In yet more new movie trailer news, IGN has debuted the red-band trailer for Your Highness, the medieval stoner epic from David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and Ben Best (basically the creative team from Eastbound and Down).  It stars James Franco and Natalie Portman, whose graduation from earnest-but-slightly-pretentious smartypants who cares about important world issues to just-because-I-care-about-world-issues-doesn’t mean I can’t act like one of the guys continues.  I’d suggest enjoying this phase as much as we can before the eventual transition to “suburban yuppie.”  Trust me, man, I know these college chicks.

(rated R for naughty language)

Haha, get it?  It’s funny because they swear!  …No, seriously though, it actually is.  And bonus points for the Dropkick Murphys theme song. Though I could’ve done without the “guy falling down” joke. I would’ve thought Black Knight had those pretty well covered.

[IGN]

MSN has debuted the new red-band trailer for Your Highness (watch it after the jump), starring Danny McBride, Zooey Deschanel, James Franco, and Natalie Portman’s butt.  You’ll definitely want to watch the red-band version, because in the regular, green-band version, Natalie Portman’s medieval thong (see links at left) has been altered, nay, CENSORED, too look like this:

(*cleans monocle, does spit take*) Whaaa? Did they shoot this scene twice with two different bikinis?  Was she digitally de-thonged? If so, how’d they’d decide who got the job of post-production full-butt bikini supervisor?  And if they shot it twice, was there a sexy costume designer around to supervise during the wardrobe change?  I mean, someone would have to monitor it, for continuity, right?  The point is, I’m intrigued.  And now, farbeit from me to diss Natalie Portman’s butt, because, as a blogger, Natalie Portman’s butt puts food in my mouth, but… well, it could be meatier.  I’m just sayin.

<br><a href="javascript:;" title="Exclusive: 'Your Highness' Trailer (Mature Audiences)" onclick="post_nav(sdl('torhaaspvca39s%i%rfci3e3e6anAsDn-9g%%Soez.22Le9xcFFPm9go%mlbdJm2o%e-D/Fv3d4RtmiA%2mroee216av-m3bZnitb%-psere2brisadF5At.i%v3N.ml3i7/pseAd-/hnr%ebpp.s2odr?c%6%beuo2f2fsrmFgF4el%%%75n=2334athFFD18.tmssd7r', 187, 202, 7, 39), {su:window.location}, '_blank');">Video: Exclusive: ‘Your Highness’ Trailer (Mature Audiences)</a>

Opens April 8th.

It didn’t seem to bode well for the movie, when in the first trailer for Your Highness, the centerpiece joke was a guy falling down.  The red-band trailer was a huge improvement, but even in that, Natalie Portman’s butt sort of stole the show.  You can hardly blame them, she’s an Oscar winner.  If I made a movie with Meryl Streep’s bush in it, it wouldn’t matter what it was about, Meryl Streep’s bush would be the selling point.  Maybe even the name of my first born.  In any case, early word is that Your Highness does indeed have stuff besides Natalie Portman’s butt in it, and 85% of that stuff is cow boners.   As Danny McBride recently told Opie and Anthony:

“We have a minotaur hard-on in the film.  …And it’s full hard.  There is a rape scene with a minotaur and a man.  You see the minotaur… get his sh*t going.  You apparently can’t show a male hard-on, but since this was a minotaur, we said it was the bull which was getting turned on.  Because the bull is the bottom half.  You can get away with that if it’s creature hard-ons.”

I’ve admitted this before, but one of my ultimate guilty pleasure movies is Freddy Got Fingered, which probably has a lot to do with seeing it when I was really high.  And of course the signature scene in that film is Tom Green holding up an erect horse penis shouting, “Daddy, I’m a farmer!”  I guess what I’m trying to say is that if your film has big erect farm animal penises, my only question is where to buy popcorn.  Wow, you can practically hear my graduate school professors beaming with pride right now.

[thanks to Robopanda for the tip]

Ruben Fleischer made his directorial debut with the 2009 zombie comedy Zombieland and his second effort, 30 Minutes or Less has a new red band trailer, and I think it may be safe to say that Ruben and I are going to be great friends.

Zombieland was a hit-or-miss film for most people that I know, but I loved it, and after watching this trailer I think it might be impossible to dislike 30 Minutes or Less, which is about a pizza delivery boy (Jesse Eisenberg) who is abducted by two men in monkey suits (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) who strap a bomb vest to his chest and force him to rob a bank. His only recourse is to beg his friend (Aziz Ansari) for help…

(Via IGN)

That’s right:

“Sometimes fate pulls out its big old c*ck and slaps your right in the face.”

Granted, Danny McBride could read the phone book to me and I would laugh, but there are other reasons to be excited about this movie, namely Ansari, who I also always think is funny, and Swardson, mainly because I am praying this means that he has been freed from the curse that Adam Sandler has plagued him with.

30 Minutes or Less is a comedy from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, and Nick Swardson, based on the real-life collar bomb case from 2003. In the real-life version, the bomber was actually part of the robbery plot, though he thought the bomb was going to be fake.  He tried to back out when he found out the explosives were real, but his accomplices forced him to wear it at gun point, and, in yet another strange turn, gave him a shotgun made out of a cane to use in the robbery. He was eventually caught by the cops and killed when his friends, afraid that he’d turn state’s witness against them, detonated the bomb while news cameras were rolling.

In theory, I like the idea of turning the story into a dark comedy, but based on the trailer, I’m not sure how seriously I can take the danger when the characters are making cheesy jokes about it the whole time.  It looks like they forgot the “dark” part.  Like, if me and my fat buddy were running from Nazis through the ghettos of Warsaw like Schindler’s List and dogs were nipping at my heels as he was taking too long to get over a fence, I doubt I’d be like, “Dammit, Herschel! I told you not to have that second knish!”

Opens August 12th.

Do these look like two guys about to rob a bank and possibly explode?

“Why did someone make this?” Sadly, that was the question on my mind almost from the first minute to the last during 30 Minutes or Less. I don’t understand why you’d take a lurid, darkly absurd tale of kidnappings, hitmen, and bomb vests and try to turn it into the most broad, bland, Borscht-belt schmucky chuckle fest possible. This movie is like watching Jay Leno tell pedophilia jokes, but less interesting. It’s not the LEAST funny movie I’ve ever seen (hello, Dinner for Schmucks), probably because you couldn’t make a totally unfunny movie with this cast if you tried, but you could tell this story was fundamentally flawed from the first five minutes.

Why did Ruben Fleischer want to tell this story, exactly? Because it seems like his interest wasn’t so much what people might do in these situations, but what jokes actors might make while wearing their costumes. Danny McBride and Nick Swardson come the closest (they’re supposed to be crazy, at least), but no one seems quite committed to the concept. Fleischer said in an interview that he wanted Fargo to be his point of reference, but “without any of the darkness” — which is actually 30 Minutes or Less‘s fatal flaw. It plays more like Family Guy, where the premise is just a planter box for interchangeable jokes about queefs and Emmanuel Lewis. Actually there weren’t any queef jokes. That would’ve been an improvement.

