Freddy Got Fingered

[size=+1]Freddy Got Fingered[/size]​

Sometimes, I feel like a challenge. Y'know, something completely out of the blue to look at every once in a while. I am the guy that, on this very site, managed to write a review on the Fan Fiction known as 'Cupcakes'. I think I can take this. I actually try and watch movies like this every once in a while, just to form my own conclusions somewhat when people rant and rave about something being the worst thing they have ever seen.

'Cupcakes' I will always consider simply torture pornography that got popular when the fandom was building itself up. Back then, I was just the random furry that had turned up, decided he'd start writing Fan Fic reviews and see what happened. I had to be careful, polite and talk about the highly upsetting content in a manner that wouldn't immediately get me kicked off the site.

Look! At this point, I still wasn't sure if I should be more like a human or fox yet! I'm still wearing clothes! Plus, Poetic was still here. And a pony still.​

And I managed to give plus points to that fic for being decently written and effective in it's story writing. Only to then evoke Movie Bob by saying: "It's like making a solid gold Virtual Boy. Great job! Why'd you make that out of it?"

Somehow, I feel like I'm doing that again. The only difference is that I own the site now and I'm in charge of the mods. I still can't just wave phalluses around or actually show all the gore, only attempt to describe it in a reasonable way that doesn't break the rules. In essence, a real challenge to review on this site, partly because of it's material and partly because of it's material, if you see what I mean.

So, I have two things to say after watching this movie.

One, in the spirit of friendly competition on this site, I say to Crimson Lionheart: Foodfight? Ha! Get on my level! Awful CGI Horrors that are meant to be appealing for all ages? Product Placement on a cynically massive scale? I got Tom Green slapping people in the face with a large sausage he's pretending to be his massive endowment. Just try and compete with that!

Second, it's rather a general point but it sums things up nicely. Without hyperbole, it's quite simply:

[size=+5]WHO FUNDED THIS BLOODY THING?![/size]​

Firstly, I should explain that I am not a fan of Tom Green, the film's star and co-writer and director. I was not even aware of his MTV Show growing up and would have probably hated it. That's a guess though because I have no idea what 14-16 year old me would have giggled at exactly. I probably would have worshipped Nyan Cat as a god. Anyway, I'd vaguely heard of the Bum Song through a friend who enthusiastically showed it to me. Even his mother thought it pretty hilarious but I was just confused by it. I barely watched MTV as I have never been a dedicated follower of music and still don't consider myself one. I enjoy good tunes but I don't personally pursue them.

And then I heard about his movie. That's won Razzies, gotten itself in enough books to outrank most serial killers in that regard and be considered so bad, it might actually be thought of as somewhat artistic at some point in time.

The late Roger Ebert said that, not me. The weird thing is that I can seriously see his point...

The movie is about Gord, played by Green himself. His father (Rip Torn) wants him to do nothing but get a job and earn a living then move out of the house. However, Gord is a psychotic man-child that believes he has what it takes to become an animator. He tries to get it cartoons sold in Hollywood but is shot down. On the advice of the owner of an animation studio, Gord tries his hardest to be an animator, much to the dismay of his dad. From there on, things...happen...

This film is sick in the head and, here's the kicker, I'm convinced it's doing it on purpose. This is the intention of the film.

Like it or not, this is short very competently. Each angle is lined up nicely. They roped in Rip Torn and Drew Barrymore (that could have been because they were an item at the time). Unlike other train-wrecks such as The Room where it's blatantly obvious Tommy Wiseau barely knows what he's doing in every field he's involved with and the rest of the cast don't care, Freddy Got Fingered has people delivering lines correctly. While The Room reveals and then drops story elements throughout the entire movie that are as broad as breast cancer to drug dealing, Freddy Got Fingered has constant themes of desiring the acceptance of one's father, no matter how vile he might be, as well as how fascinating a dingle-dangle is, apparently...And while The Room hasn't the budget even for an outside roof set, Freddy Got Fingered has the budget for an animation interlude as well as many stunts, practical effects and decent looking sets.

