Though I know it will inspire some pushback, I’m prepared to dub the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies the GOAT animated franchise. (That’s Greatest OF All Time, in case you didn’t know.) And yes, I’m including the “Toy Story” flicks.
Especially when considered in companionship with its short films and television/streaming show, “Dragon” has been a decade-long experience that’s both exhilarating and emotionally sustaining. It’s wrapped around the friendship between a Viking boy and a dragon, both of them striving despite physical (and to a lesser extent, psychological) disabilities.
In this definitively final go-round, scrawny nerd Hiccup (voice by Jay Baruchel) has become the unquestioned chief of his village, comprised of hardy folk who used to be enemies of the dragons but became their friends and allies. As time has gone on, their little island has become a crowded refuge for the reptilian creatures.
This draws the attention of dragon hunters, chiefly Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham), a sly fellow who uses chemistry and trickery to control and, eventually, exterminate the dragons. Hiccup and his people stumble across a plan to protect them -- but it involves permanently saying goodbye to them.
Familiar faces return, including Hiccup’s wingwoman/reluctant romantic interest, Astrid (America Ferrera); his mother, Valka (Cate Blanchett), herself a dragon master; Gobber (Craig Ferguson), the village blacksmith and wisest person; and Hiccup’s various sidekicks, ranging from obnoxious to nerdy.
In the most notable development, ebony night fury Toothless, though to be the last dragon of his kind, encounters a white female, setting up obvious parallels with his human counterpart.
Writer/director Dean Deblois, who’s helmed all three feature films, brings a comfortable mix of action and awe, building characters without sacrificing entertainment value. What a great ride it’s been.
Bonus features are excellent. They include a feature-length commentary track, an alternate opening, deleted scenes and a couple of animated shorts. There is also a full dozen documentary shorts, ranging on the animation process to looks at the mythology behind dragons.
One of the hardest lessons in life to absorb is that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end -- especially the last part.
Knowing when to close the door on a thing is a test many of us fail, especially when it has been something that has brought joy and meaning to our life. A relationship, a job, a creative partnership -- often we hold on longer than we should, and thereby taint the last chapter of the journey.
The “How to Train Your Dragon” series has quietly been one of -- if not the -- finest animated franchises in cinematic history. It caps that stature by definitively wrapping things up with a satisfying finale that draws a closed circle on a saga about striving beyond our limitations.
Starting with the smart and sensitive 2010 movie based on the books by Cressida Cowell about a teen Viking who befriends the dragons that have been plaguing his village for generations, the “Dragon” tale has sprawled across three feature films, four short films and eight seasons of a TV series, first on Cartoon Network and then moving to Netflix.
All this, in less than a decade.
Film-to-television crossovers are often notoriously bad, but “Dragons: Race to the Edge” and its earlier incarnation was notable for actually expanding its world without diminishing it -- not to mention retaining almost the entire original voice cast, something virtually unprecedented.
My two sons literally grew up on “Dragon” stories. At first, young Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) was a scrawny, ostracized teen seen by most as a pale copy of his father, the mighty chieftain Stoick (Gerard Butler). In “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” he’s a wiser, cagier -- though only slightly less scrawny -- leader who others look to for confidence.
He still often lacks it in himself. Fortunately, Astrid (America Ferrera), the fiercest warrior in the island village of Berk, is there to buck him and back him. She’s not ready to commit to marriage, though, despite the urging of the townsfolk. These include blacksmith/sage Gobber (Craig Ferguson) and Hiccup’s mother, Valka (Cate Blanchett).
If you watched the TV show, you know that Hiccup and his crew have been waging a running war with trappers looking to force the dragons into slavery. Their success, though, has left Berk literally teeming with reptilian fire-breathers from nook to cranny. Something’s got to give.
The villain this time around is Grimmel the Grisly (delightfully voiced by F. Murray Abraham), a cagey old dragon hunter who uses poison to snare and control dragons. He’s got a foursome of nasty acid-spewing deathgrippers at his beck and call.
Grimmel has his sights set on Toothless, the lone remaining night fury dragon who allied himself with Hiccup even though the boy crippled him with one of his many contraptions. Hiccup lost a leg in the first movie, so both use prosthetic devices and are codependent on each other in order to fly.
When a female white night fury is revealed -- quickly dubbed a “light fury” -- it offers the potential for some dragon romance, but also a threat to the status quo. To escape Grimmel and his ilk once and for all, Hiccup revolves to find the mythical waterfall at the end of the world his father talked about, a portal to the world where all dragons supposedly come from.
“Hidden World” is a bit more action-centric than its two movie predecessors, with plenty of exciting mid-air battles, non-bloody melee and pyrotechnic conflagrations. But writer/director Dean DeBlois, who’s helmed all three films, makes plenty of time for contemplation and character-building.
I’m sorry to see the “How to Train Your Dragon” series go. What a ride it’s been. But I’m delighted the creators knew that it’s better to leave too early than too late.
I have heard “Sausage Party” described as one of the best movies of the year, by people whose opinion I respect. I’ve heard it called a smutty smear of cinematic excrement. Both descriptions leave me puzzled.
Certainly, “Sausage Party” is foul-mouthed, foul-minded, foul-humored, just… foul. It’s in the “dirty animated movie” tradition of “Fritz the Cat,” “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” and the like. Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Salma Hayak, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera and a host of other big names give voice to pieces of anthropomorphized food living in the grocery store who dream of one day being bought and taken home with humans.
To them, it’s their very reason for existence, their ticket to “the Great Beyond.” Little do they know that their destiny involves being chewed up and swallowed. Of course, they soon find out about their gruesome fate and set out to escape it.
