The Little Hours (4/5 Stars)

Ostensibly “The Little Hours” is based on “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio. This 14^th century work concerned a group of ten women who relocated to the country to wait out the bubonic plague. To entertain themselves, they each tell a story. There is only one rule: don't make it depressing like the plague. This movie is more likely to have been inspired by one of the short stories as opposed to actually adapted from it. I don’t know much about the actual short story except that it involved a convent of horny nuns and their adventures with the new gardener. That more or less happens in “The Little Hours,” but there is plenty here that is most likely anachronistic. Then again, there is also plenty here that isn’t anachronistic. And more than anything, the choices that Writer/Director Jeff Baena makes as to what to stay historically faithful to and what to not care too much about changing are what makes “The Little Hours” a superior movie and yes, very funny.

What stays the same is the general context of 14^th century Italy, specifically the Tuscan countryside where the convent is located. I know something about the context because of recently reading Will Durant’s “The Story of Civilization, Volume 5: The Renaissance”. (I may have been the only one  in the theater keenly aware of the historical context of one character’s paranoid obsession with Guelfs.) The characters, being of 14^th century Italy, and unaware of a brighter future with far more freedom, respond to their situations in historically correct ways. One particular nun, when told by her visiting father that the family’s money is tight and she probably won’t get a promised dowry (and thus dashing her hopes of someday leaving the convent to marry), is disappointed but does not get angry or disobedient. Although such a response would be unheard of today (just like it would be unheard of for any daughter to be forced into a convent for monetary reasons in the first place), it is this type of detail that provides the basis of catharsis later on in the story. This story, after all, is about life finding its way through the strictures of not just physical but psychological repression. That repression, though outdated, must remain heavy and the characters must believe in it for the movie to truly succeed. When successfully providing the basis for the reality of the movie, it provides high stakes for certain reveals that in this day and age nobody would care about. Those high stakes seen through a modern consciousness are quite funny. At the height of one particular comedic moment, I heard a sizable gasp in the audience (and onscreen) when one character accuses another character of being a Jew. (Gasp!)

What is changed is plenty. For one thing, although this is Italy, there are no accents and there is noone speaks like Shakespeare. The script is tailored not to the prose of “The Decameron” but to the comedic attributes of its very good cast of talented comedians. In supporting roles are the men. John C. Reilly plays a good-hearted pastor with a weakness for wine. Fred Armisen plays a traveling bishop who functions like a spiritual auditor (more in an accountant way than an inquisitor way). Nick Offerman plays the previously mentioned monarch obsessed with Guelfs. In the main roles are three of the most talented young female comedians around. First is Alison Brie (“Community”) the aforementioned girl who wants to leave the convent and marry but whose family decides is not worth the dowry. Next is Aubrey Plaza (“Parks and Recreation”) whose dead-pan bluntness and sullen rebelliousness makes her the perfect candidate for witchcraft. Finally is a new-comer (at least to me), one Kate Micucci, who is a comedic revelation. If the convent plays a little like high school with Alison as the rich girl and Aubrey as the goth girl, Kate is the unformed slightly nerdy girl that just wants to fit in with the rest of them. Although the characters are of the 14th century, the movie takes a purely modern and secular view of certain taboos (homosexuality, celibacy, drug-use, etc.). For example, witchcraft is not so much about being evil as it is about dancing naked in the woods on drugs. The witches are not unlike modern hippies.

Surrounded by all these colorful characters is Dave Franco, the humble gardener whose presence in the convent excites all of the repressed nuns. Dave wisely plays the straight man to the craziness abounding around him and never really goes for the laughs himself. That’s fine, because the story is driven by the women in it, and it is their choices as it pertains to the gardener (some of which can be decidedly categorized as sexual harassment) that reveal each of their well-rounded characters.

A movie like “The Little Hours” could not have been made before the digital revolution in movies. It is way too niche and obviously would be very difficult to market in any mass market type of way. If however you stumble upon it, give it a shot. I thought it was hilarious.

