Man On Film: Ketchup

I know, it's been a while. I've been busy.

That doesn't mean I've not been going to movies.

Rather, I've been unable to write about them.

What is to follow could be a bit lengthy. Sure, I could split these up, but this backlog has been piling up. Some of these may receive more time than others for varying reasons but not always related to my like/dislike of the film. Given the ground I'll be trying to cover here, these individual write-ups will surely be lacking, especially in relation to, say, what I did when I wrote about The Dark Knight in two tomes last year.

Here goes:

Brüno

Pretty damn funny. Unlike Borat, it didn't feel like 85% of the movie was recycled bits from "Da Ali G Show". The urethral "Brüno" shout in his pilot was truly shocking.

I am curious as to what Sacha Baron Cohen is going to do now that his three characters have been given the full-length feature treatment.

Funny People

I had a film professor who specialized in screenwriting. He had written F/X but did not end up being the credited screenwriter. In the sci-fi class I took from him, his analysis was limited to breaking down this film into its three-act structure while giving a cursory look at other narrative elements. His hard-on for the three-act structure ruled his life.

While that seemed a little ridiculous during the class, Judd Apatow's latest seems like it could have more closely adhered to the pacing inherent in that Aristotelian construct.

Now I should say that I didn't have any major issues with the film. Of Apatow's three directorial efforts, Funny People is probably his most complete film. It is certainly his most adult. That doesn't mean it is the most enjoyable. It probably has the least re-watch value of the three. Sandler gives his best performance since Punch-Drunk Love. Jonah Hill manages to avoid being irritating, an issue I had upon repeat viewings of Superbad. Rogen is fine as well. The problem when it comes to re-watching is that the two male lead characters are largely unlikeable.

Oh, and there's the fact that despite being entirely watchable, the pacing leaves a bit to be desired.

But, again, the film is good. The stand-up is really damn funny. The interplay between the roommates is great. Schwartzmann is his best in ages (although it all looks to be topped by "Bored to Death"). The horribleness of the show-within-the-movie is hilarious as well. Aside from the pacing issues, the film doesn't have a lot of weaknesses.

(500) Days of Summer

I actually thought I had written about this one and was surprised to find out that I hadn't.

I tend to like the film work of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Zooey Deschanel wasn't exactly stretching her wings and flying to new territory in terms of playing a new role. That being said, she does it fairly well. The music talk in the film was a little grating, but at the same time the characters in the film were supposed to be my peers, and that is sadly most of what we talk about. The one point I will make is that it seems like a leap to state that someone has good taste in music based on the one song you overhear them listening to. For all she knew in the elevator, he listened to Nickleback, Mariah Carey, and Liberace and that was the one song by The Smiths on his iPod (We are assuming that he wasn't listening to a CD, right? Does anyone (other than me)?).

I did like this movie, though. It was funny, sad, and not necessarily typical of the rom-com genre. Its soundtrack, while littered with tracks by indie darlings like Feist, Regina Spektor, Wolfmother, and Spoon, is entirely appropriate for the demographic that the film is about.

Thirst

The newest Chan-Wook Park movie was pretty solid. It didn't approach the meteoric heights that Oldboy reached, but it was good. It was, however, cursed by what seemed like a ending about 45 minutes before the actual ending.

Harry Potter and the (Whatever Thing is in the Title)

The sixth movie in the series had virtually nothing happen. It's not like it sucked (but holy shit did the first two in the series), but from what the special lady friend says the next movie cannot really have much of anything happen, so that means we're getting like six hours of nothing leading up to what might be a cool conclusion.

I cannot believe that this series has even gotten this good after those abysmal first two movies. We all have Alfonso Cuaron to thank for that. His direction steered this enterprise in the right direction.

The Hurt Locker

So I fell asleep for about 20 minutes at the beginning of this film. As the second-to-last trailer was concluding, I thought to myself, "Fuck. I am tired."

That being said, what I saw was great. Jeremy Renner, who was the star of the underwhelming Dahmer, was phenomenal. The tension was great throughout. I wanted to say more and intended to see it again before doing so. I have not had the chance. This will have to do.

As I'm sure Weibel is glad to hear, The Hurt Locker put me in the hurt locker.