"Little Man" hit theaters last weekend. Congratulations, Wayans Brothers, you've done it again - and just when we thought we'd asked you politely to stop.
For those of you lucky enough to have no idea what I'm talking about, allow me grab you by the back of the head and smear it into a deep, steaming pile of back story.
"Wayans" is a loaded word in the entertainment industry. Much like the word "Baldwin" or "Hilton," there is a certain cornucopia of mixed emotions that have been affixed to it over the years.
Elements of both the highest prestige and the lowest shame have been achieved by members of all of these families - the only difference is that the Wayans brothers are still allowed to make movies without adult supervision.
Actually, the Wayans brothers are very much like a ghetto version of the Baldwin brothers. And, before you start inferring non-existent racial undertones by my using the word ghetto to describe the difference between these two families of hack entertainers who somehow manage to leech acting work off of the success their one, genuinely-talented brother ... think again.
The reason I used the word ghetto to describe the Wayans brothers is because, well, they seem to have a certain proclivity towards making movies about the ghetto, such as "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In the Hood" - which was actually quite funny. I have to give credit where credit is due. But this doesn't mean much, considering the unrelenting smattering of crappy movies that they've put into theaters since.
All you really need to know about the Wayans brothers is that there are roughly seven hundred of them currently pursuing a career in comedy - only one of whom is actually funny. His name is Damon. He's the guy from "In Living Color," "Major Payne," "Bamboozled" and many others.
Shawn and Marlon are the ones ruining everything. Their latest movie is merely the cinematic equivalent of yet another drunken outburst from an annoying houseguest who won't leave the party and keeps relieving himself on the plastic plants.
But what boggles my mind is that they write all of their movies together, so you'd think that, eventually, one of them would realize how much they suck at writing movies.
Don't believe me? OK, lets do a recap of some of their highlights: starting with "Scary Movie." For this one, Marlon and Shawn made up two writers on a team of six who co-wrote the entire ten-page script together. Imagine that. It actually took six people to make "Scary Movie" not-at-all funny.
Following this brilliant contribution, the Wayans then decided to re-write "Scary Movie" word-for-word and call it "Scary Movie 2." They've repeated this process about fourteen times now, proving once and for all that a woman saying "Oh no you didn't!" to the killer who ruins her manicure is, pure and simply, timeless comedy.
At some point, Marlon and Shawn decided to drop the extra writers so that they could focus more on making movies that were only a fraction as funny as "Scary Movie." Their first solo-venture was "White Chicks" - a movie that is in no way like Billy Wilder's 1966 classic "Some Like it Hot" - save for the fact that it is exactly like it, only not funny.
We can only hope that "Little Man" will feature the Wayans venturing bravely into uncharted comedic waters. And by uncharted, I don't mean a storyline consisting of two wacky brothers who have to keep an outrageous secret from strangers to protect their true identities ... I just mean funny.
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