Freddy Got Fingered
Freddy Got Fingered | |
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Directed by | Tom Green |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 87 minutes[1] |
Countries | United States Canada |
Language | English |
Budget | $14 million[2] |
Box office | $14.3 million[2] |
Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001
Released in theaters on April 20, 2001 by
Plot
Unemployed 28-year-old cartoonist Gordon "Gord" Brody leaves his parents' home in Portland, Oregon, to pursue his lifelong ambition of obtaining a contract for an animated television series. His parents, Jim and Julie, give him a Chrysler LeBaron which he drives to Los Angeles and starts work at a cheese sandwich factory to make money. Gord shows his drawings to Dave Davidson, the CEO of a major animation studio; Davidson commends the artwork but calls the concepts depicted, including a vigilante "X-Ray Cat", nonsensical. Disheartened, Gord quits his job and returns to his parents.
Jim constantly insults and belittles Gord following his return, telling him to forget about being an animator and "get a job". When Gord pressures his friend Darren into skating on a wooden half-pipe he has built outside the Brody home, Darren falls and breaks his leg. At the hospital, Gord impersonates a doctor, delivers a baby, and meets an attractive nurse named Betty, who uses a wheelchair, has a penchant for fellatio, and wants to create a rocket-powered wheelchair. Gord lies to his father that he has got a job in the computer industry and goes out to a restaurant with Betty, pretending he is at work. However, Jim sees him there and disparages Betty due to her disabilities. After a fight in the restaurant, Gord is arrested and Betty bails him out. Following her advice, Gord attempts to continue drawing; however, he gets into an argument with Jim, who then smashes Gord's half-pipe. Gord and his parents then go to a family therapy session, where Gord falsely accuses his father of fingering Gord's younger brother, Freddy. The 25-year-old Freddy is sent to a home for sexually molested children despite clearly being an adult. Julie, fed up with Jim's real and perceived behavior, leaves Jim and ends up dating the basketball player Shaquille O'Neal. While in a drunken stupor, Jim tells Gord how much of a disappointment he is to him. Affected by his father's words, Gord decides to abandon his aspirations to be a cartoonist and gets a job at a local sandwich shop.
After seeing a television news report on Betty's successful rocket-powered wheelchair, Gord is inspired to pursue his dreams once again. He returns to Hollywood with a concept based on his relationship with his father: an adult animated series called Zebras in America. Jim follows Gord there after threatening Darren into revealing his whereabouts. While Gord is pitching the show to Davidson, Jim bursts in and trashes Davidson's office. Thinking Jim's actions are part of Gord's pitch, Davidson greenlights Zebras in America and gives Gord a million-dollar check. Gord spends a quarter of that money on an elaborate thank you to Betty for inspiring him, and the remainder to relocate the Brody house to Pakistan with his father inside, unconscious—a response to Jim's earlier put-down that "If this were Pakistan, you would have been sewing soccer balls when you were four years old!"
Gord and Jim soon come to terms but are then abducted and held hostage. The kidnapping becomes a news item, as Gord's series has already become popular. After 18 months in captivity, Gord and Jim return to America, where a huge crowd, including Betty and Darren, welcomes them home.
Cast
- Tom Green as Gordon "Gord" Brody, a childish 28-year-old slacker cartoonist who dreams of having his own cartoon show.
- blue-collarfather who frequently clashes with Gord in response to his slacking and clowning.
- Marisa Coughlan as Betty Menger, Gord's masochist love interest who dreams of developing a rocket-powered wheelchair.
- Eddie Kaye Thomas as Freddy Brody, Gord's responsible younger brother who works at a bank.
- Harland Williams as Darren, Gord's bank teller friend.
- Anthony Michael Hall as Dave Davidson, the head of Radioactive Animation Studios, who Gord seeks to pitch his cartoons to.
- Julie Hagerty as Julie Brody, Gord's mild-mannered mother.
- Drew Barrymore as Davidson's receptionist
- Shaquille O'Neal as himself
- Jackson Davies as Mr. Malloy, the Brodys' next-door neighbor.
