Fortunately, “New Party Systems” is here to answer that question. A New York indie “supergroup” consisting of David First of the Notekillers, Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio, and the bassist and drummer from Liturgy (saw them in concert recently–the singer intentionally sounded like a screeching banshee, and I’m pretty sure they spent one song playing the same chord in different strumming patterns for seven minutes–nuff said). New Party Systems recently released “We Are,” another in a long line of songs written to inspire and represent the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Penned by guitarist First,”We Are” isn’t terrible musically, but it absolutely fails as a protest song for many, many reasons. There’s so much to work with here, actually, that we can use “We Are” as a case study in The Top 5 Ways Indie Rock Killed Protest Songs. Read on, aspiring hipster musicians, and immerse yourself in cautionary tale-age.

5. You’re Not Intelligible

Now, there’s certainly room for the too-cool-for-enunciation style of singing in the music world; catch me on the right day, and Andrew Bird’s “The Mysterious Production of Eggs” ranks as the greatest album of the aughts. But when you’re crafting something that’s meant to be a singalong, make sure your words are 1) striking and easy to remember, and 2) easy to make out without a lyrics sheet. Malone’s verses are just fine on the second point, but the chorus, presumably sung by First, I could only make out “We are the dome’s electric prize, the gathering of consciousness creating / We are an overwhelming tide, A feat, another sound to make a change” after about half a dozen listens. The official Bandcamp page tells me that should actually read “We are the dawn’s electric rise, A gathering of consciousness creating / We are an overwhelming tide, Of heat and light and sound to break the chain.”

Right. Everybody, now that I’ve given you the real worlds, try and sing along… without a lyrics printout. Yeah, not gonna happen.

4. You’re Not Timely Enough

Apparently, the “We are the 99%” chant at the end of the song was recorded mid-November, which already was late in the game for OWS. The Bigs had been updating the movement’s “Rap Sheet” of crimes and indefensible public behavior for several weeks, and now in the second week of January, OWS has been a punchline not only for conservatives but on shows such as South Park and on Internet meme incubator Reddit. Camps have been evicted, health officials have compared the remaining ones to “refugee camps,” local governments are publicly releasing the tremendous costs of the protests to taxpayers–just about everything that could happen to tarnish the movement’s public image has happened over the time “New Party Systems” took to release a song that could have been written and recorded over a weekend. In a musical world where positive buzz is so directly tied to the immediacy of blogs, you had better move double time to keep on top of the news cycle.

3. You Can’t Play Up the Everyman Angle

There’s a reason Scientologists don’t talk about Xenu and Thetans until someone’s proven themselves loyal enough to reach a higher level within the organization; that kind of language would turn off thousands of new recruits were it used as the hook instead of the more palatable, psychobabble-y Dianetics. In the same way, “We Are” is chock full of weird, clunky, over-serious poetic imagery that feels more suited to a skit at a Renaissance fair than a protest march. It makes sense that the same people who use “twinkles,” hand signals which smack of a cult created by 8-year-olds, would then think that lines like “Watch the water carving through the mountain’s heart of stone” would be the potential musical moment that convinced the unconverted to finally hate corporate personhood. In the quest to look and sound as elite as they consider themselves, indie rockers have forgotten that sometimes straightforward is the only way to make a point, especially when it deals with complex socioeconomic concepts.

2. No, Seriously, You’ve Completely Destroyed Any Everyman Appeal You Ever Had

I’ll just rattle some names off here: Sufjan Stevens. Of Montreal. Janelle Monae. Frankmusik. MGMT. Fever Ray. Bjork. Crystal Castles. Devendra Banhart. Goldfrapp. Twin Shadow. No, not everyone in the indie music scene dresses like this, but enough do that it’s created an archetype in the public consciousness. And I personally have no problem with crazy, bold style, but ultimately it hurts the effectiveness of a protest song. Bottom line: when you meticulously craft your image around the idea that you’re so much more unique than everyone else and no one can identify with you, nobody is going to identify with you.

1. You Realize You’re Protesting for the Man, Right?

The biggest farce of OWS was that its members–at least, the ones who had any idea why they were there–believed that the solution to the problems caused by powerful, corrupt bureaucratic organizations was… a bigger, more powerful (and–shhh!–more corrupt) bureaucratic organization. With endless calls to tax the 1% to redistribute their wealth to the 99%, the average Occupier articulated little more than a toddler’s cries for Daddy to take the toys away from a brother or sister. Rock and roll has always been “you leave me alone so I can live my life the way I want,” not “you have to take care of me so I can live my life the way I want.” With glaring inconsistencies like montages of 99%-ers taping themselves singing along with smart phones or support for teachers unions, which actively create income inequality by refusing pay freezes that could save some teachers’ jobs, the message becomes less and less compelling.

