Comedians Aren’t Funny In Newsweek
By Beth in Uncategorized, Will Ferrell, comedy, Comedy Central, The Office, Movies, Hollywood, Adam Sandler, Steve Carell, Newsweek on April 27 2007I happened to read the same Newsweek article mentioned in the previous post. I don’t dig “The Simpsons” so much so I can’t share Ariel’s enthusiasm, but I can share some of my insights about this summer preview article Newsweek unveiled on its unsuspecting readers.
Ok, so I read it twice, maybe three times. I kept thinking maybe I was missing out on the point of the piece? It’s a summer preview of all the comedies coming out this Summer. A lot of these movies star my favorite funnymen: Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, Robin Williams, Paul Rudd (questionable w/out Ferrell and Carell alongside), Adam Sandler, etc. And yet…And yet…
Why did Newsweek pay these guys to do tongue-in-cheek type reviews of their own films “in character”? The premise was just a little too weird for my pea-sized brain to wrap itself around.
Case-in-point: Paul Rudd is starring in “The Ten“-an anthology-based flick loosely based on the actual Ten Commandments in which each characters’ story somehow relates to one of the commandments.
So here’s what Rudd (as “Jeff“)writes for Newsweek:
Though it’s debated, many people believe that there was a first set of commandments that Moses smashed in a fit of anger (because the Israelites chose to worship the golden calf. Great!). Through extensive research (i.e., Wikipedia), a few of the originals have been unearthed. Drumroll, please:
- Thou shalt not get a tattoo of an Asian proverb if you’re a lame white guy.
- Honor small, medium and large. Tall, grande and venti are for jackasses.
- Thou shalt never try and live with bears.
- Thou shalt not go back to Rockville (specifically for R.E.M.).
- Thou shalt never, never, never, ever buy a Hummer.
Huh? Maybe it’s just too obscure to have comedians pretending to be actors acting “in-part” pretending to be writers describing their pretend roles to readers.
Can the equation work when only one of its component is actually real?
