Funny People (2009)


Directed by: Judd Apatow

Starring: Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann, Adam Sandler, Eric Bana

Other Actors of Note: Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, RZA, Aziz Ansanri

Plot: When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship cause him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act. Taken from www.imdb.com.


I have never felt more lukewarm about a popular director than I have about Judd Apatow. "The 40 Year Old Virgin" was okay but it was two different movies that happened to be playing at the same time and I only liked one of them. And "Knocked Up" was a by-the-book chick flick that just happened to feature dick jokes. In fact I wouldn't have even seen "Funny People" if not for one factor:

Adam Sandler. Well, that and the fact that "District 9" wasn't out yet. I've been in support of Adam Sandler as an actor for a while. He proved in "Punch-Drunk Love" and "Reign Over Me" that he's far more than just funny voices and slapstick.

In "Funny People" our protagonist-that-doesn't-do-much-of-anything is Ira Wright (Seth Rogan having lost all the weight he put on for "Observe and Report") an amateur stand-up comedian struggling with the career he wants to pursue. He's hired by famous Comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler in a near autobiographical role) who has just found out he's dying of a rare form of cancer. Ira writes jokes for George and sees to other things he needs as he readies himself for his eventual death. But soon George finds out that he's been cured and tries to get back his ex-girlfriend (Leslie Mann) from her husband (Eric Bana) and have a second chance at life.


Seth Rogan, as I said above, doesn't do a whole lot of anything during this movie. The film is largely about George and Ira really serves as an avatar for the audience as we react to what's happening in much the same manner as he does. It's a paint-by-numbers performance from Rogan, pretty much going against all the good things I said about him in "Observe and Report" (fucker)

Adam Sandler for the third time in his career has proven he's a more than capable actor. As I said above he practically plays himself which is supplemented by footage from earlier in his career used on a couple of instances in the film. But there's a point in the middle of the film where it stops being about Adam Sandler and George Simmons becomes his own character. He goes from the hero of the movie to the villain almost instantly and we're left with Ira who has done basically nothing for 40 minutes to step in as the leading man.


"Funny People" is an interesting, if albeit schizophrenic, narrative. For the life of me I don't think I can recall a single movie that dealt with stand-up comedians. It says a lot of things about the industry and even has it's own pseudo Dane Cook comedian named Randy (played by "Human Giant's" Aziz Ansari) and in some ways it's Ira's world that's far more interesting. I personally would have watched a movie about just that.

The second tier of the story is George and his life as a major comedy star. It's obvious there's a lot of self-loathing going on there and as per usual money didn't buy happiness and blah blah cliche blahdy blah. I know I sound less than enthused but this is the second most interesting part of the movie.

Then there's the third tier of George trying to get back with his ex-fiance Laura who is married with children to an Australian businessman named Clarke. This comes across as a movie within the movie and somehow distracts from the movie whilst being an integral part of it. Though this part too is still entertaining. Just less, entertaining than before.

What I really liked about these 3 tiers is that none of them are cliche. In a normal movie we would've seen Rogen rise through the comedy ranks and be approaching George's level of success by the end but in reality he's only slightly above where he started.

In a normal movie George Simmons would've had a relapse, remarried Laura, and then died of cancer in a divine twist of irony or some such bullshit like that. Fortunately none of those things happen.

In a normal movie Clarke would've been an irredeemable asshole instead of the nice relatively decent, if distant, guy.

"Funny People" is at it's core is a movie about life, success, and love. That's the best way I can possibly describe it. It's funny, it's deep, and it's thought provoking. For what it is it's a very good movie and has served to change my mind about Judd Apatow.


I give "Funny People" a 4 out of 5. It's a pretty great movie that's really fucking hard to describe. I don't know if it's a buy, but it's definitely a watch.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Directed by: Michael Bay

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Ramon Rodriguez, Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving

Other Actors of Note: Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Kevin Dunn, Rainn Wilson

Plot: Decepticon forces return to Earth on a mission to take Sam Witwicky prisoner, after the young hero learns the truth about the ancient origins of the Transformers. Joining the mission to protect humankind is Optimus Prime, who forms an alliance with international armies for a second epic battle. Taken from www.imdb.com.

A perfect example of Megan Fox's great tits- er, acting.

Summer. The time when drama, plot development, and characterization are thrown to the wind to make room for more explosions. And what director captures the summer movie like Michael Bay?