The Lobster (4/5 Stars)

“The Lobster” is such an original movie that to describe it would necessarily require a comprehensive rehashing of the plot. I simply cannot say it is like some other movie you know. But to not rehash the entire movie and only focus on the beginning would also be to sell itself short because one of the more interesting characters (Rachel Weisz) is only introduced halfway through and what happens with her and the main character, i.e. the Lobster (Colin Farrell) is more interesting than what happens in the first half. But for the second part to make any sense, one needs to understand the first part, and I can’t do that without giving it all away. So just take my word for it: Rachel Weisz is great in this movie and I can’t tell you why.

It starts with The Lobster checking into the Hotel on the Seashore next to a Forest away from the City. He has been recently divorced. The Hotel, a creature of the State, will allow him to stay for 45 days to find himself a mate. If he doesn’t they will turn him into an animal. He gets to choose the animal. He chooses Lobster. It isn’t a completely arbitrary choice. As he explains the animal will live a long time and he likes the sea. So it works in a way. And that in a nutshell is how this movie works (more a miracle the more I think about it). It chooses seemingly arbitrary and bizarre rules to follow and then with a totally straight face follows them without flinching. The result is an sincere, engrossing, and surprisingly consistent romantic comedy. And it is a romantic comedy as strange as that may sound when applied to a movie such as this.

No State in the known world would ever force people to find a mate within 45 days before turning them into an animal. And that is likely because no state in the known world deals with the kind of hopelessly anti romantic people that inhabit this movie. Colin Farell along with his new guy friends John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw do not want to be turned into animals. Neither do the females at the Hotel. But at the same time there seems to be an unwritten rule that couples need to have a unique trait in common. Ben Whishaw has a limp. John C. Reilly has a lisp. There is this really hot girl who eventually gets turned into a pony because she can’t find anyone else who has great hair.

The Hotel has seminars and mixers in which relationships are promoted in the least appetizing way possible. There is a rule against masturbating in the hotel and the maids, as part of their job desciption, are to dry hump the guests (but not to climax) in order to stimulate them to find mates amongst the other guests. As Colin Farrell understatedly intones, “Awful, just awful.”

If this is a satire on something I don’t know what that could possibly be and honestly I do not really care. I don’t want to think there is an agenda behind this movie. If there were it would be a stupid way to push it because nothing in here has anything to do with reality. The only way it works is by its own rules all by itself. And encapsulated as such, it sets its rules out clearly follows them steadfastly and exploits them for humorous and romantic effect.

To make matters more interesting, the outcasts of this mandatory romantic society are a guerilla band of loners who carry out terrorist missions targeted to break up the couples at the retreat. The guests at the hotel are given tranquilizer guns and every once in a while bussed to the woods where they can earn an extra day for each loner they capture. There is a heartless woman guest (played by Aggeliki Papoulia) that is particularly adept at hunting other human beings. She is at 158 days currently. Hilarity and Tragedy ensues when The Lobster tries to woo her by pretending to be heartless as well.

The movie is filled end to end with interesting details: for example when the loners celebrate they listen to electronic music with headphones. That way even when they are celebrating together they dance alone. And in the city, a person shopping alone can be stopped by the police and asked for their marriage certificate. The movie was directed by Yorgos Lathimos and also co-written by him. He is obviously a type of insane.

Anchoring the movie is Colin Farrell who has turned into a special actor. I remember him quite well as someone I would point out as rather bad (or at least miscast). He was doing these great epic roles (Alexandar, The New World, Miami Vice) and doing them, frankly, not so well. But then he had a career turnaround in “In Bruges,” in which he played a down and out suicidal loser who, quite importantly, had the same accent as his very own Irish brogue. It was a revelation. His true calling was not as blockbuster hero. It was as a loser and he has excelled in that role ever since. His turn in “True Detective: Season 2,” “Seven Psychopaths,” and most importantly this movie prove that he is at his best playing broken men. Colin Farrell brings a pathos and honest humor to this character that seems entirely tuned to him. This is his best role and I would argue an Oscar nomination for it.

Rachel Weisz, as we all know and I hope I have written about before, is great and a very big movie girlfriend of mine. I wish I could tell you what she does in this movie without giving away the last half of the movie except to say, like everything she does, it is perfect. (I never got to rave about her comedic performance in “The Brothers Bloom” but for fucks sake wasn’t that revelatory). She’s worthy of a great romantic gesture. I’ve said too much already.

