Aaron Seltzer
39 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield.
You would think a motion picture called “Disaster Movie” would actually focus on films that have plots revolving around disasters, but aside from a few brief nods to “Cloverfield,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Twister,” it's just an onslaught of no-name cast members (What does it tell you when Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra are probably the best known thespians in the bunch?) going through re-creations of scenes from unrelated movies.
The film's basic structure parallels Cloverfield (which sort of qualifies), and there's a reference to Twister -- from 12 years ago -- and the only joke is that a tornado keeps throwing cows around.
The targets for “Disaster” hold little surprise: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” “Sex and the City,” “Juno” (I thought that was already a lampoon), “Step Up 2 the Streets,” “Enchanted,” “Twister” (yeah, take that 1996!), “Beowulf,” “Speed Racer,” “The Love Guru,” “Hellboy II,” “Hancock,” and “Get Smart.”
The film also contains the funniest Juno spoof yet.
I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield.
The title of this wannabe spoof is completely random, as only a vague notion of Cloverfield's plot is used to hold together irrelevant, never-funny references to everything from Juno to American Gladiators.
Here we have references to Juno (2007), Enchanted (2007), High School Musical (2006) etc., with requisite appearances by Iron Man, Batman, Hellboy, the Hulk, Beowulf, Alvin and the Chipmunks and, of course, tabloid-trash divas like Amy Winehouse and Jessica Simpson for good measure.
The year's worth of films that are less than fondly recalled over the course of eighty eye-scraping minutes: 10,000 B.C., Alvin and the Chipmunks, Beowulf, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Dark Knight, Enchanted, Get Smart, Hancock, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man, Jumper, Juno, Kung Fu Panda, The Love Guru, Never Back Down, Night at the Museum, No Country for Old Men, Sex and the City, Speed Racer, Step Up, Superbad, Wanted and You Don't Mess with the Zohan.
Rushed into production with no better drape for its threadbare gags than Cloverfieldunless you count such proud upholders of the Irwin Allen tradition as Juno, Enchanted, and High School Musicalthis carpet-fouling mongrel of a movie no more deserves release than do anthrax spores.
The film features Jayma Mays, Adam Campbell, Kal Penn ("Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle") and Faune A. Chambers ("White Chicks") as, of all things, 20-something "orphans" who are plucked out of scenes from "The Da Vinci Code," "X-Men" and "Snakes on a Plane."
Some of the targets are not technically epics: Snakes on a Plane?
Epic Movie, the latest plunge into the bottomless sewer of spinoffs from the original Scary Movie razzfest of 2000, makes fun of Nacho Libre, Snakes on a Plane, Scarface, Click, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Borat, among many others.
The plot is a misshapen amalgam of films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , The Chronicles of Narnia and The Da Vinci Code , but whenever those zany screenwriters ( Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg ) get stuck coming up with another flaccid gag, they have no problem yanking "inspiration" from Nacho Libre , Snakes on a Plane , X-Men , Mission Impossible and Click .
Having spoofed horror films and romantic comedies, Friedberg and Seltzer satirize mostly summer blockbusters - among them "The Da Vinci Code," "Nacho Libre," "Snakes on a Plane," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the "Harry Potter" films.
Susan (Faune A. Chambers) is menaced by Snakes on a Plane.
Other than scant allusions to "Blacula" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Vampires Suck" stays pretty close to a true parody: it lambastes a single work of art--in this case, the "Twilight" series by Stephanie Meyer.
A laugh-free Twilight parody.
In “Vampires Suck,” the “Twilight” spoof by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the Bella character points out the Cullen family and asks a classmate about them.
HANDOUT Vampires Suck, the latest satire from writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, lampoons the Twilight movies.
No name newcomer Jenn Proske has K Stew down pat -- from her fluttering downcast eyes to her crooked little lip-biting trick, even the mannered way Miss "Twilight" fiddles with her hair.
What makes “Vampires Suck” work to a degree (making it the best film that Friedberg and Seltzer have done) is that it focuses on the “Twilight” vampire craze.
To my mind, the funniest one is the knockabout Love at First Bite, starring George Hamilton as Count Dracula in New York.
Mel Brooks perfected the form in the '70s with pictures like High Anxiety (a Hitchcock spoof), Silent Movie (silent era spoof), and Young Frankenstein (figure it out for yourself).
Mel Brooks perfected the form in the '70s with pictures like High Anxiety (a Hitchcock spoof), Silent Movie (silent era spoof), and Young Frankenstein (figure it out for yourself).
The “plot” more or less follows that of Cloverfield (2008), until it somewhat inexplicably becomes Night at the Museum (2006) combined with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Huh? There’s also a discernable allergy to special effects, leaving inert takes on “Night at the Museum” and “10,000 B.C.” a little bizarre and conceptually embarrassing.
And they're miles and miles away from the masterpieces of all film parodies, Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein , in which serious moments are undercut by a gag that comes out of the situation entirely organically and naturally, rather than being dropped on top of the situation arbitrarily (and of course it's no coincidence that, even through the parody, you can tell that Brooks really loves Westerns and Universal horror).
Imagine if every few seconds, someone in Blazing Saddles took a moment to tell another character that there were making fun of Westerns.
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
Directed by David Zucker
influenced Vampires Suck (2010), Disaster Movie (2008)
Themes
Once upon a time the movie parody genre could be relied on to deliver laughs - Airplane!, The Naked Gun series and Mel Brooks's early movies always had a fair quotient of giggles.
Given the two-year gap since their last movie, one might have expected Friedberg/Seltzer might have made more of an effort and come up with some quality gags in the vein of their comedic forefathers the Zucker brothers (Airplane, The Naked Gun).
