The following is a true story, a diary of the events that took place Friday, January 25th, the opening day of the film.

Meet the Spartans: A Test of Endurance by Frank Longo:

3:10 PM- I'm suiting up for the 3:30 showing of Meet the Spartans on opening day. I order my ticket for There Will Be Blood on Fandango.com, with full intentions of giving these people no money. But they draw me like a moth to the flame. It's a phenomenon critics fail to understand. Stupid people make up a large chunk of America, and they desire the lowest common denominator. I am bringing a notepad and taking extensive notes on the "gags" the film provides, and hoping to emerge unscathed. My Date Movie observations did not go smoothly, but I survived with my brain in tact: http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=153847&mesg_id=153847&listing_type=search. This one looks far far worse. Pray for me as I enter the abyss.

3:20 PM- The theatre is divided into two halves. There Will Be Blood is on the left, Meet the Spartans is on the right. I wonder what Robert Frost might say.

3:22 PM- I go to the bathroom, and take an enormous shit. I begin to think this could be an omen. Then I turn to the toilet paper-- both rolls are brand new, and I have a great deal of difficulty finding the end of the first piece. Then, when I flush, it doesn't all go away. I flush again, yet still the toilet is not yet clean. I see this as a giant metaphor for what I am about to put myself through.

3:30 PM- I enter the theater. 12 people are already seated inside. By my count, there are 3 women, 11 people college-age and under, and 12 white people. The advertising campaigns are hitting the desired demographic perfectly.

3:35 PM- An old man enters the theater and sits alone. I wonder what his life was like, what led him down this path, and what his motivation was on a Friday afternoon to come see a film like this. Perhaps he is me 50 years from now, continuing to be curious as to how bad films can get. I share in his sadness.

3:37 PM- A mother and her 11-year-old daughter enter. I feel an enormous urge to yell, "TURN AROUND!!" I resist, and through non-intervention, I become an accomplice to a cinematic crime.

3:38 PM- The first trailer is for Be Kind Rewind. I realize that my laughter will probably end shortly after this trailer. I also realize I've been mentally preparing myself for this film for weeks without knowing it. I've been watching nothing but 2007 awards contenders, all terrific American films that PTP has recommended and praised. I am as high on American cinema as I can be right now. It wasn't just because I held out hope for a truly great time in recent cinematic history-- no, I was like the ant who was collecting food to survive before a long, cold, unfunny winter.

3:41 PM- Now we're talking. No one laughed at the first trailer. But now that Larry the Cable Guy's new film has a trailer rolling, people are HOWLING. The audience actually laughs at the line, "Are you insane???" "No, I'm Larry!" Bonus: this film co-stars Eric Roberts. It's called Witless Protection, and I hear one college-age dude say at the end of the trailer to his friends, "I've GOTTA see that!"

3:44 PM- I thought the Larry the Cable Guy film looked bad... and then a preview began for a kickboxing/martial-arts film. It's like Fast and the Furious... except with kickboxing. A good-looking new guy comes to town and joins this crew of kickboxers... but then the leader sees the new guy flirting with his girl, and beats him up, finishing him off with the line, "The bad news is... it's gotta end with you lookin like a bitch." KICK! This flick looks so fucking bad. And oh yeah, DJIMON HOUNSOU IS IN IT. He's playing the Mr. Miyagi to this good guy as he trains more, saying things like, "Everyone has their fight." I groaned about ten times in the two minute preview. It's called Never Back Down.

3:48 PM- Another fucking trailer. It begins with "From the executive producers of The Grudge and The Ring." And it has to do with spirit photography. Yes, there are blurry people in photos. Yes, there are spirits that move jerkily. And yes, there are creepy little Asian girls.

3:51 PM- FINALLY THE FILM IS BEGINNING. They've already worn down my defenses with their front line of shitty previews. I hold my Mike and Ikes in one hand and my Coke in the other. I'm ready to stare down whatever they've got.

3:52 PM- The film is 1 minute in, and yes, we already have a Baby Shrek from Shrek 3 saying it wants to suck a teat, we have green projectile vomit, and we have a gag about Brangelina adopting Vietnamese babies. I remind myself that this is only the first minute, but I'm pessimistic since I'm so busy not laughing that my Mike and Ikes are nearly gone.

