Our Flick of the Week is the explosively funny “There’s Something About Mary,” which I haven’t stopped talking about and recommending to friends since I saw it a week ago.
This is the latest outrageous comedy from filmmaking brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who last cracked me up this much with the Amish bowling comedy “Kingpin” to the extent I placed it on my “10 Best” list the year it was released.
A sample of their deliriously tasteless humor from that film: Woody Harrelson plays a bowler who lost a hand in a fight and now wears a thick rubber prosthetic. Well, on one toss the rubber hand and fingers get stuck in the ball and make a very funny sight and sound as they come flapping back through the ball return.
Gross? Sure. Funny? Memorably so. Most filmmakers wouldn’t have dared to include that shot, fearing being called insensitive. But the key to the Farrellys’ success (they also made “Dumb and Dumber”) is that they are absolutely fearless. They set up comic situations, some of them familiar, but take them to a visual conclusion that can be shockingly funny. For example, in “There’s Something About Mary,” a man gets his private parts stuck in a zipper. We’ve seen that moment before, but it has never been played out the way it is in this film.
And by now I know what you’re thinking: This stuff is juvenile. For sure, and I plead guilty to enjoying almost every bit of it. Maybe seeing movies constantly for 29 years arrests one’s development.
The story of “There’s Something About Mary” involves a group of men, one by one, developing crushes on the same attractive young woman. Ben Stiller toys with his screen image by playing a braces-wearing doofus who hasn’t gotten over his high-school infatuation with the strikingly beautiful Mary (played by the eminently watchable Cameron Diaz of “Mask”), who looks great wearing the most simple clothes, often just shorts and a T-shirt.
To help him reconnect with Mary, Stiller hires an investigator (Matt Dillon) who flips for Mary himself once he locates her. But the story in a Farrelly brothers movie is just a line for gag sequences, including, this time, setting a pet afire by mistake. Other gags are raunchy and not for kids. Indeed, just 10 minutes ago — honest — I received a call from a friend I sent to a preview, and he said, “If my 13-year-old daughter ever saw that picture, I’d kill her.”
So, to prevent any fatalities, I repeat, “There’s Something About Mary” contains truly raunchy comedy. You have been warned. Rated R. (star) (star) (star) 1/2
– THE MASK OF ZORRO. An utterly routine, expensive, high-gloss treatment of the adventures of the Spanish Batman, another caped crusader who defends the peasant class from being exploited by the gentry. Antonio Banderas has been cast as Zorro — and not for his ability with a sword. He’s supposed to be a swarthy heartthrob here, but action dominates the few romantic moments in the script. Let’s face it: Everything about this mechanical enterprise speaks of a film that was conceived as a commercial enterprise to perhaps rework into a series. Not likely. PG-13. (star) (star)
– WHATEVER. A bold film that offers an unblinking look at the trials and temptations that await high-school girls. By the end of the film, you are glad that any survive, and that makes this picture worthy of being seen and discussed by younger teenagers, despite its rating. R. (star) (star) (star)
More Top Picks Best Epoxy Resin Kits
– New this week