Centaur Tom Green everypony! The Present no one was expecting but got anyway.​

Let's face it folks! This is almost exactly as Green imagined this film to be. As a fan of 'So Bad, It's Good' Movies, this gives very little to work with because it's shot very well. No dumb rubber costumes, no fumbled lines, no hilariously mangled ideas. It's hugely competent and that seems to bring about an even bigger issue.

Green's idea of comedy appears to be a mixture of shock, childish antics and almost endless noise. He is actively attempting to be annoying and tasteless to a faultless, gleaming degree of maddening. Scenes very often, don't follow on from each other in a reasonable and logical manner. The ones that do are baffling in they're attempt to impart a little bit of humour. There is a scene where it's suggested Gord relaxes by eating food, playing music and drawing. Gord takes to mean doing all three at the same time.

And so, he attempts to play a keyboard, draw and eat sausages that are dangling from the ceiling on strings. All while coming up with strange little songs.

Thought I was making that up or something?​

Also, this movie has sold a good million or so DVD's by now. Just let that sink in.

Gord is a child in a man's body. And that child is probably seven years old at best. It's the best explanation I have for why Green will set up scenes for a couple of seconds and then simply, just...act like a toddler. There is a scene where Gord starts his first shift at a Cheese Sandwich Factory. Because those are a thing, apparently. I get the feeling some of the writing was the result of whatever was in the room at the time but I guess it could be a thing. Maybe.

Anyway, the scene starts. Gord lays the cheese down, we see more workers making the sandwiches. And then Gord just gets onto the conveyor belt, grabs a sausage and flings it around as if it was his own phallus.

What the hell am I to do with that?! The movie is like this consistently through out it's run time. There are moments were the story simply progresses without any interruptions, but then Green just...does stuff. He simply does something and I get the feeling it's either because a joke is a required to end the scene on or because the character just get's bored. He just, does things. Like stopping in front of a stud farm and then, ugh...grasping the stallion's shaft, shouting "Look at me, Daddy! I'm a farmer!"

Something something, 'First Recorded Clop', etc, etc.

It's just that there's no lead in. It just happens. When Gord is told his drawings aren't very good, he pulls out a gun and sticks it in his mouth. From no where. Oh! And he's dressed as an English Bobby for no good reason. The most baffling is when he stops his car and watches a stallion mount a mare that just happens to be there while chewing through cheese sandwiches. Is that an equivalency with the audience? Is Gord just fascinated by this stuff because there is no discernible reason why Gord would ever, ever, ever need to stop by the Stud Farm again.

There are clop jokes, right there, and I can't touch a single one! The things I do in the name of taste, ugh...This is the best I can do.​

Anyway, scenes often play out like this initially. They just...happen and it's baffling. I mean, it feels like Green is avoiding having conventional jokes out of some kind of hatred for them. As if having them is an affront to him and his sensibilities because it's kind of clear this is intentional. Green co-wrote this. He acted in it. This isn't a case of actor and director having two different script interpretations. It's all him. Furthermore, I know the lines are improvised, largely, to be as crap as possible as Green's portrayal of Gord isn't that articulate. He just shouts and raves over and over with the same line. Again and again, and again. He doesn't have any real monologues, he just shouts things. Like a child.

This only seems to make Gord increasingly unlikeable because he has nothing interesting to add to a scene but noise. Despite being a good artist, he's directionless and his work shows just how much he has no idea what he's doing. Even in most scenes, he just bawls the same line over and over, hammering the point of the joke that is being supplanted here. The original joke being something a normal, average sitcom movie would do; the crazy antics that ensue when you have a foodfight in a restaurant, for example.

And this is my theory on this. Art or not, I do think this movie is driving towards a point.

First, look at the synopsis I wrote and you might notice that it doesn't seem too alien from other movies you may have seen. I mean, how many times have we seen the journey of one little guy or gal that had a dream but wasn't getting anywhere right now. Until one day, they pull their finger out and manage to achieve they're dream by showcasing themselves in just the right way.

