Years ago, a friend described a particular successful pitch meeting: Schwarzenegger (holds up index finger on right hand), DeVito (holds up index finger on left hand) … Twins! (brings fingers together) I have often wondered if the executive sold so easily on such a contrived bit of foolishness – gee, how did you come up with that one? Were you watching an NBA game featuring Manute Bol and Muggsy Bogues? – as I was sayin’, I wonder if said executive ever regretted greenlighting a project so doomed to pedestrian mediocrity. Honestly, that’s being kind. Twins is one of the worst theater experiences I ever had.
Scary MoVie opens with Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen, playing themselves, in the Paranormal Activity bedroom. Do people ever really think about these things when they give the thumbs up? On its face, much like the Schwarzenegger/DeVito pairing, there might be an initial guffaw, but what do you see after that point? I see Lindsay and Charlie cashing in on their train wreck personalities for what purpose? Is that what anyone wants to see? Sex is 
hinted at strongly in the set-up, but the actual scene involves gymnastics. Literally. How would you like to be that stand-in? “I’m Linsday Lohan’s sexy athletic stunt double … for the purposes of humor.” How do you face yourself after that? How do you explain to your future grandchildren that the $1,000 you collected to do calisthenics while wearing a wig and a teddy and pretending to be the worst of the Hollywood “I flushed my career away” starlets all for the sake of a non-existant laugh was worth it?
When I think about why I don’t actually write for movies, moments like these come to mind.
Scary MoVie is another in the genre of pure parody which hasn’t really been funny since the 1980s and has gotten steadily worse this century, if that’s possible. The modern collection of parody is a simple veer from fart joke to fish-out-of-water joke and back again, constant, unceasing. Never wavering, never funny. The small semblance of plot exists solely to set up a visual you wouldn’t find humorous unless you were on dope. After the Lindsay/Charlie spectacle, we flash to two stoners trawling the woods of Humboldt County for weed. An intense discussion of “pee-holes stung by shampoo” (yes, you read that correctly) yields the following exchange:
“I don’t think you’re supposed to use it down there.”
“Then why do they call it ‘Johnson & Johnson’?”
If you can’t see me right now, perhaps you can feel the full force of my sigh. This is what passes for humor in these films. Don’t like it? Don’t worry, another moment just bad will come along in 3 … 2 … 1. The laundry list of parody attempts this time around include: Mama, Paranormal Activity, Inception, Evil Dead, Black Swan and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Hard to say which is the biggest miss. I’m gonna go for Black Swan, which failed 100% in the ability to capture any recognizable unintentional humor within the original (unless I missed the scene where Natalie Portman did something resembling a pole dance routine). The highlights of this mess are when you can recognize a combination fish-out-of-water/bathroom humor moment. The lowlights? When you realize you’ve placed the lead actress, Ashley Tisdale, as snotty Sharpay from High School Musical. Good Lord, I can name three actors from High School Musical. Where have I gone with my life?
If a spectre farts
In an empty theater
Do folks still get paid?
Rated PG-13, 86 Minutes
D: Malcolm D. Lee
W: Pat Proft, David Zucker
Genre: Fart joke beyond the grave
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Stoners … when and only when stoned
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who saw Airplane! in a theater.
