The Third Wheel: Luke Wilson is a bumbling cubicle slave who is determined to go on a date with the sexy and successful Denise Richards.  Everyone in his office, including Ben Affleck (who is at his douche with a goatee best) is pulling for him and even have a party where they place bets on, like, whether or not he will get laid or something like that.  But then, on their date, Luke Wilson hits this crazy homeless guy (played by the movie’s screenwriter, Jay Lacopo) with his car.  This is where we started to fast forward.  The guy is fine, but wants money for his crystal animals that were broken in the accident, so he gets in the car with them.  As far as I could tell, the guy keeps showing up wherever they are on their date and putting salt in the Luke Wilson’s already meager game.  Then Matt Damon makes a cameo as Denise Richards’ ex-boyfriend.  I watched this part on regular speed.  I love me some Good Will Hunting-era Damon.  Then I guess they probably fall in love or something and there is a quirky break dance scene while the credits roll.

I don’t like Denise Richards, but I can tolerate her.  She has a weird robot face and I find her to be a bad actress.  Young Luke Wilson I can more than tolerate.  He is gorgeous.  Superdouche Ben Affleck I LOVE.  Jay Lacopo, who you have never heard of and went ahead and wrote a huge part for himself in his own movie, is INTOLERABLE.  I literally could not even stand to look at his face.  Is he supposed to be crazy?  Retarded?  Homeless?  I don’t even know.  He’s just wearing some stupid beanie with a perpetually confused look on his face and you just know he was so fucking satisfied with himself.  HATE YOU.  FAST FORWARD.

The Breed: A group of sexy friends, played by actors who are a good decade older than their characters are supposed to be, find themselves in a remote cabin being attacked by rabid(?) dogs all while two of them are brothers who have both fucked Michelle Rodriguez.  Questions this raises:

1. Are the dogs rabid?  Did we fast forward through that part?  Because without a good reason presented, I really don’t want to watch dogs get hit with baseball bats.

2. Did this blonde suck someone off to get this part?  She’s some utterly noncute version of Amy Pohler and did not want to look at her face.

3. How much does it suck to be Kate Hudson’s unfamous brother who looks vaguely like Steven Weber?

4. Is Michelle Rodriguez sexy?  I’m kind of scared of her.

Henry Poole Is Here: Luke Wilson, 10 years later!  I was on board with this one from the beginning.  Luke’s aged a little, but isn’t Verizon Commercial Fat yet.  He  buys a house and intends to drink himself to death.  I can get behind this idea.  But then his weird neighbor decides she can see Jesus in the stucco of his house and he goes on a walk with her other neighbor Radha Mitchell (whose daughter who has that weird movie quirk where she doesn’t talk until, like whatever yawn) and then I guess it was like, he has cancer (OR LUKEMIA, the prospect of which I could not stop giggling about) and thinks he’s going to die but I think maybe the Jesus water stain saves him or maybe he just stops drinking I really don’t know PEACE OUT.

From the redbox, we rented never-released-to-theaters, Ben Stiller starring The Marc Pease Experience.  Those two descriptors together are less that encouraging, but despite my pulling for Animal Planet: Puppy Party, we rented it anyway.  Directed by Todd Louiso (Love Liza) and co-starring Jason Schwartzman and Anna “Up in the Fucking Air” Kendrick, this little indie-ish high school theater comedy was a steaming pile of WTF.  Schwartzman is the eponymous character who still maintains his high school a cappella group, with whom he dreams of making a demo, lives in his dead grandmother’s condo, and is still traumatized by a failed performance of The Wiz from 8 years earlier.  He is dating Meg (Kendrick) who is a senior at his alma mater (though they make sure to mention she is 18).  His hero is the music teacher, Jon Gribble (Stiller), who promised to produce his a cappella album — but that was when he was in high school and he actually is just a smarmy loser asshole.  Also, he is fucking Meg which is completely gross and entirely disturbing.

