KPOP Demon Hunters (5/5 Stars)

In a blitz of exposition during the first 5-10 minutes of this animated movie you will learn: A K-Pop Girl’s Band Trio named Huntr/x also doubles as secret superheroes that defend the Korean peninsula from underworld demons that suck the souls of its human inhabitants. Huntr/x protects Korea by physically fighting these demons with gleaming blades but also by their golden voices, that when amplified by the adoration of their fans, provides a protective golden aura that saps the strength of the head demon. The moment is nigh when through the power and popularity of an impending hit single “Golden” they will defeat the head demon once and for all.

The Trio is composed of Zooey (voice acted by Ji-Young Yoo, talking, and Rae Ami, singing/rapping), the cute one, Mira (May Hong, talking, Audrey Nuna singing), the emo one, and Rumi (Arden Cho), talking, Ejae singing), the leader. Each is gorgeous in their own way, have the best fashion and live in a skyscraper in Seoul that reminds one of the Stark Tower in Manhattan from the Marvel Universe. At the same time, they like Ramen, crash relaxing on the couch, and adoring their fans.

In a last desperate gambit, the head demon heeds the advice of a cursed man who sold his soul for a golden voice and material comfort over 400 years ago. He points out that the fans are the source of Huntr/x power, so the best way to sap their strength is to form a competing KPOP group. Enter the Saja Boys, a quintet of gorgeous boys, ready to do dance-battle for the hearts and souls of the Koreans.

KPOP Demon Hunters is a prime example of what contrived absurdities a story can get away with when the movie is composed of wall-to-wall great music. Now, I am not a fan of KPOP or much of a fan of pop music in general. But great music, well, you know it when you hear it, and this soundtrack is replete with good to great songs. And I believe that the songs in this movie were made expressly for this movie, which explains why the lyrics all directly relate to the plot. This makes them all eligible for the Best Original Song Oscar. (That category only made sense pre-1970s when original musicals were a popular genre). That category is so weak and the music in this movie so good, it is entirely possible that KPOP Demon Hunters sweeps the nominations to the exclusion of every other movie this year. If I had to choose five songs from this movie, they would be “Takedown”, “How It’s Done”, “Soda Pop”, “Golden”, and “Your Idol.” The winner would be “Golden” which should take over “Let it Go” from Frozen for the most popular karaoke song for a new generation (if it hasn’t already done so). Several times during this movie, I wished that it was live-action so I could watch live performances of these songs. You can do a lot with animation that you can’t do live, but nothing beats watching a real human deliver a musical performance. (Maybe someone like Edgar Wright can remake this movie.) I would watch next year's Oscars just to see these songs performed live.

KPOP Demon Hunters and its songs are in English, with the odd Korean sentence or phrase mingled in here or there. I was surprised when I looked it up on IMDB to find that this was not a Korean movie. All the directors, writers, and voice actors are American and Canadian. They are all Korean of course, but they live over here and are citizens of our country. South Korean culture is a prime example of just how stupid any argument against cultural appropriation is in practice. Because South Korea got to industrialized culture so late (post-1987 when it became a full democracy), almost everything it does has a pre-existing Western inspiration related to it. But it is also very much its own thing and in turn has influenced culture elsewhere. KPOP is such a good example of this normal creative cross-breeding that it is impossible to tell where the creativity begins and ends along racial/class lines. Looking at it one may come away with the common sense conclusion that cultural creativity requires many sources of inspiration and that cultural appropriation is not a crime but a landmark of civilization. You know which culture has remained entirely authentic over the years: North Korea.

Because of when KPOP came into being, its shape and content was noticeably different from the American music industry. The most important distinction is that KPOP came into being post-MTV and music videos. So, the appeal of KPOP has never been solely auditory the way it was in the American experience for its first fifty years (1930-1980). Each song had a music video and, in all practical terms, there wasn’t really a difference between the music video and the song.

