You wouldn’t think a film with a title as blunt as “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” would be this season’s mushiest movie, but there is an undeniable charm sprinkled through Kevin Smith’s latest post-Jersey flick, somewhere between the anal sex and bubbles blown from below the belt. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks star as the titular friends driven to smutty creativity by their piling bills. Driven to their inspiration by a disastrous turn at a high-school reunion, the platonic couple decides to invest their remaining cash into an adult feature, using friends as crew and hiring a local cast, all while fervently ignoring the chemistry between them. Rogen (Knocked Up) continues his streak as the believable and loveable schlub that bags the girl eons beyond his league. Banks (W.) is wonderfully charming and cuddly as the fire-cracker best friend, despite not fitting in at all in a cast that uses curse words like punctuation.
A funny but incoherent Craig Robinson (Pineapple Express) is Delaney, Rogen’s fellow employee at a Starbuck’s knockoff, and the porno’s producer, who hires actresses Stacey (Kate Morgan) and Bubbles (Traci Lords) to star in the film and serve as parodies of their real-life porno-star counterparts (both of whom give surprisingly competent performances, despite their resumes.) Deacon (Jeff Anderson) is hired to shoot the film based on his previous experience (he filmed Zack’s high-school sporting events), with Brandon (Ricky Mabe) and Lestor (Jason Mewes) rounding out the cast as the two male leads. Both Brandon and Lestor parody the provisions of adult film acting with visible enjoyment and zest, but they amount to little more outside of the smut scenes. Anderson’s Deacon comes away as the most underused of the film, giving an entertaining performance of a down-to-earth pal everyone wants to have at least one of. The true gems this film has to offer is the gay couple of the wry, impossibly deep-voiced Brandon (Justin Long of Mac ad fame) and the insecure jock Bobby Long (newest Superman Brandon Routh), appearing at the high school reunion with endearing charisma.
The story is a spunk-filled re-telling of a classic idea, how sex affects previously platonic relationships. Not the strongest of prologues, but, as in all of Smith’s work, the film’s draw is its dialogue, and thankfully “Porno” doesn’t disappoint. Though not as sharp a wit as Smith’s earlier work, like “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma,” the film’s banter still serves in immediately establishing the characters and their personalities. The film’s script maintains a sense of simultaneous immaturity and wisdom, leading the audience to eventually fall in love with everyone appearing on screen. The line between Smith’s love of scripted word and Rogen’s improv tendencies is practically invisible, and the film acts as a nice mesh of the two schools of delivery. Some running gags (like Delaney’s bitch of a wife) don’t have as much staying power as the production team thinks, but generally the plot moves on at a smooth and funny pace. The film ends up buried in sappy cliches towards the end of the two leads’ romantic angst, but thanks to a wonderful turn by cinematographer David Klein – who makes suburban Pittsburgh look idyllic - the dated fluff is given a new visual life.
There are a few nitpicks; Kevin Smith’s love of Star Wars leads to a funny but useless pornographic parody of the saga, and his odd fascination with dance sequences has our cast thrown onto stage at one point for a pointless montage; but the film cannot be denied its overall magnetism, especially given the possibilities of its subject matter. I doubt we are going to get another Kevin Smith film as biting and sarcastic as we have come to expect, but Silent Bob has found an entertaining second home as the re-imaginer of the mushy love stories you can take your drinking buddies or your girlfriend to. Way to f**k, Zack.
One Word Review:Snug
One Sentence Review:Its not as sharp as 'Dogma', but you can't deny Smith and Co.'s charm, even in the most taboo circumstances
A special double-shot of the Shoot. I know, it's been awhile. And clearly the fans have been waiting for new blogs, given the comments I've been getting.
If you haven't relized that I'm being sarcastic, then i guess YOU'VE actually been waiting on new blogs. Either way...
Let this movie serve as a lesson to every single soul in the world: if you are going to make a movie on such a well-known, polarizing person, never pull any punches. This seems like preaching to the choir, especially with the infamously left-wing Oliver Stone at the helm; but his latest feature, simply titled “W.,” lacks the fire and venom that made “Fahrenheit 9/11” so potent, and the powerful vision of Stone’s earlier presidential piece, “Nixon,” leaving us with a luke-warm, messy bio-pic that fails to achieve (insert Bush reference here.)
