Rotten Rewind

to honor robert pattinson in his debut as the sad billionaire vigilante, we're taking a trip back to the mid-90s when joel schumacher ensured that a studio would never greenlight a campy superhero movie again. that's right, we're talking about the '95 megahit "batman forever" with val kilmer, jim carrey, tommy lee jones & a very horny nicole kidman, as well as the unofficial queer canon "batman & robin" wherein george clooney battles arnold schwarzenegger's mr. freeze and battles the twink carnie robin for the toxic green pussy of uma thurman's poison ivy.

When Roger Ebert gave Tom Green's unhinged feature debut "Freddy Got Fingered" a rare zero star review, he famously said "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." He added "The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny."

For the penultimate episode in our Comedy in the 2000s miniseries, we're diving into the rotten filmography of one of the biggest comedic superstars of the decade: Jack Black. First up, it's the unhinged 2001 buddy/revenge comedy "Saving Silverman" wherein Black co-stars alongside Steve Zahn as two thirds of a Neil Diamond cover band that kidnap their best friend's (Jason Biggs) manipulative girlfriend (Amanda Peet) in hopes of setting him up with a circus acrobat turned nun (Amanda Detmer).  After that, we'll be moving on to the 2002 MTV-produced teen comedy "Orange County" featuring the stacked ensemble of Colin Hanks, Schuyler Fisk, Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow, Kevin Kline, Ben Stiller, Leslie Mann, and of course, Jack Black as a deadbeat pillhead with dreams of starting a T-shirt company like Stussy.

DuJour means friendship. DuJour means family. DuJour means seatbelts. And most importantly, DuJour means podcast.

Our Comedy in the 2000s retrospective wouldn't be complete without a healthy dose of transphobia and lighthearted racism! This week on the podcast, we're taking on a pair of stoner comedies that defined the decade's obsession with buddy comedies steeped in gay panic. First up it's "Dude, Where's My Car?" featuring a pre-"Punk'd" Ashton Kutcher and pre-"Bulletproof Monk" Seann William Scott as a pair of intensely stupid stoners who find themselves immersed in an alien invasion as they search for their car after one wild night. After that, we're jumping to the end of the decade for the second chapter in the "Harold and Kumar" franchise, "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," which sees the titular pair on an Americana travelogue after being racially profiled as terrorists on their way to Amsterdam.

While comedy in the 90s and 2000s was dominated by male superstars like Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and the rise of Judd Apatow, studios were slowly warming to the idea that... women can be funny...? This radical concept was put to work a few times throughout the 2000s, but no movie dominated sleepovers in the early aughts quite like "Miss Congeniality." The Sandra Bullock-starring rom-com/action comedy became an instantly quotable hit amongst millennials and went on to make over $250 million at the box office, but critics were less than impressed. In 2008, Anna Faris was finally given a starring role worthy of her talents in "The House Bunny," but the film failed to ignite the box office or the critical world. But today, we get to show the critics what they were missing out on, by revisiting these two female-led comedies and showing them the love they deserve.

For the second installment of Rotten Comedy in the 2000s, we're checking in with two of the biggest comedy heavyweights of their generation. After dominating comedy in the 90s, Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey were riding high and cashing in on their blank checks in the new millennium. First up, it's the Farrely Brothers follow-up to the massively successful "There's Something About Mary," where the directors re-teamed with Carrey to tackle mental health and cucking with the bi-polar comedy "Me, Myself and Irene." After that, we're diving into Sandler's first box office flop: the santanic fish out of water comedy "Little Nicky" featuring The Sandman as the son of the Devil.

We’re still steeped in 2000s nostalgia here at the podcast as we kick off our seven week retrospective on comedy in the aughts. An era that began with an overflow of post-"There's Something About Mary" gross-out comedy before transitioning into frat-bro antics in the wake of movies like "Old School" and "Wedding Crashers," before the reign of Apatow exploded in the latter half of the decade with "bromance" comedies like "Knocked Up" and "Superbad." We're kicking off the miniseries with a pair of Wayans Brothers satires that skewered two of the most ubiquitous pop culture phenomenons of the era: the teen slasher movie and the tabloid obsession with hard-partying heiresses. We'll be starting off with the 2000 revival of the Zucker Brothers style spoof movie, "Scary Movie" featuring the debut performance of Anna Faris, before jumping to the middle of the decade for the disturbing pop culture artifact, "White Chicks."

Halloween weekend is finally upon us, which means our five week descent into Horror in the 2000s has come to a close. We couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up our miniseries than by checking in on what two of Hollywood’s most prolific boogeymen were up to at the turn of the millennium. Actor Morgan Maher returns to the podcast to discuss 2001’s notoriously bad 10th installment in the “Friday the 13th” series, “Jason X” (a.k.a. the one where Jason goes to space), as well as “Halloween: Resurrection” starring Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks with an elongated “special appearance” by Sean Patrick Thomas.

Do these franchise black sheep live up to their reputation, or were critics just afraid to have a little fun in a post-9/11 horror world? Is “Jason X” a real movie or just a fan-fic fever dream? Why does everyone in 2455 dress in low cut jeans, red denim cowboy hats and “titty sweaters”? Did Busta Rhymes deserve a bigger acting career? Did “Dangertainment” rip off “Scare Tactics”? And most importantly: does Hollywood even make movies to get fingered to anymore? We answer all of your pressing questions with this fingerblasting double feature right here on your favorite podcast.

“Jason X” is streaming on Peacock and “Halloween: Resurrection” is available to rent wherever you rent movies!

The slasher sub-genre was revitalized in 1996 with Wes Craven’s “Scream,” ushering in a whole new era of self-aware slasher films steeped in irony. By the early 2000s though, the genre was on life support yet again. Today, we’re taking a look back at some of the last of the WB-approved era of slasher films with two campy horror flicks that come so, so close to satirizing the genre as “Scream” did in the late 90s.