John C. Reilly rises to the occasion again as a welcome competent face in a movie totally out there with no money backing it. I’m reminded a little bit of his work in “Cedar Rapids.” He is a great team player. Also there is Lea Seydoux playing against type as queen of the loners given she is currently one of the sexiest women in movies (Blue is the Warmest Color, Mission Impossible). Then there is Ben Whishaw who is also very good. Everybody in this movie, amazingly, is very good at playing people who do not resemble humans in a world that does not resemble reality. It’s great acting drawn from great directing and writing by Yorgos Lathimos who, as I related before, is probably insane. Anyway I vote for an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay, the key word being Original. Want a cold breath of fresh air in your movie going experience. Go see “The Lobster.”

The Guardians of the Galaxy (4/5 Stars)

Our Hero, the Awesome Chris Pratt, lands his intergalactic spaceship on a desperate and dangerous alien landscape. He steps into a derelict and cavernous ancient cathedral overgrown with dangerous fauna. Chris Pratt puts on his Walkman and plays his “Awesome Mix Tape #1.” The song, played loud and funky is “Come and Get Your Love,” by Redbone. And to this tune, the opening credits of our movie come on the screen as Chris Pratt dances and shuffles through the many dangers of his archeological mission. That’s when I knew I was watching something new, something interesting, and most importantly something undeniably fun. And you know what, it was.  

Until now, I have not heard of the Marvel comic “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Apparently it is rather recent comic without much of a fan base. There are no recognizable characters. The team consists of a Firefly-esque band of misfits that have come together to do fun outlaw stuff, mostly salvage jobs. The leader is Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), a human who was abducted by aliens when he was a just a little kid in 1988. This particular back-story is a boon to people like me who are somewhat turned off by the complete arbitrariness of most way into the future science fiction. The most obvious perk of the story happening basically in current day even if we never see Earth is the soundtrack. It comes from the Walkman containing his Awesome Mix tape that young Peter was carrying when he was abducted. It has got Marvin Gaye, David Bowie, and even Blue Swede. These songs reflect good taste on the part of Peter’s mother who made the tape for him before she died of cancer. I was surprised and delighted that “Cherry Bomb” by The Runaways got an extended play over one of those getting-for-battle montages. It’s a killer song. Then there is the marvelous pair of digital creations Rocket Raccoon and Groot. They are originally a pair of bounty hunters. Rocket Raccoon is the product of a mad scientist who turned a raccoon into a living, breathing, sarcastic as all hell, and complete with a snarly Napoleaonic complex. Bradley Cooper voices Rocket Raccoon. Admittedly, I could not recognize him in the voice. Groot is, I guess, an Ent, a walking tree. Vin Diesel voices him in what can be safely be said is an underwritten role. All Groot can say is “I am Groot.” Although, he is a bit like Chewbacca in that apparently the Raccoon can interpret his connotations perfectly. These two characters are not muppet sideshows. They are so well conceived and artistically put together that after awhile I realized that I had forgotten that I wasn’t simply watching actual actors. We are at a point in movie technology where these characters are alive. It is an extraordinary to watch and given the progress I would think this might be the last time I comment on how well it is done. From now on, perhaps I’m going to judge these performances just how I would judge a human performance. On a very basic level what has been have achieved is a blurring of the distinction between the two. Joining the party late is the Pro Wrestler Dave Bautista as Drax. He does a very convincing job of being big and dumb and completely incapable of grasping metaphors. Finally there is Zoe Saldana painted dark green this time as a fierce warrior of some sort. She is the serious one of the bunch because you know she’s a woman.

The plot of this story is arbitrary and absurd and quite frankly really comparable to some truly awful movies like John Carter of Mars and the like. There are bunches of people with weird names in weirdly named places you’ve never heard of and they are trying to get this weapon that is going to kill everybody unless Peter Quill and the gang get it first. Motivations come and go easily for the people and not much makes sense in that annoying Science Fiction way you know where because it takes place in a far off place you don’t have to worry about making any of the technology realistic or plausible. But guess what? I did not care. I just did not care. Because what this movie does good it does awesomely great and I could forgive all the absurdity because the movie never really asked me to take it all that seriously. What it asked me to do was have fun and then it provided great music, good jokes, quirky characters, but above all abosolutely stunning things to look at.

