Kingpin (The Farrelly Brothers, 1996)

This week, The Vulgar Cinema is focusing on the work of the Farrelly brothers, some of the finest comic filmmakers of the last 20 years. I'm first up with a post on one of my favorite broad (but deceptively smart) comedies, Kingpin. I've seen the film a half dozen times and laugh at every gag every time, but I also gain more and more appreciation for its solid visual craft, which backs up grotesque sight jokes with exceptional timing and blocking that at times has the touch of a well-assembled silent. I also find more and more to love about the subtext hidden in plain sight, which uses the broader joke of bowling being the central sport to dig into how we as a society place a value on sports achievement for the stardom it provides. Bowling is merely a quick path to riches in this film, but the joke is less funny when one swaps the game back to "baseball" or "basketball." Dumb and Dumber was funny but surface-level, but Kingpin points to how deep the Farrellys could go when they pleased, laying the groundwork for There's Something About Mary and The Heartbreak Kid. But Kingpin remains my favorite.

Fuller thoughts can be found at The Vulgar Cinema.

The Vulgar Cinema (and letters to John McTiernan)

I am excited to announce that a group of writers I admire tremendously invited me to contribute to a new blog devoted to what has been termed "vulgar auteurism." Not so much a movement as a loose form of advocacy, it celebrates undervalued craft in critically overlooked genres, as well as the termitic properties of the best works. The term originated in discussion about primarily American entries in predominantly masculine genres, but we plan to discuss a wider variety of works outside our borders and in other equally ignored generic areas.

Our first posts are individual letters to John McTiernan, the recently incarcerated director of such great films as Die Hard and Predator. The responses are all nicely varied but uniformly adoring, and I doubt it will be the last time we discuss him.

So check out The Vulgar Cinema, and you can read my own letter to McTiernan here.