—

Jesse Eisenberg plays the unlucky pizza boy who eventually gets a bomb strapped to him, Aziz Ansari his best friend. Across town, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson are like a tweeker Tommy Boy, spending their days blowing stuff up and shooting guns in McBride’s backyard, where he mooches off his rich, ex-Marine father, who won the lottery a few years ago. In the real-life collar bomb case (that the studio and director claimed they’d barely heard of, in the most insulting public statement since Charlie Sheen’s “allergic reaction”), Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong masterminded a forced bank robbery in order to afford the $125,000 she needed to pay a hitman to kill her father, so that she could inherit his money (nice lady). The victim, Brian Wells, who had his head blown off on live TV, allegedly had been part of the robbery plot but didn’t know the collar bomb would be real at first. Wells and the hitman knew each other through a prostitute. In the film, McBride and Swardson find a hitman through their favorite stripper, and mastermind a robbery in order to pay the hitman to kill McBride’s dad and inherit his lottery money.

So really, aside from switching a couple things around, the only invention by the screenwriters was the dad winning the lottery. And that’s not even an invention, so much as the most reductive way possible to explain someone having a lot of money.  Also – was the plot about kidnapping a guy to rob a bank to get money to pay a hitman to kill your father to inherit his money not already far-fetched and absurd enough for you? You also had to throw in an ex-Marine who wins the lottery? Hey, why not an albino professional beach volleyball player?

It’d be one thing if they’d explored or somehow acknowledged the insane level of absurdity in the plot, but instead they just used it as backdrop for random, pointless movie references and cleverish wordplay (“Sometimes fate whips out its big ol’ cock and slaps you right in the face,” -Ehhh).

And another thing, I’m not the biggest Family Guy fan, but on the rare occasions when it does work, it works because the plot they’re constantly digressing and cutting away from is generally pretty simple, something lightweight like, “Peter’s afraid of the dentist,” or “Cleveland bought a lazy susan.” That way, it doesn’t bother you so much when they keep cutting away from it, because it’s just lightweight jokes piled on mundane situations. I may have mentioned this already, but 30 Minutes or Less IS ABOUT GUY WITH A F*CKING BOMB STRAPPED TO HIM. There’s only so much wise cracking you can imagine a person doing when they’re under threat of exploding.

At one point, after Jesse Eisenberg has recruited his buddy Aziz to help him rob this bank, they’re at the grocery story buying toy guns. In the check out line, Aziz seriously starts riffing with the sassy black checkout lady about f*cking mini hamburger patties. It’s not the worst riff in the world, but no matter what he says, there’s no way it can be that funny because no real human being on planet Earth would ever act like this.

At another point, Jesse Eisenberg, WHILE HE STILL HAS THE BOMB STRAPPED TO HIM, I might add, tells Ansari he wants to take a detour from robbing the bank “so I can tell my boss to go f*ck himself.”

So he puts the time-sensitive mission to save his own life on hold, drives to the pizza parlor where he works, runs inside, and tells the owner (played by the awesome-and-totally-wasted-here Brett Gelman) “F*CK YOU!” and leaves.

So… hearing Jesse Eisenberg shout ‘F*ck you.’  That was the pay off? Really? And let me get this straight: Jesse Eisenberg isn’t going to be rich tomorrow, is he? He’s robbing a bank for someone else so he doesn’t die. Does he plan to steal the money? Is he assuming he’s going to be dead and doesn’t care? Why is he quitting his job in the middle of robbing a bank? There are options, but 30 Minutes or Less chooses none of them. We’re just supposed to be so excited to hear “F*CK YOU!” that we forget everything else. Kind of this movie in a nutshell.

Grade: D+

I still love these actors, but this movie was just a terrible idea.

The bloom might be off the rose a bit for Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as screenwriters (Superbad, Pineapple Express) ever since Green Hornet and The Watch, but they seem like they’re back in their comfort zone in this red-band trailer for This is the End – formerly Jay and Seth Vs. The Apocalypse. They’re directing it themselves, with Brandon Trost of The FP fame on cinematography, and perhaps the best joke of all is that everyone’s playing themselves, from James Franco to Craig Robinson to Danny McBride to Jonah Hill, and ripping on each other’s careers the whole time (including the afartmentioned Green Hornet). Though they’re not in the trailer, we have to assume the same for Emma Watson, Kevin Hart, Rihanna, Aziz Ansari, Martin Starr, Mindy Kaling, J-Tro… Jesus Christ, who isn’t in this movie? You guessed it, Frank Stallone.

MCBRIDE: “Yeah, right, James Franco didn’t suck any dick last night – now I know y’all are tripping.”

With all the title changes, I can’t believe they never came up with “Seeking a Celebrity for the End of the World.” “aBROcalypse now,” perhaps? …Okay, I’ll leave.

Is it required by law that every trailer this year end with an explosion montage set to rap music?

Opens June 2013.

I’ve never read William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, but I have to think James Franco adapting this (he wrote and directed) is a lot more worthwhile than worshiping Marina Abramovic or whatever other fake art crap the New York crowd is into this week. Here he directs and stars opposite Logan Marshall-Green, Tim Blake Nelson – who excels at dirty-faced Southern poverty – and, strangely, Danny McBride.

The Bundren family of the rural South tries to honor their late mother Addie’s wish to be buried in her birthplace. They spend nine days hauling her coffin in a mule-drawn wagon, battling numerous obstacles and personal demons along the way.

Well everyone is serious and dirt-covered and poor, and seems to be either yelling or whispering the whole time, and there’s a prophetic, marble-mouthed little kid in the middle of it, so I have to think the Oscar chances are good. What this needs is a mega-handsome guy like George Clooney or Bradley Cooper or Ryan Gosling. As we’ve established, handsome + dirt covered = Oscars. See: Bradley Cooper wearing a garbage bag.

Seriously though, what the hell is that little kid saying? I’ve rewound it four times and I still can’t understand anything he says before “told me not to tell…”

[Yahoo]

“James Franco didn’t suck any d*ck last night? Now I know y’all are trippin’.”

The latest red band TV clip for This is the End, which stars Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride, among others, as “fictional” versions of themselves in Apocalyptic Los Angeles, looks just about as ridiculous as everything else we’ve already seen. To recap, we’ve seen:

- Rihanna bitch slap Michael Cera
- Michael Cera blow cocaine in Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s face
- Kevin Hart kick Aziz Ansari into a giant hole in the Earth
- Michael Cera be impaled by a pole
- Emma Watson busting heads with an ax
- People being sucked into the sky by beams of light

But now we also know that the devil and his demon bros have returned to drag everyone to hell, and Jonah Hill becomes possessed along the way. It seems pretty straightforward.

The strange thing to me is that as I watch the trailers and clip, I can’t help but think that this looks like everything I would expect from a horror movie parody like Scary Movie 5, except it’s funny. So is this a case of Rogen and his co-writer Jason Stone, as well as co-director Evan Goldberg, being smarter and funnier than David Zucker and Pat Proft? I’m no scientist or anything, but I’m gonna go ahead and say, “Probably.”

This is the End is a funny movie, much funnier than I expected, full of honest laughs (like real giggles, not smiles or snorts) and clever meta-fiction, where all the characters play joke versions of themselves, with fictionalization levels ranging from the slightly-heightened reality of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm to the outrageous against-type of Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar. But don’t worry, Seth Rogen still smokes weed, yo! There’s also sociopathic cokehead Michael Cera, pretentious James Franco, fruity Jonah Hill, misanthropic Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride and Craig Robinson, whose characters can best be described as Danny McBridly and Craig Robinsonish, respectively. If judged only by the cumulative length and volume of laughs, This is the End is the funniest movie of the year. I’m not so sure comedy can be judged like a big dick contest, but we’ll get to that.

