Sometimes these media screenings are funny: Hey let’s go see ‘Fright Night’ an adult rated gory horror movie at 8am in the morning on a weekday? It’s kind of hard to get into that required mood when it’s real early and you’re on a bus before the sun has even risen. But you know; it became evident pretty quickly that ‘Fright Night’ wasn’t exactly a horror movie – it has horror elements sure, but at its heart it’s a dark comedy. A very funny, gory entertaining 90’s esque film – and I loved it! Read more…
All posts tagged comedy
‘THE CHANGE UP’ Movie Review: Worth seeing because of the ‘FACE OFF’ factor.
Remember that movie ‘Face Off’ directed by John Woo? The one with Nicolas Cage and John Travolta? Of course you do. ‘The Change Up’ starring Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds works because of the exact same reasons as that movie did. The only thing this new movie is missing is some slow motion Doves.
‘THE HANGOVER: PART II’ Movie Review: A great sequel; which proves that the ‘Devil is in the details.’
NOTE: This review is relatively spoiler free: If you’ve seen the 2 minute trailer of the movie you should be fine; it says way more than I do.
Reviewed by David.
Is the movie good? Yes.
How good? Great.
Better than the first movie? No.
Funnier? No, but it’s way more messed up and meaner.
Did it exceed expectations? No, but it met them.
Is it the same movie but set in Thailand? Basically yeah, but it’s a bit more than that. Read more… Read more…
‘BURKE AND HARE’ Movie Clips!
Hey guys
The awesome new John Landis movie ‘BURKE AND HARE’ is released across Australia today. It stars Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher and a host of others! I urge you to go and see it. You can check out my write up in the review section of this site.
Here are some clips from the film, check them out after the jump: Read more…
‘HALL PASS’ Movie Review: If only they let filmmakers make movies that they want to make…
Last night (Sunday 27th February in Sydney) film directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly introduced their new film ‘Hall Pass’ at the Australian Premiere. Before the film began Peter said “It’s always been my dream to bring a film we love; that we are really proud of to Australia…this isn’t it” he quipped. I guess he wasn’t joking – because ‘Hall Pass’ is near disaster. Read more…
‘THE DILEMMA’ Movie Review: Kevin James is fat but the movie doesn’t care about that!
Article written by David.
So Ron Howard’s made a new movie starring Kevin James, and one of the most impressing things about it is that it never once makes reference to Kevin James being a fat man. It just treats him like a regular human being; with regular human flaws. This is a crucial thing for me because Kevin James’ weight directly tied into the reasons I didn’t want to see ‘The Dilemma’, but more on this in a moment…
The story of the movie is that Vince Vaughan’s Ronny and Kevin James’ Nick play best buddies who co-run an automobile business. The film opens with them pitching an ‘electric Mustang’ for Ford- they want to make a car that looks the part, but underneath all the fake roar and vibration its actually a hybrid - the two want to revolutionize the auto industry.
The two are successful, and they both have beautiful partners. Ronny is in a long term relationship with Beth (Jennifer Connelly) and it is starting to get rocky because he can’t commit; and Nick is married to Geneva (Winona Ryder). Their relationship seems perfect- so perfect that it inspires Ronny…but all of these things begin to crumble when Ronny witnesses Geneva cheating on Nick with the idiot, tattooed, suspiciously criminal: Zip. “Come on Geneva! His name is Zip!” Channing Tatum.
Here is were the Kevin James factor comes in: The movie itself appeared to be an extremely formulaic comedy, in which a man gets cheated on because he is ‘fat and ugly’- one in which the only way we care about characters like Nick is because they get cheated on by whore and nothing more- and based on the previews this didn’t seem to be a movie that was going to have something to say.
‘The Dilemma’ could easily have been the ‘fat comedy’ where Vince Vaughan gets into messy situations with the bumbling Mall Cop…To say the least; I have to give the movie props for not going this route; it instead almost completely takes comedy out of the film, giving us a drama instead (with some minor moments of comedy).
