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Step Brothers: Kids laughing, Kids crying, Kids getting beat up by adults.

I don’t know why or how, but Ryan Seacrest has totally hypnotized me.

Another weekend came along and you know what that means? Of course you do, it’s another comedy somehow associated with Judd Apatow. Within the last two to three years it is an inescapable fact; 65% of all laughter is attributed to this one man, along with 47% of newly coined sex jokes. He is the reigning golden boy of the comedy world and his latest stab at the laugh track to hit the screens is Step Brothers. Judd Apatow did reel himself back to only a producing credit, but we can all rest assured that even his name being attached got the greenlight to glow just a tad bit brighter.

Step Brothers is the story of Dale and Brennan, two grown men still living with their respective parents and forced to live together when their parents get remarried. Picture the Brady Bunch, but only one boy on each side who just happens to be 40-ish years old. Not the most original idea in the world, but this movie doesn’t rely on the plot to get people into those theater seats. It relies solely on the comedic talents of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who play Brennan and Dale respectively. Will also co-wrote the story with John and director Adam McKay, while Will and Adam finished out the actual screenplay. Usually I’m not a huge fan of the actors having such a big part of the writing process, unless it was something they wrote years before, but in this case what you get is an extra sense of camaraderie from our two bumbling heroes. John and Will play off each other to such an amazing extent you might begin to feel the whole film is done in improv. Everything comes off as an instant reaction, exactly the way a twelve-year-old boy would react, which just happens to be where their emotional maturity is in this film. Both actors hit home runs on a number of the comedic beats and it was especially nice to see Will Ferrell hitting on all cylinders once again, after some heavy missteps in Kicking and Screaming, Bewitched and Semi-Pro. As for Jon, he proved once again why so many love working with him, because he commits to every little second he is on screen.

Now, sad to say, the strength of their characters is also the one problem in the movie. The first half-hour is fun, watching these grown men talk and act like pre-teens, but that trick gets a little dry mid-way through the film and it starts to stretch the disbelief a touch too far. The characters of the parents have a tough situation since they have to ride the line between showing love and compassion for their children and yet treating them like grown men. That dicotimy proved not only tough for the actors, but also for the audience. Eventually it just felt too unbelievable that these two characters could exist, not only in the world of this film, but anywhere.

The writing is strong and a good portion of the film is clever, humorous and in a few places surprisingly hilarious, but it never reached the level of the comedies we have been graced with over the past few years, like Anchorman, 40-Year-Old Virgin or Superbad. Apatow has mined diamonds from the creative caves in his head, but it is possible by becoming the golden boy of comedy, he might be the one man glut for laughers in the coming years. Does the bar still get set too high if you’re the one that set it? I guess we shall see soon enough. He’s got seven movies under his production skills for next year alone, even one more this year as well. Although that does sound like a lot, just remember, he’s bound to hit you with a really good dick joke somewhere. That should be enough to get at least one viewing.

Recommendation: Great performances, not necessarily a “rush to see in the theater” flick. Netflix + your buddies + drinks, that should be a good formula for this.

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American Teen: Reliving Those Awkward Years

My name is gonna be up there someday. Someone’s gonna see it up there and think, “Yeah, i wanna see her new film. Oh, and I really want a pack of Goobers too. Mmm…Goobers.”

For those movie going fans trying to resist seeing their third or fourth viewing of The Dark Knight, this weekend offered a nice exit from the gloomy streets of Gotham City. The highly buzzed about documentary American Teen from Nanette Burstein opened, giving audiences a chance to look back into their senior year of high school and relive all those little moments which feel so paltry now, but in the moment felt like the weight of the world was in each and every second. What does he/she think of me? Who should I ask to Prom? What if my friends don’t like my choice? The fun part was trying to differentiate between those questions and the other ones, the ones which would drastically change the course of our lives. Where am I going to college? How am I even going to pay for college? Who do I want to be? It can feel as if the entirety of our existence from that moment on is figured out inside those awkward and tension filled nine months. The fact we make it through at all is a miracle in itself.