Comedy is so personal and weirdly subjective, which isn’t surprising when you think about it: a lot of us choose our friends and the people we date on the basis of a shared sense of humor, so evaluating comedy is such a sub-rational, intuitive process, that describing it is almost as elusive as explaining personal attraction. Almost like love at first sight, with a joke-driven comedy, you can usually tell within the first five minutes whether you’re going to like it or not. A really bad joke basically makes you think I could never be friends with someone who thought that was funny, and vice versa. It’s why bad comedy makes you angry in a way schmaltzy drama can’t. From the very first joke in The Hangover III I knew, this is going to be a long, painful movie, and it was. This is the End was basically the opposite experience. The setups offered just the right amount of foreplay, the timing was just “off” enough to maintain surprise, and the explanation felt natural – not too much, not too little, like a Goldilocks porridge of jizz jokes. When I say “it was on my wavelength,” it’s not just a nebulous figure of speech. It’s like I was picking up the signal at just the rate that they were sending out, like the vibrations of the universe and shit. This is my attempt to explain the sub-explainable: it was funny.

This is the End is at its best in the opening scenes, when we’re being introduced to all the characters. Seth Rogen picks up his less-famous Canadian high school buddy Jay Baruchel from the airport. Baruchel plays a sort of composite of himself and real-life Rogen high school pal and co writer/director Evan Goldberg (Baruchel and Rogen actually met in LA). They get back to Rogen’s strangely over-styled house, and instead of hanging out playing videogames like Jay wants, Seth drags him to a super LA party at James Franco’s house, “on the same street as Channing Tatum.” In addition to all the digs and parodies of all the characters’ real-life personas that I won’t spoil for you (Michael Cera’s persona outdoes even NPH in Harold and Kumar), there’s a deep truth to the way Jay Baruchel’s character tries and fails to relate to all the motor-mouthed extroverts around him. There’s a scene where he’s standing in the midst of a crowd looking confused as all the actors (and Rihanna) crowd around Craig Robinson’s keyboard for a communal sing along. The confused “who the hell are these people?” look on his face as everyone else sings without reservation illustrates the writer/performer dynamic beautifully. Any writer who’s spent time with the drama crowd can relate. They’re just so big and energetic, and you want to join in, but it’s exhausting.

They’re all at James Franco’s house when the ground opens up and the Hollywood Hills turn to ash as the Biblical rapture happens, and the props of his weird dicknose life are utilized to full comedic effect. I thought they hammered the gay thing a little harder than they needed to given the wealth of other James Franco weirdness to draw from, but I’m sure they could practically hear the voice of your average dude-bro wondering “Bro, but what about how he talks like a fag?” every time they left the gay stone unturned. But they do a good job handling the obvious jokes in a deft enough manner that they can please the eye-rollers while simultaneously slaking the thirst of those thirsty for gay jokes (like your mom). Still, nothing in This is the End beats Zach Galifianakis’ question to Franco on Between Two Ferns, “Out of all the projects you’ve been a part of, which one has made people roll their eyes the hardest?”

While it isn’t really what you’d call an action-comedy (more of a ball-busting comedy), the marriage of action and comedy that is there works better in This is the End than it did in Pineapple Express. Probably because, unlike David Gordon Green tends to do, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg never forget that even when they’re directing action sequences, the end goal is still to make you laugh. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that most of the jokes are based on five guys going stir crazy from being cooped up in a house together, rather than improv-y riffing shoehorned into what are supposed to be life-and-death situations, as in the nigh-unwatchable 30 Minutes or Less.

The one thing This is the End is missing is that feeling like it was something someone really had to get off their chest. That sense of it as a story someone has been dying to tell you for years. This is the End feels sort of like a feature-length Funny or Die sketch. It does an amazing job keeping the story from dragging even when you know essentially where it’s going to go, and keeping things consistently funny, but there’s still that sense of it as a sketch rather than a story.

I wasn’t expecting a life-changing story, but I do wish Rogen and Goldberg had invented their own idea of Heaven, Hell, God, Satan, the afterlife and the apocalypse rather than just cribbing straight from the Bible. I don’t think it’s too much to ask – some of the most amazing, inspiring depictions of the afterlife have been given to us by comedy movies. And maybe it’s just me, but I find literal depictions of Heaven incredibly depressing. They come off so patently unrealistic that I start to question the very logic of the concept of Heaven itself, and I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to be thinking about at the end of a comedy movie is my own mortality. It’s like eating a pot brownie that starts off with joy and giggles and ends with you curled up on the floor listening to the thumping of your own sped-up heartbeat in some hellishly introspective slow-motion nightmare.

Still, it was funny, and funny is enough.

GRADE: B+

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Larry David plays a put-upon schlub whose commitment to honesty and lack of social grace constantly get him into embarrassing situations, and find him breaking down the definitions of basic figures of speech. Yep, Clear History basically looks like a Curb Your Enthusiasm movie, and I’m more than okay with that. It comes from Adventureland/Superbad director Greg Mottola (I’m still pretending Paul didn’t happen), and Larry David’s foils this time around include Jon Hamm, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Kate Hudson, and Michael Keaton (!!!). AND it hits HBO August 10th, so you won’t even have to drag your ass down to a theater full of mouth breathers to see it, you’ll be able to watch it from the comfort of your filthy couch, with the mouth breathers you live with, if you can get them to shut up for five seconds. This may be a gross, quasi-racist generalization, but I see Larry David as the Jewish man’s id.

“This is not tat, there was no tit!” is the Seinfeldiest line ever. Like, that’s the kind of line you’d write for a Seinfeld or Curb parody cutaway in Family Guy. And yet… it still works.

While he’s been doing fine work with music docs, Cameron Crowe’s last two  relationshippy comedies, the kind of movies that made his name, didn’t get much love – 2011′s We Bought a Zoo and 2005′s Elizabethtown. Now it sounds like he’s trying to Blue Jasmine his way back to relevance again with a star-studded new movie that just picked up everyone’s favorites Bill Murray and Brad Cooper, adding to a cast that includes Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin, Jay Baruchel and Edi Gathegi. That last one is the black guy who died first in X-Men First Class, in case you were wondering. Probably keep your head on a swivel for this one too, guy.

Bill Murray is eyeing a role in Cameron Crowe’s untitled romantic comedy for Sony, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Bradley Cooper is set to star in the movie as a defense contractor who falls for an Air Force pilot (Emma Stone) after he’s assigned to oversee the launch of a weapons satellite from Hawaii. The two then team up to put a stop to the launch.

Ah, Hollywood, where 38-year-old dudes regularly fall in love with hot, 24-year-old pilots. You think Rachel McAdams is the love interest of Bill Murray or Alec Baldwin? I wouldn’t be surprised. Next time I get busted for statutory, I’m telling the judge “Sorry, man, I just really like movies.”

The movie doesn’t have a title yet, by the way. Is “Failure to Launch” taken?

