"Meet the Spartans" and the putrid, decaying corpse of comedy

[Rufus T. Firefly]

So do movies like "Meet the Spartans." But that's because SNL isn't as funny anymore, either.

[Riesstiu IV]

What are you talking about?! Meet the Spartans is the pinnacle of American cultural achievement.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Elok
No, those are actual spoofs with actual jokes, as opposed to "spoofs" that stick in things at random without rhyme or reason. Like the Spartans "stomping the yard." Yes, I realize that Stomp the Yard and 300 were both recent movies, but that does not mean it makes any sense, whether comedic or logical, to fuse them together. Also, Donald Trump? Britney? Huh?

And they don't do anything with the references, they just slap them all together and expect a joke to tell itself. You get the feeling people are supposed to see The Donald snip Spidey's web, think "Wow, I recognize those two unrelated cultural memes! Now they're in nonsensical conjunction!" and immediately burst out laughing. You might as well compare Spaceballs to a little kid saying "Star Wars" and then making an armpit-fart noise and giggling.

While we're at it, 300 was a self-parody. It doesn't need or deserve to be parodied.

I'm not going to quibble with your overall point. The movie looks like a painful waste of time and money.

But...

[film geek]

What your not seeing is that, in spite of having the same people behind it, "Meet the Spartans," like "Epic Movie," is actually a whole different genre from "Scary Movie." "Scary Movie" was a film parody (of a film, "Scream," that was itself somewhat parodic, but whatever...); comparing it to "Spaceballs" or "Airplane!" makes sense.

But "Meet the Spartans" is more the decendent of the weird 70s genre that has no name, but that includes "Kentucky Fried Movie," "Groove Tube," and a variety of lesser R-rated drive-in films lost to history. They're probably best described as "Pop Culture Omnibus Drug Films," and they work pretty much exactly the way your Spaceballs/armpit noise example does -- just throw as many mish-moshed pop culture references at the screen as possible, mix with stupid adolescent humor, and hope the audience is stoned enough to laugh (For example, Kentucky Fried Movie's movie-within-a-movie, "Fist Full of Yen," was ostensibly a Bruce Lee parody that had the villian lisp for no reason, use a vibrator as a prosthetic, and ended with an extened Wizard of Oz reference).

So the problem isn't that "Meet the Spartans" is a bad film parody, since it's not really a film parody at all. The problem is that, whatever it is, it just doesn't look funny.

[/film geek]

[Deity Dude]

Damn, and I thought this thread was about Michigan State.

[Geronimo]

All of the movies mentioned in the OP certainly suck but I have to say that it would seem to be better to sterilize people with good taste as a world in which everyone enjoyed brain dead crappy movies would probably be a much happier place. I don't see why people assume having good taste is a virtue. In most cases it is actually a curse. I'd love to have horrible taste of the sort that would allow me to enjoy any sort of entertainment no matter how appallingly bad it might be.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Elok


While we're at it, 300 was a self-parody. It doesn't need or deserve to be parodied.

As was Scream - re-parodied in Scary Movie. It doesn't appear to make a difference to this demographic.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Where have you gone, Mel Brooks...

[Perfection]

OMG, THIS SPOOF MOVIE IS BAD!!!!!!!!!111oneityone11!1!111

Quit whining, there's plenty of new funny stuff out there.

It's not like there wasn't bad comedy years ago, either.

[Elok]

See, if it were an isolated phenomenon, I'd agree with you. But these things just keep getting churned out one after the other, and they use respectably large ad campaigns to promote them. That means they're enjoying some success at the box office, as opposed to, say, Uwe Boll's Smelly Sphincter Production Company mangling a video game franchise, releasing it with virtually no fanfare, and sending it to DVD sales after ten minutes in theaters. Doesn't that disturb you?

And for the third time at least, what do you have against the burnoose? Are you hating on Arab headgear?

[DirtyMartini]

It's just a "ride that horse til it dies, then whip it some more" phenomenon. The same thing has happened with the torture-porn, martial arts, and imported/recycled Japanese horror film genres, to name a few. One comes out of nowhere and does unexpectedly decently. Along come the copycats and then they just squeeze every potential coin from that sucker. The movies tend to get cheaper and crappier as you go. Like: The Ring (good)...The Grudge...Ring 2...Grudge 2...down the line until...One Missed Call. I remember thinking the original Scary Movie was decent, but I have the same reaction as Elok does to the current manure pile.

[DrSpike]

Yeah, some parts of Scary Movie were genuinely funny, even if they threw in too many 'obvious' pop culture references.

I haven't seen any of the later ones.

[OzzyKP]

As if Airplane, Spaceballs, and Naked Gun never made pop culture references. We've had this same type of movies for 30-40 years, you just remember the old ones more fondly. No doubt your parents thought they spelled doom for American movie culture like you think the new ones do.

[pchang]

#1

in the box office, narrowly beating out Rambo

[Geronimo]

Re: #1

Originally posted by pchang
in the box office, narrowly beating out Rambo

This as number 1 and Rambo as 2 is indeed a sad reality. I'm happy if people can enjoy such appalling crap but why can't they enjoy the less appalling crap even more? (clarification: the less appalling crap meaning something other than Rambo or meet the spartans.)

[Asher]

Rambo is a BRUTAL series of movies. HATE them.

Would much prefer Meet the Spartans, though I'll never see either.