No One is Good….some musing on This is the End

(Spoiler Alert!)

For Father’s Day, I received a night out for a movie marathon at a local indie theater, Studio 35.

Yes, I went to the movies by myself, but that’s a post for another day.

The movie theater is an old theater redone with flair. They show first run popular movies, art films and cool community “event” night films. This could include old time films for the kids to the ever eternal Rocky Horror Picture Show.

My favorite event is Bad Movie Night and it was the second part of my movie marathon from 11:30 to 1:30 in the morning. Studio 35, on this particular night, ran a three movie marathon with movies so bad you could barely think of sarcastic comments to shout at the screen. Part of the fun of Bad Movie Night is listening to extremely wasted people shout out occasional funny comments to the screen. However, some of the comments, due to the inebriation of certain folks, often had nothing to do with what was happening on the screen.

Yeah, it was pretty hilarious.

While the second part of my movie marathon was just good fun, the first part ended with more thoughtfulness than I had expected. Before Bad Movie Night, Studio 35 had a showing of This is the End, the new comedy from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

The story revolves around Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel attending a huge part at James Franco’s house. (Yes, they use their real names in the film.) Along the way, friends such as Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Emma Watson (you might know her as Hermoine) show up at the party. Everyone is having a great time, including Cera, who has an obvious blast making fun of his “squeaky clean” image.

Then, something goes wrong.  Really wrong. After a strange event (see below), the earth starts to shake, people at the party disappear into a huge, fiery hole, Cera gets impaled, and we are left with the five buddies; Rogen, Baruchel, Robinson, Hill and Franco.

Sound crazy and mad? It is, but it’s inspired madness. The friends get to play off their various failures and Hollywood problems while trying to figure out what is going on outside Franco’s house. At first glance, they play on the typical superficial nature of Hollywood, including Franco, who has “props from all of his films.”

The hero of the piece seems to be Baruchel, who sniffs in disdain at all the superficialness of his friends. Their personalities start coming apart in a variety of ways as the world seems to be ending in fiery earthquakes and their friends are dying.

So, what is going on?

When I first started reading about this movie, I tried to avoid the question, “What is ending the world?” I guessed robots, monsters, or some sort of erupting volcano. That part didn’t matter to me as long as I got a good laugh.

I got far more than that as all my guesses missed the mark.

To my surprise, the “end” is the actual Biblical apocalypse, or at least, Rogen and Goldberg’s version of it. The chaos starts when people are taken up into the sky in blinding blue lights (think raptured).

Everyone in the house but Baruchel denies the possibility of the Bible being correct until demons start showing up at the door. In one particular conversation, the most powerful (yes, powerful) and funny in the film, the friends sit around talking about why they weren’t taken in the “weird blue lights” and the nature of God.

At first, they complain about what good people they’ve been and discuss how God must have screwed up. The more they talk about God and what He wants from people, they all start realizing just how terrible they’ve treated others. Even the supposed good guy of the film, Baruchel, realizes he’s judged his friends with an awful moral superiority (read pharisee). When they realize that God wants people to sacrifice for each other, they start talking about the Trinity.

Rogen, confused, doesn’t get the Trinity. What follows is a pretty hilarious discussion on the nature of the Three Persons in God (the same discussion that’s  happened in Christian college dorms everywhere). The discussion ends with James Franco saying, “The Trinity is like neapolitan ice cream – three flavors in one!”

Sorry, James; nice try.

Interestingly, no one talks about Jesus, but the unspoken agreement is, “Maybe the way to heaven is through sacrificing yourself and not being a dick.” (their conclusion)

You can probably figure out what happens in the end. Suffice it to say, this movie completely surprised me. I’ll admit, I went for a laugh, fully expecting to just be entertained. Instead, under all the potty humor (a lot of it) and Devil penis’ (you’ll see what I mean), I got an interesting, backdoor discussion as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes says, and St. Paul agrees: “There is no one righteous, no not one.”

It’s up to you if you can put up with the completely male humor of the film and dig in to see the discussion going on underneath. For a film to really say, “You know, maybe we aren’t such great people after all (even if we don’t kill anybody) and anyone who says differently is probably full of it,” seems to be a pretty remarkable event.

For me, I’m going again to see what I might have missed. Will you laugh? Oh Yes. Will you cringe? Most likely. Will you go home thoughtful? If you’re paying attention.