Tell Me What You Think

As faithful readers of Pajama Guy know, I enjoyed Wedding Crashers. In fact, I thought it would be another There's Something About Mary, in that it was a raunchy comedy with heart that would have better legs than any other film this summer. (I still prefer Mary, by the way.)

The numbers are in and I've been proved correct. In its third week, after dropping only 20% or so, Wedding Crashers was the highest grosser of the weekend. In a time when even popular movies regularly drop 40% if not more, this film is an old-fashioned word-of-mouth hit.

Not that it required any great prescience. I saw it on opening day and could tell it was really connecting.

Not all critics loved it. (Mind you, if does have flaws--it's about 20 minutes too long and has a weak third act.) The most famous reviewer giving it the thumbs down was Roger Ebert. I recall reading his review thinking "this guy just didn't get it." Okay, fine, that's how comedy works--not everyone think's the same things are funny. But Ebert did something a lot of critics do that drives me up the wall. He took his own (false) view of the film and attributed it to the audience. For instance:

"The ads will fill the theaters on opening weekend, but people will trail out thinking, gee, I dunno ... why all the soppy sentiment and whose idea was the potty-mouthed grandmother? And don't they know that in a comedy the villain is supposed to be funny, and not a hateful, sadistic, egotistical monster who when he hits people really wants to hurt them, and who kicks them when they're down?"

No Roger, here's what they were thinking, if grosses are any indication: "That's the funniest movie I've seen in years--I'm gonna tell my friends and maybe I'll see it again myself." Stop projecting, Roger. Tell us if you don't like it, but don't tell us that we don't like it.

Columbus Guy says: Cool. Batman Begins is going to break $200 million.