Scary Movie/Me, Myself And Irene

Ok, I have to start this review off with a review of another movie. Back in 1989 there was another flick called Scary Movie. It was made out in Driftwood, TX by a bunch of guys from right here in Austin. Basically it’s a fairly funny study of paranoia on Halloween night. This dorky little guy gets stuck in a cheesy house of horrors. There also happens to be a serial killer on the loose. Now, I saw this movie back in high school just a year or so after it’s initial release. It was a pretty big deal because there weren’t just a whole lot of movies being made by Austinites back then. (Remember, this was before Linklater and Rodriguez had made their cheapies.)

My friend and I settled in to watch it. I liked it. He didn’t. He thought it was stupid and boring whereas I thought it was pretty funny and the pace was pretty much just right for the kind of suspense it was trying to build. Not a perfect movie by any means, but definitely worth a look–if you can find it. It’s even hard to find here in Austin. It’s released through Generic Films and has a cover that looks like you would think something would look like from that company. Black and white with a big barcode on it and Scary Movie printed in bold black letters.

I mainly put this in here because a) someone I know actually thought that the new movie was that one (I was very surprised that they had heard of it–his friend had a copy in his car!) and b) I actually met one of the guys who worked on the movie about five years ago. It was either the director (Daniel Erickson–he hasn’t done a damn thing since then) or a friend of his. Just wanted to plug it real quick. So call your local video store! Start a campaign! Get the original!!

And now back to our regular broadcasting.

The new Scary Movie is a Wayans Brothers spoof of all of those teen horror flicks that seem to have actually died out. (Although I saw a trailer for a new Urban Legend flick. You know what? The first one sucked pretty hard. Why bring it back? Oh yeah. It made money.) And it starts out with Drew Becker (Carmen Electra looking too old to be a high school kid, but who cares? She gets down to her underwear!) being slaughtered in her house in a fairly funny scene. Especially when the killer (in a Scream mask, of course) stabs her in the breast and pulls out her implant. Carmen is about to get the Jenny McCarthy award for having a sense of humor about her image. Plus she’s just more attractive even if she did marry an alien.

The plot follows Scream exactly with a few nods to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris from the horrible Lover’s Lane and Eden) is the Neve character. Get it? Her boyfriend is trying desperately to get in her panties. She and her friends (one of whom is Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie and another one is Shawn Wayans playing a latently homosexual football player–go figure. Is it just me or is football one of the most homo-erotic games in the world? TOUCHDOWN!!!!!) start getting notes from someone who knows that they killed a guy last Halloween. But it can’t be the Gorton’s Fisherman, right? He’s dead!

Along the way we meet Gail Hailstorm (Cheri Oteri, one of the most annoying SNL alums in recent memory), an overzealous reporter who will resort to anything to get a comment (“Cindy! Your ass is huge!”), Doofy the retarded deputy and Shannon’s brother and Randy (Marlon Wayans) a stoner who sees dead people when he’s high.

And I think you probably know the plot. Guy runs around in a mask with long sharp objects and kills teenagers.

Now here’s the problem with this movie. Back when they did I’m Gonna Get You Sucka! the blaxploitation field had been pretty much dried up. There weren’t any being made, but for some reason their spoof worked. The genre itself, while pretty much gone, was ripe for the spoofing. When they did Don’t Be A Menace the urban drama was definitely well past ripe. Now it would seem that these horror flicks were a little past ready. But, you see, Scream was basically a spoof of horror movies. And all of the ones after that have followed it’s lead. How do you spoof a spoof? Well, in the Wayans Brothers’ case you retell the story, have the killer be the straight man to a bunch of absolute morons and throw in a lot of really gross humor. That part of the movie worked really well. I don’t think I’ve seen a sex scene this funny since the one in Brandon Lee’s Rapid Fire. Or maybe Casper Van Dien’s in On The Border. Or any of them in Showgirls.

The problem was when they actually tried to spoof the horror flicks. Some spoofs worked really well. The Matrix and The Usual Suspects got great treatment. And, actually, Scream 2 got a good bashing with a scene in a theatre where one of Cindy’s friends is killed by the entire audience Julius Caesar style because she was overly obnoxious. I know we’ve all felt like doing that at least fifty times in our lives.

And then they would have a great joke that they would run into the ground because they thought that the audience wouldn’t get it. Casting David L. Lander in the role of the principal was nearly genius. (He was the wanna be Fonzi, Squiggy in Laverne And Shirley. Remember Henry Winkler in Scream?) I recognized his voice over the p.a. system. They probably shouldn’t have even showed him. Who wouldn’t recognize that voice?! But they have to spell it out to us and show us a nameplate on his desk that says Principal Squiggy. Shame on them for ruining a great joke.

