Papa’s Basement 7-10-10-Mad Mel
So, remember that tape we mentioned last week featuring Mel Gibson screaming at his ex Oksana Grigorieva about how she dresses like a whore and would get “raped by a […]
This was supposed to be a review of Predators. Ever since the co-host of Papa’s Basement, Rachel Oehring, issued a scathing review of that film on my radio show last week, I had been champing at the bit to see it, love it and wave my appreciation of it in her face like a piece of dog shit on a stick. I also figured a review of a popular film that was only a week late wouldn’t exactly hurt traffic to my site.
The big day was supposed to be Wednesday. I had contacted a few male friends (and only male friends) because bringing a woman to Predators would have been asking for an awful time. They’d have either grimaced their way through it and halfheartedly pretended it wasn’t so bad afterward or vocally expressed their displeasure every five seconds throughout. In retrospect, that sounded eerily similar to me describing a girl’s reaction to anal. An hour before Predators‘ showtime, however, I got a call from my brother that he and our friend Allison were going to go see Cyrus in a few minutes and I was invited if I wanted to join them. Usually I’d have said “piss off” and continued with my plans, but Allison is a close friend of the family that we don’t see often. Plus, she’s had some health issues recently, so I’d feel pretty guilty if she kicked the bucket in a few weeks and I had skipped seeing her one last time to watch a sequel. I called my friends, told them we’d see Predators soon and girded myself for Cyrus.
The premise of Cyrus is fertile comedic ground: John C. Reilly plays John (clever), a divorcee who leads a life of paralyzing loneliness. At a party he meets Molly (the still-überporkable Marisa Tomei) who sees past his depression and falls for him. Everything seems to be going great for John until he encounters Molly’s son Cyrus (Jonah Hill Feldstein. Yep, that’s Jonah Hill’s real name), who displays an unhealthy, almost Oedipal level of attachment to his mother. The rest of the movie plays out as a standard romantic comedy involving lovers dueling for a woman’s heart…except one of those dueling is the woman’s son.
It all sounds so promising, doesn’t it? John C. Reilly in the throes of depression. Jonah Feldstein in an almost-incestuous relationship. Marisa Tomei repeatedly checking herself for lumps on camera (I made that one up). Sadly, the movie never makes up its mind what direction it wants to take its premise in. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a futon: A shitty, uncomfortable comedy that unfolds into a shitty, uncomfortable drama. And please, don’t think I feel this way just because it was a subdued, indie film: Nothing gives me a bigger hardon than being a titanic prick about “understanding” a film that was too refined for other people. For example, my appreciation of Freddy Got Fingered is legendary.
So skip Cyrus this weekend, which you were probably going to do anyway because you’d never heard of the goddamn thing to begin with and Inception looks amazing. It’ll be there waiting for you on Netflix in two months (and hopefully streaming, because I couldn’t tell you in good conscience to use a DVD delivery slot on it). In the meantime, if you want a laugh from John C. Reilly, check out this clip of him in Talladega Nights. Now that’s entertainment fit for my refined palate.
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