So the primary reason, Adam McKay, that protest songs, especially left-wing protest songs, haven’t been as effective or popular as they were in the past, is that they’re not about telling the government to leave well enough alone–stop the draft, stop the war, yadda, yadda. They’ve always got to throw in some affirmative goal that the government must achieve–free health insurance, income redistribution, environmental regulations, etc. Reasonable adults, regardless of political affiliation, can usually get behind a “hey, this is wrong, they need to stop this” message; it’s much harder to convince them that the lack of disability checks for adult babies deserves their time and support.

So keep these five points in mind, oh you of Youth and Plastic-Rimmed Glasses, and you may end up crafting the first great protest song of the new millennium. Your peers may pirate it–you know, to crush capitalism and whatnot–but at least you’ll have the satisfaction of…

Of…

Obviously, it means everything we’ve ever believed is absolutely wrong.

The free market just doesn’t work. Every conservative really is a secret dog-whistle racist. America is no more exceptional than North Korea. The earth really is barreling towards cataclysmic destruction because of you air conditioner. True equality and justice comes from redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Wait–

*brakes screech*

*spit take*

*jaw drops*

*pants fall*¹

Redistribution of wealth? Lucky for Aglialoro and his partner at Atlas Films, Harmon Kaslow, they’re located smack dab in the middle of millionaire country; and Los Angeles’s rich filmmakers all agree that redistribution of wealth is the right path for America! So, here is my plea to some of Tinseltown’s most beloved left-wing filmmakers. We’ve seen the light, and now we need your help.

Aaron Sorkin:  Your screenplay for The Social Network, a deconstruction of a modern-day captain of industry, was a runaway hit. It more than recouped its $40 million production budget with a global take of over $200 million.  Surely you can spare 50% of your Social Network royalties for a struggling production company for whom the free market has failed. Oh, I see; you’d resist because Atlas Shrugged doesn’t deserve this money, right? The writing was stilted and didactic? It skimped on marketing? That, Mr. Sorkin, is what we call blaming the victim. These hard-working people, who put their heart and soul into this film, are like an innocent Alaskan caribou shot and butchered by apathetic moviegoers– witless bullies destroying the potential to finish a historically important film adaptation. Mr. Sorkin, surely you have the moral courage to take a stand against this injustice, to give your hard-earned money to those less fortunate artists, cruelly maimed by the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism.

James Cameron:  What more is there to say about the success of Avatar? Yeah, you may have only surpassed the gross of Titanic by jacking up ticket prices, packaging them with little plastic sunglasses, but by gum, you surpassed Titanic, almost earning $3 billion. Now, at the very least, you can help offset the carbon footprint of your film, its DVD sales (remember, DVDs are wasteful), and Atlas Shrugged’s production.

Now, I know this is a touchy subject, but I think it’s a great opportunity for you. We’re quickly coming up on the five-year anniversary of Al Gore stating we only have 10 years to prevent a “tipping point” in our climate’s destruction. Since then, the only thing Al’s cut back on is his number of wives, and things aren’t looking so great for your own efforts against nothing less than the destruction of worldwide ecosystems. This is a crucial moment, Jim; this is your chance to turn the tide. Do you really need the money from DVD sales of your films? Please, Mr. Cameron, stand in solidarity with endangered species and donate 100% of this year’s royalties to Atlas Productions on the condition that 25% of them will be used for carbon credits. You’ve had a taste of the thanks you can receive from the world’s indigenous populations; why would you hold onto transient wealth and prevent yourself from receiving this thanks from the very fauna and flora of the Earth? Remember, you can’t take it with you, Jim. Not even the submarines.

Adam McKay:  Surely, sir, you see how the example of Atlas Films versus your own Gary Sanchez Productions is a textbook example of income disparity– the same disparity you handily reminded us of in the infographic credit sequence of your blockbuster hit The Other Guys, which cost $100 million to make and grossed $170 million worldwide.  That and your three previous films have all been profitable because you found ways to repackage Will Ferrell’s schtick in wildly different settings and situations, attracting a large, enthusiastic audience and making you a very, very, very, very, very, very, very rich man. You’ve stated in the past that executives in other industries make too much money and should keep less of it for the good of everyone.