Rogen and Wiig are the centerpieces as Frank and Brenda, who are a hot dog and bun with a burning desire to one day be together. Along the way there’s plenty of violence, cursing, and the whole thing culminates in a massive food orgy. Yeah.
Let’s put it this way: the villain is a real douche -- as in, the feminine hygiene product.
There are certainly some funny moments in “Sausage Party.” And the movie is more thoughtful than you might initially think, with some clever observations on how our political, ethnic and religious divides are largely constructed illusions.
In the end, though, it’s a breezily entertaining flick that will pass the time, but deserves neither the accolades or vitriol that have been heaved its way.
Bonus features are pretty good, though some of them are only available as digital downloads available through certain retailers. These include an alternative ending that occurs in the real (non-animated) world.
The DVD comes with a making-of doc, “Animation Imaginatorium,” as well as three featurettes. The Blu-ray adds another featurette, appropriately titled, “Shock and Awe: How Did This Get Made?” Plus a gag reel and “Line-O-Rama.”
“War is the economy,” or so says Efraim Diveroli, a twentysomething hustler who inexplicably landed a contract from the Pentagon worth hundreds of millions of dollars to supply arms to the Afghan army.
Played by Jonah Hill in “War Dogs,” a slightly fictionalized version of real events, Efraim is a rudderless shark who will troll anywhere if it means a big payoff. He recruited his childhood friend, David Packouz (Miles Teller), into the company, AEY Inc., and together they became hipster wunderkinds of the international arms trade, which was doing banner business in the Aughts at the height of American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are the sort of guys that if Hollywood dreamed them up on their own, we’d be calling B.S. But it really happened. The bro buddies were eventually busted for repacking decades-old AK-47 ammunition from China (thus breaking an embargo) via a connection in Albania.
David, who turned evidence and got a few months house arrest, narrates the story and acts as the decent guy tempted by the indecent guy. Efraim served a few years in prison, but continued selling ammunition to the government through another company. David was a massage therapist before, and became one again. (The real David appears briefly in the movie as a bad singer).
Director Todd Phillips is known for crude comedies, notably the “Hangover” trilogy, and at first we think “War Dogs” is going to go down that route, having a good time with the guys as they drink, do drugs, party with girls and exploit the loopholes of a corrupt war machine. There’s a certain panache in the early going, as these know-nothing dolts drive 5,000 embargoed Berettas through Iraq’s “Triangle of Death,” barely escaping with their necks, then snigger about it like schoolboys.
“Yeah, we drive through all triangles … including your mother’s,” Efraim cracks.
The screenplay by Phillips, Jason Smilovic and Stephen Chin was based on a Rolling Stone article, later turned into a book, called “Arms and the Dudes.” That was the film’s original title, too, and I wish they’d stuck with it. “War Dogs” is generic and easily forgotten; you know a movie has a bad title when they have a character break away from the story to explain it to you.
The film’s fairly entertaining, until it tries to go too “Goodfellas” and become an all-encompassing indictment of our adventures in the Middle East. You gotta love it when scumbags break the law and do bad things for piles of cash, then blame it on “the system.” The movie throws a few anti-war nods -- both David and his girlfriend (Ana de Armas), are opposed to the war in Iraq -- along with some predictable shots at Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.
The last third of the movie becomes increasingly labored, as the circle slowly tightens and the buddies start to eye each other warily, waiting to see who will stab the other in the back first.
Bradley Cooper turns up briefly as Henry, a legendary arms dealer who represents what David and Efraim could be in another 15 or 20 years. I also enjoyed Kevin Pollak as a Jewish Miami dry cleaner operator who acts as their moneyman and, later, father confessor.
I liked a lot of things about “War Dogs” but not quite enough to recommend it. Miles Teller is hard to take your eyes off of, as usual; he’s got a natural rakish charm and is good at projecting his emotions in between the dialogue.
Jonah Hill’s got a dead-eye stare that he whips out to show the moral vacuum of his characters, but he needs to expand on that. And someone needs to tell him he’s funnier than Joe Pesci, but he’ll never be as scary.
At some point the Coen brothers are going to remember they're funny. Not this time, though.
"Hail, Caesar!" is the latest from the writer/producer/director siblings, Joel and Ethan, and the latest strikeout. It's not nearly as dour as "Inside Llewyn Davis," nor does it have the dragging sense of self-importance of the overpraised "No Country for Old Men."
But the fact that "Hail" is actually trying to be caustic and funny, and fails pretty miserably at it, perhaps makes the disappointment even more keen.
It's a daffy send-up of the Hollywood studio system circa 1950, when chiefs ran the show and stars were just playthings to be shuffled and traded like cards in a deck. It's the sort of movie in which everybody comes off looking bad -- the behind-the-scenes overlords, the dimwitted actors, the narcissistic directors, the nosy press, the whole kebab.
Even the screenwriters, who usually get portrayed as the put-upon heroes of the trade, are seen as stooges of the Communists, happily spouting Marxist theory but really desiring more of the dough and limelight for themselves.
The Coens doubtless intended this as caricature, a joke-within-a-joke about how artistic types were often viewed during the McCarthy era. Call me old fashioned, but I just don't find the Blacklist every funny.
The central character is Eddie Mannix, the fixit man for Capital Pictures. The sign on his office door says Head of Physical Production, but he really runs the studio on a day-to-day basis while the man ostensibly in charge keeps a careful remove in New York. Mannix's job is a quotidian nightmare of putting out fires, making sure the trains run on time, preventing the embarrassing stuff from getting into the press and keeping the tantrums/temptations of the stars to a manageable minimum.
