They also show movies like this in that place.By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
Guys' comedy with a bachelor party has always included strip bars, the uptight fianc?, and the loveable dancers. Tucker Max wrote about it because he lived it, not as the groom -to-be bachelor but as the buddy who causes the trouble for his buddies.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is like its title, low rent humor more like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle than American Pie, or Ugly Truth than 40 Year Old Virgin, I think, because I don't return to those films often enough to be sharp on them. It's a weak entry in a genre that already has low art expectations; it does passably the imaginative humor about guys on their own without the social compass of good women. The sex is more common than is usual for most guys, and the irresponsibilities unbelievable given the demands of friends, families, jobs?the usual anchoring for most of us.
Beer takes a step or two closer to the gutter than those buddy picaresques by devoting an entire sequence to defecation. Such egregious Caddy Shack antics no longer shock, but they still revolt much in tune with the saying, "How low can you go?" Fundament has never and will never be funny except for our disbelief that minutes could be spent on the subject.
The real Tucker Max played with the audience before and after the film, and I must say he has a comedian's timing and an impressive impromptu wit. After he tires of shagging the scores of women he brags about, he may have a life as a comic.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com