The Wedding Crashers (2005)

[tabuno]

I usually wouldn't insult readers to this site with even posting comments on a movie like "The Wedding Crashers" but there is a larger filmography issue the lurks behind a movie like "The Wedding Crashers." This predictable "There's Something About Mary" wannabee movie appears to cross the line for obvious grossness.

**Spoiler**

In the movies most gross scene probably to be likened to "There's Something About Mary" and her gel hair scene, Vince Vaughn's character is subjected to a graphic handjob at a dinner table scene, that's funny but not really.

**Spoiler Ended**

Owen Wilson's character is presented as an unlikeable, self-absorbed, superficial prick that is hard that any girl in their right mind would want to be with

**Spoiler**

especially after she found out about his true history.

**Spoiler Ended**

What is intriguing about this movie is the difficulty in separating out one's personal moral values and the movie's qualitative values. The more I didn't like what I saw on the screen in terms of typical selfish, bastard-like male behavior in this comedy the more I wanted to walk out of the movie. I assume that if this same plot had taken a comedy drama genre approach, I would have preferred this movie much more and rated it a lot higher.

[Chris Knipp]

Should the contributors to FilmWurld be deemed too highfalutin to discuss popular comedy? I didn't plan to write a review of Wedding Crashers because I tend to feel a bit out of my element with this kind of thing. But I feel called upon to defend this movie against tabuno, champion of the popular mainstream film, who chooses to condemn a marriage comedy because it represents men as boorish. When Anthony Lane of The New Yorker opened with the excellent line, "The first half hour of The Wedding Crashers is rabid with simple pleasure," he was pointing to real virtues.

The general impression I got both from him and others who reported on it was that the movie was very funny in the first part but got sentimental toward the end, ruining the comedy. Yes, and there was also some grossness; but that comes even in comedies for children in these degenerate modern days.

I like Lane's lead, but I'm not sure he got his timing right. In fact, despite the grossness tabuno comments on, Wedding Crashers is funny all the way through. To find Owen Wilson purely boorish is to overlook his debonair charm. Of course both men are boorish and they need to get over it; that's the healing element of the comedy; it's a path to wisdom and better behavior -- although the real villain is the nasty fiance from the power elite who Owen Wilson displaces. Vince Vaugnan is the engine of the comedy, though, not Owen, who's more Vaughan's backup and the romantic lead. Vaughan has a manic verbal wit that keeps the humor flowing and edgy.

I thought Shakespeare also was in bad taste, when he stooped to comedy. Comedy is a low form. And thank God for it and the laughs it brings even in the grimmest times.

One spoiler warning to a post ought to be enough.

[tabuno]

Mr. Knipp has decided step out of his element so he says in his commentary to my apparent choice to "condemn" this movie. Of course, if one actually read my commentary I find it really difficult to locate in it my choice to "condemn" this movie and I assume most other people would read my comments would also.

When I saw "There's Something About Mary," I didn't have the same emotional reaction as I did when I saw some woman pawing graphically at a guy's crotch. It really was unnecessary I thought because we've all seen the same scene before. This was another instance of the presumption that more is better. Like with horror movies, sometimes less is better. The actual sight of extended groping focused more on the actual act than the reaction it created in the character having to go through the experience taking away from the more funnier aspects of the scene. I just didn't find this scene funny, I found it insulting as it was not needed. The scene appears to be another attempt to follow the boorish teenagers who grew up with the idiotic juvenile, mindless comedies and are now adults who haven't put away their toys yet, much to the dismay of the more responsible female kind of the human species.

I also wonder about what children's movies or family movies that Mr. Knipp is referring to when it talks about grossness. Is the logic that if children are now being subjected to grossness it must be ok for movies to extend the same standard to adults and it makes the movie good?

Again with my specific comments about Owen Wilson's character and his apparent repulsivenss and bewilderment why anyone would want him wasn't specifically addressed, skirting my original issue - how does one separate personal values and movie values?

