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Seltzer and Friedberg: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''I’ve rarely seen a movie as hostile as this one, both to its audience and to its protagonists, and I don’t think I realized before just how mean-spirited comedy can get (and I was raised on [[the Three Stooges]]).''|Josh Rosenblatt, [https://www.austinchronicle.com/events/film/2007-01-26/438452/ reviewing ''Epic Movie''], February 2, 2007}}
Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are a pair of writer/directors that collaborate with each other on all of their projects. They create comedic movies that parody and reference pop culture in the [[Airplane!|Zucker, Abrams and Zucker]] style of [[Rapid
Their first official project was the 1996 film ''[[Spy Hard]]'' and they contributed one of the many scripts that was folded into the first ''[[Scary Movie]]'', but they did not gain notoriety until 2006 with ''[[Date Movie]]''. While panned by critics, the film made back triple its meager budget and secured them a contract to do a couple more films. While 2007's ''Epic Movie'', January 2008's ''[[Meet the Spartans]]'', and August 2008's ''[[Disaster Movie]]'' received worse critical reception and inspired a vocal [[Hatedom]], it wasn't until the last that the public rejected them (although it's unknown whether or not the film's failure was simply due to the different audience provided by its August release). In 2010, the duo released ''[[
In 2010 they announced an ambitious parody of James Cameron's ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'' called ''The Biggest Movie Of All Time 3D'', to be released in 2012. However at some point shortly afterwards the project was abandoned and all official trace of it was "erased" from the Net -- promotional videos were removed from YouTube and even the [[IMDb]] page for it was deleted.
See also ''[[Superhero Movie]]'' and ''[[Dance Flick]]'', which are often thought to be made by them.
* [[Artifact Title]]: Some of the films have issues with the titles not really representing the content being parodied. As the making-of materials on ''Disaster Movie'' revealed, this is because the films change rather rapidly in production and the title is simply meant to cover what the filmmakers expect to be the most marketable element.
* [[The Cameo]]: [[Carmen Electra]] appears in ''all'' of these movies (and plays a major role in ''Meet The Spartans'') making her, for want of a better term, the series mascot.
* [[Dead Baby Comedy]]:
** Jokes about the most recent deaths of celebrities like Anna Nicole Smith in ''Meet The Spartans''.
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* [[Drop the Cow]]: Literally in ''Disaster Movie'' -- [[Rule of Three|three cows]] fall on different superheroes during the tornado scene, and another falling cow caps off the [[Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number]].
* [[DVD Commentary]]: Two film critics who did not like the movie were hired to commentary ''Date Movie''. Highlights include pin-pointing exactly where movies like ''[[Airplane!]]'' succeeded while ''Date Movie'' failed. The directors themselves did a commentary for one of their films that started out informative, but quickly turned into a tongue-in-cheek bullshitting contest.
* [[Exactly What It Says
* [[Fan Disservice]]:
** The amount of times they show a woman with extreme cellulite is [[Sick and Wrong|just downright disturbing]].
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* [[Follow the Leader]]: ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQJ5X4YhpFk Spanish Movie],'' ''[[Superhero Movie]]'', and ''[[Dance Flick]]''. Sometimes, these guys are mistakenly credited for the latter two.
* [[Humongous Mecha]]: In ''Meet the Spartans''. It even has a TV screen on its chest playing [[Chris Crocker]]'s Britney Spears rant. For no reason.
* [[I Ate What?]]: In ''Epic Movie,'' Edward notices what he thinks is the chocolate river, and quickly gulps some "chocolate" up in enjoyment. After a beat, Willy points out, "That's actually the sewer line," causing Edward to gag in disgust.
* [[Informed Flaw]]: The main character of ''Date Movie'' is "389 pounds, smokes a thousand cigarettes a day, and drinks like Tara Reid". While the first one is quite visible (and gets quickly removed via magic liposuction), she is never shown smoking or binge drinking. At all. Maybe an unmentioned rehab session happened some time during the liposuction?
* [[Inherently Funny Words]]: ''Meet The Spartans'' was called ''[[Ratatouille|Spartatouille]]'' (pronounced "Sparta-too-eee") in France.
* [[Magic Pants]]: Parodied, of course, with [[The Incredible Hulk]]. [[Drop the Cow|Then a cow falls on him.]]
* [[Narrow Parody]]: The movies "parodied" are often only one or two years old. For example, ''[[Disaster Movie]]'' had parodies of ''[[Juno]]'', ''[[Hannah Montana]]'', ''[[Iron Man]]'', ''[[Sex and
* [[Negative Continuity]]:
** Main characters in ''Epic Movie'' suffer numerous life-threatening and traumatic injuries and are just fine in the next scene.
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** Amy Winehouse's belch in ''Disaster Movie''.
** Silas shooting Mr. Tumnus to death.
** In ''Meet the Spartans'', they parody the famous "[[This Is Sparta]]" scene from ''[[
* [[Padding]]: ''Meet the Spartans''' total runtime is 86 minutes, but the actual movie (before the end credits) is between ''69-70 minutes''.
* [[Parody Failure]]: Sometimes, they make jokes that were present in the original source material. For example, the Wolverine parody in ''Epic Movie'' uses his middle claw to flip Edward the finger. This would be a valid parody of the character... if the real Wolverine didn't do the ''exact same thing'' in the first ''[[X-Men (
* [[Parody Names]]: Not often, but they're there. <s>[[Juno]]</s> Juney, the [[The Chronicles of Narnia|White
* [[Rapid
* [[Reclusive Artist]]: Other than the movies, we don't really know anything about these guys. All we have are two pictures circulating around the Internet, a couple of interviews, and some audio commentary on their movies' DVDs (which is apparently very cryptic and has almost nothing to do with their movie.)
* [[Reference Overdosed]]: Each film is kind of like seeing about a hundred different movies, TV shows, music videos, viral memes, and other pop culture artifacts squeezed into ~80 minutes. See the [[Narrow Parody]] entry above for a short list of examples from one film.
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** The "[[Unrated Edition|uncut]]" version of ''Epic Movie'' apparently decides that the best way to improve an [[Overly Long Gag|already overly long vomiting scene]] is to make it even longer.
* [[Say My Name]]: ''Disaster Movie'' features several characters doing nothing more than yelling their names, y'know, so you understand who they are. The best way to parody something is to [[Don't Explain the Joke|explain exactly what it is you're parodying!]]
{{quote|
"I am [[The Chronicles of Narnia|Prince Caspian!]]"
" I! AM! [[Beowulf|BEOWULF!]]
"I AM ''[[Kung Fu Panda|KUNG FU PANDA!]]''" (See [[I Am Not Shazam]]) }}
* [[Shallow Parody]]: Not surprising, since the producers have admitted they generally just watch the trailers and go from there.
* [[Tongue
* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: One of the main criticisms of their work is that the pop culture jokes that they rely on become outdated within just a few years, with the things that they're parodying having fallen out of the collective consciousness. A few of their gags had fallen out of memory before the respective movie came out. Their tendency to base brief parodies on the trailers to movies that wouldn't be released until well into their own production probably has something to do with it.
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[[Category:Directors]]
[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:Seltzer
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[[Category:Film]]
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