Never Seen It, #149 of 200: Saving Silverman

She didn't like the way his ass looked while watching 200 films he's never seen before, so she made him get buttcheek implants.

Saving Silverman

2001

Dennis Dugan

Pam and Fisher and I sent some questions about Saving Silverman to each other. Whoever actually answered those questions has their words printed below. I'm not updating this intro paragraph, regardless of who contributes what. Saving Silverman was a silly movie that doesn't require a serious blog post.

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Q1) I like the idea of someone's taste in comedy evolving over time. What you found funny when you were a teenager doesn't necessarily seem funny when you're an adult, and vice versa. What was your life like when you first found this movie funny?

PAM: 2001. I definitely saw this close to its release because I remember putting "Beer bong for the lady?" as my away message in freshman year of college, and my mom coming down on me since that's not something that classy ladies say. So, yea, freshman year of college was a pretty perfect time to see this movie (or senior year of HS, either way). Prime time for drinking, prime time for being a mess of a person (much like Wayne and JD). The appreciation for the nuance of Judith would come later. Everything holds up. It has pretty much aged like a fine wine. 

FISHER: Life was awesome: I had turned fourteen the week before, gaining height from puberty, eighth grade so you're top of the heap, knocking for friends, playing outside, video games, movies, TV. You could still eat like a raccoon and not feel too many effects. Shit was great.


Q2) Saving Silverman is definitely an underrated comedy. And I'm very cool with it being that way. It's not widely quoted by frat boys all over. If it had reached that status, of being universally recognized and quoted, would it still be as funny? 

JOE: Thanks for asking this. No, it wouldn't. I would hate it. There are people in this world who don't have their own sense of humor, but they are able to fake it by stealing other people's sense of humor. These are the people who expect to get a laugh when they quote Will Ferrell. And many times, they get that laugh they so crave, because the world is made up of many of these people, and they give just as they receive—cravenly, and uncreatively. I have heard my beautiful wife quote Jack Black's "a beer bong for the lady" from this movie on more than one occasion, and I've smirked because it's a silly phrase, but I didn't laugh until it finally connected here. But my beautiful wife has said a great many things over the fourteen-plus years I've known her than have made me sincerely laugh, and these were original thoughts, and I appreciated the good times and the creativity so much that I married it. If Saving Silverman had been just another bullshit comedy for empty-headed morons, then maybe the world would be different. Thankfully, I instead live in a world where beer bongs are for the ladies.

FISHER: Those last six words in the question have me scramblin'. That's hard to ponder, but I'll take it two ways. I suppose, universally, you could say it would be funnier in the event it were more recognized and quoted. For it to have missed that level of popularity suggests that maybe a Wedding Crashers is to be considered "funnier."

But the flip side is on the personal level and with the opposite effect. Us cool kids might find our interest in it mitigated by its popularity. And I've been both guilty and innocent of this. So it's very hard for me to confidently state one way or the other.

Then comes the test of time. Future generations (oh fuck that also means people today 'cause we're old) will be the more impartial judge. Let's show this to someone born after its release.

Q3) Did anybody do a bad job here? I'm trying to think of recasting possibilities, but I think they all killed it. Everyone understood their roles and the film's tone. VIP/RIP R. Lee Ermy: "Well, I salute you boys, that's the perfect crime!"

PAM: No. Absolutely no bad jobs done here. I'd venture to say that Jason Biggs could have been recasted, being the "straight man" role, but I don't know who could have done it as blissfully unaware as Jason Biggs, so even recasting that role would maybe put a crack in the comedic magic of Saving Silverman. The only actor I don't know from anything else is the woman who plays Sandy—she's perfect in that role, but did she do anything after Saving Silverman?

JOE: All of the main cast were really good! Amanda Detmer did the least, but that was more due to her character being slightly underwritten than her doing a bad job or whatever. Maybe Neil Diamond? Should we expect musicians of his caliber to be good actors too? Probably not. He was fine. Did Colin Foo OVERPLAY his role as the old man who thought he was going to have sex with Amanda Peet but died falling down the steps instead? Maybe! Or was his brief role an oblique reference to the infamously racist Mickey Rooney part in Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Q4) What is the appeal of Jason Biggs? I.e. why was he in so many teen comedies around this time? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with his ubiquity, I'm just asking.

FISHER: I suspect this was very much still the time of "This person was in a hit movie, let's put 'im in more." He certainly had a good run on that account.

In the late '90s and on, we had the new Brat Pack of Stiles, Phillipe, Gellar, Hartnett, Prinze Jr., et al. But American Pie breaks out and it's like "Ok we have our hot young people filled out, is there room for some everyday Joe types?" Yeah, my best bet is it boils down to: He was in a popular movie so they pimped him out until it was no longer profitable to do so.

PAM: My theory is that he was an integral part of the formula. American Pie became SO popular and made so much money. I'm sure every movie-maker of "teen" movies at that time thought, why not cash in and try to repeat the success of American Pie? American Pie has aged pretty poorly, and Loser was never actually that good of a movie, but Saving Silverman is one I'd display on my mantel if I were Jason Biggs. Plus, he seems like a nice guy, probably a good person to work with. Gotta imagine being on the set of Saving Silverman was an absolute hoot.

Q5) Is Neil Diamond instrumental to the comedy of Saving Silverman?

JOE: Probably, if only because I can't think of another musical artist who so deftly walks the line between so-lame-he's-cool and popular-but-too-popular. A sort of retro-corniness that went out of style in time for Saving Silverman to spoof it but came back into style after Saving Silverman itself went out of style (unfortunate on all counts). The thing about Neil Diamond—and there are a bunch of Record Club reviews about this if anyone is interested—is that he is over-the-top sincere in his songwriting and especially his delivery of those songs, and so to then place him in a comedy of this nature, where irony and sarcasm and buffoonery win the day, is just a recipe for fucking gold, man.

FISHER: I say nay. But only in so far as you could swap him out with another musician of the era and the joke likely works the same. I think the plot mechanic/story arc is instrumental, just not that it needed to be Diamond.

Q6) Fuck me, it's hard to come up with questions about this movie. It's just 90 minutes of dumb fun and then it's over. Can't imagine one drop of intellectual intent outside of its broad humor.

Let's try: Would you date a mime?

JOE: Great question. I think the answer is yes. I get that the evergreen joke about mimes, whenever they are in a TV show or movie, is that mimes are "always in character," but that can't possibly be true. They are acting. They are putting on a role, a mask, just like any of us do when we step out of the door. I don't know if I'm actually a social worker, I don't know if that's who I am, or what my soul says I am, or whatever... but when I clock in, I pretend I'm a social worker, and I pretend well enough to get paid for it. In the same way, I wouldn't expect a mime to be a mime at all times. She would talk when we were just hanging out. She would be a real person, with thoughts and feelings, and she would express those thoughts and feelings verbally. She would also have a great command of her body. But she's not actually a mime. She just plays one. You see what I mean.

PAM: Hmm... in my dating years, I probably would have dated a mime so that I could tell people that I had once dated a mime.

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JOE'S GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: Jeez, another silly comedy? Say hello to my little Scarface.