Mr. Knipp for one has missed the point of the post.

[Chris Knipp]

Mr. Knipp has missed the point of the post.Pray make the point more clearly.

If you didn't mean to condemn the movie, then why did you suggest it was embarassing even to mention it on this site? Why'd you say that it's a "predictable 'There's Something About Mary' wannabee movie" and that it "appears to cross the line for obvious grossness" that may seem "funny but not really"; that one of the main characters is "presented as an unlikeable, self-absorbed, superficial prick," and that the more you watched it the more you wanted to walk out?

If these don't add up to a condemnation, it beats me.

The bottom line is you didn't find the movie funny. If you had, you'd have excused the grossness, as you may have done in the past. Comedy usually takes liberty with rules of propriety.


Again with my specific comments about Owen Wilson's character and his apparent repulsivenss and bewilderment why anyone would want him wasn't specifically addressed, skirting my original issue - how does one separate personal values and movie values? It was addressed. I said I disagreed. In my view, and I don't think I am alone, Owen Wilson is charming and suave. He gets away with the rest because of that. If anything Vaughan is more abrasive. They're a great team, and clearly make this movie, and in fact had a lot to do with the final form of their dialogue -- though Wilson is the writer, in this case according to Wilson, Vaughan made more contributions to that.

What you mean by "how does one separate personal values and movie values?" I don't get the point of this question. Please explain.

Children's movies are something I read about more than see. I read that they're gross. If anything influences the other the adult ones influence the kids' ones, but my point is that sexual explicitness and grossness are pervasive. Kids are exposed to things I never saw or heard at that age, but they may be none the worse for it.

[tabuno]

Chris Knipp: "If you didn't mean to condemn the movie, then why did you suggest it was embarassing even to mention it on this site? Why'd you say that it's a "predictable 'There's Something About Mary' wannabee movie" and that it "appears to cross the line for obvious grossness" that may seem "funny but not really"; that one of the main characters is "presented as an unlikeable, self-absorbed, superficial prick," and that the more you watched it the more you wanted to walk out? If these don't add up to a condemnation, it beats me."

tabuno: When one examines the overall content of this website, it becomes apparent that movies like "The Wedding Crashers" do not receive much attention, in fact, in most cases, they do not receive any attention at all. I won't say, "I wonder why that is?" because to me it's somewhat apparent that such movies do not have the substantive content nor cinemagraphic qualities that the movies that are dicussed on this site possess or attempt to possess. The closest one might come to a comedy on this site is "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

What you've done is taken out of context my specific concerns about this movie and made them into a condemnation of the entire movie. The movie is predictable, so too are movie movies that I don't condemn, just not that great and somewhat boring and not compelling as when one doesn't know where the movie is going. The grossness is restricted to a few scenes that seems to cross the line as well as unnecessary in the entire movie, and the one main character who you infer is a boorish character that by definition means "rude, awkward, ill-mannered" that I have yet to understand and I repeat, why would anyone care of this character in the first place...he was a "prick"...just ask some of the women's reflection on Owen Wilson's character. I'm not just making this up, it actually reflects some of the nature of the movie. This wasn't a comedy-drama, it was a comedy of raunchy proportions that I've said is really meant for those men who haven't grown out of their childhoods yet. I don't condemn this movie, I just don't see why this movie should be considered good when there's an unnecessary crude shots that don't do anything for the movie but detract from it and that there is a main character that really is rude, awkward, and ill-mannered that really for me went beyond a comedic genre role into something much more dark and insulting.

I applaud the rest of the film, except for Owen Wilson's character kept getting literally beat up on the football field, that also was somewhat masochistically unnecessary. I enjoyed Christopher Walken as always. I enjoyed the various wedding variations. I enjoyed the female revenge episodes. There's a difference between condemning a movie and having serious problems with one scene and one of the major characters in the movie.