So, let’s review some economic facts here (I can’t afford to hire animators for an infographic):  your theatrical films alone have earned a collective $453,190,451 in box office receipts, though their production budgets only add up to an estimated $263,500,000. That’s $189, 690,451 in profit, a profit margin of almost 42% (obviously those figures don’t include marketing costs, but they also don’t factor in DVD sales or money from product placement through multinational corporations). Atlas Shrugs still hasn’t recouped $15,659,145 of its production budget after a month in theaters. That loss could be covered by 8.2% of the profits of your films (and this isn’t counting the profits of Funny or Die or your income as head writer of Saturday Night Live).

Now, obviously, the lion’s share of that money goes to the production companies who fund your theatrical films, so I have no idea how much of this money is actually yours. But I still have no doubt that you could fill the deficit of Atlas; at the very least, you could convince your good friend and collaborator Will Ferrell to donate that much from the $20 million he demands per film, leaving him with $4,340,855 to live on until his next project– a sum that many Americans would kill to earn for a few months of work. If that’s too unreasonable, surely you have enough millionaire friends that 16 of you could donate just under a million dollars for those whom the free market has forsaken?  Or are we gonna have to introduce more strenuous regulations to counteract your greed?

The Rest of Hollywood: Should these men fail to abandon capitalistic avarice and refuse to help out peers in need, this is an open call to make President Barack Obama proud of you and spread the wealth around. Remember, you pledged.

¹ They were actually already down.

Adam McKay wearing Aaron Sorkin’s glasses and his little sister’s scarf…

On the pages of the Huffington Post, the uber-wealthy “Anchorman” director tries to hide his class warfare (something only wealthy liberals can afford to wage because the rest of us count on the “rich” to hire us and buy our goods) as some sort of concern over the federal deficit, which is the very definition of disingenuous:

As disappointing as Obama has turned out to be I think he still knows that $110 billion more added to the deficit in the next two years is a bad idea.

And yet McKay registered no righteous HuffPo indignation, not a peep of HuffPo hand-wringing over what ObamaCare and the $800 billion union/bureaucrat giveaway we now call The Failed Stimulus would do to the deficit. In fact, over at McKay’s “Funny or Die,” Big Movie Star support for the budget-busting ObamaCare bill (that makes $110 billion look like piggy bank shakings) was everywhere.

Adam McKay cares about the deficit like I care about the upcoming “Tron” sequel.

McKay and the legions of dishonest Leftists like him only care about the deficit when such a posture works as convenient propaganda in order to sound like fiscal hawks and further their socialist agenda. McKay doesn’t even care how silly and hypocritical he looks because the shame gene is non-existent in these folks. Reading the likes of McKay fret over a $130 billion deficit increase is like watching the Little Dutch Boy put his finger in the dyke after its burst and then stand there with a smug look that says, “I am selfless and amazing.”

And let us never forget that McKay is a proud and well-loved member of an entertainment industry that constantly has its filthy, greedy hands grasping out and its powerful lobbyists swarming throughout this great nation of ours in a quest for more of our money. This is an industry that chases corporate welfare and tax breaks for its rich self like hobos chase dollar bills tied to fishing string. The argument is that Hollywood needs those tax cuts to create jobs. Well, duh; and whether they’re hiring or purchasing, so do those making over $250,000 a year.

Why does Hollywood only believe in trickle-down Reaganomics when they’re the ones receiving the tax breaks.

That, my friends, is a rhetorical question.

I’m not rich, have never been close to being rich and now that I’m on the darkside of 40, I doubt I ever will be rich. I lack the brains, I lack the ambition, and as long as my pretty wife is healthy and my TV is working what more does a fella need? But I do understand how the world works. I watched firsthand as Reagan’s massive across-the-board tax cuts not only spurred 30 years of unprecedented prosperity (interrupted only by two shallow recessions) and — and this is important – DOUBLED TREASURY REVENUES in just a few years. And guess who also believed in the exact same economic principles as Reagan and got the exact same results? President Kennedy.

It’s also worth mentioning that while the percentage of the income the wealthy were paying in taxes went down, the wealthy’s overall tax burden increased substantially. For example, between 1981 and 1988 the top ten percent saw their burden increase by 48%.

