The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It

[SJP]

Been sashaying through the sarcasm lately?   

[Darth Geek]

Sarcasm. Deed of deceit.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

On a related note, this same director is making a Twilight parody called "Fully Mooned."  He has previously directed "Saving Ryan's Privates."  Clearly this is a filmmaker on the rise.

Did anyone tell him that making a porn ripoff isn't the same as a making a parody?

[Darth Geek]

On a related note, this same director is making a Twilight parody called "Fully Mooned."  He has previously directed "Saving Ryan's Privates."  Clearly this is a filmmaker on the rise.

Did anyone tell him that making a porn ripoff isn't the same as a making a parody?

And that filming some drunken fratboy's lame joke isn't a real movie.

[warofthebees]

And the target audience for this is who exactly?

No seriously, I want to know so I can beat them up one at a time.

I'll go get you a golf club.

[spaceforarent]

So, who is going to be the one person here to watch it? Seeing as how you can rent it on Amazon and PSN.
I'm considering it; some things just need to be seen to be believed.

[Compound]

So, who is going to be the one person here to watch it? Seeing as how you can rent it on Amazon and PSN.
I'm considering it; some things just need to be seen to be believed.

It's on my Netflix queue (since I figured I had to watch it as I'm the idiot who noticed it). But I'm not going out of my way to rent it.

[Compound]

A review.

A quote:

I wasn't sure it was possible to make the Friedberg / Seltzer (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans) model of parody look daring and bold but director Craig Moss and his writing partner Brad Kaaya have accomplished just that.

Ow.

[Nunyerbiz]

Well, at the end of the trailer they did give a nod to the Dos Equis guy... who completely rules... so that's something...

But yea, generally this plays out like some bizarro Star Trek alternate universe where an infant Judd Apatow suffers a closed head injury and then is healed by stem cells culled from a Wayans brother who then grows up to write this script.

[spaceforarent]

So when does this thing hit dvd/Netflix?  Though I don't think I want Netflix thinking people are actually interested in this thing.

[Compound]

So when does this thing hit dvd/Netflix?  Though I don't think I want Netflix thinking people are actually interested in this thing.

DVD- Next week.

Netflix - "July 2010"

[warofthebees]

A review.

A quote:

I wasn't sure it was possible to make the Friedberg / Seltzer (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans) model of parody look daring and bold but director Craig Moss and his writing partner Brad Kaaya have accomplished just that.

Ow.

This is even more damning: 

Taking a good joke, removing its punch line and replacing it with a fart noise while you soil yourself can't possibly make it better.

[Compound]

The promised review-

Quick summary. Not gawdawful, but not grea either. Mediocre at best, and that's being generous.

The 41-Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It
You know that one film? It's a parody of that one, and a couple of others too.

Sigh. I had to watch this one, since I was the idiot who first mentioned it here. Let's get this out of the way early: It's not as bad as the Noun Movies. But it's not very good either. By the way, kiddies? Skip to the next review.

The film starts off with a bad sign- the writers are credited as "A Black Guy and A White Guy." And that trend of not telling us anyone behind this film continues throughout the opening credits. While they're trying for laughs, it's not a good sign when you walk into a film and no one seems to want to be associated with it. (They do list their actual names in the end credits.)  While the credits are rolling, BTW, there's an ongoing joke about the Virgin waking up with, er, wood. A two foot long piece of it, if you get my drift. While that aims far, far below my usual baseline for comedy, I'll also note that it's a joke (although not a very funny one) and note just a random shout-out to another film. Point in these guys' favor- they at least recognize the concept of a joke.

Bad sign #2- Throughout the film, you'll note that there is no licensed music. Sometimes there's a pretty close sound-a-like and sometimes the original music isn't bad. But the opening music is a badly done "sound close" of "True" by Spandau Ballet and it's horribly distracting.

