Archive for the 'Comedy' Category

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Published
by
Chalupa
on March 9, 2009
in Based on a book, Based on a true story, Comedy, Journalism and Romance
. 0 Comments

Based off Toby Young’s book, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is the story of a magazine editor from the UK coming to New York to work for a more successful company.  Sidney Young, played by Simon Pegg, definitely isn’t your classic “charming” Brit like a Colin Firth or a Hugh Grant.  He’s loud, crass and offensive.  He seems to have a knack for saying the wrong things at the wrong time and taking the party to a “whole notha level” and embarrassing himself to no end.

Clayton Harding, played by Jeff “The Dude” Bridges, started the magazine Sidney came from and we get the hint he might see a little of himself in Sidney.  He does a wonderful job playing the hard nosed boss who gives interesting advice and rarely passes up a chance to put his employees in their places.  Rounding out the cast are a lot of recognizable faces including: Gillian Anderson, Thandie Newton, Danny Huston, Miriam Margolyes, and Kirsten Dunst.

This is another one of those movies that received raves reviews from some and awful reviews from others.  While I wouldn’t say this movie is going to win any awards, it’s kind of like how Sydney describes Con Air as being the best film ever.  There are a lot of good elements, hilarious scenes, and it’s just plain fun to watch.  Pegg’s character is a bit grating and not very likable.  I think the film makers were banking on Pegg just being so likable that he would counter-act the character he was playing.  I think that might work if you’re already a fan of the guy and know some of his previous work.  Overall, Sidney doesn’t really have any epiphanies or have any major change.  He just is who he is.  Part of this is probably sticking to the original source material.

One aspect I really loved were the Lebowski references in the film.  Watching the “making of” featurette Jeff Bridges mentions being good friends with the director, Robert Weide.  At one point Sydney mistaking calls his landlord “Mrs. Lebowski” while mispronouncing her name.  In another scene Sydney calls his boss, played by Jeff Bridges, “dude” to which Harding replies, “I am not the dude.” It was also great seeing two actors, Chris Dowd and Katherine Parkinson, from a British show I just started watching, The IT Crowd.

This is definitely something to check out if you’re a fan of the actors in this.  I wouldn’t say  you absolutely have to rush out and rent it for tonight though.  I enjoyed this much more than Pegg’s last film I saw, Run Fatboy Run, and Bridges gets much more screen time than in Iron Man.  Be aware of the R-rating though.  After seeing Watchmen yesterday and watching a fanboy father bring in his three, under the age of 13, children in, I’ve once again become aware of the importance of not sitting children down in front of inappropriate material.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Tropic Thunder

Published
by
Chalupa
on February 24, 2009
in Action, Adventure, Comedy, Film in film and War
. 0 Comments

Tropic Thunder was one of those controversial films that came out last year.  Even though the film itself wasn’t up for Oscars, Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and both Downey and Tom Cruise received Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nominations.  I remember a guy at work talking about people protesting the “grossness” of the film and a particular offensive scene in which one of the characters talks about those with mental disabilities.  My first reaction was, “Wow, it must be pretty bad.”

Fast-forward months later when I actually sat down at home and watched the film.   While Downey was definitely funny as an Australian who went “blackface” for this role, Jack Black became almost too much for me and I think Danny McBride stole some of the funny thunder.  After everything was said and done I thought, “Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be really, really offensive?”

I think it’s because I watch a lot of movies and have been desensitized by films that most people don’t even know about.  Whenever I hear about something be sooooooo bad, it never really seems that bad at all to me.  Yes, I’ll agree that the speech given about playing a mentally disabled character wasn’t the most politically correct thing, but there is much worse out there.  Overall I thought the movie was funny, but not that great and definitely not worth all the hype it was getting.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Published
by
Chalupa
on February 24, 2009
in Adolescence, Comedy, Drama, Music and Romance
. 0 Comments

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a movie I was really looking forward to.  Being a huge Arrested Development fan, I’ve always been on the lookout for Michael Cera and have really enjoyed his roles in Superbad and Juno.   Now there’s another movie starring Cera and it has something to do about music.  I know it came out a while ago, but I’m just now getting to it on my Netflix list.

