The best movie ever made about the worst movie ever made. And one man’s worst performance becomes another man’s best performance. Adept actor James Franco plays inept actor Tommy Wiseau in THE DISASTER ARTIST, a good film about the making of the bad film THE ROOM. In 2003, atrocious writer-director-actor Tommy Wiseau released THE ROOM, a poorly-written, artlessly-directed, badly-acted piece … Read More
THIS IS 40
This is Soporific. Writer-director Judd Apatow’s “sorta sequel to KNOCKED UP” is sorta not as good as KNOCKED UP. THIS IS 40 shows us how boringly randomly arbitrarily mundane and unnecessarily complex life over 40 becomes. Like anyone under 40 will care, and like anyone over 40 will care less. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Apatow’s real life wife) play … Read More
BRIDESMAIDS
Marriage of heaven and hell. One blond (Kristen Wiig), one brunette (Rose Byrne) and one fatty (Melissa McCarthy). Covering all the demos, are we? BRIDESMAIDS was advertised as being a Chick Flick version of SUPERBAD. Nope. It’s just super bad. About a lonely bridesmaid (Wiig) who battles another snobbish bridesmaid (Byrne) for the affections of the ugly bride (Maya Rudolph). … Read More
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
I’ve already forgotten. Forgettable romantic comedy about a jilted guy who takes a Hawaiian vacation alone to forget the girl who jilted him, only to find she is on the island, in the same hotel, ultimately in the room next door – with her new boyfriend. Beige, uncomfortable laughs ensue. Redeeming factors of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL: Judd Apatow is producer, … Read More
GET HIM TO THE GREEK
Going Greek: it only hurts if you’re sober. Drugs, bitches, rock stars, alcohol poisoning – geez! GET HIM TO THE GREEK is like one of my regular Tuesdays. In this Judd Apatow-produced road movie, Aaron Green (Jonah Hill, looking like a grounded zeppelin) has three days to get British rock legend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, intensity of a charged defibrillator) from … Read More
YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
Political Palestinian-Israeli Zionist Hairdresser Sex Comedy. YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN messes with our brains. Because it’s actually funny. Messing with our preconceptions that Adam Sandler is a mindless jerk, writers Sandler, Robert Smigel and the great Judd Apatow give us ridiculous piled on absurd and nipple-pinched by insane. And thankfully, mediocre director Dennis Dugan (his imdb directorial ratings … Read More
FUNNY PEOPLE
Apatow’s Magnum Scrotus. High comedy, intense drama, and lots and lots of dick jokes. FUNNY PEOPLE is the best movie Adam Sandler has ever made. Because it’s a Judd Apatow movie. In it, he offers us his vulnerable “human” character (as he did in SPANGLISH, REIGN OVER ME), not his insufferable, jutting-jawed imbecile (BILLY MADISON, THE WATERBOY), or his “pretend … Read More
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
The Fast Track to Brotherly J. Well, it in’t MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. Welcome to the new edge of comedy. There’s something very brave about Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen films – how they eschew Hollywood protocol and make their leading men (their male leads) each other’s love interest! Not gay. Love, you prurient, fundamentalist bigots. Two men who can swear eternal love for … Read More
SUPERBAD
Superbad: The Quest for Piece. It’s juvenile. It’s simple. It’s stupid. But it’s so good, it’s SUPERBAD. For the Now Generation of nerds. The age-old tale of three underage dorks on a quest for alcohol and chicks in one eventful night, where life happens while they’re trying to live it. We’ve seen this all before (DAZED AND CONFUSED, 1993; THE … Read More
THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN
Most fun you can have not having sex. Judd Apatow’s THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN has a premise which is utterly ridiculous, a story utterly preposterous and a cast utterly hilarious. Steve Carell is Andy, the eponymous 40-year-old virgin, enjoying his bachelorhood working at an electronics store by day, painting action figures and playing video games by night. After Andy’s … Read More
KNOCKED UP
Stretchmark Benchmark. Marriage is an institution. And you have to be crazy to be in an institution. — Gene Simmons. One could say KNOCKED UP is writer-director Judd Apatow’s baby – and as malformed as the rest of his hobgoblin brood. Seth Rogen is Ben, a shiftless layabout (rooming with a menagerie of oafs: Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, … Read More
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY
Laugh Hard. Musicians: this one’s for us. WALK HARD is not for Guitar Hero fakers or karaoke jackasses or talentless DJs with the audacity to call their fade-ups and fade-downs “mixing.” Let me say it again: WALK HARD is for MUSICIANS; for we who have lived the road, beaten the boards, spanked the groupies, trashed the dressing room, fart-filled the … Read More
KICKING AND SCREAMING
Aiming Low, Scoring Lower. KICKING AND SCREAMING is simply a Disney Message waiting to happen. Phil Weston (Will Ferrell) coaches a little league soccer team of shiftless misfits against his super-competitive dad, Buck (Robert Duvall), whose team is top dog. As counter-intuitive as it may seem in pitting Duvall against Ferrell as rival coaches, think how absolutely ludicrous it is … Read More
ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY
When The Anchorman was Man-Anchor. Will Ferrell makes me laugh. I’m not afraid to say it anymore. His shamelessness knows no bounds and I, for one, salute his strangely misshapen nude torso. In ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY, Ferrell is the blowhard, brain-soft title character, in love with his own self-proclaimed legend. And why not? His veteran standing and … Read More
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE 2005
Not Much Fun with Dick and Jane. To say that Adam Sandler is turning into a mediocre actor is a compliment of the highest order. To say the same thing about Jim Carrey is a tragedy for American Cinema. Not exactly a “boring” movie – but FUN WITH DICK AND JANE (remade from the 1977 movie of the same name … Read More
THE TV WHEEL
Pure Joel, Pure Genius. THE TV WHEEL is a large circular studio set with a camera in the middle, able to rotate and capture sketch performances in segments of the circular set. As one sketch is performed in one segment of the set, another segment sets up the props for the next sketch, camera rotating to capture that sketch, and … Read More