Things go haywire when his biggest star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), is kidnapped from the set of the Roman drama that bears the title of this film. It's Mannix' big prestige picture for the year, and soon the gossip columns have heard about the disappearance -- including rival sisters, Thora and Thessaly Thacker, both played by Tilda Swinton.
The kidnappers are... not terribly organized. They're a bunch of egghead scriptmen who bring Baird to a beatific beachside home, still in his Roman soldier get-up. They don't even bother to lock the doors, and we wonder why he doesn't simply walk up the driveway and thumb a ride back to town. But Baird is fascinated by the lefty "scientific theory" of the crew, who apparently just requisitioned it from a visiting professor. He happily chats them up, trading stories about drinking with Clark Gable, having to shave Danny Kaye's back and such.
Hanging around the periphery is Hobie Doyle, a singing cowboy star in the mold of Audie Murphy who's just been asked to change his image with a switch to erudite romantic dramas. Deliciously played by Alden Ehrenreich, Hobie is hopelessly ill-equipped for anything more than ridin' and ropin', but gamely gives it a go.
If Baird is dim, then Hobie's mind is just about pitch black. But somehow the simpleminded, earnest young star always seems to point himself in the right direction, while Mannix and his henchmen are confounded by the kidnapping.
Also turning up in bit roles -- just a scene or two apiece -- are Ralph Fiennes as Laurence Laurentz, an uppity director trying fruitlessly to whip Hobie into thespian shape; Scarlett Johansson as DeeAnna Moran, a swimsuit beauty a la Esther Williams who's more Bronx moll than angel; Jonah Hill as the ever-ready fall guy; Frances McDormand as the editing whiz toiling in her cave; and Channing Tatum as a Gene Kelly-esque song-and-dance man.
Tatum shines in one of the better scenes, a homoerotic romp with a bunch of Navy sailors already missing the dames as they're about to put to sea. Kelly was light as a feather on his feet, while Tatum's tapping has a more of a lumbering quality to it, but I still appreciated the effort.
"Hail, Caesar!" is a wonderful-looking picture, photographed by Roger Deakins in the saturated colors and crisp tones of the era. The Coens seem to be having a grand old time, amusing themselves with musical numbers and other homages to Golden Age Hollywood -- while simultaneously undercutting the whole industry as trivial and silly.
It's a schizophrenic film without much narrative semblance or sense of purpose. A few bits dazzle, fool's gold for those of us who used to believe the Coens could do no wrong.
A man sits in a dusty tent in a foreign land, taking notes. He's asking some teen boys about awful experiences they've been through via an interpreter. We've seen this movie before: he's obviously a journalist, doing important work, and we know it's just a matter of time before we hear the words "New York Times" or "Washington Post." (It's the Times.)
One of the boys is reluctant to divulge. The man says you can trust me. More hesitation. So the journalist coolly flashes a $100 bill, neatly folded between his fingers. The interview concludes, the money changes hands, a terrific story later appears on the cover of...
...wait, what?!?
I would hope that most people would know that paying sources to talk is a big journalistic no-no. So obviously something's not right with this guy, Michael Finkel, played by Jonah Hill. We're not surprised when, a few minutes later into "True Story," he's fired for fudging the facts. Disgraced, shunned by colleagues, he retreats to his Montana hometown.
The problem is, the filmmakers want us to like this guy. Or, at least, identify with him. "True Story" is supposed to be the tale of a guy who reaches rock bottom and then pulls himself back to the top with the story of a lifetime. Instead, Finkel remains a moon-faced mystery, a guy who never fully confronts the depth of his deceptions.
If Finkel is a puzzle, then Christian Longo is a total enigma. He's the big story Finkel is after: a seemingly normal man who is accused of murdering his wife and three young children. His tale wouldn't even be known if it weren't for one thing: while on the lam, he sometimes used the alias of Mike Finkel of the New York Times.
The real Finkel is intrigued to know why Longo impersonated him, and reaches out to him in prison. "I was wondering if you could tell me what it's like to be me," he writes. The men meet. Longo is cryptic, but offers his story, exclusively. Finkel sees a shot at redemption and a big payday.
Things go on from there, with the two forming a quick bond with deep undercurrents of mistrust. Is Finkel repeating his mistakes, trying to mold the facts to fit the killer story he's pitched to book publishers? Is Longo a manipulative fabulist exploiting the reporter for his own ends?
This sounds more interesting than it actually is. Director Rupert Goold, who co-wrote the script with David Kajganich, wants to give us a mix of "Shattered Glass" and "In Cold Blood," a probing tale about the intersection of crime, truth and justice.
Instead, it turns into a rather dull succession of scenes in which Hill and Franco spar listlessly across a bare table in the prison interview room.
Hill, I think, is a promising young actor whose head has been swelled by a couple of Oscar nominations he clearly didn't deserve. He hasn't developed enough nuance in his screen presence to carry a dramatic picture. His Finkel comes across as a disaffected dope. Franco is better, snaky and sharp, but it sometimes feels like he's smirking at the camera.
Felicity Jones plays Finkel's wife, whom he uses as a financial and emotional reservoir to sponge off of. In lesser hands this sort of role turns into a thankless, dreary distraction -- and these filmmakers' hands are lesser.
There are the bones of a good story in "True Story," but the movie is content to take us to places we've already been to before. For instance, it never satisfactorily answers the question behind the main premise: why did Longo impersonate Finkel?
The only thing more disappointing than sloppy storytelling is the lazy kind.
A top-drawer piece of animated filmmaking, 2010’s “How to Train Your Dragon” was supremely entertaining for kids while also gently imparting life lessons about finding your identity and overcoming handicaps, both physical and spiritual. The sequel is essentially more of the same, not breaking a lot of new ground story-wise but satisfactorily bringing back the old gang for another whiz-bang go-round.