Most of the fault does not lie with Stone on this one, although he does sport an unhealthy love for inappropriately used handi-cam shots; used so much it’s begging for the audience to pay attention to the paper-thin realism of depth-less scenes. Blame should be placed with the writer, whose script takes thousands of pages of political biographies and morphs it into a 3-part episode of a bad sitcom. George W. Bush is painted as an oh-so-misguided preppy boy that would have fit well in the cast of 90210. By the film’s end, the audience gets the impression that the entirety of the Iraq war was undertaken to make ‘poppy’ Bush love Jr.; it’s made into the entire motivation for the character throughout the three acts of the film, entirely implausible when you rearrange the timeline chronologically. This wouldn’t be such an aggravating artistic direction if it was another figure, but when it’s the President of the United States, especially one with a history of illegality and war profiteering, trying to make us pity him is not the right move.
Not that the film takes too much of a shine to Dubya (Josh Brolin, taking the high road in pushing past imitation into actual talent) and his cabinet. Its made bluntly obvious throughout the film that first and original goal of the Iraq War was dominance over oil reserves (with the administration refusing to move past the ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ vernacular in public), that millions of phones were tapped, and that knowledge was never solid on the placement of Middle-Eastern W.M.Ds. Where the film deviates to soften the Bush image is presenting him as an ignorant (believable) outsider to the information (not so believable), truly knowing deep down in his heart that God wants him to be President and that his war is just. This is technique used so far beneath a director of Stone’s resume that it amazes me that he put his name on the credits.
The film isn’t all bad, but what good it has, it seems to shy away from. Performances like Elizabeth Banks as the former-Dixie-Democrat Laura Bush was a charming casting choice, beginning with a wonderful clash of ideology and hormones at a barbeque and somehow devolving into a housewife role that would make Edith Bunker demand to work. Ellen Burstyn’s formidable Barbara Bush is woefully underused as well, scenes between her and Poppa Bush rank among the best in the film. James Cromwell’s Bush Sr. also suffers a romanticizing, making him a just kind-hearted soul archetype without going into any real development (again, we blame the writers.) Most other performances, however, seem more like comedic parodies: Toby Jone’s Karl Rove is a wormy geek, Thandie Newton’s Condoleezza Rice is a disappointing mix of an accent and a facial expression, and Scott Glenn’s Donald Rumsfeld plays a war criminal like a high school bully. The fault of the writer comes up again with Jeffrey Wright’s Colin Powell, who, although convincing as the one good guy in the room, lacks the passion and tortured soul that the role could have really had. Richard Dreyfuss’ Dick Cheney is an admirable attempt, getting both the look and the wit of the Vice President down, but again it comes up shallow without the wickedness and grimace we have all seen in the background of Bush’s speeches. Ioan Grufudd, who, despite being born in the UK, gives Tony Blair an accent so fake I want to give an Oscar to Madonna.
The biggest error was the film’s discontinuous editing, splitting up the three acts of Bush’s life (drunk at Yale, emo Governor of Texas, out-of-his-element President) intermittingly throughout the film, with one scene taking place at a 2002 cabinet meeting, before a fraternity hazing ritual, then briefly running over to a dialogue on the Texas governor campaign. The motivation is to create a sense of overwhelming dismay alongside Bush, making him seem like a dumbass that just got over his head. The real effect, however, is a film that moves at a fragmented, sometimes confusing pace, making it less of a movie and more like a documentary paused and picked up over a few days. It doesn’t help that the movie seems to end before his re-election in 2004, with not a single moment given to Katrina, No Child Left Behind, or anything beyond Iraq. If they wanted to make Bush out to be a poor sap that got legacied into the wrong job, why cut out a war-time disaster that turned his poll numbers permanently down? Perhaps it’s just the rush to get the film out before the 2008 election, but the film feels incomplete, and it’s not because the Bush Presidency hasn’t ended yet.
The film is bookmarked with Dubya in a baseball field, reaching out for a fly ball with a smile on his face. The suggestion is that this is were Bush belongs, not talking with the big kids about oil and miscommunication. As conceivable as this concept is, it’s not acceptable. Not when we as a country went through hell just to try and get a father and son to love each other again. The sole scene of the film dealing with the actual reasons behind Iraq, with Cheney at a board marked with the oil reserves of the Middle East, smiling and talking about how ‘there is no exit strategy [in Iraq], we stay’, the act of imperialism plays off like end of a villain’s musical number in a Disney film, the slow fade out leaving the evil one rubbing his hands together. It’s the microcosm for a movie so flaccid that it would have done well for Stone to have given directorial duties to Chris Crocker. The audience leaves the theater parroting a line given to Cromwell’s Bush Sr., ‘I’m disappointed in you Jr., deeply disappointed.’
