By John Saleeby
November, 1st, 2008
A few years ago I wrote an Acid Logic article about three Comedy Movies funny enough to keep me from doing something really horrible that you hear about on the News - "Super Troopers", "Pootie Tang", "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back". Chris Rock? Kevin Smith? Broken Lizard must have really been pulling more than their share of the weight! But now I've watched all three of those movies so often I'm dangerously close to renting Adam Sandler DVDs out of morbid curiosity. So if it wasn't for the three Comedy Movies in this article you probably would have heard about me on the News and thought "They should have locked him up after that article about those shitty Chris Rock and Kevin Smith movies! The man is clearly imbalanced!"
First, "National Lampoon's Electric Apricot". Don't let that "National Lampoon" bit put you off, those idiots at The National Lampoon these days didn't have any more to do with the production of "Electric Apricot" than they did with "Animal House". The National Lampoon is only handling the distribution of the movie - Imagine an outfit so shabby it makes Lion's Gate look classy!
"Elecrtic Apricot" is a "mocumentary"* about the members of Electric Apricot, one of those godawful Jam Bands. Yeah, it's kind of like "Spinal Tap" only you haven't seen it a million times and that Rob Reiner creep has nothing to do with it. "Electric Apricot" is Directed by Les Claypool, the bassist dude from Primus. Claypool also stars in the movie as the nutty drummer of Electric Apricot and is so funny that if he didn't spend so much time making peculiar noises with an electric bass I would have yet another Millionaire Comedy Star to sit around being jealous of. Why the hell didn't that Ben Stiller get into music when he was a kid?
The other guys in Electric Apricot are hilarious, too - Especially the Keyboardist, the most mellow, laid back guy in California until something goes wrong and he instantly turns into Ralph Kramden. Electric Apricot is really going places with their big "Are You Going To Burning Man?" song until their Guitarist gets too excited over meeting some dude from Government Mule, asks him to go to the Zoo to look at the ducks, and is so embarrassed he passes out naked in the woods. I had no idea it was so complicated to be a Jam Band musician! At least when an Alternative Rock musician meets some dude from R.E.M. he'll pass out naked in the woods with you.
I love "Electric Apricot" but have to wonder how funny it is to people who like Jam Music - Maybe watching it turns them into Ralph Kramden. Is that how The National Lampoon got hold of this movie?
"The Trailer Park Boys - The Movie" is always at my local DVD place but I never rented it because it doesn't have Bail Ling or Thandie Newton in it. But then I saw it on Comedy Central and had such a good time I kept checking TV Guide to make sure that I was really watching Comedy Central.
"Trailer Park Boys - The Movie" is the Feature version of a Canadian TV series about three small time felons (All of their heists seem to involve flailing away at something with hand tools to get at the small change inside) who reside in the same trailer park yet seem to spend most of their time locked up in jail.
Ricky, who views incarceration as a pot smoking hockey playing Holiday, lives in a car parked outside of his Girlfriend's trailer. All of the car's windows are broken out and one of the doors is missing but his Girlfriend is a smokin' hot Stripper so it's a real sweet deal.
Then there's Julian, a studly weightlifter who always has a mixed drink in his hand. We never see him pour the drink, we never see him finish the drink, it's just always right there in his hand for Julian to take a sip out of every time he has a close up. Are these guys cool or what?
Best of all is Bubbles, a traditional "Nerd" who gets his name from his unbelievably thick eyeglasses. The only one of The Boys smart enough to never get arrested, Bubbles has a flock of about ten million "kitties" (The word "cat" isn't in anybody's vocabulary around here) with which he plans to present "Bubble's Super Kitties Sports Show" for the entertainment of the "Trailer Park Boys - The Movie" audience between the end of the story and the end of the movie.
The only difference between Life outside of jail and Life inside of jail seems to be mocking the Trailer Park Manager for his drunken attempts at exerting his authority and mocking the Head Guard for his thinly veiled closet homo crush on Julian. Oh, and Bubbles isn't around in prison. He's back at the Trailer Park hustling stolen grocery carts for eight dollars a month.
Like The Boomtown Rats in the Late Seventies, The Trailer Park Boys are huge Stars everywhere in the World except the USA. Why isn't this show on American TV? Probably because a Canadian show about Poor People looks like an American show about Poor People produced by a White Supremacist. Wait a minute . . . I had no idea this show was Canadian when I saw it on Comedy Central and not once did it occur to me to squawk "Where all the Black people at!?!" - I'm a bad bad person!
You would probably have to be a bad person to like "Postal" as much as I do, but if there was ever a movie that demonstrates why there is no sane reason to be a good person in Twenty First Century America it is "Postal". Uwe Boll, widely recognised as The Worst Movie Director In The World, stopped making really shitty Horror Movies based on video games long enough to make a Sick Comedy Movie based on what has got to be one hell of a messed up video game and has miraculously delivered the Sickest Comedy Movie since "I Know Who Killed Me".
What makes "Postal" great is that it is genuinely CRAZY as opposed to something like "Tropic Thunder" which is a "Crazy Comedy" put together by Entertainment Industry Professionals who would never do anything that might stop them from getting invited to a party at David Geffen's house. But Uwe Boll? He's even more of a Hollywood Outsider than some naked guy sleeping in the woods cause he asked somebody to go to the Zoo to look at the ducks. A lot of the Humor in "Postal" is standard "South Park"-"Family Guy" stuff (George W Bush appears and, Guess what? He's really stupid!) but for every bit that sounds like something Seth McFarland would squeeze out there is something else that would get you bounced out of the Comedy Business and into the Walking The Street In A Tin Foil Hat Yelling At Mail Boxes Business. Dave Foley stars as Religious Cult Leader terrified to learn that his Assistant (Chris Coppola, doing enough overacting for the rest of the cast to get away with just laying on the floor) has taken his stoned prophecy that the Apocolypse will erupt when a Big Celebrity is raped by one thousand monkeys as God's Truth. This culminates in The Single Most Beautiful Sequence In All Of Motion Picture History when Coppola cries "BRING ON THE MONKEYS!!!" and Verne Troyer is hurled into a pit full of screaming chimpanzees. Your Life will never be the same! I'm coming up with good things to yell at mail boxes and I haven't even made my hat out of tin foil yet!
"Postal" also stars Zach Ward - Remember Zach as the scarey kid with the coonskin cap in "A Christmas Story"? He's all grown up now and although he is very good in "Postal" I think he should still wear a coonskin cap - Made out of tin foil!
So, rent these mothers and go into long noisy monologues about how great they are next time someone starts talking about those goddam Judd Apatow movies. And if it's a mailbox talking about that Apatow mess you won't even need a tin foil coonskin cap to give it The Business. But don't screw up and ask it to go to the Zoo to look at the ducks - It'll turn into Ralph Kramden! Take it to Bubbles' Super Kitties Sports Show instead!
Maybe it's time I gave "No Country For Old Men" another try?
Fuck that.
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