The design of this movie is truly Oscar worthy effort. It is hard to assess who is exactly responsible for what. When you look up the crew on IMDB you are faced with the fact that hundreds of people have worked on the movie. But here are couple of names of the people in charge: Charles Wood of Production Design, Ray Chan of Art Direction, Alexandra Byrne of Costume Design, and whoever was in charge of makeup. There has not been a movie so vibrant and fun to look at since “The Fifth Element.” This movie makes use of a comic color palette. The prison jumpsuits are bright yellow. Several characters are of light blue and hot pink and orange hue.  My favorite design has to be the makeup of a character named Nebula (Karen Gillan). Now that is a sexy blue robot (I think she is a robot, maybe). If the makeup and hairstyling of this movie doesn’t win an Oscar I have no idea what I’m talking about. At one point I was looking forward to seeing new characters being introduced just to see what they looked like. What was better about Benecio Del Toro’s part in this movie? His performance or his white suit and hair?

This movie was directed by James Gunn and partially written by him too. I have not seen anything else he has done but given the size of these blockbusters, it is hard to say (and probably shouldn’t be said) that this is his movie. This is a corporate movie and as a corporate movie it has certain plusses and minuses. It does not, cannot have the personal touch that small movies have. But it does have the ability to apply lots of money for the employment of hundreds of artisans and designers. “Guardians of the Galaxy,” is a persuasive argument that summer tent-pole blockbusters can be worth the money spent to make it not just profit-wise but also in artistic merit. Yes, corporate movies can be quirky, original, and fun too. Attidude is all, i.e. the courage to play “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede in a science fiction movie and have faith that the audience is going to like it enough to ignore how the whole setup is completely absurd. Such courage in very expensive projects is rare but take a look, it exists. 

We Need to Talk About Kevin (3/5 Stars)

What fresh hell is this?

It is hard to talk about “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” because it is not really a movie about something. It has a fragmented structure that jumps freely around a pivotal event at a local high school in which a teenager named Kevin takes his favorite bow and arrow and lets loose quite a few notches into his fellow classmates. We see Kevin as a little child showing many warning signs of his coming infamy. And we see him in jail afterwards but only when visited by family. And we never really see the massacre as it is happening because the movie is not about Kevin. It is about his mother.

Kevin is seen entirely through his mother’s eyes, and in those eyes, he is and has been an evil bastard ever since the day he was born. He wouldn’t stop crying as a baby, he was defiantly opposed to potty training as a toddler, and was prone to sadistic pranks on his mother and little sister up until he finally murdered a bunch of people. This movie is absorbing and unsettling in its moments, but as a whole lacks an arc. There is plenty here that a student of film can learn about composing memorable shots or creating unspoken tension in a scene, but I can’t recommend the movie as a story. Enjoy it in the moment is all I can say.

Tilda Swinton plays Kevin’s mother, Eva, in a state of almost continual mental exhaustion. Several different actors at various states play Kevin, Ezra Miller most memorably as the teenager. It is anybody’s guess whom is to blame for Kevin’s sociopathic tendencies, but it is clear that Eva is more than ambivalent about being a mother, not that even she deserved a kid like Kevin. The kid seemed to hate her even before he should have known of her dislike.

As I said, this movie exists entirely in the moment, and there are some great ones here. There is a nice scene when baby Kevin won’t stop his infernal wailing and Eva actually pauses near a jackhammer on the street just so she can get some respite from the sound. Then there is this almost uncanny ability of the director, Lynne Ramsey, to make food look and sound really disgusting. Behold how Kevin makes a jelly sandwich or the consistency of the oatmeal poured into the sink. And I suggest waiting a day before eating scrambled eggs after seeing this movie. Finally Ramsey has composed some really nice shots that would look great as posters. Take the look of Tilda Swinton after she has given birth, or hiding in the supermarket, or staring at her vandalized home smeared in red paint. It is a memorable performance made pretty special by the way Swinton is framed and edited. Should Tilda have gotten an Oscar Nomination? Yes, I think she probably should have.

