A Few Thoughts on the Academy Awards Nominations

 And we're off! Some of you might protest that "awards season" begins with The Golden Globes, but I don't watch the show and don't consider any stamp of approval that The Hollywood Foreign Press Association to be worth much of anything. The SAG Awards, the BAFTAs, the DGA, and something I'm sure I'm forgetting are worth looking into in passing, but the Cap'n actually only bothers watching one awards show - the Super Bowl of awards shows, The Academy Awards.

 Like the Super Bowl, it sometimes takes patience to slog through - it's an "insider"'s event, often testing the interest of casual viewers despite its continued effort to be "hip" or "edgy." The abject failure of last years Oscars telecast, one that temporarily set audiences against James Franco and politely look away from Anne Hathaway, is honestly just a continued step in the direction towards more streamlined, less bloated, but less entertaining programming. That the Academy turned back to 1990s standby Billy Crystal is an indication that they really don't understand why people hated last year's show (personally, I kinda liked it) - let's get that guy everybody liked from twenty years ago!

 That's not a slight against Billy Crystal, by the way - the best hosts are consummate showmen (and women) like Crystal, Bob Hope, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Ellen Degeneres, and Hugh Jackman. All were involved in very entertaining Oscar shows. Jon Stewart was less successful, as were David Letterman and Chris Rock. But it's not all on the host - the elimination of nearly all of the "Best Songs" from the show was a bad idea, as was the skipping as quickly as possible through technical awards and last year's inexplicable decision to cut down the "major" awards (acting, directing, screenplay, editing, picture) to a bare minimum. In its place, shorter and less relevant montages, more inane scripted "banter" by presenters, and longer commercial breaks.

 Yikes. I didn't mean for this to get into Academy Awards bashing because, like the Super Bowl, I've been tuning in regularly for years now. I'm always hoping for something lively (the Hugh Jackman one, in particular, was a lot of fun to watch) but one can never tell. Sometimes the nominees can give us a clue of where it might be headed, so let's take a look at some of the categories, shall we?

 Disclaimer: Speculating on who will win or why is not my specialty any more. When I was younger, I pontificated endlessly about the logistics and politics of award shows, but at this point, I concede that I can't predict with any more accuracy than the average March Madness bracket pool in your office. That's where Neil comes in handy, so I might ask him to throw in his thoughts this weekend.


 Best Picture

 The Artist
 The Descendants
 The Help
  Hugo
  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
  Midnight in Paris
  War Horse
  Moneyball
  The Tree of Life

 Okay, so I haven't seen more than half of the nine nominees. I want to see Hugo, The Descendants, and Moneyball. I plan on seeing The Artist this weekend. I honestly have no interest in The Help and War Horse, and haven't heard a kind word about Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close until this announcement. And I read the book, so it was a shame to see it savaged by critics.

 Neil might be able to confirm this, but The Artist has the "hot hand" after the Golden Globes, so if it starts picking up wins, I guess that's the favored bet this year.

 Best Director

 Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
 Alexander Payne - The Descendants
 Martin Scorsese - Hugo
 Terrence Malick - The Tree of Life
 Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris

 Damn. That's a lineup, with only one name I don't recognize immediately. That name is also attached to The Artist, which is red hot.

 Best Original Screenplay

 Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
 Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo - Bridesmaids
 J.C. Chandor - Margin Call
 Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
 Asghar Farhadi - A Separation

 It would be great to see Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo win for Bridesmaids, but there's that movie The Artist again... I'm sensing a trend here.

 Best Adapted Screenplay

 Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash - The Descendants
 John Logan - Hugo
 George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon - The Ides of March
 Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (story by Stan Chervin) - Moneyball
 Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  Ummmm... well, I've only seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It had a great script and great acting...

 Best Animated Picture

 A Cat in Paris
 Chico and Rita
 Kung Fu Panda 2 
 Puss in Boots
 Rango

I brought this up because Pixar's Cars 2, a pretty much dismissed sequel, is shut out. In its place? Puss in Boots? Nothing against Kung Fu Panda 2, which I haven't seen, but I heard that it didn't quite live up to the first film's breath of fresh air. Even Rango, while critically well received, was frequently returned to a store I used to work at because its mostly adult themes were lost on kids. Adults didn't seem all that thrilled with its "Chinatown for kids" story, but I'm still interested. I can't speak for the first two films, but if one of them doesn't win, I guess Rango gets it.