I can sum up my feelings about The Marc Pease Experience is one simple phrase: I don’t get it.  It seems like it wants to be a parody of high school drama and music (I think this is what Glee is?) but Stiller’s character isn’t over the top.  He’s actually under the top.  That is, I think we’ve all encountered high school drama teachers (or whatever kind of teacher, like my world history teach who would absolutely FLIP if you called him “Mister” instead of “Doctor.”  I kind of had the hots for him, but again, another issue) who take themselves wayyy too seriously and completely get off on the fact that a bunch of high school kids think they are awesome because other adults realize what complete losers they are.  That idea is a little bit funny and is played to maximum ridonkulousness (with mixed results) in Hamlet 2, but here, Stiller is so subdued that it’s not funny, it’s just uncomfortable and a little bit sad.

There are a lot of things going on in Schwatzman’s character too with his delusional ideals about his a cappella group, the fact that he’s dating a high schooler (who is kind of a bitch to him) and has no family and is pathetic and sad but it’s all over the place.  Is it funny?  Is it sad?  Who the fuck is this guy?  And why is the movie named after him?  Huh??

Finally there is Meg about whom we know even less apart from the fact that she likes to sing and fuck older guys (change “sing” to “drink” and that’s a pretty apt description of…nevermind).  The fact that she’s dating Marc is one thing, he’s obviously sweet if lame.  The fact that she’s fucking her music teacher – and clearly isn’t all that into it – is so weird and gross.  But those feelings are never validated by anything that happens in the movie.  Gribble doesn’t get any comeuppance and Meg doesn’t have any epiphanies about self-esteem or fall in love with some cute high school boy.  It’s disturbing.  I was genuinely disturbed and grossed out.

The direction and editing are also completely confusing.  You’ll just be going along, all normal movie like, and then there will be an extreme close up of Marc Pease buttering his toast for 25 seconds.  I wish I were exaggerating.  I don’t…I just…WTF?  There is no reason for this shot to exist.  The toast doesn’t come back to play an important part in the story.  I do not understand.  Come to think of it, there is no reason for this movie to exist.

The movie opens with a series of quick cut close ups of Ryan preparing to go on the road.  His clothes are folded neatly and fit perfectly in his carryon, then he whisks his way through check in and security.  Get it?  He travels a lot so he’s good at it.  The problem is, the contents of the sequence betray Ryan’s precision and his antiseptic life, free from messy connections.  But the style does not.  The shots are oddly framed and sloppily edited.  Far from precise and clean, they are confusingly messy verging on amateurish.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the problems with Up in the Air.

The film continues to follow Ryan on the road, through his encounters with Alex (Vera Farmiga), a lovely female road warrior with whom he begins a torrid romance, his training of Natalie (Anna Kendrick, who went from high school senior in New Moon to college graduate in a matter of a month), the seemingly heartless ingénue whose idea of romance involves finding someone that fits all the boxes on her checklist and his trip to his sister’s wedding where he is forced to reexamine his life philosophy: make no connections and you can achieve your goals free of baggage.  Except for maybe a carry-on.

No, the story certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but the way in which it doesn’t is so completely disappointing and frustrating.  There are elements of the story that, while not brilliant, are easy setups.  Easy like kicking over bowling pins.  But then, a few scenes later, when you’re looking for the payoff, it isn’t where you thought it would be, or worse yet, it isn’t there at all.  Why waste time and energy making a scenario that begs for resolution and then leave that part out?

Worse yet is the “twist” in Ryan and Alex’s relationship.  It’s surprising, but not in a way that you can go back and rewatch it into making sense.  No, it just makes no sense at all.  It serves the purpose of making Ryan sad, but it does not at all jive with the rest of the story.  It was so bad it made me use the word “jive”.