While on the surface, the story of some teenagers (I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be high school students) driving around all night trying to find where their elusive, favorite band is going to be playing in New York City might sound cool, I was a little disturbed by the sub plot.  You know, their seemingly alcoholic friend, Caroline (Ari Graynor) who is so drunk she has no idea where she is or what happened to her.  She was initially handed off to some friends of friends but then came to in the back of a van and “escaped” her kidnappers.  You see, she heard the other occupants in the van talking about a song and assumed she was about to be date-raped.  So while this funny, teen-romance comedy is taking place Nick (Michael Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings from 40 Year Old Virgin) are also trying to find Caroline.  They’re essentially chasing her around town to all of her “favorite puking places” and eventually meet up with her by the end of the film.

I feel weird saying it, but I must be getting old.  I’ve never really been bothered by these more “sophisticated” teen comedies before, but this time I really just felt out of my element.  While there were some funny moments, the whole situation just seemed a little ridiculous.  Is this just because I’m not 17 years old anymore?

I was also expecting some awesome music to be had but I must have missed it or just had too high of expectations.  Has anyone else seen this flick?  I’d really like some feedback here.  Was I just not in the mood and need to give this a 2nd chance?

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Run Fatboy Run

Published
by
Chalupa
on November 17, 2008
in British, Comedy, Feel Good, Marriage, Romance and Sport
. 0 Comments

When I saw that Simon Pegg was involved in another film, how could I say no?  Especially when said movie was called Run Fatboy Run?  If you’re not not sure who Pegg is, you might recognize him from his collaborations with Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.  One surprise was to see the film was directed by David Schwimmer.  I’ve never been too hip on his acting skills.  He just always seems to play Ross from the TV show Friends.

Anyways, back to the movie.  This reminded me a lot of About a Boy.  The plot really isn’t the same, but there is a child involved and a man is trying to impress a woman.  Oh, and there are the British accents as well.  Pegg plays Dennis Doyle, a bit of a loser, who had the girl of his dreams but freaked out the day of the wedding and literally ran off.  Libby, played by Thandie Newton, is said girl who several years into the future is now set to marry Whit, played by Hank Azaria.  Doyle sees there only one thing he can do to prove he’s more of a man than Whit, and that is to run a marathon.

I’ll agree this film may be a bit cheesy, but it’s one of those “feel-good” stories, and probably something most of the family can enjoy.  With the holidays coming up, I always start thinking about movies that aren’t too annoying that would be appropriate to watch with the family.  There are some usual Pegg antics and hilarity in here, especially with his Indian landlord.  Hank Azaria has been good in every role I’ve ever seen.  Strong cast, good story, and funny to boot.  You should probably check this out.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Reno 911!: Miami

Published
by
Chalupa
on November 6, 2008
in Based on TV Series, Comedy and Crime
. 0 Comments

If you’ve seen the TV show, Reno 911, you have a pretty good idea what this movie would be about.  Written and directed by Robert Ben Garant, otherwise known as Junior, this film seemed to just do everything they couldn’t do on television.

The story is a bit ludicrous, yet not that far from the truth.  If you’ve watched any of the COPS shows, you’ll know just how stupid some people can be.  Here we have the whole Miami police force locked down because they’ve all be contaminated with something biological.  Luckily the Reno Sheriff’s Department is there to save the day.

It was all fun and silly until they lost me with the gratuitous nudity and sex jokes.  I’m all for a raunchy film.  I love Kevin Smith’s work, however, there’s a time when stuff is just pointless and meaningless.  It’s hard to explain, but that’s the way I feel.  Definitely don’t want to watch this one again.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

W

Published
by
Chalupa
on October 26, 2008
in Biography, Comedy, Drama, Family, Politics and War
. 0 Comments

Last night Liz and I saw Oliver Stone’s latest film, W.  This is probably the most neutral of Stone’s American president flicks.  This also came out not only while George W. Bush is still alive, but he’s also still in office.  While watching, we noticed several couples get up, put their coats on, and walk out during the film.  I guess they were offended?  One woman was even talking to me, in the lobby, before the movie started.  She asked what movie I was seeing and after I said, “W,” she replied with, “I don’t like him!” and that was the end of that conversation.