3:53 PM- A Casino Royale parody bombs, since there's a bad guy hitting Leonidas's balls and calling him "Mr. Bond," while Leonidas keeps saying "My name's not Bond!" Once when he gets hit in the nuts, he yells, "Little Miss Sunshine!" Note to self: saying the name of a movie when getting hit in the nuts isn't necessarily funny.

3:57 PM- A dancing penguin comes out. Leonidas says "He has happy feet," you know, just in case you missed the dancing penguin reference. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this is funny, wait for it-- the penguin speaks like an ANGRY SLANG-TALKING BLACK MAN! He says, "I'm bout ta make you my bitch, cracka!" The fight scene between the penguin and Leonidas lasts literally 4 minutes. If you think this isn't long, try counting out 240 seconds aloud.

3:58 PM- Carmen Electra's character enters. She of course enters to a sexy rap song, sucking a lollipop, with lots of slow motion shots of her tits and ass, and her tongue wrapping around the lollipop. This is by miles and miles the best part of the film so far. She then reveals a chastity belt that requires a combination to unlock, in a gag so blatantly stolen from Mel Brooks that I almost yelled in the theater. My candy AND coke are gone already. I begin to feel very alone. Only six minutes have passed.

4:00 PM- Leonidas hits his small child. In slow motion. A lot. For 2 and a half minutes. Note to self: What's funny on America's Funniest Home Videos is only funny cuz the videos are about 10 seconds long.

4:03 PM- HOLY SHIT, JACKIE CHILES IS XERXES' MESSENGER. This is the first time I smile in the entire film. Then Carmen Electra says she likes to do it with big black dudes, and he tells Leonidas, "Dawg, your wife's a ho." The smile fades.

4:04 PM- Ah yes, the pit of death sequence. We knew this was coming. There's literally an entire minute of Britney Spears shtick before she's kicked in. Is that funny? If it's not, then K-Fed gets kicked in next. Then Sanjaya, who gets kicked in as the little girl crying in that one episode (talk about a very moment specific gag!) is in the background. Still not funny? Some American Idol judge impersonators judge Leonidas on his performance, and they get kicked in. Then a Ryan Seacrest impersonator jumps into the pit, as he yells "Seacrest out!" This all takes five minutes of the film, a.k.a. an entire third of the film up to this point.

4:09 PM- The oracle is Ugly Betty. That's the joke. The joke is that Ugly Betty is the oracle. Or maybe the joke is Ugly Betty is in Sparta, and that's funny. I'm really not sure how simply mentioning Ugly Betty is funny. She then says to Leonidas, "Save the cheerleader, save the world." He says, "I'm not that into Heroes." Again, I focused in REALLY hard looking for a joke, but then I came to the conclusion that the joke is simply that they're mentioning other movies. I immediately realize that I could do this for a living, and grow optimistic about my chances of being rich and famous.

4:12 PM- Leonidas and Carmen Electra wanna "do it." So they show lots of footage of them doing what looks like sex, and when they pull back you realize he's benchpressing her. These are just some of the greatest hits of gags I'm touching on here.

4:14 PM- Kevin Sorbo appears. God bless him, he's trying. But his first joke is introducing his son, who has a big package. The son enters, and sure enough, he is carrying a large box. Ha. Ha. Ha........ Ha.

4:15 PM- Some America's Next Top Model judge impersonators judge how Kevin Sorbo's son looks. This is the second reality TV show judging parody. I start looking around the theater for the exit signs. All is not well.

4:17 PM- Diedrich Bader... God bless him, he's trying. He's given gags like text messaging Xerxes "Spartans goin south OMG ROTFL". The Spartans all hold hands and start skipping around, singing.... wait for it.... I Will Survive. I begin to think that this is my own personal Battle of Thermopylae.

4:18 PM- I've failed to mention til now the ENORMOUS AMOUNT of product placement in this film. Early on, there's a sequence involving a Subway sandwich. Now, there's a fake Gatorade commercial, where the Spartans sweat blue. Conversely, the fat kid is eating... KRISPY KREME DONUTS! Every time there's a blatant product placement, it makes me want to protest those products (but fuck that, I could use a Krispy Kreme right now for some energy).

4:19 PM- Paris Hilton appears as a hunchback. My first quasi-laugh is Kevin Sorbo laughing about how he saw the Paris Hilton sex tape, simply because the idea of this dude watching the Paris Hilton sex tape is mildly humorous for some reason. Maybe this film is simply killing my sense of humor. The Paris Hilton shtick (played by the same girl who played Britney) goes on for literally two and a half minutes. And they end the bit with the same joke as they ended the Britney gag with: a blurred crotch shot. Get it? Because they show off their hoohahs! I find myself wishing I was watching the Larry the Cable Guy movie.

