Goose and Gander

As Ding ranted so elegantly about, over at Warner Bros., when a movie with a female lead performs below expectations it is due to the simple fact that there was a female lead. But what if there was a male lead in a tanker? Well, clearly, that was due to the competing release of a video game.

Argh.

Now, as a genre, I don't particularly enjoy comedies made post, say, Singing in the Rain (which I use as a benchmark because it was filmed in color, so I'm assuming it is close to the end point). 'Modern' comedies tend to be fraught with things that will just piss me off (and maybe if I wasn't distracted by the clever dialogue, more of the early comedies would piss me off - I mean, can I wholeheartedly get behind some of the ideas on infidelity in, say, The Women? Clearly I cannot - but I'll watch it repeatedly and consistently find it funny. (Even when I enjoy a modern comedy, it prolly isn't something I will watch over and over again - and I have a high capacity for re-viewing - the two modern comedies I will rewatch? Bring it On and Clueless (and I think I should get a Jane Austen High-Brow Bye on Clueless.))).

Anyway, there are broader-comedy modern outliers- I found Something About Mary funny, I enjoyed the Wedding Crashers, I found moments in Austin Powers pleasing and quotable. However at least two of these movies contain scenes where my gag reflex threatens to get away from me and I have to la-la-la-not-watch or, in one case, actually leave the theater temporarily (I have bodily-function-humor issues). But I also (and I don't think I'm alone in this) will not go to a non-vetted comedy - someone I know has to recommend it and suggest that it will not, in fact, piss me off.

So when A.O. Scott (who, happily, seems to have many of the same 'pissed off' triggers that I do - see Love Actually) suggests in his review that:

"[The Farrelly brothers'] squeamish, childish fascination with bodily ickiness, when crossed with the iffy sexual politics of the original, yields a comic vision remarkable for its hysterical misogyny."

the chance that I'll pay good money to see the movie? Zero. (Of course, the chance that I would see the movie for free are also just about zero.) (As a related aside the Tomatometer is at 29% so A.O. isn't alone in suggesting you might not want to plunk down $10.50 on this puppy.)

How nice it would be if the studio thought - 'hmmm, perhaps people don't want to see a 'date movie' that is infantile and misogynistic. Maybe the prized 13 year old boy demographic isn't enough, on its own, to make a hit?* Maybe we have to appeal not only to adult men in addition to adolescent boys** - we need to appeal to adult women as well?'

But, no, it wasn't that that screwed this touching date movie - it was Halo.

Argh!

*As a Hugo-esque or perhaps even Melville-like digression, can I also say how nice it would be if politicians believed that pandering to the Right Wing Nut Christian Voting Block aka 'values voters' weren't, if not entirely sufficient, at least necessary, to get one elected to high office? (OK, that wasn't Melville-like - but I could make it so by attaching a list of values-panderers, but, who has the time?)

**I assume, for these purposes, that studios actually believe that adult men are distinguishable from adolescent boys - something I wouldn't be prepared to entirely go to bat for.