- Connor Widdows as Andy Malloy, the accident-prone son of Mr. Malloy
- Lorena Gale as Psychiatrist/Social worker
- Noel Fisher as Pimply manager
- Stephen Tobolowsky (uncredited) as Uncle Neil
- Joe Flaherty (uncredited) as William
Production
Principal photography took place in
Reception
Box office
On a budget of $14 million, Freddy Got Fingered grossed $14,254,993 domestically and $78,259 overseas for a worldwide total of $14,333,252, making it initially a commercial failure[2] though it did eventually turn a profit from DVD sales. The film earned $24,300,000 from DVD sales, and was among the top 50 weekly DVD rentals chart.[9] Green has stated in a few interviews in 2010 that DVD sales have been growing many years later and that there was a cult following.[10] In a 2017 interview, Green stated that the box office receipts for the film did not reflect the actual attendance, as he thinks that moviegoers under the age of 17 bought tickets to Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles and then snuck into the theater showing his film.[11]
Critical response
Freddy Got Fingered was panned upon release, with many critics considering it to be one of the worst films of all time. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 10% based on reviews from 95 critics, with an average rating of 3.20/10. The site's critics consensus reads "Unfavorably comparing it with such infamously bad titles as Battlefield Earth, a significant number of critics are calling Tom Green's extreme gross-out comedy the worst movie they have ever seen."[12] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 13 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave Freddy Got Fingered an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
The Toronto Star created a one-time new rating for Freddy Got Fingered, giving it "negative one star out of five stars."[citation needed] CNN's Paul Clinton called it "quite simply the worst movie ever released by a major studio in Hollywood history" and listed the running time as "87 awful minutes."[15]
Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert gave the film a rare zero-star rating and listed it as one of his most hated films of all time,[16] and described the film thus: "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels. […] The day may come when Freddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny."[17]
Along with Ebert, his co-host of the At the Movies TV show, Richard Roeper, called it "horrible" and expressed the view that Green was a poor comedian, going so far as to say that "he should be flipping burgers somewhere". Roeper was also offended by the numerous "gross-out" gags.[18] In 2003, Roeper put it on his alphabetized list of his forty least favorite films of all time to that point, reiterating his dislike of Green's comedy in general.[19]
Film critic
A. O. Scott of The New York Times, compared the film to conceptual performance art and praised it "guardedly and with a slightly guilty conscience".[25]
Accolades
The film received eight
Year | Award | Category | Subject | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | Golden Raspberry Award
|
Worst Screenplay | Derek Harvie | Won |
Tom Green | ||||
Worst Actor | Won | |||
Worst Director | Won | |||
Worst Screen Couple
|
Won | |||
Any animal he abuses | Won | |||
Worst Picture | Larry Brezner | Won | ||
Howard Lapides | Won | |||
Lauren Lloyd | Won | |||
Worst Supporting Actor | Rip Torn | Nominated | ||
Worst Supporting Actress | Drew Barrymore | Nominated | ||
Julie Hagerty | Nominated | |||
2010 | Worst Picture of the Decade | Larry Brezner | Nominated | |
Howard Lapides | Nominated | |||
Lauren Lloyd | Nominated | |||
2001 | Stinkers Bad Movie Awards | Worst Picture | 20th Century Fox
|
Won |
Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy | Won | |||
Most Intrusive Musical Score | Nominated | |||
Worst Song | "The Sausage Song" | Nominated | ||
Worst Director | Tom Green | Won | ||
Worst Actor | Won | |||
Worst On-Screen Couple | Tom Green and any person, animal or foreign object | Won |
Legacy
Later reviews
Freddy Got Fingered began to see more positive praise over time, becoming a
Later, in his review of the film Stealing Harvard, a film co-starring Green, Ebert wrote: "Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie Freddy Got Fingered, which was so poorly received by the film critics that it received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. I gave it—let's see—zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord. But the thing is, I remember Freddy Got Fingered more than a year later. I refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing."[33]
In Green's interview on The Opie and Anthony Show, host Gregg "Opie" Hughes said the film had begun to be regarded as "one of the funniest movies ever made".[34] Green said the film had sold a million copies,[34] and that he wished to make a director's cut due to a lot of footage not making the final cut.[34] Green said that he was not trying to make The Jazz Singer and that many fans of the movie shout out scenes from the film regularly at his stand-up performance.[34]
Unreality Magazine featured the film in its list of "10 Hilarious Movies That Received Terrible Reviews", noting that critics' taste in comedies tend not to reflect the general public.[35] Vadim Rizov for IFC.com wrote an article titled "In defense of Freddy Got Fingered". He calls the film one of the great underrated comedies of the decade and says the film would go on to do better if it was released today, comparing it to the successful Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.[36]
Director's cut
Green stated that he would like to do a "director's cut" DVD release of the film in 2011 to celebrate the 10th anniversary.[10][37]
On March 9, 2010, on Loveline, Green officially announced that a director's cut would be released.[38] In an answer to a question from a fan on his website tomgreen.com in December 2010, Green said that there was no progress yet in regards to the director's cut. In a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) Green did on October 17, 2013, Green responded to a question regarding the release of the director's cut with: "The studio didn't give me the footage to make the directors cut. I want to do it. If you contact New Regency or 20th Century Fox and tell them you want a directors cut [sic] maybe it will happen!"[39]
See also
References
- 20th Century Fox. British Board of Film Classification. June 29, 2001. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
- ^ a b c "Freddy Got Fingered (2001)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
- ^ "Freddy Got Fingered (2001) | Overview". AllMovie. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
- ^ Graydon, Danny (October 19, 2001). "Freddy Got Fingered Review". BBC. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
- ^ "Filming & production". Retrieved December 30, 2023.
