Culture Blues

The Instant Movie Club: Year One

Every week, your friends at Culture Blues get together to watch a movie from their Netflix Instant queue. Then, they sit down over a plate of bear poop – yes, that’s a reference to the movie we’re about to discuss, you probably have some idea of how this is going to go – and discuss it. This is The Instant Movie Club.

This week, we’ll be discussing Year One, the 2009 comedy directed by Harol Ramis, produced by Judd Apatow, and starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. The below discussion contains spoilers, but who cares.

Next Week:  The Horseman. We head to the Australian Outback for this 2009 revenge flick, where an angry father seeks vengeance for his dead daughter.

WHEEEEEE! Our movie is going to suck!

Jeremiah:  Year One starts with some promise.

In the early hunting/gathering scenes we get some humorous modern takes on prehistoric society, a solid Michael Cera, a not totally annoying Jack Black, and a nice quick appearance from Bill Hader. I was thinking that maybe everyone who had panned Year One simply wasn’t willing to enjoy its silliness.

Moments later, a Paul Rudd and David Cross scene needed blunt trauma just to elicit a chuckle from me, and I knew we were in trouble. This scene should have been a slam dunk; unfortunately, it was awkward and juvenile. After that, Jack Black settles into his current comfort zone (which is incredibly annoying), actor after actor disappoints, and we are faced with scene after scene of Cera and Black facing uninteresting and unthreatening mortal danger.

I like the way that primitive beliefs and customs are met with a typically modern WTF from Cera and Black, but these jokes suffer from diminishing returns and quickly become unfunny. At that point, Cera is really the only thing worth watching, consistently creating laughs and making me not totally regret the time spent watching Year One.

This was never meant to be a movie, though, so much as a set up for barely connected sketches (many of which draw unflattering comparisons to previous comedies, Monty Python's Life of Brian being the most obvious). That's pretty much what I expected, but the big letdown is how ineffective the cast ends up being. Cera is beyond reproach here as the one consistent bright spot. Black appears beyond salvation, having traded in manic and funny for manic, unfunny, moronic and hosting Nickelodeon awards shows. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, a talented actor who has quickly proven he's much more than just McLovin, is wasted. Cross phones it in. Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria have a few bright spots, but fail to elevate the material. Most of all, I think I’m disappointed in Harold Ramis, but now that I look at his credits, he’s only directed two good movies (Groundhog Day, The Ice Harvest) in the last 20 years. That’s a lousy record.

David Cross is dying inside.

Jeff: The scene that really sums up Year One for me is when Jack Black and Michael Cera have been captured by the Romans and are locked in the dungeon. Michael Cera is hanging upside down. He starts to pee. There’s a protracted sequence of Cera peeing on himself and trying not to get it in his mouth or up his nose. All I could think about while this was going on was:  why? Why didn’t somebody stop this? Couldn’t one of his co-writers have sidled up to Harold Ramis and said “you know, Egon, why don’t we take this in another direction?” A comedy intervention should’ve been staged.

Year One is filled with gags similar to Cera peeing in his own mouth, and while they’re not always as crude, they’re usually just as unfunny. It is one derivative bit after the next. It’s a marvel to me just how bad Year One manages to be with such a stellar cast. It’s actually impressive that the film manages to fail so completely. There’s a ton of comedic talent here – this blows away the cast of something like Fired Up (superior) - these are comedy A-listers, some of which have experience behind the camera. Guys that should know better. How did they get roped into this one? I cannot stress enough how baffled I am by so many actors I like choosing a project that’s such an atrocity. Why did they do it? How much clout could Ramis really have? Do all the funny people in Hollywood owe him a solid? Did he defuse a bomb at the Hollywood comedy convention and save everyone’s lives? I don’t get it!

I’ll echo Jeremiah in that the one redeeming quality in this shit stew is Michael Cera. He’s playing his usual smart aleck milquetoast, but it works, and he’s the only consistent source of laughs. Everyone else is either wasted or, in the case of Jack Black, hamming it up to an impossibly annoying degree.

Year One was awful, but I can’t help but be intrigued by it. I want to know how these guys misfired so badly. I’d actually like to listen to the commentary track on the DVD, to see whether Ramis and Black apologize for this primitive fart or try to defend it. If you own a copy of Year One, please send it my way. I’ll do you a favor and never return it.

Our intern is crafting Ben a golden Michael Cera.

Ben: At the conclusion of our liveblog of the Emmy awards I was left with a choice. I could either watch the Netflix DVD that came for me in the mail, something I actually wanted to do, or I could watch Year One. When I told Jeff of my plans to do the latter he said “Oh god have fun with that” and it almost just made me skip this atrocity but since I have not been able to participate in the last couple IMCs I decided to bite the bullet. The intern is currently carving a statue of me for the CB headquarters lobby to commemorate my sacrifice.

I had a very similar reaction to Jeremiah when this film started: “huh, maybe this will be kind of alright.” I really enjoyed Michael Cera awkwardly hitting that girl with the stick. Jack Black’s bit about Maya’s family being ripped apart by wild dogs elicited a light chuckle from me. Things were on the right track. The problem, as Jeff and Jeremiah articulated, is sooner or later everything just became cheap and juvenile. It would be hard to throw a rock at this script and not hit a fart joke. As far as how this movie got made, it was probably like a snowball effect. Once more and more people signed on others probably just shrugged, said “alright” and cashed an obnoxious paycheck.

But what I’d like to talk about, since most of my more obvious points were taken by my colleagues, is Jack Black. I might be alone in this line of thought, but I think this is a talented comedian who literally seems unwilling to attach his name to anything that is worth a shit. Part of acting is choosing good scripts, and he either needs to fire his agent, or take a more pro-active role in choosing these projects. Jack’s natural instinct is to take things a bit too far, which occasionally serves him well but usually not. If any of these directors could just rope that in a little (and if he was willing to take their advice), then maybe he could be a more complete actor. Eventually most comedians, no matter how silly they have been in the past, try an oddball dark comedy. I just hope eventually he gets his own Punch Drunk Love. And then I hope he doesn’t screw it up with his annoying over the top bullshit.

Next Week:  The Horseman