I think the greatest attribute of this movie is people with different opinions concerning the current president’s performace can watch this movie and come out thinking it backs up their viewpoints.  I was trying to explain this yesterday and wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  I’d be interested to see if anybody agrees with me.

The second greatest attribute would have to be the acting.  I don’t think this film has what they call an “ensemble cast,” but there were definitely a lot of noticeable faces.  We have Josh Brolin playing George W. Bush, Elizabeth Banks playing Laura Bush, James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn playing George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Bruce McGill playing George Tenet, Thandie Newton playing Condoleeza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Gen. Colin Powell, and Stacy Keach as Rev. Earle Hudd to name a few.  The only performance I was disappointed with was Condoleeza Rice.  I was able to pick out most cabinet members and key players in this film before their names were ever mentioned.  They played their parts that well.  Newton as Rice just came off as an SNL performance to me.  It seemed as if she was playing the caricature, and not owning the role.  It’s kind of like when a musician plays someone else’s music.  They can play it like a cover band or put their own spin on it.

I was in the 4th grade when Desert Storm happened and watching this movie brought back a lot of memories from then.  I also remembered hearing things like President Bush’s son owned the Texas Rangers.  I’m sure other scenes would be much more meaningful for those who weren’t quite so young at the time.  It’s weird watching movies about “historical” things that have happened during my lifetime.

I wouldn’t say President Bush was painted in a bad light, but I also wouldn’t say he was painted in the best of lights either.  I don’t know for sure, but I assumed any of the public speeches he gave were probably word-for-word.  I’m sure some think the president is a bit of an idiot and I can’t say I wholly agree with them.  He is college educated.  I think he probably surrounded himself with not the best of people.  One thing I was left wondering about was Barbara and George H. W.  I never would have guessed George W. called his father “poppy.”  There was also one scene where H.W. explained the difference in two pronunciations of Saddam.  I thought that really showed an understanding of language and culture.  I also loved the scenes were George W was eating.  I’m pretty sure it showed him eating bologna sandwiches on more than one occasion.  He also seemed to be a fan of Cheetos, the crunchy variety, and he also had an affinity for Dr. Pepper.

To those of you who think this movie is making fun of Bush, I disagree because I wasn’t sitting in the theater laughing throughout the film.  To those of you who think this movie glorifies Bush, I also disagree because he was in no way made out to be the best President ever.  I say you should probably give this movie a chance and see what you think of it for yourself.

Rating: ★★★½☆

The Foot Fist Way

Published
by
Chalupa
on October 12, 2008
in Comedy, Film in film, Independent and Martial Arts
. 0 Comments

The first time I saw the trailer for The Foot Fist Way I knew I had to see it.  It immediately brought back images of Rex Kwon Do from Napoleon Dynamite.  That guy looked just like Rex.  Well, that guy just happens to be Danny R. McBride.  Recently he has gotten a lot of work in films like Superbad, Tropic Thunder, and you’ll most likely remember him as the drug dealer in Pineapple Express.

McBride’s character, Fred Simmons, is a little hard to take.  He’s a Grade A jerk to pretty much everybody in his life.  His trophy wife is just that…a trophy wife, and when you take that away you’re left with not much more than a late model, cheap sports car, and his small martial arts business.  When everything seems to just be not going Simmons’ way, he meets up with his #1 hero, Chuck ‘The Truck’ Wallace.

The film is full of laughs, but has also definitely earned it’s R rating.  The langauge gets to be a bit much here and there.  It’s not that what they’re saying is so bad, it’s just the time and place if you know what I mean.  I wouldn’t call this a grown-up Napoleon Dynamite, but I would say it’s maybe a peak into Rex Kwon Do.  You could also look at it as a man whose life takes a nose dive, but is saved by Tae Kwon Do…sort of.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Raising Victor Vargas

Published
by
Chalupa
on August 4, 2008
in Comedy, Coming of age, Drama, New York and Romance
. 0 Comments

I’m not really sure why I added this one to my Netflix queue.  I think it was suggested to me as something I might like.  Writen, directed and produced by Peter Sollett - you might recognize his name in conjunction with a new film coming out, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist starring the ever-funny Michael Cera.  I wasn’t really sure what to think of this film.  I think part of the confusion was with the title.  Raising Victor Vargas would imply it might be about Victor growing up or his parents raising him or something.  The story starts off with Victor being ashamed everyone in the neighborhood knows he’s dating a “fat chick.”  So he heads to the pool with his sidekick to try and change his reputation.  We eventually get clued in to his interesting homelife and his grandmother who is raising him.  So I thought maybe the story would be centered on the grandmother, but it wasn’t.  I want to say I didn’t understand the point of the story, but that just sounds bad…even though I still feel that way.