The American music industry for its first fifty years didn’t have a mass-produced visual aspect to it. You heard the songs on the radio or on an album. The audience became fans based on what they heard and generally before they saw the band live. For this reason, The Beatles felt no need to get a better looking drummer. It was a great time to be a normal looking musician. As Jack Black said in “School of Rock”, “you could be the ugliest sad sack on the planet, but if you’re in a rocking band, you’re the cat’s pajamas, man.”

MTV and KPOP changed that. If you aren’t gorgeous, you can’t be on stage, sorry. And It also puts more of an onus on dancing, something you can’t really do with a musical instrument. So now we have Boy Bands and Girl Bands, the deliberate product of corporations manufacturing that Beatles appeal, but this time with gorgeous people who can dance. Musicians are still employed in pop music I’ve heard, but they are somewhere in the background, in the orchestra pit, or in the studio writing and recording the songs. Clearly the quality of new music reflects these new priorities. Really, it is a surprise to me whenever I come across something like KPOP Demon Hunters that has an album full of really good songs. I wonder if it has anything to do with its animated style: the creatives have essentially ditched the performers and put out a KPOP product without a KPOP band.

American music fits its culture, or rather counterculture, of a diverse individualistic society. Rocking out is about freedom and sticking it to the man. Jim Morrison of The Doors was on stage for himself, usually stoned, and damn the fans (“You’re all slaves!”). KPOP fits the culture of East Asia which is homogenous and conformist. Huntr/x and Saja Boys appeal to their fans with respectability (a competitive polite-off between the bands raises the biggest laugh of the movie) and they seem to care far more about their fans than any American rock band would dare admit to. The authenticity and sincerity of KPOP or just pop music in general is debatable. It is quite frankly a corporate product meant to appeal to your vanity amongst other base instincts. The appeal of it though is made apparent by KPOP Demon Hunters. The movie is a manufactured fantasy that moves your body and makes you feel good about yourself. Is that a noble purpose? Well, maybe. Would people pay for it? That, now, is beyond debate.

Pain and Gain (4/5 Stars)

You may think you have seen this movie from director Michael Bay before. You may have taken a look at the trailer, noticed the macho men, the strippers, and the conspicuous consumption of fast cars, big houses, flashy clothes. You’ve seen it before glorified and sensationalized in other Bay movies like the “Bad Boys” franchise, “Armageddon,” and the “Transformers” franchise. And yes “Pain and Gain” has all of that but there is a fundamental difference here. “Pain and Gain” does not glorify any of that. Instead it has contempt for the arrogance, greed, and stupidity that all of the above. It’s like Michael Bay grew a conscience about the types of movies he was making or something. There is morality in this picture. This movie, like his previous, is still heavily tasteless of course. It contains gratuitous violence, heavy substance abuse, and a cast largely made up of beefcakes and supermodels, sure, but it is not an amoral movie. The message is clear: The characters being portrayed here are, to borrow a direct quote from the movie, really “fucking dumb,” and the movie quite successfully makes much humor out of their stupidity. That is of course before they get so stupid that people start dying. Then the laughs kind of peter out and one watches the movie in what must be described as a state of awe.

This is a true story. The screenplay was based off of a series of Pete Collins’s news articles in the Miami New Times. Now what does that matter? For anyone who has seen Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” we all know he would gladly and immediately sacrifice the truth if it means he could use more explosions.

(One of my favorite movie critic anecdotes belongs to a man who took it upon himself to listen and rank every single audio commentary in the Criterion Collection. Apparently the best one ever consists of the science advisors from the inexplicable inclusion of Michael Bay’s “Armageddon” sharing anecdotes about how they kept on telling Michael Bay that none of what was on the screen was good science or remotely possible and Michael Bay ignoring their advice in favor of more explosions.)

