OrdinaryDay

It's criminal that when people think of the sitcom greats, they list shows such as Seinfeld, Cheers, Frasier and so on, with The King of Queens rarely getting a mention. This show was consistently entertaining for eight whole seasons, with a simple well-worn formula that it managed to do great things thing: fat lazy funny guy is married to attractive, thin and a bit rude woman, and live with her elderly, partially crazy father.

You have seen this kind of formula hundreds of times before, but never was it done so well as in KOQ. The brilliance of this show was in the way it managed to stick to the sitcom formula always, while at times subverting it and taking the plot in directions that sitcoms are not 'supposed' to go. For example, in one episode, the character Spence, who is known as being unlucky in love, finally meets a woman who appears as awkward and weird as he is and the episode plays with this by making in seem like they will hook up, and finally have someone... but nope, the episode ends with her rejecting him because even she finds Spence too weird, and he is yet again single at the end of the episode. This is all played for laughs, and KOQ was brilliant at things like this, subverting standard sitcom conventions.

Truly one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, it delivers!

The biggest problem with this movie is that it is about nothing that anyone cares about. The main character in the movie is a self-important, wealthy jerk who spends the movie treating those around him like crap and being nasty to the one girl who puts up with it.... and for some reason the movie acts like we are expected to like him.

The woman keeps putting up with his crap and emotional mindgames and what have you, and rather than being a deconstruction of the typical rom-com, the movie plays it straight and expects us to cheer and leave with a smile when it reaches its all too predictable ending.

None of this would make the movie unwatchable, in and of themselves, no, what makes the movie unwatchable is that it just isn't funny. Most of the so-called 'jokes' fall flat, they are predictable and considering all the cutting edge comedies released over the past few years, it makes this one just seem absolutely pathetic by comparison.

Another insult is that the film has all these so-called 'cutting edge' 'hip' bands to play on the soundtrack which just becomes distracting as the songs become gratuitous by playing for way too long. Couple this with pointless shots of Melbourne city and the train line, shots which go on for way too long and serve no narrative function, and you have one of the worst movies to ever come out of Australia.

If you wanted to prove to people that Australian cinema was not a joke and was not dying then don't show them this movie, as you would make your own point invalid. What a waste of potential.

Let's face it, horny teenager movies are a dime a dozen. Don't get me wrong, I love them but when you pay to see one you know exactly what to expect: a formula plot about a bunch of high school misfits who start off the film unlucky in love, but through a series of often contrived incidents they all manage to 'score' by the end of the movie, humiliate the school bully and earn the respects of their peers. A great tale, but starting to get a little dog-eared.

How interesting then to get this quaint little film that subverts the story in innumerable ways. A lot of people misunderstand the sheer brilliance of this film, and assume that the fact that it inverts the genders of the characters, by making the female the lead, is what makes the film unique. That's not true in the slightest, by inverting the genders the film shows us that men and women are more alike than we might realise. Girls are not strange creatures from another planet, they just sometimes seem that way - which this film sets out to debunk.

At times funny, poignant and even sad, this film here is a beautiful poignant tale about growing up, and what makes it even more subversive is that it has the nerve to pretend to be a sex comedy. You can take the comedy out of the sex, but not vice versa, which this film powerfully demonstrates. Don't go in expecting American Pie, but rather American Pie meets American Beauty, with a bit of American Graffiti thrown in, all given a delicious Norwegian blend! Bon appetit!