 Best Cinematography

 Guillame Schiffman - The Artist
 Jeff Cronenweth - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
 Robert Richardson - Hugo
 Janusz Kaminski - War Horse
 Emmanuel Lubezki - The Tree of Life

 I think you know what I'd pick. You read the review. That said, there's The Artist again...

 Best Editing

 Anne Sophie-Bion and Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
 Kevin Tent - The Descendants
 Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
 Thelma Schoonmaker - Hugo
 Christopher Tellefsen - Moneyball

 Hrm. The Artist, anyone?

 I'm not going to say I'm surprised not to see Drive (too many confused people), Melancholia (too many people who hate Lars von Trier), The Guard (too Irish), or any of the other films on my best or near best of list. It seems that not being a blockbuster (or being a remake) derailed most of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's attention. I'm a little boggled by some of the acting nominations, which I chose to leave out but are easy to find. This year, aside from the omnipresence of The Artist, I have no clue. None at all. I turn it over to Neil, sometime in the near future.

Year End Recap Part Two

 Welcome back! Today the Cap'n is continuing my Year End Recap, and we're in rarefied air here. We're on our way to the top, and if yesterday's movie came with recommendations, today's movies are "add these to your queue / get to the store this weekend" kinds of movies. The only thing that separates tonight's list from tomorrow's "Best of the Year" is maybe one teeny tiny transcendent moment. That's it. These are as good as anything there is to offer as entertainment goes, and I don't think you're going to do anything but sit back and have a good time.

 There's still no Your Highness on this list. Again, we'll get to Your Highness, but not just yet.

 Presented in no particular order, say hello to your next few weekends and evenings' entertainment.

Attack the Block - This movie was so close to making the "best of the year", and I still debate with myself about whether I should put it up there or keep it here. The only difference between Attack the Block and the very best of 2011 is that it embraces the pulpy fun of early John Carpenter, which is a really good thing. I have no doubt in my mind you're going to have a great time watching Attack the Block, so maybe I'm hesitating because I feel like I've mentioned it so many times in the last six months that it doesn't need anymore heightened expectations. Joe Cornish does well enough on his own that he doesn't need Cap'n Howdy and Major Tom to toot his horn for him... wow, that sounded worse than I mean to it to.

  The Muppets - It's a testament to the quality of this film - which features none of the actual Muppets for the first fifteen minutes - that I saw it with friends who had already seen the film and didn't
hesitate to see it again. You'll leave with a big smile on your face, satisfied that the Muppets can still be in fine movies.

 Rise of the Planet of the Apes - It takes a really good movie to overcome wafer thin characters, but this film belongs to Andy Serkis' Caesar, and the apes are fantastic. You're not even going to notice the fact that the cgi apes are more believable than the human cast.

  Horrible Bosses - The movie I laughed at the second hardest this year is everything The Change-Up is not: it's certainly not "PC" or even generally in good taste, but the gross out is at a minimum. Better still, the cheap jokes sit this one out for better character-related humor, and the three leads (Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, and Jason Bateman) are more than matched by the title characters (Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, and the "where have you been all this time" Kevin Spacey). Throw in Jamie Foxx as a more interesting than advertised criminal, and you're going to laugh hard.

 The Innkeepers - From Ti West, the director of The House of the Devil, comes another slow burn horror film where tension continues mounting and the sense of dread is palpable. Instead of replicating the horror of the early 1980s, West's "haunted hotel" follow-up is set squarely in the present, and he's just as adept at creeping you out with slow tracking shots, suggested noises, and believable characters you relate to. Sara Paxton's Claire is a young woman without much of a clue what she want to do or be, who becomes way too interested in Luke (Pat Healy)'s hobby: ghost hunting. She's fixated on finding the spirit of Madeline O'Malley, a bride who killed herself in the hotel in the 1890s.

 On the last weekend that the Yankee Padler hotel is open, Luke and Claire trade off shifts, watching over the last remaining hotel tenants - former actress / new age guru Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis) and a mysterious Old Man (George Riddle) - while they hunt for evidence of O'Malley's presence. West doles out the scares slowly but surely, and only towards the very end do things go the way most horror films go. In fact, if there's any fault to be found in The Innkeepers, it's that what comes before and after the climax of the film are undermined ever so slightly by what we know HAS to happen, even if the subtle clues of why it happens don't always add up. Without spoiling too much, I can say that the film is an example of the kind of movie 1408 could have been, one that eschews cheap histrionics and trickery and deliberately ratchets up the "willies" factor.