I wish I could say that I knew what Jason Reitman was going for in making this movie.  The undercurrent of Ryan’s job – the message that even if you lose your job, you’re going to be ok – is one that sort of makes sense.  It’s a nice uplifting message, I guess.  But I can think of about a billion ways that such a message could have been conveyed in a more coherent and dare I say entertaining way.  I could even see Ryan Bingham as a character as being quite compelling.  But I wasn’t convinced the two stories fit together.  At all.

So, big deal, a movie was disappointing and shitty.  Oh well, happens all the time.  But what doesn’t always happen is all the attention that has been heaped on it.  Even though it’s not in wide release until Christmas, it has already won awards from the National Board of Review for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film.  WHAT.  WHAT.  BEST FILM?!  They know that Inglourious Basterds came out this year, right?  And Adventureland?  And  at least 5 other movies that don’t completely suck though I can’t think of them right now??

So, big deal, who cares about awards and Oscar buzz.  It’s just a popularity contest with no real relation to what’s good or not.  But the critics, they surely won’t stand for this kind of suckage.  Right, Rotten Tomatoes?  Wait.  89%?? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!  A.O. Scott of the New York Times?  You think what?  That  “this is a classic in the making”?  Could I really be so far off base?  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.  This movie was so so bad.  With characters who weren’t whole, cinematography that was not good, a story that wasn’t interesting or important.  Did I see the same movie?  Did I accidentally go see New Moon again?

I hate you and everything you stand for, Up in the Air.
On a less infuriated note, here are some things I found acceptable:
The Sam Elliott cameo towards the end.  That guy and his mustache can do no wrong.

Vera Farmiga’s haircut.

Creating a new category for my blog called “suck”

This poster that I found online:

The movie is based on a story by Roald Dahl.  I’m not familiar with this particular story, but I get the feeling that Anderson added a lot more to it in this imagining.  Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is an aging reporter who longs for one last chance to act like a fox (i.e., harassing and stealing from farmers) despite the reservations of his wife (Meryl Streep).  With the help of his inept but well meaning friend Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) he orchestrates his last big score.

Since a movie needs conflict, something goes awry and Mr. Fox, Kylie and the rest of the animals have to go about finding away to survive an all out assault from a trio of evil farmers.

And it is soooo cute.

I’ll certainly admit to being a big fan of Wes Anderson.  Rushmore is definitely among my most favorite movies of all time.  It doesn’t take a film major to realize that, though the scripts are rife with clever humor and the stories are fun and quirky, what sets his films apart from any number of other indie-quirky-cutesy movies is the obsessive attention to production design and the ephemeral idea of good taste and style.  Wes Anderson has style in droves.

With this in mind, I think Anderson left what will be a lasting impression on the genre of stop motion animation.  The details of the characters in Fantastic Mr. Fox are exquisite (there is another word I don’t use very much).  Their furry little faces gleam, their character traits are as alive, distinguishable and compelling as any (dare I say more compelling than more) live actor.  In short, this movie is beautiful.  Now, I saw Wall-E and I saw Up.  To me, these movies rely on tugging heartstrings and, at times, very effective character development to be compelling.  When CG animation looks “good” it looks “real.”  This movie doesn’t look real, it looks beyond real.  It looks alive and magical.  It still has a cute story, some very funny scenes and even very memorable voice performances, but what really makes it special is that it is so fun to look at.  Even if there was no sound,  it would be visually compelling.  I hate to make yet another corny statement about it, lest I be branded some kind of Wes Anderson fangirl (um…) but in short, this movie is more than a movie — it’s art.

I was just lamenting the other day that I really don’t get to do enough drunk blogging anymore because I don’t really have the internet at my house.  But really that just stops me from drunk *posting* not drunk blogging.  So, the original intent of the Drunk Reviews tag was to both watch and review the movie while I was drunk I am going to make an exception tonight.  Because I am drunk and I already have 3 movies that I watched and need to blog about.  So at least one of them will be a drunk blog.  Holy shit that was wayyyy too much explanation.