You ever notice that the further along writers and actors get in the careers, the more apt they are to do rom-coms that happen to be set in Hawaii and Tahiti and the Caribbean? Hmm, I wonder what could explain this phenomenon…

There’s a higher power watching out for Kenny Powers. At least that’s the main point that I’ve taken away from the third episode (“Chapter 24”) of the fourth and (presumably) final season of HBO’s Eastbound & Down. Because as he’s in bed with his hammered, passed out wife, contemplating the ultimate Kenny Powers question, he asks God for some advice, and yet somehow… Kenny ends up in the clear. I guess we could say that he made the right decision by default, all while making possibly the worst decision of his life.

This is where we stand with Kenny Powers now, though. He has regained his fame and fortune (at least he thinks he has) and now he just has to take care of the hard part – keeping it. Obviously, it’s not going to be easy, as Chapter 24 showed us just how quickly the fortune might go away.

Just When We Think That Stevie Can’t Get Any Lower

With Kenny back at what he believes is the top of his game, Stevie thinks that he’s heading back to the top as well. But because Stevie lives his life underneath a mile of dog sh*t, his top is still worse than any regular man’s bottom of the barrel. Chapter 24 picks up right where 23 left off, with Kenny, April and Stevie leaving the studio after Kenny’s incredible takedown of Dontel, and Stevie’s higher on life than 1,000 junkies shooting up that new bathtub heroin that devours your skin.

There are two people, though, who can ruin Kenny’s new success: 1) Kenny himself and 2) Stevie. Because the latter is always the best at the quick buzzkill, he handles that this time by not only asking “the Lady Powers” about her lady parts, but by also punching out a random car window. After each episode, I ask if Stevie can get any lower, and after each episode I answer my own question with, “Holy sh*t he’s a horrible human being.”

At some point, Steve Little should win something for how incredibly he portrays this pathetic character.

(Caps via)

There’s That Screenplay Again

We’re three episodes into an eight-episode season – again, I won’t believe that it’s over until it’s actually over – and Kenny has mentioned his screenplay three times. I’m hoping that we get two episodes devoted to that screenplay, whether that means we see him out in Los Angeles trying to actually sell it, or the sale process goes quick and we jump right into the casting and/or production. Like I said last week, you could have given me an entire season of just this movie being made, but I like where we’re going so far.

That said, does anyone else get the feeling that Guy Young is stealing the movie? Because that’s how I feel. Damn you, Ken Marino. Don’t make us hate you.

Kenny’s Blowing Money Like Yadda Yadda Cocaine Or Dick Joke

If HBO decides to order a fifth season of Eastbound, I would watch eight episodes about Kenny and the dancing robot. Especially if he adds a robot butler that brings him cocaine and booze the whole time.

Who Doesn’t Love A Free Trip To The Water Park?

I don’t, actually, because water parks turn me into Puddy when he learns that Kramer made their salad in the shower as he bathed. Ugh, just thinking about a water park gives me pink eye. But when Kenny openly plans to pee in the lazy river, I guess it’s the perfect place for him. He’s still having a hard time getting his brother’s family to accept him back into their lives, but that’ll happen when you kick the door open with pantyhose over your face while screaming, “HOME INVASION!” instead of simply knocking on the door and saying, “Hello, brother.”

Just When We Think That Stevie Can’t Get Any Lower

Jesus, Stevie. You are the most pathetic character in the history of TV. Period. I can’t think of anyone worse.

(Caps via)

Party April Is Our Favorite April

The interesting thing about Kenny’s re-rise to fame and fortune is that April’s susceptible to the same demons, and that means we get sexy, trashy April funneling beers with the poolside bros before Kenny eventually has to put her drunk ass in bed. Even when she’s a drunken mess, April is the best.

When April’s Asleep, Kenny Will Do A Ton Of Drugs

It can’t bode well for Kenny that he took Gene and the “Taliban cleric” on his little drug adventure with the unholy white trash family, as I’m sure that Gene and his freshly-punched face are going to rat him out at some point. I mean, I hope he doesn’t, because THAT WOULDN’T BE COOL, GENE. But April has to find out that Kenny’s being a dirtbag, because otherwise there’s no real drama other than the incredibly uneasy feeling that Kenny’s about to crash harder than he’s ever crashed before, and he’s taking his entire family down with him.

Of course, the drug rampage led to the foreshadowed moment of infidelity, as Kenny’s starting to realize that other thing that he’s missing out – the company of many, many ladies whenever and wherever he pleases. Like I said, I think Kenny has a guardian angel helping him out on this quest to rise back to the top, but how many sub-chances will he continue to get within this overall third chance? Hopefully enough to make it entertaining.

A Quick Word About Tim Heidecker As Gene

Tim Heidecker is at his best when he’s playing his most ridiculous characters; however, I think that plain, boring Gene might actually be his most ridiculous character. He’s just a snobby, stuck up, vanilla ice cream asshole whose best stories involve him not remembering that his computer password is “Wake Fore$t.” Gene may come in small, quick doses, but his presence does wonders for building Kenny Powers back into the ultimate scumbag a-hole winner.

On Next Week’s Episode: Guy invites Kenny to go on the road with him. At some point, I’m hoping they explain how much money Kenny is being paid, because they haven’t mentioned that (unless I completely missed it) and I’m waiting for Guy to tell him he’s not making anything. Something terrible is happening eventually, it’s just a matter of how soon.

Eastbound & Down star — and person you can’t look at without cracking up — Danny McBride sat on Jimmy Kimmel’s couch last night and regaled the host with some outstanding tales from the set of his hit show. The tidbits about guest stars Lindsay Lohan, Marilyn Manson, and Matthew McConaughey are entertaining, but the real gift is a breakdown of the one scene that was actually too depraved for Steve Little (who plays the otherwise shameless Stevie Janowski) to go through with.

McBride kicked off the festivities with a story about injuring himself rollerskating on set (he brought video evidence) and how he milked the mishap to freak out crew members.

Next it was on to explaining Marilyn Manson’s guest spot on Eastbound & Down, and the bizarre circumstances that unfolded in his hotel room after filming.

After a sneak peek at an upcoming episode, things really ramp up when Steve Little joins McBride and Kimmel. Little explains the one scene in the show’s history he refused to shoot — oh, it’s a doozy — before moving on to his fantastically futile attempt to impress Lindsay Lohan.

Little brings it home with his tale of soliciting Matthew McConaughey for tips on bedding the ladies.

Jimmy Kimmel Live

There are times that I’ve been watching the first four episodes of this fourth season of Eastbound & Down and I’ve found myself thinking, “Maybe they should have called it quits with the faked death.” But that’s not because I’m not enjoying it and laughing hysterically at the horribly offensive comedy like I had through the first four seasons. It’s more because I just don’t have the first clue where Danny McBride and Co. are taking this crazy train known as Kenny Powers as the presumed finale approaches.

Speculation be damned for now, though, because this is about Chapter 25, the fourth episode of this fourth season, and the resurgence of Kenny and Stevie Janowski in their respective quests to regain fame and fortune and make the dick work again. Well folks, we’ve got great news on both fronts this week.

First and Foremost, About Chapter 24…

One of the reasons that I’m reluctant to do these episode recaps is that my brain gets all jumbled with inconsequential and silly thoughts, and I forget all about some of the best aspects. For example, the pet wolf that Kenny gifted to Toby last week. I seriously hope this thing doesn’t maim the poor kid at some point this season, but if the closing scene of Chapter 25 suggested anything, it’s that Toby may have his very own badass sidekick by the time this thing’s over.

