Drumline vs. Everything Else: Ranking Unrelated, Long-Since Released Movies For Absolutely No Reason -The Toast

The greatest movie of the last twenty years is the movie Drumline. The movie Drumline is about a group of young whimsical drummists at a fictional university in Georgia. Nick Cannon is a special drummist, and he turns the drumline upside down with his newfangled ways, which are tremendous. There’s a scene where a very attractively butch young woman does a set of one-armed pushups, and this is a scene that is very dear to my heart. In a particularly excellent scene, Nick Cannon must have his head shaved because he did not read the entirety of the drumline’s rulebook (the final rule of the rulebook is that if you cannot recite the final rule, your head must be shaved, which is as true now as it was then).

This scene is very droll, and also delivers on everything it promises. Nick Cannon’s head is shaved; Nick Cannon’s pride is brought low. He will have to rise from the ashes of his dead self and ascend stepping-stones to better things. Nick Cannon! You are a delight to my heart. Nick Cannon! How often I pretend you are not anti-abortion. Nick Cannon, it brings me joy to hear your name spoken aloud.

It is a good movie, possibly a great movie; perhaps the greatest movie. Nick Cannon gets in a lot of philosophical arguments with Orlando Jones. The older brother from Smart Guy is in it, and if I recall correctly, has a lot of trouble keeping up with the rest of the team, drum-wise. Zoë Saldana is in it as well, but does comparatively few push-ups. I do not hold it against her, but it must be said. There is a drum-off. There is a duel for mastery that prominently features drumsticks.

Did you enjoy the campy absurdity of movies like Step Up or Center Stage, and do you also like enormous fucking drums? Then you will like Drumline. It is a movie that has everything in it, particularly lots and lots of drums. Swirling drums and giant drums and medium-sized drums and droves moving in unison and sideways drums and upside drums and just when you think there aren’t more drums, there come the drums. It is better than most other movies that exist. Most other movies have an appalling lack of giant fucking drums getting just whaled on by Nick Cannon making the most serious face he can muster. Let us look at the evidence.

Challenger: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Moral of Challenger: Several people with inexplicable hairstyles regret dating Jim Carrey, for various reasons. Having memories is hard.
Parallel Moral of Drumline: GIANT DRUMS ARE AMAZING

Challenger: The Dark Knight.
Moral of Challenger: Agent of chaos spends upwards of 20 minutes carefully and rationally explaining his justification for becoming an agent of chaos; nobody has any fun.
Parallel Moral of Drumline: BING BANG BOOM CRASH BOOOOMMM

Challenger: Donnie Darko
Moral of Challenger: Do not take your ADD medication. It will kill your sister and it will crash planes.
Parallel Moral of Drumline: Nick Cannon is handsome like an old-timey milkman. And he learns how to stand up for himself with the help of a team of misfit drums.

Challenger: Into the Wild
Moral of Challenger: If your family loves you and sends you to college, you should definitely run away to Alaska and starve to death to show them how fucked up their conventional values are.
Parallel Moral of Drumline: Sure, you’ve played the drums…but have you played the drums while SPINNING AND WEARING A CAPE? GIANT DRUMS ARE AMAZING. WITH A FUCKING PLUMED-ASS HAT ON IT? FUCK YOU AND YOUR SIMPLE, RESERVED HATS. PANTS WITH STRIPES AND SHOULDER PADS WITH STRIPES AND SHOES WITH STRIPES AND BANDANAS WITH STRIPES AND PLAYING THE DRUMS WITH YOUR FEET AND STRIPES STRIPES EVERYWHERE FUCK YOU YA FUCK.

Challenger: (500) Days of Summer
Moral of Challenger: If you loved your girlfriend, and she goes on to love somebody else, you are an interesting person.
Parallel Moral of Drumline: FUCK YOUR SAD EYES JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT USE YOUR SAD EYES TO LOOK AT THIS: