Friday, April 22, 2011

The Three Stooges Should Be Funny!!!!

The real three wise men

I can remember back eighteen years ago when I first saw a Three Stooges short. It was Malice in the Palace and was the part where Shemp is being chased by a guard with a large sword. Shemp decides to fight back by using a fencing sword to launch fruit at the guard and make him retreat. I nearly pissed myself watching it and to this day it still makes me laugh. I probably should have put a spoiler alert on there but if you haven't seen it already, shame on you. And if you're in that group of people that don't like the Stooges because you don't see what's funny about it or you think it's lowbrow, double shame on you.


Anyway, as some of you may or may not know, the Farrelly Brothers, the people behind There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber announced many years ago that they were working on making a Three Stooges movie. I was intrigued by this because I had read Moe Howard's biography and thought that it would be interesting to see a motion picture about their lives and how they brought so much laughter into many people's lives.


But almost ten years it's been in production hell and then one day I learned to rather unsettling things about the movie: First, it wasn't going to be a biography, but continuing the Stooges adventures...in modern times. The second thing that was equally disturbing was the casting of the Stooges themselves.

Benicio Del Toro as Moe?

Jim Carrey as Curly?

Sean Penn as Larry?

Yeah, let that sink in for a moment.
Picard would make a better Curly!
First off, I haven't seen BDT in a lot of movies and I know he's a good actor but...you want to cast a Puerto Rican as the Jewish Moe Howard? Yeah, you could tweak his hair and he would look like the Latino Moe Howard but...just no. What is it with movie producers who think that anybody can play anybody? Don't they remember the successful casting of the British Bob Hoskins and the Columbian John Leguizamo as Italian plumbers in Super Mario Brothers: The Movie? Christ, don't they remember the abomination that was The Honeymooners?

Jim Carrey could play Larry in my humble opinion but as Curly, he's just miscast. To be Curly, you've got to have the right build for it. You've got to be a bit of a chunky monkey as Chef Ramsay might say. Jim Carrey is not a chunky monkey. The most he would do as Curly is mug for the camera and make high pitched noises like every other person who does a lameass impression does.

Apparently Curly is no big fan of the casting either...


Sean Penn as...I'm sorry, I can't believe somebody thought this was a good idea. Seriously, if I were directing this, I would look at whoever did the casting and say, "After I'm done kicking you in the teeth, you're fired." Sean Penn is not funny and he doesn't seem to have a sense of humour as far as I can detect. Hell, I remember him getting bent out of shape and pissy because Chris Rock made a joke about Jude Law at the Oscars back a few years ago. You think he can play Larry Fine?


Thankfully it seems that someone agreed with me because recently it was announced that former Mad TV star Will Sasso will be playing Curly. If you've never seen Sasso or any of his work on Mad TV, again, shame on you. His "Kenny Rogers' Jackass" is the stuff of legend and he could be described as a chunky monkey, though to be fair, he used to be a lot chunkier. I honestly believe if anyone can pull it off, Will Sasso is the man.
Of course, there's also talk that James Marsden will be playing Larry, which is a step-up from Penn but at the same time, the best they could get is the guy who played Cyclops in the X-Men movies and did jack shit through all three of them?

Hank Azaria as Moe? Is that supposed to just be a joke, related to The Simpsons, something else that used to be funny? Personally, I don't really care if this movie gets made or not. What I would like to see more of is Will Sasso though? Seriously, the dude is funny as hell.

If you squint a little....

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Updates

  So it's been a while since I've done one of these. 78 days to be exact.