In American Teen we meet five youngsters from Warsaw, IN and try to figure out which one we identify with the most, which in some cases could be more than one. First, there is Megan, the reigning Student Council President and all around over achiever, but once again the universe proves the old adage, “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”. We witness Megan turn her high school network into an army of social assassins and she herself personally attacks and destroys anyone who doesn’t play along with her plans, even her best friends. Next we have Colin, the basketball star, who feels the pressure to dominate this year on the court so he can garner interest from college recruiters, but his personal motivation for points overwhelms his desire to be a team player and continue winning games. Then there’s Mitch, another player on the basketball team and rover in the popular click, but he makes an attempt to step outside their world and intermingle with the other social sects only to find his old friends rather unaccepting. Next is Jake, the band nerd, attacked by social invisibility, stifling levels of self-doubt and acne that needs something stronger than over the counter creams. He decides finding a girlfriend, no matter who she is, will solve all his social problems and fix his life, yet when he does get chances to make that connection, he still fails to see himself as anything but the loser. Lastly there is Hannah, the wild child in the group, not belonging to any group except the one with no labels at all. She plays rock music, dresses with more color than style and refuses to imagine her life continuing under the confines of religious conservatism in Indiana. So there you have it, the main achetypes of high school existence. Which one were you?

In terms of filmmaking, this is a solid documentary. There is a nice pace to the film and some very clever tools implemented to help the audience really dive into the minds of these chosen seniors. At some point in the film, each of the main characters (minus Mitch, who was almost a side character) has an animation sequence displaying their hopes, dreams and most inner fears. Some of them are poignant, while others remind us how deluded and rose-colored our visions were of the outside world at that age. A couple times during the film there were conversations used again, but in a new context, which isn’t at all uncommon, but since the people in the scene were obviously wearing the same clothes and you could tell it took place on the same night as a conversation we were shown from months before, it drops a little bit of the honesty from the moment. You start to wonder at which point in the film were you being manipulated. As I said, this is not unheard of in the documentary world, in fact it’s part and parcel with the genre, but it needs to be done a little smoother than this.

Emotionally it is a roller-coaster ride of angst, yearning, crushing self-defeat and explosive, giddy joy. There is no doubt somewhere along the way you will see something transpire on screen and think, “I totally remember that. I was right in their shoes!”. You also might find yourself identifying with someone you initially didn’t expect, proving once again we all have different levels to our character and they all don’t rest on the surface. In the end, this film doesn’t work without the inclusion of Hannah. She stands out among the rest as the heart and soul of the piece and she is the single character that you truly want to route for. Colin plays a close second, but Hannah really struggles through much more difficult circumstances during the filming and creates the biggest arc of all the participants. According to the Facebook celeb page created for her, i’m sure by the movie studio, she has “indeed turned into an asshole”, but let’s hope this was a terribly clever way for an intellgent and creative girl to keep from being flooded by a nation of new “best friends”.

Recommendation: If your a doc fan, this is worth seeing. If you want to remember your high school existance, this is worth seeing. If you didn’t go to high school or haven’t gotten that far yet, why not see what lays ahead?

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The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Slipping Into Those Old Paranoias

So this website shows all the people I’ve had sex with on my new show, Californication. Why couldn’t Chris Carter have been this cool?

The darkened theater, the echoing tones, the eerie music…then the red, circled X. We were back, back in the land of Chris Carter and his worldwide phenom, The X-Files. The added bonus of seeing this on opening night was the cheering and hollering the moment that iconic music started up. There was an energy flowing through the crowd (and no, it was not psychically induced by little aliens). We the fans of the original show have long missed the vocal monotone of David Duchovny and the serious, yet longing glances from Gillian Anderson. In the time since the last movie we have learned to trust again, stopped questioning what we see in front of us and let our belief go that someone somewhere is pulling the gossamer over our eyes. I was ready to be woken up, like Neo in The Matrix. I was ready to be told to believe once again in everything they told me not to.

But that didn’t happen.

Early on, director Chris Carter let us in on the fact the story was not going to continue any of the government conspiracy storylines, no alien abductions and certainly no bounty hunters from other worlds. The movie is a self-contained story which comes off the screen feeling like a normal episode of the show. Let me emphasize that, a normal episode, not a particularly good one. In a startling shift from the previous X-Files movie, this take on it was much smaller in scale and scope. It all centers around a small town over a three to four day period where young women are turning up missing and one happens to be an FBI agent, which prompts the bureau to re-enlist the help of the now defunct and retired Agent Mulder. Once the scent of the unknown and unsolved gets back under the skin of Mulder, he can’t be expected to do anything but solve the case and drag Scully along kicking and screaming.

Beyond the shallow and partially childish plot, the movie gives us a glimpse into what life has been like for our intrepid duo of non-believers since the show came to an end. The whole time the show was running all we ever wanted was for them to get together, but seeing them interact like an old married couple now just feels off the mark. There’s no spark there anymore, no playful flirting and it slips off the screen like a pair of roommates trying to figure out who gets to watch their favorite show tonight. Also, picking up the story after so many years they might have done a better job of letting us catch up to where they were in the relationship, but in two quick scenes and some semi-forced exposition we were forced to get in or jump off.

Surrounding our trenchcoated agents were Amanda Peet and Xzibit, playing two of the FBI agents who brought them on the case. Amanda wants to believe and seemingly did her homework on Mulder, but Xzibit’s character is not only against the inclusion of Mulder, he also bears a resentment and complete disbelief in his skills, which is never explained in the least bit. A number of other little moments flitter around the two newer agents and how they handle the old pros, but many of them are set-ups that never pay off. Billy Connolly turns in a decent performance as a pedophile priest with psychic abilities (you’d think he would have seen himself getting caught). He tries incredibly hard to make the character deep and interesting, but once again there feels like something is missing once the movie is resolved.

As the credits began to roll, I started to wonder if this would have worked better as a major TV movie event. They could have sold a ton of advertising and possibly garnered enough interest to re-launch the franchise with Peet and Xzibit as the new agents, but they went the theater route and we’ll just see if that pays off. This ends up being a fun walk down memory lane for the true fan of the show, who will surely get a kick out of one particular cameo (I’m not saying who…what would be the fun in that?) but for the rest of the world, or those who have finally moved on with their lives, this could easily be waited on until it comes on TV.

p.s. Personally, I’m just proud of myself for not starting this review with, “I wanted to believe this was going to be a good movie.” I’m going to keep a running tally of how many times that pops up.

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Journey to the Center of the Earth: A 1,2,3-D Trick Pony

Are they still here? — I think so…—Are they awake?—I don’t know, you poke them!

In every summer there are those movies which arrive in your closest multiplex and you know the only reason to see them is to shut off your brain and look at all the pretty moving pictures. The special effects driven popcorn films are not meant to move the soul, deepen your understanding of the universe or make your heart go pitter-patter (although drop a few attractive people into the cast and you’ll at least get the pitter, maybe not the patter). Although it might seem like I’m talking down to these movies, I am most certainly not. We need them as much as we need all the others. We need to be able to walk into those darkened halls of cinematic experiences and let everything go, not be dragged through the emotional wringer, but calmly sit back and grin without even really understanding why we are. So, in that vein of movie making, we get the newest reincarnation of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and this time it’s in 3-D, ready to pop off the screen and into your box of Raisenettes.

Following closely enough to the original Jules Verne story, it details the journey of a small group as they travel down through a volcano into a world within the world. This time, they actually have a new piece of ammunition not previously available in earlier versions, the Jules Verne book itself. The story is contemporized by creating the idea that there is a semi-secret society of people who believe Verne didn’t really write the original story as much as transcribe it from real life experiences. Brendan Fraser plays our heroic professor who lost his brother ten years ago on an expedition and when those exact same geographic circumstances arrive once again, Brendan rushes off to see if he can gather clues as to what happened. Throwing a small wrench in the plan is his nephew, played by Josh Hutcherson (previously seen in RV, Zathura and Bridge to Terabithia), who gets dropped off to spend some quality time with his rarely seen uncle. The cast is rounded out by their deceptively skilled mountain guide played by Anita Briem (previously seen in Showtime’s The Tudors), which combined with Brendan helped bring about some pitter or patter for both sides of the audience.

