In his famous Gorgias dialogue, Plato attempted to underline the difference between a “craft” and a “knack.” A knack, he described, is like pastry baking: it creates pleasures, which are enjoyable in the moment, but in time fade. A good life is not based on the indulgence of pleasure because knacks do not create something, which can be used for the betterment of society, as crafts like carpentry, and medicine do.
This explains why there needs to be four installments into the dead horse of a franchise known as Scary Movie. Scary Movie 4 is like a knack, minus the pleasure it is supposed to provide. Sitting through it is kind of like eating a cold Big Mac; it offers no nutritional value, is barely worth the time and effort you put into picking it up, and has you hungry again before you even make it to the exit.
Film as a Craft
Remember La Strada, one of Federico Fellini's many masterpieces? In it there was a scene involving two main characters in which the one named the Fool gives a fantastic speech about how everything has meaning in life, even the smallest pebble, for if a pebble has no use in the world then everything is meaningless, even the stars.
That scene stands as one of the greatest that cinema has ever offered.
La Strada deserves mention because it is among the many great films that could be likened to Plato’s notion of a craft. It is a film that stays with the viewer long after it has ended, making them think about life and all its wonderful possibilities, only to leave them feeling as though their existence has been made just a little better from having seen it.
John Wayne Knows Best
If this review has failed on all accounts to talk about the film in question, there is good reason. In 1959 director Howard Hawks and star, John Wayne teamed to make the highly entertaining western Rio Bravo.
They teamed again in 1966 to make, more or less, the same film in El Dorado, and in 1970 when Hawks finished reworking the same story yet again for Rio Lobo he supposedly called Wayne, asking if he wanted him to send the script. “Why bother,” replied Wayne, “I’ve already made the movie twice.”
Alas Wayne had the right idea, This review was already written once: two years ago when Scary Movie 3 came out. This critic gave it two and a half stars, offered very little in the way of praise, and went on with life.
Sacry Movie 4: More of the Same
Scary Movie 4 is more or less the exact same as its predecessor, but it's audience is not. They are two years older, two years wiser, and maybe two years more cynical.
They hopefully find fart jokes even more annoying now than they did back then, and the one in four humour ratio that this critic gave to people getting kicked in the crotch in Scary Movie 3 has now at least doubled.
Death of a Great Spoof Master
The film was directed again by once great spoof master David Zucker (Airplane, Naked Gun, Top Secret!), who now wheezes by with this material like a man trying to regain lost glory which is no longer his to hold.
Although there is one big laugh for a parody of Brokeback Mountain, and several other small ones, the film ultimately plays like a display of Zucker’s personal tasteless fascinations. Some of which include trying to find objects which he can be made to look like large behinds, dry humping, children getting beaten and bruised, and racism, just to name a few. Oh how the great have fallen.
Plato's Final Word
Thus, it's come full circle back to Plato who would have hated the entire spoof genre, as it offers nothing but mere disposable pleasures (if that) within a medium, which can be used to create great, life affirming pieces of art.
That's not to suggest that Scary Movie 4 is a bad film because it is not great art, as that was never what it was intended to be.
It's simply to offer the observation that in twenty-five years from now, the Fool’s scene in La Strada will still be among the greatest ever filmed, whereas Scary Movie 4 and all of its counterparts will be about as significant as the gum under the seat of the theater it was seen it in. Better yet, make that twenty-five minutes.
