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muttonchopsalley · 7 months ago

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Adventures of Pete and Pete episode "Sick Day", guest starring LL Cool J, Chris Elliot, Bebe Neuwirth.. And President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

#Pete and Pete #90s #1990s #nickelodeon #nostalgia #TV #comedy #weird #Surreal #LL Cool J #Chris Elliot #Bebe Neuwirth

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gaykarstaagforever · 1 year ago

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FREE ON YOUTUBE

Cabin Boy (1994)

"Come on over here, honey. You've managed to charm me with your moronic innocence."

I was 12 when this...whatever it is...came out. My parents were real sticklers for the whole 13 part of the PG-13 rating, so I didn't see it at the time. And because this was 1994, the Internet was just a thing the Pentagon used to send racist memes to itself, so I don't remember even hearing about this thing.

...Or about how, at the time, it was a giant bomb, and widely considered one of the "worst movies EVAR" by that era's smug hipsters who had found a way to get paid to compile those lists.

(Yes, we had them back then, too. They even got away with being called "journalists" back then, like the thing they were doing was some kind of public service. It was not, by any stretch of the concept. But they published it in newspapers alongside actual headline news, so we didn't think about it and let that happen.)

Speaking of people letting things happen to them - so, point is, I had no idea what the hell Cabin Boy was before I watched it. If I had, would I have watched it? I don't automatically trust the opinions of anyone who isn't me. But I also don't seek out media that has an overwhelming reputation for being frustrating and stupid, because that often means I too will find it frustrating and stupid. So I don't know if the critical consensus would have warned me off.

What I do know is, the first 40 minutes of this 80 minute movie (with extended credit sequences) plays host to some of the most unbearably unfunny anti-jokes I have ever endured.

Nothing works in the first half of this. They don't follow through whatsoever on their already idiotic premise (a 'Fancy Lad' accidentally ends up on a rough fishing ship). The only tone is "and then THAT happened!" The cast acts like they're from at least three very different movies. David Letterman has a cameo where he is David Letterman for a scene, and it doesn't help anything in any way (star / writer Chris Elliot and his writing partner got Tim Burton to produce this mess with $10 million of someone else's money, specifically because Chris and the other guy were staff writers for Letterman's show).

There is exactly one joke that lands in the first half, and it is when Andy Richter, playing "a big stupid guy" (brilliant) does what he thinks is a hulu dance. Andy Richter silently wiggling is literally as good as it gets. I was ready to give up.

....But then came the weird puppets. While the first half of this experiment is an exhausting array of sitcom situations almost completely devoid of humor or anything else, it at one point suddenly becomes a vulgar children's adventure movie, if directed by Terry Gilliam. The fantastical costumes and props and puppets and matte paintings and sets are all great, with a specific and distinctive painted storybook style, and the filming and staging of them is as good as Hollywood gets. There are ice giants; a heroic shark-man; the Hindu goddess Kali, who lives in a cave and has sex with wrecked sailors, while her giant husband is out selling appliances (I think) to other fantasy creatures. All of this is ridiculous, but in the fun, good way. Some real professionals worked hard on these aspects of the film, and that is perhaps the Tim Burton production shining through?

What a shame it is all in service of this particular movie. Truly, no one has ever put in this much work for so little.

The rest of the movie also improves in the second half. While there are no believable character arcs to speak of, at some point the titular Cabin Boy and the crew of fishermen who hate him settle in to a begrudging respect for each-other, and their interactions after this point are, besides the production design, the best part of the movie. The Cabin Boy, weekly defined at the start as a pampered naive jackass, becomes the standard Chris Elliot ensemble character, an eccentric dope with a heart of gold. Chris Elliot is good at that character, which is why he always plays that character. And I like him as that character. Even when he's given nothing to do but bounce from one nonsensical mess to another. And this group of skilled character actors do the best they can to give depth to this razor-thin material.

The jokes get better, too. The story of where the shark-man came from is solid. As is the Cabin Boy using his swimmer love-interest as a rideable watercraft. These are the kind of charmingly over-the-top things a movie like this should be filled with. Unfortunately, there's just not a lot of them.

In looking up how and why this movie happened, I found this retrospective from The Ringer from 2018, aligned with the 25th anniversary Blu-ray rerelease. The premise of that piece is that Cabin Boy is an underrated, ahead-of-its-time anti-comedy that paved the way for Adult Swim and what people used to do on YouTube 10 years ago, and that you'd get it if you were cool.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with that stupid bullshit, you idiot. I appreciate that Elliot was aiming for the kind of snide, winkingly-ironic, piss-take-of-everything comedy that Gen X just couldn't get enough of in 1994. And that can be done in a way that transcends that specific mode and era of media and delights a general audience: think Weird Al, and the early seasons of The Simpsons. But it is also possible to try for that and just completely fuck it up. And I think that is, for the most part, what happened here.

If you are of a type that finds whatever the first part of this movie is trying to do funny and effective, great. Maybe you saw it as a kid, and as a kid who has no standards and missed all the random stupid sex jokes, it really connected with you. Fine. Comedy, and how we come to it, is subjective. But you were / are clearly part of a niche audience, because this thing made back $4 million of a $10 million budget. Why make a general release movie of this at all, if you're not interested in appealing to anyone who doesn't already think David Letterman's dickholery was the height of comedy? I realize he was popular as a latenight host. But that style doesn't translate into a good comedy movie on its own. You have to balance it out with wit and heart and gleefulness, and make an easy-to-follow narrative out of all that.

I know that, because in 1994 they tried to avoid having to do that for 40 minutes, and it fell so flat that even they stopped and made a better fantasy action movie with the rest of the budget.

Cabin Boy is certainly worth seeing, if you can make it through the first half. There is a fun and inventive kids' adventure movie floating around in here, like a delicious hotdog spinning around in an overflowing toilet. In that, it is certainly a one-of-a-kind piece of art. Because why would anyone ever make something like this, ever again?

Holy hell.