Not expecting there to be much going on storywise, I wasn’t disappointed. Everything plays along a pretty straight line and even the laziest in the crowd could call all the shots well before they arrived, but we weren’t really there for that. We wanted to be wowed, amazed, transfixed by the new Real 3-D technology and feel the sensation of being enveloped in this mystical world. How did that work out? About 50-50. The 3-D effects we’ve been raised on mostly deal with things poking out of the screen at you, looking like they’re going to rub up against your cheek, giving you that unconscious tingle up your spine, but that mostly happened early on in the film and felt extremely forced. There is a visual tool presented quickly with a yo-yo that Josh plays with, but his constant winging of the old fashioned toy out into the audience caused not a single “ooh” or “ahh”. Saving some of the magic we were expecting is not what comes out of the screen, but what goes into it. The Real 3-D technology really shows its chops during expansive scenery shots where you can really see and feel the depth of the world on screen. The movie at that moment transforms into a window that more than ever you feel like you could just reach through and touch the rivers, streams and, not my personal recommendation, the lava flowing right on the other side. During those moments I was actually impressed with how far we’ve come in the 3-D space since Jaws 3 (but don’t ask me to see that one again, screaming like a girl once in a crowd was enough for me).

No matter how many special effects you toss at a crowd, we still need to be drawn into the movie by the characters and the actors portraying them. Josh and Anita both bring there own special something to their roles, but we all knew going in that this all rested on the well tempered shoulders of Brendan Fraser. He has become a poster boy for the wide-eyed, pure hearted hero who always finds himself in situations way beyond his comprehension. I give him full merits, he does those roles well, starting from his first major role in Encino Man through George of the Jungle, Blast From the Past, and of course, the Mummy trilogy. My only worry is in this film it’s starting to play a little thin. The same delivery, the same determined stare, it all rings way too familiar now and begins to seem like he has nothing else to give. I don’t believe he’s done showing his strengths yet as an actor, but to get some of that credibility back I think he needs to show his skills as he did in School Ties and Gods and Monsters. He is truly one of the few people who can transition from the big budget action genre into the indie drama space, but I would just like to see him do it more often.

The final verdict, since it is a 3-D film, if it has any chance of entertaining you it will have to be on the big screen, so don’t bother waiting for DVD, unless you have a sweet home entertainment setup. If that’s the case, tell me when to show up. I’ll bring the Raisenettes.

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The Dark Knight: Shadows and Mastery

[Click on the poster above to go to Art.com and buy the poster]

(Just no words)

This was what we’ve all been waiting for. The weekend to end all others this summer, most likely the year, possibly even years to come. The moon shone down on theaters nationwide as dedicated fans of comic books and gritty action movies alike lined up for the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight, the second in the revamped Batman franchise headed by director Christopher Nolan. The hype was dynamic, nearing the rampant fervor last held by Matrix Revolutions, but this time the anticipation and buzz machine wasn’t met with disappointment and disdain. The Dark Knight lived up to every expectation and exceeded most others. Much more than a comic book film, this piece of history breaks many of the long held rules and traditions of movie making. Without getting into too much detail, let’s just say the sun doesn’t shine down on our heroes very much and without that the audience is not given what would be considered the Hollywood ending. Nolan put his best foot forward and also had to stomp it down on the fact he wasn’t going to lighten this up, make it more palatable to the mass public, because I think he felt they were ready and they deserved it. He set the tone in Batman Begins and he keeps that gritty calmness on the same tightrope with tense anticipation and sliding levels of psychosis. The continuing character development of Batman running right next to the introduction of the Joker and Harvey “Two Face” Dent shows that Nolan is just as good on the page as he is on the camera. Nothing is left to chance, nothing is left unexplained, and that leads to everyone leaving the theater fulfilled.

What words could I possibly write about Heath Ledger’s performance. I was recently talking to my friends after we saw the film about how sad I was. Not only because we will only get one more chance to see new and original performances from Ledger (when his finished footage is used in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), but also because this brilliant turn on the already once-made iconic role of the Joker will forever be marred by the events that followed it. There will forever be those people that will say we in the Hollywood community and beyond hail this role because of his death and not becuase of its sheer talent and genius. To those small and deluded voices I say this, Heath was an amazingly gifted actor and his interpretation of the Joker would have gone down in the record books no matter what happened to him afterwards and when the accolades and congratulation were lauded on him (an Oscar nomination is guaranteed, the win is probable) he would have accepted them with the same grace and humiliy he has shown so many other times before. He brought something new, something daring and something intentionally terrifying to this character. It’s incredibly unfair to compare his performance with that of Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s Batman because that film went in a totally different direction. Burton created a comic book world where Batman and his peers existed, whereas Nolan made a dramatic effect of creating our world, this day and time, which just happens to have Batman, and in turn those who will always turn up to fight against him. The final effect of all that work is a film with much more power, more substance and a raging river of emotions that rush over the audience.

