As sad as this question may sound, who here remembers the good old days of when spoof and parody movies were actually good? In the last 15 years, all parody/spoof movies have basically become nothing but pop culture reference pieces of dribble that try to shove as many tongue in cheek down your throat as possible. The sad part is that these sorts of movies use to be good.
Back before Scary Movie kicked started this new generation of horrible spoof and parody movies, we use to have ones that were actually good. Not even going to far back, I can remember some of the good parody and spoof movies like Hot Shots, Naked Gun and the classic Airplane films. Hell, remember Mel Brooks? Remember Spaceballs? Blazing Saddles? Now those were great flicks and all had some great wit and humor which the newer flicks really seem to lack. Case in point, look at the new poster for a upcoming parody movie from the people who brought us Date Movie and Epic Movie called Disaster Movie:
See what I am talking about? The entire movie is basically revolving around how many references they can make and how many genres they can slap in the face. The worst part is that more of these types of movies keep being mad and its all due to the same people. Just because they worked on Scary Movie, they think they have the right to keep making this horrible films and don't feel bad at all for the dribble they are forcing onto our society. Seriously, what happened to the good comedies? It seems like as soon as 2000 hit, all originality went out the door and now we are faced with this wanna funny films that are making everyone in America think this sort of bland comedy is actually good.I really wish someone would make a good spoof/comedy film again. The new Get Smart remake was a step in the right direction, but it would be nice if someone could come up with an original idea and not have to take it from old TV shows. Scary Movie did a great job re-introducing the current young generations to parody and spoof films, but now every movie since then has been a step backward. Judd Apatow and his comedic crew have also been making steps in the right direction as well with one of their recent films, Walk Hard. Once again though, Apatow is still jamming a little to much down people's throats and doesn't use as much of a light touch like many of the older films did with its comedy and spoofing.
That seems to be what really is missing from these films now a days, a light touch. Instead of always bombarding movie audiences with tongue in cheek jokes and pop culture references, the more classic films always had more of a wink, wink sort of style that was a bit more subtle then these new films. Don't get me wrong, the older films did reach out and slap audiences with a rubber chicken from time to time, but they knew when totally outrageous gags and parodies should be used in a film and never made the entire film based on those premises like this new films do. Instead of a rubber chicken though, current parody movie writers seem to want to hit movie goers with a large ACME hammer over and over so that audiences will get dumber and dumber. This way, these writers will have less work to do in order to make people laugh and they don't have to worry about writing something smart or witty.
At this point though, I don't have much hope to see a good spoof/parody movie anymore. Most comedies now a days are becoming more realistic type humor films like Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Superbad. Now I love those films of course, but its a totally different type of comedy thats more based on situations then making fun of a genre of film or spoofing a certain film. Still, I will hold onto some shred of hope that Mel Brooks may make one last comeback film or that David Zucker will dust off his brain and try to go back to his classic humor and not keep going down the humorless road he is now with films like Scary Movie 3 and 4.
Anyway, a stupid rant I know. But I am just tired of hearing about this horrible new parody flicks. I feel like my IQ is beating its way out of my brain with a mallet every time I hear that another one of these films is made and that they actually do well. Is America's sense of humor really going down the drain? There is some hope here and there like I said, but even those films seem far and few between and still can't hold a handle to the classic films of old.
Hell, maybe even this rant of mine is parody of its own when you thing about it. A parody of all these recent movie critics saying how bad current movies are and that they miss the days of the classic films. But hey, I'm not that good of a writer. So lets just chalk this post up to me wishing that a somewhat dead type of comedy genre would make a comeback someday and leave it at that.
-P. Knight
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. "
-Mel Brooks
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