Maybe this is what McKay and his selfish ilk are really worried about?

If Obama’s epic fail of a stimulus has taught us anything it’s that money in the hands of the government is at best useless in spurring the economy, while Reagan and Kennedy taught us that money in the hands of the American  people will always bring a sputtering economy roaring back to life and in turn raise treasury revenues.

Let’s review:

• Tax increases don’t increase tax revenues.
• A good economy increases tax revenues.
• If you want a good economy, decrease taxes.
• This isn’t rocket science.
• This is good for America.
• This is why the Left hates it so.

But here’s my message to McKay and all Hollywood lefties suddenly concerned with the deficit…

Lead. By. Example.

You won’t do it with Global Cooling Global Warming Climate Change, but maybe you will here.

NEWSFLASH: You don’t need to run around in some helpless puppy-dog circle waiting for the government to raise your taxes.

Raise your own damn taxes in three easy steps:

1. To help federal and state deficits, refuse all production tax breaks, credits, etc.

2. Increase your own personal income and business taxes by simply doing the math and making a donation to…

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782

3. Until steps one and two are completed, please stop embarrassing your hypocrite, socialist selves.

In his 1999 review of “American Pie,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote:

As I swim through the summer tide of vulgarity, I find that’s what I’m looking for: Movies that at least feel affection for their characters. Raunchy is OK. Cruel is not.

Unfortunately, the creators of the new teen comedy “The Virginity Hit” didn’t understand that concept when they created their own story about a nerd trying to lose his virginity. ”Hit” is an often cruel and humorless comedy that makes “American Pie” look like a classic.

Both “Pie” and “Hit” follow similar paths. Like “Pie,” “Hit” begins with a group of male teens eager to lose their virginity. After one of them succeeds, the friends all take a hit on a bong to celebrate (hence the title). Eventually the others lose their virginity and Matt is the only virgin left. But he has a plan with his long-term girlfriend. They’ve scheduled a special night together. Unfortunately, before that night arrives, Matt discovers she cheated on him and then has to choose whether or not he wants to sleep with her or break up. 

Matt chooses a third option. With his obnoxious friends, he plans an elaborate prank. The plan is to sleep with her and then, with all his friends popping out of an adjacent room, confront her on camera about her betrayal. Publicly humiliating her will be Matt’s revenge. None of his friends seems to have a problem with this horrific stunt. However, Matt calls the plan off at the last minute. He then confronts his girlfriend and tells her the truth. After their inevitable break-up, Matt then spends the rest of the movie trying to come up with a new plan to lose his virginity.

Unlike “American Pie”, “Hit” is filmed like a low-budget documentary made by one of the teens in the film. In reality, ”Hit” is a major motion picture with big-name producers such as Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who starred and directed this summer’s “The Other Guys.”

Although few people would call ”American Pie” a great movie, it was an enjoyable teen comedy. It was a raunchy but it was also funny and featured several likable and relatable characters. Unfortunately, this movie has none of those positive attributes.

The characters in “Virginity Hit” are some of the meanest people you’ll see on film this year.  Including our protagonist, they’re all vengeful and cruel. Matt is presented as the likable lead but he’s not. He’s a loser who limplessly falls victim to peer pressure.

The film is also extremely disgusting. Whereas “American Pie” was raunchy, “Hit” is only repulsive. None of the jokes work and many scenes are too gross to even describe. There’s a twisted voyeuristic quality to everything. Since it’s filmed like a documentary, some of the scenes look realistic and viewers are left squirming during a number of uncomfortable confrontations.

I hated nearly every second of this movie. Almost right away, I was checking my watch to see how much time remained before I could go home. Make sure to skip  the most repulsive and dull movie of the year.

But even these movies lost their appeal due to lackluster sequels like the third “Beverly” or “Another 48 Hrs.” (yep, Eddie Murphy was one of the kings of these flicks). And over the past decade, they largely seemed to disappear like some forgotten relic of the 20th century, doomed to be played back on dusty VHS tapes by middle-aged men.

Yet hope springs eternal for fans of this underrated genre, as Hollywood has sprung not one but two of these films upon an unsuspecting public since spring: “Cop Out,” which matched Bruce Willis up against Tracy Morgan, deservedly did so-so business. And now Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (see what I mean about mismatched teams?) are starring in the new spoof “The Other Guys,” in which they play two hapless desk-bound cops in the NYPD who suddenly get a shot at real action when the department’s best team of daredevils – played in cameos by Duane “The Rock” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson – get killed on the job in hilariously freakish fashion.