But as I said, the movie though unpredictable in chronological structure is predictable in the sense that the characters do not change. Kevin is always a little sociopath and the movie is just one scene after another in which he is inconsiderate and frighteningly hateful toward his mother. I do not know, perhaps some people are just like that without explanation. A pretty good question may be why Kevin did not kill his mother as well on that fateful day. Well, perhaps living the life she leads afterward, shunned by society and receiving little else but curses and dirty looks, is a fate even worse than death. Tilda sure seems to play it that way and Kevin seems smart enough to know it.

Cedar Rapids (4/5 Stars)

What happens in Cedar Rapids, stays in Cedar Rapids.

There’s a tendency to think of insurance sales as a nondescript profession and insurance salesmen as stereotypical nondescript people. There’s also a tendency to think of Iowa as a nondescript state. Besides political primaries and corn what else is there? Cedar Rapids happens to be the second biggest city in Iowa. Des Moines, the capital, is top dog. (Although according to inside information I have from a Cedar Rapids native, it is definitely the better city as Des Moines is full of pretentious d-bags.) Enter Tim Lippe, played by Ed Helms, an insurance salesman who has never left his even smaller Iowan town of Brown Valley but is attending for the first time the big insurance sales convention in Cedar Rapids. His excitement is palpable. The hotel the convention is being held in has a pool inside of it. Wow! The best thing about this movie is that it takes all these people that we tend to have a preconceived notion of plain vanilla boringness with and crafts funny, likable, but nevertheless believable characters. I’ve always known in some vague speculation that there are insurance salesmen in Iowa. Well here they are cracking jokes, drinking in excess, and having sex. You know just like real ordinary people. Who knew?

What this movie is, above all, is a Coming-of-Age story. Forget that Tim Lippe is middle-aged; he has spent his entire life in the small town of Brown Valley and is experiencing the big city for the first time. He’s never been on a plane and takes it very seriously that he is in the emergency exit row. When the city’s sole prostitute, Bree (Alia Shawkat), approaches him outside the hotel, asks him for a cigarette, and lets him know that she is down for a party, he thanks her for her friendliness, explains he doesn’t smoke, and offers her a butterscotch candy instead. When he meets his roommate, Ronald (played by Isaiah Whitlock Jr.) he is legitimately surprised that he would be black. He also happens to be completely oblivious that most of the other conventioneers view the experience as a chance to take a vacation and let loose for a change. Tim Lippe on the other hand has a mission. He is on direct orders from his boss to give a presentation that will win the coveted Two Diamonds award. This award stands for ethics, good work, and godliness. In order to accomplish this, his boss gives him one more direction helpful direction: Stay away from Dean Ziegler. A glitch in the hotel room accommodations however allows Tim and Ronald to upgrade to a Junior Suite on the condition that they get another roommate. That third roommate is Dean Ziegler.

The “Deansy” (an affectionate nickname self-given), played by John C. Reilly, is a welcome invasion of constant one-liners and crass buffoonish behavior. You know this person from somewhere. He’s the type of immature loudmouth who makes up for his impolite garish persona with an extremely egalitarian view of friendship. Namely, he’s the type of person who will be friends with anyone who will take shots with him. These types of people, though immature and reckless, happen to lend life a certain sparkle. Who else will convince you to take a swim in the indoor pool (which closed at 11pm) at 3 am in the morning? This complete lack of self-consciousness is on full display in one great comedic scene when The Deansy decides to have a serious heart to heart with Tim and it never occurs to him to think of putting on a shirt first. As he is describing how to dance with the tiger (a loose metaphor for the insurance business) his ample gut his is in full view swaying as it were quite noticeably during his remarkably physical explanation. Here is a man eminently comfortable with himself. John C. Reilly should be commended for his self-less virtuoso performance. Rounding out the gang is Joan, played by Anne Heche, a married woman who is intent on letting what happens in Cedar Rapids stay in Cedar Rapids and Ronald, played by Isaiah Whitlock Jr. who is quite conservative but does have his guilty pleasures. For instance he collects antiques and does a pretty good impression of “Omar” from his favorite TV show HBO’s “The Wire.” Guess which one you get to see him do when the shit gets real.