If you check out the cast list on IMDB, you’ll notice that most of the characters real names are also their character names.  I’ve always though that must make the acting a little bit easier.  The two people I recognized were Melonie Diaz from Be Kind, Rewind, and Victor Rasuk from Lords of Dogtown and I’m Reed Fish.  I appreciated the effort put into accents and vernacular.  It seemed to fit the time and place, or maybe it’s just what I’m used to from watching TV.

Overall I wasn’t really thrilled with this one.  I know movies can just be entertainment; they dont’ have to always teach you a lesson.  This one didn’t seem to have a lesson, there wasn’t any major closure, there didn’t even seem to be much of a character change in anyone.

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Spun

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 27, 2008
in Comedy, Crime, Drama and Drugs
. 0 Comments

For some reason I’m always intrigued by drug movies.  Maybe it’s because it’s something I know nothing about.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what they were going for in Spun though.  It almost had an MTV, jazzed-up feel to it.  At times I think the film was trying to accurately portray what it’s like to be on crystal meth, but all the while being hip and cool about it.  Everything was shot with a lot of close-up lenses.  I know some would argue this really gets you in there, but I really prefer the wide-angle any day.  It gives you a feel for the scene and its surroundings.  There was also a lot of camera movement and jiggling along with some varying camera speeds with time lapse photography.  I think this is what may have confused me on the level of seriousness.

At times things were from almost a first person view.  Not like a first person video game, but from the viewpoint that you were in the group.  At other times the camera was pulled back a bit and I felt much like an outside observer.  This combined with some of the camera tricks are what made me feel like the film was “jazzed-up” to seem more hip and cool.  The main pair of cops trying to catch everyone also seemed like they might have been more at home as the two detectives from Hot Fuzz.  While most drug-centered films I’ve seen are trying to show how drugs are bad (Blow, Trainspotting, etc), this one almost made it seem maybe a little cool.  I felt the comedy aspects were counteracting the seriousness of the drugs.

One other aspect I really didn’t understand was the bleeping of some dialog and the blurring out of some nudity.  The reason this seemed weird is because they sometimes allowed you to hear the same word in an earlier scene.  Now not all nudity was blurred out, just some.  I could kind of see some consistency in the blurring, but it still didn’t make sense.  Maybe they were trying to avoid an NC-17 rating?

Even though I wasn’t completely on board with everything, this film did bring out an reaction and that is a sign of good art.  Who can say no to a movie starring Jason Schwartzman, Mickey Rourke, Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo, Patrick Fugit, Mena Suvari, Deborah Harry?  Who’s Deborah Harry you ask?  Well you might also recognize her as the front woman for a band called Blondie.  Jason Schwartzman never ceases to amaze me and Rourke has been awesome in everything I’ve seen him in.  It was also cool watching Blondie kick the crap out of a punk in a convenient store.

I’m not really sure how to recommend this.  Some will be offended by the content and others will just get bored with the feel of it.  I’m glad I stuck through and watched it all.  Something to check out if you have Netflix.  It’s on the Watch Instantly list.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Wet Hot American Summer

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 25, 2008
in Comedy and Teen Movie
. 0 Comments

It’s not often that I’m just completely bored with a film, and this was one of those times.  To me, this came off as a cliche of cliches.  I was enticed to add this to my Netflick’s queue because of the ensemble cast and several reviews I had heard.  I wasn’t really impressed.

The plot of centers around a summer camp and it’s the end of the season.  All of the camp counselors are probably not quite as responsible as the parents hoped and probably a little too “cool” than the campers would like.  Christopher Meloni plays the crazy and insane camp chef.  He fought in Vietnam and likes to let everyone know that, but definitely not like Walter Sobchek does.

I think this could have been more funny if I was watching it with a rowdy group late at night.  Any thoughts?

Rating: ★½☆☆☆