Also keep an eye on little Anna Faris. She’s one of those rare actresses who really doesn’t have much shame. Not many actresses would allow a director to have mounds of hair coming out of her panties or blast her with…erm…well see for yourself. She also kind of looks like a cross between Winona Ryder and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Kinda cute in a weird sort of way.

On thing I noticed about this movie. You can really tell that it was made by black filmmakers. Lots of jabs at white America. When the killer is in Cindy’s house and she calls 911 on her computer she types in “White woman in trouble!” and the cops are there before he can even back out of her room. And BET is at the school when Gail is doing her first report. They say something like, “White kids are being killed and we’re gettting the hell outta here!” Not many white guys would even think to do jokes like that. And Spike Lee would probably scream about it.

Overall it wasn’t bad. See it for matinee price or wait for video, though. Definitely not worth full price. So almost immediately after seeing this one a friend called me to meet him for Me, Myself And Irene. How could I pass up a new Farrelly Brothers’ movie? Now, if only the Coens and the Wachowskis had new ones out I could have seen all of the great brother teams in Hollywood today. (Sorry, haven’t seen any Hughes Brothers flicks.)

This time the Farrellys are back with their first muse, Jim Carrey. He plays Charlie Bailygates, a small town Rhode Island cop whose job and kids are everything to him. Unfortunately his kids are the product of an affair that his wife had with a black midget who happened to be a member of Mensa. So he’s got three genius black sons that he just can’t bear to think of as not his natural sons. So he doesn’t. He turns into a wussy little guy who everyone can and does take advantage of.

One day the pressure gets to be too much for him and he splits. Literally. He becomes Hank, an overly confrontational id monster.

Enter Irene P. Waters (Renee Zellweger–and I doubt that the name is coincidental). She’s a girl who is just trying to get out of New York when she’s brought into the police station because the New York EPA is looking for her. Her ex-boyfriend was into some illegal dealings. We never really know what, but it doesn’t matter to the story, so we don’t really care.

Basically, Charlie, Hank and Irene end up going on a road trip to upstate NY to meet some EPA guys who are promptly killed by her ex. She runs to Charlie, they run together and chaos ensues when he forgets his pills that keep Hank at bay. (Do they have those?) Meanwhile his sons are trying to help the cops find their dad until they find out that most of them (headed up by Chris Cooper (October Sky, American Beauty) in another jerk role) are trying to kill him.

Oh, and Irene starts to fall for Charlie and hate Hank. But you knew that already.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you. This is no There’s Something About Mary or Kingpin. Probably a little better than Dumb And Dumber, but it loses some steam towards the end. But up until that point it’s great. I’m really glad Jim decided to do another stupid comedy like this. He’s got the best single person fight scene since Fight Club. And he didn’t have to have computers help him out. One thing that was a little strange: I’ve never heard Jim cuss this much! He said some pretty damn gross things, including a name for a noise that women make that they would rather we didn’t notice. And all in a Dirty Harry impression! Not bad for a guy who can’t seem to get noticed by the Academy.

And Renee was great, too. She’s a great straight woman to Jim’s over the top freak boy. And she looked pretty good even though she was supposed to be wearing the same clothes for days on end.

There’s a lot of shock in it, but there’s something else that only the Farrellys seem to be able to bring us in these kinds of movies. There’s characters that we can care about. Think back to Airplane. One of the funniest movies of all time. But did we really care if Stryker and Elaine got together? They could have gone down in a ball of fire as long as it was funny. But we really want Charlie to come to terms with Hank and get Irene. Just like we really wanted Ted and Mary to end up together. And if they hadn’t we would have been pretty pissed off.

This is one of those flicks that you just forget about plot and go with the characters and their comedy. I guarantee that you’ll enjoy it if you do that. Especially the montage when Charlie first turns into Hank. One of the best montages ever. And one of the best transition cuts ever. Check it out for yourself. But if you do, answer me this question: How did he find the, ahem, marital aid at the podunk little country store?

The only real disappointment for me (besides the fact that the end started to peter out) was the lack of Lin Shae! They had to cut her scene out! Shame. I always look forward to seeing her in their flicks.

It’s too bad that the Brothers couldn’t get the cast they wanted for their next one, Stuck On You. For the Siamese twin brothers they wanted Jim Carrey and Woody Allen. How cool would that have been? But, alas, Woody’s schedule didn’t work out. (That’s what I heard last, anyway.) Oh well. I guess we’ll have to wait to see how Jim would work with Woody.