Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

20 June 2008

The Ten, dir. David Wain (2007)

NIKKI says:
Steve and I had both heard how this movie was trashed by critics. The poster over there has some positive notes on it, so it would appear not everyone hated it. Something, though, made me think it was supposed to be one of the worst stinkers in history. Still, we thought we'd give it a go because Paul Rudd is in it, and because we'll watch anything with religious satire.

Well, what do you know? This was probably the most guffaw-inducing movie we'll watch this year, second only to Hot Rod. And if you liked the random, weird humour in that movie, you might just love this, too. It really is 90 minutes of silliness tied to a central theme -- that of the Ten Commandments. Paul Rudd introduces ten stories, each featuring a commandment, as he sorts out his own rule-breaking involving infidelity.

The stories are each about seven or eight minutes jam-packed with the weirdest stuff you're ever likely to see. The first one, for instance, is about a guy who sky-dives without his parachute and ends up stuck in the ground where he landed. He becomes a celebrity, with his own catchphrases, a TV show, multitudes of girls chasing him. All from his position as a head poking out from the dirt. Thou shalt not, we learn through the guy's rise to fame and fall to shame, worship false idols.

And so it goes. Coveting thy neighbour's goods sees Leiv Schreiber purchasing more and more cat-scan machines to beat the number his neighbour has; honouring thy mother and father has two black kids worshiping Oliver Platt as their Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator dad; thou shalt not steal sees Winona Ryder forging a perverse relationship with a ventriloquist's dummy. And thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife takes place in a maximum security prison ... think about it.

Oh my god, it's just so WEIRD. Steve and I just kept looking at each other with freaked out looks on our faces. Really, did they really do that? Did they really go there? Yes, they do and they did, and they refuse to stop GOING THERE. And it's funnier than it should be, too, because these are well-known people doing these bizarre things. Paul Rudd marries Dianne Wiest. Bobby Cannavale nudes up, Oliver Platt does the "ice cream" bit from Delirious, Winona Ryder fucks a dummy, Adam Brody channels Joey Lawrence, Justin Theroux plays Jesus, Liev Schreiber sings. It's mental.

Ultimately rather pointless, but damn funny.

3/5