Zac: This Is 40 is Judd Apatow’s messiest film to date, with plotless wandering, that while often funny, chooses to put its focus on its least compelling elements. [Read more...]
Looking Ahead to 2012 – Quarter 4 (October – December)
10/01/2012 by 2 Comments
Alright people, it’s almost the end of the year – which means some big releases are coming out. Some of the biggest albums, movies, and video games are slatted for release, making for one incredible last quarter in 2012. Enough of this, let’s get to our selections. [Read more...]
Film Review: The Change-Up
08/05/2011 by Leave a Comment
For the past few weeks I have agonizingly pouted over email after email announcing upcoming screenings that I could not make it to in my broken state, so by the time The Change-Up rolled around I was at my breaking point. With the giddiness of a child refusing to stop believing in Santa come Christmas Day I sat in my seat waiting for the movie to begin. Unfortunately I should have taken one more week off… [Read more...]
Rental Review – 17 Again
08/14/2009 by Leave a Comment
Although 17 Again revisits a story that has had many incarnations already, from Big (1988) to 13 Going on 30 (2004), as this movie proves, sometimes its nice to revisit the past.
17 Again begins in the best years of Mike O’Donnell life. He’s the star of the high school basketball team, he’s in love with the girl of his dreams, and everything is pointing to a bright future. However, the next time we see Mike, clearly things have not turned out how he hoped they would: he’s in the middle of a divorce, he has a strained relationship with his kids, and it is very evident that he is unhappy with his life. Through an interesting turn of events, Mike somehow manages to find himself back in his 17 year old body, with the opportunity to do his life over again, and this time do it right.
Review: Funny People
07/31/2009 by Leave a Comment
Judd Apatow’s latest is his lesser effort to date, but is still quite funny at times it just drags on a bit to long and doesn’t hit the emotional highs I think it was going for.
George Simmons is a comedy superstar. He lives the life of celebrity, alone, in a large mansion paid for by the countless blockbuster hits he has starred in. This all seems well and good until one day he finds out that he has a form of leukemia and that it is too late in the game to do anything conventionally associated with cancer treatment. So while George takes his experimental drugs he decides to get back to his roots of stand up and recruits a young and upcoming comedian, Ira, to be his assistant and joke writer as well as being the only person that knows of his condition.
The film kind of goes where you think it will from there, finding himself, becoming a better man, trying to reconnect with that one lost love, the usual. Apatow does bring a lot of fresh humor and laughs to the proceedings though, and makes the conventional worth experiencing again as this is far more a straight forward effort then his bit crazier previous features. James L. Brooks has been heavily cited as Apatow’s influence here and that is clearly seen throughout the film; albeit a bit raunchy, crude, and dirtier. [Read more...]
Now Playing Review – Funny People
07/28/2009 by Leave a Comment
As I walked out of the theater after seeing Funny People, I felt a little let down by this sloppy addition to Judd Apatow’s empire. Based on what my fellow audience members were mumbling, most of us seemed to agree. It was funny, but man was it way too long; both obviously and painfully so. It was as if after the production wrapped, the editor had a dilemma on their hands, and this is what I could discern from the movie. There are all these moments that should have been trimmed for time, but when the final edit came to be they couldn’t decide what should go, so they just stuck it all in. Because of this, it was almost like this whole film was a montage sequence, a collage of some of comedies finest moments.
