Qritiqs Qorner

Not much time anymore to watch movies, TV, or anything. I did get to see two things recently, "Fifty First Dates" and "The Ben Stiller Show."

"Fifty First Dates" [(2004) with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore] is a nice romantic comedy that manages to be watchable despite the requisite Sandler scatology. And at this moment, my older brother has taken control of the Styx. Lemme tell you all about my brother -- he's gone soft. Years ago, the pre-incarnation of this blog had biting commentary HEY! OK, I'm back. Uh, where was I? Oh yeah, scatology. Sandler is a funny dude but lazy. It's no feat to be funny when you talk about doo-doo, barf, and sex. And his movies are diminished by it.

"The Ben Stiller Show" (1992) has been touted for years as brilliant and funny and ahead of its time as well as launching the careers of Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick and Bob Odenkirk.

Odenkirk, who fell off the face of the earth, was one of the two dudes in "Mr. Show" (1995, with David Cross) - which was too disturbing, even for me.

"The Ben Stiller Show" is a half-hour, sketch comedy, SNL knockoff that constantly and consistently missed the mark. I rarely laughed when I saw the 6 episodes, but each skit was brilliant in conception. Which means that during the viewing experience, it didn't feel so good, but the *memories* of the show last longer and are brighter.

An example of Ben Stiller show humor:

[Janeane Garofalo as MTV News announcer]: The censorship battle over rap star Ice Man McGee's latest release is heating up. A Los Angeles man by the name of Doug Szathkey is protesting Ice Man's new hit single, 'Kill Doug Szathkey.'

or "The B Minus Time Traveler" - a high-school student who went back in time and was of absolutely no help to the historical figures she meets.

or "The Grungies" a TV show parody of the Monkees but of the 90s Grunge scene (as opposed to the 60s mod-band thing).

SNL knockoffs (e.g. "Mad TV") don't realize that sketch comedy is never all that good – but because SNL is live, and written in just a few days – we give them a lot of credit for even having a marginally decent product. Ben Stiller etc. made high quality sketches, special effects, costumes, etc. and the quality of the humor doesn't match the production skill. The live shows (SNL, Carol Burnett, Monty Python) know that low-quality production is, counter-intuitively, funnier.