performance. Breckin, who’s always been cool in my book, does a great job as the straight man to his wacked out friends. Seann has been playing this role to perfection for a while, so of course he was good. DJ was a little annoying, but that’s the character, so he did good, too.

And, by the way, director/writer Todd Phillips seems to be on a role with his college flicks. His first big one was Frat House, which I was, I guess, lucky enough to see at South By South West a couple of years ago. It was very good, but really disturbing in its brutal honesty about hazing in New Jersey fraternities. Not too surprising, though. (You can tell that I don’t have a very high opinion of frat boys. After all, they steal all the women from little guys like me and generally bring the IQ of any college down. And, yes, I realize that I just alienated some of my friends. They’re used to it, though. It’s the price you pay for being in a frat.) No matter if the movie was staged or not (and there are some who think it was) it was very good and worth catching if you can. I saw it on tv not too long ago, but I can’t remember who was playing it. Todd’s other two movies are more rock oriented documentaries. Hated is about G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies and Bittersweet Motel is about Phish. I haven’t seen those, but they seem to be pretty good according to the IMDb. Road Trip is his first fiction film but you wouldn’t know it from the way he handles the story. I guess he’ll be one of the few (like Michael Apted) who can alternate between the two film forms. Good for him.

So check it out. And, as an added bonus, the lovely and talented Ms. Smart shows a little more than she has before. And, if that doesn’t grab you, so does Tom. And, of course, the last part of it takes place in Austin. If you’re from here (which, I know that my Audience Of One used to live here) only about 20 seconds of the movie was actually filmed here. And, funny thing, the exit from I-35 onto MLK still says “University Of Texas.” I guess this town is big enough for two big colleges. (And, yes, everyone in the theatre cheered when Austin showed up on the screen. Such pride we have.)