Michael Bay the Rob Liefeld of movies does his second sequel. His previous part 2, "Bad Boys 2", managed to take a good movie and improve upon it despite making it as big and shiny as humanly possible. So, naturally, I assumed as much would be possible for even Michael Bay a second time. Alas, it was not to be.

Now, before I proceed, I would like to give you a little bit of a history on the intellectual property we now see before us. "Transformers" started out as a four-issue Marvel Comics series and a 20 minute commercial both of which were made with the express purpose of advertising a line of toys that turned from robots into vehicles.

While the comics did indeed come into their own storyline-wise, the show was never more than cheesy bad animation meant to entertain 7-year-olds, not even when the movie came out. A movie held together almost solely by nostalgia. So let me say that this movie and the original in no way "bastardized" the series or raped your childhood. Shut the fuck up.

And for those of you comic fans who have a very valid point. (After all, if you argue with Simon Furman he'll write your death into the story.) But I remind you that even Michael Bay can't fuck things up as bad as Pat Lee.

You've got the Tooooooooooouch

So anyway. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" picks up a few months after the first movie. Sam is going to college, Mikaela is staying where she is due to having to help her father, and the Autobots (sans Bumblebee who's fulfilling his voyeuristic mission of letting Sam and Mikaela fuck in his back seat) are out rounding up the remaining Decepticons.

Well as the Autobots fight with a bunch of Decepticons we find out absolutely nothing about we wind up in the middle of a "Terminator" movie as a Decepticon that looks human tries to do... something?... to Sam. Megatron gets brought back to life for some arbitrary reason, Optimus dies, and Soundwave tentacle rapes a satellite.

So shit gets real and Sam, Mikaela, Sam's new "quirky" room-mate/sidekick Leo, Bumblebee, and Skids and Mudflap (two Autobots that kick the Civil Rights movement in it's righteous ass, but more on that later) go off to find a really old Transformer to help them.

This all culminates in Egypt in a big explodey battle where robots are literally in two places at the same time, Optimus gets to show his psychotic side, and John Torturro stares at a robots giant ballsack. Also this happens (okay, it actually doesn't, but it would be awesome if it did.)

Megan Fox just watched the "GI Joe" trailer.

Shia LaBeouf's performance in the first movie was certainly nothing special. Before we go much further let me say that I like Shia LaBeouf. I think he's a good actor that's suffering from a case of over-exposure and has had 3 pretty crappy roles (Mutt Williams in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", Sam Whitwicky in "Transformers", and Jerry Shaw in "Eagle Eye") that haven't really allowed him to show off his ability. Nonetheless, he doesn't shime much in this movie. Of course he doesn't really get a chance to, the only time we spend much time with Sam is at the beginning which just feels tacked on and pointless, otherwise he's running around dodging CG and explosions, and looking scared.

Megan Fox has been compared to Angelina Jolie. She's certainly better looking but I'd say when it comes to acting she's about on par with Jolie's "say-a-line-then-strike-a-pose" style of pretending to act. Maybe "Jennifer's Body" will change my mind but Megan Fox hasn't done anything for me thus far and this movie does nothing to change that.

Josh Duhammel, Tyrese Gibson, and John Turturro seemingly play parodies of the characters they played last time. (Now think of how campy Turturro was last time and tell me that concept doesn't scare you a little bit.)

None of the robots performances really matter, they all do a good job but add nothing specific to the movie, but lets pause momentarily on a particular 2.'

Skids and Mudflap are two Transformers that: speak jive, look like monkeys (one has a gold tooth as well), are illiterate, and generally act like two of the most stereotypical black characters in the universe. They make Jazz from part 1 look perfectly normal. This is a perfect example of what Michael Bay is like when Steven Spielberg isn't there to tell him "no." I feel sorry for the actors because their families have to eat too (especially the one who actually is black) but I suppose you can't blame everything on Michael Bay, they could've reigned it in a bit.


Just getting over that headache that the action scenes from the first movie gave you? Well I have good news. You can actually see what the fuck is going on this time! Though Michael Bay, no doubt twirling his Snidely Whiplash mustache, has compensated for this by making almost all of the robots look exactly alike so you have no fucking clue who's killing who.