Movies that employ a good amount of believable, funny, and likable characters tend to attract an accomplished list of supporting actors. This movie is no different. Here we have Sigourney Weaver (Alien, Aliens, Alien 3), Kurtwood Smith (Red from That 70s Show), Alia Shawkat (Maybe from Arrested Development), Rob Corddry (Daily Show, Hot Tub Time Machine), and Stephen Root (No Country for Old Men, Dodgeball) filling in the background of the scenes. All of them have their moments. Nobody in this movie is a huge star but that’s almost required given the subject material. A-list stars don’t really look like insurance salesmen. This you can verify for yourself during the many funny scenes of bare-ass nudity in the picture. Even Anne Heche has some curves where Hollywood Producers usually don’t allow them to be (still good looking). The director Miguel Arteta doesn’t even seem to have any qualms about shooting Ed Helms in a way that captures his double chinniness. That too is kind of a rare thing in movies.   

One strength and weakness of this movie is that it never gets too wacky or surreal. Nothing happens during the weekend of craziness that couldn’t actually happen at a convention. In this way the Comedy never rises to that level of ecstasy, which occurs only when watching the truly ridiculous or shocking things happen. So even though the laughs are consistent, this really isn’t a top-tier comedy. However, because Comedy never overtakes Reality, the characters and story are granted a certain amount of gravity. The screenplay, written by Phil Johnston, is not a satire. The writer actually seems to know a good deal about insurance and Iowa and declines to directly make fun of either. One scene deals with Joan subversively signing up Tim to do karaoke. He decides to sing an insurance sales parody of ‘O Holy Night.’ It’s full of inside jokes and technical language that I’m sure only insurance salesman would fully understand and enjoy. But you should get the jist of it and it should still be quite enjoyable. (Ed Helms: not a bad singer by the way). Tim Lippe may be naïve but the movie is on his side and his Coming-of-Age is infused with a sort of simple dignity. I was reminded about all the best characteristics of “The Office,” and especially that one scene where Michael Scott comments on Pam’s painting at her first art show and simply states, “That is our building…and we sell paper.” Tim Lippe is from the small town of Brown Valley. He sells insurance.

Cyrus (4/5 Stars) July 6, 2010

Comedy on a shoestring budget

Cyrus is the title character of the new comedy by writers/directors Mark and Jay Duplass. It stars John C. Reilly as a man in a post-divorce funk that finally meets the woman, Marissa Tomei, who might just revitalize his life. The only problem is that Tomei has a grown son named Cyrus, played by Jonah Hill, who is, to put it mildly, a bit territorial about his mother’s affections. What results is a sort-of skewed love triangle that starts off in the territory of awkward situations and polite laughs and then veers into the country of outright hostility and comedic threats before settling into a safe conclusion. 

All of it is pretty funny, but the most inspiring and at the same time limiting thing about this movie is the budget. Mark and Jay Duplass seem to have nothing but a camera and some editing equipment to their name. They have no sets, no special effects, no costumes, and no sound effects. The big splurge seems to be the hiring of the cast and the extras for the wedding scene. Other than that the most technically audacious shot is the outside of a car driving down the freeway. In fact, I would venture to bet that the Catherine Keener character, Reilly’s ex-wife, who works as a movie editor is probably using the very computer equipment that the Duplass’s used in post-production of this movie. (I don’t have any evidence. It’s just a hunch. I also think the guy in “Paranormal Activity” used his computer to edit his movie also. Another hunch). The point of all this, of course, is to implore any would be writers and directors with nothing but a camera to go out and watch this movie. There is very little stopping you from doing exactly what the Duplass’s did: Produce a pretty good movie with almost no budget. 

Since the makers of this movie were limited by the ways they could tell the story, they have focused on two very important things that don’t really cost a thing: Writing and Performances. Almost the entire movie is simply people talking, most of the time within one location, Tomei’s and Cyrus’ house. The fact that the movie succeeds on being entertaining the entire time is a testament to both. If you want to see a movie that has everything but Writing and Performances you can watch “Date Night.” That had an enormous budget and utterly failed to be funny. It just goes to show that Comedy is not something that you can throw money at. It is one of the only two genres that are budget irrelevant. (The other is horror, but only because those people have absolutely no standards). 