And it is true that Michael Bay still does not care about the truth. I had the pleasure of looking up the news articles and finding out that about half of what is on screen never happened. But here is the best part: The story is so wacky and bizarre that I bet you would not be able to tell just by watching the movie which parts were made up. You may as well flip a coin for true or false on every unbelievable thing you see. That is after all the reason the real police (as they do in the movie) did not believe the story and refused to investigate even in the face of an incredible amount of evidence left over by really dumb criminals. Imagine my shock when I learned that Michael Bay did not add any explosions. That one explosion happened. It did.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Daniel Lugo, the manager of Sun Gym. He is the type of guy who believes big muscles and the right attitude as opposed to say an education or honest work is the key to success in America. He attends get-rich-quick seminars from a Tony Robbins-like personality named Johnny Wu, played by Ken Jeong. Johnny believes in the American Dream and it isn’t the old 1950s consumerist fantasy of a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, two cadillacs, a wife, and a couple kids. His American Dream is a mansion bigger than your neighbors, a flashy speedboat in addition to a flashy car, and the ability to pick up the most expensive golddiggers at the most expensive strip club. “I had a wife and kids,” says Johnny, “then I stopped being a loser. Now I have seven honies to pick from.” And Johnny points to seven supermodels in the front row. Daniel Lugo nods his head and thinks, “Man, this guy totally gets me.” To my great delight he also references the Al Pacino character in 1983’s Scarface as one of his role models. Like I’ve said before, no other statement in a movie or in real life will so easily certify a person as a Grade-A moron. What is Johnny Woo’s golden advice: “Do be a doer. Don’t be a don’ter.” This mantra will be repeated throughout the movie to justify kidnapping a millionaire, torturing him in a warehouse for several weeks, forcing him to sign over all his assets, and then attempting to murder him. And then doing it again to an unluckier soul once the original money is all gone.

Nobody has played dim more successfully in more good movies than Mark Wahlberg has (Boogie Nights, The Other Guys, Ted) and I’m trying to phrase that in a way that sounds like a compliment to his acting ability. After all playing stupid convincingly requires the intelligence to know why what you are doing is stupid and the humility required with the knowledge you are doing is something stupid. Tack on that the many scenes where Wahlberg is either shirtless or in a kiss the cook apron and I think you can say this is a pretty brave performance. The role of Daniel Lugo could have very easily taken a dark turn and in doing so sacrificed much of the humor in this picture. For instance at one point Daniel Lugo decides it is a good idea to take back a malfunctioning chainsaw to Home Depot for a refund. The chainsaw is malfunctioning because human hair has gotten stuck in the chain. Only halfway through the conversation with the return desk cashier does Lugo realize it might not have been a good idea to return a chainsaw with human hair and blood on it. The scene is macabre but Wahlberg’s performance never allows Lugo to be a more frightening presence than he is a laughable one.

Of course stealing scenes left and right is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in what is perhaps the first and only decent role he has landed in his entire movie career. He plays the third and most innocent wheel of the Sun Gym Gang: a body builder of enormous size and recently sober and born again Christian. He is roped into helping Lugo and his partner Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) because he really needs the money and is dumb enough to believe Lugo when he promises there will no be violence in the operation. The man is a huge contradiction but then again so is Dwayne Johnson, which is at least my theory as to why he has never had a good movie role before. The man is incredibly hard to write for. Because he is such a huge guy, you would think that he would be perfect for action blockbusters. The problem is that he does not have a tough looking face. In fact, it can be described as angelic, which would explain why he has done a lot of children’s movies. So the perfect role for this guy would seem to be a really shy body-builder. And guess what? Pain and Gain is one of those rare movies that contain such a non-cliché character. Dwayne Johnson plays his character with as much humility as Mark Wahlberg. In fact, I would say the action sequences are better characterized as physical comedy routines, especially when Johnson tries to rob an armored car and the bank bag explodes green slime in his face in the midst of a crowded beauty salon. That was funny.

