[Den of Geek]

Have any of you seen that squiggly line techy types use to describe the stages of reaction to new technologies? Known as the hype cycle, it’s shaped roughly like the outline of a supine penguin and its contours have been labelled with gloriously Tolkienian titles like the “Peak of Inflated Expectations”, the “Trough of Disillusionment”, and the “Plateau of Productivity”.

The reason I bring it up is that thanks to enjoyable new release, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, the hype cycle for 3D filmmaking has just received a new little notch, hereafter to be known as the “Rocky Outcrop of Merciless Piss-taking”. 

Alongside all of its blunt-smoking, Santa-being-shot-in-the-face hilarity, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas delivers something largely unexpected: a pretty spot-on deconstruction of the current state of 3D cinema.  …

That gag from The A-Team, to jog your memory, involved a roomful of psychiatric patients in 3D glasses gathered in front of a projector screen. At the exact moment a Humvee moves towards the camera in 3D, an actual Humvee bursts through the wall, causing the audience to whoop with applause. 

That was just one moment, but A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas delivers a whole movie’s worth. The film replicates the gimmicks of 3D cinema with a knowing wink, gleefully poking its audience in the face with a range of unsavoury prodding devices. When it does so, it’s not saying “Look how impressive this effect is”, but mocking 3D’s over-reliance on face-poking and chucking stuff out of the screen.

The new Harold & Kumar even flexes some film-nerd muscles with what looks ever so much like an inventive take on the old paddle-ball 3D trick made famous in the 1953 House of Wax. In the fifties film, …

Read the full story here: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/1163079/hollywoods_new_line_in_3d_parody.html