- ^ Freddie Got Fingered Gets Fingered- Website Won't Name Names, cinema.com.
- ^ "Newgrounds Wiki - MPAA Investigation". Newgrounds.com. April 6, 2001. Retrieved September 19, 2012.
- ^ "Beavis And Butt-Head Vet Animates Freddy Got Fingered". Animation World Network. Retrieved May 16, 2023.
- ^ "Freddy Got Fingered US DVD rentals gross". The Internet Movie Database.
- ^ a b "Tom Green on The Nick Digilio Show". WGN Radio. February 13, 2010. Retrieved February 13, 2010.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Marchese, David. "Tom Green Has a Good Freddy Got Fingered Conspiracy Theory". Vulture. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
- ^ "Freddy Got Fingered". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
- ^ Freddy Got Fingered, retrieved December 4, 2021
- ^ "Cinemascore". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
- ^ Clinton, Paul (April 19, 2001). "'Freddy Got Fingered' is a bad, bad film: Gross, stupid, sick. And that's being kind" Archived 2006-12-30 at the Wayback Machine. CNN.
- ^ "Ebert's Most Hated". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (April 20, 2001). "Review of Freddy Got Fingered". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ "Freddy Got Fingered, The Body, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Keep the River on Your Right, The Center of the World, 2001". Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
- ISBN 0-7868-8830-X.
- ISBN 0-451-21265-7.
- ^ "Peter Bradshaw Q&A: 'Now critics get reviewed – it's a sobering experience'". The Guardian. December 9, 2017. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
- ^ "The Dan Schneider Interview 16: James Berardinelli". www.cosmoetica.com.
- ^ "The Movie Show reviews Freddy Got Fingered". SBS. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
- Complex.
- ^ Scott, A. O. (April 20, 2001). "'Freddy Got Fingered': Shocking? Sure, if You Keep Your Eyes Open". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Waters, Darren (March 23, 2002). "Green gets fingered for Razzies". BBC News.
- ^ Brew, Simon (February 2, 2010). "Worst Picture of the Decade (Three Special 30th Razzie-Versary Awardz)". razzies.com. Retrieved May 6, 2013.
- ^ "Past Winners Database". The Envelope at LA Times. Archived from the original on August 15, 2007. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
- ^ "Stinkers Trophy". The Stinkers. Archived from the original on June 9, 2002. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
- ^ Rabin, Nathan (August 23, 2007). "My Year of Flops Case File #61 Freddy Got Fingered". The A.V. Club.
- ^ Rabin, Nathan (August 28, 2007). "My Year of Flops Case File #62 Sour Grapes". The A.V. Club.
- ^ "Favorite Movie - Freddy Got Fingered". Chrisrock.com. August 14, 2012. Archived from the original on May 17, 2017. Retrieved September 19, 2012.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (September 13, 2002). "Review of Stealing Harvard". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007.
- ^ a b c d Opie and Anthony, Tom Green interview, February 16, 2010
- ^ Madison (May 7, 2009). "10 Hilarious Movies That Received Terrible Reviews". Unreality Magazine.
- ^ Rizov, Vadim (February 17, 2010). "In defense of 'Freddy Got Fingered". IFC.com. Archived from the original on February 19, 2010.
- ^ Pearson, Dan (February 25, 2010). "Tom Green returns to stand-up after 20 years". Libertyville Review. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015.
- ^ "Tom Green interview on Loveline on March 9, 2010". Loveline.
- ^ "r/IAmA - Comment by u/tomgreenliveAXS on "I am Tom Green and my AMA starts now!"". reddit. October 17, 2013.
External links
- Freddy Got Fingered at IMDb
- Freddy Got Fingered at Box Office Mojo
- Freddy Got Fingered at Rotten Tomatoes
- Freddy Got Fingered at Metacritic
- Official Web Site at the Wayback Machine (archived July 2, 2007)