This is Michael Bay’s best movie. It is not totally without flaw however. You may at several points think to yourself, say isn’t this movie running a bit long. Such is always the problem with Michael Bay. He generally does not understand that simply because he can do something with a camera, that it does not mean he should. Each shot taken as itself looks good but there are too many superfluous scenes that taken in whole extend the movie at least a half hour past where it should end. I am still of the belief that one of the best things Michael Bay has done was achieved when he still made commercials. He is after the creator of the first “Got Milk” commercial; a true achievement in how much information can be conveyed in a one-minute time frame. The important thing about this movie though is that Michael Bay limited himself to 25 million dollars and almost no special effects. As such, the movie is far more interesting to watch than the epics of catastrophic proportions known as all his other movies. I swear the more limitations put on the man, the better his movies will be. When he gets several hundred million to make his movie and creative control as well they turn into three hour long gargantuan messes. Pain and Gain succeeds where his other movies fail more because of what he is not doing (focusing on robots and special effects) than what he is doing (characters and story). I hope he makes more small movies in the future.

It is at a time like this when the death of Roger Ebert comes into full focus. Ebert never wrote better reviews than when they were aimed at a Michael Bay feature. I would have loved to read his review of this movie. Perhaps we can imagine his surprise when he found out he did not completely hate it. 

The Hangover: Part II (2/5 Stars)

“10: The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the “Deerslayer” tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.”

- Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses

Comedy happens when somebody gets exactly what they deserve. Tragedy happens when bad things befall good people. If you do not have the ability to grasp this very simple basic difference than you might just be one of the makers of “The Hangover: Part 2,” a movie that discards nearly everything that made Part I a superior comedy and leaves behind a mess of awkwardness, unpleasantness, and a story that, if it took place in the real world, would be really sad.

The original conceit of the first Hangover movie was nothing short of brilliant. Four guys go to Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning, Alan (played by Zach Galifinakis), Stu (played by Ed Helms), and Phil (played by Bradley Cooper) wake up in a trashed hotel room with disastrous hangovers. The groom is missing and nobody can remember where they lost him. But there are several clues around: a hospital band, a receipt from an ATM, a tiger, a chicken, a baby, and a police car. The rest of the movie concerns the three trying to piece together the mystery and meeting many different comic characters along the way. “The Hangover: Part II” follows this formula but in a vastly inferior way. This time it is Stu getting married. The wedding is taking place in Thailand. A couple of nights before the wedding, the four guys plus the bride’s 16-year-old nephew, Terry, have one beer by a campfire. Stu, Alan, and Phil wake-up the next morning with disastrous hangovers in a vagrant apartment in Bangkok and Terry is missing. But instead of a multitude of clues there is but two, a monkey and a severed finger. Both are dead ends and don’t lead to anything. In fact, whenever a clue or lead is finally brought to light it is usually entirely explored in the very next scene. Thus, there is very little mystery to Part II and that is a huge problem both in terms of the movie’s pace and comedy.

One of the more brilliant things about the first movie’s structure was the way it efficiently set up subplots. A clue was shown at the beginning and this gave the movie an excuse to switch tracks from one comic situation to another via some hilarious shock moments. Some good examples are the cops busting into a room, Mike Tyson waiting for the guys in their hotel room, or an Asian gang purposefully ramming the guys’ car. These moments don't exist in Part II because nothing is ever set up. So instead of quick comical transitions we are left with the guys walking around in depressed moods to locations that seem arbitrarily chosen. This movie isn't nearly as intelligent nor as interesting to watch unfold.

But this wouldn’t be nearly as big a problem if the movie were funny. And this is where “The Hangover Part II” inexplicably fails consistently. For one thing, all the characters have turned into jerks. The most notable transformation is Alan. What was a very funny weird but well-meaning oddball in the first movie has turned into a total asshole. He is mean to his parents, his friends, and most notably to Terry, who hasn’t done anything to deserve all the insults. This isn't funny. It's awkward. Generally speaking, a movie should make the audience like the good people in the story and dislike the bad. That way the movie is enjoyable when good stuff happens to the good people and bad stuff happens to the bad. (You would think that this would go without saying). But here there is no difference between the good and bad. They are all assholes. This goes for all the side characters in the sub-plots as well. Where Part I had some variability in the types of people the guys met (like say sweetheart Mike Tyson, heart of gold hooker Heather Graham, macho cop Rob Riggle, the annoyed doctor, etc.) everyone in Part II seems to be slightly different versions of the same jerk. The tattoo guy is a jerk. The Buddhist Monks are jerks. The drug dealers are jerks. The father-in-law is a jerk. The crime boss, played by Paul Giamatti, is a huge snarling screaming jerk. Nobody seems to be having any fun. Even the flashbacks of the night before don't show anybody having fun. The one exception is Mr. Chow, played once again by Ken Jeong, and he’s dead for half the movie. The story takes place almost entirely in a dank cesspool of inner city Bangkok. Everything is the color of puke. The funniest lines are spoken by Alan and these are mostly non-sequitors. You know a comedy is in trouble when the best jokes are funny precisely because they have nothing to do with the storyline.