Ferrell is a bookish, quiet accountant for the NYPD’s forensics department, while Wahlberg was a hothead street cop with a gun until he accidentally shot Yankee superstar Derek Jeter and was reassigned to partner with Ferrell. Wahlberg wants to get back on the streets as a heroic police figure, but he’s stuck solving petty crimes like building permit violations and is miserable. That doesn’t last for long though, as these “other guys” race to the scene of a murder in the hopes of being the ones to crack it – despite the fact that their latest assignment is a seemingly boring look into corruption at the state lottery.

Their misplaced gusto they’re soon competing against another team of mean-spirited boneheads for the chance to inherit the deceased hotshots’ position of glory. But when they stumble across a British billionaire (Steve Coogan) and arrest him on a code violation when he’s really hiding much bigger crimes, our hapless heroes are thrust into a spotlight they have no idea how to handle – with Ferrell especially displaying irrationally violent behavior and revealing a colorful history of busty women that leaves Wahlberg in slack-jawed astonishment.

As written by Adam McKay and Chris Henchy and directed by McKay, “The Other Guys” is more a ridiculous sendup of the buddy-cop genre than a revival of it. This is his fourth film (following “Anchorman,” “Talladega Nights” and “Step Brothers”) , and all have featured Ferrell in the lead – so by now, they’ve built an amazing rapport that translates well into freewheeling comic anarchy when the need arises (such as when Ferrell runs screaming from a car crash in his underwear in “Talladega,” or tears up Coogan’s office in a fit of suddenly-unbottled rage here).

Yet Wahlberg is the bigger surprise here, revealing a deadpan comic timing that he hinted at in his supporting role in “Date Night” and is key to these proceedings. He’s especially funny in a couple of scenes spotlighting his immediate crush on Eva Mendes, the stunning Latina actress from “Hitch” who plays Ferrell’s wife.

Together, the duo have fun playing on multiple levels, with the best parts of the movie having nothing to do with action scenes. Rather, the standout moments are hilarious sequences that put a surreal spin on clichéd scenes like Ferrell and Wahlberg having a way-too-rowdy night on the town, or Ferrell and Mendes relaying increasingly kinky messages to each other through her doddering grandma.

The only real downside here is the plot, which deteriorates into even more pointlessness than the original films it’s seeking to satirize here. As “Guys” tries to cobble together a coherent through-line for its endless parade of silly sequences, it relies on increasingly unfunny exposition and action scenes that are played with straight-up flash rather than funniness. For those who are easily offended, the film’s ample array of naughty humor – particularly in banter between our heroes – might be a red flag, but for most viewers, Ferrell once again milks his childlike spirit to full advantage and gets away with saying things that would stall nearly any other actor’s films.
Yet while the film could easily be cut by 15 to 20 minutes, it is so packed with comedy that most viewers will be laughing too hard to notice. And that’s why “The Other Guys” should be your main choice this weekend.

Adam McKay and scarf

There are, however, a couple of memorably funny scenes, including a deliriously inspired and plot-turning leap off a very tall building and Wahlberg’s reaction when he first meets Ferrell’s wife, played by the striking Eva Mendes. For at least 75 of the 107 minutes you’ll have a smile on your face and enjoy a few honest laughs even as you wonder why the cinematography’s so bright and all the expensive action is unnecessarily hyper-edited.

Amusing devolves into outright tedious in the third act, unfortunately, when the plot turns hard-left thanks to a confusing, uninteresting, unfunny, and unnecessarily preachy investment banking plot and stakes that never rise above having to stop a wire transfer. Without spoiling the specifics (though I will below), let’s just say that never for a second did I believe that what might have been lost in that wire transfer wouldn’t have been immediately made up within days using taxpayer money in the form of a bailout. Which brings me to the now infamous “Other Guys” end credits:

—–

So what’s your favorite part of that power point presentation? Mine starts at the 1:50 mark when we’re supposed to sit aghast at the:

CEO to average employee pay ratio.

Me? I just sat there and wondered what was the:

DIRECTOR OF “THE OTHER GUYS” to average Columbia Pictures’ employee pay ratio.

