And It's Not Even "She's All That"

March 6, 2019 9:19 AM

Freddie Prinze Jr. Deserves Better Than ONE “Fresh” Movie on Rotten Tomatoes
posted by Etrigan (36 comments total)

Sarah, stop trying to make Freddie happen.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:37 AM on March 6, 2019 [17 favorites]

Okay, but how's my man James Van Der Beek? Oh god... 1/25 and that 1 is Castle in the Sky?!

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/james_van_der_beek/
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:42 AM on March 6, 2019

FPJ is a guilt-hire by Hollywood because his dad was awesome, so he doesn't deserve better, and at the end of the day I'm pretty sure he's living a pretty good life.
posted by rhizome at 9:46 AM on March 6, 2019 [9 favorites]

Nope.
posted by srboisvert at 9:47 AM on March 6, 2019

I have seen Wing Commander and 10% is more than generous.
posted by biffa at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2019

And Dragon Age: Inquisition.
posted by rewil at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Oh, he was really good in those games. Mass Effect 3 is 7 years old today, I think!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:06 AM on March 6, 2019

He's not a bad looking person. She didn't say that your acting abilities reminded her of him.
posted by AndrewInDC at 10:19 AM on March 6, 2019 [9 favorites]

I wish that he had spent more time analyzing the effect of Matthew Lillard on the movie ratings.
posted by arachnidette at 10:23 AM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

Your assertion is defeated by the presented evidence. /john houseman voice
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:27 AM on March 6, 2019

Empire Records, Drive Me Crazy, and Can’t Hardly Wait are not "misunderstood cinematic gems". I am largely disappointed that this list mentions nothing of FPjr's actual lasting work - his time with the WWE as part of the creative staff.

So in short, don't let a site called Rotten Tomatoes be the final arbiter of your favourite performers, movies and/or television.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:28 AM on March 6, 2019

My feelings about Freddie Prinze Jr. could probably best have been described as tepid, right up until he appeared in a clip on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, at which point I realized he was great, and I was converted to an unabashed fan.
posted by solotoro at 10:39 AM on March 6, 2019 [7 favorites]

Hey, you know what? Prinze is actually quite good as the voice of Kanan on Star Wars: Rebels. It's not an overly showy role, but it's given me an appreciation for him as a working actor.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:45 AM on March 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

Only one film on FPJ’s Rotten Tomatoes filmography is considered “Fresh.”

So I guess you could say that he's not a very Fresh Prinze?
posted by octobersurprise at 10:50 AM on March 6, 2019 [13 favorites]

Okay, but how's my man James Van Der Beek?

Rotten Tomatoes doesn't do TV, but Don't Trust the B was by far his shining contribution to pop culture.
posted by explosion at 11:17 AM on March 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

Freddie Prinze Jr. Deserves Better Than ONE “Fresh” Movie on Rotten Tomatoes

Does he, though?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:30 AM on March 6, 2019 [7 favorites]

I wish that he had spent more time analyzing the effect of Matthew Lillard on the movie ratings.

Interestingly, Lillard appears in 10 "fresh" movies, including 2 that are "certified fresh" (The Descendants and Scream).
posted by duffell at 11:37 AM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Also, Freddie Prinze Jr. very much fucking does not deserve better than one Fresh.
posted by duffell at 11:37 AM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Then again, William Shatner has 18 Freshes, including 8 Certified Fresh, so take these ratings with a grain of the M-113 Creature's favored sustenance.
posted by duffell at 11:40 AM on March 6, 2019

how's my man James Van Der Beek?

The Beek from the Creek? Très chic!
posted by haileris23 at 12:09 PM on March 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

Huh. What a surprise. Most of Freddie Prinze Jr.'s notable non-animated movies are aimed primarily at the young women market and critics don't like them? Who would have guessed. That genre of films usually gets such good reviews and lots of coverage. Too bad all the movies aimed at young men don't get that same attention.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:18 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Okay, but how's my man James Van Der Beek? Oh god... 1/25 and that 1 is Castle in the Sky?!

Yes, but he and Kristen Ritter and Eric Andre gave us "Don't trust the B*tch in apt 23", which I assure you is better than anything Prinze Jr has been in.

Or, yknow, go watch Putney Swope and wonder why things his dad did seem memory-holed, but they can write 2000 words on a bunch of crappy teen comedies that _should_ be memory-holed.
posted by lkc at 12:34 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Now what I'd like to know is what happened to his "She's All That" co-star Rachael Leigh Cook. (Looking at her imdb page, I see that she has stayed busy over the years, but still.)
posted by of strange foe at 12:35 PM on March 6, 2019

Meanwhile, Prinze’s co-captain of the Late Nineties Middle School Girl’s Locker Pinup Team, Ryan Phillippe, has eight Certified Fresh titles. Eight.