4:22 PM- Method Man shows up as a Persian. Leonidas says, "We bout to Stomp the Yard!" They begin stepping, which they turns into breakdancing. There aren't gags, just a lot of Persians and Spartans breakdancing.

4:26 PM- Oh my God, they're still dancing.

4:27 PM- Someone finally turns off the iPod (plug, plug, plug), and Leonidas says, "You got SERVED." Then, some Dancing With the Stars judge impersonators show up and judge Leonidas on his dancing. THIS IS THE THIRD REALITY SHOW JUDGE BIT. NONE OF THEM HAVE GOTTEN LAUGHS SO FAR. HAND ME A GUN, WE'RE NOT EVEN AN HOUR IN.

4:29 PM- A two-minute bit sending up Budweiser (plug, plug, plug) commercials for Real Men of Genius: The War Mongering Latent Homosexual just ended. Might have been a halfway decent SNL sketch if it were shorter, better written, and funny.

4:32 PM- The fat guy from Borat is Xerxes. He's introduced as "Xerxes, who looks like the fat guy from Borat." He then plays Deal or No Deal with Leonidas for a minute and a half. Guys, I can't make this stuff up.

4:34 PM- I'm now feeling ill. They have now been doing a parody of MTV's Yo Mama for two whole minutes. Kevin Sorbo says, "Yo mama's so dumb, she thought Tupac Shakur was a Jewish holiday! OHHHHHHHH!" This is the second time Kevin Sorbo made me quasi-laugh. But again, it's only because these lines are being said by Kevin Sorbo. I wish the whole movie was Kevin Sorbo. I literally don't feel well, and I don't think it's the Mike and Ikes.

4:35 PM- The chills down Xerxes' spine are caused by... DENTYNE ICE!!

4:36 PM- Carmen Electra says, "I have crabs." Cut to a shot of her panty-laden crotch, and yes, little tiny crabs are crawling all over it. I begin thinking of the ways PTP could put together a parody film about a thousand times more clever than this one.

4:39 PM- WHAT. THE. FUCK. I just endured another 2 and a half minutes of Paris Hilton shtick. IT'S NOT FUCKING FUNNY.

4:40 PM- OMG there's a blind Spartan and he runs into shit! ROFLCOPTER LOLZ!

4:42 PM- I haven't mentioned this... because the Spartans are latent homosexuals (I smell a comedic goldmiiiiine!), they hold hands and skip everywhere they go. This gag got one laugh from my audience the first time. The ensuing ten times were met with silence. Even this audience, who loves Larry the Cable Guy, think this shit is D-U-M.

4:44 PM- If you think old men saying "Let's make it rain!" and throwing dollar bills at Carmen Electra is funny, then you'll LOOOOVE "MEET THE SPARTANS!" Rated PG-13!

4:46 PM- Don't ask me to explain. Carmen Electra becomes Venom and Diedrich Bader turns into Sandman. They fight. For two minutes. I begin to understand what Marlow went through in Heart of Darkness.

4:49 PM- Ghost Rider shows up to a fight, and gets his head fire extinguished. Didn't that movie not do great? The fuck are they parodying that for?

4:51 PM- Kevin Sorbo, in order to kill Rocky, injects him with a huge Botox needle into his head. This doesn't shrink his head, or result in any sight gag. Rocky just keels over and dies, face looking absolutely normal. I guess they just wanted to reference Botox, and thought that'd be funny enough. They imagine some young friends, going "Haha! Man, they killed Rocky with Botox! Oh shit, bro, awesome! *high fives all around*"

4:53 PM- Remember the movie The Beach, where everything turns to video game mode? Remember how fucking weird is was there? Well, this time, the battle at Hot Gates turns into "Grand Theft Auto: Hot Gates." Yes, he beats someone with a crowbar to collect money. Yes, someone drives by and he steals their car. Yes, he turns Barbie Girl on the radio for 20 seconds and sings along.... whoa whoa whoa, what the fuck? That's right, they can't even get a fucking GTA parody RIGHT, let alone make it funny. Oh yeah, and a tattoo that says San Andreas shows up on Leonidas' stomach for no reason. I'm hoping that this is the grand finale.