 Fans of The House of the Devil are going to find a lot to love about The Inkeepers, but if you like your horror fast and relentless, this may seem a little slow for your tastes. For me? Let's just say I had to watch something else after I finished it, because I wasn't going to bed.

Fast Five - Let's put it this way: I had never seen one of the Fast and the Furious films and really had no intention to until I started hearing the genuinely positive reviews for this film. It didn't hurt that Dwayne Johnson was joining the cast as the guy determined to make Vin Diesel's life a living hell, but I watched Fast & Furious (which ends the way that Fast Five begins) in order to come in with some sense of context on a franchise I'd never once considered before. And I'll be damned if it wasn't entertaining, amusing, with good action, strong car chases, decent characters, and a better "action movie" plot than I was expecting. It's more "Ocean's Eleven" than racing movie, which didn't hurt things. At the beginning of 2011 I don't think you'd have ever heard me saying this, but I'm on board for Fast Six and beyond if they keep this level of quality up.

Bridesmaids - The movie I laughed at the hardest this year. Not since The Sweetest Thing has a film so unmistakably designed as a "chick flick" has a movie been willing to mix the scatalogical with the slapstick and quirk of character. Anchored by Kristen Wiig and bolstered by a strong supporting cast, it doesn't surprise me that the clever, lewd Bridesmaids made its way onto so many critics' lists for 2011. It's a comedy that doesn't pull punches, and not just with the jokes - the way that Annie (Wiig) and Nathan (Chris O'Dowd) come in and out of each other's lives is at times painful. And funny. The important part is that you're going to laugh, so much so that you can convince your guy friends that a movie that ends with Wilson Phillips performing live at a wedding is "cool" for them to watch too.

 Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop - This is a candid, warts and all portrait of the comedian as an insecure middle-aged-man. Conan O'Brien brought director Rodman Fletcher along for his "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on TV" tour after the fallout of leaving The Tonight Show, and the results are side-splitting, revealing, and at times uncomfortable. O'Brien's rage is bottled up but he often lashes out in passive-aggressive but cruel ways towards his assistant, his writers, friends, and most of all, himself. It's refreshingly candid and also quite funny, just laced with a bitter sense of regret and self doubt from the man in the title.

 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two - I can't imagine how this film could have been made in a way that would satisfy every Potter fanatic, but from the opening shots of Alan Rickman's Severus Snape to the final flash forward, it did the finale of the series justice. If I had to point out just one moment that stuck with me (again), it's Helena Bonham Carter playing Emma Watson pretending to be Helena Bonham Carter's sadistic Bellatrix Lestrange. Did the "battle of Hogwarts" deliver in the ways I hoped it would? Maybe not totally, but the tone of the film is pitch perfect and I look forward to watching parts one and two as one uninterrupted film.

 Super - Of all the movies on this list, I sense Super will divide friends the most. I'll tell you from the get-go that James Gunn's take on the "normal guy becomes vigilante to horrible results" isn't for everyone. Then again, this is a movie from the writer / director of Slither. If you've seen Slither, then you aren't even finishing this review - you're on your way to getting Super. Forget the indie / hipster friendly posters, because Super is the Troma version of Kick-Ass, in all the offensive, violent, and just bizarre ways you'd expect that mashing of styles to be. It's funnier than Kick-Ass, more subversive than Kick-Ass, more wantonly cruel, and stranger than it has any right to be. I was aghast almost as often as I was amused, and if you think that's up your alley, then give Super a shot. If nothing else, you'll never see Ellen Page the same way again.

 Come back tomorrow for the final list - the best of the best that I saw for 2011. It's a strong list, if I may say so myself.

Geek Tuesday... for some reason.

 New release Tuesdays are usually a grab bag of fun new titles, back catalog releases / upgrades, and every now and then a out-of-left-field cult curveball. For a film geek, it's fun to scour "new release" lists to see what's coming out, so I can only imagine heads were exploding (Scanners style) this past Tuesday. Three extremely "geek friendly" DVDs / Blu-Rays dropped, each of which had a mixed reaction and not amazing box office numbers along for the ride. I've seen two of them, but not the other one (yet): Paul, Your Highness, and Super.


