I was beating my head against the wall yesterday trying to come up with an idea for today’s strip and was really strained for ideas. Between This Is It (which I covered Wednesday) and Boondoock Saints 2: All Saints Day, Gentlemen Broncos and The House of the Devil were the only other new releases this week.

Feeling those last two movies were too thoroughly obscure to reference, I decided to settle on Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day.

Of course, your enjoyment of today’s comic is completely reliant on whether or not you’ve seen the first Boondock Saints. So, if you haven’t… sorry about that.

If it helps you at all, here’s a picture of Willem Dafoe running around in drag. I won’t spoil the reason why. You should probably see it for yourself.

Check out this link as well to help further paint the picture. There’s audio, but don’t worry. It’s safe for work.

The Boondock Saints was a movie that people have told me for years to check out. But by the time it had really taken off as a cult picture, I kind of stopped renting movies. I finally got around to watching it earlier this summer, and while I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it to be the cultural phenomenon that others have.

I think it’s a question of timing. I wasn’t really there when the movie took off on DVD, so I didn’t experience that sense of discovery that is so key to making something like this feel like it was “mine.”

Does that make sense? I don’t mean to sound like a jerk about it. Think of it like being the last one to hear the story behind a particularly delicious inside joke your friends are all sharing. By the time you get clued in, everyone is on to something else and looks at you like an idiot for making any references to it. That’s what The Boondock Saints is to me.

I think if I were a freshman or sophomore in college in 1999 and not graduating from school that year, I probably would have been all over this. As one with Irish heritage, I instantly felt a kinship with The MacManus Brothers. But the depravity, gunplay and violence liberally sprinkled throughout the movie kind of made it feel like a Pulp Fiction knockoff to me.

Ironically, I had seen Overnight, the documentary about the making-of The Boondock Saints long before I saw the actual movie. If you haven’t seen Overnight, I strongly suggest you check it out. The movie is about writer-director Troy Duffy who came from nowhere, sold his script to Miramax and then promptly imploded in a nuclear blast of egotism and arrogance.

Watching that film makes you wonder how Boondock Saints 2: All Saint’s Day ever got made. But Duffy himself explains the situation quite well in this interview with Movieline (thanks to Mike Russell at Culture Pulp for the link). As always, it boils down to money.

“The fans made Boondock I successful. Whether they know it or not, they got the sequel made, because at a certain point these [studios] are like, ‘It’s financially irresponsible not to make this movie.’ Boondock I has been a financial juggernaut since Day… One, and it’s put up numbers every single year for a decade. How many films are even viable after 10 years to make a sequel at all? Boondock just never… died. It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And finally the powers that be went, ‘We gotta make this thing.’”

So, on the one hand, it’s pretty cool that the support of a dedicated fan base over the course of a decade led to a sequel being made. But on the other hand, if money is the primary motivator for everyone involved, can it be a genuine experience.

Granted, the movie has reassembled its principal cast and the majority of it’s crew who – according to Duffy – are working for very little money. But like I said, in the end, it all comes down to money and I’m curious if the fans who made the original film a cult sensation are going to pick up on that. I imagine it would be a real turn-off.

If you’re excited to see Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day, I don’t mean to be a buzzkill. All I’m saying is keep your expectations in check.

That’s it for me today. I’m looking forward to tonight. We’re taking Henry out for trick or treating. Wanna know what he’s going as? Lightning McQueen from Cars and it was totally his idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it’s a Disney thing, but Cars is a movie, by George. So I can’t help but feel like I’m putting him on the right track toward a proper pop culture obsession.

Leave your thoughts about The Boondock Saints, Overnight, Troy Duffy or anything else that might be on your mind in the comments below.

Cheers!