Man on Film: Goon

To qualify the Jay Baruchel/Evan Goldberg-penned Goon as anything less than surprising would be a vast understatement. Perhaps a bit of this initial reaction owes to the fact that Goon came and went in a whisper. When it opened--and perhaps we should utilize a different word entirely, as it "opened" in 241 theaters, and I'm guessing exactly zero of those theaters had it playing on multiple screens--I saw Jay Baruchel and Seann William Scott on two talk shows. I think. Then again, the $4,088,686 that it did at the box office makes it the sixth-highest grossing film that Magnolia Pictures has ever released, so I guess this is all to be expected.

So, yes, it is highly likely that you have not heard of this flick.

When sitting down with my boys and deciding what to watch on demand, it didn't take long to settle on an R-rated sports comedy. We only knew it was about a hockey goon and who wrote it. Almost instantaneously, we were laughing our asses off so hard that we were missing lines and rewinding the film to re-watch sequences.

Seann William Scott plays Doug Glatt a bouncer-cum-enforcer who draws the attention by kicking the shit out of a hockey player who climbs out of the penalty box to attack his mouthy friend, Ryan, played by Baruchel. Incensed at hearing the player hurling the epithet 'faggot' at Ryan, Doug--whose brother is gay--takes on the player with his thorough drubbing of the Artestian foil culminating in Doug head-butting the helmeted player and shattering the helmet. This episode gets at the beauty of the film. Goon is lewd to say the least, but, in Doug, Baruchel and Goldberg have penned a lead who is capable of excessively brutal violence but does so with an ingrained sense of honor that allows for the violence to be committed with a modicum of redemption and justification. Doug is a simple man--innocent, honorable, selfless, and protective. He is sweet at his core. It is easy to like Doug.

But it's not just Doug that works here. Like many of the best sports movies, Goon takes place in the world of minor league sports. The buses are shitty. The sport is essentially lawless. The money is nonexistent. Minor league and semi-pro sports sit on the fringe of society. This world is inherently more interesting than the lush life of a full-fledged professional athlete, and it is much more fruitful in the realm of comedy. The world of Goon is both interesting and fun.

To speak more of this film without paying Seann William Scott his due would be doing him a disservice. He is the heart of this film. If Doug isn't likable, Goon fails. He isn't simply likable. He is a noble brute, a kind soul, and a selfless warrior. He imbues Doug with an innocence and sincerity that plays spectacularly well. The film would still be funny without this, but it wouldn't be nearly as affective without it.

While the character of Doug Glatt is a large ingredient in the success of the film, it has plenty of other things going for it. Baruchel is almost impossibly lewd. The violence is uproariously funny. Liev Schreiber is great as the elder goon, serving as both Doug's inspiration and a vision of his future. When all is said and done, Goon is director Michael Dowse's second comedy in a year that is better than expected following on the heels of Take Me Home Tonight.

Man on Film: Cop Out

Randomly having decided to take in a movie Sunday night, we went out to Cop Out with open minds.

Holy shit was it bad.

It's not like I don't get what the Cullen Brothers were trying to do when they wrote the movie. It's clear they were trying to make a buddy cop movie paying homage to the Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop franchises. What those movies (especially the first in each series) had, though, were solid screenplays. They had plots. They had laughs.

This? Pretty thin on all of that.

Really, with the exception of Seann William Scott, there wasn't anything to like. Bruce Willis seemed like he was mailing it in (and I'm a big fan of Bruce Willis) and had a shit character to start with. Tracy Morgan's schtick wore thin after about 90 seconds. The next 90 minutes were interminable. Kevin Pollack was terrible. Guillermo Diaz was horribly miscast as the Mexican gang boss. Zero gravitas.
Also, someone decided that it was a good time to give Harold Faltermeyer work again. Look, I fucking love Fletch and Beverly Hills Cop. I love their scores, too.

But there was a time and a place, and it's not 2010. It didn't work in Kuffs or Tango & Cash. Why would it work now?

But what it all really boils down to is that there are not enough laughs. It's a buddy cop comedy that's supposed to hearken back to a better time in which buddy cop movies delivered both on the action and the laughs and fails on both counts. And I could go on from here, but really, what's the point? If it fails miserably at what it's trying to do, then it's a failure, right?

I had some hope for Kevin Smith after the surprisingly enjoyable Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but that goodwill has been spent, even if he wasn't the screenwriter.

Comments and Answers

Since there are so few comments on this little-read blog, I'll take this time to answer/respond to some of them.

"Weibel" just posed the question as to whether reading The Old Ball Game will make him better at fantasy baseball. Well, "Weibel"--if that is your real name--no, it won't. But it will help you appreciate the game more through exploring its origins, if that's any consolation.

"Weibel" also in the midst of his quest to become this blog's most prized reader--yes, I rate you all on scales of importance and frequency of visits like an internet Santa--heaped praises upon Rachel Weisz. I generally like her, but her character was so mean to the Greatest Chiefs' Fan, Paul Rudd, in The Shape of Things that I have a hard time looking at her now. As for Jessica Biel, the writers of this blog are very fond of her. Very fond indeed.