One Sentence Review:Despite more than decent lead performances, a movie about the Worst President in American history fails to be anything but a boring mess.
Ok, I know I said I was going to review Producers first, but I do not have the DVD in my possession at the moment. A friend is going to let me borrow his copy and I am still planning on reviewing it, but for now I am doing my first review on Little Shop of Horrors. I am currently working on the video and it should be up hopefully by the end of the week.
By several requests, I have decided on my first musical film review. I will review Mel Brooks' The Producers. The review should be up within the next 2 weeks. To see the video, check out my youtube account. www.youtube.com/Modyman. Keep sending in other musicals you would like me to review and I will eventually get to them. Thank you again, and I look forward to all your feed back when I release my first review.
Caught this a few weeks ago, before the big move West. Thought I'd take some time as I watch Dogma with my roommate to jot down a couple of thoughts on the latest from the Apatow camp.
Mulled Over: Pineapple Express (2008)
For the first time in a bit over a year, I had doubts about a Judd Apatow film. It seemed a set case, the greatest benefactor of Judd's fame getting a bit big for his drawers and suddenly believing he could be a conceivable action film star. Its happened before, and unless cinema as a whole is made irrelevant soon, it'll happen again. My doubt was the main reason for putting off seeing this film for so long, but the return of a long absent friend and an afternoon with nothing to do proved enough for me to plop down the green for a ticket.
Our story follows two stoners, huge surprise, Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) a process server and his dealer Saul Silver (James Franco). After Dale pulls to the side of the road to sample some of the titular brand of weed and witnesses a murder, a chase ensues between the pothead duo and the murder's thugs across a town full of action movie cliches. Amongst those chasing them is Ted Jones, the drug dealer who shot the gun (a surprisingly funny Gary Cole) and Carol Braizer, a policewoman on his payroll (Rosie Perez, neither impressive nor terrible, just loud).
In conjunction with the drug dealer's main posse are the hired guns Matheson and Budlofsky (a surprisingly engaging Craig Robinson and the most tragically underused actor in Apatow's menagerie, Kevin Corrigan.) Later attaching himself to Dale's posse after a few hilariously painful fight scenes is Saul's supplier Red (Danny R. McBride, who returns from his role on Tropic Thunder as the funniest side character in the film.) What follows is a damn funny movie, but a surprisingly competent action flick, effects and stunts and all.
The humor is the usual Apatow shtick of dialogue-ridden, natural feeling scenes of random and somewhat ridiculous jokes, and it works again here. The inclusion of Franco for the first major time was a welcome change, he fits the dazed and slothfully archetype of the stoner to a t, with enough charm and wit left over from his delivery and physicality to truly sap a couple of emotional moments from you. Seth Rogen is his usual slubby self, with high-school age girlfriend (Amber Heard, of no particular staying power) to pine over giving him an every-man feel without too much of a sappy aftertaste.
The action aspects of the film are what really elevates this film above the usual level of summer comedy. It comes a bit out of nowhere, this sense of professionalism and smoothness to their choreography and style. It comes to us a way into the film, with the two paranoid stoners paying their first visit to Red after spending the night in the woods post-murder witnessing. Dale initiates the fight with a couple of shoves, nothing to rave about, neither are Red's first comebacks. Its when Franco gets into the jam, and the shoves become full fledged pushes into the wall, squip effects and all, when the eyebrows begin to raise.
Blood effects are grimace-inducing, punches are thrown with weight and finesse, and it actually feels, at times, like a scene out of a buddy cop movie ala the 1980s comedy pairings of Walter Hill and Richard Donner. For the larger stunts, like the chase scene made famous in the trailer (where Franco's character gets his foot stuck in the windshield) and a few combat shots, the seams show more than most action films of this generation. No, sugar glass isn't noticeably frosted or no rigs are visible, but it doesn't take much to realize that Red's body isn't really there when Saul Silver is whacking below the camera line with a dust buster. But its part of the experience of the film that we see these little blips of amateurism. It makes us feel like we are part of the friend-base of the crew, watching and laughing at our pals messing around on screen. And that feeling never goes away.
