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Tom Green at the DC Improv

August 9, 2010, 9:13 am | View Comments

That’s my friend Josh on the left, Tom Green in the mid­dle, and me on the right.

Let’s flash back to 2001. Tom Green’s movie, Freddy Got Fin­gered, was play­ing in the­aters. Josh and I, both stu­dents at Sal­is­bury Uni­ver­sity at the time, drove to the mall to see the movie on open­ing night. Besides for me and Josh, there was only one other per­son in the the­ater. That other per­son, clearly not some­one with the capac­ity to appre­ci­ate high art, walked out mid­way through.

Josh and I loved it. In fact, we still love it. The movie is absurd, sur­real, some­times gross (yet never scat­o­log­i­cal, which is why I can call it high-brow), and very hilar­i­ous. But clearly, it’s not for every­one. Here is Roger Ebert’s reflec­tion on Freddy in his review for Steal­ing Har­vard (which is a crim­i­nally under­rated movie):

See­ing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie Freddy Got Fin­gered (2001), which was so poorly received by the film crit­ics that it received only one lonely, apolo­getic pos­i­tive review on the Tomatome­ter. I gave it—let’s see—zero stars. Bad movie, espe­cially the scene where Green was whirling the new­born infant around his head by its umbil­i­cal cord.But the thing is, I remem­ber Freddy Got Fin­gered more than a year later. I refer to it some­times. It is a mile­stone. And for all its sins, it was at least an ambi­tious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accom­plish some­thing. It failed, but it has not left me con­vinced that Tom Green doesn’t have good work in him. Any­one with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing.

So, hear­ing that Tom Green was on a world-wide com­edy tour, we drove down to the DC Improv to see him per­form. We had no idea what kind of a crowd would show up for him, but we were delighted to dis­cover that the place was packed with kin­dred spir­its. Peo­ple were elec­tri­fied for Tom Green, and his stand-up act was awe­some. He told some sto­ries from his child­hood, the MTV days, the five months in which he was mar­ried to Drew Barrymore.

After the show, he took time to sign auto­graphs, take pic­tures, and chat with fans until every­one had left. He couldn’t have been a warmer, friend­lier guy.

I don’t want to spoil his act, so I highly rec­om­mend you seek him out if he’s com­ing to your area. If you can’t see him live, word is that there will be a tour DVD next year.

Speak­ing of next year, Tom Green has revealed plans to release a director’s cut of Freddy Got Fin­gered in honor of the movie’s tenth anniver­sary. Yes, please!

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By Gavin St. Ours Tags: , , , , ,