The director Todd Phillips has always been very skilled at casting groups of comedians with different comic styles (Road Trip, Old School, Starsky and Hutch). In the first Hangover he hit the motherlode with the oddball Galifinakis, the neurotic Helms, and the laid back Bradley Cooper. The three played off each other very well. This was especially true whenever things would get too crazy. At that point the movie could depend on Cooper to be a relaxing agent. They wake up in a trashed hotel room. “Looks like we had a bit of fun last night,” Cooper wryly remarks, hardly worried. A valet brings around a cop car instead of their Rolls Royce. Cooper volunteers to drive it, not missing a beat. In Part II, this dynamic falls apart completely and the main reason is that Cooper can’t realistically be a relaxing agent without sounding like an uncaring asshole. The situations the guys find themselves in are far too serious. Do you understand the comedic difference between getting tasered as a punishment for stealing a cop car as opposed to getting shot for no reason whatsoever? Do you understand the difference between a very bad sunburn and a permanent face tattoo? Or how about the difference between cheating on an unfaithful shrew of a girlfriend by accidentally marrying Heather Graham as opposed to cheating on your faultless fiancé via sodomy with a transvestite prostitute? If you do, then I would argue you have a much keener understanding of what is funny and what is not than the makers of this movie. There is a very telling scene in this movie as far as the audience’s laughter level in the theater with me was concerned. It dealt with Stu’s father-in-law giving a toast. It starts with a couple of insults at Stu’s expense, which the audience definitely laughed at. It goes on for several more insults, each one drawing less laughter than the one before. And then the toast just keeps on going for much longer than the movie needed to make absolutely clear that the father-in-law isn’t telling jokes at all. Instead, he is expressing outright hatred of his son-in-law and maliciously intends to humiliate him in front of his bride to be, his entire family, and all his friends. By the end of the toast, the audience had stopped laughing. It wasn’t funny. It was just really fucking mean. 

The Hangover Part II has made so much money already that I’m sure there is more than enough financial incentive to make Part III. I am of the belief that Part III could still be very funny if it stayed competently faithful to the formula of the first movie. The first step I would think is to hire back the original writers, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and fire the hacks they hired to write this one.

