4 Comedy Dramas That Are the Worst of Both Worlds
Comedy and drama may not seem like they would go together in movie form, but not unlike peanut butter and chocolate (if peanut butter and chocolate occasionally starred Tom Hanks), the combination somehow works.
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Occasionally though, Hollywood’s efforts to move us to tears while simultaneously trying to tickle our funny bones have failed miserably on both counts, giving us dramedies that lack both compelling emotional stakes and essential laughs. And we’re not just talking about nearly every movie with the words “Directed by Cameron Crowe” in the credits. There’s also…
Zac Efron Mixes Dildos and Tragedy in ‘That Awkward Moment’
2014’s That Awkward Moment found Efron playing Jason, a generic bro living in a bachelor pad seemingly decorated by the manager of a Buffalo Wild Wings. Jason is a ladies man who — get a load of this — somehow falls in love with a woman who he realizes he shouldn’t treat like absolute garbage.
Along the way, Jason gets into some wacky hijinks, which include attempting to whiz while on Viagra and wearing a dildo on his pants to a formal soiree that he mistakes for a costume party — a scene that was presumably reverse-engineered after the screenwriter realized that the word “cocktail” includes the word “cock.”
Further illustrating how this movie juggles comedy and drama with all the skill of a blindfolded toddler, literally just seven minutes after Jason meets his girlfriend’s parents at said party and shoves a rubber dong in their faces, the dad friggin’ dies. Then in a climax that inadvertently lives up to the film’s title, after making a scene at the funeral because he’s mad at his bros (for prioritizing hos), Jason attempts to win her back with an embarrassing plea that also totally ruins her book reading.
Somehow this movie didn’t end with Efron being tased by security guards.
‘The Cobbler’ Turns Adam Sandler into a Magical Creep
Even after starring in a movie about a magical remote control that allows him to ogle female joggers/come face-to-face with his own fragile mortality, Sandler still somehow agreed to make another fantastical dramedy. In The Cobbler, Sandler plays a shoe repairman who magically assumes the form of the owner of any pair of shoes. Not unlike in Click, Sandler’s character immediately uses this miraculous power to creep on random women.
What the trailer doesn’t reveal is that a not-insubstantial part of the film involves Sandler romancing his mom while wearing his father’s shoes to give her one last date with her husband, which would be sweet if it wasn’t so gross. Making this storyline even worse, Sandler’s dad, who mysteriously skipped town, shows up at the very end. It turns out that he, too, has super-cobbler powers and has been wearing Steve Buscemi’s shoes this whole time!
By the way, this is all in addition to the fact that much of the movie is a thriller, with Sandler using his shoe-based shapeshifting abilities to get a foot up on taking down a villainous developer.
Who Put Steve Carell, Dane Cook and Oscar-Winner Juliette Binoche in ‘Dan in Real Life’ Together?
If you only know Dan in Real Life from its poster, we’re sorry to report that it is, in fact, not about a guy who can only sleep while using a tall stack of pancakes for a pillow.
Disney
Dan in Real Life feels like a 1990s sitcom pilot that got accidentally shuffled into the studio’s feature film pile; it stars Carell as a widowed advice columnist named Dan, Cook as his brother and Binoche as Dan’s love interest who is dating Dane Cook. If there was ever a sign that comedy and drama shouldn’t be combined, it’s a movie in which Dane “King of Threads” Cook is dating Oscar winner Juliette Binoche.
At least Earth, Wind & Fire got a royalty check for the scene in which everybody awkwardly jazzercises to “September.”
‘The Chosen One,’ Rob Schneider’s Literal White Savior Movie
Actor, comedian and outspoken critic of poor people irritating rich people by merely existing, Schneider is mostly known for his broad comedies in which he either fumbles his way through the sex industry or magically transforms into some other being. But amazingly, Schneider has starred in some more dramatic comedies as well, an opportunity he got thanks to… director Rob Schneider.
Schneider’s second movie behind the camera, The Chosen One, is surprisingly pathos-filled and opens with the star of The Hot Chick attempting to hang himself. That is until he’s interrupted by Arhuaco Shamans, who believe that Schneider is a mythical figure who will save their village, which is being ravaged by extreme weather. Yeah, the problem isn’t climate change; it’s something that can be magically fixed by the actions of this divorced car salesman.
The shamans move into Schneider’s home, along with their beautiful translator, who this schmo quickly falls in love with. In the end, the wacky premise is resolved when the titular savior rescues a hawk from the top of a skyscraper — at which point we flashback to a scene in which Schneider’s character discovers his dead father’s corpse following his suicide. Then the corpse turns into the hawk, which flies away! Symbolism!
Xenon Pictures
Xenon Pictures
As a result, an entire village full of nameless Indigenous Colombians — who only exist as a plot device to help some affluent white dude resolve his personal trauma — is saved. (While we saved you from having to actually watch this turd.)
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