I am a movie snob. I am happy to admit it. I am proud of it.
I’m not a snob on the order of your run of the mill critic who thinks anything that was lauded at Cannes is brilliant and anything that makes money at the box office is tripe for sheeple. I saw Magnolia. It sucked.
Needless to say, my snobbery means Without a Paddle is a film I might enjoy but wasn’t likely to actually see. It’s a throw-away movie; nothing uplifting, nothing enduring. For a throw-away movie, though, it wasn’t all bad. It had some laughs – none on the order of Harold and Kumar but maybe I wasn’t drunk enough – but some of the gags fell flat. Take all the stereotypes of Deliverance, combine them with Stand By Me and mix it together with 90s sentimental schmaltz and you’ve got yourself a film!
Hey, it made me laugh and it passed the time. We have got to get Matthew Lillard and Vince Vaughn together in a movie. Now that would be a throw-away film worth watching.