It’s well known that Oscar nominees John C. Reilly, Marissa Tomei, and Catherine Keener are fine actors, so it isn’t a surprise that they all do a good job in this movie. Only quibble I have is that Tomei is too good-looking to the point where it becomes almost unbelievable that she would fall so hard for a guy with a mug like John C. Reilly. I’m not just being a jerk, Reilly agrees with me. One of his funniest lines is, “Are you flirting with me. I’m like Shrek. What are you doing out here in the forest with Shrek?” It may have been a better idea to cast someone who looked a little more like Reilly but you know I don’t really care all that much. I’m not about to be that hard on an actress because she looks too good. (Now that I think more about it, I feel stupid for even mentioning it.)

The revelation in this movie is that Jonah Hill has some acting chops. He is usually cast as a bombastic blowhard that yells all his lines, but in this movie he takes on much more mature, sensitive, and subversive. The result is a character unlike any he has ever played. Since I enjoy comparing Hill’s career arc with Michael Cera’s as much as I like comparing Matt Damon’s with Ben Affleck’s I will conclude that with this movie, Hill has nudged a lead over his Superbad partner. Whereas Cera is consistently a lead in big movies, he has always played a variation of the same role. Jonah Hill on the other hand has taken on a varied amount of supporting roles and in the meantime seems to have become a more rounded actor. Finally, he has shown a willingness to appear in little movies like this one in order to play roles that should allow him to break his Superbad typecast as an angry loudmouth. The result is his best performance yet. Let’s just see what Cera in the upcoming Scott Pilgrim v. the World has to say about that. 

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 01/03/08

Once again I fear my impatience and anticipation of a movie has hurt my viewing pleasure. Damn you YouTube, they just had so much of this movie on it before I could see it in the theatres. I'm trying right now to remember how much I laughed before I saw the movie and then try to wrap that in with the mediocre to good experience I had at it. 
Here's are the plot jokes I was already aware of: I had seen all of the first ten minues, I knew he'd lose his smell, that he would get into rehab many times, that he would have scores of illegitimate children, that it would closely mirror Johnny Cash, and the songs Walk Hard and Let's Duet in their entirety. That takes out alot and most of it was gold. so keep that in mind.
The songs are great mostly. There are three very good ones, and three good ones. So as far as musicals go, this would be a three star movie (out of four). As a spoof of Walk the Line and Ray it also works well, the problem is that this movie is too good to be a spoof and the jokes that merely parody the biopics are the letdowns.
I think this movie could have been better if they had made it more serious, or less serious. I'll explain. John C. Reilly is a great actor and so are most of the cast in this movie (There must have been 10-15 comedians I could recognize, the ensemble in this movie was enormous). They bring a real human dimension to the story, so when the story is so way over the top and farcical they don't really fit together. Also this story has no straight character. In every comedy that is an essential part. It's important because it gives the movie an anchor, someplace the comedy can base itself around. If anything goes, than nothing does. Take the LSD trip for instance. Since its obvious we've entered another dimension are we supposed to be surprised when Dewey lifts a car with only his underwear on. After the first five minutes when the two kids played chicken with a tractor and a bull I was expecting things like that. They either should have toned down the way out of the park jokes or not had any tender moments of real human emotion.
I'll give here a note about shock humor: It's not neccessarily where you go, it's where you haven't been. One joke that fell particularly flat was thus: Darlene (the beloved Jenna Fischer) says to Dewey paraphrased "I know we can't do it because were not married but sometimes I still feel the need for a man's touch. And when I say that I mean a penis in my vagina." okay, I could definitely see how that could be shock funny. Unfortunately it wasn't the first time they had told that joke in the movie. In an earlier scene the movie had gone even farther by actually showing male genitalia in the background of a shot for a significant period of time. When Darlene sputtered her line it didn't elicit any laughter whatsoever because the shock was gone and there wasn't any joke left. For examples of funny curses look at "South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut," or "Kingpin," or even "Superbad.' In each of these movies there is a straight character (third grade kids, Amish dude, Michael Cera) that doesn't curse. So when they finally do, it is actually quite funny. A comedy with lots of shock humor needs a firm basis of where the funny can start so there are places where the shock can go. Walk Hard started with a kid chopping his brother in half with a machete. The rest of the movie consisted of the story vainly trying to keep up.