...and two 0%’s.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:06 PM on March 6, 2019

Most of Freddie Prinze Jr.'s notable non-animated movies are aimed primarily at the young women market and critics don't like them?

I was in his target demographic at that time, have seen almost all of the films mentioned in the article, and I think those RT ratings are a little generous. He was a pleasantly bland presence in some bad films, his looks and connections took him as far as they could.

I do think it's interesting that there isn't a subculture of appreciating bad movies that are aimed at women (unless the recent boom in TV Christmas films counts); personally, bad films aimed at women are so insulting and sexist that it isn't even enjoyable for me to make fun of them, for example, She's All That.

The one who "deserved" a better career is Rachael Leigh Cook, and in a better world, Josie and the Pussycats would be at least a 70 on RT.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:34 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Why all the hate for Tower Records? It's a perfectly serviceable ensemble thing.
posted by es_de_bah at 1:55 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

> Rotten Tomatoes doesn't do TV, but Don't Trust the B was by far his shining contribution to pop culture.

TV roles are just under the movie roles on the Rotten Tomatoes page. Don't Trust the B is 84% fresh.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:00 PM on March 6, 2019

I do think it's interesting that there isn't a subculture of appreciating bad movies that are aimed at women (unless the recent boom in TV Christmas films counts); personally, bad films aimed at women are so insulting and sexist that it isn't even enjoyable for me to make fun of them, for example, She's All That

I wouldn't disagree with that exactly, other than to think most of the so-called so bad they're good guy movies aren't any better or less insulting and sexist, they just tend to have more action and violence which I guess means "fun".

I just really can't stand the entire echo-system surrounding so much of the mainstream film industry and the reviewers that provide it free advertising. It's messed up from top to bottom, with a handful of decent movies made each year seen as enough justification for the whole thing to keep rolling.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:09 PM on March 6, 2019

Freddie Prinze Jr was my "celebrity crush I talk about a lot to establish my heterosexual bona fides" for a few minutes in middle school. I chose him completely arbitrarily, as at the time I couldn't really fathom what attracted people to men. Ah, nostalgia.
posted by potrzebie at 3:19 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

All of these mean Freddie jibes are The Iron Bull erasure and I will not have it‼

Also, let Freddie Prinze Jr. have a streaming cooking show with a rotating guest star cast of pro chefs, because he is charming and moderately competent and aging into a pleasantly scruffy silver fox.
posted by nicebookrack at 3:45 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

I remember being home sick from school one day in the late nineties and seeing him on some daytime talk show talking about how excited he was to be in Wing Commander, and I got so psyched because I also loved Wing Commander

Then I went to see Wing Commander
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:50 PM on March 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

The one thing I know about Freddie Prinze Jr. is that he sang a duet of Highway 40 Revisited with Brak in one of the only two episodes of Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak that they ever made, a show way, way too awesome to live. In it, he did voices of a robot, a piggy, and Tom Brokaw. Anyone who would do that must be a tremendously good sport, so he's okay in my not-very-large book.
posted by JHarris at 6:22 PM on March 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

I will take a bad actor who is a good person over the inverse.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:39 PM on March 6, 2019 [8 favorites]

Why all the hate for Tower Records? It's a perfectly serviceable ensemble thing.

This is a digression, so apologies in advance:

My best friend lived in Wilmington, NC when they were filming "Empire Records" (the least realistic movie about working in a record store to come out in the 90s) there and I was actually in town visiting in and around a few of the shoots (including the concert scene at the end, and that's a whole other story). I'm here to note that the first time I heard about the movie it was one of those friend of a friend things and I spent a couple of days believing that there was a new record store opening in WIlmington and it was a Tower Records and because it was the 90s and I was eighteen, that meant I was all, How did Wilmington get a Tower Records? That seems like a big city thing, but will it even be okay for me to shop at Tower Records, I thought I was only supposed to shop at locally owned indie stores, even though Tower does carry zines I like. Quandary! I remember being relieved when the whole thing turned out to be a movie.
posted by thivaia at 6:04 AM on March 7, 2019

Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak

I stand corrected!
posted by solotoro at 7:10 AM on March 7, 2019

Ah! I missed your earlier comment, but yes, the video you link is from BPtBSSB. I sometimes wonder how it came about, both the show and that bit. Especially the show though. It looks all the world like a pilot, but they made exactly two of them. You'd think it'd just sink beneath the waves, but they actually released a CD of most of the show's music! Then they turned around and made The Brak Show, which lasted a handful of seasons, and was okay, but BPtBSSB contains so much genius. I wouldn't trade even a single one of its many implausible bits, like "Bananachek," "Dr. Shriek" or "Beeflog," for any entire Adult Swim flash-animated show. It is the true successor of Cartoon Planet, and so it's probably given to reason that it would have such an incredibly brief but brilliant life.
posted by JHarris at 8:25 AM on March 7, 2019