4:55 PM- That wasn't the grand finale. The fat guy from Borat finds the Allspark. (all together now... *groooooan*) He touches it, and a car appears. Uhhh.... wat? http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/6/67/Wat.jpg Then, fat guy from Borat and the car meld together to make a half-human, half-Transformer... or something. He has a TV on his stomach that plays the "Leave Britney Alone!" video. Luckily, the robot unplugs himself... or something. They all die.

4:56 PM- I'll give you a million Longo Dollars if you can guess how the blind Spartan recognizes Carmen Electra!

4:58 PM- The film ends with the Spartans going to Malibu, they knock over Lindsay Lohan, and yes, a pixelated crotch shot for the third time is the joke they choose to end the movie on.

5:00 PM- The credits roll, and the characters all sing "I Will Survive" on the American Idol stage. There's a brief interlude where Britney Spears sings the song and dances a la the infamous MTV appearance. I don't stay to watch all the credits, but I catch several credits for celebrity impersonations that don't end up in the film, sucn as President Bush, Ellen DeGeneres, Rambo, and Dane Cook. I leave wondering if the Dane Cook impression would've been the one laugh I might've had during the film.

5:10 PM- I come home and take a shower, eat some ice cream, and feel ready to write my review. My fellow PTPers... don't see this film. There's a hundred better movies available from 2007 alone. Shit, go see Untraceable if you're looking to see a bad movie. Just don't see this one. It's not even fun for people that like bad movies.

I did this for you, PTP. Don't ever say your mod doesn't love you.

Sincerely yours,
Frank Longo

this movie looks terrible! (c) Charles Barkley

How does Friedburg and Seltzer continue to get paid for making this crap??? Do their parodies really do that well at the box office? I used to be a huge fan of parodies but not many good ones are being made these days (I havent seen Dewey Cox yet).

Date Movie cost 20 million (and I can't imagine the others cost that much more) and made 80 million worldwide. (40 million domestic). Epic Movie also made around 80 million worldwide.

Studios love this type of movie: cheap, no stars, easy to make, easy to market.

And...that's about it.

And how could the Spartans have known about contemporary urban dance culture?

Yes, I refuse to suspend disbelief for films that look this bad.

>And how could the Spartans have known about contemporary
>urban dance culture?
>
>Yes, I refuse to suspend disbelief for films that look this
>bad.


LOL nice post

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He showed his brother the trailer. His brother said that looked stupid, and he didn't want to see it.

Later, when they saw something else, the Meet the Spartans trailer was in front of it. The brother laughed his ass off, and said, "Now THAT I'd like to see. That looks hilarious!"

My friend, needless to say, was insanely embarrassed.

V.

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Let us pay our proper respects.
________________________________________________________________________
Magnificent Trident

__________________________________
well, john, at least you still have your record.

BUT.................

before i go see it, i'm going to smoke first and drink.soooooooo

hopefully i'm not as critical abou it, or atleast can't notice how bad it is.


i'm going to write how i feel about this movie monday after the high and buzz are over

frank you didn't have people laughing in you r theater right?

well my theater was in tears laughing.

i spaced out, i didn;t notice the movie at all. i was pretty gone. so all i remember was the ending credits they where singing i will survive.

but it was a terrible movie.

I call it "Currently In Theaters Movie." To make sure the gags are even more timely, we just get a list of everything that will be in theaters by the time our movie will be, then write jokes based on what we think a parody of that film would look like based on trailers, premise, cast and whatnot.

Imagine, our main character ("Charlie Wilson") will be walking through the desert pregnant dressed like Javier Bardem, then he walks into a field of clovers and says "There will be blood, because of how she move!"

It will cost $17.66 to make. Let's do this, Longo.

First of all, it's handheld video, let me make that clear from the beginning. It's the story of a pregnant teenage perpetual bridesmaid who gets mixed up with her grandfather dying from cancer in a scheme to rob a black church. Along the way, they meet some old ladies robbing a bank, one of whom accidentally sent her sister's loved one away and another accused of assassinating Abe Lincoln. Then a monster attacks and gives everyone a virus, leaving the pregnant teen and her cancer-ridden grandfather to go on an inspirational journey where they skydive and mine for oil. Suddenly they're attacked by vegetable pirates, but with the help of an old bloodthirsty vet and three singing chipmunks, they find out what it means to truly be alive.