The film, for all of its hilarity, is not without its faults. Fortunately, the lesser qualities of the film go down like smooth wine compared to other comedies coming out these days (the careers of Will Ferrell and Steve Carell come to mind.) The conversation scenes can become redundant, with points made repeatedly, and some of the characterization choices, like Carol's vocal pitch or Robinson's more flamboyant moments, take you out of the scene with a slight wince, but that's pretty much all the criticism that can be leveled at the film without going into the love-him/hate-him opinion of the Apatow crew themselves.
Rogen and Apatow have raised their bar again, making their work shine for the effort. The humor we have come to love remains intact, with the use of Franco and most of the supporting cast coming off as wonderful casting decisions. The action was much better than anyone following the crew's previous work could predict, and executed to gloriously demented physical comedy. What little their is to complain about is minuscule nitpicks, and hardly ever get in the way of the constant feeling of inclusive fun that permeates nearly every moment of Pineapple Express. Like the substance impetus for the film's events, Express is a film you can check out whenever the need to laugh and zone comes up. That, and the film is made even better with snacks.
One Sentence Review: Rogen and crew successfully capture the action-comedy feelings of old, updated with relevant humor and believable characters.
Update madness going on, I know. But I'm going to take you all back in time a few days to.....a few days, to describe me chilling with director on his last day residing in Riverside before making the move to LA and UCLA....the cockmelon. I weave you this tale to slowly draw my point around to my review of Steve Coogan's Hamlet 2, which was what he and I saw that night. So, without further ado (too late) let's get into the thick of it, shall we?
A Not-Quite Farewell
I wasn't expecting this dinner-and-a-movie deal at all until I received this call, otherwise I would have never been masturbating to the third Land Before Time movie and had been getting ready to appear in public. Nonetheless, my director, Brian Tan (aka BLT, aka BT, you'll remember him from my Diary of an AD posts here) gave my cell a ring late in the afternoon and asked if I wanted to celebrate his last day in the city with some dinner. I, being the annoyingly loyal friend I fool myself into being, agreed, and was picked up a few hours later.
sexiness
We had some debate on which food to partake of, BT has this annoyingly understandable standard for what he calls diner restaurants (Applebee's, Friday's and the like) to the point where the option of a Coco's in the area pretty much trumps all others. We had already had some food there a couple of nights before, so that was out. We eventually decided on the Olive Garden a city away and drove off, talking about the future plans of FPS Productions with both of us transferring to other UCs, and about all of the great adventures we had over the past two years. We arrived at the restaurant and waited the 15 minutes to be seated (it was a Friday night) and ate and continued to talk for another few hours. Riveting reading, I know.
We had decided earlier to go and check a flick at the theater a few blocks down, with both of our Student IDs meriting the best post-matinee tickets around. As BT had already seen both Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express, it feel on me to decide, and being the person that likes to experience people's first reactions at the same time as my own, I opted for the movie neither of us had seen, Hamlet 2....more on that later.
Two hours later BT and I traveled to a park near his home, his favorite place in Riverside, and we cracked open a pair of Guinness' and further philosophized on life after the move. A lot of heart-to-heart went on, the deepest conversation I had for a long time, kind of cathartic in a way. I gave him the needed confidence boost to make the final move to LA, as he was missing the action of our co-founded club location, and he drove me home. Bittersweet goodbyes ensued, and the night ended on a happy, nostalgic note.
Now...on to the shit.
Mulled Over: Hamlet 2
Allow me to preface this review by saying that this is the worst movie I have seen in theaters in years, and the worst movie I have seen period since my freshman year in College when I was subjected to the horrors of 1997's Spanish Prisoner. Not all of the blame goes to the film's producers and cast, as the effort to pull of comedy was present and duly noted, but the tottering script, bland acting, and lazy narrative made this movie only viewable through cringed eyes and gritted teeth. The best analogy I can come up with is the friend that you all placate when he tells his jokes; he's not funny, and you know it, but you laugh to make him feel good and not cause a lot of trouble. Then, one night, out of nowhere, you see him ascending the stage at a local open mic and beg him with your eyes not to go through with it. As he begins to hit bomb after bomb, you feel an unwavering and deep sense of pity for the man. This movie is that friend, who you can see try just so damn hard to be funny, but never, save for a very few brief moments, succeeds.