My second favorite part arrived at right around the 2:15 mark when we’re supposed to be even more outraged as we watch the average executive salary climb to over $11 million per year – you know, as told to us at  the end of a movie starring the guy who was paid $20 million for the 90 days he spent making “Talladega Nights.”

And here comes the SPOILER ALERT….

McKay wants us to believe that he’s all about comedic bravery, that he’s Speaking! Truth! To! Power! on behalf of the little guy-taxpayer and not his limousine liberal social-engineering cause. And yet, a big part of the plot device in the director’s evil capitalistic money scheme, is fretting over a police pension fund. Now, I’m second to none when it comes to wanting our first reponders to be well compensated for the important and dangerous work they do, but really? A public pension fund is shown as a good thing in a film that positions itself as on the side of the little guy?

For those of us actually paying attention, it’s not just Wall Street stealing our money, and it’s not just fatcat too-big-to-fail CEOs. What the left-wing propagandist McKay intentionally does here is portray in a positive light the other dark side of our current budgetary crisis: wildly bloated public pensions muscled into being by corrupted unions who are as driven in a quest for selfish gain as any AIG executive. But because public union money is used to fund and support Democrats and union members disproportionately vote for Democrats, to further the leftist cause, McKay doesn’t just ignore this side of corruption, he presents it as something virtuous.

Public unions are second-to-none in their contempt for the little guy-taxpayer and coupled with the success they’ve enjoyed at the public trough, thanks only to the liberal politicians they support, these pensions are now THE major flash-point in budgetary emergencies all over the country, most especially in New York where — wait for it, wait for it — “The Other Guys” is set:

These and other sweeteners are part of the reason why the city’s annual pension payout has increased 900% since 2000. And that’s before health care benefits are included. For every dollar police officers contribute to their retirement, taxpayers contribute nine. Mayor Bloomberg’s office warns that if one thing pushes New York City into bankruptcy again – 35 years after the last time – it will be pensions.

Nothing about this Ponzi scheme in McKay’s end credits. I must’ve missed the section on Fannie and Freddie, as well.

McKay might dress funny, but he’s no idiot. Quite the opposite. In fact, he’s such an effective left-wing propagandist he’s smart enough to deny that what he’s doing is in any way “leftie“:

Some extreme right wing site started targeting me and saying I’m a leftie, and I told the guy – I actually had an exchange with – ‘I’m not a leftie, I just don’t want to be ripped off. I don’t want wars started in my name. How is that leftie? 

Methinks BH might just be the extreme right wing site he’s talking about. And I love how he uses the phrase “targeting me.” You see, when we extreme right wingers engage in a little spirited political debate, it can never be just that. Because the Left has no arguments, they have to shout us down with words like racism or mean-spirited or targeting. And this coming from a guy who’s made a career with millions upon million of dollars at his disposal to target his own political opponents though big studio films, his site “Funny or Die,” and as a writer for “Saturday Night Live.”

McKay also thinks he can say “I’m not a leftie” as though that just makes it so. But maybe that means the two of us can at least agree that being a leftie is something worth being embarrassed about. What he might not know, however, is that possessing the ability to shamelessly say something so brazenly untrue is actually the clearest sign you are indeed a leftie. And so is trashing George W. Bush 19 months after he left office.

Yes, our non-leftie director who Speaks! Truth! To! Power! makes damn sure that when we’re introduced to his investment banking villain (a wasted Steve Coogan) that we see a photograph of him with Bush.

Which is really, Speaking! Truth! To! The! Out! Of! Power!

And McKay might bravely speak truth to the out of power again now that he’s circling around a biopic about Republican political consultant Lee Atwater. 

Brave souls, these Hollywoodists. Anyway, you need not take my word when it comes to McKay’s leftie-ism. Just read the words of that brave speaking truther himself.

There’s actually some funny history between that film, Big Hollywood and my site ScreenRant.com – we posted the trailer for it a couple months ago and one of my writers commented that it looked funny. The result was that Editor-in-Chief John Nolte accused my site of being part of the “Left wing media establishment.”

Biggest laugh I’d had in a while, let me tell you. [Ed. Note: It was all a deliberate trap to convince Vic to join BH. I'm hoping it will work with Patrick Goldstein and Jeff Wells, as well.] 

Anyway… I didn’t go in to The Other Guys expecting much (I think that the buddy cop/action film parody was done to perfection with Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz), but I was mildly surprised to find myself chuckling throughout and laughing out loud more than once.

