Saw A Night at the Roxbury, the comedy about two idiot brothers who are all about the 90's partying and catch-phrases, moronically spouting off pickup lines and spastically flapping about on the dance floor. I found it pretty winning. I thought it was roughly a spoof of Saturday Night Fever but, outside of a parody of that famous strut down the street to The Beegees, it's not really.
It's more like Bill & Ted. The idiot heroes are well-meaning and slack-jawed, smilingly bemused by the world. They do bother women a lot, but when they finally pick up some ladies and find a quiet bedroom, they still just can't stop saying pickup lines. They've never gotten this far before and now don't know what to do. It's sort of cute.
The film is winning, and I laughed a few times. The humor mostly derives from absurdist, empty-headed TV-quoting and a bizarre running joke about a club owner who thinks his assistant is grabbing his butt. I only really laughed at bits of outrageous physical comedy - when a pair of border collies dash inside, jumping up on the table, plates and glasses flying everywhere "be good, boys" casually shouts the owner. I love the violence of it!
Also it's neat seeing the peak early 90s fashions. I was too young for all of this of course, but the mesh shirts and the plastic visors and flip-phones seem so familiar. It's too bad it was still considered nerd stuff, but I can imagine these guys getting some tunes off of napster and charging up their mp3 players and heading to raves!
I don't think I learned any big lessons, and I don't think there was a deeper meaning to puzzle out, but the movie was a harmless goof and I enjoyed it anyway. It's a good way to spend 90 minutes.
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