THE CINEMA OF JASON FRIEDBERG AND AARON SELTZER

THE CINEMA OF JASON FRIEDBERG AND AARON SELTZERBy Jeremy Mark RobinsonThey’re dubbed ’the worst filmmakers in the world’ (are they? Hell, no!). Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are best-known for producing a series of highly entertaining spoof movies, beginning with Date Movie in 2006, and including Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, Superfast, The Starving Games, and their finest work, Vampires Suck, a parody of the Twilight Saga. Friedberg and Seltzer also contributed to the scripts of the Scary Movie series, Spy Hard and Maximum Risk. The finest of the spoof movies of Friedberg and Seltzer are Date Movie, Vampires Suck and Meet the Spartans; Vampires Suck is probably the best-known, because of its association with the Twilight Saga (and Vampires Suck is certainly the premier send-up of Twilight in movie form). Many of the movies parodied by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer cried out for parodies - 300, The Hunger Games, Twilight, The Fast and the Furious, Narnia, etc. As soon as dreck like Narnia or The Hunger Games is released, you beg for someone - anyone! - to lampoon it. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer and their movies have been described as ’abominations’, ’horrifying’ (Flavorwire) • ’a plague’ (Austin Chronicle) • ’evildoers’ (Slate) • ’cultural blight’ (A.V. Club) • ’comic terrorists’ (A.V. Club) • ’the worst film- makers in Hollywood’ (New York Post). The vitriol that Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have attracted is startling: one hopes that they don’t take any of it to heart, and keep making movies. This is loathing worse than that endured by film directors such as Ken Russell, Michael Winner, James Cameron, Joel Schumacher, Russ Meyer or George Lucas (well, maybe not Lucas! We know how intense and bitter Star Wars fans can be!). But why? Why have Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg angered so many viewers and critics? However, many people have enjoyed their movies: of Vampires Suck, viewers wrote: ’It was absolutely PERFECT for people like me who couldn’t stand the Twilight franchise and it was a movie that needed to be made.’ ’Vampires Suck succeeds in mocking even the smallest details of the Twilight saga and is a great film whether you love Twilight or not.’ ’This was the Best Movie Ever! it was hilarious!’ This book looks at each of the movies of Friedberg and Seltzer in detail; there are chapters on films such as Spy Hard and the Scary Movie franchise; on spoof movies; and on comedy cinema and the critics. With filmography, bibliography and notes. Illustrated with 90 illustrations. 276 pages. www.crmoon.com