Man on Film: This Is 40

It seems as though with every new Judd Apatow film the story he is spinning is more personal than the last. This Is 40 certainly furthers this notion. Unfortunately, as Apatow's films have gotten more personal, they've also gotten less relatable. And less funny.

Oh, yeah. Megan Fox is in the movie, too.

Now I don't want to sound like I'm not allowing for a filmmaker to grow or evolve. Obviously Apatow is not going to be making the same films at 45 that he was at 38. In his case, though, it means that he has gone from making The 40-Year-Old Virgin to This Is 40--a film that would be more at home in James L. Brooks's oeuvre than Apatow's were it not for the odd descent into ribaldry that would be out of place in a Brooks film--over the course of seven years. That may seem like a denigration of the works of James L. Brooks, who is a damn fine comedic director. That is not the intention at all. As Good As It Gets, Broadcast News, and Terms of Endearment are all fine films. It's just that The 40-Year-Old Virgin seemed to signify a paradigm shift in comedy. Then everything that Apatow seemed to touch as a producer turned to gold--coarse, bawdy gold.

As Apatow's films have gotten to be of a more personal nature, they've gotten more insular. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself, but This Is 40 (and for that matter Funny People) doesn't really click. The laughs don't come. It meanders too much, as Apatow is wont to do. It runs long. And the laughs don't come.

All of this is too bad because it means the talents of Paul Rudd, Chris O'Dowd, Albert Brooks, Jason Segel, and Leslie Mann are misspent. Michael Ian Black and Lena Dunham aren't spent at all. Perhaps worse than all of that, it is more than hard to buy into the central conceit that Pete and Debbie actually still love each other.

At least Melissa McCarthy had two scenes and the fantastic bonus footage in the end credits.

Man on Film: Get Him to the Greek

Despite the fact that Nicholas Stoller's directorial debut, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, might just be my favorite of the Team Apatow productions*, I was not exactly excited for the latest Apatow Productions film, Get Him to the Greek.

*Now, it should be noted that Step Brothers is a film that I've seen approximately 30 times (unfortunately, none of those times were in the theater). It's weird because despite the fact that the Apatow Productions title card is in front of the film it feels like this is not a product of Team Apatow. Perhaps it's the "Freaks and Geeks"-lessness of the cast, but they seem only loosely related to one another. I do love Step Brothers but am reluctant to put it in the conversation with the other Apatow products.

Yes, I really loved FSM, but a lot of Get Him to the Greek relies on Jonah Hill, something I was reticent about heading into the film. Generally speaking, I like almost all of the films Hill has been in, yet I often feel like he is one of the weaker links in the film. While he is certainly capable of being very funny, there is something about his energy that can be off-putting. Luckily for us all, Get Him to the Greek is not a film in which that holds true.

Since my reluctance (and I do not believe I am alone in this) lied in the film's obvious reliance upon Hill, I will start by talking about him. As the regular music fan who got into the music industry because of his fandom, Hill's character, Aaron Green, is ideally constructed to suit his strengths. He isn't supposed to play anything that lies outside of his wheelhouse. As a regular dude who has ceded any semblance of a social life to his girlfriend's schedule and her desire to watch "Gossip Girl" (or maybe it was "Grey's Anatomy") on DVD, Jonah Hill is not only believable but also likable.

With the potential dilemma of Hill having been addressed, the success of the film lies largely on the shoulders of Russell Brand, whose reprisal of the character Aldous Snow is pitch-perfect. He is larger than life and unabashedly self-centered. As the caricature of the drug-addled rock star with a posse of enablers, Brand hits every note with aplomb. It is Snow's ridiculously destructive and self-serving behavior that drives much of the comedy and nearly all of the drama within the film. When he is called on to have a withdrawal-fueled freak out, he kills. When called on to deliver the bloated pomposity that is "African Child," he imbues the song with a clueless sincerity not matched since Paul McCartney ripped off David Hasselhoff* for his egregious post-9/11 *cough* anthem "Freedom."


*This reminds me that despite my repeated assertions about Rocky IV and the David Hasselhoff performance above having won the Cold War, I've not blogged about it in this space. For this, I am sorry. Hopefully I'll have the time in the near future to tackle this at length and in detail.

Now Brand is great to be sure, but he is not alone. In his limited role as the executive at the label, Sean Combs is outstanding. From the dressing down of his employees in the staff meeting to his on-set argument with Pharrell, he is hilarious. More surprising (because if you remember Made, Combs's hilarity isn't necessarily unprecedented) is how fucking amazing Rose Byrne is as Snow's ex-lover Jackie Q. Seriously. If you need proof, I'll refer you to the shockingly lewd anal sex single embedded below (stick around through the end).

Despite my hesitancy to embrace Byrne in years past, I am fully on board, as she has been great in everything I've seen her in for a few years now.

Past the cast though, the film works. At its heart, Get Him to the Greek--as so many of the Team Apatow films are--is a film about male bonding and the perils of getting too close to your idol. On both counts, Stoller & Co. succeed. Despite all his faults, Snow ultimately finds value in what Green brings to the table, on a personal and professional label, even if he ends up vomiting on himself at least once a day.

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.

Man on Film: Pineapple Express

After completion of viewing number one of the newest installment in the Team Apatow catalog, it is hard not to feel like we, the viewing public, are being spoiled by the "Freaks and Geeks"/"Undeclared" alumni films that they've been churning out twice a year. The films that Apatow has produced are not always great (i.e. Walk Hard), but the vehicles for his former TV guys have been consistently great.