On Sunday I was supposed to see that movie about Nazi zombies (does anyone else have trouble reaching the “z” on the keyboard?  It’s very uncomfortable) but instead I saw Up.  I really don’t like the title of this movie.  I want it to have an exclamation point or, something.  Another word, I guess.  The Fantastic Adventures of a Clinically Depressed Elderly Man and a Racially Ambiguous Child who Lacks a Father Figure might be good.  A little wordy, though.

I wasn’t head over heels for Up, but it is recognizably well done.  The animation specifically is very impressive.  Sure, the story (is it an allegory?  I’m going to have to google that) is charming in a Pixar-y way.  It’s impossible not to cheer on the protagonists, Carl and Russel, who are both adorable and earnest in their own ways.  The thing about the absent father I feel like has been Done to Death.  Sure it’s a problem that plagues America (I don’t even know if this is true, but I’m sure it must suck when this happens) but you can bet your sweet ass (WTF, why did I just say that?) that someone would have been up in arms if the kid (Russell) with an absent father had been African-American.  I mean, right?  Because then it would have been saying something about the irresponsibility of black men towards their children like that one time that Bill Cosby told black people to stop spending their money on sneakers.  Did my blog just suddenly get controversial?  Anyway, that just kind of annoyed me.  The missing dad part, not black people.  I actually don’t remember seeing any black characters in this movie, except at the very end.

What I did like was the really dumb talking Golden Retriever named Doug.  He was funny, even if his schtick got a little old.  I used to have a Golden Retriever.  She was really sweet but dumber than a brick.  Poor Claudia.

I was also kind of offput by how much littering happened in this movie, especially considering that WALL-E, Pixar’s last offering, was basically 90 minutes of “Don’t Litter” propaganda.  Russell and Carl go to the remote jungle, the whole point of it being that it is remote and secluded and “a land lost to time” and they just leave all kinds of shit everywhere.  They unload a whole house full of furniture right there on the jungle floor, they release all kinds of balloons into the atmosphere (also, come on guys, BALLOONS CAN’T LIFT A HOUSE!) and eventually (SPOILER!) they just leave a whole fucking house!  Right there at the top of a waterfall!  Maybe most kids aren’t going to take away any messages about littering in the rainforest from this movie, but it just seemed kind of weird to me.  Yes, this is actually something I thought about while watching Up.  No, I am not a dirty hippy.  It’s just weird, right?

Eisenberg plays James Brennan who comes home to live with his parents after he graduates from Oberlin.  With a liberal arts degree (hey, I’ve got one of those!) he find himself either under or overqualified for anything that might resemble gainful employment and ends up getting a job at the local eponymous carnival.  Rather than zany, the cast of characters James encounters at Adventureland are for the most part morose and malcontent.  He quickly befriends his coworker, Joel (Martin Starr) who has a degree in Russian literature and develops an immediate crush on Em (Kristin Stewart), a beautiful, sharp and troubled NYU student who took a job at the carnival to escape a tumultuous home life. 

Upon reflection, these characters are easy to peg, but the way the story develops wasn’t what I expected and I found it moving in a way that the vast majority of movies, whether they are meant to target me as a demographic, are not.  The summer progresses typically, the carnys (sp?) falling in and out of love, drinking excessively, smoking a lot of marijuana and generally just trying to figure out life.  Oh god, I think I have been pandered to.

SNL’s Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are hilarious as the couple that runs the carnival.  Their straightfaced enthusiasm and confusion is priceless.  Martin Starr, who was unknown to me before, was also notable in his performance as the geeky but sweet friend and Matt Bush as the asshole friend leftover from grade school was iconically funny.  If this movie were to see the same kind of success as something like Napoleon Dynamite (I’m sure it won’t, though I would be shocked to learn the comparison wasn’t tossed around at any point) then it would be Bush’s ball punching, sweatband wearing Tommy Frigo that people would undoubtedly latch on to.

