Monday, August 27, 2007

FILMPHLEGMâ„¢: "The Ten" Is Ninety-Three Minutes Too Long

Please don't see The Ten. I beg you. If any more people see it, then the people who made it might get the chance to make another equally shitty movie. For the love of God, please don't let that happen. I honestly can't remember a film that claimed to be a comedy which didn't at least at some point cause me to crack a smile. Not The Ten; I was stone-faced the entire time. It's like somebody wrote a script when they were 18 and decided to stuff it full of their own personal slang ("pec juice", "it was a goof!", "vvvvvvvagina"), make references to other, better movies (all the Broadway Danny Rose stuff and using the name "Dianne Wiest" as a punchline which never goes away), and wrap it all in a conceit (using the Ten Commandments as the structure for ten short stories) probably dreamt up during fifth period Theology class. The Ten feels like a movie that was originally written on the back of a Trapper Keeper at an all-boys Jesuit high school, and no one ever bothered to rewrite it once they'd grown up, gotten it greenlit, and actually, you know, lived a little. Here's a newsflash: five straight minutes of saying the word "rape" might be funny when you're still taking gym class and wishing there were real live girls around for you to ask to the homecoming dance, but once you've actually interacted with a woman beyond staring at her from across your local Chess King store, it kinda ceases to be at all funny.

I stayed until the end only because I thought it might actually be working up to something that might at least make me crack a smile, but no such luck: all it did was end with a big group song, much like the end of The 40 Year-Old Virgin except NOT FUNNY. Oooh, did Gretchen Mol just sing her own name? HOLY SHIT THAT'S FUNNY!!

Oh wait, no it's not.

1 Comments:

Blogger C. Margery Kempe said...

Well, at least you saved my time...

I find it odd that the words Trapper Keeper also left my lips today (in my creative writing class, as it happens and yes, it was an off-hand reference to South Park. You have to check who's actually listening to the words coming out of your mouth). What a coinky-dink.

Admittedly, it is difficult to be funny, very difficult. But I find it staggering that so many unfunny comedies get made -- all the time.

1:37 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home