Reviews

Hangover 2 is actually better than the first one. Many have complained that the plot is total reprise of the original, but a classic comedy can be seen over and over, and it's still funny. Both Hangovers are classics, and the sequence of events is secondary to the relations between the characters. Hangovers one and two can be watched as a double feature, and they're both hilarious, but number 2 is actually the superior movie.

In both it's Stu who is the character that grows during the movie. When we first meet him he is a total weakling and a phony buffoon, abused by his vicious fiancé, and always lying to her so she won't get mad at him. A truly pathetic figure. By the end he actually gets one of his nuts back, and breaks off their engagement. One point for Stu. But the other members of the wolfpack really don't develop at all. Phil is still a dick, Alan is still a retard, and Doug is the nice guy who avoids all the insanity.

In Hangover 2, Stu gets his other nut, and finally embraces his inner demon. In the process, he becomes a man. All the plot twists, the absurdity, the impossible challenges surmounted by luck, pluck and guile - they merely form the backdrop for a voyage of self-discovery by a pompous sissy-dentist on the way to becoming a man. And it's funny as hell.

Bangkok makes the "sin city" of Las Vegas look like Disneyland in comparison, and all the challenges are amped-up in proportion. In Vegas, Stu marries Jade, a very nice girl who happens to work as an escort. In Bangkok, he gets sodomized by a she-male - and he loves it. It's pretty nasty, but it's part of the strange alchemy required to turn a sissy- dentist into a man.

Watch this movie and learn. You'll laugh like crazy while doing it.

Dinner for Schmucks is not just a funny comedy. It is hilarious, and one of the best comedies of the last several years. I rate it with the Hangover and Superbad, it's that funny.

The large number of negative reviews and relatively low rating (6.1) are a mystery to me. It's true that the title Schmuck played by Carrel is a very flawed character, and I can only conclude that the people who didn't get this movie couldn't get past that. If you can't handle a deeply flawed main character, then you probably won't like Dinner for Schmucks.

It's a movie with two primary characters, and in more ways than one it resembles the character structure of Tommy Boy: one is smart and cynical, the other is dumb and innocent. Carrel and Rudd take it to a new level, however. Rudd plays a very smart, and very successful junior executive in high finance. He has a wonderful girlfriend and lifestyle, except for one small problem: his job requires that he behave in ways that are not very nice. However, he does get paid very handsomely to do it, and he has a very bright future ahead of him. He is willing to compromise his principles a little - after all, what he does is perfectly legal - but he doesn't have to like it. Like many of us in the industrialized world, especially in business, he sells a little of his soul and gets a nice car in return. Some viewers may find this distressing - a little too close to home, perhaps?

The other character, Barry, played by Carrel, is pathologically clueless. He is one of the best screen portrayals of a pathetic loser ever seen. Fortunately, he does have some redeeming qualities: he is an excellent taxidermist, and his hobby of stuffing dead rodents and placing them in diorama scenarios is of such quality that is qualifies as art. His intentions are good, his heart is all right, but he is so oblivious, so socially retarded, that he caused tremendous problems for anyone he meets. As a result, he has no friends at all. None. He is completely alone in the world, but manages to maintain a largely positive view despite that. This is another reason why some people will find this movie painful to watch, and difficult to laugh at - they see too much of Barry in themselves.

But for those of us who can recognize our own faults and failings, and even laugh at them, Dinner for Schmucks is an amazing and uproariously hilarious movie. It also has a beautiful message of inclusion and acceptance. As the movie progresses, we learn that we are all schmucks, and no one is. By accepting one another, flaws included, we're all better off. And by recognizing our flaws, and laughing at them, we can all be better people. I loved this movie.

If you hated Life of Brian, then you won't like Year One either. In fact, we see a lot of such creatures rating this movie with one star as a political/religious statement. However, if you like your comedy layered upon multiple levels of meaning, and embedded within a historical and philosophical context, and you're knowledgeable enough to get jokes based upon middle eastern mythology and the slow ascent of enlightenment, you will love this movie.