It's also of note that Decepticons that died in the first movie and even earlier in the movie show up in the final battle scene. Also, all the robots that make up Devastator are fighting the Autobots at the same time as Devastator himself are fighting Uncle Tom and Jim Crowe. In fact there's seemingly no rhyme or reason to the Decepticons, perhaps they're self-regenerating robots that can never die like the T-1000 or Toonces the Driving Cat.

Though we do get some nice fan service. Soundwave is here and even though he never actually fights anybody we do get to see him tentacle rape space technology with fiber-optic cables and he does sound the same as in the cartoon. And he does shit out Ravage at one point or another.

We also get Jetfire, a Decepticon who defected to the Autobot side in the comics, and though that remains the same in this movie the big difference is this Jetfire is a cantankerous old man who seems to be constantly on fire or falling apart. Jetfire is the shit.

Though as many cool cameos as we get, most of them go to waste. All the cool Decepticons die in ways where they're obviously never coming back. (This is, except for Starscream and Megatron who will probably ally themselves with Unicron for part 3) Then of course all the new Autobots are rather unspectacular as well (Skids and Mudflap are the only ones we ever really get to see very much.) But hey, Arcee's finally here! And she gets one whole line before she dies! That'll teach you uppity womens to know your place!

Of course the most odd thing about this movie is despite the stupid-as-hell storyline, sub-par acting, weird editing, and over-flashiness of the whole thing I didn't walk out of the theater disappointed. "Transformers" has never been high art and even if this goes against every rule of cinema established since the dawn of time it's still entertaining.


It's not as good as the first one but it's still a big, explodey, mildly offensive good time.

I give "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" a 3 out of 5. It's fun, see it at some point.

And remember...

You've got the touch

Brüno (2009)


Directed by: Larry Charles

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten

Plot: Flamboyant Austrian fashionista Brüno takes his show to America. Taken from www.imdb.com.


For those of you who appreciated "Borat" you probably wondered what Sacha Baron Cohen could possibly do to top a horribly offensive Muslim/forgeigner caricature that made just about everyone froth at the mouth in anger? Why, it's the same way you get an Oscar of course, go gay!

"Bruno" is the story of an Austrian fashion-show host who becomes blacklisted by all the fashion outlets in Europe. He goes to America to try and become famous again with only his most loyal assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten) to help him.


So since this is a mockumentry there's little point in going into acting. Suffice it to say that when Sacha Baron Cohen plays a character he truly immerses himself into the part. Just as in "Borat" before it, Cohen plays Bruno more as a separate personality than a character. You know it's an actor but you can almost believe that this is a real human being.

While staying in character is certainly one of the finer points, Cohen's ballsy approach to getting people pissed at him knows no bounds. How many actors would go so far as to visit a terrorist organizations and insult their leader? I'm looking at you Jamie Kennedy.

Of course this movie is basically gauging the reactions of Americans to Bruno's flagrant and utterly over-the-top sexuality and in some cases damn near gets himself beaten or killed for it. The amusing thing though is that as crazy as Bruno is, he's really the least over-the-top person in the movie.

It's clear to see that Cohen's star power has gone a long way for this movie as he gets cameos from no less than Bono, Elton John, Slash, Snoop Dog, Chris Martin, and Sting. And those are only the ones who were in on the joke. Though I'll file Harrison Ford in the "not sure" category as his scene may have been staged.

"Bruno" is absurdly funny for the things Cohen does to get a reaction but even more so for peoples' reaction to them. However, while the movie does manage to be amazing it still isn't quite as good or memorable as "Borat" was. While Borat was good at showing how insecure and hateful people really are, Bruno puts people in situations where an adverse reaction is really the only reasonable choice.


There's really not much more to say on this one, so I give "Bruno" a 4 out of 5. It's pretty great but not quite a classic like its predecessor.

Public Enemies (2009)


Directed by Michael Mann

Starring: Johnny Depp, Jason Clarke, Christian Bale

Other Actors of Note: Channing Tatum, Stephen Dorff, Billy Crudup

Plot: The Feds try to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s. Taken from www.imdb.com.


There's something to be said for romanticism. Without it, "Hoosiers" would be a boring piece of shit, "Rudy" would be more of a sniveling dingus than even Sean Astin could have played him, Johnny Cash would've gotten along with his father, and "Walking Tall" would have had to have been 97% less bullshit... well, that might be okay.

Romanticism is what separates "American Outlaws" from "The Assassination of Jesse James" while one embraces explosions, gunfights, and Timothy Dalton the other is a more realistic take on the story of Jesse James. Because he was totally sexy like Brad Pitt in real life, right?