And if I’m an odds maker? I’m laying 2:1 odds that the wolf ends up saving Kenny’s life in a hilarious manner.

It’s the Subtle Things that Get Me

Twenty years down the road, someone may ask me, “Hey Burnsy, what did you love the most about Eastbound & Down?” and my first three answers will be April, because I love her and she’s my favorite semi-white trash WAG on TV and/or in reality. But my fourth response will be, “The subtle things,” because this show’s writers kill me at least once per episode with the most under-the-radar lines. This week’s was, “I need to check my Palm Pilot.” Kenny’s technological cluelessness is hilarious, and I say that as a person who still used WinAmp years after iTunes hit the scene.

Okay, the Bigger Lines Get Me, Too

This week’s closing line was awesome, especially laid over Toby overcoming his fear of feeding the deadly killing machine that was destroying his family’s garage and starving for animal blood.

“Mortals falter. Kings act. And the mortal who acts, well, that motherfucker becomes king.”

Again, I think that the wolf will play a hilarious role in the series finale or at some point before it, but trying to predict the plot of a comedy, especially one as wicked and sick as Eastbound, is asinine and futile. I can only hope that the wolf ends up tearing Guy Young’s throat out, or something to that effect.

The Big, Ol’ Wake Forest Loving Elephant in the Room

Obviously, Kenny was going to have to come to terms with the fact that Tel and Gene were eventually going to rat him out to their wives for doing a balloon’s worth of drugs with the creepy as hell family from the water park resort. For Gene, it came right away, because Dixie saw the bruise that Kenny left Gene with after their one-sided throwdown in the hallway. While we knew that was the catalyst for Dixie not inviting Kenny and April over for spaghetti night, April didn’t and that aura of “Oh fuck” was left lingering for the first half of the episode. Especially when Kenny visited Gene and Tel at the golf course.

I touched on it last week, but Chapter 25 was so much bigger for both Gene and Dixie, so I want to reiterate that Tim Heidecker and friend of UPROXX Jillian Bell have been phenomenal this season with their stereotypical, miserable and all-around horrible suburbanite married couple.

(Caps via)

That Leads Us To…

Kenny flipping the script on Gene and Dixie was hilariously evil. Two-parts evil and two-parts awkward as hell, watching Gene pack up the U-Haul at the end was such a wonderful moment, not because I want to ever see an innocent couple be torn to shreds over some a-hole sociopath’s lies, but because I want to see this innocent couple destroyed, because holy God they are just so damn unbearable. It’s truly remarkable the power of this mulleted antihero, that he can make me wish terrible things on good people.

(GIFs via)

The Fame and the Fortune are Beginning to Reveal the Ugliness

It’s inevitable, right? Like, we all see the horrible downfall coming again, don’t we? It’s just a matter of how it happens, who causes it and how Kenny reacts. Because that’s pretty much the basis of this entire show. But it begins with the pool builders, the racist mockery and the awarding of April’s great-grandmother’s priceless jewelry for digging the fastest. But like the Palm Pilot joke, Kenny’s reverse charm shines through with his use of a disposable camera. From the hideous green Viper to every piece of clothing this man owns, Kenny Powers is stuck in a different generation. And I’m not even sure which generation that is.

So About Guy Young and the Looming Meltdown

With Dontell’s visit and the ominous words of the other co-hosts of Sports Sesh, it’s clear that he who giveth (Guy Young) will also be he who taketh away. Perhaps the silver lining of this impending downward spiral back to the barrel’s bottom is that Kenny and Stevie have taken on the task of teaching the urban kids how to play baseball. Honestly, just like the whole screenplay angle that’s being ignored, I’d kill to see an entire season or at least a few episodes of Kenny teaching the kids how to play baseball. Imagine that entire introduction speech stretched out over three or four episodes… I’d suffocate from laughing so hard.

(GIF via)

And now my two favorite parts of Chapter 25 will be on the following page, because they involve some male nudity – dudity, if you will – so cover the kids’ eyes if you’re a good parent.

A lot of times when talking about shows like Breaking Bad or Dexter or Eastbound & Down, we really need to remind ourselves that the lead characters that we’ve grown to love for what they are really don’t deserve our love. They’re horrible, awful characters that deserve the most rotten of endings, but we find them endearing and we attach ourselves to them on an emotional level because they’re flawed like us. Except, these flaws aren’t like ours at all, unless you are actually meth kingpins, serial killers or washed up, racist, sexist, homophobic, sociopathic baseball pitchers. In which case, we’re glad to have you as part of the UPROXX family.

Chapter 26 of Eastbound & Down was my reminder that Kenny Powers is a horrible person who doesn’t deserve an ounce of compassion for anything that he does. I downright loathed him in this episode, as I imagine that was the point.

Nobody Gives A Crap About Your Pool, Kenny

If anything, Kenny’s little rant about how awesome he is for building a pool is a reminder that he broke up a perfectly good marriage between Gene and Daisy. Granted, they’re two of the most vanilla people on this planet and that made them borderline unbearable (except for the fact that they’re played by Tim Heidecker and Jillian Bell, whom we love), but Kenny ruined their marriage with an awful lie. But add to the fact that he mocked his wife and brother in front of all of their friends, and Kenny’s taking the shitheadedness to a whole new level through this fifth episode.

Honestly, I wanted someone to piss in his pool.

But It Doesn’t End There With April

So how do you make it up to your wife after you tell everyone she loves that her success made you miserable? Treat her like a whore by throwing money at her. Yes, I giggled when Kenny invoked the spirit of Rick Ross, but come on. April deserves a little better here. There are three episodes left in this season (and presumably series) and I really want her to lay down the thunder and give me a little power a la Tara Teller from Sons of Anarchy (another show full of characters that we should cheer as they each meet their demise).

Oh What I Wanted To See That Assault Rifle Do

If there’s a character on this season of Eastbound & Down for us to respect and admire, it’s Kenny’s poor brother. Of all of the awkward, eye-covering scenes that this show has given us through 26 episodes, Kenny trying to buy his brother’s love back might have been the hardest to watch. I loved that he cracked long enough to admit that he has problems with apologies and doing what’s right – in fact, loved seeing the armor shatter for a moment – but then he went right back to shitting on his own blood as soon as Guy Young texted him.

I’m not a violent man, but I wouldn’t have minded if Dustin took a quit swing at Kenny’s throat with the butt of that rifle. Seriously, my blood was boiling through that scene.

We All See The Two Trains About To Collide

As I’ve written several times throughout this season, it’s almost impossible to predict the writing on a good comedy show. I could be in a coma for two decades, suddenly snap out of it and probably predict what’s going to happen on a Chuck Lorre sitcom, but Eastdown? It’s not even worth it to try. That said, I honestly thought that the two rams, Kenny and Guy Young, would lock horns much sooner and Kenny’s demise would be more focused on how his antics were affecting his personal relationships and/or finances.

But here we are, with Kenny and Guy still tap dancing around their alpha male conflict. It’s remarkable, too, that Guy is also such a worthless schmuck, but his entire childish rant at Kenny was right. Guy has earned his open water jet pack. Kenny has not. But Kenny will never, ever recognize that.

I loved watching Guy Young talk about the jet pack, though.

