Comfortable and Furious

THE HANGOVER II

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Some movies are wild stallions while others are tail ends of pantomime horses. Some movies are earthly visions of paradise while others are as dead as Angelina Jolie’s face. Some movies speak to us in a new language that we will come to call our own while others are stubbornly mute. Some movies are Icarus while others are just his wings. Some movies drink to our happiness while others screech gypsy curses at us. Some movies are the eclipse while others are those special glasses you buy in order to stare directly at the eclipse. Some movies are combine harvesters while others are the chaff. Some movies are deceptively leisured while others remain prone in exhaustion. Some movies bay for blood while others counsel moderation. Some movies are trim and shiny as trout while others are the rocks at the bottom of the river. Some movies are the spendthrift life while others are America by design. Some movies are a huge incoherent failure of a house while others have voices that are full of money. Some movies have a little limp when they walk while others have a little tremolo when they talk. Some movies have seen a million faces and rocked them all while others went down to the river but the river was dry. Some movies are tenacious detectives while others are unsolved child murders. Some movies are sneaky child murderers while others are bumbling detectives. Some movies are stuck in the cell block while others are dancing to the jail house rock. Some movies are yellow construction machines that open up the earth while others are great buildings that rise up from that foundation. Some movies have as many stars in the sky as there are fish in the lake behind your house while others have no place for the stars to fall and so they hang there, pinned to the firmament. Some movies are summers in Amagansett while others are winters in Great Neck. There is endless variety and variegation. This movie was like finding out that lottery ticket you split with a serial pederast had the wining numbers. It inspired a lot of ambiguous feelings in my heart. Being a sequel, it was exempt from any kind of real expectation, except a financial one, of course. Therefore, I’m going to largely skip over details of plot or character and briefly discuss a few thoughts I had while I doodled at work.

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The genesis of movies of this type is the crushing lameness of the quotidian, how one may escape it, subvert its deadening influence, expose to all spectators the true self, become an artist of one’s own life, discharge the slack snakes from one’s shores, that sort of thing. Under this rubric all secondary characters are tokens of some category of this oppression, be it professional, domestic, or familial. The guy from The Office’s future father in law despises him for his mediocrity and, though we suspect that his hatred of the white man may cloud his judgement, in this case he might be right. And so the drunken revelry becomes redemptive. As when one sins their way to sainthood. Although, in my case, I’ve only found it to be an excellent way to debase oneself but maybe one day I too will fall, in a drunken stupor, into my real self.

Also, this movie taught me an important lesson: big shot Hollywood producers like the ones portrayed in The Producers and Get Shorty spend all day figuring out new ways to neuter everything. I guess that’s the way of the profit motive. Co-opt Galifianakis and bevel his alternative comedy appeal into a smooth mainstream nothingness. How merrily the formerly weird laugh away their tragic history to be lured into events whose significance they do not truly understand by people they hope to befriend, seduce, enchant but who actually despise them and their otherness and wish to extinguish it. But then again, who’s the idiot and who’s the millionaire here.

John is keenly interested in penile enhancement and instant wealth. He can be contacted about these, and only these matters at jmatelich@gmail.com.


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