Thursday, August 15, 2013

DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? (2000)

Slacker/stoner comedy about a pair of slacker stoners who wake up after a wild night of partying to find their kitchen stocked with chocolate pudding and their car missing.  Now these two stoners (Ashton Kutcher and Stifler) have to find their car because not only is it their car, but their girlfriends anniversary presents are inside.  During their quest they have all kinds of wacky adventures and meet a wild cast of bizarre characters including a transsexual stripper, a cult of bubble wrap wearing alien worshipers, hot chicks, nerds, Kristy Swanson, Andy Dick, a shit-talking Chinese drive-thru speaker box, Fabio, a weed smoking dog, peacocks, jocks, Zoltan, aliens, more aliens, a Super Hot Giant Alien and many others.

For being over a decade old DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? is surprisingly well dated.  The humor is still funny and the story is so simple that it'll probably hold up for another hundred years.  Ashton and Stifler make a good comedy team.  My biggest complaint is since the film is PG-13 there's barely any weed smoking and zero nudity!  What kind of stoner movie only has a dog as it only weed smoker?!  Even without any nudity or smoke, DWMC is definitely worth watching.  I've seen it dozens of times and I still laugh. And theeennnn?

Saturday, August 10, 2013

BANANAS (1971)

Early Woody Allen effort about a neurotic young man, Fielding Mellish (played by Woody), who falls for attractive social activist, Louise Lasser.  They date for awhile, but she eventually leaves him because he's not a "leader".  Depressed by this, Mellish goes to the (fictional) banana republic of San Marcos to show that he has concern for the poor people who live there.  Once there he accidentally gets involved with the rebel army and eventually, after they overthrow the government, placed as the new President.

As with all of Woody's earlier films the humor is mostly physical slapstick.  There's a few laughs (my favorite moment was the break-up scene.  I don't know how much was scripted or not, but it looked like both Woody and Louise were on the verge of cracking up), but the majority of the jokes are dated and forced.  It's still interesting from a historical point of view and to see Woody's evolution, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it.