I went into this movie not expecting much, and was simply in the mood for a mediocre dumb comedy. The movie exceeded my expectations. Although a dumb comedy, it was a very fun one to watch. The auditorium was roughly two-thirds full, mostly of energetic, rowdy teenagers, which was very appropriate and actually improved the movie experience. The movie made me and the audience laugh many times, which a comedy should! I recommend this movie! Just park your brain, forget your troubles,get yourself in a dumb mood, and be prepared to laugh and have a good time.

Presentation quality was excellent. The Carmike chapter 11 thing doesn't seem to be having an effect on presentation quality at this location yet.

Evans A Criswell
http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/

Good local or city management can make a world of difference in hiring and keeping good people, using showmanship, and "doing film right". Even the best run circuit can have a few bad apples, but it's great to hear that some people care about quality even when things are tight.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
 

There were some very interesting comments made from some of my guests. One of my guests, who typically does not like silly comedies at all, said that he had very warm feelings toward the movie, and several kept making comments like "It's almost a good movie". Nobody would commit to saying it was a good comedy even though they kept hinting that they really wanted to (something I haven't encountered from anyone in that group before).

The second thing is that before I started "Dude, Where's my Car", one guest said, "Now, let's kill a few brain cells." For the rest of the night, we kept comparing the movie to, say, drinking a beer and were arguing about which would kill more brain cells: watching "Dude" or drinking a beer. While everyone was walking down by driveway to their cars shortly after the movie, we all agreed that we felt dumber than we were before watching the movie, and estimated that the movie took 10 IQ points off of each of us. We could not help but use "dude", "sweet", "and then", but fortunately not "shibby" in all of our sentences while talking.

After the movie was over, I played three different trailers (two were TV spots) and one person said, "I wish I'd seen the trailer first so I wouldn't have had to watch the movie."

For the record, the 5 guests were all technical people (engineers, physicists, and computer scientists). It's nice to have a weapon like "Dude, Where's My Car" to dumb these people down some.

Another interesting tidbit... I learned to solve a continuum transfunctioner in early 1982 and I've been able to solve one in an average of 3 minutes ever since. I keep plenty around the office and around the house so it was nice during the movie to be able to have enough of them to go around so everyone could have a continuum transfunctioner in their hands during the movie.

I think the "and then" sequence at the "Chineese Foooood" place was the funniest scene in the movie. My guests found plenty of things funny in the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it, but we all agreed that the "and then" sequence was the funniest scene.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

All of the random things that the 2 guys got into during the movie while they were wasted were pretty funny, even though they just seemed to be thrown into the film. (Japanese lessons, the pudding, the tatoos) I also got a kick out of all the different henchman chasing them (the hot chicks, the geeks, the nordic guys).

I wouldn't call it a well-planned movie, but everybody needs a break from planning once in a while.