Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

By the time I saw this movie my Scott Pilgrim fandom had waned slightly, not because of anything in particular, but just because the novelty had worn off a bit. Still, it's a very entertaining property, and Edgar Wright managed to strike a perfect balance between faithfully bringing Bryan Lee O'Malley's unique vision to the screen while changing enough to keep it fresh. I think the books and the movie both have their own strengths, the comics obviously have more time to spend developing secondary characters and the setting whereas the movie rushes through that a bit, but it also helps towards the end where it builds to a natural climax and exciting conclusion instead of the weird vibe I got from the final volume. It's a good companion to the books, and also stands well enough on its own for someone who's never read them to still enjoy the heck out of it, even if some of the background comes off as shallow.

Visually, it's one of the most kinetic and unique things I've ever seen. Wright is constantly playing with reality, having scenes warp and distort to fit the mood, and the editing is intensely in tune with whatever is being seen or heard. It calls a lot of attention to itself, but it works for the type of story it is, frantically racing from scene to scene, musical performance to martial arts fight, and it creates an atmosphere of giddy energy. All of the bands sound pretty much how they should, and the use of music to accentuate the mood or a fight (or even be a fight itself in one instance) is effective. There's also a ton of video game crap all over the place, tons of borrowed sound effects and musical cues and a few visual elements that pull you into the strange version of Toronto the film is creating and are also a nice bonus activity for nerds to spend their time identifying. The movie is primarily a comedy, and it's very funny, but what's impressive is how well the action works. The movie combines the weird gaming sensibility with some genuinely entertaining fight choreography, and while the stunt doubling is occasionally obvious, they're still very well produced scenes and I'm confident in saying they're actually the best action scenes I've seen this year. Fast, exciting, and you can actually see what's going on the entire time. It's an impressive feat.

The movie also works because almost everyone is right for their parts. Michael Cera actually doesn't fit how I pictured Scott Pilgrim acting in real life, as he's usually much closer to his completely awkward and shy persona. But that version of Scott manages to work in Wright's film, and he's surrounded by a pretty great supporting cast. A lot of the faces are recognizable elsewhere, as they pretty much got as many hot young people with talent that they could find. The evil exes in particular stand out, the twins are pretty much gone before they can do anything, but Matthew Patel is extremely weird, and the other actors who I actually know all do good jobs. Thomas Jane as a member of the vegan police was a bizarre but welcome cameo, and Bill Hader has a great narrator's voice. Kieran Culkin is a standout among Scott's friends as his awesome gay roommate Wallace. It might have been a good idea to tidy up the parade of Scott's acquaintances and merge a few parts just to make it easier to keep so many minor characters straight, because I'm not sure how manageable that is without prior knowledge. Still, it was fun seeing everyone so well realized in live action form. Not my favorite movie this year but certainly one of the most fun, and it continues to show how much skill Edgar Wright has with putting pure joy on film.

Freaknik: The Musical

So this was kinda weird. It was a one hour animated special produced by T-Pain, starring him as Freaknik, an auto-tuned ghost who comes back from the dead to host a music festival in Atlanta (Freaknik used to be an actual thing. The festival, not the ghost.), and featuring a bunch of rappers and comedians playing a wide array of strange characters. Lil Jon is an old man who tells the story, Lil Wayne is some version of Jesus, Young Cash and Cee-Lo are members of a ssmall town rap group trying to make it big, and so on. Not all of the jokes land, as it spends a lot of time leaning on celebrity parody and race jokes, though it was funny enough to elicit the occasional chuckle. What I enjoyed most was the animation style (hard to believe this is the same studio that does Metalocalypse) and the musical numbers, which are generally enjoyable, catchy alt rap. The plot, beyond its unusual premise, isn't that original, but it hits all the right notes in order, and wraps itself up nicely. Not the greatest, but watchable.

Hot Rod

At first glance Hot Rod seems like a typical stupid sports comedy, and basically is. But it has enough originality and quirkiness to make it fairly enjoyable. I got a bit of a Napoleon Dynamite vibe from certain scenes that exist only for a single odd laugh, like finding firecrackers in the bathroom and setting them off, without much happening. It takes physical comedy to a new level, with the impacts as Andy Samberg crashes his bike and gets hit by cars and rolls down hills taken to an extreme, which sort of makes them funny again after we've gotten tired of it. It's not the greatest of comedies, but it kept my attention well enough with some atypical jokes and fun cameos that I didn't get bored. Danny McBride has come out of nowhere to make solid contributions to some recent comedies like Tropic Thunder, Bill Hader's a consistent handler of whatever minor roles he gets, and Will Arnett is in classic asshole form. Isla Fisher is the nice, pretty girl inexplicably attracted to the protagonist, best known for playing the crazy sister in Wedding Crashers and having Borat's baby. Ian McShane brings some actual skill to the role of Samberg's stepdad, and the reason for the movie's plot. Andy makes some silly videos and impressions on Saturday Night Live, but he shows here that he can carry a decent little movie, too. Most of what happens is pretty predictable, but it's cute enough to watch once.