 If you haven't been following the Blogorium for long (and the Cap'n welcomes new arrivals), each film comes from a particular pedigree of nerd fandom: Paul is the "two geeks pick up an alien in the desert" film written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), is directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), and also features Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express), Jo Lo Truglio (The State), Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader (both SNL). The film begins at the San Diego Comic Con and is packed with references to other geeky alien movies. I generally enjoyed Paul, but the film doesn't really pick up until Wiig's arrival in the film, mostly because Paul isn't so much of a character as he is Seth Rogen before she enters the narrative.


 Your Highness is David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, George Washington)'s much anticipated follow-up to Pineapple Express, the film that moved Green from "indie filmmaker" to "mainstream sellout" in some eyes, but to many of us was a logical preamble to Eastbound and Down. Your Highness re-teamed Green with Danny McBride and James Franco along with Natalie Portman (Leon: The Professional), Justin Theroux (Mulholland Dr), Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer), and was an ode to the sword and sorcery fantasy genre that was omnipresent in the 1980s. I must admit that other than Conan the Barbarian, I was never that into the whole movement, and only one website really seemed very excited about Your Highness when the film actually came out, so I skipped out on it. It's not highly regarded by critics or audiences, and when I couldn't make a $1.50 Theatre showing, it seemed best to let the film slide. I will give it a shot some time soon, because I do trust the creative team.



 Super splits critics right down the middle: James Gunn (who wrote Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake and directed the amazing Slither) took a very Troma-esque approach to the "super hero in the real world" subgenre (see: Kick-Ass, Defendor, Special, Paper Man, and a few others I'm forgetting), starring Rainn Wilson (The Office), Ellen Page (Juno), Kevin Bacon (Hollow Man), Michael Rooker (Slither), Nathan Fillion (Serenity) and very briefly, Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks). It's a twisted, at times extremely violent and crude film, and as many people hate it as love it. I have the feeling that some of that comes from the influence of Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Films, where Gunn cut his teeth - there are parts of Super that feel like they've been directly lifted from The Toxic Avenger, and if Troma team releases aren't your thing, Super might not be either. However, if you even liked Slither, you should check out Super.

 It was odd to see all of them coming out on the same day, draining the wallets of geeks who can't be bothered to sit in a movie theatre anymore, because they share roughly the same history: lots of buzz preceding their release, mixed reviews, and moderate to tepid audience attendance. I don't know about Your Highness, but Super and Paul will probably have a long life on video because they appeal to the shut-in's and cast-out's that do, well, what I'm doing right now. Gee, I wonder if I have Paul and Super sitting on the table across the room? Maybe, but what are they sitting under? Bet you won't guess that one!

 (Hint: It's not Your Highness.)

  It is fair to point out that despite their lack of box office busting prowess, none of the discs appear to be bare-bones. This may be a sign that studios are aware that the geek demographic is willing to pay a little bit more for a high quality, high definition experience as long as the movie is packed to the gills with bonus content (Universal is very good at this, and while Paul isn't as loaded as, say, Scott Pilgrim with extra features, it's a better lineup than say, Paramount's True Grit Blu-Ray).

 Why all three on the same day? I don't really know, but maybe we ought not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it's an opportunity to kick back with some friends, some brewskis, and enjoy a laid back August weekend.




Hollow Man is what you guys think of when you hear "Kevin Bacon", right? Or maybe Death Sentence? Oh, and Michael Rooker has been in a lot more than just Slither, but Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer ate up too much space and I'm sure as hell not going to use Mallrats.

Blogorium Review: Bridesmaids

For the record, I was not forced to see Bridesmaids. I chose to see it. Believe it or not - and based on my track record, I'm probably going to surprise some of you - but the Cap'n does actually watch the occasional "chick flick / romantic comedy." In fact, of my own volition I've seen Bridget Jones' Diary, The Banger Sisters, Keeping the Faith, Say Anything, It's Complicated, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, America's Sweethearts, Amelie, Juno, and Sleepless in Seattle. I even liked some of them!

With that qualifier in mind, Bridesmaids is an unusual entry to the well worn genre: on one hand, I can't call a movie that includes a "girl talk" scene, two baking montages, and a surprise appearance by Wilson Phillips at the big wedding scene, just in time to sing the bride's favorite song, anything other than a "chick flick." The structure is pure "rom-com" - girl meets boy, girl pushes boy away, girl has meltdown, and boy comes back at the very end to drive away happily ever after.