Until John pointed it out in the aforementioned story, I didn’t know the political affiliations of Adam McKay or anyone else behind the film – but having been educated I went in forewarned and expecting to be beat about the head with political potshots.

The movie was actually funny in parts, which as I said, I didn’t expect. The plot MacGuffin was that a billionaire lost $32 billion from an investment fund and had to find some “sucker” to replace it before the news got out and crashed the stock of the firm for which he managed it. By the end we find out who the sucker is, but while this is the “mystery” to be solved by the two protagonists (Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell), it never feels like the focus or driving force of the story – just a device around which the exploits of our two main characters can revolve. They focus on it right towards the end and that’s the end of it (you think).

But then the credits start to roll with 1960s style graphics and some overlaid text describing what a Ponzi scheme is with some simple 2D animation. From there they go on to start listing the biggest Ponzi schemes starting with the first major one from the 1920s(?) that cost investors $15MM and then on to Bernie Madoff and his $60+ billion. THEN it continues on comparing CEO/executive pay to the average worker in an elevator graphic showing the multiple back to the early 20th century (7X I think?) to present day with a dramatic pause where it jumps from 100X to 300X in the last few years (complete with images of CEOs as fat cats relaxing by the beach). Then on to the average person’s 401K value in the 1990s, to a couple of years ago, to today (huge drop, of course).

It was like being pummeled – as if the credits were designed by Michael Moore. On the bright side (I suppose) the credits also slammed the TARP bailouts.

What’s odd is that I really didn’t feel like there was much of a political slant in the film itself – you could either interpret Will Ferrell as the even-keeled, kind-hearted Liberal or the nice-on-the-surface yet repressed Conservative.

But the end credits… I could NOT believe the studio signed off on tacking something like this to the end of a comedy. If this had been at the end of Oliver Stone’s upcoming Wall Street 2 I wouldn’t have batted an eye, and it would have been very appropriate. But you’d think with a comedy they want people to walk out laughing and happy to recommend it to others – this will leave people walking out most likely angry, regardless of whether one is on the Left or the Right (for different reasons, I would think).

Oh, they try to salvage a final laugh with an after the credits scene with Wahlberg and Ferrell, but the joke isn’t funny – even less so with the mood that what came before puts people in.

It’s one of the most bizarre and illogical choices in a film that I’ve ever seen.

Kyle Smith Online:

Ferrell and his writing partner/director Adam McKay think they have a really important message about capitalism. It’s so important that it interrupts, then takes over, then finally kills their (otherwise often very funny) new movie, “The Other Guys.” The movie is being sold as (like “Hot Fuzz”) a mock-cop epic, and it is. Or it was, at some stage of the process. But Ferrell and McKay introduce an investment banker (Steve Coogan) who represents Evil Capitalism and is even shown shaking hands with George W. Bush (whom Ferrell has said he would refuse to meet with, on principle).

The Coogan character not only isn’t funny, but he becomes a bulletin board for Ferrell and McKay to post all of their bitter, half-understood notions about What’s Wrong With Wall Street. Like many idiots in the popular press, they are convinced that the Bernie Madoff scandal is somehow indicative of the way modern Wall Street crony capitalism works (when in fact it was a simple Ponzi scheme that could have happened anytime and has been happening for a century — but is relatively rare simply because of the inevitability of getting caught). The more the movie yammers on about pension schemes and misappropriated funds, the more you check your watch.

Read the full piece here and be sure to bookmark Smith’s site.

The co-writer/director of “The Other Guys,” Adam McKay, Tweeted Big Hollywood yesterday after Pam Meister’s Sucker Punch review ran. He and I went back and forth a bit (if you’re interested, I’m @jjmnolte, he’s @ghostpanther). Long story short, he’s pretty sure Cheney’s a criminal…or something.

After the below reader-comment popped up I asked McKay directly if there was indeed a Thousands Oaks test screening for “The Other Guys” Tuesday night, and he confirmed that there was. So with that confirmation, I’m comfortable highlighting the following from reader lars bentley: [emphasis mine]

Just saw a test screening of this movie on Tuesday in Thousand Oaks, CA and one scene featured a bio of the “bad guy” that had photos of him hanging out with George W. Bush and referred to him as a Best Friend of Antonin Scalia. Rush Limbaugh was also featured in a scene where the main characters are changing channels on the car radio and an out of context clip of Rush talking about how he wants Obama to fail.