If it feels thematically lighter, that’s because it is. If it also seems zippier and more pure fun, that’s because it is.
Five years have passed on the Viking island of Berk since the chief’s awkward son, Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel), flipped the script and convinced the former dragon-fighters that the mighty reptiles were meant to be their companions and mounts, not their enemies. There’s peace and prosperity, virtually everyone has their own pet dragon, and Hiccup no longer feels like the outcast offspring of his mighty father, Stoick (Gerard Butler), who is determinedly duty- and muscle-bound.
No longer a gangly teen, Hiccup is more self-assured and settled. He’s even filled out a bit, though in Hiccup’s case that means progressing from painfully thin to merely scrawny.
His best buddy, Toothless, is a rare (so far unique) Night Fury dragon, sleek black death on the wing. Toothless lost part of his tail due to Hiccup’s experimental tinkering, which also fixed him up with a prosthetic replacement. Hiccup has applied those same skills to his own missing leg, injured during a battle against the huge dragon that was compelling its smaller ilk to constantly raid Berk.
Former competitor-turned-girlfriend Astrid is back, a warrior born. She’s sprightly voiced by America Ferrera, who also supplies a wickedly funny impression of Baruchel’s distinctive speech and mannerisms. Also returning is Gobber (Craig Ferguson), Stoick’s reliable right-hand man and best friend, and the crew of young cutup dragon riders, Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse among them.
Hiccup has been spending his time exploring the surrounding isles, and makes a few disturbing discoveries. Some dragon trappers (Kit Harington plays their leader) have been enslaving the winged creatures for a shadowy general named Drago Bloodfist (Djimon Hounsou), who is said to be building a dragon army and have his sights set on Berk.
Hiccup also encounters a mysterious dragon rider whose affinity with the beasts rivals his own; she (Cate Blanchett) turns out to have a painful past with a personal connection.
Dean DeBlois, who co-wrote and co-directed the first film with Chris Sanders (who departed to work on “The Croods”), takes over solo screenwriting and directing duties. The visuals really pop in this movie, from the slightly reflective nature of Toothless’ ebony scales to the nifty fiery sword gadget Hiccup created for his personal weapon. The flying scenes, in many ways the heart of the original film, are somehow even more exhilarating.
The culminating battle has a bit of a familiar ring, and I wish DeBlois & Co. could have come up with an existential threat that doesn’t feel so much like a retread. To some extent he’s trapped by the series of children’s books upon which these movies are based, though from what I understand it’s a fairly loose adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s novels.
Still, “How to Train Your Dragon 2” is first-rate moviemaking, a superior piece of entertainment sure to please parents just as much as their young’uns. A third film has been announced for 2016, and I for one am already counting the days.
If you're tempted to make a joke about "22 Jump Street," the sequel to the hit comedy starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, continuing with future iterations of "23 Jump Street," and so on, don't bother. The movie has already beaten you to the punch at poking fun at itself.
In fact, one of the most refreshing thing about this reboot of the 1980s TV show is that it gleefully wallows in its own crass commercialism. It's a wicked send-up of not only the whole buddy-cop genre, but of itself.
Our film comedies have now reached the level of ironic detachment where the snake is eating its own tail. Nothing we see is meant to be taken at face value. So the stars aren't playing the roles of undercover cops posing as college students -- one the brainy dweeb and the other the lunkhead bruiser -- but the parody versions of them.
At one point, Hill and Tatum walk into their new "undercover" police headquarters, which happens to be right across the street from their old one. Next door, the "23 Jump Street Apartments" are currently under construction.
If you think that's hip and hilarious, wait till the end credits, which takes the same joke and runs it into the end zone, spikes the ball, bursts out of the stadium into the parking lot, and keeps going.
After inept rookie cops Schmidt and Jenko (Hill and Tatum, respectively) managed to break up a huge high school drug ring, they're tasked with doing the same thing again at MC State. When Schmidt tries to suggest other approaches, their deputy chief (Nick Offerman) sternly enforces the rule of sequels: do exactly the same thing as last time.
This they do, with the socially awkward Schmidt struggling to fit into the college party scene, while Jenko makes the football team as a walk-on and bonds with their charismatic quarterback (Wyatt Russell), who may or may not be lynchpin of campus narcotics trafficking.
The specifics of the plot are so tiresome that co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and their trio of screenwriters barely even bother to pay attention to them. The movie mostly jumps from scene to scene, generally involving Hill and Tatum spewing out motormouth gibberish, making fools of themselves while also commenting on the proceedings as they're unfolding. The movie doesn't so much do jokes as stages uncomfortable situations.
This is the comedy of embarrassment. Much of this is painful to watch, and in seeing our boys squirm we are intended to derive laughs.
And there are a lot of them, though there are long stretches in the middle where we feel more sorry for the people we're following than amused by them.
The lead actors are both in their 30s, and look it, and one of the running gags is that absolutely no one they meet believes they are college age.
"I'm 19," Schmidt says, straight-faced.
"Nineteen minutes late to the pinochle game?" a snarky girl responds.
After awhile, though, the shtick starts to wear thin and we know everything that's going to happen -- like that no gunfight can commence without an extended back-and-forth of insults and quips between the antagonists.
At nearly two hours long, "22 Jump Street" far outstays its welcome. Like an actual college party, it's raucous and intoxicating for awhile, but after 90 minutes you've seen all there is to see, and the music shuffle starts to repeat.
