The Office - Season 7

I have written so many words about The Office for Player Affinity that I'm not sure how many I have left. But I'll give this season summary a shot anyway. This was a big year for the show, as they said goodbye to Steve Carell, the guy that everybody knows and player of the main character. We don't know yet whether the series will survive long without him, but in any case they did a good job of further establishing the entertaining dynamic the entire cast shares while allowing Michael to leave with a classy and emotionally fulfilling storyline. It's a goodbye that the actor deserves more than the character, as even in the end they never totally sold the transformation of Michael from horrible, misguided boss to a silly yet beloved authority figure. I mean, he's always been more sympathetic than his British counterpart (who actually showed up a couple times this year, proving that the two shows exist in the same universe and that there's a lot of documentary makers interested in paper), but he was still too much of a screw-up to totally earn some of that stuff. I didn't mind though, because it was sweet and well handled.

Steve Carell's departure kind of dominated the show during this time, because while plenty of other things happened this year, that's where most of the attention and discussion was. Jim and Pam were kind of stagnant, but I enjoyed the development of Kevin, Darryl, and Andy among others. Some episodes were a lot of fun, others a bit less so, and that's sort of how it goes with most sitcoms. I do think this season was a bit better than the last couple, both in terms of just being entertaining and in developing story stuff, though most of that was devoted to Michael. The whole ensemble is just really solid now, a bit familiar for the most part but still really likable. I don't find myself really invested in anything that's going on with most of them beyond a general feeling of goodwill towards them, but the cast is big and varied enough that I think they could just coast with that for a lot longer than say, Scrubs did. Personally, I think Andy is the best choice to take over Dunder Mifflin - like Michael, I think he'd have the right mix of goofiness and competence (though maybe in different places) to keep the company from burning to the ground while still bringing a solid amount of chaos to the show. It could be an interesting dichotomy - Michael was a good salesman but a bad manager of people; Andy is bad at sales but might have the empathy to keep a diverse group like this from killing each other. Anyway, we'll see what happens this Fall.

Also, here are my recaps for all of the episodes this year:
Ultimatum
The Seminar
The Search
PDA
Threat Level Midnight
Todd Packer
Garage Sale
Training Day
Michael's Last Dundies
Goodbye, Michael
The Inner Circle
Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager
Search Committee

Hot Tub Time Machine

You've probably seen a movie like Hot Tub Time Machine before. A comedy that you like the actors in, and has a funny concept, and is actually pretty humorous, but you still feel a little let down by. It's not a bad movie at all - I'd call it pretty good. But I kind of wish it was more. This is a movie about a group of guys who find a hot tub that can travel back in time... and they spend the whole thing stuck in the 80s. A common complaint with comedies is that all the funny parts are in the trailer, and while that's not really true here, I'd like to make a variation on the idea. There are plenty of laughs that are not in the trailer, but all the laughs that are in the trailer are represented in full. What might have been teases for great scenes, like the one with Craig Robinson reluctantly having sex in the bath, are pretty much exactly as they appeared, with nothing extra you didn't know about. It leads to a movie that's funny but not really ever unexpected.

It's obvious after a point that it's really a send up of 80s movies rather than time travel. A few stars of those films appear, like Chevy Chase as the mysterious hot tub repairman and Crispin Glover as a bellhop who's always close to losing an arm. And it's really a typical 80s comedy in a lot of ways, with characters like Lizzy Caplan's Deschanel-esque quirky perfect girl and Sebastian Stan's douche bag alpha male. There's a lot of gross-out bodily function stuff that doesn't really play anymore and of course a Communist paranoia thread that helps lead to the main conflict keeping the good guys from getting back to the present. All of the main guys are pretty good, and the supporting cast is mostly decent even if some of them didn't really sell the 80s so much as someone's vague memories of the 80s. Rob Corddry is the main comedic catalyst, though honestly it seems like he's trying too hard in an attempt at a broader audience. I liked the movie, I just wish it was better. And after hearing about the whole color correction issue, it was impossible not to notice. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google "teal and orange". Lots of movies are limiting themselves to this palette, and it really doesn't work in a movie that's supposed to represent the 80s. It just looks really weird in spots. Even the DVD box art can't escape the madness.

The Office - Season 6

I can't say I wasn't mostly pleased with The Office this season, although it's becoming clear that we're closer to the end than the beginning, creatively if nothing else. Steve Carell has said that the next season will probably be his last, and even if the show continues without him I might not. It's not that he's the only character that makes the show work, it's that your star leaving is simply not a good sign for a show's future. I gave a season of Scrubs without Zach Braff starring and got burned. The Office is still funnier than Scrubs was in its last couple years, but I'm not sure that's enough. The show is about Michael Scott and the company he runs. Without him it's just some people selling paper.