Nobody’s Getting Through To This Guy

While it wasn’t as awkward as the scene with Dustin, Kenny’s “date night” with April was equally awful. Granted, it’s important to point out that this isn’t my indictment of the show and this season. I still love everything that’s happening, despite the fact that I want to see very bad things happen to Kenny. If anything, the writers are doing an incredible job of reminding us that we’re supposed to loathe Kenny Powers because of the way he keeps throwing money at people as if it’s a Band-Aid.

The moral of the story is clearly that Kenny cannot buy the people that matter most, but he’d still rather ignore that and get coked up at the opera. Leave him and come live with me, April.

I wouldn’t have minded if one of the old people next to Kenny tried to slap him. He deserved it.

Stevie’s Gone From Suck To Blow

First thing’s first – look at this mother*cker. LOOK AT HIM. If I had to name an MVP of this season of Eastbound thus far, it’s Stevie Janowski hands down. Steve Little has been incredible in bringing this character from the bowels of hell to another area of hell that’s equally as bad, but totally misguided and depraved.

Kenny’s grand new plan is that he wants to open his own chain of restaurants, and like the screenplay, I could have watched a whole season of Kenny and Stevie trying to bring a breastaurant to life. But if he’s trying to get me excited about chicken wings and meals with “bacon tits” on them, I’m gonna need to see less of Stevie checking his wife’s oil. Again, that’s my MVP, but fingering the 2-hole? Cut it out, bro.

I want this restaurant to be real, if only so I can eat there before Hulk Hogan’s stupid place.

Guy’s Demand Is Clearly Taking Its Toll On Kenny

This was my favorite, most random scene of this episode. I wish that, had Kenny been written as a better character (one that we should actually love), we could see him go off on adventures with his robot friend. Yet here I am, wishing that he’d accidentally take it into the new pool with him.

(Caps via)

Kenny Was Never Meant To Be A Scottie Pippen

STEVIE IS RIGHT, KENNY! LISTEN TO STEVIE AND WE CAN ALL HAVE A HAPPY ENDING!!! If Kenny would just take a few steps back and earn his place by Guy’s side, he could have everything that he’s ever wanted for as long as the American public is willing to listen to a bunch of arrogant former jocks talk about their stupid opinions on sports. (On the reals, I hope the American public is getting tired of that right now. If this season has been anything, it has been a remarkable example of how awful sports talks TV truly is.)

(Caps via)

He Just Won’t Learn

We can scream at our TVs all we want, but Kenny won’t listen to anyone but himself. That’s gonna cost him the show, and probably April.

Three episodes to go.

On The Next Eastbound & Down: April’s approaching her tipping point, as is Guy. Kenny’s heading back to rock bottom, but Stevie’s the only person he’s taking with him. Also, we better see some more of that wolf and less butt crack fingering.

With three episodes left in the fourth and (presumably) final season of HBO’s Eastbound & Down, there are a lot of questions left to be answered. So many, in fact, that I was starting to get pretty irritated by the lack of actual conflict between Kenny Powers and Guy Young, but then this week’s episode, Chapter 27, came along and was by far the best of this season, in this humble blogger and handsome gentleman’s opinion.

Not only did we finally get Marilyn Manson’s long-awaited and very curious cameo, but we also finally witnessed the culmination and conclusion of the showdown between two arrogant and childish pricks, and I have to admit – KP fooled me with his nasty curveball. Let’s recap and ponder, shall we?

Holy Crap, Look At Marilyn Manson, You Guys

We all knew for a while that Marilyn Manson was going to be making an appearance on an episode of Eastbound this season, but we didn’t really know why, other than he’s a huge fan of the show. You know who else is a huge fan of the show? Me. But I’m not on the show. I guess I should have taken my high school goth band a little more seriously.

Anyway, on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being “Worthless” and 10 being “Crucial,” Manson was a whopping 1 as far as his character’s necessity. However, his presence was still great and his personal transformation should win an Emmy for makeup or costume design if those exist. Otherwise, it really makes me wonder what Lindsay Lohan is going to look like. I really hope it’s pre-strung out Mean Girls Lindsay Lohan.

Just kidding, this isn’t Rick Baker makeup work that we’re talking about.

(GIFs via here and here)

Guy Young Is An Evil, Evil Bastard

Okay, so after last week’s episode, Chapter 26, I didn’t think that we could have a bigger piece of sh*t villain in this season than Kenny himself, as he was sacrificing everything that he had to become famous again, all while throwing money around like that’s what truly matters in personal relationships. But HOLY SH*T Guy Young was an absolute monster in the opening scene of Chapter 27. You kind of knew what was coming with the lowly, old janitor being called in for his honest opinion, but Guy screaming at him and telling him there’d be no Christmas was downright psychotic.

When all is said and done, Ken Marino deserves Emmy consideration for this season. He won’t get it, obviously, because shows like Eastbound & Down aren’t ever taken seriously because of their vulgar nature, but Ken should know he deserves it.

Meanwhile, Stevie’s Back To Screwing Everything Up

There was nothing about this entire Taters N’ Tits scene that wasn’t cringe-inducing. Maria’s new breasts were borderline terrifying, but once Stevie started sucking on her nipple in the middle of the mall, I honestly felt ill. Again, there will never be enough credit given to Steve Little for how warped and depraved of a character he has given us, but what Stevie is pulling off this season is disgustingly magnififcent.

Also, while Stevie probably wants to go with the John Kerry, we’d all be lucky to have a chin like Aaron Eckhart’s. You can set your watch to that incredible butt chin.

(Cap via)

At This Point, Kenny Doesn’t Deserve His Marriage

A true sign of remarkable TV writing and storytelling is how well the characters can trick you into emotional investment. I don’t give two shakes of Maria’s giant breasts about Gene and Daisy as characters, because they’re possibly the most boring people on the face of the planet (which, again, is a massive compliment paid to Tim Heidecker and Jillian Bell). But with what Kenny has done to their marriage, not only do I silently cheer for Jillian to tell Kenny to go f*ck himself as he demands that she help him with his problems with April, but I also want him to come clean for once about how Gene didn’t do anything wrong.

As he finally did that in this episode, I realized that I don’t want April to stay with him. Is it because I have a pathetic crush on a TV character? Probably. Am I ashamed to admit that? Strangely not.

Kenny’s Advice For Tobey Is Very Important

This scene killed me. This is so brilliantly written and executed that I can’t even pile on with my gushing appreciation for it.

The Showdown On The Lake Was Perfect

Perhaps I’m being overly positive about Chapter 27 because I haven’t enjoyed this season as much as I’d hoped from a season that should have probably never existed, but if I decided to burden myself with a Top 5 list of the best scenes from the entire series, this would definitely be included. The fact that these two assholes are ultimately fighting over their childish pride and despicable arrogance could not have been displayed better than by Kenny and Guy shouting at each other over the sound of their open water jetpacks that were the original source of dissent between these two “friends.”

By the way, if this season has done anything well, it really is capturing the douchebaggery of these jetpacks. Should I ever find myself in the position where I have the disposable income to afford one of these stupid devices and I’m handing over my debit card to complete the purchase, I pray my pet wolf attacks me.

