Like all universities do at this point, I’m probably grading on a curve. In 2005 Pizza Movie wouldn’t register on my radar, likely ending up as a dumpuary release I would have forgotten. Amidst a dearth of college comedies outside of streamers? It’s a herculean attempt to reset the board and try to make something fun for a new generation of tightly wound kids who could use a laugh or two. My millennial thirst for comedy needs more Pizza Movies please…and just pizza in general while you’re at it.
The pizza cravers in this case are Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone). After getting their booze destroyed and getting farted on again by pissed off football player Logan (Marcus Scribner), Lizzy (Lulu Wilson), and the rest of his battalion of “alphas,” Jack and Monty are desperate for some sort of escape. Enter a weird M.I.N.T.S. box above their ceiling landing on their desks made years ago by genius chemist Frankie (Sarah Sherman). The boys partake, and watch Frankie’s youtube video on the trip they’re about to go on, only enjoyed if they consume pizza…or else their worst fears come and assault them with a chainsaw up the ass.
That’s not figurative for a bad time: that’s literal. Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (Youtube duo BriTANicK) went through comedy university to get to Pizza Movie: writing for SNL, working with Diabolo Cody and Joss Whedon, among many other great comedians of the 2010s. Pizza Movie is their thesis. The script masterfully breaks and then reseals the story just enoughevery 15 or so minutes, using classic comedy gimmicks like callbacks or quick edits to reel in the more trippy parts of the film. And anything they can’t explain they move so quickly past you just shrug it off and keep moving forward. This leads to an incredible set of sight gags the minute the trip starts, worthy of at least a chuckle and many times even an out loud bellow from me home alone, a great feat to pull off! There’s a couple in person cameos, but the best stuff is in who’s doing the voiceovers, which straight up should blow your mind for at least one of them, probably the film’s best joke.
But the cleverest insight Pizza Movie contains is how comedy films don’t have to be joke a minute Whose Line Bits? Instead, we get mini genre mashups inside the overarching stoner comedy. The RA Blake (Jack Martin) isn’t in a comedy at all: he’s in a government spy thriller, trying to infiltrate the students to assert his “power” of taking their phones. Monty and scary cute Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) are in a demented romcom. One of the drug trips is a Netflix comedy staple, and yet another turns Pizza movie into an action comedy. These little tonal shifts fit the story Kocher and McElhaney are telling, having fun with the rules and making a few of their own along the way, while also modernizing the tale for the kids. The emotional through line isn’t about forever after or even a hookup: it’s about getting lost in college becoming a new person and abandoning friends along the way. That means no boobs, and a lot of butts, because let’s face it, butts are funnier.
The raison d’etre of Pizza Movie. I feel a little better than I did before I saw it, giving me hope that there’s still people out there trying to make a fun comedy movie and mostly succeeding at it. Even though this is less Animal House and more Accepted, which gets an overdue shout out in here. I can’t believe that film isn’t more beloved. I mean, hasn’t some bro shouted at you ASK ME ABOUT MY WEINER!!!
I put the trailer below, but it spoils one of the great cameos you’re better off learning about later, so watch at your own discretion.