Annie Walker (Wiig) is going through a rough patch when her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces she's getting married. When Lillian asks Annie to be her maid of honor, she takes on the responsibility of managing the bridal party: Rita (Wendy McLendon-Covey), Lillian's cousin tired of her husband and three children; Becca (Ellie Kemper), a newlywed with no life experience whatsoever; Megan (Melissa McCarthy), the groom's sister, a rude, crude, and socially unacceptable firebrand. Competing for Lillian's affection (and maid of honor title) is Helen (Rose Byrne), a wealthy homemaker who plans to lavish the bride in every possible way to upstage the lower-middle class Annie. Through her trials and tribulations of keeping everything afloat, Annie meets Officer Nathan Rhodes (Chris O'Dowd), possibly the only policeman in Milwaukee, a kind-hearted neighbor that takes a liking to our troubled heroine. Will Annie hang on as maid of honor? Will she realize that Rhodes is the right fella for her, and will they live heavily ever after?

Okay, the "happily ever after" is where we deviate, because Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo and directed by Paul Feig) may be the most depressing "comedy" you're ever going to see, heaping soul crushing, life debilitating events on Annie Walker (Wiig), including but not limited to losing her bakery and all of her savings, being kicked out by her roommate (Matt Lucas) and his sister (Rebel Wilson), moving back in with her mother (Jill Clayburgh), and being labeled "number 3" *ahem* buddy by perpetually horny Ted (an uncredited Jon Hamm). There are moments in the film where I genuinely wondered where the comedy was supposed to be coming from, or if Bridesmaids was still supposed to be a comedy at all and not an Alexander Payne-esque exploration of middle-aged misery.

The funny thing is that Bridesmaids is often uproariously funny, and not in a cutesy, "chick" friendly way - the film alternates between vulgarity and gross-out jokes, and has a number of laugh-out-loud moments: a dress fitting that turns into a vomit and shit-fest, culminating with Maya Rudolph kneeling in the middle of a busy street, soiling a sample wedding gown; the airplane ride to Las Vegas tops that by cutting between a drunken Annie crashing first class, much to the chagrin of a beleaguered flight attendant (Mitch Silpa) and the back and forth between Megan and a man who may or may not be an Air Marshall (Ben Falcone). It also opens with a goofy sex scene between Wiig and Hamm that quickly spells out their relationship while generating laughs. The film doesn't quite go as far as the "glory hole" scene in The Sweetest Thing, but Wiig and Mumolo's script doesn't hold back on the profanity. This is unquestionably an "R" rated comedy.

Kristen Wiig carries the film effortlessly, only showing brief flashes of Saturday Night Live characters (mostly during the airplane sequence), and does more with just a look than most comedians are capable of. I'm not sure why Hamm went uncredited, but he plays a no-nonsense sleazeball as someone who doesn't seem to care that he just asked you to "take a nap in my lap" while driving you home from an accident. O'Dowd has an affable quality to him that reminds me of John Cusack or Dylan Moran*, and early scenes between O'Dowd and Wiig have a real spark. Maya Rudolph has the thankless role of being the bride fought over by the ladies, and has to react to most of the mayhem (dress ruining scene aside), and I'd rather not spoil a handful of smaller roles.

All of the bridesmaids have great moments, but the VIP actually goes to Melissa McCarthy, who at first seems to be the "comic relief" character, designated to be the butt of every joke (and at times, I mean that literally considering how many fart jokes are in the middle of the film). Instead, she emerges as the unsung hero of the film, without abandoning any of the off-kilter humor of the character "type" - Megan and Annie have a late heart-to-heart that's more genuine than most of the romantic comedy "turn-around" moments, and by the way also gives depth to McCarthy's character that Kemper, McLendon-Covey, and Byrne never get.

Speaking of which, I was worried about the escalation and one-up-smanship (sic?) between Annie and Helen was going to dominate the film - it certainly felt strained early on during the engagement party, and for a while felt like one of Wiig's Penelope sketches on SNL, but it eventually moves into an open hostility between the two, one that Annie seems to perpetually lose. The inevitable comeuppance at the end was crueler than I expected it to be, and introduces a neurotic side of Helen so late in the film it almost doesn't register.