“No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough,” wrote Roger Ebert. I don’t entirely agree – I’ve seen plenty of worthy films that could’ve been improved with a nip and a tuck. Case in point: “The Wolf of Wall Street,” at 180 minutes, is occasionally self-indulgent and sprawling.
But it’s still a terrific film, one of the best of 2013. My guess is that people who were put off from seeing it in theaters due to its three-hour run time will cozy up to the latest handsome collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, their fifth together, now that it’s out on video.
DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, a slick young stock broker who founds an investment firm dedicated to partying hard and snorting up commission fees from clients on questionable deals. Along with a handful of sycophantic collaborators, including a giddy Jonah Hill as his wingman, they set about to take Wall Street by storm.
This they do – but attracting the attentions of certain lawmen in the process. Jordan & Co. spend as much time hiding their antics from the public eye as they do chasing the almighty dollar.
“Wolf” careens all over the place between comedy and drama, cautionary tale and generous helpings of sex ‘n’ drugs. Much as Scorsese has often been accused of idolizing the gangsters so often featured in his movies, there’s no denying this film gleefully dives into a pool of debauchery.
It may be kind of a mess, and would probably be better if it were 15 or 20 minutes shorter, but it’s still one terrific cinematic ride.
Video features are a big disappointment. If you buy the DVD version, you get absolutely nothing – not even a theatrical trailer.
Spring for the Blu-ray combo pack and you add only “The Wolf Pack” – a series of interviews with Scorsese, cast and crew about making the film.
If it seems like "The Wolf of Wall Street" bears more than a passing resemblance to Martin Scorsese's masterpiece "Goodfellas," that's because it does. Both films follow similar themes in relating a first-person account of a young guy who stumbled into way more wealth and power than he deserved, and how he set about squandering it.
For Henry Hill, the mafia was his ladder up to the stratosphere of egomania and drug abuse; for Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), it was the stock market.
This mostly-true story, based on Belfort's own book of the same title and translated by screenwriter Terence Winter, is a bacchanalia of drugs, hubris and debauchery. At three hours, it's a sprawling, untidy film that nevertheless often flirts with brilliance.
Tonally, the movie wanders this way and that, from raucous comedy to straight drama to fizzy caper and eventually into tragedy. But rather than being a film that seemingly can't decide what it wants to be, "Wolf" just opted to be everything at once -- and does a very good job at it.
Set in the late 1980s and 1990s, the story follows Belfort as he rises (or descends, depending on your perspective) in the world of stock trading. Wiped out as a young broker in the crash of '87, he latches onto the penny stock market, where the values are tiny but the potential for huge commissions is like dripping red meat to a slavering, greedy talent like himself.
Recruiting some of his buddies -- including a spot-on Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, his veneer-wearing, sycophantic right-hand man -- Jordan founds Stratton Oakmont, a firm with a name designed to appeal to old-money types who normally wouldn't have anything to do with shady characters like themselves.
It's an overnight success, and they start attracting a lot of attention for their wild spending and frat-boy antics. Such as the dwarf-tossing competition that first opens the movie, where Jordan throws $25,000 in cash on the ground as a bet.
Eventually, his operation attracts the notice of a dogged FBI investigator (Kyle Chandler) and the SEC. Jordan makes a show of wising up, even hiring his father (Rob Reiner) to be the office watchdog. He marries a beautiful model, Naomi, whom he dubs the Duchess of his sprawling empire, and then uses her poorly. She's played by Margot Robbie, who in the tradition of Scorsese leading ladies has a sweet exterior covering up a hard-bitten core.
Rounding out the cast are Jon Bernthal as a street thug Jordan sometimes uses for muscle; Jean Dujardin as a slimy Swiss banker; Joanna Lumley as Naomi's somewhat helpful British aunt; and Ethan Suplee, Kenneth Choi and Barry Rothbart as Jordan's lunkhead recruits.
Matthew McConaughey has a brief, kooky but delicious cameo as a seasoned broker who first instructs Jordan in what it takes to be successful in the stock trading game -- in short, a total disregard for others plus astonishing quantities of cocaine.
And there is plenty of both depicted in the movie. Scorsese has been criticized throughout his career for his reliance on violence, but with "Wolf" he trades in the gore for debauchery. He flaunts the sex-and-drugs material with the same relish he previously showed in beating people to a bloody pulp. There's enough nudity and kinky sex here to give "Blue Is the Warmest Color" a run for the title of most explicit Oscar contender this year.
Holding it all together is DiCaprio in his second magnificent performance of 2013, along with "The Great Gatsby." Callous yet charismatic, Jordan is a Quaalude-dropping, prostitute-hording, filthy-mouthed messiah to those who follow him. Making money is their first, and only priority in life. That, and a good party.
While some might be put off by the length and subject matter of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” it’s another career high point for both Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, and one of the year’s finest films. I’m betting they just might work together again, if they can pay dividends as good as these.
What could have been a terribly tiresome joke turns out to be an extravagantly funny one. Young(ish) Hollywood stars playing themselves convene for a wild party at James Franco's house, which gets broken up by ... the Apocalypse.
Yeah, really: brimstone, demons, the whole bit. Needless to say, they aren't among those who ascend into heaven during The Rapture, which leaves these entitled stars feeling rather miffed. Things grow progressively worse, the food and water run low and they start turning on each other, with merrily over-the-top results.
I think what makes it a giddy romp instead of a giant sandwich of self-indulgence is that the versions of themselves played by the comedy stars are thoroughly unlikable and selfish. Each seems to be doing an amalgam of their various film roles, with all the negative characteristics played up.
