They Must Be Stopped: Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

For the inaugural entry in what hope to make an ongoing series, I gleefully nominate writer/director team Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. You don’t know their names, but I guarantee you know their work, and wish you didn’t.

Their credit list: All four Scary Movies (2000-2006), Date Movie (2006), Epic Movie (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008), and the upcoming Disaster Movie (2008).

You don’t need me to tell you why these guys Must Be Stopped. Their movies are punchlines in and of themselves. They’re not just bad, they’re so abysmally bad they make Battlefield Earth and Gigli seem highbrow.

Sitting through one of these movies has scientifically been proven to cause grabbing your head between both hands, doubling over as if assuming crash positions, and only being able to mutter “no, no, no…” It can’t even lay claim to that can’t-look-away quality of watching a train wreck. It’s just dreadful.

Friedberg and Seltzer seem to think that just throwing random pop culture references in, it creates something funny.

They’re wrong. We all know they’re wrong. So why do their movies keep getting greenlit? There can only be one explanation: they’re turning a profit. Let’s break it down:

The only positive thing you can say about their movies is that they’re cheap to make, and always seem to recoup their investment.

That’s it.

How is it, though, that these movies, which everyone agrees are wretched, continue to make money? Are we moviegoers really so stupid, so easily roped in, so desperate for anything to watch at the theater on a date?

Come on!

Another question I have is how Friedman and Seltzer manage to attract the kinds of actors they do. Carmen Electra notwithstanding, these two regularly hire actors that run the gamut from so-so to good-but-not-A-list (and never will be after this). It’s that last category that troubles me. What are quality actors like Alysson Hannigan, Fred Willard, Kal Penn, Crispin Glover, David Carradine, Jeremy Piven, Molly Shannon, and Andy Richter doing slumming through this kind of dreck? Every actor knows the old adage of “take any work you can get,” ’cause hey, we all got bills to pay. But honestly… I’d feel a stain on my soul at knowing I’d helped vomit this appalling garbage upon the masses.

So it looks like it’s up to us. Can’t count on the studios to stop funding their movies, as long as they keep making money. We’ve got to make it happen. Us.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer Must Be Stopped.

Stop going to their movies.

For the love of all that’s good and funny… They Must Be Stopped!