Honestly, though, the thing that is most abundantly clear upon watching the film is that James Franco has been wasted in roles that were ill-suited for him pretty much since "Freaks and Geeks" went off the air. For the past few years, he has toiled away in serious roles (either as a lead in what amounted to be a crappy film or a supporting character in films of varying degrees of success while having his talents under-utilized), acting opposite of formerly great actors and never-will-be's in schlock that has been largely beneath him. Luckily, Pineapple Express is no Flyboys, and the great James Franco has stood up to reclaim his reputation in the role of Saul Silver, Dale Denton's drug dealer.

It certainly doesn't hurt that he finally has a great cast, director, and script to work with. Many of the usual Apatow troop are present. There is the obligatory creepy cameo by Joe Lo Truglio. Kevin Corrigan is back to play the odd tough guy. Ken Jeong, Craig Robinson, and Bill Hader have supporting roles and cameos. Apatow mainstay Seth Rogen is obviously also present. Newcomer to the group, Gary Cole is really fun. Danny McBride is funny as shit. The beautiful Amber Heard is hilarious as Dale's girlfriend. Hell, Rosie Perez manages to not be distractingly aggravating, which I was not sure was possible.

Of the Apatow productions, one could certainly argue that Pineapple Express has the most technically proficient director, too. Terrence Malick-approved David Gordon Green gets to take the reigns here, and the result is the best looking film Apatow Productions has released. It is certainly the most demanding. There are chase scenes and explosions and stunts galore. With Green manning the megaphone and guiding the film, there is nothing that is not executed exceptionally. The multiple fight scenes are pulled off without any hitches and successfully balance the look and feel of an action film with the intrinsic comedy of the Rogen/Goldberg screenplay. The car chase in the police cruisers manages to be both insanely funny and dramatically intense at the same time. This is simply a good looking film.

What makes the film, though, is the Franco/Rogen connection. Their energy brings the film to life. Sure, they're mostly bumbling retards who should probably have died about four different times in the film, but their stumbling through their absurd predicament is what makes the film so great. Essentially, the audience is treated to a stoner modernization of the wrong man story Hitchcock was so enamored with in films like The Wrong Man, The 39 Steps, and North by Northwest--the greatness inherent in that being that you've got two people who are absolutely ill-equipped to pull themselves out of the situation in which they find themselves mired. Pineapple Express is not some dumbed down stoner flick like Dude, Where's My Car? or Half Baked. There is an actual narrative that is patently absent in other films of the stoner ilk. Hell, just saying there is a narrative is enough to set it apart from that fare. Dale and Saul's quest is not to find their misplaced car or get to fucking White Castle. Theirs is one of survival. They are thrust into an action film, and the marriage of the two forms is bliss.

As I have said in other reviews of comedies, I will refrain from revealing any jokes, as the freshness of the humor is especially important in my eyes, but it should come as no surprise that just like the action, the comedy in the film works. Franco and Rogen's comedic instincts are superb, and there should be no disappointment in anything in the film from the humor standpoint.

Pineapple Express is another winning film from Apatow Productions and leaves you wanting more. I guess that's all you can ask. They can only make so many films a year.

Man on Film: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

In the latest release from the "Freaks and Geeks" sect of the Apatow clan, Jason Segel follows in Seth Rogen's footsteps and tries his hand at screenwriting. The resulting film is one which certainly measures up well to the latter's "Superbad" and assuages the fears of the reactionary Apatow fans who worried that a drop-off in quality was already underway. For the doubters, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" serves as a reminder that when "Freaks and Geeks" people are involved in the creation of Judd Apatow productions the end product will be of the highest quality.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" follows the downtrodden protagonist, Peter, the composer for a comically horrible CSI-style show, as he tries to cope with having been dumped by the star of the show, the titular Sarah Marshall. In an effort to get over his relationship, he decides to escape to a resort in Hawai'i that she had spoken of before. When he gets there, he sees that Sarah is also there, and she is with a new man.

Any more talk of the plot would be futile. If you've seen any romantic comedies, you can tell where the film is going. The plot is not the important part of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". This is a character-driven film. From the leads to the supporting cast, the film is brimming over with great characters, like Paul Rudd's sunbaked surf instructor, Chuck, Jonah Hill's gay fanboy waiter, Matthew, or Da'Vone McDonald's sea turtle enthusiast/bartender, Dwyane. Of particular note, though, is Billy Baldwin, who channels the spirit of David Caruso to great effect in his cameo as the TV detective in Sarah Marshall's show. His one-liners are priceless, especially his play on frozen treats.

The true test of the film is whether or not the film is funny, and it is. The comedy is fresh; the jokes are funny; and the audience is given a film that is not simply stock moments with stock reactions. It is not your typical romantic comedy. It plays on awkwardness. It embraces pain. There are three full-frontal nude shots of Jason Segel, all in uncomfortable situations.

Honestly, I think this film works better than last summer's hit "Superbad". While "Superbad" was great, there seems to be a depth to this film that "Superbad" did not reach. It does explore relationships in an adult manner, showing instances in which the disintegration of the relationship is not simply one person's fault, even if that isn't the crux of the film.

And lastly, what Peter's depression culminates into is outstanding.

All in all, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a great comedy, which is certain to have one particular line involving the letters B, L, and T repeated around the world.