Let's start with the plot, and unlike the Noun Movies, it actually has one. Point in its favor. It's lifted straight from the parodied movies. Andy's 41 and a virgin. His friends find out and try to hook him up. After a few misfires, he meets a girl, Kim, that he connects with but who suddenly moves away. Then he meets Sarah. They almost hookup, but she ends up sleeping with his roommate (although not the one who's supposed to be Seth Rogan). Boom. Pregnant. She confronts Andy. He denies it's his. She leaves him. He heads to Hawaii to get away from the memories of her, but she's there dating a British singer. But Andy meets Kim again. There's a paternity test. Andy's not the dad. Kim and Sarah fight. Sarah leaves. Kim and Andy get married and consummate the relationship. And then the world is covered in Andy's semen. No, really. That's the ending. During all this, the kids from Superbad,  are trying to get some booze. Oh and there's a Bollywood dance sequence during the first part of the ending credits. Toss in a random reference to Twilight, Balloon Boy, The Clone Wars (yes, really) and a few other random references and you're done. See? An actual plot, if not a very good one.

The jokes- These are hit and miss. I will admit that I laughed a few times during the film, more than I did when watching Epic, Date and Disaster Movie combined. Granted, that's not a high number, but it's still a fact. There's some decent physical comedy and once again, the awareness that jokes need to exist. Take, for example, a speed dating sequence. In the Noun Movies, Andy's dates would likely just be random folks from recent movies or entertainment. Say, Sarah Palin, Lady Gaga and Tiger's ex-wife. Here it's a crazed older mom, a middle person I don't remember and a transvestite. Complete with visible genitalia in the underwear. While these aren't side splitting jokes, they are at least jokes. Granted, there are random references too. There's a scene with Yoda and Mace Windu, for example. One of the characters has the same issue as Benjamin Button does, but it's never directly mentioned in the film. He just keeps getting younger in every scene. (While I'd give points for giving credit to the audience's intelligence here and not explaining it, this character is named "Blaqguy" so it's a wash there.) There's a running gag about the Verizon Guy which actually gets a payoff late in the film. The Superbad kids get stuck in a brief GTA parody, which actually got a chuckle or two from me. There's a "Most Interesting Person in the World" bit in the film, which was actually pretty good. And the Twilight bit, which I'll come back to. The jokes aren't great, but they're at least jokes, which places it above recent "parodies."

The Acting- Mixed bag here. Andy, the lead, is fine. He's got a long line of acting credits as well as experience on MadTV and a number of other places. He even injects a bit of "Wait, what?" into the character at times, giving a bit of straight man action into the film. The lead actresses are fine. No real plusses or minuses there. The Superbad kids are pretty close ringers for the real movie kids, except for the Cera role who isn't close. (One of them did the same role in Disaster Movie.) The Seth Rogan character is a ringer for Seth, except during the scene where he starts doing the milkshake scene from There Will Be Blood.  The cast doesn't embarrass themselves.

Overall, it's not a great film. It's certainly not Blazing Saddles. Or the Hangover. Heck, I thought that Super Capers and Superhero Movie were funnier and that's not a high bar. But it's a marked improvement over most of the recent crop of parody films.  And the film makers at least show that they cared a little bit about actually making a film, which places it above the "by the numbers" shtick of the Noun Movies. But I wouldn't go very far out of my way to see it. BTW- there's a joke during the end credits that actually made me laugh, so keep watching. Once again, not a great joke and it takes a while to pay off, but it did amuse me.

The Twilight bit- Here's a nice point of film making in the film makers' favor. The Superbad kids are being chased by a Mexican horde and Rob Thomas. (There's an explanation for why in the film.) One of them, the Cera one, I think, is surrounded when out of no where a car skids to a stop by him and a driver hops out. We've all seen Twilight here, so it's no surprise who it is, but here's the part I admired. In a lot of the outdoor scenes in New Moon and Twilight, the vampire film makers apply a filter to the film, usually a kind of greyish color over the scene. When Edward steps out of the car, these guys do the same thing. It's a subtle thing, but it shows that someone in the crew actually gave a damn about what they were doing. And that's more than anyone in any of the Noun Movies ever showed.

[warofthebees]

1-Take a line from a popular movie or pop culture reference that will be passe in 6 months time.

2-Before the character can finish a line, hit him/her with something.

3-Repeat for 85 minutes (give or take).

4-Fill in remaining time with painfully bad white guy references to rap music.

There, I just wrote the next Noun Movie.  Can I have fifteen million dollars, please?

[Dustin]

Is it just my misconception, or is it a runner in these shit parody movies to have a "hairy chest" joke of some kind? I know SCARY MOVIE had one, I've heard there's one in DATE MOVIE, DISASTER MOVIE, EPIC MOVIE...

It must be some kind of fetish.