The film starts with our Main Men, Oh and Zed (Cera and Black) embedded in a basic hunter-gatherer culture. Only problem is, Oh and Zed are modern humans, with our self-awareness and ironic detachment, surrounded by wild-state humans. The natural humans are powerful and fit, but a little lacking in philosophy.

After a close encounter with the Tree of Knowledge, Zed and Oh are exiled by their close-minded band and strike out for the Big City and Modern Times. They soon encounter the Hebrews, and this is where our own closed-minded theatre-goers get their panties in a bunch. We meet Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac, Cain slaying Abel, and the ridiculous absurdity of Old Testament "morality". Modern day fundies have a sense of humor chiseled in stone like the Ten Commandments, and this movie breaks them all.

Unfortunately the innocence of the hunter-gatherers has also been lost by this time. They have been captured by civilization and sold into slavery, and now Zed and Oh have a mission: rescue their damsels in distress (Maya and Eema) from slavery in Sodom.

Fortunately Isaac (in a hilarious portrayal of the Jewish Badboy by Chris Mintz-Plasse - that's McLovin to you)guides them to Sin City, where our heroes are quickly introduced into the complexities of modern politics. The power structure of the city is tyrannical and corrupt, ruled by a rotten king, his hilariously corrupt High Priest, and the scheming Prime Minister.

By the end of the film Oh and Zed and Maya and Eema (who are also very funny in supporting roles) have traversed the philosophical arc from instinctive animals through corrupt theocracy and finally end up peering through the keyhole of enlightenment. The humor is a little too smart and sacrilegious for some viewers, but for most it is an excellent comedy. I laughed my ass off and never missed it.

This movie is too honest and too intelligent for most viewers. It probes the dark corners of the American national psyche in ways that make redneck couch potatoes squirm, and sends the cockroaches in the basement of the American soul scurrying for cover.

If you worship guns and power, and fawn over authority, you need to see this movie. You'll hate it, but you need to see it. Unfortunately, the people who need to see this the most are the ones who will like it the least.

The characters in this movie are heavily flawed, and thoroughly despicable. The movie achieves three dimensionality, however, by showing a few hints of genuine humanity underneath their hideous brutality and ignorance. Ronnie is the central character of the film, and he is a violent psycho who desperately wants to be a hero. That is pretty standard Taxi Driver fare. But where Observe/Report surpasses Taxi Driver, as sociological analysis, is how this violent psycho is perceived by society. Society is represented by the Mall, which serves to highlight the shallow consumerism and mind-numbing conformity of our (redneck) nation. Ronnie is head of mall security, and within mall society his stupid brutality is not only accepted, but gets the uncritical approval of his boss, his coworkers, and mall customers.

Ronnie has only one real talent: he is extremely good at hurting people. He is a crack shot, as any self-respecting gun worshipper should be, but where he really excels is hand-to-hand combat. He can defeat a half-dozen murderous crackheads single-handed, or a dozen cops, or a couple dozen innocent skaters, just using simple household items or a security baton. He is also verbally abusive, insensitive, and extremely insulting to everyone he talks to (except his mother).

In the scenes with his alky mother, we see some small flashes of genuine humanity from Ronnie. He loves his mother, and she loves him, although she is just as much of a foul-mouthed trashy buffoon as her son. Their relationship is portrayed beautifully.

The supporting characters are also excellent. Anna Faris throws down a superb rendition of trailer trash Brandi (the evil twin of Brandi from Joe Dirt) and Collette Wolfe is great as Nell, the born-again virgin who is the only good-hearted character in the film. Now, Nell is very flawed herself. When we first see her she is a cripple, but as she heals physically her adoration for Ronnie holds out a tiny sliver of hope that she may be able to heal his raging psychosis someday.

