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Say it Isn't So!
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The Film:
I must admit, I was pretty forgiving for the first
comedies of 2001. Suffice to say that personal family matters made the
year start off with a very sour note, that made even the slightest number
of laughs appreciated. As a result, low-grade comedy films like Monkey Bone
and Saving Silverman had that...one...
slightly-amusing moment, that kept me from loathing the films, even if I
could not recommend seeing them. Let's just say I rated both a
"near miss" --marginal-thumbs-down-- instead of a dead-end
"Burnout." If only "Say It Isn't So!" was as lucky:
a comedy so bad, it nearly warrants updating my list from last year, of Worst
Non-Sequel Comedies I Ever Saw. Yet its commercials still have
the crust to say it has close ties to There's
Something About Mary. Oh, really? I
wish I could summarize the script in two words: incest jokes. Is that an
oxymoron, or what? If you're the type of person who insists on more
detail, consider yourself warned. Gilly Noble (Chris Klein) has fallen in
love with Josephine Wingfield (Heather Graham). Sure, the film depicts her as a klutzy
ditz with an oddball mother as a potential mother-in-law, and yet we're
supposed to believe she's a real catch. I suppose someone
off-camera whispered into Gilly's ear, "Dude, she's the actress who
played a porn star in Boogie Nights," and automatically
he's totally smitten with her. Whatever. As it so turns out, they learn
they may be brother and sister, meaning all their torrid sex was incest.
Ha-ha, gee, isn't that funny? Wait: it gets even worse. Read on... The
"good news" is, Gilly isn't Jo's biological brother at all,
which he finds out soon after Jo leaves town in shame. Gosh, this means he can
marry his "true love", though he has to hurry! You see, the
ditzy Jo --with the short-term memory of a tic-tac, and the attention span
of a gnat-- is already involved with someone else! Gilly must inform her
of the "little" misunderstanding, before it's too late.
Meanwhile, we're treated to a barrage of "sister@#$%er" jokes,
and the irrefutably worst role in Sally Field's life, as Jo's peculiar
mother, Valdine. I am reminded of Sally Field's infamous Oscar
acceptance speech, which made her seem so obsessed with Hollywood "really,
really" liking her. This film isn't likely to help. Of
course, this is a film that must live up to the allegation of being a
"Farrelly brothers" type of comedy, so incest jokes are not all
there is to repulse you. While There's Something About Mary
tried to poke fun at the mentally handicapped, this film tries to poke fun
at the physically handicapped, with an amputee character named Dig
McCaffrey (Orlando Jones). Surprisingly, this isn't the worst of it. The biggest
sign of a bad comedy are jokes that seem so implausible, so labored, that
they just lose their strength completely. Examples include the giant
hamster scene in Nutty Professor 2, where in order for the joke to work,
you must believe a grown adult man would decide to protect himself from a giant hamster
with a fur coat, that just happens to be lying around, in the middle of
JULY.
Compare this scene to the moment where Gilly's
hand gets stuck in a cow's behind. Why would he ever --for any reason, in
any way, shape, or form-- get his hand there to begin with? The
scene that really will have you going, "Oh, come ON now!" is the
plane banner scene. Dig McCaffrey offers Gilly the chance to proclaim to
What's-her-face that "Jo, I'm not your brother. Marry Me!" Just
before takeoff, the banner gets caught on a rock, just exactly --precisely--
where the word "not" is. Maybe this scene would seem less
labored if the rock tore off some of the letters nearby; "Jo, I you
brother..." Perhaps more likely, this comedy just sucks. All
this begs the question: What relations does this awful film have with There's
Something About Mary? Answer: Not much. Peter and Bobby Farrelly
are Producers, though they did not direct, nor write the
screenplay. James B. Rogers, instead, offers his first attempt at
Director. Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow contribute
their first produced script.
The Internet Movie Database claims that Gaulke and Swallow's
"biggest" prior film contribution is a pair of acting roles in "Me, Myself, and
Irene." Remember them? They were "Motel Cop #1" and
"Motel Cop #2." Oh, yeah; Gaulke
also was one of many writers for Saturday Night Live...in recent
years. Perhaps that's why most of SNL's recent years totally stink. This film, overall, suffers
from an improper notion of what it takes to make a Farrelly brothers
movie. The belief is frequently that all a Farrelly film "clone"
needs is to take a beautiful actress, a few sewer-ridden plot concepts, and you have a Farrelly film. Even if you hate
Farrelly brothers' films, it is fair enough to admit this much: it takes a
skilled, experienced team to make a sewer-comedy work. A bunch of
amateurs, in their first attempt at writing/directing, is far from such a
team. The DVD :
This is one of those films that tries vainly to add "bonus
features" to give the illusion of being half as worthwhile in DVD
form on the rental shelf. This is worthwhile strategy to the film that did
a paltry 5 and a half million at the box office, since in most video
rental stores DVD rentals cost more. More rentals of the DVD version means they might actually, eventually, get some form of profit
from the film. Good luck. The
commentary offered is from first-time director James B. Rogers, and Chris
Klein. It would have been nice if Heather Graham was on hand, to offer a
few insights like the ones she gave to the commentary for Boogie
Nights. However, you can hardly blame her for "calling in
sick" the day the comment track was taped. Without her, though,
Rogers and Klein are two men without a major cause (or, for that matter, a
major film to discuss). Other bonuses follow in the tradition of
cheap-sales-gimmick. Deleted scenes and a Comedy Central featurette are
included, though so what? Looking at the scenes that they decided to leave
in the movie, you can imagine how BAD the deleted scenes are. As for the
featurette, well, you get the usual blind praise for a total box office
bomb, though nothing special. In short; if you feel totally compelled to
see this film, either rent the more-affordable VHS version, or wait for it
on cable.
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