The lack of comedy is one thing, but the movie is pretty unexpected on a lot of levels. The cast (barring Connelly and Ryder) are generally known for their comedic talents - here they play dramatic. The director Ron Howard is known for Oscar Bait/ huge blockbusters (like ‘Apollo 13’, ‘Frost/Nixon’, ‘A beautiful Mind’ - don’t kill me on this - I know he has done comedy before; like ‘Splash’, but its been a while and, eh you get what I mean)- and here he pulls a quiet intimate film - instead of a big and loud crowd/and or award baiter.
And those trailers, man, the movie looked horrible - but it is far from it. Look, It’s not a excellent/ perfect film by any stretch, but it’s amicable and engaging: The film is constructed through a parallel story-line structure which relates Ronny and Nick’s friendship, with their Job and with their partners; it ends up pretty even handed and each storyline affects one another so wonderfully. This is to the credit of the screenplay from Allan Loeb (who is known for rubbish like ’21’, ‘The Switch’, and last years nightmare ‘Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps’) well with this film he does something different - he gives some time to develop some great characters (characters like Jennifer Connelly’s Beth and Winona Ryder’s Geneva would have seemed thin on paper - but the actresses are very talented and elevate the material)- but Nick and Ronny are very well written. Besides the character work Loeb lets the story go to some pretty relatable and dark depths - from gambling addiction, to honesty issues, to asking what it is that makes a stable relationship/ whether it be in marriage or in mate-ship.
One of the most interesting aspects of the script is the ways in which it deals with adultery- I felt it was a very mature and even handed approach - you see both the characters (Kevin James’ Nick and Winona Ryder’s Geneva) have human flaws, and because of these there is no bias; not at one stage can you completely blame Ryder, and not a one stage can you feel complete sympathy for her or James. The film isn’t interested in portraying this pathetic, bumbling fat man, and his slutty wife - it is focused on presenting an honest and realistic marriage and its relating friendships - and discussing how these can crumble. It has a very personal touch and that was what made it quite relatable and engaging.
The adultery stuff ties into the pressures of mate-ship, and how these can affect other relationships- whether it will make you second guess your own relationship, or give you misgivings about proposing to your love; ultimately the film is dealing with the difficulties of maintaining friendships as well as family and love at the same time. Other elements are Ronny recovering from a gambling addiction - and of course, the work relationship Ronny and Nick have.
The work relationship is a really great part of the movie, Queen Latifah plays their boss (and she is most of the films comic relief), but she isn’t really integral - what I loved about the work aspects is that it illustrates the good qualities of Ronny and Nick’s characters without being obvious- the work they put into the car represents the work they put into their friendship- the way they handle their job proves how smart and capable they are and gives great reason (amongst others the film presents) as to why the wives would fall in love with them, it makes the rest of the movie that little bit more saddening and relatable - on top of all this it showed that the two became successful very young, and thus never really matured beyond that point….and then when Ronny witnesses Geneva cheating he is presented with the titular ‘dilemma’: if I tell my friend the truth, then it will potentially ruin my work, my home-life, our personal life together etc etc etc.
Of course there is more to ‘The Dilemma’ than this; it has its own surprises that I won’t spoil here; but I will say that Ronny’s as-well as the other characters’ own personal skeletons start coming out of the closets and things just complicate and complicate - they complicate just like they do in real life, and the slow pacing as-well as Howard and Loeb not being afraid to delve into long dialogue scenes as well as quite confronting scenes - give the movie this very organic/naturalistic feel - it’s why I loved it. One way to put it would be that the movie is a HORRIBLE first date film - it could make for a very awkward conversation afterwards.
The screenplay is one thing, and it would have read great, but I can’t help but a feel a few reservations about it. One would be it’s length. It is great that the film takes its time, but at times it feels like filler. I think ‘The Dilemma’ would be vastly improved if twenty minutes were chopped out, tightening the pacing and whatnot. but the negative aspects of the film are also reasons why it is good: particularly the surprising elements: I’ll be a bit clearer: for example Ronny confronts Geneva about the cheating almost immediately - in typical Hollywood movies this would not have occurred till the very end - it’s great and surprising that it happens early on, but then the pacing is a little awkward for a while; because you wonder how the rest of the movie will sustain itself. Then it picks up again and whatnot - but things like this cause pacing issues, and ‘The Dilemma’ is filled with them. Amicable and great decisions that create an interesting script, but cause other minor issues.
