This Is the End (2013)

“It’s like Jay is the last connection to his shitty, weird Canadian life.

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For Canadian film bloggers who write about Canadian films like Hacker Renders and I, This Is the End caused us to experience a system-wide supernova of joy and hilarity and patriotic pride.

Joylaritypatriopridism.

I’m registering this condition with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders right now. See if I don’t.

Okay, I might not.

This film was so good, tearing down the last semblance of our hipster-like distance and disdain, that we drove around the city afterwards trying to find Milky Way candy bars. We didn’t wind up finding them (not until much later during a walkabout through Ottawa’s Ribfest). However, the mission to find Milky Way is merely a symptom of the state of laughter-induced suggestibility we were reduced to. (You’ll understand after you see the movie).

So as the Bif Naked blank verse poem goes: Seth Rogen (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) is a Canadian. Jay Baruchel (Fetching Cody) is a Canadian. Michael Cera (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) is a Canadian. Evan Goldberg (the film’s co-director and co-writer) is a Canadian.

They all made this amazing movie about Hollywood, its pretensions, actors, their pretensions, and the end of the world. I’m experiencing joylaritypatriopridism again.

With scares and laughs in equal measure, this movie could only be created by comedic geniuses who were also very, very extremely high. Normally, I’m down on examples of high filmmaking, being a strict teetotaler and inhaling nothing more edgy than BBQ smoke, I always feel a little left out.

I didn’t feel left out in this movie. From bizarre speeches about gluten, Hollywood detox diets and Michael Cera’s monstrous cocaine problem, I laughed until I coughed BBQ lung coughs. We love a good, hilarious death scene and This Is the End had them in world-destroying abundance.

Seth Rogen, the brilliant mastermind behind this film, is shiftless, cowardly and weak in a crisis. The non-Canadians in this movie are good too, if horribly flawed, weak and amoral can be good. Chris Robinson wears a ‘Take Yo Panties Off’ Tshirt throughout. Reprehensible and kind of whiny, he refuses to save friends in trouble and enjoys his own urine.

James Franco is hilarious as a pretentious fop, who creates horrendous paintings and is entirely too fond of Mr. Rogen. Jonah Hill (Superbad) is a mewling phony who is secretly seething with jealousy, and later, demon love. Danny McBride is Heart of Darkness, pee on the seat, human-skull-as-a-hat immoral.

They are all horribly, hilariously awful.

If satanic penises, large-scale blood splatter patterns, and Emma Watson (Harry Potter), filthy and wielding a baseball bat during an armed robbery, all doesn’t bother you, you’ll love this great film chock full of Canadians, the way Milky Way is chock full of chocolate-malt nougat.

“It is my special food.”

Yes, it is, James Franco, yes it is.

* * * *

107 minutes

Rated 18A