Again though, I liked it. There were a couple hour-long episodes devoted to Jim and Pam's wedding and the birth of their child, which not only laid on the sentiment but were among the funniest of the series. They actually found a way to make the relationship between Dwight and Angela entertaining again, and some of the work done by the supporting characters was as strong as ever. I spent most of the time laughing. Not everything was great, though. Andy and Erin are kind of cute together, but the dance around whether they'd start dating seemed like a feeble attempt to emulate the chemistry of Jim and Pam, Michael was possibly too ridiculous at times, and I honestly am not a fan of the whole plot with Dunder Mifflin getting bought out. Though seeing David unemployed was kind of funny. As it seems with all great comedies, half a decade later it's just not as fresh and energetic as in its prime. Still worth checking out every week, though.

The Office - Season 5

The Office's latest and longest season was pretty consistently good throughout, though it felt like it was funnier later on when less time was spent dwelling on relationship woes and more time just trying to be funny. Jim and Pam are more or less set by this point, so now a lot of the weight for that stuff is on Michael's shoulders as he continues to have crummy luck. There was a resolution to the Dwight-Andy-Angela arc that was both satisfying and pretty funny, finally putting that to bed too, and the continued rivalry yet growing respect between the two men is interesting. I don't know what the long term plan is for the show, but there is a sixth season coming and I'm looking forward to the continuing escapades of Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch in this troubling economy.

There were are a couple really good guest stints by The Wire alums Amy Ryan and Idris Elba, the former of which exponentially increases the cringe-worthiness of Michael thinking he's funny and the latter providing an actual obstacle to Jim for the first time in his career. The storyline where tension with corporate causes Michael to start his own company was pretty fun, and provided one of the best episodes as he and Dwight engaged in some corporate cloak and dagger. Dwight really had some great moments this season, like the time he started a fire in an attempt to test his coworkers' survival skills and the rare moments where he and Jim have a common goal. The show's really too wacky to be believable at this point, but I've always watched it for its more outlandish moments, and it continues to be one of the better comedies on television.

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.

The Office - Season 4

Season four began with a slight shift in the series' dynamic. Jim and Pam, previously held apart by circumstances and other relationships, got together, and managed to make it through the whole season without anything terrible happening, although things don't always go perfectly. They're both funny, highly likable people who get along very well, so it's nice to have a facet of the show that doesn't make you cringe. There's plenty enough of that coming from Carell, who's still great as Michael even when you almost want to look away from the more brutally embarrassing things he does. There's an argument that his hellish relationship with Jan has gone from funny in a painful way to completely unbelievably awkward, but I still found all their interactions to be more entertaining than anything else.

The show stretched more in the season with more episodes than ever before outside the office itself. That's really where the show shines the most, but you do need some variety. There's some fun to be had running marathons, having the worst dinner party ever, and especially a night spent at the bed & breakfast on Dwight's family farm. While I still think Gareth from the BBC original was great, Dwight's become one of the best supporting characters in any sitcom I've seen. Every scene he's in is great. There are some plot developments with Ryan in his new job in New York, and Andy's increased role screwing up everything for everyone else. The season finale was hilarious throughout, but a big downer in a few ways. It did end on a good enough note though that I'm already waiting for the next batch of episodes.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Before I talk about the movie, I'll mention I'm a little surprised that this basically bombed after the huge success of every other Apatow flick in recent memory, including two (Superbad and Knocked Up) just this year. I guess the subject matter isn't quite as universal, but there's no reason my dad and I should have been the only people in the theater when we saw it. Granted, it was a 1:50 show on a Wednesday, but most people don't work the day after Christmas. Oh well. Walk Hard's a little sillier, but still quite funny throughout. It's as straight up a parody as we've seen from the The Judd Apatow Sex Comedy Train, but unlike the other truly awful parody movies we see (seriously, anyone who's seen the horrendous trailer for Meet the Spartans knows what I mean), it's a genuinely funny movie in its own right that happens to closely follow the structure of the biopics it mocks instead of lamely copying popular scenes with no production value, idiotic gags, and tons of shitty pop culture references that are devoid of content or point. Jake Kasdan directed and co-wrote, and like Mottola with Superbad, he doesn't seem especially good or bad, and fits right into the groove with everyone Apatow works with.

Walk Hard packs scads of cameos by some very funny people, often playing famous musicians, like Jack White as Elvis or Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jason Schwartzman as the Beatles in a truly hilarious scene. John C. Reilly is known as a character actor, but he steps up as the lead very well, carrying the movie with ease and performing ably in the musical segments. There's plenty of mature (or is it really immature?) humor involving sex and drugs, like a great running gag with Tim Meadows trying to keep Dewey away from whatever he's using while at the same time making it sound really enticing. A couple gags from trailers didn't make it to the final cut, leaving me positive the DVD will be packed with some great stuff. Besides just being funny, Walk Hard is a movie about the life of musician, and there's a lot of different kinds of music performed, most of which is actually pretty good and sometimes funny as well, like the Bob Dylan parody. I would have liked to have seen it with a bigger audience, but Walk Hard was still quite an enjoyable experience.

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.