I would say that things like the pacing are the most negative things about the movie. The other thing that affects it is the forced comedy; there is not a lot of humor in the movie to say the least. The film runs at 118 minutes, almost a full two hours; and in the whole running time not a lot of jokes happen - but when they do, it generally feels forced and unnecessary - its almost like they had these well know funny people and just had to have them be funny, even if it went against the stage-like and serious reading screenplay. I much would have preferred it if the film had remained completely serious; because all other elements besides the casting lean towards this.
The casting itself is great and everyone has this great chemistry and they do very well with the dramatic material. Vaughan did not play his usual schtick and neither did James. Connelly and Ryder were fantastic, and arguably elevated their supporting roles into fully fleshed out female characters. The women in the movie get just as much screen-time as the men and they are both portrayed as strong and independent (Connelly’s character for example runs a incredibly successful restaurant/kitchen - and they show you the stresses related with that job and how she overcomes them. Geneva, whilst negatively portrayed for the most part, has specific reasons for the cheating - but non-the-less the film presents women who do not need men in their lives, it was refreshing to see women written well for a change). The acting is great all around and even Channing Tatum, who I generally despise, was good in his role as Zip.
Other elements that help support the film are its great cinematography; which is nowhere near the standard comedy stuff - it’s quite dark in parts, and the film itself is visually interesting - which I guess helps combat the dialogue heavy aspects. I really appreciated the detail in the movie’s design, and Howard uses things like camera movement and even symbolism (like a cake, and the car the two work on) to make a statement. It’s not the general Hollywood crap it looked like it was going to be. Same goes for the score by Hans Zimmer. Yes Hans Zimmer. It’s a rock styled soundtrack and it worked great, it helped the movie stand out from the usual stuff.
Thats why I liked ‘The Dilemma’ so much; it just stands out. From the very decent screenplay, the great cast, the cinematography - the places the movie goes to/and the ones it isn’t afraid to go to. It’s just a very intelligent film, that isn’t predictable. It’s also very adult and relatable - it is ultimately a surprising and mature character piece - that besides its pacing flaws, is a film that I highly recommend, and that’ll I’ll probably revisit several times over.
8 out of 10.
Heres the trailer, but be warned; its not indicative of the movie at all.
David’s review of the movie ‘EASY A’
You’ve seen ‘Easy A’ before. You’ve seen it when it was called ‘American Pie’, you’ve seen it when it was called ‘Juno’, you’ve seen it when it was called ‘Mean Girls’. In fact you may have read it when it was called ‘The Scarlet Letter’. Hell, if you have seen a John Hughes movie: you’ve seen this movie.
‘Easy A’ is an extremely derivative movie for sure, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fully enjoyable.
‘Easy A’ is a re-imagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel; ‘The Scarlet Letter’ . Writer Bert Royal and director Will Gluck (Fired Up) make no qualms in letting you know they ripped it off.
Like ‘The Scarlet Letter’, the story follows the public ordeal of a young woman after she is exposed to be sleeping around. In the case of Olive (Emma Stone), her ordeal is caused by pretending to be a whore for popularity reasons. After lying about her sexual prowess to her best friend Rhiannon (Ally Michalka) the rumor mill begins; and Olive gains a reputation.
What begins as an exercise in white-lying; blows up to a full blown performance, complete with slutty clothing and a little scarlet ‘A’ pinned to her clothing.
Her Parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) are too relaxed to care. Her Principal (Malcolm McDowell) and teachers (Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow) attempt to understand her problems whilst dealing with their own. Amanda Bynes plays Marianne; a Religious fanatic in Olive’s school, who spreads the rumors the worst. Suddenly, things get too much for Olive to juggle, and she has to right her wrongs, blah, blah , blah. You know the type of movie this is.
Like ‘Mean Girls’ the casting automatically works against the movie. Like Lindsay Lohan was (Back then) it is very difficult to believe Emma Stone as an unpopular and sexually awkward teen who can’t get a boyfriend. Whilst Stone is brilliant in the movie, it could have worked much better otherwise; say if a Tina Fey type was cast. I also could not buy Amanda Bynes as a Religious nut even though I thought she was also great in the movie. Ultimately casting isn’t that big of an issue with the flick; because both actresses’ pull it off.
Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow, and Ally Michalka do the job, but they aren’t particularly memorable. Malcolm McDowell’s appearances’ are just head scratching – what is he doing in this? For me the true stars of the movie are Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olives’ parents, and they are brilliant. They seem to be having a lot of fun, and they appear to be improvising. Those characters were very enjoyable and memorable.
I actually spent a lot of the movie just waiting for those two to come back on screen, they were the only organically funny parts of the whole movie. There are jokes all throughout ‘Easy A’; but director Will Gluck (Fired Up) mangles the timing, or he takes a joke that works and rams it into the ground through repetition. Many of the jokes are low brow, but they work in that Adam Sandler sense: if you let go for a minute you can laugh…you’ll just feel dirty afterwards. The comedy in the movie takes a backseat…an argument could be made that this movie isn’t really a comedy anyway.
Its more of a lecture. A lecture on the perils of lying etc. There is one thing that rarely works well in a movie; and that is voiceover. For most films’ voice-over is just overbearing and does nothing but describe what occurs visually on screen. It’s one of my pet hates, and I believe it has the ability to tank an entire film.
It tanks ‘Easy A’.
The entire movie is a massive lecture.
It opens on Olive talking directly to the audience through web cam, telling us the story; and the film constantly cuts back to her. It is trying to be an homage to John Hughes (there is even a five minute monologue over a montage of Hughes’ films to let you know this), this is in particular an homage to ‘Ferris Buellers Day Off’, but it doesn’t work…because in ‘Ferris Bueller’; you weren’t just hearing Ferris in your ear every ten minutes, when he spoke to you, it was for a purpose.
In ‘Easy A’ it just comes across as lazy and condescending. Let me elaborate on this: you see, Olive doesn’t just address us; she shows us historical footage, diagrams, pictures and we constantly get shown scene-cards that she has made of cardboard… If there is anything worse than voice over telling you what you are watching, it is voiceover telling you what you are about to see. For example, If I said to you ‘Easy A will have an end’. A) You know that the movie will have an end so why did you tell me? And B) You now have to wait an hour and a half for the end to happen. That’s what the entire movie is like, At ten minute intervals Olive will say “And now is the bit where I ruined a marriage” show you a title card that says “how I ruined a marriage” and then you have to spend the next 20 minutes anticipating it, whilst she talks you through it.
All of the voice-over (and there was a lot of it) was unnecessary, and made the movie a chore. The entire opening 20 minutes, is a monologue by Olive. All of it just screams laziness, especially when you consider how derivative the whole film is. There are gross out scenes like in ‘American Pie’ (Speaking of ‘American Pie’ there is even a sexually promiscuous mother giving advice – In ‘American Pie’ this was the same except it was the father). Characters talk like ‘Juno’, in the ‘too smart to be realistic’ kind of dialogue, and it fills this movie.
The whole thing just feels stagey. Characters say their ‘smart dialogue’ to each other on a picturesque hill. Its things like this that inorganically exist in the movie for no other reason then to make the boring proceedings somewhat interesting. There is even a shoe-horned love romance. It seems entertaining whilst it occurs, but like an episode of ‘Family Guy’ its enjoyable as it passes, but once it is over you can’t remember it at all. It was all inorganic jokes and references and had no substance whatsoever. Now ‘Easy A’ isn’t exactly an episode of ‘Family Guy’ but you get my point.
The soundtrack choices in the film are so painfully obvious and infuriating. If you haven’t heard Joan Jett’s ‘Bad Reputation’ used over a montage scene then you might like this movie. They even use ‘Don’t cha’ by Busta Rhymes. There is a ‘Death Cab for Cutie’ song and of course they had to put in ‘Don’t you forget about me’ (in a ‘Breakfast Club’ homage). I could go on about this films flaws; like its misogynistic and anti-religious overtones, to it’s 20 endings, to its predictability, but I feel it won’t be worth it.