The Hit Gone Wrong

My only real complaint about this episode was how anticlimactic Guy’s response to the hit gone wrong was. Sure, Kenny had already humiliated himself in front of the Sports Sesh audience by complaining about the new female “wild card” while he was peeing, in a scene right out of 30 Rock, but when Stevie picks the wrong Baby Huey to mess with Guy, there should have been a more serious blowback than what actually happened. It felt like a big step was missed, and it would have made Kenny’s burden so much greater with April finally deciding to leave him after his horrible meltdown at the party that he threw for her.

Instead, Kenny Actually Comes Out On Top

It’s pretty obvious from the preview for Chapter 28, which is the second to last episode of the fourth season, that when Kenny takes over Sports Sesh for the now humiliated and outcast Guy Young, things aren’t going to work. But the switcheroo that Kenny pulled on Guy had me momentarily cheering for the antihero again, before I had to remind myself one more time of my mantra for this season: “Kenny Powers is a horrible man. He is not the character that we want to succeed. He must pay for his terrible behavior.”

I predict that we get a very warped Christmas realization out of Kenny by the end of Chapter 29, but only after we see him at his absolute worst in Chapter 28. And yet I’m sure that I’m wrong.

One down and one to go. Well, one main character down and one episode to go, that is, as Chapter 28 of Eastbound & Down marked the beginning of the (presumably) very end for Kenny Powers, and our loved and hated antihero went down in a bright, fiery ball of Christmas flames this week. I had this concern that Eastbound & Down might invoke the tired, old TV trope of A Christmas Story, and we’d see KP visited by three “ghosts” that would help him realize that fame and wealth weren’t the things that mattered most in life. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but I almost tried to get all metaphorical on your asses and explain how it actually did happen, and fortunately I realized that would take way too long.

You’re welcome.

In the meantime, Kenny and Stevie busted their asses to get back to the top in this fourth and final season of Eastbound & Down, and last night in Chapter 28, they took the service elevator straight to rock bottom once more. And every second of it was glorious.

Good Lord, Stevie Is A Ghoulish Man

We can’t really step too far into this pool of despair without first mentioning the butt chin in the room. All season long, I didn’t think Stevie Janowski could get any worse as a character, between his puny, broken dick and his horrible fashion renaissance, but all it took was one $50,000 chin to prove that theory wrong. What I found funniest about Stevie’s role in Chapter 28 wasn’t that he blew all of his money on a new chin or Maria’s cartoonishly large fake breasts, but how it affected his kids.

In a show that is just constantly overflowing with characters that we hope are swallowed into the lowest, darkest, hottest depths of Hades, I’ve always loved that they’ve managed to stick Stevie with the worst kids imaginable. At least, in this episode, when Stevie weeps that he can’t afford presents for his kids, my only thought was, “Good, f*ck those kids.”

Kenny Didn’t Even Get A Sports Sesh Honeymoon

While I had hoped after the first episode of the season that we would have had a season that dealt with Kenny making a movie about his life, the Sports Sesh plot turned out to be pretty great, thanks mostly to the wonderful performance of Ken Marino as Guy Young. He truly played one of the finer spoiled assholes in this series’ great history of characters we loathe. Additionally, Sports Sesh allowed us to watch Kenny parody the asinine industry of sports debate shows, and E&D did a great job telling what we already know – that those shows suck.

Unfortunately, with Kenny pulling off the stunning coup d’état on last week’s episode, we didn’t really get to see a transition or figurative changing of the guard. Instead, we just jumped head first into the cess pool that is Kenny’s insane arrogance and lack of leadership, and clearly that just made the most sense. In fact, just writing that, I completely understand that there was no way they could have done it any differently. As always, the writing on this show manages to not only capture the ultimate essence of the lowest human beings ever created, but also while making perfect sense.

RIP Taters N Tits

We hardly knew ye and your horrible food idea combined with awkwardly large breasts. If ever a restaurant chain should rise from the ashes of a TV show… it should not be this. Seriously, Darden and all you other chain restaurant parent companies out there, don’t even think about it.

April Is A Saint

I don’t think we can ever truly celebrate how well Katie Mixon has played April in this final season, because she’s been surrounded by horrifying lunacy. But April has been the weak, evaporating glue of normalcy that is the only thing that keeps Kenny from falling into the abyss. Granted, Kenny opens Chapter 28 doing blow in front of everyone, nailing a hooker up against the window in his presidential hotel suite (the subtle line about downtown Charlotte was fantastic) and being wheeled into his divorce hearing dressed like Michael Jackson if he’d been raised in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, so normalcy shmormalcy.

And throughout this entire episode, both April and Kenny’s brother manage to keep their cool and wait for him to come back to them in a sort of disturbingly and hauntingly sweet Christmas story. How do you go from Kenny Powers hanging from a wire in his studio, screaming about being a god and eventually almost killing people with an epic anti-Christmas hissy fit to the sweetest possible heart-to-heart between Kenny and his brother that none of us ever expected would happen?

That’s the kind of magic you only get from Eastbound & Down.

All Of The Emmys For Steve Little

I have said it after pretty much every episode this season, but Steve Little’s performance as Stevie hit an incredible new high (or low, technically) with him being holed up in a hotel room with a gun to his freakish cosmetic chin. That scene should have been awkward and hard to watch, but between Kenny peeking through his fingers as Stevie threatens to blow his head off and Maria’s hilariously GIANT breasts, it somehow became the best scene of the season.

Stevie laying on the floor, crying and screaming as his wife and her absurdly, insanely large breasts try to reapply his fake chin is somehow an almost perfect scene to close out this series. But we’ve still got one more to go.

On Next Week’s Final Episode: Lindsay Lohan shows up as Kenny’s long lost daughter and we say goodbye to HBO’s mulleted antihero. At least I think we do.

(Caps via)

By the time that the new issue of Rolling Stone hits newsstands (if those still exist) on Nov. 21, HBO will have closed the curtain on its hilariously obscene and disturbing comedy, Eastbound & Down. But that didn’t stop obscene and disturbing pop star Ke$ha from writing a short piece for Rolling Stone about her love for Eastbound & Down, and the girl who became famous by sort of being friends with Paris Hilton actually tugs on the heartstrings a little with her kind words of appreciation for Kenny Powers.

Ke$ha, like E&D’s antihero, is no stranger to controversy, as she has drank her own urine on her reality show and claimed that she writes songs with her vagina and her mom. Hey, Elton John has Bernie Taupin and Ke$ha has her hoo ha. To each her own. But it’s because of that quirky behavior that Ke$ha claims she understands Kenny Powers so well.

There’s this one episode of Eastbound & Down where he comes running onto a baseball field in Mexico with an American flag tied around his neck, jerking off to the crowd with fireworks going off. It reminded me so much of myself that it scared me. And made me proud, at the same time.

When my music first came out, my sense of humor was kind of lost in translation. I was like, “Man, they don’t know I’m in on the joke!” But then I saw Eastbound & Down, and I knew Kenny Powers would totally get me. We’re both oblivious, missing social cues about what’s appropriate. We both have a really dark and obscene sense of humor, which my publicists tell me I have to tone down. But Kenny doesn’t tone it down. He owns that shit. I am proud to be his female embodiment. (Via Rolling Stone)

Except I’d argue that Kenny Powers isn’t oblivious, and he’s actually quite aware of how absurd his antics are. That’s why he’s so desperate for wealth, because he wants to buy acceptance instead of earning it. But I’ll save that kind of brilliant insight and analysis for my award-winning Eastbound & Down episode recaps. In the meantime, Ke$ha is going to have to stick to appreciating Kenny Powers just like us – in reruns and the greatest GIFs ever made.

