"Hamlet 2" exclusive: "You're As Gay As the Day is Long" ... and other fun stuff

At heart it's a spoof of "inspirational teacher" flicks like <i>Dead Poets Society</i> and <i>Stand and Deliver</i>. These are heart-tuggers where a Very Special and Dedicated Teacher turns around the lives of a group of slugs. Here the teacher is a total trainwreck and it's the students that turn his life around. It also has some very sharp points to make about public school education which is basically "warehousing" teenagers for a few years with no concern whatsoever about actually educating them.

I caught a screening of this last night, and I had a largely train-wreck of a time. Granted, the six minutes of "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" are absolutely hysterical. But the rest of this thing is inept, unfunny, and makes me worry about Andrew Fleming.

The never-bad Catherine Keener is pretty bad, and Coogan is a pain to sit through. I know it's all supposed to be "biting satire" couched in pseudo-inept characters. Unfortunately, the movie itself is just inept. It's not satiric to just say "Jews like to sue people" or "Gays are flamboyant." You have to actually put some craftsmanship into what appears to be deconstruction. As they say, "Dying is easy; comedy is hard." This movie proves both.

And, for the record, I don't like the way that gay people were depicted here. I'm not the most militant homo on the block, but I'm tired of old cliche stereotypes, and their rebirth as some kind of hip motif. (How's THAT for a mouthful?) 

 

 

The blog is tired of crap.

Well you didn't like it. Can't change that. But I don't see the film as putting itself forth as a "biting satire." It's a big silly comedy. I laughed a lot. Maybe you have to know as many bad actors who think they're good as I have over the years.

 

And Catherine Keener is a GODDESS!!!!