It goes so far that they crack on each other for bad role choices or movies that underwhelmed. Seth Rogen, who co-directed and co-wrote the film with Evan Goldberg, gets a lot of abuse for the mush-brained "The Green Hornet" ... for which, of course, Rogen and Goldberg did the screenplay.
The bare-bones setup is that Seth is hosting his old friend Jay Baruchel in L.A. for a few days. Jay is estranged from Seth's new buddies, including Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson. He gets strong-armed into attending a shindig at Franco's swank new Hollywood pad, it gets kinda awkward -- until death rains from the sky and holes open up in the earth.
Most of the guests and other celebrities get killed off rather quickly, including Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. Michael Cera, playing an arrogant coked-up version of himself, meets an especially messy end.
The survivors spend the next days and weeks holed up in Franco's house (which somehow manages to retain electricity even as the rest of town is fried into a smoking cinder).
The humor is really, really raunchy, with a bend toward the scatological. The running thread is that the entire bunch is ruled by narcissism, even when it seems like they're playing buddy-buddy.
Jay is the lone voice of reason, suggesting they repent their sins and hope for salvation. But it's a hard sell with this bunch. Their facility with religious faith extends only as far as Franco comparing the Holy Trinity to Neapolitan ice cream.
Emma Watson has a wicked turn playing herself, who busts into the boys' house with an axe and can't wait to bust out again.
"This Is the End" is essentially a one-joke movie, but it's one these young show biz funnymen gleefully -- and skillfully -- play on themselves.
I give "21 Jump Street" a lot of points for trying. What looked to be a cynical reboot of an '80s TV show is actually a decently funny spoof that doesn't take itself too seriously.
It's the sort of flick in which the 30-ish stars seem slightly mortified at the idea of passing themselves off as high-schoolers, even as undercover police officers looking to infiltrate a ring of drug dealers. The joke-within-a-joke, of course, is that nearly every Hollywood movie set in high school regularly features actors in their mid- to late-20s portraying teens, and plenty north of 30.
I appreciated the nudge-nudge-wink-wink scene where two bumbling cops get told about their assignment to the 21 Jump Street program, which the police chief describes as revived thing from the 1980s that's being brought back because nobody has any new ideas, so they're just recycling old ones.
Pretty cool when a movie will zing itself.
Jonah Hill came up with the story along with Michael Bacall, the screenwriter who also penned the inventive "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller previously made "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," making them the latest in a string of animation guys to jump to live-action films. (Though "Meatballs" was their first feature film, so it wasn't like they were cartoon for life.)
Hill plays what his become his typical character, the nerdy loser who discovers untapped reservoirs of talent and confidence. In the amusing opening sequence, set in 2005, he's decked out in Eminem 'do and outfit, clumsily asking a girl to prom and being shot down very publicly. His chief tormenter is Tatum, a popular jock and would-be prom king, except his grades were so bad the principal wouldn't let him go to prom. (Not quite sure what academic system allows you to graduate but not go to a party, but there you have it.)
Hill's character is repeatedly teased for being fat, which is curious because of course Hill had a well-publicized massive weight loss, and could not even properly be called chubby now.
Flash to the present, and the two become best buds at the police academy. Unfortunately, they're assigned to the bike patrol in the city park, and somehow manage to mess up even that. As a last resort, they're assigned to Jump Street, where Ice Cube plays the captain, an angry black man who knows he's a caricature, but with these two idjits it's hard not to be P.O.'d all the time.
They're passed off as brothers and sent to infiltrate Sagan High School. In one of the movie's funnier riffs, the cool kids are no longer status-seeking snobs but politically correct ego-advocates. Tatum, trying to replicate his brash BMOC routine from back in the day, finds himself ostracized for punching out a gay kid and his gas-guzzling vintage muscle car. Hill, though, unexpectedly finds himself accepted as part of the new ruling elite, causing friction between the best bros.
There are plenty of good laughs, some witty and some crude, like the scene where they score drugs but are forced to take them on school grounds to prove they're not narcs, and try to make each other puke by sticking their fingers down the other guy's throat.
But the movie goes sideways somewhere in the middle, getting bogged down by Hill's budding romance with the cool drama girl (Brie Larson) and Tatum's bonding with some science nerds.
I liked the way "21 Jump Street" played around with the conventions of the genre -- including the two cops' repeated disappointment that more things don't explode during their big car chase. I didn't quite like it enough to give it a full green light, but it's nice to see a flick that far exceeds your expectations.
I truly believe Brad Pitt gave the performance of his career in "Moneyball," far outpacing his overrated work in the pedantic "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
Playing Billy Beane, the general manager of the dirt-poor Oakland A's baseball club, Pitt shows layers and nuance that have been missing in his previous straightforward acting turns.
Billy is outwardly brash, even cocky in the face he presents to the his organization, the media and even his family. He has to, when he's trying to beat teams that can spend three times as much on player salaries. Inside, he's a nervous wreck who's convinced he's cursed.
With the help of a socially awkward young computer genius, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Billy institutes the then-radical concept of sabermetrics. Essentially, this means jettisoning tried-and-true methods for evaluating players and instead relying on complex mathematical algorithms to determine the best team to be had at the lowest price.
Soon Billy and his apprentice have assembled a cast of players who are over the hill, injured or playing out of position -- what Peter dubs "an island of misfit toys." After some initial stumbles, they start racking up W's.
Director Bennett Miller and screenwriters Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian succeeded in making a baseball movie with very little baseball, where the real action happens not on the diamond but in the executive offices.
Video extras are a solid base hit, but they failed to put some mustard on the offerings.