I don't mean to harp on the film, but part of the dark, depressing side of Bridesmaids (and I have to imagine this was how Wiig and Mumolo wrote it) is the way the relationship with Officer Rhodes and Annie develops. In order to avoid a silly contrivance to break up their budding relationship, Wiig's Annie instead turns an innocent gesture on Nathan's part into an attempt to "fix" her, and she blows him off in a way that, well, you wouldn't blame him for backing off completely. Maybe this is just the guy in me talking, but the way she tears him down says "no seriously, this is not reverse psychology, you ruined this forever go away" and the ways she goes about trying to win him back while still completely ignoring simple things like fixing her brake lights (which causes a hit and run midway through the film), don't really justify the way the film ends.

(It does, I must say, set up a funny visual gag involving an apology cake he ignores and raccoons.)

Bridesmaids has been (understandably) confusing audiences - most of the people in the audience I saw the film with were female, with the scattered boyfriend along for the ride - but much of the movie generated laughs, if sometimes in different points. I don't want to suggest anyone thinking of seeing Bridesmaids not to see it; I think you'll find many things to like, if not love, about the film. If you're predisposed to atypical romantic comedies, particularly of the Judd Apatow variety (he produced the film and director Paul Feig is a Freaks and Geeks veteran), then Bridesmaids is more than a match for the just-released The Hangover Part II. My only caveat is that when Bridesmaids gets dark, it gets very dark, and if you're expecting bright and funny and feel good, it might be edgier than what you had in mind. But you will laugh, and laugh a lot, so that counts for something.

And now I've seen my prerequisite "chick flick" for the year. We'll get back to your expected gore-filled science fiction action slasher cult exploitation films tomorrow...


Postscript: Watching Bridesmaids gave the Cap'n the opportunity to see trailers I probably wouldn't see otherwise - What's Your Number with Anna Faris and Chris Evans, Larry Crowne with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, and The Change-Up with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, possibly the most "guy friendly" movie of the three.
* Yes, I appreciate that Dylan Moran reminds most people, including me, of John Cusack.

Blogorium Review: Paul

I must admit I felt a twinge of sadistic glee reading online reviews of Greg Mottola's Paul when the film finally made its way to theatres two weeks ago (it opened in the United Kingdom last month): "geek" friendly sites were falling all over themselves trying to find nice ways to pad the disappointment of what seemed to be a great idea: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost write a movie about two geeks that run into an alien while touring famous "UFO" landmarks, and then star in the film with Seth Rogen as the alien, directed by the man who made Superbad. The phrases "feel good geek movie" and "hard to pin down tonally" didn't help trailers that already made Paul look less than appealing, so in a cruel way, I felt vindicated in not wanting to see the film.

But clearly I did see Paul, or this review would be happening on Friday (check the date) and probably masking another review, like last year*. Standing on the other side of the film, I understand the reviews attempts to soften high expectations from its target audience, but I think that many critics didn't quite set their disclaimers up in the right way. Paul is actually a pretty good movie, but you have to wait a little while before that's clear.

Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg), a comic book artist, and his best friend Clive Gollings (Nick Frost), a science fiction writer, have made the pilgrimage from the UK to the San Diego Comic Con, the geek mecca. They've also rented an RV in order to travel the Southwest in search of major alien landmarks (Area 51, Roswell, The Black Mailbox), but when a car whips around them and crashes on the road, they unwittingly become accomplices in the escape plan of Paul (Seth Rogen), an alien trying to get home after a long stint as prisoner of the United States government. On the lam, they inadvertently pick up Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a fundamentalist Christian that believes Earth is only 4,000 years old. Pursued by Agent Zoyle (Jason Bateman) and two junior agents, Haggard (Bill Hader) and O'Reilly (Joe Lo Truglio), who work for the mysterious "Big Guy," as well as Ruth's father Moses Buggs (John Carroll Lynch), our unwitting heroes race to return Paul to a rendezvous point before it's too late...

The film's biggest problem is that the introduction of Paul doesn't really work. That Seth Rogen plays Paul isn't the issue: it's that Paul IS Seth Rogen for the first fifteen minutes or so that we see him. Rather, Paul is the same kind of character type that Rogen gravitates towards, and his introduction in the film is more distracting than effective. It doesn't help that many of the jokes involving Paul rely heavily on vulgarity (anal probing, alien nudity) or obvious nods to other "first contact" films - to this I have to disperse the blame evenly between Pegg and Frost's script and Rogen's delivery, neither of which help Paul find its way early on.