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is another solid action-comedy hybrid for this summer. The concept is fun, it's about the actors in a big-budget Vietnam movie getting stuck behind actual enemy lines in the jungle. Ben Stiller, who also co-wrote and directed, is the action hero, and the last one to figure out that it's all real. Jack Black is the low-brow comedian (quite a stretch) who has a drug problem. Robert Downey Jr. is terrific as the foreign thespian who never breaks his character as a black soldier. He's quickly become one of my favorite actors in the last couple years, and he's the best reason to see this. Tom Cruise appears as a vicious studio mogul, and he's mildly entertaining, but I thought his performance was over-hyped just because he's Tom Cruise. Other big names play small parts, and a huge portion of the movie's humor is the jokes about the movie industry, especially the politics with the Academy Awards. Downey's speech about Best Actor nominations is one of the funniest things I've ever heard about Hollywood. The film also begins with fake ads and trailers featuring the characters, and it sets the tone quite well.

Besides all the meta-jokes though, it's still a fun movie. The movie has the most fun with gore that I can remember seeing since the Monty Python movies, and it's a sort of gross-out humor I like more than just bathroom stuff. Not everything in the movie succeeds, but it's crass and silly enough to be fun without thinking too much. The movie does a lot to offend different groups like the mentally challenged, and just doesn't care about it. It's all just comedy, and doesn't step lightly. There's some good silly action-dialogue and pointless explosions going around everywhere, and the pacing of the comedy and violence are pretty good. Stiller's act is a little tired at this point, but I thought this was a pretty decent return to form.

Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express is yet another success for Apatow Productions. He and his crew rose to fame by bringing back the fun of sex comedies, but they've branched out, and Express' humor is all about pot, with Seth Rogen and James Franco's characters being high for most of the picture. Whereas they usually do straight comedy, this is sort of an action hybrid as the two friends get in trouble with crooked cops and drug lords and end up experiencing quite a few thrills. In some ways, it's more like a lower-intensity action film than a comedy, with most of the humor arising just from the way the characters talked instead of more discrete jokes. The pacing is a little strange, as several scenes, usually involving baked characters, go on for quite a bit longer than you'd expect, as they just keep riffing off each other. I wasn't bothered by it at all though, it fit the characters and gave it a unique feel that I enjoyed a lot.

The cast is full of the usual suspects, with funny, small parts played by Gary Cole, Craig Robinson, Bill Hader, and others. Like with Superbad, Rogen co-wrote with friend Evan Goldberg and does a solid job, but he gave the best part to Franco. I saw one reviewer say he was the funniest stoner character since Brad Pitt in True Romance, and it's not a thought I'd disagree with, although Pitt didn't have nearly as much time to be hilarious. Franco sometimes seems off-putting to me, but he really is great in this movie. He's never without something strange yet poignant to say, and has a great chemistry with Rogen. The movie is full of "bromance", possibly too-friendly, ambiguously gay camaraderie between two guys. There are tons of tropes from normal, heterosexual relationship development in other movies, and once in a while they get downright obvious with it to comedic effect. I haven't seen any of Green's other work as a director, but he does a fine job balancing the action and comedy. The climactic encounter is probably too over the top, although I strongly suspect it was intentional. I liked it quite a lot, and you should see it if you can see the humor in stoned idiots just acting like stoned idiots.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I only recognize Jason Segel as the moderately creepy friend of the main character in Knocked Up, but it turns out he can write and carry a good comedy too. Nicholas Stoller is another one of Judd Apatow's cronies who have been getting their directorial debuts in movies he's produced, and again, he's fine at effectively filming scenes, if not adequately pacing things. It's a little too long, and it seems like it keeps going after the conflict should be over. Still, it's a funny movie and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

After getting left by his girlfriend, played by the cute Kristen Bell, for a rock star played by Russel Brand, Segel goes to Hawaii to try and get away, only to discover they're staying at the same hotel. Little trite of a plot for a movie, but they make it work. Mila Kunis is the girl he turns to to help get over his problems, and of course things develop from there. Surprisingly, I think my favorite character in the movie is the rock star. Normally he'd be a huge jerk that would probably get bit by a shark or something, but he's always funny and actually gets a bit sympathetic eventually. Some other recognizable faces make humorous appearances, and male genitalia is used to comedic effect multiple times. It's not as smart as some of the other Apatow stuff, but I liked it most of the way through.