Would-be comedy flies fast, but it all feels recycled and stupidnot so stupid it's funny, mind you, like in "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun," which actually had brains behind their ridiculousness, but so stupid it's just plain stupid.
…and Top Secret! to the putrid and barely tolerable Wayans brothers' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and the first two Scary Movies (which Friedberg and Seltzer co-wrote along with four other writers) to Friedberg and Seltzer's Epic Movie and Vampires Suck, films whose instantly forgettable titles signal a knowing level of unimportance.
It's another opus that, despite opening titles done in the style of Armageddon 's and a feeble thru-line borrowed from Cloverfield (mixed with some of The Day After Tomorrow ), is as much a send-up of disaster-related films as Epic Movie was a spoof of actual epic movies.
Hm, let's see - The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Airport (ok, already done), Twister, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Dante's Peak, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Poseidon remake are the first dozen I can think of that they could have used, and without counting Cloverfield, which I think this film uses for its core story (but that could be a fortunate coincidence).
You would think a motion picture called “Disaster Movie” would actually focus on films that have plots revolving around disasters, but aside from a few brief nods to “Cloverfield,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Twister,” it's just an onslaught of no-name cast members (What does it tell you when Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra are probably the best known thespians in the bunch?) going through re-creations of scenes from unrelated movies.
You're thinking The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, or The Day After Tomorrow; they're thinking Sex and the City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Juno -- any movie that came out within the last year, in other words.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Directed by Mel Brooks
influenced Vampires Suck (2010), Epic Movie (2007)
Themes Dialogue
Mel Brooks ' " Young Frankenstein " paid tribute to classic horror films.
And they're miles and miles away from the masterpieces of all film parodies, Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein , in which serious moments are undercut by a gag that comes out of the situation entirely organically and naturally, rather than being dropped on top of the situation arbitrarily (and of course it's no coincidence that, even through the parody, you can tell that Brooks really loves Westerns and Universal horror).
Mel Brooks perfected the form in the '70s with pictures like High Anxiety (a Hitchcock spoof), Silent Movie (silent era spoof), and Young Frankenstein (figure it out for yourself).
Here we have references to Juno (2007), Enchanted (2007), High School Musical (2006) etc., with requisite appearances by Iron Man, Batman, Hellboy, the Hulk, Beowulf, Alvin and the Chipmunks and, of course, tabloid-trash divas like Amy Winehouse and Jessica Simpson for good measure.
Scary Movie (2000)
Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans
influenced Date Movie (2006), Epic Movie (2007), Vampires Suck (2010)
Date Movie plays as if the worst two of the six writers of Scary Movie scribbled it down on the back of a cocktail napkin while on the way from their hotel to the set.
Reaching for the dustiest shelves of the video store, former "Scary Movie" writers Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg lampoon "When Harry Met Sally" (now almost 17 years old), "Pretty Woman" (16 years old) and David Lynch's TV series "Twin Peaks" (also sweet 16), as well as "Mr.
The fact that ‘‘Date Movie” was made by two of the six writers of ‘‘Scary Movie” should have been indication enough of the type of ‘‘comedy” to expect from this parody flick.
Date Movie 's trailer brags, “From two of the six writers of Scary Movie...” After seeing it you can’t help but muse, “It took two writers for that movie?!” The writers in question are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer , who also co-directed.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Scary Movie) scripted this parody of romantic comedies, a project that puts them in the hopeless position of mocking movies that were much funnier than theirs.
Having lampooned the horror genre (Scary Movie), rom-coms (Date Movie) and even the film 300 (Meet the Spartans), the directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer turn their attentions to the Twilight saga with Vampires Suck.
Bonus: An “Enchanted” princess demonstrates that it’s not a wise decision to run in glass slippers.
Alvin and the Chipmunks fight the princess from "Enchanted."
American comedian Nicole Parker ( MADtv), who spiced up Spartans, does so again here with hilarious turns as Amy Winehouse, Jessica Simpson and the daffy princess from Enchanted.
He hits the streets with pals Calvin and Lisa (Johnson and Kardashian), plus the sassily pregnant Juney (Flanagan), soon hooking up with an Enchanted princess (Parker).
Here we have references to Juno (2007), Enchanted (2007), High School Musical (2006) etc., with requisite appearances by Iron Man, Batman, Hellboy, the Hulk, Beowulf, Alvin and the Chipmunks and, of course, tabloid-trash divas like Amy Winehouse and Jessica Simpson for good measure.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Directed by Jemaine Clement
influenced by Vampires Suck (2010)
Themes Plot
Just ask veteran spoofsters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who turned Scary Movie into a franchise and made dire, laugh-vacuum Twilight spoof Vampires Suck.
But this isn’t a blunt-edged satire like the egregious 2010 flop Vampires Suck.
Sporadic laughs spatter this New Zealand mockumentary, which plays less like Spinal Tap meets Twilight than Man Bites Dog eats Vampires Suck .
When Jennifer Coolidge first appears as the White Bitch, one character references her role in American Pie by exclaiming: “Whoa – Stifler’s mom!” When someone else mentions White Castle, Kal Penn (he of Harold and Kumar fame) says he feels like he’s been there before.
(The role played by Jennifer Coolidge in American Pie.)
…and Top Secret! to the putrid and barely tolerable Wayans brothers' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and the first two Scary Movies (which Friedberg and Seltzer co-wrote along with four other writers) to Friedberg and Seltzer's Epic Movie and Vampires Suck, films whose instantly forgettable titles signal a knowing level of unimportance.
What more skilled performers like Ken Jeong (2009's " The Hangover "), Arielle Kebbel (2009's " The Uninvited "), and Diedrich Bader (2007's " Balls of Fury ") are doing here, however, is anybody's guess.