The Hangover (5/5 Stars) June 18, 2009

To watch The Hangover is to witness the manifestation of a perfectly conceived comedic idea brought to full flower in a perfect comedy and also, perhaps, a couple of breakout performances that may turn some of these dudes, particularly Ed Helms and Zach Gallifinakas, into legitimate stars.
The writers of The Hangover, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, probably uncorked a bottle of champagne and lit up a couple of cigars the moment they thought up just the concept of this movie. The must have known they had just hit the mother lode. Four buddies head to Vegas for a bachelor’s party two days before one of them gets hitched. Fast-forward to the next morning when three of them wake up in their trash-strewn suite and Doug, the one getting married, is nowhere to be found. Not one of them remembers a thing after they took Jaeger shots on the roof of the hotel the night before, although the tall handsome one (Bradley Cooper picking up a hefty load as the straight man) remarks that the place looks like they had a great time. They find clues that include a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, a hospital wristband, and an enraged Japanese gang among several other things that are too funny to give away. As Ed Helms says, “What is Going On!??!?!!” and yes that is correctly punctuated. 
The genius of this story is that it provides so much opportunity for jokes. From the beginning, the clever idea that anything can happen when one is wasted gives the writers the ability to insert crazy side characters and incredibly wacky subplots at all points of the story with very little needed context. There’s a buck-naked Japanese gang lord in the trunk of the car and he’s pissed off and wielding a crowbar. Sure I believe that, as Mike Tyson wisely intones, “People do weird shit when they’re fucked up.” On top of all this the characters themselves are well written. Phil, played by Bradley Cooper, is perhaps the leader. He rolls with the punches, doesn’t freak out too much, and keeps their course straight unless he’s personally getting them into more trouble, like say, driving on the sidewalk. Stu, played by Ed Helms, is a neurotic dentist with a girlfriend who’s a bitch (She thinks he’s in Napa, because she wouldn’t allow him to go to Vegas). He is certainly the most articulate about how horrible everything is (He is paying for everything himself). This is Ed Helms first major film role and here he is given free rein to go all out. He spends most of the movie in a state of frenzied delirium. Rounding out the trio of misfits is Alan, played by Zach Gallifinakis aka ‘Fat Jesus,’ the brother of the Doug’s fiance. He’s tagging along because he’s the type of person that “social interaction would be good for.” He doesn’t need booze to say weird shit. As far as I can tell he's some sort of Rain Man Retarded, but in a hilarious way. It’s probably helped the movie a lot that none of these guys are stars, because the level playing field between them gives each the ability to support each other’s shine through moments in the script. And there are a lot of shine through moments.
This idea is so good, the structure is so accommodating, the characters so well-developed, and the actors so perfectly cast that as soon as the story is setup in the 1st fifteen minutes before they take those jaeger shots the rest of the movie is an hour and a half of punch line followed by punch line followed by punch line followed by punch line. Every scene is funny, every joke works, not one scene falls flat. The Hangover is the best film I have seen so far this year.
Comedy isn’t easy. Making people laugh for over two hours is a hard thing to do. A good comedy is hard to come by. A great comedy (and by that I mean a movie that succeeds at making people laugh at least every thirty seconds while providing an original and meaningful storyline) is something special to behold. If Comedy got any respect this movie would be seeing nominations come awards time. I suggest one for Best Original Screenplay and perhaps another for Ed Helms for Best Supporting Actor. 
The Director Todd Phillips (Old School, Road Trip, Starsky and Hutch) isn’t the most technically proficient guy but he does have some of the best cameos. Remember that curly haired guy with the glasses who gets caught giving head in the elevator. Yeah, that’s him.

