Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a pretty funny movie with a few laugh-out-loud moments. The rest of the audience agreed, though most of their laughs were directed at the full-frontal wang nudity.
Ok, so is 2008 going to be the year of the comical wang on the big screen? It’s only April and weens have already drawn big laughs in Walk Hard and now in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I was at both and the laughs were big. Laughs = cash, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more fellas in movies in the near future. Will they last? Will they lose their comedic value? When the wang-shock-value is over, where do we go next? Anus in 2009? Boners in 2010?
I caught the first half of 21 the other day, before being called out to pick someone up. The closest I ever came to leaving a movie before this was when Will Smith connected to the alien ethernet in Independence Day.
The 10.5 I managed to see was interesting in the formula “guys working the system and avoiding a beat-down” sort of way. It was 50% of a fun watch and had all the right energy soundtrack in all the right “will he get away with it” moments. I don’t feel compelled to immediately sit through the first 10.5 again to get to the last, however, so apparently I don’t find it 100% stellar … and besides, that’d be like 31.5, which is just weird.
Four Weddings and a Funeral: I don’t really hate this one as much as some of the other Movies I’ve Hated that everyone else Loved. I just sort of didn’t like it, and couldn’t figure out why everyone else did so much.
I guess the main problem is that I don’t like Hugh Grant, at all. I never have, and he’s at his blinkiest and phony-harmless-slimiest in this one. I do like Andie MacDowell, but mostly because she has a pleasant voice and always has a nice smile on her face every time you see her. But I would not like the line “Is it raining? I hadn’t noticed” no matter how pleasant the voice doing the uttering.
I could also do without the big speech about how much Andie’s character loved her husband, “Hamish” (what kind of a name is that? “What is that I taste? It seems kind of Hamish”), followed by her leaving him with no explanation to take up with The Blinkinator. I also don’t buy the breaking-up of a wedding, no matter how sweet and pure-hearted the disabled fellow responsible for it, as a major triumph for Love and Romance. This movie is kind of an anti-romance really, at least anti-the concept of the possibility of romantic love as more than a temporary diversion. Actually, if it had been marketed that way, I might have liked it better.
Anyway, in trying to remember more about the movie to type smack about, I just read the “memorable quotes” on imdb. I don’t remember any of them. I guess that just about says it all.
Angry Teti shared this with me this morning. This is the sort of thing that makes the internet worthwhile. Uh, spoilers for Predator. ‘Cause you wouldn’t want its intricate plot twists wrecked for you.
The Wicker Man and I came into the world the same year: 1973. Therefore, I spent my early years marinating in this decade of questionable aesthetics. It is possible that my baby pictures would have been as cute as baby pictures are wont to be, if they were not defaced with the clothing of the day, which without exception aped the hues of long-dead plant life. It is possible that children today watch educational videos which do not scorch the visual as well as intellectual sensibilities of their viewers, as did those produced in that miserable decade. It is possible that something good happened some time during the 1970s, but you would not know it looking at the documentary evidence available from that time. Read the rest of this entry »
I know it’s completely impossible to have any kind of objective standard by which to evaluate movies. There’s no such thing as a “Best Picture” on which everyone will agree. But I have to say I’m pleased with the academy’s selections. The one really important thing the ceremony does is raise the profile of movies that may not have been all that high on people’s lists. Suddenly, No Country and There Will Be Blood become must-see’s, and that’s fine by me. One day a year, movies are celebrated more for their artistic merit than their box office… which then helps their box office. A win-win.
But there exists no better representation of the continuing draw of movies than the sight of Cormac McCarthy (Cormac freakin’ McCarthy!) standing up in an apparently involuntary spasm of jubilation when No Country for Old Men was awarded Best Picture. If the notably reclusive author is going to the Oscars (let alone getting swept up in the excitement), I don’t feel so bad for, say, waiting in line for Indiana Jones tickets.
So Be Kind Rewind is coming out in a few short days, and I’m really looking forward to it. I think this the first movie of ‘08 that I’m excited about, in fact.
The premise (two dudes accidentally erase all their VHS tapes, and decide to re-shoot them all by themselves) might seem either far-fetched or hokey to you, or maybe you’re not a Jack Black fan. Even if both of those hold true (and I can understand being annoyed by Black at times, though I really think he’s good in quiteafewthings), I still think you should approach the movie with an open mind.
I think I, like many Indy fans, were probably a bit skeptical and reserved after hearing news of the upcoming fourth Indy pic. The (then) trilogy had ended on an appropriately high note in terms of quality, so the immediate worry when hearing about a new film is, of course, that they’re going to screw it up completely.
And the movie may well be a misstep—George Lucas seems to be taking an unfortunately close interest in the production, and with no Nazis, is it really going to feel like a proper Indy picture? What about that title? The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? I like Shia LaBeouf, but will he be another Short Round?
Amazing how the thought process can be short-circuited by, well… something like this:
Now I’m whistling the theme to myself as I work, and thoughts of Lucas’ meddling are disappearing quickly. There still could be issues, of course. The initial trailer music sounds a lot more Zimmer than Williams (yes, the distinction is probably pretty minimal), and whither John Rhys-Davies or, for that matter, Sean Connery?
Still, though… I have to say I’m pretty excited now. Opening day, here I come.
The weekend’s worst punchline, however, is reserved for Paris Hilton’s The Hottie & the Nottie (Regent Releasing). The final count will show that the critically reviled comedy featuring the seemingly talentless Hilton has sold a meager $25,500 in tickets at 111 locations over the weekend. That’s only $230 per screen for theaters that were convinced to book this disaster. That means that, based on an $8 average ticket price, 29 paying customers showed up at each location over the 3-day. In a country that seems fascinated with Paris Hilton, only 3,219 unlucky Americans will have been suckered into seeing Hottie by Monday morning.
In case you’re curious a masochist, here’s the trailer, available in HD even.
I love that the movie bombed so convincingly, but I hate that it still managed to open in 111 theaters, when movies like Juno open in just a few, and eventually only ever trickle to my neck of the woods. Dear America—fix this.
UPDATE I just actually watched the trailer, and in between the dry heaves I read the text on the page, and I couldn’t not post this:
And then it hits him: June needs a makeover. But as Nate and June become friends and she emerges from her cocoon, Nate slowly realizes that the girl of his dreams isn’t the hottie at all. It’s the nottie — who turns out to be something of a hottie herself.
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