Episode 27

Serving Sara - Matthew Perry plays a process server named Joe Taylor. His new target is Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley), who is being served divorce papers by her husband; a rich, multiple-Texan-ranch-owner named Gordon (Bruce Campbell). The idea is that if Gordon serves Sara the divorce papers and she decides to take it to court, since he served her first, the case will be held in Texas where Gordon is sure to win. When Sara realizes what Gordon is up to, she convinces Joe that if he helps her serve Gordon instead that the case will be held in New York City as opposed to Texas, because that's where she was visiting when he tried to serve her. Since New York is a more modern, progressive state than Texas, Sara figures that a New York court would side with her over Gordon, and the icing on the cake is that Sara promises to give Joe one million of the ten million dollars she'd be entitled to in the divorce if he helps her serve Gordon first, ensuring that she gets the money. Disregarding the orders of his boss Ray (Cedric The Entertainer), Joe accepts Sara's deal and the two of them head off to Texas. However, unwilling to lose a high profile client such as Gordon Moore, Ray sends Joe's co-worker/rival process server Tony (Vincent Pastore) on a mission to intercept Joe and Sara and serve her before Joe can serve Gordon. Confusing? Yeah, just a bit. Serving Sara is a pretty dumb movie. The main reason that I wanted to see it was Bruce Campbell. I've been a fan of his since I first saw the Evil Dead trilogy in high school, and have always wondered why he doesn't get bigger roles. Well, after seeing Serving Sara I understand why that is. He's not really a great actor. He's great as Elvis in Bubba Ho-Tep, but that's such a tongue-in-cheek role that I'm not sure if it really represents his ability to pull off a serious role in a serious movie. This is not to say that Serving Sara is a serious movie with serious roles in it, but his portrayal of a Texas ranch-owner was pretty sad. I'm also a fan of Matthew Perry, but after so many years of him playing the quirky, wide-eyed, twitchy guy, it's getting a little old. He really felt like the exact same character in Serving Sara as the one he played in The Whole Nine Yards, The Whole Ten Yards, and Friends. Here's hoping that he gets more roles in the future that require a slightly more serious performance such as his role in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Elizabeth Hurley was sub par as per usual. Overall, Serving Sara is a forgettable comedy that isn't really even worth a rental. If you want a silly comedy with Matthew Perry, try out The Whole Nine Yards instead.

The Aristocrats - No plot here my friends. The Aristocrats is a documentary about a joke. A particularly dirty joke, actually. In essence what we have here is an hour and a half of comedians looking into the camera and either talking about how they first heard the joke in question, the best telling of it they've heard, the best telling of it they've done themselves, or in a few cases just telling the joke to the viewer. Apparently the joke (titled The Aristocrats) is the most famous (and infamous) joke in the stand-up comedy business, but I've never heard it before. In fact, no one I've talked to personally has ever heard it before. And based on my own opinion of the film and the opinions of the few other people I know who have seen it, the only people who find this documentary the slightest bit interesting or entertaining are comedians themselves. In other words, unless you want to be bored out of your mind and hear the same joke told over and over again, steer clear of The Aristocrats. This bugs me, because the film was produced by, and really exists because of, Penn Jillette, of whom I'm a big fan. Just to save myself some time, I won't bother linking to (much less typing the names of) the particular comedians who appear in The Aristocrats, but just so you know, there's a whole lot of them. And I mean a lot.