I was planning on including a paragraph here about how the female characters were all somewhat detestable, but that really wasn’t the case, I think I just want it to be.  Actually, Em is probably the most complex character in the film and even though she does make poor choices and behave irrationally at moments, that is easily attributable to the fact that she is human, not that she is a woman.  This can often be a problem with feminist theorizing: it can backfire and have you (me) end up demonizing women instead of…you know, not doing that which is the whole point.

There were points where I felt like Adventureland was trying a little too hard and the peripheral characters were a little cliche, from Ryan Reynolds’ philandering maintenance man to Lisa P, the super-hot chick who is also super-Christian but there was something truthful and flawed about the way that James and Em negotiate their summer and each other that is touching and sweet.   The poster and the trailer are very misleading — this isn’t a zany summer stoner comedy, though there are moments of that.  It’s much more angsty and dark than that, but that’s a good thing.

They fall in love and he gives her  her first orgasm on a couch.

WTF?

Ok, but at the very least, surely this shockingly blunt,  poorly acted, practically humorless teenage rom/com had some lessons thrown in there somewhere.  Let’s have a look.

Lessons Learned

1. It is A-OK to get completely shitfaced in NYC, barf in the Port Authority bathroom, and make out with strangers.  As a matter of fact, it is completely necessary if you want your best friend to fall in love.
2. It is A-OK to just drive away while your slutty ex-girlfriend does a striptease for you by the East River, leaving her stranded.
3. It is unacceptable to not have had an orgasm by the age of 17 if you are a female.  Everyone will know about it and publicly (pubicly?) shame you.
4. It is really easy to get cameos from John Cho, Andy Samberg, Seth Myers, Devendra Banhart and Bishop Allen for your movie no matter how much it sucks.  Filmmakers take note.
5. “Finger bang” is the unanimously preferred parlance for what Michael Cera does to Kat Dennings at the end.
6. Teenagers today have no parents.

I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You over the weekend.  It was pretty much against my will.  And it pretty much made me want to kill myself.  Now, I’ve never read the eponymous book – as a matter of fact, I’m not even certain I’m using the word “eponymous” correctly - but I can’t really argue with the basic tenets of said book, that are spelled out in the movie using oh-so-subtle intertitles (e.g., …if he’s not marrying you, …if he’s sleeping with someone else, …if he is Criss Angel…Ok, I made that one up, but I think you get the idea).  What I can argue with is the value of this stupid movie that, though probably disturbingly accurate in some cases, is not just offensive to women, but to all adults who purport to be capable of decent, mature interpersonal relationships.  Yes, everyone plays mind games once in a while, or makes a mistake, or posts a passive-aggressive status update on facebook, but for the most part, I like to believe that there are a lot of people out there who are decent and nice and not BATSHIT INSANE like everyone in this movie!

A rundown of the characters and the endless range that each actor had to display in embodying these incredible three-dimensional and completely sympathetic men and women (and a bunch of spoilers) after the jump.

GiGi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a naive, trusting, and dare I say DESPERATE young professional woman, searching for love in the bustling metropolis that is Baltimore.  She is your female friend that checks her messages obsessively, stages “run-ins” when she doesn’t get a call back and dissects “signals” and “signs” to meaningless minutia.  Her completely mediocre date with Conor (Kevin “E” Connoly) begins the movie.

Janine (Jennifer Connelly) is a buttoned down control freak, untrusting of her hot husband, Ben (Bradley Cooper) and ready to have a baby.

Beth (Jennifer Aniston) is in a happily monogamous relationship with Neil (Ben Affleck), but still has a deep down desire to get married, even though he “doesn’t believe in it.”

Anna (Scarlett Johannsen) is a struggling singer who meets Ben at a convenience store and begins an affair with him.  Conor is in love with her, but she feels no spark with him and would rather steal another woman’s husband. 

Mary (Drew Barrymore) is Anna’s friend, who is also searching for love (surprise!) and giving Anna bad advice all along the way.