Wrong

The point I'm trying to illustrate with Kevin Bacon: Gunslinger up there is that even when movies stay true to their subject matter they're still made with a healthy dose of bullshit. But imagine if you will, that "The Assassination of Jesse James" ended with Jesse, Billie the Kid, Doc Holliday, and Wild Bill Hickock go on a rampage and then all fucking die. You would probably wonder what the fuck was going on, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, you are now prepared to see Public Enemies.


So if you were to make a movie about the life of John Dillinger, you would have to be mentally insane to cast anyone OTHER than Johnny Depp to play him. Handsome, charismatic, charming, mustachioed, this is the role that Johnny Depp was born to play. Depp doesn't just play Dillinger, he for all intents and purposes is Dillinger. If anything saves this movie it's its lead role and how flawlessly it's played by the starring actor.

Marion Cotillard plays Dillinger's last true love, Billie Frechette, in many ways Billie is the most interesting character of the movie. I can't help but wonder if a movie about a half-native American social outcast who found not only love but acceptance from a man who just happened to be one of the most notorious criminals in the country. Billie is a main character but she gets thrown by the wayside for parts about Dillinger's criminal career.

*sigh* Christian Bale. I am getting sorely fucking tired of seeing Christian Bale angrily glare at things. Yes he's a good actor, but you wouldn't know it from his last crop of films. Bale glowers and frowns his way through the movie with as little acting as possible. The part where he and Dillinger "face off" (and by "face off" I mean he says intimidating things to Dillinger who is inside a jail cell grinning like a bastard) is easily one of the least climactic moments in the film. To be honest Bale barely has any purpose in the movie at all so I'm really not sure why they got him to play the part of Melvin Purvis when just about anyone would've done.

Speaking of excessive roles. Anyone not Dillinger, Purvis, and Billie everybody else is unimportant and it's very hard to piece together who's who. It took me till much later to figure out that Stephen Dorff was Homer Van Meter.

I'm Christian Bale, and I've come to intense this movie the fuck up.

"Public Enemies" is a rise and fall biography where we see the character's rise to power and their ultimate fall from reality. The problem is there is no rise, the movie starts during the high point in Dillinger's career and then careens horribly down into oblivion.

For those with no imagination, this would be like if "Boogie Nights" just featured Mark Wahlberg jerking off for a guy in a pick-up truck and then pulling his dick out in front of a mirror.

So we start out at the midpoint of Dillinger's career and follow his exploits as he goes around robbing banks, romancing women, and doing other things of that nature. But here's where the historical inaccuracy comes in.

When we're first introduced to Melvin Pervis it's as he shoots and kills Pretty Boy Floyd. The problem? Pretty Boy Floyd died AFTER John Dillinger, though his killing of Floyd is given as the reason why J. Edgar Hoover picks him to catch Dillinger. We're also treated to the deaths of Homer Van Meter and Baby Face Nelson... in the same scene, within minutes of each other... BEFORE Dillinger! They might as well have had Bonnie and Clyde ride up out of nowhere and get shot to death too.

Of course there are some truly great things this movie does. John Dillinger was a cocky fucker, but with good reason, he had incredibly good luck. His luck and cockiness are both showcased in several scenes where the man literally hides in plain sight, and at one point even walks into the area of the police station dedicated to catching him. It's a wonder the man's balls could even fit through a conventional doorway.

The other theme is about J. Edgar Manhattan and how the bad supreme court man hurt his feelings so he puts the clamps on the then non-federal FBI who are composed of a bunch of stupid violent ham-fisted psychopaths (just like they are now.) Purvis appears to be torn with his role of a glorified mob hitman when it comes to taking out criminals but he never appears to be torn enough to not just start killing people.

There are interesting dynamics and the movie is never boring despite its long run-time, it's just that it doesn't do anything interesting with what they've got and Johnny Depp is the only really entertaining thing in the whole movie.


"Public Enemies" is a well made and deeply flawed film. Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard give great performances but Christian Bale can't act his way out of a paper bag and between the weird plot points and the glaring historical inaccuracy hold it back from being anything other than a movie you would watch on a Saturday afternoon on TV.

I give "Public Enemies" a 3 out 5. It's a mediocre film that's too good to be bad, and too dull to be good.