Okay, so first Sarah Silverman announced that she was knowing Matt Damon the same way Lot knew his wife, and it was funny. A retort by Jimmy Kimmel was inevitable, and on Sunday night's post-Oscar show, Kimmel enlisted Damon's BFF Ben Affleck to return the serve.The Kimmel video is much bigger on star power (Harrison Ford's cameo is the first time I've liked him since the last Indiana Jones movie) but not nearly as funny. Silverman's video had novelty, plus better musicianship (Silverman's an old hand at song parodies and has a passable voice), plus the presence of Damon, who you wouldn't expect to be in that situation. Affleck has spent half of his career parodying the other half, and while I appreciate that he's always a sport (and usually very funny on "SNL"), I feel like he's done this exact sketch already a few dozen times.
And now other celebs totally unconnected to Kimmel and Silverman are trying to get in on the action. Kevin Smith, Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen did their own version as a viral plug for "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." (Warning: unlike the Silverman and Kimmel ones, nothing's bleeped here.)
Enough. I love viral music videos as much as the next "Dick in a Box" fan, but it's time to move on to a new premise.
Yeah, Kimmel's wasn't good enough to make up for the originality of Silverman's. Of course, when I watched the YouTube, Kimmel's audience was laughing hysterically at the mere appearance of certain celebrities (I assume they were well-known) I didn't recognize. And that did make me feel old. And sad.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, the Kimmel/Affleck video was funny enough that I am laughing remembering it.
ReplyDeleteGranted, the Silverman/Damon one was probably better just because it was so unexected. But Kimmel's response was about as good as one could have been. And I say this as someone who normally hates Jimmy Kimmel.
Kimmel's tribute was also announced in Page Six like 2 weeks ago with a complete list of the participating celebs, so the surprise was gone.
ReplyDeleteThe Harrison Ford cameo earned extra points for Kimmel. Tom Cruise would have earned him big gold stars. And yeah, what Alan said.
ReplyDeleteWait: You're shocked that something involving Jimmy Kimmel is not funny? Stars and garters.
ReplyDeleteDamon was great -- as good as he was at the beginning of Eurotrip -- and experienced the added bonus of never having to be in the same room as Kimmel.
(Josh Groban and Huey Lewis were nice touches, though.)
Was that Perry Farrell? It was a bit grainy for me to totally tell.
ReplyDeleteAlso I am someone who generally can't stand Kimmel -- but I have to say I didn't mind that so much.
When Kimmel's thing started I didn't have high hopes for it, but I think he really did OK with it. The over-the-topness of it all brought it to a whole new level, rather than just being a copy of Silverman's thing with a gay angle. It didn't have quite the originality (or Matt Damon awesomeness) of the original but still was pretty good.
ReplyDeleteKimmel isn't hilarious but he seems like such a nice, personable guy that I give him more leeway than I would most quasi-funny people.
Was that Perry Farrell? It was a bit grainy for me to totally tell.
ReplyDeleteYep, that was him. I also noticed Joan Jett and Robin Williams (apart from the other celebs already mentioned). Who else was in it? I didn't recognize a lot of the singers, sadly.
Loved the original, liked the sequel. The Kimmel/Affleck one still made me laugh my ass off, so I'm not gonna complain. But it wasn't half as good as the unexpected, rougher delight of Sarah and Matt's video.
ReplyDeletePlus, Harrison Ford. They got Harrison Ford! Loved that part.
C'mon, freaking McLovin was in the Kimmel/Affleck vid! I thought it was funny.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Sarah Silverman one, and I thought the Jimmy Kimmel one was ok (and had a surprising amount of celebrity clout), but I definitely think the Seth Rogen one is just too much. I didn't think it was particularly funny, and it drove me nuts that it wasn't on beat. (And I really like Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, and Kevin Smith!)
ReplyDeleteput a fork in this shit already...it's done.
ReplyDeleteKevin Smith ought to be ashamed.
Silverman/Damon wins out, I'm afraid, but I did enjoy Josh Groban and Brad Pitt in Kimmel/Affleck. Kevin Smith jumping on the bandwagon is way too much. And you know you're passed saturation point when the NYT has an article about the thing. Except the article is mostly about how the author can't repeat a lot of the lyrics to both songs!
ReplyDeleteI'm easy. I liked all three. I mean, it's not like we're deconstructing The Wire here, but rather some silly little music videos.
ReplyDeleteThough, speaking of The Wire, I might draw the line at Bunk singing "I'm Fucking McNulty."
Just goes to show: Kevin Smith has lost all sense of what constitutes "funny"... assuming he ever really knew.
ReplyDeleteWas the Josh Groban cameo not worth something? I kind of thought of it was.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a huge fan of Sarah Silverman, but I thought the Matt Damon video was hilarious. And all it needed to be hilarious was Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon. It was fresh, and mischievous, and inventive, and cutting.
ReplyDeleteI've never been a fan of Jimmy Kimmel, but I didn't laugh once during his video, which I watched on his show after the Oscars (because, yeah, we all knew it was coming). For one thing, it started out mean: the marked up photos of Silverman and Damon were a whole bunch of orders of magnitude different from the one photo that Silverman had included of both Kimmel and herself). It took the genuinely humorous moments of Silverman's video (Damon's line about Silverman's "apples" and the subsequent deconstruction of whether that worked) and simply made it crude (Affleck saying Kimmel has "bigger tits").
But, mostly, I was shocked that Affleck--who has spoken warmly of gay friends and family--would make something that felt so homophobic. I say that as a middle-aged straight woman, as well. But as soon as Kimmel and Affleck popped up dressed like a caricature of a single strain of 1970s gay stereotype, my eyebrows just shot up off my head. Spandex and tiny cutoffs? That's gay life to them? Affleck's J. Crew-wearing gay godfather might beg to differ.
But, as someone has already noted in the comments, the studio audience was mostly laughing just at the appearance of celebrity after celebrity saying the f-word. Which, Alan, as you note in your column on "Unhitched," is just about the laziest form of comedy there is.
And Harrison Ford just disappointed me. Congratulations, man: you got to play swish. Vito Russo, author of "The Celluloid Closet," must be spinning in his grave.
Let's just say that the two videos highlight who has the actual talent in both the Silverman/Kimmel and Damon/Affleck relationships.