The following conversation took place
between two of the Mercury‘s writers after emerging from a press
screening of Mr. Bean’s Holiday. —Editor
SCOTT MOORE: I love Mr. Bean! I find him drool-inducingly funny. Ha
ha ha!
MATT DAVIS: I’m not surprised to hear that, Scott. There’s actually
still a bit of drool on your shirt, there. Wipe it off.
SM: What an ingenious plot! Winning an all-expenses-paid vacation to
Cannes in the church lottery? What hijinks!
MD: Mmm-hmm.
SM: And what acting! What physical comedy! What highbrow humor!
There were even people speaking French!
MD: You don’t speak French.
SM: Nope!
MD: Vous êtes un
imbécile des proportions gargantuan.
SM: Huh?
MD: I said this movie was not funny.
SM: But he’s British—Mr. Bean?! He’s from your country. Aren’t
you proud?
MD: No, Scott. To think Rowan Atkinson, who once starred in the
razor-sharp BBC series Blackadder, has been reduced to whoring
himself for cheap laughs makes me want to jump off a bridge.
SM: You mean like that guy in the movie? That guy who jumped off the
bridge?! That was funny, man. I almost peed my pants!
MD: Yes, Scott. I think there’s actually a spot of pee on your
Dockers. But I don’t laugh at suicides.
SM: You’re not serious.
MD: I am deadly serious, Moore.
SM: You’re a snob.
MD: And you’re an imbecile of gargantuan proportions.
SM: [weeps]
MD: [hoots with laughter of sadistic glee] This movie is all that
you deserve! Yet I am still ashamed of my countrymen for flogging it to
you. Where once was class and intellect, now there lies cultural
ruins.
SM: [sniffles]
MD: I wish I were dead.