Nostalgia Critic (TV Series)

Freddy Got Fingered (2018)

Doug Walker: Nostalgia Critic

Photos 

Quotes 

• [opening lines] 

  Nostalgia Critic : [narrating like Anton Chigurh from "No Country For Old Men"]  I was reviewing movies when I was 25 years old. Hard to believe. Some of the old critics never even wore a gun. A lot of folks that were YouTube comments find that hard to believe. I always like to hear about the old critics. Never miss a chance to do so. Can't help but compare yourself to the old critics. Can't help but wonder how they'd operate in these times with these films. There's this movie. Papers say it was a film of passion, but the director said there wasn't any passion to it. Not in the sense that we think: a passion for something good. He wanted it to be bad, a new kind of bad we've never witnessed. And I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. It's not that I'm afraid of it. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go and confront something I don't understand.

• Nostalgia Critic : Tom Green: In the early 2000s, he became very popular for his unique brand of anti-humor. Some called him an attention-desperate whore, while others called him... Everybody called him an attention-desperate whore, but his fans didn't seem to care. Partaking in shocking stunts most normal people wouldn't do like sucking a cow's teat, humping a dead moose, or marrying Drew Barrymore only got him more popularity. To his credit, there were occasional funny bits like following pizza delivery boys to offer the same pizza for cheaper, demonstrating how to camouflage yourself by blending into the audience, this was a guy who had some comprehension of comedy. But his favorite brand of humor was just being shockingly odd: putting things in his mouth... eh, um... things in his mouth, and... yeah, it was very mouth-based. After he starred in a hit film, 20th Century Fox gave him a movie to write, direct and star in with very little interference. The only thing they seemed to put their foot down is that it couldn't be NC-17. In that, "We'll still shoot an NC-17 film, we'll just have to bribe the MPAA more than usual to not have it be rated NC-17". It was destroyed by critics, failed at the box office, and won several Razzie Awards, of which Tom Green accepted the awards, even bringing his own red carpet. Whatever you thought of this guy, he had a plan, and he achieved it, whatever it was. The film, over the years, has been getting a cult following of people saying it's a unique kind of bad, one never truly seen at cinema: a "so bad, it's bad; and that bad is so bad, it's bad; and that bad is so bad, it's bad; and that bad is so bad, it's good; and that good is so bad, it's bad". Was there actual clever thought put into how purposefully terrible this was? Did it reach a new level of awful that you can actually admire the technique of it? "Admire" is a bad word to use, but I can think of no other in my current state of Shit-holm Syndrome. Let's take a deeper look with "Freddy Got Fingered".

• Movie Store Employee : [as the Critic enters the store]  Welcome to Fam Video. We don't know how we're still around either.

  [Critic stares at the employee's nametag, which reads "Freddy"] 

  Movie Store Employee : Oh, returning a movie? How was it?

  Nostalgia Critic : What business is it of yours how the movie was... Freddo?

  Movie Store Employee : I didn't mean nothing by it.

  Nostalgia Critic : [mockingly]  "Didn't mean noth..."

  Movie Store Employee : Will there be something else?

  Nostalgia Critic : I don't know, will there?

  Movie Store Employee : Is there something wrong?

  Nostalgia Critic : Is that what you're asking me? Something's wrong? What if I saw a comedy so bad it changes your perception of bad altogether... You think you've seen every type of shitty humor, gross-out humor, anti-humor... Epic Movie. But then one comes along that is not only bad on purpose, but it elevates bad to a new level you didn't even know existed. A level that embraces misery to a point that you have to laugh. So, I guess it's working, 'cause it makes you laugh. But it only makes you laugh because the only other alternative is to cry. You laugh... because you have no choice. You laugh... because it's destroying you.

  Movie Store Employee : What kind of film could do that?

  Nostalgia Critic : [putting DVD face-down on the counter]  Call it.

  Movie Store Employee : Call what?

  Nostalgia Critic : Just call it.

  Movie Store Employee : You want me to call what the movie is?

  Nostalgia Critic : Think of the only film that can be impressively bad, yet leaves no joy. Can get a laugh, even though it's not funny. Can expand someone to a new level of awful he wants to escape, yet is constantly drawn in by. What type of bad creates a world so painful that you stay in it, because it's so fascinating?

  Movie Store Employee : Oh, that's "Freddy Got Fingered".

  Nostalgia Critic : [turning up disc]  Well done.

  Movie Store Employee : Okay, then, I'll just put this back on the shelf.