Frost and Pegg do a fine job of setting up the world of the film (as do Bateman, Hader, and Lo Truglio) but Paul seems "off" in the character dynamic. Part of it is the wildly uneven comic tone, including a running joke about whether Graeme and Clive are gay that doesn't go anywhere. It's not something I can really pinpoint in one scene, but the film doesn't regain its footing until Kristen Wiig's character is introduced; suddenly the interpersonal relationships make a little more sense, Paul moves into the background (somewhat) or at least isn't the load bearer for comedy in the film. Wiig's understated delivery actually helps settle down Rogen's over-the-top delivery as Paul, and the way the says "because of his blasphemous theories" was the first big laugh I had in the film (the second really big one was the discovery of Agent Zoyle's first name).

Paul throws so many "geek" references at the wall that I can't possibly mention all of them, but not only can you expect several nods to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Star Trek, Predator, Mac and Me, The X-Files, E.T., and Aliens (the last two prominently featuring people involved in the films), but there's also Clive and Graeme's conversing in Klingon, a Wilhelm scream, two separate Indiana Jones references, a Back to the Future joke, a redneck bar version of the Cantina from A New Hope, and a clever way for Pegg and Frost to address a question raised in Shaun of the Dead (hint: it involves dogs).

Early in the film, the references seem more forced, which doesn't help the struggling first act to find its footing. That's also coupled with the bulk of the cameos in the film, including Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Jeffrey Tambor, and (KINDA SPOILER) the voice of Steven Spielberg - part of a scene that's so obvious I wish it hadn't made the final cut. Reviews seemed to think it was a big deal not to reveal that Sigourney Weaver was the mysterious voice that Agent Zoyle is talking to, but if that's the case then why can you clearly hear her in the trailer? I didn't think that was supposed to be such a surprise, to be honest, unless you've never heard her speak before.

Because I feel you're probably thinking that I didn't like Paul, it's important to mention that despite the bumpy first half, I found myself really engaged by the midpoint and actually rather enjoyed the film by the end. If the first section of the film is trying too hard, once the film finds its footing, Paul is actually quite good and something I wouldn't hesitate recommending. I would warn you that it isn't that the film is uneven or that the "geekery" comes hard and fast (to be fair, half of the characters in the film really don't get the whole "Comic-Con thing" and that there's a running joke involving no one knowing any of the books Tambour's character wrote), but that the film is so front loaded that you might be tempted to tune out.

Don't. Stick around until Kristen Wiig shows up, and Paul improves tremendously. The chemistry within the cast finally "clicks," the jokes shift in direction (including a push towards ridiculous bursts of vulgarity, many coming from Ruth's inexperience with cursing), and the evolution of Bill Hader's Haggard from loser to obsessed psychopath is worth the price of admission. Jason Bateman is pretty fantastic playing the "straight man" role; Pegg, Frost, Lo Truglio and Wiig are all great, and when Rogen settles down it's easier to tolerate Paul as a character. By the time that Blythe Danner appears as the adult version of a child we meet early in the film, I was completely on board with the film.

Paul is a better movie at the end than the beginning, which I suppose is a shame, because if it had the consistency in the first half that it does in the second, then it could be something really special. As it is, it's pretty good, a three-and-a-half star out of five kind of movie; you'll have a good time, and will probably rent it and watch it on TV, but won't run out to buy it in a few months. Then again, it is nice to see a movie that tries to entertain and mostly succeeds when far worse movies can't be bothered to do either week in and week out.



* You didn't really think I watched New Moon, did you?

Blogorium Review: MacGruber

I had a hell of a time getting anybody to come with me to see MacGruber tonight. For some reason, everyone had something else to do or wasn't sure that they really wanted to see a 90 minute movies based on a 90 second sketch on SNL. Oh sure, most SNL movies are pretty bad, especially in the post- Wayne's World 2 era, so who could really blame them for wanting to skip out on the next potential Night at the Roxbury or The Ladies Man? So they all politely had better things to do.

To them I say: Your Loss.