[tabuno]

The point of my original post is as I wrote, "The difficulty in separating out one's personal moral values and the movie's qualitative values." It would be nice if instead of discussing the minor specks of issues would focus on the more substantive matter of my leading concern that I mentioned in my concluding paragraph.

[Chris Knipp]

I can't make much sense out of anything you're saying.

I'm sure movies like Wedding Crashers are discussed somewhere on this site, if only in threads like "Worst Films of 2004" or "Guilty Pleasures." If others here treat comedy as densely and unkindly as you do this movie, no wonder it isn't much discussed here.


"The difficulty in separating out one's personal moral values and the movie's qualitative values." This still means nothing.

Look at this movie's page on metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/weddingcrashers) and you'll see that plenty of quite respectable critics have very good things to say about this enjoyable comedy. Even the unfavorable reviews admit there are plenty of laughs.

I think you've made a point, if not the point you had in mind. Maybe we have to leave it at that.

ONLINE DICTIONARY:
film·og·ra·phy
n., pl. -phies.
A comprehensive list of movies in a particular category, as of those by a given director or in a specific genre.

[tabuno]

Chris Knipp: "If others here treat comedy as densely and unkindly as you do this movie, no wonder it isn't much discussed here."

tabuno: I think if you feel that I treat comedy densely and unkindly than I think you need to look further and look at the Academy Awards when it comes to unkind treatment. How many best actor and actress awards have gone to performers in a comedy? Personally after having taken a year of acting at the University of Utah, I believe that comedy is the much harder, more demanding art form than drama. There is more required of good comedy, more timing, good script work, refined body work and performance than in drama. Drama is almost easy compared to comedy. There's plenty of quality comedy by some of the best actors in the business that "The Wedding Crashers" really shouldn't even be discussed in the same league.

The Full Monty (1997) that didn't require overt sexual behavior to produce one of the best climaxes (pun not intended) in comedy.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988).

Tootsie (1982).

Splash (1984).

M*A*S*H (1970).

I don't understand the need for grossness, for boorish characters - it just seems cheap and lowers comedy to a level that really doesn't need to be promoted or applauded. The General (1972), Charlie Chaplin remains one of the best.

[HorseradishTree]

The General was Buster Keaton, and it came out in 1927.

[Chris Knipp]

Personally after having taken a year of acting at the University of Utah, I believe that comedy is the much harder, more demanding art form than drama. There is more required of good comedy, more timing, good script work, refined body work and performance than in drama. Drama is almost easy compared to comedy. There's plenty of quality comedy by some of the best actors in the business that "The Wedding Crashers" really shouldn't even be discussed in the same league.
I can agree with a lot of what you're saying, though I don't think that justifies condemning Wedding Crashers. On the contrary, your appreciation of the skill required to do comedy might have made you see what a talented pair Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan are. I don't think we have to get into which requires more skill, comedy or drama; we can just say they're equally demanding. If Wilson and Vaughan had been in the course you took they might have done equally well in both, or found comedy easier. It's true the Oscars are set up to favor drama, and that may be a shame. But it reflects a respect for drama over other categories that the public shares.

It's also true that in the days of Buster Keaton, which was a heyday of film comedy of a kind for sure, as was the later time of the Marx brothers, there was no need for or use of grossness to generate laughs. Standards are different now even from a few years ago. Movies are a popular art and Wedding Crashers is geared to a contemporary audience and current standards. It's funny, and it's entertaining. It's meant to be outrageous; that's part of the comedy -- as outrageousness has always been, whether we've been able to see it on the big screen or not. Sorry you didn't enjoy this movie. But it's still funny, even if you didn't like it.

[hengcs]

Hey,
Who knows, maybe the film or actor(s) may make it to next year's Golden Globe nomination ... for musical/comedy categories ...

I actually like the film ... a nice break from serious or independent films.
;)

As of now, I am only certain that Bill Murray (in Broken Flowers) will make it to the acting category for musical/comedy. But seriously, I hope some directors will cast him in other kinds of roles ...