Perhaps this rank sense of disappointment stems from just how much I wanted to see this movie based on the trailer. It boils down the plot to a musical about finding Jesus Christ sexy and a parody of the absurdity of theater ala Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman. The very idea of a film based around the idea of an idiot writing a sequel to the greatest play in the English language seemed like comedy gold. Toss in Amy Poehler in one of her snappishly witty supporting roles and I was hooked on the concept. Its to bad that this film, once put to the 100-minute execution, fails to capture the genius of the trailer.
We follow a failed commercial actor (commercial meaning TV spots, not the adjective) Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan, who deserves beter) reduced to teaching drama at a high school in Tucson, Arizona, right up to the point where the elective is canceled and he resolves to put on one last amazing show to fund raise the program back. A tired archetype of the art courses being sad causalities of more federal budget cuts and final acts of desperation, but that's the least of this film's worries. They some how thought that tacking on a subplot of another archetype, a class of minority and antisocial misfits coming together to save whatever, would make the final better. Instead, it makes a lackluster plot seem pretentious. I've never seen a film work so hard to make sure the audience knows exactly how and why the film's plot unfolds as it does. The very first class Coogan's Dana has with the minorities, he references multiple other films following the overcoming class stereotype (Dead Poet's Society, Mr. Holland's Opus, take your pick) and sets himself up under the archetype of the inspirational teacher. This. Is. Not. A. Joke.
The class themselves consist of the two white kids, one the stereotype of the gay theater guy and the other of the oh-so-charmingly racist Christian girl, and the rest the traditional ideas of Mexicans your overly vocal Grandmother blurts out at parties: the matronly friend, the gangbanger with normal people talents, the poser, and the shy girl. No bloody kidding. You can predict, and you'd be right, that all of them bind together after their teacher looses faith, and the racist white cunt will fall in love (unconvincingly and completely out of the blue) with the most Mexican of the Mexicans and the gay guy comes to terms with who he is. There is also a subplot of Dana's wife (Catherine Keener) growing increasingly frustrated and leaving him for his annoyingly stupid roommate and Elizabeth Shue failing to act as her-own-bloody-self, but it shares the same horrid quality of writing and execution that it doesn't merit any more mention. Dana is also tortured by a student critic at the high school that somehow writes like a graduate student at Berkeley and the school's....administrator or something, that spurs the town against the play for its supposed graphic ideas. By the time the film actually gets to Hamlet 2 being written, I would bet most people not so desperately hoping the movie would pick up would have left the theater and demanded refunds.
It seemed impossible, but the film actually had a story-within-a story plot line of Hamlet finding a time machine and with the help of Jesus Christ, returning to save Denmark, and they couldn't pull a single laugh from the theater I was sitting in. I don't know how, and I cannot explain, but it just isn't funny. Even Amy Poehler as an obnoxious ACLU drone loses some of her saving grace by speaking some tired and cliche lines like I'm going to sue everyone here! The musical numbers of the film, written by one of the team behind South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (and no, its not Trey Parker OR Matt Stone) have a beat and lyrics, but nothing that registers as humorous or entertaining, its as if the film's dialog was transcribed to a melody and put to lame choreography. There was no offensive material that I could see, aside from the sexual perception of Christ, but....whatever.
Aside from the terrible script and lackluster acting, the direction and cinematography of the film do nothing to promote any sense of artistic direction. Shots are pitifully straight-forward and it seems that there was no creativity in the photography department either. Costumes are run-of-the-mill and the art direction can snatch a double take once in a great while, but other than that, there are absolutely no redeeming features to this film, none. It hurts because I spent the entire film focusing my mental energy to try and somehow make this movie funny, even if it was just on the level of the ____ Movies like Date Movie and Epic Movie. As far as I can tell, its only lasting value is a blotch on the IMDB page of anyone involved with it.
I tried to like you, Hamlet 2, I really truly tried.
This film is brought to you by Shenna Easton (only singer to be shown singing the Bond theme), the tourist agency of Greece (where 90% of this movie takes place), the Cold War, and people who were gullible enought to think this wasn't a rip off of 4 prievous Bond movies.
This is a reality TV show where 15 guys compete for the heart of a girl who was dumped by both the prievous winner of the show and the ex F$#%buddy of Bridget Nelson, all the while trying to gain exposure so that they can have 15 minutes of fame to pick up other women after the show is over.
1 sentence review
