The Interview: Freedom of Unfunny Speech [Review]
Every now and then, there comes along a movie that changes everything. These are typically known among scholars of cinema as “good” movies, or “interesting” movies, at the very least. Before ever being released in theaters, The Interview had sparked a new(!) conversation on free speech and censorship that certainly seemed to herald a great game-changer of a movie (starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, sure, but I will admit for all of us that we were more optimistic than usual). Everything about the movie’s road to release is now an important part of film history, from the Sony hack to the presidential reprimand that led to the movie’s sooner-than-anyone-expected digital distribution. We seem destined to talk about The Interview for a long while yet. Too bad, then, that it’s a boring piece of garbage.
At this point, we must set aside the political and cultural importance surrounding the movie’s existence. While this offscreen, meta-appeal of The Interview is all very neat, these conversations are already happening, and they are happening elsewhere. My goal here is to analyze this subpar comedy, which we have been forever cursed to remember, for what it is, and why we weren’t blessed with something much better instead.
(Read more on Deadshirt)