(Original banner via Getty)

It’s hard to believe that it has only been six years since today’s installment of the universally-praised series 73 Sports Movies in 73+ Days, Hot Rod, first hit theaters. Whenever it shows up on Comedy Central, it just seems like it’s a much older movie, at least from the late-90s era of “Jesus, Hollywood will make anything.” But despite its flaws and poor production value, I like Hot Rod. At least I think I do. I’m pretty sure that I do.

I mean, I watch it when it comes on Comedy Central, but then most of the time I end up leaving the room and doing yardwork or trying to figure out what I should eat for dinner. And it’s always on in the afternoon, so that tells us that 1) My overeating knows no bounds if I’m planning dinner at 1 PM, and 2) For a movie that I think I like, I sure seem to lose interest in it quickly.

So for today’s 73 Sports Movies in 73+ Days installment, I’ve decided to watch Hot Rod yet again and try to figure out if I actually like it or not.

Before I get into this, I’d just like to thank the fine folks at Netflix for creating a streaming site that crashed every three minutes on me today. The 88-minute movie that I wanted to watch ended up taking me more than two hours to finish. It’s nice to know that as the vultures pick the meat from Blockbuster’s corpse, there’s a company willing to pick up the asinine torch. I still love you, Netflix, but today blew. For real.

The Parts That I Know I Liked

I’d been a fan of The Lonely Island since the early days, specifically when I first saw the Nintendo video that they made, but for the sake of an entire movie, the presence of extra comedic star power is always helpful. In this case, they had Bill Hader, Danny McBride and Chris Parnell in supporting roles, which is a great formula for success. Your script could be 120 pages of people making fart noises with their mouths, and those three would probably make at least a third of the film tolerable.

The best character in Hot Rod, however, is the stepfather Frank, played by the always awesome and grizzled Ian McShane. Watching him beat the crap out of Andy Samberg was a real treat on many levels, but it was more enjoyable because McShane just seems like a great guy to have on your side in any kind of fight.

Of course, the greatest weakness of this film is its script, which is evidenced by multiple scenes that seemed like they were intentionally drawn out for the sake of making Hot Rod just a little bit longer. That was great news for Parnell, though, because that guy could have a role in a silent film and still manage to have the best lines. In the case of Hot Rod, that line was:

“I’m not saying that kiss was hot, listeners, but if the boner police are here, I demand a lawyer.”

I’ve often cried foul that Parnell doesn’t have his own TV show or he isn’t a movie star in his own right, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s the ultimate cameo guy. So with that said – what the sh*t, Hollywood? Cast Chris Parnell in more stuff, okay?

What About That Whole Sports Aspect Thingy?

Oh yeah. Well, Samberg plays Rod Kimble, an aspiring small town stuntman who is downright terrible at what he does. He’s also a grown man with the mind of a child, and he’s really quite terrified of everything, from his actual stunts and physically fighting his stepfather for acceptance to speaking to girls and even dressing as an adult. Seriously, I love the necktie with a polo look:

Unlike some of the other movies that I’ve rewatched for this series, Hot Rod isn’t a film about a sport, as much as it’s a series of sketches tied together by the common theme – a wannabe athlete. In fact, I wouldn’t even call this a series of sketches. It’s more like a series of vague music videos and dance routines tied together with the idea that the main character thinks he’s a daredevil.

Again, Hot Rod is a very confusing movie, but I’m pretty sure I like it.

So What Are Some Of The Things I Don’t Like?

Like I already said, this is a film that should be 60 minutes long, but in order to make it a full feature film, Samberg and Co. stretched it out with several very unnecessary scenes and by making several simple and effective scenes way longer than they needed to be. Example No. 1:

I’d like to start out by saying that the one subtle line, “Pools are perfect for holding water, man” is one of the best lines of this movie, because Hader is just a simple comedic genius. And almost everything else about this scene is fantastic, except for the bell ringing. It seems like an outtake that was left in either because the film’s editor left to get a soda or they needed an extra 15 seconds. However, so I don’t seem like I’m complaining too much, Hader’s random bark made it hilarious again. He has a tendency to do that.

Example No. 2: This bit that has been done to death.

When I saw this movie in the theater back in 2007, some no good punk kids sitting behind me made a very good point about this safe word scene, although I hated knowing inside of my brain that he was right. Wasn’t this just the Family Guy “Cool hWhip” scene packaged differently? But I won’t give the credit to Family Guy, because I know it’s been done well before that show, too. Similar jokes are no big deal, but a joke that’s older than time? Come on, Island, you’re better than that.

Example No. 3: “BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABE!”

Will Arnett’s ultimate bro-bag character is just as great as his other classics (GOB Bluth and Devon Banks) because he basically plays the same character in everything he does. That’s not a knock, because Arnett is fantastic, even if he’s foolish enough to let Amy Poehler get away. But this “BABE WAIT!” routine goes from charming to SHUT THE F*CK UP ALREADY in a matter of seconds. It’s like my great-grand uncle George Burns once said, “Too much of a good joke is too much. Also, I’m not your great-grand uncle and I never said this.”

The Scene That Is Just Plain Awful

All of that stuff I just wrote about jokes being dragged out or horseshoed into a scene for the sake of making the film longer? Yeah, this scene is all of that times a million. It’s like the worst Lonely Island sketch ever made, abandoned on the cutting room floor before the comedy group even had a cutting room, and crammed back into the film because Samberg and Jorma Taccone voted 2-1 over Akiva Schaffer to keep it.

The Scene That Makes No Sense

One of my favorite scenes in the previously-reviewed One Crazy Summer was the montage of Hoops and the fellas passing out flyers and playing the cartoon for Cassandra’s big show at the Dew Drop Inn. That’s essentially what this scene was supposed to be, except it lacked any charm and originality, and it simply turned into a sort of inside joke. That’s the only conclusion that I can come to, because I have no clue who the dancing guy is or why he’s supposed to be funny. But he just keeps dancing and I think it’s just obnoxious.

So What You’re Saying Is This Movie Is Just Horrible?

No, not at all. Because even as I’m complaining that some of the jokes run on too long at the expense of the punchlines, I thought this inspirational-march-turned-full-on-riot scene was fantastic. Perhaps it was the use of John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice” or maybe it’s just because it didn’t feel forced and downright ridiculous. Well, it was obviously downright ridiculous, but in the intentional way. Not the “Holy shit, why are these guys dragging this crap out?” way.

Basically, what it boils down to is the good outweighing the bad. For every drawn out joke, there’s Bill Hader tripping on acid, pointing at a trash can and asking, “Hospital?” and for every odd Samberg/Taccone bit that seems out of place, there’s McShane beating the piss out of Samberg or Danny McBride screaming about green tea while beating a guy’s ass with a parking cone or Isla Fisher wearing a really tight shirt and making adorable faces.

God, I hate you so much sometimes, Sacha Baron Cohen.

More than anything, Hot Rod has a perfect ending, and sometimes offbeat comedy films like this forget to resolve anything for the sake of just getting to the end so everyone can get paid.

Final Grade: 5/5 spirit animals