Role Models 11/08/08

Role Models is a successfully funny comedy about two friends, Wheeler (Sean William Scott) and Paul Rudd, who work at a Red Bull-like energy drink company called Minotaur. Their job is to around to high school campuses pitching the green poison with the slogan "Say no to drugs, and Yes! to Minotaur!" (I sure hope this isn't based off of real life.) Paul Rudd hates his job (which he should) and is depressed about his life. Wheeler loves his job, (which he shouldn't) and is way to happy to enjoy prancing around in a Minotaur suit at his age. Rudd, in an act of desperation, proposes to his long time girlfriend. She sensibly dumps him. He goes into a tailspin of anger, disillusionment, and despair. He follows the great movie tradition of doing it in front of a large group of impressionable children. A couple of my favorites variations on that theme are Billy Crystal's monologue in 'City Slickers' and Billy Bob Thornton drunken fight with a fake reindeer in 'Bad Santa'. Long story short the duo finds themselves faced with a month of jail time or 150 hours of community service. They choose the lesser of two evils and get involved in a big brother organization named 'Sturdy Wings.' Paul Rudd is assigned a super nerd named Augie, played by Christopher Minz-Plasse ('McLovin' of Superbad fame) who spends his days in a fantasy role-playing game named LAIRE. Wheeler is assigned to Bobby, a fatherless child of 10 with an aggressive mouth and wild demeanor. The two match-ups provide good arcs for both characters. Rudd in an attempt to guide Augie into manhood becomes more of a kid. Wheeler in an attempt to tame Bobby grows up. This is all accomplished in good fun, clever dialogue, and a few outrageous scenes. Providing solid supporting work as a the leader of 'Sturdy Wings' is a reformed coke whore played by the beloved Jane Lynch. It really is one of those roles that only she can pull off. (Well maybe Whoopi Goldberg) She repeatedly mentions her very sordid past and yet still has a commanding sense of moral authority. At the same time she is consistently funny. I wouldn't be surprised if Lynch had completely improvised three quarters of her lines. 
Wheeler's storyline is good, but the real meat of the movie lies in Paul Rudd's relationship with Augie. The context for this storyline is much more intricate. We spend a great deal of time in the world of LAIRE, a game that although being super nerdy really grows on you after awhile. In time Rudd, like us, learns to understand that it really isn't all that bad. The people Augie hangs out with are somewhat deluded yes but they aren't creepy. Joe Lo Truglio (long a staple cameo in Apatow films like 'Pineapple Express,' and 'Superbad,') gets his first substantial supporting role as Fuzzik, a man who is so into LAIRE that he never ceases to talk in loud oratory Medieval speak. I can only imagine how fun it was on the set when he pontificated all his scenes. Everyone in LAIRE is participating in a mass hysteria and it is done with such joy of performance that the entire idea of dressing up like knights to fake battle in the local park is forgivable. Paul Rudd (and us) slowly come around to this and little by little he drop his shell of cynicism. 
Then come a couple of scenes that make this good comedy, somewhat great. Augie, not surprisingly, is ridiculed and made fun of. The most painful scene involves his well-meaning parents that constantly berate him about LAIRE. This is where Paul Rudd's performance really transcends the genre. It's the sort of scene that should get him a Golden Globe nomination. Rudd defends Augie by going so far as to tell his parents that they are wrong about their own son. What does he say to Augie: "Do what makes you happy." and to his parents: "I would be psyched if he was my kid." Christopher Minze-Plasse's reaction to all of this is perfect. It hits just the correct note and is very close to real life. 
The last part of the movie takes place in a grand make believe battle royale in LAIRE land. The swordplay was choreographed by the guy who did the fight scenes in 'Bourne Ultimatum.' The last battle is between Augie and the king of the battlefield (you might remember him as the doctor from 'Knocked Up') who had picked on him earlier. It is an incredibly entertaining, suspenseful, and satisfying ending to the story.
Like all good comedies, 'Role Models' gives us good reasons to care about the characters. And like all great comedies the makers spend this emotional capital to bring us down only to shoot us even higher. This is what I call a comedy's daredevil jump. The deeper emotionally the story gets the bigger the jump. The story's payoff is the landing. The longer the jump the more spectacular the landing or crash. The greatest jump I've ever seen landed was in 'Little Miss Sunshine.' Other notables that I can think of right now are 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' 'There's Something about Mary' 'Hamlet 2' and 'American Pie.' Good comedies take jumps. Great comedies land them. This one does both.