The complete cast of characters is too long to mention individually, but they provide excellent support for Rogen's marvelous portrayal of violence and madness, and Jody Hill's brilliant dissection of the corrupting influence of power in America. Ronnie doesn't have much power as head of mall security, but even that little bit of power is enough to utterly corrupt him, and make him want more. This message is extremely important to the USA at this point in history, where the temptation to use our military advantage to create an overseas empire has proved so irresistible to American conservatives. If the Mall is America, then the surrounding city is the world. Letting Ronnie loose is dangerous not just to Ronnie, but everyone else too.

Ronnie - take your meds.

Yikes - one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Both in terms of history and myth this dog has no teeth and a mangy coat. The screenplay is a Power Rangers episode stretched way beyond the elastic limit, the acting landed somewhere between giggle and groan, and the direction was late-night infomercial. Terrible.

The basic idea here is that the sword Excaliber was forged for the conquerer Julius Caesar, but laid hidden when the last of his lineage ended with Tiberius. Fast-forward 400 years to the year 460 when the Roman Empire is crumbling, and the new Caesar is a young boy, torn between savage Goths and cowardly politicians. If only he had the magic sword, he could save the day... turns out, the plucky lad is a descendant of Julius Caesar, he does find the sword on the island of Capri, he takes it to Britain (with the help of Merlin the magician, a sexy ninja from India, and Colin Firth the Roman Soldier) where he kills the bad guy and later sires King Arthur.

If that sounds lame enough to be funny, just try watching this dog all the way through. It will make you very happy to see it end.

Flesh & Blood is the most accurate depiction of medieval reality ever seen on screen. It's easy to see why other filmmakers have lacked the courage to be so honest: see the reviews here. Many reviewers have recoiled from the scene of such savagery and suffering. (In reality, Italy in 1501 was much worse than what Verhoeven shows us - maybe some day the human race will be ready to face our past without flinching, but not yet.) The film tells the story of a young and beautiful virgin (Agnes, played by Jason-Leigh) who has been raised in a convent by nuns. She is assigned to marry a young nobleman (Steven Arnolfini, played by Tom Burlinson) but on her way to the wedding has been stolen by a ragged, angry band of mercenaries led by a penniless landsknecht. Rutger Hauer delivers an excellent portrayal of the soldier Martin, who is ignorant but cunning, intelligent and resourceful, but a typical specimen of a brutal time. Young Arnolfini, on the other hand, is a Renaissance man, university educated, enthused by the new science and looking forward to a new world of reason. He admires da Vinci the scientist, but both men fall in love with the delectable Agnes. The traditional dictum "all's fair in love and war" is shown here with terrible power, as both men grab for love, money, and victory by whatever means they can.

Agnes is torn between these two men, both emotionally and physically. Martin appropriates her as war booty, but Steven wants to win her back. Martin and his merry band of soldiers and whores capture a rich and well-fortified château (with the help of young Agnes, who easily transforms from doe-eyed innocent into feral survivor in her new surroundings - quite a wonderful evolution!) Steven and his evil father coerce John Hawkwood (an important figure in history, as one of the most important leaders of the brutal and destructive mercenary bands that ravaged Italy at the time) to help them besiege the château, but in the end it was the Plague (and young Steven's fervent love) that destroys the our little band of outlaws and returns Agnes to the world of privilege she previously knew.

As an action story the the film works marvelously, but to fully appreciate Flesh + Blood it must also be viewed as an allegory (of the kind our medieval forebears loved so well). The 1500's were a time when science and superstition fought for the minds and souls of men, when the medieval world of ignorance was replaced by the dawn of reason. Agnes represents the innocent soul of man, malleable for good or evil. Steven is the future, Martin the past, but both wear the sh*t of violence and treachery on their heels. In the end, the future replaces the past; Steven walks off with the girl. But Martin survives. He loots some gold and jewels from the château. He;ll probably lose it all very soon, but you can be damn sure he'll have a lot of fun in the process.

10/10, with an arbusque shot