Techtite's DVD Reviews!

There's Something About Mary

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A Techtite Review

The Film : There's one comedy title, when reviewing comedies like American Pie and Say It Isn't So!, that always comes up: "There's Something About Mary." 176 million dollars in box office revenue leads to it being referenced over and over in film commercials. "This year's ' Something About Mary ' !"..."Fans of the Farrelly brothers films will love this one!"...yada, yada, yada. What did I think of the film? Read on.

In all seriousness, let's be fair: the script is ridiculous. Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller) had a crush on Mary (Cameron Diaz) ever since high school. At the film's beginning, we see his unsuccessful prom "date" with Mary, in one of the more amusing (no matter how improbable) jokes: Ted goes to the bathroom in Mary's home, and in haste gets his most sensitive of nether-regions caught in the fly of his pants. Sure, anyone else would try to forget this moment --and Mary-- as the times in puberty we'd just as soon never experienced, and yet, as the title suggests, "There's Something About Mary." Ted still harbors a crush on her, 20 years later, well into their adult years.

No matter how much pining over this one girl seems like stalking, Ted hires a seedy private detective named Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) to find Mary, so he can profess his love for her. However, "There's [still] Something About Mary," and now even Pat is smitten with her. He decides to tell Ted that Mary is totally fat and ugly now, so he can scare him off and try to swoon Mary for himself. He almost succeeds, though Ted is a very persistent stalker, and insists on seeing Mary one more time for himself. Once he learns the truth, he tries to date Mary and proceed on his plan to confess his "true" love for her. Trying to keep him from doing this are at least three additional stalkers in Mary's life, including Pat Healy. Sure, Diaz is a babe, though that's my gripe with this premise; would the only men in Cameron/Mary's life be four borderline psychotic sociopath nincompoops?

The biggest attempts at jokes in this film, involve two factors: one, Pat continues to thwart Ted's attempts to have a successful date with Mary, and two, Ted is still an incredible klutz. One "date" between Ted and Mary ends with her tiny dog --drugged with narcotics by Pat-- attacking Ted ferociously...in the crotch, of course. Sure, this may be taking the crotch jokes a bit too far, though seeing the tiny dog later, in a full body cast, is still pretty funny. The biggest scene, however, would have to be the now-infamous moment when Mary mistakes you-know-what on Ted's ear (?), as hair gel (??), and proceeds to put it in her own hair (???). Okay, yeah, maybe she would take excess "hair gel" from Ted's hair and put it into her own, though would she decide to use it to spike her hair like a punk rocker?

Mary's limitations are much like a man with a machine gun shooting at a barn in the dark. While some jokes are bound to hit their mark, dozens of them careen off into places unknown. For every "hair gel" moment, there's another joke in offense to the mentally handicapped, which is not funny in any sense of the word. Then there are jokes about old women's breasts; yeah, breasts begin to droop, though so does your butt, dude, so I'd shut up about it. There's another scene, where an amorous pizza delivery boy is caught trying to get Mary's attention by pretending to be physically handicapped. Sure, this is supposed to show that this boy is a nutcase, and yet, come on.

Why, then, is this film such a 176-million box office champion? Two words: Cameron Diaz. That, and the closest she ever got to a topless scene. Oh yeah; there's also the hair gel scene, which so many women are too stupid to realize is not as funny as it is an amusing homage to the typical "money shot" in Hustler magazine. No other actress in Hollywood would have agreed to be in such a film role, and at the same time, made it even slightly believable that so many men would be chasing after her. Talk about being a good sport; this film could have just as easily ended her career, as quickly as it helped it. Even Cameron Diaz herself, in an interview about the film, admitted to needing to be convinced that the "hair gel" scene would be considered funny. However, this is immaterial; the point is, boys flocked to the film to see Cameron Diaz, and not to see potty jokes. Forget the hogwash that America loves to be disgusted in comedies: this pitiful, C-grade comedy succeeded entirely because of Cameron Diaz. To refute this, ask yourself why just about every other Farrelly Bros. movie only did half the business as "Mary." There is something about Diaz, indeed.

I will admit, there must be even something MORE about "Mary," which I'm totally missing here. After all, every commercial for modern comedy feels obsessed with mentioning this film in some fashion. Yes, with 176 million dollars in box office receipts, there must really have been...something...about "Mary." However, aside from Diaz, I just don't see it.

The DVD : You'd expect it of any DVD; the comment track option. Peter and Bobby Farrelly are on hand, to tell you why...oh, why... they did each scene. The mentally handicapped jokes, the elderly women's breast jokes, and the hair gel jokes are all audio dubbed with the Farrelly brothers offering their two cents on why they felt each scene was worthy of being written, directed, and produced. Admittedly, even the most adamant critic against the film should find their banter slightly interesting.

Then there are the "outtakes." Not deleted scenes, mind you; "outtakes." What is the difference? I suppose the difference is this: while deleted scenes in DVDs for The Mask and Keeping The Faith were worth seeing, "outtakes" for Mary are not. Let's put it this way; the Farrelly bros. saw fit not to delete jokes about the mentally retarded, the physically handicapped, and even old women's breasts. These are the jokes they actually felt should be cut from the film. They are not as offensive as they are boring, and not worth even mentioning any more than these 7 sentences. Actually, the same can be said of the DVD as a whole.

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