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DUDE,
WHERE’S MY CAR?
8/10
US
2000
dir
Danny Leiner
scr Philip Stark
cin Robert Stevens
stars Ashton Kutcher, Seann William Scott
84mins!!
Just
in case the title doesn’t tell you all you need to know, how about these
character names: Christie Boner, Jumpsuit Chick #5, Stripper #1, Super
Chick, Dancer #8, and four ‘Muscle Heads’? Yes, this is yet another teen
slacker comedy - but it’s also one of the best, mixing ‘gross-out’ elements
of American Pie and Road
Trip with old-skool stoner traditions dating back to Cheech &
Chong via Bill & Ted and Wayne & Garth.
Here
we have a pair of likeable California morons, Jesse (Kutcher) & Chester
(Scott). After prominent roles in Pie, Trip and Final
Destination, Scott reigns as the mini-genre’s clown prince and,
as usual, he’s the best thing about the picture. The duo wake up after
a wild night of partying, totally unable to recall any of their
shenanigans. Retracing their steps to find the title’s missing auto, they
meet various aliens, nerds, strippers, jumpsuit chicks, muscle heads,
etc. along the way. Stupid, sexist nonsense? Definitely. But very funny,
breezy, energetic, inoffensive nonsense, all the same.
2nd
February 2001
BOX
OFFICE UPDATE
Dude,
Where’s My Car? opened the UK on Friday, February 9th,
2001, on 270 screens. Over the three-day weekend, Dude took a total
of £943,442 – behind only holdover smash What Women Want (£2,510,000)
– for an average of £3,494. The week’s other new entries were The
Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle at #5 (average £2,056), Almost
Famous at #6 (£1,924), Remember The Titans at #9 (£1,005).
Dude was, of course, aggressively marketed, but so was Almost
Famous – which didn’t have to cope with the shit-storm of incomprehension
that greeted Dude’s arrival on our shores.
Positive
reviews – such as the one above – were very thin on the ground, with Hotdog
magazine’s reaction fairly typical. They sent four readers – pushing thirty,
at the very least, to judge by their photo – who each gave the movie one
star out of five, with the comments “Not cool,” “Not funny,” “Boring,”
“A big pile of poo,” and “Hmmm.” This didn’t dissuade Dude’s target
teenage audience, of course, few of whom would take notice of critics.
In this instance, they were spot on. Dude isn’t anything out of
the ordinary – but, unlike so many current releases it knows exactly what
it wants do, and does it without any undue fuss. At a loose end one night
in Bradford this week, I narrowed down my options to Dude, Where’s
My Car and Unbreakable
– and only made my decision as I handed over my fiver…
17th February
2001
by Neil
Young
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