At least the basic DVD edition has a few nice features -- it's so common nowadays to find all the good stuff saved for the Blu-ray. The "Moneyball" DVD comes with a making-of documentary, a feature on the real-life Billy Beane, blooper real with Pitt and Hill, and a number of deleted scenes.
The Blu-ray version adds a featurette on selecting the movie's cast and crew and another about adapting a non-fiction sports book into a feature film. There's also a preview for the 2012 season of the "MLB" video game series.
Movie: 3.5 stars out of four Extras: 2.5 stars out of four
“Moneyball” is simultaneously deeper and funnier than I thought it would be. Based on the nonfiction book by Michael Lewis, it’s a look at how number-crunchers have changed the game of baseball through something called sabermetrics. Instead of relying on gut instincts and baseball acumen to evaluate players, this method employs computers and bean-counting to identify the best players that can be had for the least amount of money.
Now, baseball is not my thing. And mathematical algorithms are even less my thing. But instead of zeroing in on the technical aspects of sabermetrics, “Moneyball” is the story of Billy Beane. The General Manager of the cash-poor Oakland Athletics, Billy must try every year to put together a roster that can compete against teams like the New York Yankees, which can spend three times as much on payroll.
It’s a terrific performance by Brad Pitt, quite possibly the best of his career. His Billy Beane constantly operates on two levels: The brash, confident side he presents to his employees, the media and even his family; and the dark and brooding side that expects failure at every turn, refusing to even attend his own team’s games because he’s convinced he’s jinxed.
There’s one great scene where Billy confronts his newly-acquired 37-year-old star player, David Justice (Steven Bishop). It’s a standoff between two savvy baseball veterans who see through each others’ bluster, and want the other guy to know it.
Justice tells Billy he knows face-saving patter when he hears it. Billy cannily wins Justice’s loyalty by laying out their respective goals in stark terms: I want to squeeze the last bit of baseball ability out of your aging body, and you want to stay in the big leagues.
Billy’s scheme doesn’t go over so well with the rest of the organization. The head scout quits/gets himself fired after being pushed aside: “You don’t put together a team with a computer!”
The manager, Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), at first refuses to put Billy’s new recruits on the field, such as a catcher Scott Hatteburg (Chris Pratt) with permanent nerve damage in his elbow, who Billy thinks will make for a cost-efficient replacement at first base for recently departed free agent Jason Giambi.
Howe, who’s been rebuffed in his demand for a contract extension, coldly tells Billy why he won’t put Hatteburg in: “I’m playing my team in a way I can explain in job interviews next winter.”
But Billy has faith in his young right-hand man, Peter Brand, played against type by Jonah Hill. Peter’s golden measuring stick for players is their on-base percentage – doesn’t matter if it’s a home run or a walk, though players who get walked a lot tend to come much cheaper than those walloping dingers. Peter gets his own lessons from Billy on how to deliver the news when trading or cutting a player: ‘One bullet to the head rather than five in the chest.’
The end result of Peter’s calculations is what he dubs “an island of misfit toys” – players who are injured, or too old, or playing the wrong position, who have been systematically devalued by their teams and the sport of baseball. By patching together a quilt of utility men, Billy and Peter believe they can not only win games, but change the game itself.
After a disastrous start, the A’s soon prove the naysayers wrong, even breaking the American League record for consecutive wins. Eventually, other teams come calling for Billy’s magic potion, and with big paychecks to pay for it.
The film ends with a coda that doesn’t quite tell the whole story. It says Billy is still the GM of the A’s and is still trying to win “the last game of the season,” aka win the World Series. What it doesn’t mention is that the team hasn’t even made the playoffs since 2006, and that other teams have adopted Billy’s methods with more success than he.
“Moneyball” was adeptly directed by Bennett Miller (“Capote”), who wisely concentrates his energy less on the action inside the baseball diamond than the grunt work that goes on behind the scenes.
But this film’s success is attributable mainly, I think, to some heroic script work by two heavyweights: Aaron Sorkin, who won the Oscar for “The Social Network,” and Steve Zaillian, who has his own statue for “Schindler’s List.”
The creative team decided not to make a typical sports movie, but a deep and probing film that gives us a glimpse at the high-stakes games that happen off the baseball diamond.
It's a testament to the wondrous state of animation we know find ourselves in that "Megamind" registers as a routine feature rather than something amazing. The computer-generated animation from the DreamWorks crew is top-notch, crisp and full of lots of little details.
But this super-villain tale just doesn't have the storytelling sophistication of a "Toy Story 3," "The Illusionist" or "How to Train Your Dragon" -- which explains why those three films got Oscar nominations, while "Megamind" didn't.
Will Ferrell sassily voices the main character, a blue-skinned evil scientist type with a giant head and even bigger plans for conquering Metro City (which he mispronounces badly, like many other common words). His nemesis is Metro Man (Brad Pitt), a fellow traveler -- they both were rocketed off their respective dying planets as an infant, Superman-like, to find greatness on Earth.
Metro Man is the white-costumed defender of the city, while Megamind decks himself out in studded black leather and builds robots and other gizmos to do his bidding. Roxanne Ritchie, the plucky female reporter (Tina Fey) continually kidnapped by Megamind, who secretly adores her.
It's good clean fun aimed at children under 10, though their parents might long for something a little less doofy.
"Megamind" hits video stores Friday, Feb. 25.
Extras are quite plentiful, and are heavy on interactive games and such aimed at kids.
The single-disc DVD comes with a solitary deleted scene, commentary track by the filmmakers, and a meet the cast feature. It's notable, like the rest of the video features, for the complete lack of participation by Brad Pitt. Too good for goodies, Brad?
