328 – Bro Sleepover

Once a year, the regular bro movie night becomes a bro sleepover. The stars align, simultaneous lunar and solar eclipses occur, and MacGruber is watched and quoted endlessly.

After work we all headed to a central location in Culver City. The evening started in a weird place with the announcement of the verdict in the Darren Wilson trial. The story broke before we started drinking too much, so there was at least a modicum reasonable and thoughtful discussion about the legal process and race relations in the United States.

But eventually the evening shifted more toward less considered concepts and ideas. You might expect four young men living in Los Angeles to spend a night out on the town, getting wasted and hitting on girls. Normally we would attempt such an endeavor, but that’s not what the annual pre-Thanksgiving sleepover is about. This is about four bros drinking beers and watching movies.

A misguided foray into ThanksKilling 3 was cut short after we realized what a bad idea it was. We watched the first ThanksKilling this time last year, and it was an enjoyable experience. A self-aware but straight-forward horror-comedy, the original movie works as a proto-Cabin in the Woods-type film. The sequel, however (there is no ThanksKilling 2), is a little too far north of meta. I enjoyed “Too Many Cooks” as much as the next guy, but I can’t wait it for an hour and 40 minutes.

So instead I took the opportunity to introduce my bros to a cinematic experience known around the world as The Room. Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece is rightly touted as one of the worst films ever made. The movie is only 99 minutes long, but it took us about 3 hours to get through it because we kept rewinding in order to fully appreciate the majesty of such utter incompetence. The group was split on whether Wiseau intended his film to be a comedy, but I stand by the fact that he thought he was making art.

After an experience like that, anything would feel like an award winner. Luckily we stacked the deck with some quality comedies in the form of Tropic Thunder and MacGruber, two of the funnier movies of the last decade (MacGruber is a true exemplar of cinematic comedy). But it doesn’t really matter whether the movies are good or not; bro sleepovers are about camaraderie. And giving thanks. Because it’s Thanksgiving. Even if one of the bros bails early.