Let’s not forget the other great roles in this film. Christian Bale brought even more to the Batman side of the equation this time, where we spent a lot of time seeing the person under the mask in the first film, now is our chance to see his psyche slide across that dangerously thin line between one personality and the other. One might use the term “the light and the dark”, but for the character of Bruce Wayne it is more approriate to think of it as “the dark and the pitch black”. Aaron Eckhart gives a little touch of his character from Thank You For Smoking and shows what happens when good people are pushed too far. Michael Caine brings a sense of class and stoic nature as always, showing a little more depth of the relationship between Alfred the loyal butler and his charge. Gary Oldman proves once more that he can be a skilled actor without showing how crazy he can be. Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal and a cameo by Cillian Murphy round out the cast, all refusing to let the quality and level of the film dip below outstanding.

Overall, this is a near perfect film. Running at 2 and 1/2 hours, I honestly didn’t feel one minute was overdone or unnecessary. One of the great successes of this piece is on paper this shouldn’t work at all. The normal rules of storytelling are completely shattered, the traditions of Hollywood movies (especially those that cost $180 million to make) are left whining and sputtering in the past. Chistopher Nolan has just secured himself a place in the annals of movie history as a great storyteller, accomplished director and soon-to-be most profitable moviemaker of all time. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and go immediately. I didn’t see it in the IMax first because I was afraid I might miss small details, but now that I have had the Arclight experience first, IMax…here I come for Round 2!

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Also, here’s a link to one of the better posters to come out of the marketing campaign. Many of them were sensational, like the “Why So Serious” series, but this one had a particular creepiness to it which resonated.

Friendship: The Suicide Lane on the Highway of Life

Before you get all worried about this being some morbid post where the ails and angers of life gets splayed out to the sound of keyboard strokes tapped by Hot Topic blackened fingernails, relax, this isn’t going that direction. The title actually comes from an early moment about seven years ago when I first moved to California and someone pointed out that daring middle lane in certain roads where both directions of traffic are legal, usually meant for left turns off the road, but commonly used for passing people we randomly decide don’t deserve to be traveled behind. As I first laid rubber to the road here I was astounded that more people didn’t just plow into each other in the lane so aptly dubbed “the suicide lane”, but some little piece of that evolutionary survival instinct must keep us from multiple head-on collisions every day.

So how does that connect to Friendship? What a good question! Here’s my answer. Friendship is a give and take relationship. You get out of it what you put in. If the friendship is solid and you call someone everyday to check in on them or just talk, you can very well expect that they will call you as well and think of you first when they need/want someone to talk to. On the flip side, if you put no effort in to keep in touch or show people that you still think about them, you can equally expect they will let you slip from their minds as well. It is the emotional equivalent of the one-lane/two-way street.

Added to this fun ride on the relationship road is the possibility that you and your friend might be driving different cars, traveling at different speeds or lastly, heading to different destinations. What’s to be done now? Truth be told, everyone is headed in different directions, but we can have very similar ways of driving there. That is the secret to being on the same road together, how do you drive your car/truck/Vespa/Segway? (does anyone know someone who actually owns one of these) There needs to a shared respect of the road and of the other people on it, but if someone starts flipping U-turns in the middle of the intersection or just plain ignoring those amazingly loud “drunk bumps” on the side of the road, maybe it is time to stop taking that road on the way to your personal destination. All that happens in those cases is you get slowed down, taken off course and sometimes redirected completely. The goal in friendships is to find those people that not only seem to be heading your way, but their driving style actually helps you even more. They might leave a nice tailwind for you to slide into or they could be clearing the way ahead, showing you all the possibilities that lie before you. Also, they know when to let their foot off the gas and let you move into the pole position, blocking for them instead of the other way around. Give-and-Take. What a novel philosophy.

So maybe it’s time to sit back and look at the road in front of you. Who’s on it? Where are they going and how do they plan on getting there? Is this particular road trip the one you need to be on? Trust me, if you even been on intensely long car rides, you know the importance of choosing the right passengers.

Safe and pleasant trips to you all. I’m packing Pop-Tarts and Pop music for mine.