Methinks bentley’s closing sentence speaks for us all:

The movie had some pretty funny scenes, but they kept throwing in these political references for no apparent reason other than to express the filmmakers personal opinions, and it detracted from the movie.

Please keep in mind that lars is a commenter and that there’s no way to confirm anything other than the fact that the test screening he says took place did.

Adam McKay is obviously a smart, talented and successful guy in an industry where getting your name on anything requires a helluva struggle. The shame of it all is that he can’t control himself and allow those of us who don’t think Dick Cheney’s a criminal the opportunity to just sit back and enjoy his work.

Could it be that McKay’s goal is to offend us; that his partisan rage is such that the very idea of luring unsuspecting non-lefties into the air-conditioned dark of a summer movie promise laced with out-of-nowhere cheap shots gives him some sort of childish pleasure?

Does he understand (or not care) that this kind of gratuitous partisanship sucks the enjoyment right out of his work for those of us who might disagree with this worldview? After all, we’ve already parted with the price of admission, right? After all, he’s already a multi-millionaire, right?

Has he figured out that this kind of stuff breaks the storytelling spell for everyone, even those who do think Dick Cheney’s a criminal?

Maybe the problem is that he sees all of us as Dick Cheney and believes we deserve to have our good time ruined. 

Maybe he knows that the film’s core audience represents young minds he might be able to influence… As we all know, there is no happier leftist than one who has found a place between parent and child.

I don’t really care what the answer is. What I believe is that they’re at war with us on every conceivable front — including the big, dumb summer tentpole comedy front.

Those of you ready to argue Hollywood’s purely profit and not politically-driven may comment below.

——

It sure has the feel of a fun time at the movies; another one of those high-lariously self-aware action comedies with our man-child protagonist over his head in a crazy story filled with bullets, car chases and that all-important zaniness.

Gee, the critics sure are excited, too. Why, from the trailer alone, ScreenRant is already hyping a Will Ferrell/Adam McKay comeback:

From the looks of it, The Other Guys may be just what the pair needs to get moviegoers back on their side after that flop of a remake [Land of the Lost]. While the story sounds like a mix between Lethal Weapon and the most recent Get Smart, everything we’ve seen to this point lends itself to a great comeback.

Over at the L.A. Times, our buddy Patrick Goldstein’s so bowled over he compares the screen chemistry of Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg to the all-time classic cinematic buddy-cop pairings:

I’m a sucker for buddy pictures and Ferrell and Wahlberg seem to have that special kind of yin and yang that the great buddy teams need to possess, whether it was Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, who set the bar formidably high in “48 Hrs.” or Charles Grodin and Robert De Niro, who may have even nudged the bar a little higher in “Midnight Run.”

But Goldstein’s also concerned the movie won’t bring in as many customers as it could and so he kindly offers the studio some friendly advice:

If I were Sony, I might be a wee bit worried, since judging by the trailer, the movie looks awfully similar to “Cop Out[.]“

Entertainment Weekly must see more!

And you can practically hear First Showing clap their hands with glee:

The best part about this (besides Ferrell and Wahlberg being a hilarious comedic duo) is seeing Sam Jackson and Dwayne Johnson play the real badass cops in this. I know action comedies are the new trend (MacGruber, Knight & Day) but this is the one comedy that I am truly looking forward to seeing this summer.

Wow. And this is just a quick sample. With rare exceptions, everywhere you look, entertainment writers have taken the time to get on board for this one. Comebacks have been proclaimed. Success has been rooted for. Free marketing advice has been offered.

The ginning up of the ole’ ginning up machine has officially begun.

Are you excited?

Because I’m excited.

Except… Here’s what Hollywood’s water carriers won’t tell you:

Adam McKay isn’t just another one of your run-of-the-mill Hollywood Lefties. He’s a hardcore political and cultural warrior who writes for The Huffington Post, co-founded the left-wing political video site “Funny or Die” and opened his film “Step Brothers” (which I’m a huge fan of) with a gratuitous, bigtime Sucker Punch shot at Bush that was not only off-putting but made it hard to relax through the rest of the film as you waited for the next one.

Adam McKay and Will Ferrell are Leftist Sucker Punch Artistes.

And now you know why the entertainment media so adores them.

But you have to wonder what “The Other Guys” might have in store for us in the Sucker Punch Department.

I wonder.

Do you?