  Nostalgia Critic : Oh, don't put it on the shelf.

  Movie Store Employee : Where am I supposed to put it?

  Nostalgia Critic : Anywhere, but not on the shelf. Or else it gets mixed in with the others and just becomes another movie. Which it is.

• Nostalgia Critic : [starting the movie]  We get a glance at what John Kricfalusi now does with his time, as we see our main character named Gord, played by Canada's punishment, leaves his home during the credits to do some '90s zing.

• Nostalgia Critic : [on some freeze-frame shots]  I think the editor was drunk because, you know, he's doing "Freddy Got Fingered", but he left in these weird freeze frames because, you know, he's doing "Freddy Got Fingered". Who cares? This whole intro shows that Tom Green can skateboard, reinforcing the rumor that he is, in fact, good at something. I call it fake news.

• Nostalgia Critic : Gord says he's going to Hollywood to become a famous animator like Charles Schultz... who was a comic strip artist, not an animator. I'm not implying you don't know this, I'm implying Tom Green doesn't know this.

• Nostalgia Critic : I've never been so happy to have a scene not explained to me.

• Nostalgia Critic : [about Gord]  He sneaks into the studio where a secretary, played by Drew Barrymore, talks to him, which is impressive, because the film is now presenting four to five failed career choices in one continuous shot. You're just suddenly reminded of all the wrong things these two actors did in their lifetimes.

• Nostalgia Critic : [about Gord]  He tells Cousin Itt that he's there to tell one of the head honchos that his wife is dead. As well as inform them that the color corrector has died, seeing how these two shots clearly don't match up. I guess you could argue this brightness contrast and green tint is part of the purposefully bad filmmaking, even though it doesn't happen anywhere else in the film. But I like to think they're in the Matrix and Morpheus is going to erase the glitch that is Tom Green.

  Nostalgia Critic : [as Morpheus]  What if I told you you're annoying as balls?

• Nostalgia Critic : [about the scene where Gord runs around in a deer skin]  I'll give it this: it could be funny if he's approached by Nicolas Cage in a bear suit who punches him to the ground. We all know Cage will do anything. He'll probably do it twice.

• Nostalgia Critic : I don't know what they're doing, but I know they're DOING IT!

• Nostalgia Critic : In another bizarre twist, his best friend is played by Harland Williams. This is one of the most surreal, zaniest stand-ups you could imagine. When you want things to get weird, you always have him show up. Yeah, he cast him as the straight man, the common sense guy who tries to be reasonable to Green's crazy antics.

• Nostalgia Critic : [holding up a middle finger]  You see, this is more than just one giant middle finger.

  [the camera zooms in very close to his finger, which is full of tiny middle fingers] 

  Nostalgia Critic : This is a giant middle finger made up of tiny little middle fingers that compose the entire thing. It's a middle finger on so many levels.

• [the Critic is so appalled by the scene in the movie involving the Institute for Sexually Molested Children that it actually made him disappear briefly] 

  Nostalgia Critic : I wasn't here for a second, was I? That scene actually took me someplace else. A place... not of this realm. It was not a good place. In fact, it was a very, very bad place. One of the worst places I've ever been. But... it was so bad... I almost want to go back to it. I want to study it. I want to understand how, on every level of unpleasantness, this scene went above and beyond what I thought possible in a film. James Gunn was fired for tweeting scenes like this. And this guy was given 14 million dollars to bring it to the big screen. I have never witnessed a scene like that in cinema. And only this story and this tone could build up to something so heinous. There is no place you can look, no area you can escape to, nothing else you can think about except every possible ugliness crammed into this one moment.

• [In the movie, Gord goes to visit his friend in the hospital, where he meets a nurse Betty, played by Marisa Coughlan] 

  Betty : Hi, I'm Betty.

  Nostalgia Critic : [as Gord]  And I'm the two kids from "BoJack" pretending to be an adult. Surprisingly, I've made a good career out of it.

• Nostalgia Critic : Gord goes to Betty's place where he discovers she gets incredibly turned on when she's hit with a bamboo stick.

  [Gord repeatedly hits Betty's legs with a stick, arousing her] 

  Nostalgia Critic : To the one person whose fetish is finally being lived out, congratulations. To the rest of us, what the shit is going on?

• Malcolm : [arriving at the Critic's home dressed like Llewellyn Moss]  Hey, Critic, are you here? You weren't at the studio. Are we still shooting today? Hell, I've got my costume on and everything.