"Works for me. Although, a few sacrifices to Satan help. Can't give him my soul, how do you think 'Happy Madison' started?"​

Been done to death. It's in this too, it's just buried under a mountain of Green's bile. This is not a love filled parody like maybe Hot Fuzz or The Naked Gun. This is a rage-induced scream at the sort of movie I think Green was expected to make after being pigeon-holed as a Comedian, of which this title is shaky at best because it only barely resembles one. It's...It's Anti-Comedy. It's born of hatred and disgust.

I didn't want to evoke the Nostalgia Chick review of this thing that looks at the idea of whether this thing is an art film or not but there is a perfect way of describing what this movie does. It doesn't engage the audience, it alienates it. You can't laugh at the characters because they're actions are unlike anything you've ever seen. I stress, on purpose. Green doesn't want your adoration, he wants your disgust. Possibly not even for his real audience, those that watched his TV show.

This is pretty true to life for any viewing of this movie.​

But why? What could possibly possess someone to make something this inanely stupid.

To try and answer that, I actually looked that old TV Show up! Mainly clips on youtube but I did get some idea of what his show is like. Now, I don't have much to go on but I could figure out that Green, even then, didn't seem to like convention. The stuff I was looking at had roots in shows like maybe Candid Camera or Local News Shows, but Green combined the two to create a kind of one joke idea with hundreds of variations: he would make the thing look like a cheep, student documentary (possibly because it actually was one, we're talking early MTV here) but instead of interviewing for anything specific, he'd do stupid things instead. Like put poo on his microphone while making sure it's nice and close to his interviewee. Or painting pornography on the bonnet of his parents' car.

My best guess is that this was a sort of comedic take on a trend towards films and media that looked more realistic and true to life. Things like maybe Clerks. There's the rather cheep looking camera, a mic attached but with no other equipment at all. No lighting, no obvious checks and no obvious set ups. Just Green, the Cameraman and the American Public. The thing is, it does feel like a more spiteful and unenthusiastic parody of these trends at times. It's mimicking that style but it effectively boils down to being expected to laugh at the person being goaded into feeling uncomfortable or throwing a fully fledged tantrum. Green will make jokes occasionally, but they're usually made with the member of public as the straight man to Green's goofy, if apparently bored, antics. Often, it seems to be there simply to antagonise said member of the public.

I dunno, I didn't get it. Maybe it's just my sense of humour, or that it doesn't translate to Ol' Blighty very well but I didn't get into it too much.

Pictured: My Sense of Humour​

Now this is just a theory here but I really do think Green also has something of a subversive streak in him that shapes some of his outlook on the world as well as his angle on comedy. And while I'm in the middle of pulling said theory out of my arse, I may as well finish. So how about fast-forwarding to now where Green is a stand-up comedian. I know it's a common bit with comedians to find something and pick it apart but Green seems to do this all the time with a group of reoccurring ideas. Of the clips that I could find of his shows, he had a pretty consistent theme running through them: Tom Green despises mobile phones but more significantly how we behave with them (Link does contain some swearing).

Green dislikes the effect of the advancing technology available to all and increased communication within the world, if his regular stand-up topics are to reflect on the man himself. There's an emphasis on how it draws people out of this world and into another. It's clear that bothers him, seeing these things as an addiction in their own right, disrupting normal activities with texting and such.

Valid or not? I don't know but it's interesting at least. I enjoyed his stand up far more than his old TV show though.

So, this does somewhat inform the interpretation of this movie. This wants to be a kind of The Tom Green Show like parody of usual comedy films, like early Adam Sandler works. Therefore, it's mainly laughing at Green infuriating movie executives as he parades a series of angry, stupid and horrible people across the screen while aiming squarely at shock value almost exclusively. Why? I think it's because Green saw the sort of movies his contemporaries made and he saw it all as corporate sludge, churned out to make a quick buck. So, he sought to combat it, subverting the genre with a movie that takes the same framework but fill it up with an hour and a half of the most awful crap he could think of. He tweaked and warped that basic movie idea until it was almost unrecognisable, as if aiming to recreate what most elderly people believe modern movies to be like.

