Wet Hot American Summer
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I was a big fan of "The State", so 10 years ago when Wet Hot American Summer arrived on DVD I was excited to watch it. It was a miserable experience. Poorly acted, terribly written, about as sloppy an excuse for a film as I had ever seen. I stopped it about halfway through, really bummed out. Since then I somewhat enjoyed The Ten, really liked Role Models and was a big fan of "Stella". Role Models is David Wain's most focused and accomplished work, but Stella runs closest to WHAS. Each episode is like an extended SNL video short, full of absurdism and random acts of comedy. The humor works for me because each episode has a focal point. The satire becomes the basis for everything that spins out from it.
Wet Hot American Summer only has a location. A time and a place and that's it. The comedy hangs from this flimsy clothesline and if it doesn't stay on, oh well. I had a better experience this time because I could more easily spot that typical Stella humor, but I don't understand why this is the project that has such a cult following when it's the sloppiest piece of comedic filmmaking since Caddyshack. (Actually, I may have just answered my own question.)
The acting is around the same level as the supporting cast for Mamma Mia, which is below the level of a typical SNL sketch. Take Paul Rudd for example, because he perfectly defines the experience of watching this film. He's never given a worse performance on camera. It's a broad parody of a stereotype. All behavior and affectation and no actual character. Did I laugh? Well yes, sometimes I did. Was I embarrassed for him? Yes, I felt that too. Could he have been better if he simply played a character and made the comedy play through that? Decades of film history make me believe that is true.
I liked some of the music and there are the absurd moments of comedy that comes from I don't know where, like the chase set to Loverboy and the lounge lizard that emcees the kid's summer camp talent show. Then there are moments like the counselors all driving into town and shooting heroin. It's so so so far out of character that it isn't even absurdly funny, just weird and fake and kind of off-putting. But now I'm commenting on what makes me laugh, which is impossible to base a persuasive argument on. When David Hyde Pierce wins an award and hands it off camera so he can hug Garofalo even though there's nobody to hand it too, I laughed. Someone else could say that was the worst moment and the heroin house was the biggest laugh.
This is a poorly made movie, the worst by David Wain, that scores some laughs simply by law of averages and an abundance of comedians trying extra hard to spin crap into gold. It was made by talented people who thought using coarse language and lighting farts is funny all by itself.