Charlie Dorf
Arts and Entertainment Editor
During the spring, the film industry often undergoes a kind of semi-hibernation. The Oscars are over, so no one is releasing any major award contenders, but it’s too early for the summer blockbusters of the Transformers and Iron Man ilk. So, as the movie scene is somewhat pallid at the moment, let us look back to this same month, ten years ago, at one of my favorite guilty pleasures of all time. Now we just need to find a stretch of road where we can hit 88 mph… oh, whatever, I can’t find the DeLorean, let’s just use the one from Timeline, even though it was an awful movie.
April 20th, 2001-Freddy Got Fingered, Directed by/Starring Tom Green
A day that will live in obscurity. This film will, for me, forever live as the movie that made what most people knew as “shock humor” look like a particularly tepid episode of Leave It to Beaver. Though not critically acclaimed (The Toronto Star created a negative one star rating just it and Roger Ebert gave it zero stars), I find it to be one of the funniest movies of all time, though I am often alone in this opinion. However, I shall not back down! The plot follows Gord, a 28-year old wanna-be cartoonist who leaves his home and overly-aggressive father in Portland, Oregon to go to work at a cheese sandwich factory in Hollywood, with dreams of becoming an animator. However, this provides a weak semblance of organization for a movie that doesn’t really follow any kind of narrative structure. In fact, the film’s title doesn’t come in until much later in the movie, and is a small side plot. However, the whole film is, in my opinion, a lot of side plots rolled into one movie. Gord’s adventures follow no pattern, as he simply moves from one ridiculous scenario to the next with relative ease.
Now, if you think the plot sounds silly or dumb, you are simply scratching the surface of this film’s core weirdness, grossness, randomness and utter hilarity. The humor combines shock humor and randomness in such a beautifully weird way that I literally found myself laughing to the point of tears. However, if I had been told what I was seeing opposed to actually watching or hearing it, I would be confused or disgusted, probably both. With his goofy cartoon ideas like X-Ray Cat, who can (only) see through wooden doors, his nymphomaniac and paraplegic girlfriend Betty and his penchant for cheese sandwiches, Gord still ranks as one of my favorite movie characters of all time. I will never get tired of seeing Gord, after being told by Betty to “eat or play music” while drawing, playing a keyboard and drawing at the same time while operating a system of pulleys (controlled by strings attached to his fingers) suspending sausages from the ceiling. However, my explanation of just one instance of Gord’s oddities does not do him justice, and I highly suggest you go rent or buy this film. Just don’t watch it with your parents or younger siblings. Or your priest. Or your grandmother. Or anyone with a somewhat strong gag reflex. Oh, and did I mention Shaq makes an appearance? Yes, Shaq.
