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Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"After tons of Farrelly Brothers movies, as well as 14 seasons of South Park: it would take a high voltage wet electrical socket to "shock" the general public anymore. The bar has been raised to heights beyond the reach of mortal men. " --from the review ------------- Sidebar :: ------------- What makes raunchy humor funny? Ask yourself: what is the distinguishing characteristic that divides shows like this from shows like South Park? Perhaps its how South Park remains raunchy without losing its own humility. One of the funniest episodes was a salute to Simpsons, where they admitted that just about everything South Park did, Simpsons did already. That's the sort of humility that is funny. Yet when Drawn Together pokes fun at cartoons left and right, it lacks the same humility. It is like the creators are saying, "Hey; South Park is so lame, isn't it?" Um...guys? South Park's creators could buy you out and still have enough money to buy land in Japan. Something to think about before making a whole movie about how "great" your cartoon is and how "bad" every other cartoon is.
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The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!
Click photo to order this DVD. Review by TechtiteAs always, a review of The Show and the DVD extras. The Show: Shocking!!! Remember when that was all it took to sell an "uncensored" film? Unfortunately for The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, that time has passed. After tons of Farrelly Brothers movies, as well as 14 seasons of South Park: it would take a high voltage wet electrical socket to "shock" the general public anymore. The bar has been raised to heights beyond the reach of mortal men. That is not to say this film doesn't try. It just is a feeble attempt to "shock" at best, and at worst: it just isn't terribly entertaining. In fact; it's pretty disappointing.The film, for those unaware, is based on a short lived animated TV series on Comedy Central. The idea of that series was simple: have cartoon "celebrities" share a house together, much like the reality series, The Surreal Life. When you think about it: the idea is brilliant. No offense though I can't wait to see this series concept ripped off by someone with enough cartoon licenses to make the idea worth it. Can you imagine Batman, Beavis & Butthead, Super Mario, Disney's Princess Jasmine, and Scooby-Doo, in an "Adult Swim" style cartoon? Cool...! The series had one major flaw, however: the writers' over-the-top raunchy humor was hard to accomplish on a cable channel that isn't named HBO or Showtime. While some people might say that the humor was "helped" by the blurred nudity and the bleeped dialog...um, no, it was not. What if the series could be totally uncensored? That's what this DVD is here to answer, though be warned: the answer is very disappointing...due in no small part to the fact that all three seasons were already offered in "uncensored" format for years. As the characters might say: Duh?!? Here's the story: Foxxy learns she can swear without being censored, and soon learns this is because the show was cancelled. This is an outrage to the cast of Drawn Together, because, after all: "South Park" (or at least, this movie's piss poor parody of it) is still on the air. Why is that? The Drawn gang concludes that-other-show is more popular because of its moral messages (?!?), and it has a point (you're getting warmer...). They set out to get their show a point, to stay on the air. What follows is a mistake on several levels. While the idea was clearly to offer an "uncensored" story, the jokes are often less "uncensored raunchy humor," and more "let's see the Disney Princess parody get her arms chopped off." Yeah, I know; many little brothers of Disney-loving sisters are thinking: "WOW a Disney princess parody gets her arms chopped off? I cannot WAIT to buy this on Blu-Ray!" Yet before that child thins their wallet (or their parents' wallets, with some clearly needed child therapy!): this film's jokes about Disney are actually quite scarce, while the majority of jokes seem to be against South Park. Huh?!? Let's be honest: love or hate South Park, it is amazing when any series is about to conclude its 14th season on the air. It must be frustrating to be the cartoonist, constantly wondering why "their" raunchy cartoon did not to as well as "that" raunchy cartoon. Yet that's no reason to cross the line guys. Example: immediately after this movie's humorless parody of South Park, the scene pans to the show's fans, who are all glossy-eyed morons. Look; poke fun at a (much!) more popular cartoon show if you must, though insulting that show's fans is crossing the line. Even worse is the message this movie seems to be pitching: that Drawn Together is "exactly" like South Park, without being "preachy." Yikes! What were this movie's writers smoking? Mind you; this story could have been funny. The gang goes everywhere from a Disney parody to a Flintstones parody, to get their show a "point." Unfortunately, the gang has no idea what the "point" to their show is...and neither do the writers. Maybe the "point" is found by having Hero carry a rotting corpse around as his new girlfriend? Maybe the "point" is seeing Wooldorf's naked, uncensored manhood? Hey; maybe the point is to chop off Princess Clara's arms halfway through the movie, then leave her for dead for the rest of the entire movie? Yet the biggest problem with bad comedy is what I like to call the "Uma/Oprah" moment (sorry, Letterman). It's the moment where even the best of comics relies on a running gag that wasn't funny to begin with, yet the comic keeps repeating it, over and over, relentlessly. In short: Hero carries a corpse around as his new girlfriend, throughout the entire movie. How ironic: the first time you see Hero carry a corpse, the joke is dead. Then the joke begins to make the whole film stink. At what point did the animators not realize the irony? As the corpse slowly rots away, so does the joke itself! Awful! In the end, this DVD seems less like entertainment, and more like the series creators' therapy session. Someone is clearly bitter here about their show being cancelled, leading to, for all intent: a feature-length rant against South Park, Flintstones, Disney, Warner Bros., and frankly: every decent cartoon that ever existed. It is like one of those classic moments of Beavis and Butthead, when Beavis rants like a madman that "It sucks it sucks it sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks!" Yet the curious thing is: Beavis was always talking about things that did, indeed, suck. This movie seems to be saying: "Aren't all those more popular cartoons awful to watch?" In the words of Butthead: "Uhhhhh....NO?!?"
The DVD Extras: Audio commentary includes writers and producers Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, developer Jordan Young, and sound designer Kurt Vanzo. FYI: the movie itself pokes fun at how boring and dull audio commentaries usually are. What commentary track do they use as an example? This one, of course. I'm just saying. The writers of this show actually wrote jokes about how boring audio commentaries are, when writing the script for the movie. So do not expect much, here! Now for the featurettes. "True Confessionals" is the most interesting featurette offered, with the cast and crew giving their thoughts of the show's cancellation, their experiences voicing the characters, and their ideas for the future of Drawn Together. "The Legacy" tries to pretend that the series had some importance in the world as a whole, which frankly might've worked as a featurette for, say, Simpsons, or South Park, or maybe Family Guy on a good day, though not this. Let's move on... Anatomy of an Animated Sex Scene involves the obligatory uncensored scene in the movie whose whole worth is to appeal to people who love seeing their favorite cartoon characters in humiliatingly degrading sex (heaven forbid they imagine their favorite characters in a fun sexual encounter, though I digress). The whole worth of this featurette is simple: by listing this feature on the back of the DVD case, they get to casually mention this sex scene exists, right on the back of the DVD case. Here's one little fact that the back of the DVD case forgot to mention: this "sex scene" includes Foxxy and, of all characters, Toot. Yes; TOOT! You want to know the funniest part of the DVD? "D.I.Y. 3-D Glasses" explains how to make your own 3D glasses. Why? Because part of the film is offered optionally as a 3D scene, and guess what? Those economy friendly rapscallions behind this disc decided to offer NO 3D GLASSES with this disc. Okay, maybe that isn't terribly funny. It still made me laugh...though not in a fun way. Yes, there are deleted scenes, though as I often warn people when it comes to piss poor movies: these are the scenes that they decided not to include, in a bad movie. There is also a montage of each character's best moments from Drawn Together. Each "best of" montage is a little over 3 minutes. The series lasted 3 seasons. If that isn't the perfect epitaph to this series, I do not know what is.
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