Beaten senseless by STRANGE WILDERNESS
By Stewart Grinton • Feb 15th, 2008 • Category: Rants and Raves
My wife and I didn’t have any formal Valentine’s Day plans yesterday so on her way home from work she called me up and suggested we meet at the multiplex for a flick (that’s why I love her). So I quickly hopped onto colamovies.com to check out what was playing.
CLOVERFIELD was tempting but I didn’t think Katie would enjoy it. SWEENY TODD is academy nominated but I wasn’t in the mood for a musical. And I’ve pretty much seen everything I wanted to lately so I skimmed all the way down to STRANGE WILDERNESS. I’d seen the trailer for this comedy on TV and thought it looked sufficiently funny. And the subject matter is pretty much exactly what I do at work – shoot wildlife video. So I gathered that if it was produced by the intermittently funny Happy Madison Productions and it costarred Jonah Hill, hot off his success in SUPERBAD, then maybe we got a shot at some light hearted entertainment.
We lasted 33 minutes. Our intellects were beaten senseless by stupid physical gags and joke after joke about marijuana and sex until finally I stood up and said, “I just can’t do this! Let’s go rent something.” So we walked out. I even asked the manager before we left if they offered a pro-rated refund for insufferably bad movies (I know they don’t, I used to work at this theater). The manager visibly shrank muttering, “No sorry… I thought it was really funny.”
Well of course you did! You’re 18, working at a movie theater and breathing popcorn fumes all day. The mousy ticket-taker had backed up that opinion when we entered the movie hall exclaiming, “Oh man this movie was really funny. You should enjoy this a lot! Third house on your left.” I mean, they don’t pay these goons enough to actually be falsely enthusiastic about the films they show. So I’m left assuming that those dunderheads really did like STRANGE WILDERNESS.
And I’d be worried if I were Jonah Hill. He was great in SUPERBAD but as overweight as he was then, he’s actually packed it on since. He’s big as a freaking house! Maybe his comedy shrinks as his belly grows or something. It was just such a waste of talent. Steve Zahn is absolutely transparent and I couldn’t believe that Ernest Borgnine and Jeff Garlin also have roles. They should be ashamed. Then again, so should I for having paid $13.
The sad part is that this could have been a really funny story. All of the nature footage we see is stock footage and narrated by Zahn who regularly breaks character and starts some foul mouthed rant that doesn’t make sense for a show that’s supposed to air on cable. There’s even nudity. To keep from getting canceled Zahn and crew hop in the RV and head for Ecuador where they hope to get shots of the infamous Bigfoot. At least I think that’s what happens. Again, we left.
I broke my own golden rule by participating in this mess: “Adam Sandler is stupid. Don’t see his movies.” I apologized profusely to my wife and we ended up having a quite night at the condo. C’est la vie.
Stewart Grinton is a video producer for a state agency and balances such wholesomeness by freelance editing all manner of sleaze locally. Last year he collaborated on THE FOUR CHILDREN OF TANDER WELCH, for which he was DP and Editor.
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I’ve only known of this site for a couple of weeks. But frankly, the concenpt of a review that covers a whopping 33 minutes? It might seem clever or unique, but it’s really just a turn off.
If I wanted half-assed reviews I could look to the major paper. Third-assed reviews? Sorry no interest at all.
You have a very valid point, and we appreciate your opinion. We also admit that we don’t normally review Adam Sandler movies. The majority of our effort is focused on DVD reviews of weird film and our soundtrack reviews. That’s our specialty and I think it’s safe to say we do a fine job in that area.
I’m also going to defend our reviewer here too. If the reviewer says he can’t stand more than 30 minutes of a film, then that’s his opinion and therefore his review. Movie reviews are subjective and no one agrees with all of them.
I believe even Roger Ebert walks out of a bad film from time to time.
BTW, judging from Rotten Tomatoes (http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/m/strange_wilderness/), I’d say our reviewer wasn’t alone in his assessment. His credibility remains intact as far as I’m concerned.
But again, I do appreciate your feedback and I thank you for reading and taking the time to comment. The site’s only been up a few months, and admittedly, we are are still finding our way here in many areas.
Thanks for checking out our site Jarrod.
Just wanted to note that my comments for STRANGE WILDERNESS are included in the “Rants & Raves” section of our site. Not DVD Reviews. That was a very conscious decision on my part because I agree with you that a reviewer would at least need to see the entire film to rate positively or negatively. That’s only fair to the filmmaker.
Usually I find at least one redemptive quality about a film I would otherwise not recommend. But as a movie-goer I have to ask myself in such circumstances, “Is this worth my time?” I decided it wasn’t in this case and so decided to make better use of that time (especially since I was with my wife).
Note that I gave no star rating in the end. This was just a personal account of a less than ideal night.
I want to thank you again for visiting our site. I’m new to this “writing for pleasure” and appreciate your constructive feedback.
Stew Baby -
You were fingersnapping right on the money. Consider wandering into that theatre as temporary insanity.
Anyone who truly needs a review of that “film” should perhaps stick to the Cartoon Network (I do so loves me some Tom & Jerry).
I enjoyed your take on the experience with the actual movie as an aside.
Cheers!
Ahhh, I gladly stand corrected.
As a rant or a rave, it’s as completely valid and I never meant to impune your opinion or right to do something different, I mistakenly took it as a review and was a bit miffed.
Overall I’ve really enjoy the content and quality of this site and missed the direction you were going with this one.
And just to clarify, I wasn’t really looking for a true serious review of the film, at least in that I had no real interest in seeing the movie. It was more a matter that I’m certainly not in the target demographic for such “cinema” and was curious how someone else outside of the target group might view such a film. Frankly, I don’t know that I would have made it thirty minutes myself, my mistake was simply looking for a review instead of grasping it was a rant about your experience. Keep up the great work all!
No worries Jarrod and thanks again your input.
We’re glad you like the site. We work on it harder than we should!
We’re just glad to get your traffic! Thanks for the input!