except with MMA, bland characters and they turned Miyagi into Djimon Honsou (one out of three ain't bad I guess)

i caught a good portion of it without audio (though you can easily figure out every line). at first i thought it was a dance movie, just by the way the "bad guys" look... but yeah it's a painfully hilarious, complete rip of the karate kid.

sometimes i get really depressed. for example, i tell my friends we should go see "There Will Be Blood"

they rottentomato it and see it has a 91% rating. their response "oh, its another gonshor movie (making reference to the time i "made" them see Capote). about oil? fuck that."

so we go to the theatre and they decide we should see "in the name of the king" the one with "The Transporter dude."

i beg them...BEG them to see There Will Be Blood. they decline. I say, fine, what about Gone Baby Gone? no dice. i say, let's go see Gone Baby Gone and if you dont like it, ill reimburse you the price of the ticket. they agree. and of course, they like it.

my point is, sometimes i feel depressed like i am the only person in the world who 'gets it.' but then i come to PTP and see a post like this and it reminds me that though we all live in different cities, in a perfect world, we would inhabit a pretty awesome city of our own.

i know this post is rather incoherent, but just understand, i back you longo.

oh yeah, another one of my friends paid to see Epic Movie when it was out. and liked it "for what it was"

needless to say, i dont go to movies with him anymore.

V.

That was an excellent review. I found it hard to even make it through the previews. Sitting through the whole thing must have been fucking brutal. I've always thought that bad comedies are the most intolerable of all bad movie genres. Whereas I can laugh ironically at a bad sci-fi, action, or drama movie, bad comedies are just depressing. There's something really unpleasant about watching a movie that tries desperately to be funny and fails.

I loved reading this. It kinda makes me wanna watch it just to ejoy how terrible it is.

You know, though, Longo...this shouldn't surprise you. Mad Magazine is still around, right?

i'm most angry at Meth. Are you serious, fam? You go from The Wire to this? I aint never met a Negro without a sense of humor, so I KNOW you knew this movie was weak butter. A check is a check, but damn have some integrity. Reading some of those scenes, that movie is laced with subliminal racism in it's crudest form. At least make How High 2, those harold and kumor cats know where the money is at.

But yeah, there's always going to be good cinema out there, just like good music. Talented people will always get work, and there's never a dearth of good films come Oscar season. But people actually enjoy this type of trash, with endless product placement, 3rd grade jokes and references that won't be funny by the time this shit hits video? Pathetic.

only 110,000 dollars separate the two. Both seem on pace for about a 18 million dollar opening weekend.

so thx but im still going

for he took the slug with the shit-metal jacket to the head so that we did not have to.




~money, bitches and houses...they still calling you a nigger. -JG

Gamertag: Mighty J Fury

xbox 360 Soundtrack:
-Justus League stays on the playlist
-Tah Phrum Duh Bush-Sunshine or Pure Shade
-BBD - Poison (dammit Turk,now i can't get it out of my mind)

Well I think I know why they make these movies.


#1 at the Box Office.

You knew this shit was going to be terrible. Why not just, I don't know, avoid it like the plague it is?

Does it actually make your appreciation for good films that much stronger? Or can you seriously not think of a good, constructive way to kill an hour and a half?

at least according to Longo's diary notes.

------------------------------------------------------------------
2006-07 Zeno Memorial Cup winner: Chara SMASH

Kevin Faulk wants ring number four.

>3:44 PM- I thought the Larry the Cable Guy film looked bad...
>and then a preview began for a kickboxing/martial-arts film.
>It's like Fast and the Furious... except with kickboxing. A
>good-looking new guy comes to town and joins this crew of
>kickboxers... but then the leader sees the new guy flirting
>with his girl, and beats him up, finishing him off with the
>line, "The bad news is... it's gotta end with you lookin like
>a bitch." KICK! This flick looks so fucking bad. And oh yeah,
>DJIMON HOUNSOU IS IN IT. He's playing the Mr. Miyagi to this
>good guy as he trains more, saying things like, "Everyone has
>their fight." I groaned about ten times in the two minute
>preview. It's called Never Back Down.

A friend of mine has a bit part (maybe a walk on) in this. He was also in Sydney White.

Then,
>fat guy from Borat and the car meld together to make a
>half-human, half-Transformer... or something.

"Spartans goin south OMG ROTFL"

That got a laugh. Other than that, this post is beautiful.

*genuflects before you*


I can't even fathom how people enjoy crap like that. Funny read though.


I'm tired of the "worst song I've ever heard" being something new every month.
-okp simpsycho

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