The Pineapple Express 08/07/08

'Pineapple Express' is the latest comedy hit from producer Judd Apatow. It was cowritten by the authors of 'Superbad' Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg. It reunites the two stars Seth Rogan and James Franco from their humble beginnings as freaks in the late nineties one season TV show 'Freaks and Geeks.' Filling supporting roles are Apatow regulars like Bill Hader, Kevin Corridan, and Craig Robinson. New faces include Gary Cole and Rosie Perez as bad guys and Danny McBride as a fellow drug dealer. Seth Rogan is a process server who frequents his dope dealer Franco. Seth witnesses a murder that implicates himself and Franco. They are chased by hitmen, A drug war erupts, and Hilarity ensues. The one thing that really struck me about this film is how different it is from its other Apatow predecessors. Most of those were heartfelt romantic comedies laced with obscenity. This one is much more action oriented. There are plenty of shootouts, lots of people die, huge explosions, there is even a car chase. Combine all the violence of Apatow's previous films and they won't equal a quarter of what you will find here in 'Pineapple Express.' It's a distinctive new turn for the Apatow group. It makes you wonder what else they can do. 
There is still heartfelt core here though, a must in every Apatow film. It basically revolves around the fact that Rogan feels uncomfortable with being friends with his drug dealer. Franco on the other hand is blatantly needy. I wouldn't blame him. His days consist of hanging in his apartment, smoking dope, and waiting for customers to show up. When Rogan shows up, completely stoned, raving about a murder, and orders an escape into the woods its probably Franco's first time out of the house in weeks. James Franco's performance here is something special. Franco, who has always played straight romantic leads, is perhaps the funniest guy in the movie. His comedic timing is perfect. His stoner accent is right on. He has the ability to mine great lines for laughs that only a few comedians can. It is the best comedic performance I have seen all year. Seth Rogan is perhaps a better writer than actor (which isn't really an insult), he's got a certain Adam Sandlerness to him, where it seems like he doesn't really have any discernible range. (He can smoke a doobie really well though, and it pays off in this movie.) One thing he does have is a very limited ego. There are always certain imperfections about his characters that he has no qualms about exploring. Running across the street is a grand expedition for the somewhat overweight guy. He also is a great straight man to his fellow actors. He sets up Franco perfectly in so many scenes in this movie.
These people really are on a roll. The two funniest movies I have seen this year were both Apatow productions. Besides Pixar, it is the most reliant brand out there. The only complaint I could have about this film, is it's too creative violence. There were a couple moments in the film when a person was shot, or someone died, or some body part was blown off, that I simply didn't find that funny. Gore simply isn't to me, and I think they shouldn't have gotten so grotesque in some parts. Gun violence very rarely is funny I've noticed. It's too lethal and bloody. Now, if you hit somebody with a shovel or smashed a two by four over their head, that could be hilarious. Shooting them in that same head, not so much. The huge climatic action sequence at the end got a whole lot funnier when they ran out of ammo and had to find more creative ways to pummel each other. 

Knocked Up 06/10/07

I like to think that I can tolerate obscenity in a movie to a certain degree, be it language or sex or violence, what have you. If it helps or if it doesn't neccessarily hurt the movie. Let's say I'm Joe Pesci and I'm a gangster in Goodfellas. Since I'm supposed to be more real than likable, I'm allowed to curse all I want. It fits. When I'm Seth Rogan or any of the other charachters in the movie "Knocked Up" and I'm supposed to be in a romantic comedy where one would perhaps want the guy and girl to stay together, it hurts the movie somewhat. I honestly didn't want the career woman to marry the slacker. She's out of his league and they fight all the time. Not that a couple can't fight in a movie. It's just to use that amount of angry f-bombs, makes me feel for the characthers less. I mean how am I supposed to sympathize with the wife when she's cursing out a bouncer at a club for no apparent reason. What an asshole. I don't care if she's got problems.

There's a dual nature in director Judd Apatow's films, in that he employs the vulgar language and situations and still makes a somewhat heartfelt, emotionally correct movie. This worked exceptionally in the 40-Year Old Virgin and that was a fantastic film. It only barely works in this one, and by that I mean the overall humor and the specific performance of Paul Rudd (becoming a favorite of mine) outweigh by just a little bit the collossal obscenity and bad taste. What's the main difference: Well in the 40-Year Old Virgin we had Steve Carell as the main character. He, despite being a virgin, was a nice, clean, and decent man. He rarely sweared and when he did, it seemed like he regretted it. There was a lot of vulgar jokes but at the center we had a nice guy to sympathize with. We wanted him to get the girl. In this movie we have Seth Rogan, a vulgar man-child with no job, and few prospects. We don't want him to get the girl, in fact we feel sorry for the girl for mainly the entire film. She's stuck with this loser's child. It's hard to sympathize with the guy and when the vulgarness rears it's ugly head we have nowhere to retreat except to the semi-vulgar presence of Paul Rudd, who I feel, should definitely be the main character in Judd Apatow's next movie.