Superbad

The Judd Apatow Sex Comedy Train keeps rolling in good form with Superbad. Apatow didn't actually direct this one, he produced it. Frequent collaborator Seth Rogen wrote the script with his friend and is a featured cast member. The stars of the movie are Jonah Hill, another common fixture of Apatow's movies, and Michael Cera, most easily recognizable for his brutally awkward character of George Michael on Arrested Development. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is new to acting, and his character will probably outlive the rest of the movie. Everybody already knows about "McLovin". I didn't think he stole the movie as much as some other people did, but he was certainly likable. Greg Mottola is the director, and he does a good job of what he has to do with this kind of movie. Nothing fancy, just pointing the camera where it needs to be and keeping the movie focused. The whole cast and crew seems to work well together, and for some reason I just find Apatow and friends' movies better than the average comedy. It's a combination of good chemistry, sharp dialogue over pure gross-out humor (although there are plenty of dick and menstruation jokes), and some scenes that actually convey human emotion.

The two main characters hold the movie down well. Their banter and rapport is very entertaining, and they just seem like funny, likable guys. Hill can be kind of a jerk, but there are plenty of scenes that sympathize him. Cera's character is fairly close to George Michael. He's less completely sheltered and a bit more normal, but still the same kind of worried, reserved guy. Almost the entire movie takes place over the course of one eventful day, which gives it a different feel from a lot of other comedies. At times it can be a little straining, as there's pretty much something happening constantly, and it probably could have used a bit of dowtime. The pacing also seems a bit odd, with a large part of the movie taking place after school and before getting to the big party, wherein the main characters don't do a whole lot. There's a big subplot with McLovin driving around with a couple of seemingly dimwitted cops (one played by Rogen, the other by SNL star Bill Hader), attempting to get ahold of the booze for the party. The scenes are funny, but stretch the suspension of disbelief a lot and are maybe a bit distant from the real focus of the movie.

A few misgivings aside, Superbad is a very funny movie, with plenty of memorable lines and scenes. I'm not sure how much of the great dialogue was scripted and how much was improvised on set, but either way it's pretty smart. The goal of the two leads is to get to a party and hook-up with a certain girl, but the movie is really about the friendship between them. Over the course of the movie, they get angry at each other and have to deal with separation issues between them, and it's a movie that can really hit close to home for anyone who left or is going to leave close friends behind. It might not be as sentimental as some other stuff these guys have done, but it still rings very true. Superbad is one of the funniest movies this year, and definitely worth seeing.

Knocked Up

So our mall's opening a new Regal theater with stadium seating, and it's actually fairly nice. No more will the tops of the heads of strangers be an issue when I'm watching the latest blockbusters. Not that I get a chance to see many movies anyway. As a special promotion, they were showing slightly older movies for a dollar a ticket yesterday, and I wanted to see Knocked Up, so it worked out pretty nicely. I had to get up to pee a few times (Special $1 soda will do that) but otherwise it was a nice viewing experience.

The movie itself was good too. It's the same director as The 40 Year Old Virgin and a lot of the cast is the same as well. Even people who don't have real parts make some cameos, and you can tell they're a group that enjoys working together. The star, Seth Rogen, had his breakout role in Virgin as Carell's coworker Cal, and it's interesting to see him as the main character. He's funny, but in a much different way from famous comedy stars like Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller. He's not playing a crazy character, he's playing a normal, likable guy. He has problems doing the right thing sometimes but you can tell his heart's mostly in the right place and he just needs some help sometimes. Katherine Heigl is also very good as the female lead. She holds her own and is believable as the girl struggling to come to grips with a situation she didn't plan for and a guy she isn't sure about. The supporting cast is also great, with Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd as the slightly older couple that serves as an example of marriage's troubles, a decent group of funny guys as Seth's friends, and Craig Robinson in a small but memorable role as the reluctant doorman at a night club. Why he isn't in more movies is a mystery to me.

The movie starts off a bit iffy, with some hit-and-miss pop culture humor, but it comes into its own as it develops the plot and the different relationships that form. Like Virgin, there's lots of drug use and constant raunchy dialogue, but it still comes away feeling charming because of the human element that can be seen through all of the vulgarity. It's an adult movie, not just because of the mature humor, but because it honestly deals with real issues like unplanned pregnancy. It's not without some errors. It's probably a bit too long. It's also a little predictable with the whole plot conflict as it gets closer to the end, of course they have to have a big fight and split up for a while before realizing it's all gonna be fine in the end. Honestly, I'm a little tired of the same old romantic comedy storyline, and just once I'd like to see a film eschew it. Why couldn't it just be about two people coming to grips with having a baby, why introduce the whole say-hurtful-things-under-stress-and-feel-sorry-later thing when nobody really likes it? It also gets a little heavy-handed with the message about not blaming others and being responsible for your own actions, but it never gets too bad and it all evens out to a hysterical movie with a good heart.