There's Something About Mary (1998)

Director: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Ben Stiller, Lee Evans

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. It released in that unique period of life where I had to exercise diplomacy and rhetorical skills that normally would have gotten me a job with the United Nations so that I could record an R-rated movie off of HBO for my future edification. It certainly helped that dear old dad thought it was the funniest movie he had ever seen, and needed his son to bear witness to it.

Did I Like It: Although, the experience of watching it on release at the age of 14 is a stark difference from re-watching it again after a long time at the age of 41. The embarrassment hits differently. The nostalgia, too. Regret for missed chances*.

That’s a lot for a comedy to fall into, much less aspire towards. I think one of the few things that has become abundantly clear lately is that comedy inherently ages poorly. Everybody quotes lines from Anchorman (2004) for the better part of a year, and the memory of laughing so hard you lost your breath begin to fade, because there isn’t much else there. Ace Ventura Pet Detective (1994) goes from being every ten-year-old’s favorite movie to a willfully toxic, singularly unwatchable mess.

Here, though, there’s an interesting alchemy in mixing the pitch-black heart of masculinity gone wrong and genuine warmth. It makes the jokes still work. It makes what we would easily call political incorrectness still amusing, when it is coming from either human error (hair gel, I’m looking in your direction), or the willful caterwauling of the worst people you can imagine (now it’s your turn, Matt Dillon).

In short, the comedy of There’s Something About Mary still works because there is something human at the core of it all. I wasn’t expecting that upon re-watching it all these years later.

*This feels like what Heather Burns called in You’ve Got Mail (1998) as “like people who brag because they’re tall,” but I’m not cursed with too terribly much of that particular problem.

The Mask (1994)

Director: Chuck Russell

Cast: Jim Carrey, Peter Riegert, Peter Greene, Cameron Diaz

Have I Seen It Before: You don’t have your tenth birthday in 1994 and somehow avoid the film. This is going to seem like a strange idea, but it was only after re-watching it recently that it dawned on me just how much I must have watched this one back in the day. Individual moments--even including slight instances of behavior—tweaked a memory.

Did I Like It: And yet it’s been years, probably even decades since the last time I watched the film. Why? I think I made the decision at some point that of all of Carrey’s films in the first decade or so of his bona fide movie stardom, it wasn’t nearly as funny (even in an adolescent way) as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)*, or Dumb and Dumber (1995).

But there’s more to the film than that, at least nominally, as the last half hour of the film is so standard I think I suddenly remembered why I got to a point where I found the film underwhelming. If you can get over the fact that CGI ages  worse than new-off-the-lot cars, there’s an impressively credible quality of a cartoon come to life in Carrey’s performance, made all the more impressive by the handful of shots where he had to stop moving around for the pyrotechnics around him to work properly. All of the highlights of his career, especially the early years, might make one think that he was going through prolonged manic episodes barely captured by film, but it’s hard to ignore here that Carrey is a more finely-tuned machine than he generally gets credit.

I was also oddly charmed by the plot of the movie of all things. It might be an obvious change to have the spunky reporter (Amy Yasbeck) be the morally bankrupt betrayer, and the vamp (Diaz) has the heart of gold. On the topic of Diaz, Carrey might have to take a bit of a backseat to his leading lady, as she enters filmdom here with more charisma (and I do mean charisma) than reels of ogling could ever hope to obscure. There were probably any number of attractive actresses who could have been cast in the role, but few would have been able to make a career out of it.

*And I’m not sure anyone—regardless of what they feel about the modern world—can watch Ace Ventura and not feel a little weirdly nauseous about the whole prospect.

Gangs of New York (2002)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. I’ve been kind of on a Scorsese jag lately. Thanks, Joker (2019), I guess.

Did I like it?: Yes, but to qualify that statement I will say I watched during spare moments on my phone. Thus, I’m almost entirely sure that I did not watch the film in the way Scorsese intended to take it in, nor can I weigh in as to whether or not the movie is too long.

I’m a bit awestruck that this film ever got released. It is the meeting point of three of the most wildly controlling forces in American cinema, director Scorsese, star Day-Lewis, and producer Harvey Weinstein*. That it was only delayed for a year is something of a small miracle. That most—not all, mind you—of those delays owed to 9/11 is utterly flabbergasting, especially when one considers that there’s only a single shot that could be thematically related to the incident.

Does the end product end up compromised? No, not for the most part. Day-Lewis chews through every scene he has, and as I imagine with every film in which he has appeared, he is allowed to do whatever the hell he wants. The tone of the movie around him, however warbles between the kind of deliberate crime drama Scorsese has made his life’s work, and the kind of four-quadrant easily digestible pablum dressed up in the disguise of prestige drama that was Weinstein’s second favorite hobby. It’s designed so meticulously constructed toward the goal of evoking the history it fictionalizes that one can’t help but admire and often awe at the craft on display. And yet, the music feels so all over the place in a desperate attempt to nab one more nomination for best song for Miramax’s campaign money.

Legend has it that a work print/director’s cut exists and that it allegedly feels more focused. Scorsese insists that the final cut is his director’s cut. This may be one of the only times in his output that I wish for the former, but begrudgingly accept the latter.

*Naturally, Weinstein has plenty of problems other than being a control freak, but I can’t be the first one to tell you that, right?

The Green Hornet (2011)

Director: Michel Gondry

Cast: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz

Have I Seen it Before: I have a distinct memory of seeing the movie in theaters, but beyond noting that the only mildly interesting use of the 3D was during the end credits, I had next to no memory about the movie itself.

Did I Like It: That last thought ought to tell you something.

It’s odd, but at the same time intuitive in the way only film executives could come up with, that in the television landscape of the 1960s, Batman was played for laughs, while The Green Hornet was plated deathly serious. Fast forward 45 years are so and we are no deluged with deadly serious Bat-films, and so the makers of The Green Hornet decided to opt for counter-programming and re-introduce millionaire publisher Britt Reid to the populace by way of a Seth Rogen buddy comedy.

And that’s about all I—or from a quick Google search, most of the of the people associated with the making of the film—could say that’s interesting about it. Even if somehow Rogen and company worked under a studio that had any interest in making an R-rated comedy version of the film, but even then, Rogen would have been miscast. It feels almost as if the film were originally written for Rogen buddy James Franco to star as Reid, but he had enough sense to pass on anything more than a cameo.

Maybe a Hornet movie played for laughs was the wrong move to begin with. All I know is that I was maybe a third of the way through the film before I was wondering how I might find a way to watch the TV series. I’m pleased to report that they are all available on Youtube, in relatively okay quality bootleg versions. Go check them out. The first episode has the Hornet and Kato taking out a crook named Trump. It has real charm. A legitimate release of that would be something I’d be imminently interested in watching.