‘Easy A’ is the usual teen comedy. It’s derivative and a chore in parts…but it moves quickly enough, and as low brow as it is; there is still fun to be had. You can enjoy the cast, and the poppy images – just don’t expect anything substantial. It’s an audience movie and it doesn’t really have pretensions about that. It could have been worse, but it also could have been better.
With ‘Easy A’, you’ve seen it all before, so you don’t even need to see the movie to know if it’s for you or not.
5 out of 10.
David’s Review of ‘GROWN UPS’
GROWN UPS!
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, some kids
Written by: Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
If you aren’t a fan of Adam Sandler movies I would stay away, if you aren’t a fan of David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and Kevin James’ movies then I would definitely avoid this like it was nobody’s business. Grown Ups is most likely 2010’s most impossible movie to review. There is no plot. There are no real performances. It just happens.
Grown Ups has an impressive cast for sure; Adam Sandler headlining the above mentioned, as well as Maya Rudolph (the under-rated Idiocracy), Maria Bello (A History Of Violence) and someone called Salma Hayek…but nobody really does anything… everyone is playing a variation of themselves, and they just hang out for two hours in a beautiful lake house. Of course the movie is somewhat generic and formulaic, and the soundtrack is so hackneyed that you barely notice it.
With every ounce of my better judgement I know that this is a horrible movie.
But I loved almost every second of it!
I guess with a film like this it’s pretty clear what you are expecting. The film-makers and cast aren’t exactly gunning for seats at the net Academy Awards. All that it’s trying to do is one thing: be funny, and if enjoy the odd bit of low brow humor done very well then you will love this.
When you see a cast like this, who all have so many hits and misses, you can’t help but walk into Grown Ups just feeling like it’s going to be awful. Happy Madison Adam Sandler’s production house is behind the movie and the company is almost the very definition of ‘hit and miss’. After their disgusting Paul Blart: Mall Cop they followed up with the enjoyable You don’t mess with the Zohan and then they…well…Rob Schnieder and David Spade are in Grown Ups too, and it’s hard to even remember their movies. Rob Schnieder has long since become a joke after South Park’s biting rip on him (the ironic thing is that he could very well be the funniest of the cast, if Kevin James wasn’t in it)…but then there’s Adam Sandler and Chris Rock; two hilarious comedians that trip up all the time, but manage to give us a Funny People or a Good Hair every now and then.
Suffice to say these people can be funny. They can be very, very funny. And in this movie i thought that they were. Only David Spade was particularly annoying, but he gets ripped on by the other cast the whole time so it works. In a movie where Kevin James and Rob Schnieder are actually funny you can only think it’s because of Sandler’s smarts. Sandler co-wrote this film, and he clearly knows his friends enough to utilize their strong suits. Did I mention this film was funny?
Grown Ups has no intention to be anything else.
The situation of the movie (to call it a ‘plot’ is stretching) is that everybody in the cast plays themselves, and they go on a holiday to a beautiful lake house, theres something about spreading the ash of their beloved deceased coach, but it’s really just an excuse. It’s kind of a rip on The Big Chill but since their is no real story I wouldn’t go that far.
The cast spend the movie ripping on each other like they are on a Comedy Central Roasting of each other. They fall over and the jokes are low brow, pissing and physical comedy fill every scene, but thats what it is. Like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore it never attempts to do anything but showcase how funny the cast is.
Grown Ups is the type of movie where one character says “what do you want to do today?” and the other says “go to the water park” and then bam! All the characters are at the water park for the next twenty five minutes. The cast has a lot of fun, and because they are basically playing themselves they are able to interact with each-other just like you would imagine them to in real life, hence the movie winds up seeming like nothing but a holiday with these very funny people. They are having fun and frankly it just rubs right off onto you, and for me this is a reason worth watching the movie for.
Ultimately how much you like Grown Ups will depend on how funny you think the movie is. Against my better judgement, against everything I thought and had experienced of this hit and miss cast, I was laughing. I was laughing constantly, and since that’s all this movie tries to do, that should probably be all it should be judged against.
So go and see it, and if you don’t laugh, well there’s always Judd Apatow.
PussADD
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