Episode 12 — The Love Guru

[engineerdoug 6]

Wayne's World was a successful sketch-turned-movie that satirized the music and mentality of the time with absolute precision. Austin Powers hit the cultural zeitgeist so hard that the quotes and characters remain in public consciousness. The Love Guru is, uh...well, it's a movie, that's for sure. Matt Walsh, director of the upcoming film High Road, joins the How Did This Get Made crew (including an internet connected Jason) to discuss how this pro-enlightenment, over-written piece of garbage got made. He even brings our attention to some of the more bizarre reviews the movie received. If you're curious about the odd casting choices and borderline animal cruelty from this Mike Meyers flop, tune in. Maybe, just maybe, you'll hear one of your suggested character names!

[Julia 477]

Every podcast when Jason starts diagnosing characters on different areas of the Autism spectrum, I crack up.

P.S. I know Mike Myers' big hits are usually considered Wayne's World and Austin Powers, but I think So I Married an Ax Murderer is an underrated Myers film. There are a lot of laughs in that one.

[jughead 189]

Awesome episode! Up guys hit all the notes I had taken when I watched this Shit sandwich. I also liked the fact that Jason joined via satellite because I could tell the difference between when Paul and Jason are talking. Sometimes I can't figure out whose snarky accent is being used.

[engineerdoug 6]

Mike Myers for Prez. The man knows how to solve life long character conflicts in seconds.

[cmpieper 0]

So was Rob Huebel being credited as "Ron Huebel" just a screw-up? Might be a blessing in disguise.

[pbnews 93]

Not to be that Twitter guy who takes everything literally, but wasn't there was a black guy in the NHL a few years back who won MVP? His name was Jarome Iginla (or something like that) and the commentators would refer to him as "African-American" even though he was from Canada (though I guess "-American" could refer to anyone in The Americas).

I get jokes!

[jambi 0]

I think this will go down as the movie that finally broke June.

Unrelated but I always wondered why no one laughs when Paul is reading the listener submissions. I started to think the 'How Did This Get Made' hosts were jaded from all the bad movies and incredibly hard to impress. Then I realized that Paul records them separately. Mystery solved!

[Lando 2019]

I thought it was ironic that Matt described the movie as an attempt at a "nice" comedy, and yet there were so many jokes at Cherkov's expense.

[substitute 0]

Jason's bafflement with crazy plot points is always welcome, so it's great he could join via phone.

[Vasectomist 3]

Great episode. It reminded me why I was more confused when I watched this movie for the first time than I was while watching Mulholland Dr!

[DudeExclamation 3]

Thanks to this podcast, I've sat through Old Dogs, Battlefield Earth, and All About Steve. But I'm really wary about this one. It honestly sounds like the worst movie that's been reviewed yet.

[RoboKoppel 0]

Great show - There's a "fan" made video titled "You Don't Mess With the Love Guru" in which they overlay the video from "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" and "The Love Guru" at 50% opacity on top of each other and then replace the audio track with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". It's pretty mind-bending.

[DubipR 485]

Wow, I'm so glad I haven't seen this movie...then again I paid to see Mac & Me when I was a kid.
Another great episode. Having Matt Walsh as the guest made it even better.

To answer member James' query.... yes, Jarome Ignlia is indeed black. Not only an MVP to his name, but 2 Olympic Gold Medals and being the first black hockey captain. There's been plenty of black hockey players... HOFer Edmonton Oilers goalie Grant Fuhr, Eldon 'Pokey' Reddick, Mike Grier, Nigel Dawes and so forth.

This is been your Black Hockey Player Ice Moment.

Look forward to more schlocky movie goodness!

[laurajordan 0]

I love your podcast, I want to listen right away when a new one comes up! I love LOVE this podcast! Since there's a huge pile of terrible movies to chose from, I hope you continue until the Zombiepocolypse. Even after you're bitten, I want to hear this podcast, we'll all take a break eating brains to listen to you berate every Nicholas Cage movie ever made.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

This is a late reply, but this movie has spawned quite a bit of pondering on my part, perhaps far more than it deserves. Oh well..

I think I like Mike Myers more after watching this, just because of how nuts it is. There are actually kernels of really great ideas in here, about cross-cultural validation and race. One of the main characters is a black hockey player, described as "the Tiger Woods of hockey." So, why does it take a black superstar to validate a sport? Why are these sports/cultures so racially segregated even today? Why does western culture feel the need to commodify Hinduism into Oprah's Book Club-style bite-sized bits before that culture can be validated? None of these questions are addressed in any coherent or intelligent way, but they could have been, which makes the film's outrageous un-humor all the more disappointing.*

Still, it's fucking insane. Those scenes where the only joke is Myers getting food in his beard? HAHA THERE IS POPCORN ON HIS FACE HILARIOUS! Also, the probably 10 solid minutes of Verne Troyer-is-short jokes, which are never unfunny because he is such a skilled comedic actor, right? Also: sitar sing-alongs, Ben Kingsley pissing on things, and Justin Timberlake being a villain. It's amazing failure. It's an example of a supporting character or a skit idea expanded to a full film, and crashing and burning. In this case, crashing and burning like a tanker truck colliding with a Cirque du Soleil tour bus.

*Elaboration: I don't think comedies have to address weighty issues directly, but if those themes are present, they can add to the humor; like the jokes are a relief to the weightiness inherent in those ideas. You know, how Ghostbusters deals with themes of the afterlife or The Hangover deals with themes of regret and guilt. Those movies are good because they know how to make jokes about things that make us uncomfortable

[mitgol 0]

I believe it suffered at the box office also because it came out the same time as Adam sanders zohan. But are full-on crazy, silly character movies , but zohan ruled that month, for good reason. Maybe there only enough room for so much ridiculousness in theaters.

[Spinoza 3]

This episode made me very confused. I sort of remembered seeing this movie and kind of liking it. And yet the movie that you guys described seemed positively awful.

 

And now I suddenly realize that I had seen another movie with almost the same premise! The 2002 comedy "The Guru", which is also not a stellar movie, but a whole lot better than Myers' blatant ripoff. Surprisingly so far I haven't found any comments on the similarities between the two movies...