Theres Something About Mary

Now here is a movie about a woman who is beautiful, sunny, good and pure, and inspires a remarkable array of creeps to fall in love with her. There's ... just something about her. Mary is played by Cameron Diaz as a high school knockout who amazes the geeky Ted (Ben Stiller) by asking him to the prom, even though he has pounds of braces on his teeth. ("I have a thing about braces," she muses, long after.) Ted turns up proudly for the date, only to set off the first of the movie's uproariously funny sequences when he asks to use the toilet and then somehow catches in his zipper that part of the male anatomy one least wants to think about in connection with zippers. ("Is it the frank or the beans?" asks Mary's solicitous stepfather.) In a lesser film, that would be that: The directors would expect us to laugh at his misfortune, and the plot would roll on. Not the Farrelly Brothers. When they get something going, they keep on building, daring themselves to top each outrage. I won't reveal how the scene develops, apart from noting the perfect timing involved with the unexpected closeup.

Theres Something about Mary

The whole P.C. trip has certainly gotten out of hand by now, and deserves to get its nose rubbed in some reality-based poop. But -- like the much more dangerously vicious "Starship Troopers" -- the average audience for something like this isn't going to be laughing at the blatantly misguided idea of making cruel jokes about retarded kids, handicapped people, homosexuals, and animal abuse. They'll simply be laughing at those targets. If this sounds like I'm saying that I'm smarter than lots of the people who'll be seeing "There's Something About Mary," you're damn right I am. Have you sat down and talked to a 14 year-old boy lately? 041b061a72