the hangover (todd phillips, 2009)

This is the twelfth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 12 is called "And Now For Something Completely Vulgar Week":

On the heels of American Pie's success in 1999, the 2000s ushered in a new era of comedy. The likes of Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, and Eddie Murphy were on the way out, while big stars like Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Jack Black flourished. Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright, with collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, came onto the scene in a big way and who could forget the huge cultural juggernauts that were Borat and The Hangover! And since women have always been funny movies like Mean Girls, Mamma Mia!, Legally Blonde, Bend It Like Beckham, and Juno are regarded as some of the best of the decade.

This week let's have a good old-fashioned laugh and watch a comedy from the 2000s (2000-2009). Here and here are a couple of lists to help you get started.

I have watched 190 movies from the 2000s that Letterboxd categorizes as a comedy. My favorite is American Splendor. Using the Letterboxd 5-star rating system, I have given 88 of those comedies at least 3 1/2 stars, meaning I at least liked them ... about half. I mention this because when I can, I try to watch movies I think I will like, and so my overall average is higher than 3 1/2 stars ... I avoid the bad ones (and that's before we consider grade inflation). Thus, the fact that I found more than half of the comedies from that decade somewhat less than likable tells you something about my taste preferences, and it also tells you The Hangover is probably not quite up my alley.

The Hangover was a popular movie that took in more than $450 million at the box office on a budget of $35 million. At the time, it was the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever in the USA (don't know if that is still true). It was even generally well-received by critics (Metascore: 73/100). It spawned two sequels ... the three movies combined have grossed $1.4 billion-with-a-B worldwide, although the sequels weren't as highly-regarded by critics.

I'm falling back on statistics because I have nothing of my own to say about The Hangover. I didn't find it funny. I wasn't enraptured by its representation of male camaraderie. There was a reason I had never seen this popular movie in the fifteen years since its release. It wasn't for me. These are precisely the kinds of movies that make The Challenge so worthwhile, because I am taken out of my comfort zone. But that doesn't mean I'm going to like what I see, and having now seen 15 movies in this year's Challenge, I can say that only one of them was worse, IMO, than The Hangover, and that was Terror of Mechagodzilla.