Alex (Justin Long) is Conor’s bar tending friend who ends up being GiGi’s shoulder to cry on and advice giver about the male species.  But guess WHAT.  She Changes Him and He Falls For Her.  I KNOW that goes against the very basic principles of the book, but that’s what Hollywood is for!  To create false hope!  Not give ADVICE!

I can understand that to translate a self-help book into a narrative film could be a challenge for any writer.  I can also see what the writers (Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein) were hoping for – something akin to a charming American Love Actually, but it didn’t work.  Instead, these characters are exaggerated stereotypes who garner no sympathy, aside from the occasional painful memory.  Bright, creative, ambitious, attractive, (incredibly) well-dressed women and all we know about them is that they have Boy Trouble.  And when their Boy Trouble is resolved, they are all better.  Yeah, I have Boy Trouble sometimes, but more often I have Friend Trouble or Job Trouble or Apartment Hunting Trouble or Car Trouble or any of those other troubles that make up a real life.  An interesting, real, LIFE.

I mean, there’s not even a good drunk dial scene, you guys.  How realistic is THAT?

Anyhow, as you might have guessed from the poster, the trailer, the colon in the title or the fact that it was number one at the box office in that most notorious of all dumping grounds that is January, Paul Blart: Mall Cop was truly awful.  That picture to the left?  That is the joke.  Fat Guy on Segway.  That IS the movie.

Kevin “King of Queens” James play Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  He wants to be a state trooper (in New Jersey, natch), but due to his hypoglycemia, he has never been able to pass the obstacle course.  Instead, he lives with his mother and overweight daughter and cruises around a Jersey megamall on a Segway, lusting after the girl who works at the hari extension kiosk.  Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s mom and daughter are concerned that he has been alone for so long, since his ex-wife left him as soon as she got her green card (is this really a necessary fact?) so they sign him up for PerfectMatch.com.  This is indeed a real website, but they seem to have sunk their entire advertising budget into product placement.  That’s right, this is the same website through which the main characters meet in 2005’s Must Love Dogs.  Though I happen to know a number of people who are no strangers to the online dating scene, I have never met anyone that has used PerfectMatch.com.  Match.com, OKCupid, even eHarmony.  Perhaps their marketing buys are not really working.  But I digress.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop is Segwaying through his days at the mall, training a new guard, flirting with Amy the wig girl (Jayma Mays, who with her big innocent eyes and bewildered look is a dead ringer for Anna Faris – but without the part where she is funny) and being tormented by a pen salesman when crisis strikes.  It seems the new guard is actually a criminal mastermind who, along with his BMX bike riding and skateboarding underlings, has planned to rob the mall on “Black Friday” (weird that the movie came out right *after* Christmas, then).  So Amy is taken hostage and Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the only one left inside the mall to save her.  Chaos and non-hilarity ensues.

I have nothing against wacky comedies.  I have nothing against Kevin James or Anna Faris lookalikes or fat little kids or internet dating.  I guess I have an aversion to Mall Cops (cops in general) but this movie was not funny.  It was stupid.  It was predictable.  It had inexplicable skateboarding in improbable consequences to getting drunk (karaoke?  yes.  tattoos? no!) And the hot chick falls in love with the fat sweaty guy.

Please don’t give this movie your money.  Go ahead and send it to me and I will put it good use & then send you pictures that will make you laugh a lot more than Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

The much delayed ensemble romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You, based on the book of the same name that has been dog-eared by cat-owning women across the world, is finally coming out February 6th.  The poster went online today.  Hmm…I wonder what this movie is going to be like…

Check it out, after the jump.

I don’t know, do you think maybe some attractive people are going to fall  in and out of love and learn some life lessons along the way?  I DON’T KNOW, WHAT DO YOU THINK??

I understand that they want people to get what kind of movie it is, but for all the millions of dollars spent on movie marketing they can’t get any better than a photo collage that a 5th  grader could decoupage on foamboard?  Yawn.

At least this one is a little creative:

All that being said, if He’s Just Not That Into Her, why does everyone look so damn happy?