  Nostalgia Critic : [coming out, brandishing a shotgun]  Hello, Malcolm. Let's go to my room.

  [they sit in the Critic's room, looking at each other] 

  Malcolm : You don't have to do this. I could just go home.

  Nostalgia Critic : [mumbling like Anton Chigurh]  Let me ask you this: if a film is meant to be so bad that nobody would like it, then what is the purpose of the film if people like it? Is it a failure if it's hated by everyone, or a failure if it's enjoyed by a select few, even some well-known names?

  Malcolm : Do you have any idea how crazy you are?

  Nostalgia Critic : You mean the nature of this movie?

  Malcolm : I mean the nature of you.

  Nostalgia Critic : Did you ever think how much thought would go into making the absolute worst thing ever? If you believe, as some philosophers do, the complete perfection is Hell, then what's the opposite? What's Heaven? Nothing but flaws.

  Malcolm : [realizing what the Critic is talking about]  Oh, my God! Are you one of those assholes that defends "Freddy Got Fingered"?

  [In response, the Critic fires his shotgun at Malcolm, wounding him, but miraculously not killing him] 

  Malcolm : Ow!

  [Critic fires at him again] 

  Malcolm : That really hurt.

  [Confused, Critic shoots Malcolm - yet he still survives] 

  Malcolm : A lot!

  [Frustrated, the Critic pulls up the YouTube app on his phone and shows Malcolm a clip of the movie, showing Gord in a deer skin; at this, Malcolm finally breathes his last] 

• [the Critic's phone rings and he answers it] 

  Nostalgia Critic : [low voice, like Anton Chigurh]  Hello?

  Tamara : [on the phone in her car]  Hello?

  Nostalgia Critic : Yes.

  Tamara : Is Malcolm there?

  Nostalgia Critic : Not in the sense that you mean.

  Tamara : Critic? What's going on? Where's Malcolm?

  Nostalgia Critic : You need to come see me.

  Tamara : Are we shooting today or what?

  Nostalgia Critic : You know how this is gonna turn out, don't you?

  Tamara : What in the hell are you talking about?

  Nostalgia Critic : [hesitating slightly]  Line from "No Country For Old Men".

  Tamara : Right. Look, just stay there. I'm gonna come and shoot, okay? Oh, by the way, how was the movie?

  [Critic doesn't answer, he hangs up, much to her confusion] 

  Nostalgia Critic : [low voice]  What is the movie?

• [Jim, played by Rip Torn, leaves one scene, with a shadow over him as he does] 

  Nostalgia Critic : Torn escapes this realm of madness, squeezing past the camera that even leaves a shadow on him. Another glitch in the Matrix. Lord knows I could use an exploding Hugo Weaving at this point.

• Nostalgia Critic : [about Gord]  He finds the head of the studio, played by Anthony Michael Hall, who's slowly realizing "Weird Science" might be the most normal thing he's ever been in. To make things stranger, I swear there's a heavier version of Hall sitting directly behind him. It's like a yin and yang of "The Breakfast Club", even down to wearing the exact same suit, but with black and white shirts, which is also ironic because you both look like you're auditioning for "Cobra Kai". I'm not saying this film is dumb enough to do that, I'm saying this film is not smart enough to be that dumb.

• Nostalgia Critic : I'm actually wondering if there was an Oscar-caliber film about a dysfunctional family who has to deal with their son who was addicted to drugs; they just forgot to put the drugs part in. This would be a dramatic powerhouse if he was on crystal meth.

• [in the movie, Gord lies to his father and Betty that he got a job and they go out to a fancy restaurant to celebrate] 

  Nostalgia Critic : Oh, I know this place. It's the same upscale restaurant that doesn't allow Mr. Bean, the Three Stooges, Ace Ventura, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Benny Hill, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis or the Tiny Toons in. I believe it's called "Fine How Do You Do".

• [in the movie, Gord asks the studio CEO's receptionist, played by Drew Barrymore, if he can be her boyfriend, but she tells him he is a loser] 

  Nostalgia Critic : Hey, I think this is how they broke up.

  [the receptionist roars at Gord] 

  Nostalgia Critic : Definitely how they broke up.

• Nostalgia Critic : You know, he seems like an unsuccessful Gruber brother: Hans, Simon and Gord, more focused on terrorism of comedy. If you laugh, he shoots you.

• Nostalgia Critic : Did you know the original title for this was "The Audience Got Fisted"?