For anyone who doesn't know who MacGruber is, the premise is very simple: Will Forte is a MacGyver-like super-agent that always ends up blowing himself, Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig), and whoever the guest star is after failing to disarm a bomb:



As a regular watcher of Saturday Night Live, when I heard that MacGruber was written by Will Forte, along with SNL writer John Solomon and The Lonely Island (Hot Rod, Dick in a Box) member Jorma Taccone (who also directed), I'm on board. Add Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer, and Powers Boothe and you've sweetened the pot. I wasn't so sure about Ryan Phillippe, but he was really good on SNL a few weeks ago. See for yourself:



For starters, the movie is nothing like the sketch, and that works to its benefit. Like The Blues Brothers or, yes, Wayne's World*, the character of MacGruber is the jumping off point for a much different story. Since you know almost nothing about MacGruber anyway, that gives Forte, Solomon, and Taccone the opportunity to make up his backstory and do whatever they want with the character. And what they do is pretty amazing.

The nefarious Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer) steals a Russian X5 nuclear missile and is planning to blow up Washington, D.C. during the State of the Union. In order to stop him, Colonel John Faith (Powers Boothe) reactivates MacGruber (Forte) - who's been dead for ten years after Cunth detonated a bomb at MacGruber's wedding - to stop him. When MacGruber leaves his team (comprised of WWE Superstars Chris Jericho, Kane, The Great Kali, MVP, and Mark Henry) in a van packed with homemade C4, well, you can guess what happens.

So MacGruber, with his new team of Lieutenant Dixon Piper (Phillipe) and Vicki St. Elmo (Wiig), sets out to discover where the bomb is, doing so in the worst possible ways. Along the way... actually, I'm not going to tell you what happens. What makes MacGruber work where so many SNL movies haven't is its willingness not to be for all audiences.

MacGruber is a hard R: in addition to the rampant profanity, crude behavior, and pieces of celery being shoved up characters asses, MacGruber is also pretty violent. Okay, very violent. I'm not going to say when it happens, but MacGruber is not exaggerating his claims of loving to rip peoples' throats out, and when he goes for the Turkey (think "Hat Trick"), it's a sight to see. Additionally, every single time Piper shoots someone, a blast of arterial spray flies into the air before they slump over dead.

So yeah, MacGruber isn't afraid to swing for the fences in violence, crassness, sexuality (just wait for that ghost sex-scene), and profanity. But more importantly, it's funny anyway. It doesn't need the shock value or lines like "It's time to pound some Cunth" (say it out loud) to get laughs; they just add to the experience.

Where most of the comedy comes from is the adherence of MacGruber to action films of the 1980s. While the sketch is a MacGyver knock-off, the film liberally satirizes the Rambo films, Commando, Missing in Action, and most of the Cannon films or Golan-Globus catalog. If you can think of a stereotypical action movie trope, you're going to see it here, and then some. They even get in a strange James Bond dig when MacGruber and Cunth meet face to face.

Speaking of which, the other reason this movie works is the supporting cast. Kristen Wiig has impeccable timing for playing uncomfortable dialogue that trails off, and Vicki St. Elmo is asked to do increasingly stupid and dangerous things that give her the chance to really work the laughs. Ryan Phillippe may actually be the funniest supporting cast member by playing it straight, as his responses to MacGruber's ridiculous ideas get bigger laughs than Forte's set ups. Not to say that Will Forte isn't amazing as MacGruber: unlike the sketches, he pretty much plays the character straight, and the little touches like always taking his Blaupunkt stereo out of his car so no one steals it get increasingly funnier as the film goes on.

I must take a moment to discuss Val Kilmer's Dieter Von Cunth. For starters, I should say that despite the name, it isn't actually a joke that's overused in the film. There's enough time between saying his last name that you can forget about it an appreciate the next bout of pun-ing. But anyway, it's a pleasure to see Val Kilmer in an outright comedy again. There was a taste of it in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but in MacGruber Kilmer is an all out comic villain, and he's hilarious. The back and forth's with MacGruber may be my favorite scenes, and the sense of relish Kilmer takes in playing Cunth near the end of the movie really give the film that extra "oomph."

By the way, stick through the credits, so you can hear one of aspiring songwriter Vicki St. Elmo's songs. It's called "Rock My Body", and Doctor Tom (the only person brave enough to join me) was in fits of laughter. It's incredibad. It's a shame MacGruber is going to make no money whatsoever - there were eight people in a large theatre with us at the 10 o'clock Friday showing... not good - because I'm already down for another MacGruber movie.

Since that's probably not going to happen, if any of you want to atone for missing out, then I recommend you join the Cap'n for a repeat viewing sometime very soon. You won't regret it.



* I am not a big fan of Wayne's World. I used to like the movie, but now I'm just not that into it. However, I admit that it is typically the "high water mark" for SNL movies.