"Danny! Danny! This Art Film you suggested! What is going on?! There's a man running around in a deer carcass! Danny!? This is nothing like 'The Queen'! DANNY!"​

The idea is to not only insult the people behind the movies but the one's that support it. There is an implied insult to the viewer that genuinely finds this movie funny. Laughing in surprise is fine as moments such as running around like a moron while wearing a deer carcass to the tune of 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing' are idiotic. I think there's something to be said for laughing the whole way through at the gross out humour alone. Now, some movies have gotten pretty shameless but I think even this would be reviled by almost everyone.

Just take a look at Gord's father in that particular light.

Rip Torn's portrayal of the Father character is as a horrible person. A misogynistic, sadistic, aggressive, insensitive and horrendously violent little man. If there was a 'villian' of this thing, it would be him. Now, I can understand this character to a point. If you'd have to live with a psychotic man-child that stages bizarre little skits, often ones that get him into trouble or cause damage, you'd be at the end of your tether with Gord too.

Mr Torn has a pedigree in Bad Movies. You just didn't know it extended further than 'Men In Black II'.​

Just...Pulling him through a glass shower screen? Really? And the amount of pleasure he gets out of being this incredibly cruel cancels out any sympathy I might have had for him. At one point, he smashes the half-pipe Gord and his brother had been making out of wood. He'll shout and scream back at Gord, who only shouts and screams back. I have no interest in supporting either character. At least Gord's girlfriend's goals are simple and she's attempting to complete them straight forwardly.

Actually no, because she's incredibly pushy with her insistence on fellatio. Yeah, in an unusual twist for the kind of movies Green is warping, the female is the one pushing for sex while the male is the one insisting on getting to know each other better first. Again, nothing can be left unchanged into something a marketing executive couldn't immediately have a heart attack over.

Also, she likes rockets. Ha.

Pictured: Sexual Congress. I'm not joking. Do you think I'd still be making stuff up by now?​

And that leaves very little to really talk about. The rest is just that old structure of a usual movie of this type that still manages to shine through. The Introduction to the Down On Their Luck Protagonist, The Moment of Clarity, The Early Attempts at Success, Hitting Rock Bottom, Coming Back and Succeeding with Everything Forever, Credits. It's all here, only it's broken up with sequences and 'jokes' that would probably only appeal to teenage idiots. Young teenage idiots.

In short, this is a bad movie. Sadly, it is not funny bad. It is torturous. It's the first movie I've seen that seemed to show genuine contempt for it's audience, the medium and the fact that it exists. This isn't some slap dash cash-in on the Tom Green name. This is a calculated effort to make a sarcastic piece of crap. I do think that students of film or of other mediums could pull some use out of this as this is a movie that deliberately attempts to do everything is can to be unappealing. It's a little like showing Fawlty Towers to people that deal with customers: you just have to do the opposite of what they're doing. Same here.

This sums up what I think of the whole 'So Bad It's Art' thing, by the way...​

Just do the opposite of Green. Make sure your movie moves at a decent pace without meandering unexpectedly. Ensure that your jokes follow a set up and pay off structure. Random Humour is hard to pull off for an entire movie without it being tiring. A protagonist we can rally behind is very important if you want to involve your audience in your story. Also, gross out needs set up or purpose and some level of restraint, or it seems tacky.

It sucks. It sucks really hard. I will agree, its interesting to write about because, well, it's unlike anything you've seen before in it's magnitude of bad. It's not 'So Bad It's Good' because there's little redeemable about this. There's nothing you can make fun off because it's not exactly incompetence on display that you can tease, it's pure misplaced Absurdity. It's made for no one. And that's why no one should really watch this.

And yet they are, because Internet. In their millions.

Tom Green: Shouting and Raving Since the 90's​