"Ryan" said that he knew that I wanted to head to the House on the Rock. I have actually been there before, although I'd not object to going again. The distance between here and there is insurmountable for the time being. I am working on building a pair of wings. That should solve that. Or I'll die.

Yes, "Little Brother", "The IT Crowd" is awesome. Thanks for the head's up.

There were three comments on the Role Models portion of the two-reviews-in-one-post. I'll address them in bullet points:

• I did used to dislike Seann William Scott, Weibel--your frequency of commenting has absolved you from the quotes; congratulations (and, yes, I used a fucking semicolon there)--but in recent years my distaste for him has waned as the memory of the shitheap that was the American Pie franchise gets more and more distant in the [cracked] rearview.
• Little Brother--your contributions to this blog are not lost on me either, nor is your blood relation, hence the quotation mark disappearance--I, too, found the SWS character more likeable than Rudd's.
  
• KRD--OK, so I've abandoned the use of quotes now; but not semicolons; I guess I have to do my part to the abuse that Cormac McCarthy has committed against the English language, and it begins in this post--I think Ryan Reynolds is really funny. Do you really want me to explain why Wet Hot is so funny? Well, I'll first absolve you from eternally landing on some imaginary shitlist of mine by telling you that it's all right. You don't have to like Wet Hot American Summer. If you want to know why it's funny to me, I'd have to go on for ages while watching it. In brief, Paul Rudd is absolutely hysterical in it. For the entire movie. I'm kind of lukewarm on Michael Showalter in general (and Michael Ian Black, for that matter) but line that his character "Coop" drops when Marguerite Moreau's "Katie" is walking away is a line that I at least think in my head once a week and laugh out loud. How is "I want you inside me" not hilarious? The string of Chris Meloni aggression followed by depraved sexual admissions followed by lame cover-up attempts is fucking great. The training sequence, along with "Higher and Higher" or "Turn Me Loose"--it was one of the two, but I'm pretty sure it was "Higher and Higher"--is pretty damn sweet, too. I could go on. Watch it with a bunch of people. Drunk. They even like Wet Hot American Summer in Portland.

Little Brother, I knew that you'd like that "Fame" clip. Almost as much as we both liked Carl Peterson's resignation.

I'm glad the Cynicism post stirred up some discussion among you three diligent posters. Too bad the other jerks that come here didn't chime in. I know who you are...

So that covers the last twenty posts or so. Anything further back would be so far back that it isn't really worth commenting on. I do read your comments, though, friends. Thanks for making this more of a communal forum than a meaningless stream of my mental masturbation.

Man on Film: Let the Right One In and Role Models

What follows are two untimely, brief reflections on two films that I saw a few weeks ago. Obviously, these films are not exactly fresh in my mind anymore. I probably could have written this stuff up when I was typing up that entirely masturbatory Kuffs entry last week, but I didn't. Maybe Kuffs just needed the more immediate attention. Regardless, here it goes.

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Let the Right One In (or Låt den rätte komma in in Swedish) is first and foremost the best pre-teen vampire movie you will ever see. Its source material was an international bestseller by the same name that was adapted for the screen by the novelist himself, John Ajvide Lindqvist. The story is simple enough: Oskar is a 12-year old brutally bullied outcast who befriends and becomes enamored with a mysterious girl, Eli, who has just moved in next door with her abiding fatherly guardian. Upon their arrival, people start disappearing while a sweet and innocent love blossoms between Oskar and Eli.

Directed by Tomas Alfredson, Let the Right One In deftly balances subtlety and nuance with a generous smattering of suspense while ultimately telling a cute story of love and devotion. The film is very Scandinavian in humor and pacing to go with its wintry climes, and it makes the inspired choice to have many of the onscreen horrors committed by humans, further endearing Eli to the audience.

If you get the chance, it's a great little film that should be seen before the American remake (oh, don't worry, it's already been greenlit--much to Alfredson's chagrin--and is to be helmed by Matt Reeves, the director of Cloverfield) surely tarnishes its name.

If that didn't convince you, maybe the trailer will help:


If you have already seen it, here's a little interview with the director, his diplomatic response to the remake is much more subdued than his initial response at moviezine.se later reported here.

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On an entirely different note, after three attempts I finally got to see Role Models, the latest directorial effort from David Wain of "The State" and "Stella" notoriety who previously directed the superb Wet Hot American Summer and the uneven but occasionally funny The Ten. I'd imagine just about everybody who comes here with any degree of frequency is already well aware of the film, so I'll pare my thoughts down to a reaction more than anything else.

The film was pretty funny. It came highly recommended by two readers here, and their enthusiastic reactions were probably responsible for my lofty expectations, which were not met. The kids didn't bother me, somewhat surprisingly since most kids in comedies tend to come off as too broad and/or precocious in the Cop and a Half/Problem Child/Atonement way--which are not good things if you are an adult. Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd were both funny enough, as were many of the supporting cast. There were diatribes on bullshit Starbucks-inspired coffee sizing and running jokes involving bagel dogs, both of which are topics that are near and dear to my heart. Jane Lynch always surprises me at just how funny she is in that awkward alpha-female role. I think the movie is legitimately funny. It just fell shy of my surely unreasonable expectations--which is pretty much the reason I did not ever bring myself to write an entry on Burn After Reading.