The double-disc DVD adds a bunch more featurettes, including a look inside Megamind's lair and the animation process. The highlight is "Megamind: The Button of Doom," a new 16-minute short that's an amusing look at Megamind's post-movie life.
The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack includes all these features, plus four more featurettes and interactive stuff.
Movie: 2 stars out of four Extras: 3.5 stars out of four
"Megamind" is in the unfortunate position of being the second animated movie this year where a super-villain plays the hero (or at least the main character). "Despicable Me" was a disappointment, but the sheer fact it came out first inevitably gives "Megamind" a patina of staleness.
Not that it isn't a wonder for the eyes. The animators at DreamWorks are now on par with the wizards at Pixar, and everything about it visually is a triumph. I especially liked the various robot contraptions built by the blue-skinned, big-skulled mad scientist title character, which have a clunky, mid-century retro look reminiscent of "The Iron Giant."
For those convinced the 3-D fad is just an excuse to squeeze a few extra dollars out of ticket-buyers: I saw "Megamind" in IMAX 3-D and can report that the layered effects were especially sharp and crystal-clear. I can't say as the film would be much diminished by seeing it on a regular screen, though.
The set-up is a takeoff on the old Superman origin, with a babe being blasted off his dying planet to find greatness on Earth. The tweak here is that in addition to lantern-jawed hero Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt), another infant traveled through space at the same time on a parallel course, setting up their lifelong enmity.
"Even Fate picks its favorites," Megamind (Will Ferrell) intones during the opening narration, and it's not hard to see why he thinks so. Instead of being endowed with awesome strength, laser vision and the ability to fly, Megamind was born with a big ol' noggin that made him an outcast at school.
While Metro Man landed in a rich couple's home and had everything handed to him, Megamind's spaceship splatted into a prison where he grew up educated by career criminals. Megamind also has the requisite minion, named Minion (David Cross), who's actually a fish whose bowl is connected to a robot exo-skeleton that for some reason resembles a gorilla.
I can't say as I'm the biggest fan of Ferrell's comedic abilities, but I thought his voice work here was proficient. His Megamind has a preening, boastful cadence, and has a tendency to mispronounce commonly used words. (For example, "Metro City" rhymes with "ferocity.")
Tina Fey voices Roxanne Ritchi, who exists in the comic book tradition of plucky, alliteratively-named girl reporters.
The next part of this review contains a spoiler, but since it happens so early in the film, and is so central to the story, I feel compelled to comment upon it.
After years of very public battles, Megamind suddenly is able to defeat his nemesis, annihilating Metro Man with his sun-powered death laser. But without an arch-enemy to fight, he finds himself growing bored. So he stumbles upon a plan to create a new hero by infusing some schlub with Metro Man's powers.
Unfortunately, he chooses Hal (Jonah Hill), Roxanne's lovesick dweeb cameraman, turning him into a rampaging mass of muscles called Titan. For reasons never explained, Titan changes this to Tighten.
Anyway, Tighten decides that being a hero is for chumps and starts tearing up Metro City, leaving Megamind to act the hero to keep things in order. Also, he begins a sneaky romance with Roxanne abetted by one of his nefarious gizmos.
"Megamind" was directed by Tom McGrath, who helmed the "Madagascar" movies, from a script by rookie screenwriters Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. It's reasonably entertaining, though aimed more at the single-digit-age crowd than most such fare.
But in this golden age of "Toy Story 3" and "How to Train Your Dragon," Megamind looks like second-tier goods.
I don't really know what to call "Cyrus." From the presence of Jonah Hill as the title character, most people will probably take it as a comedy. But the humor is so dark and the mood so frequently unnerving that you don't much feel like laughing.
What I did feel was fully engaged, and enjoyment at drinking in some wonderful performances by Hill, Marisa Tomei and especially John C. Reilly. It's a movie that's not trying to provoke a reaction from the audience, but simply observes a small set of characters with sharp focus and a wry wit.
Reilly plays John, a sad sack who's finally pulled out of the tailspin since his divorce by starting a relationship with Molly (Tomei), a single mother to 21-year-old Cyrus (Hill), who's still living at home and doesn't show any inclinations about changing this fact. Cyrus sabotages their relationship, subtly at first but with increasing venom.
One scene sums up my reaction to this film. John has begun sleeping over at Molly's, which Cyrus accepts with a veneer of friendliness but clearly doesn't like. In the middle of the night, John gets up to find Cyrus standing in the kitchen nude from the waist down and holding a butcher knife. "C'mere," he says with a glazed stare, motioning with the huge knife.
I'll save you the trouble by letting you know "Cyrus" does not veer into slasher flick territory. But the sensation one gets in that moment -- nervous laughter that morphs quickly into fear and then melts into a profound discomfort -- is strangely enjoyable.
"Cyrus" is written and directed by sibling duo Jay and Mark Duplass ("Baghead"), part of the "mumblecore" indie movement. The dialogue has an ungroomed, improvisational feel, and the trio of stars give naturalistic performances without an ounce of ego.
Reilly, who's done a lot of lunkhead comedies lately but has shown serious acting chops in the past, certainly doesn't seem to have any vanity in his role. When we first see John, his ex-wife (Catherine Kenner) catches him masturbating in his slovenly wreck of a home.
She reveals that she and her boyfriend (Matt Walsh) are going to get married, which crushes him despite the seven years since they parted. To cheer him up, they invite John to a party where he gets stupendously drunk, and even the homely girl sitting alone on the couch blows him off.
Molly, however, overhears his moment of total vulnerability and is touched. Soon they're an item, but John quickly senses something wrong about her relationship with her son. Cyrus calls her Molly instead of mother, and they spend hours every day together wrapped in a cocoon of co-dependency.
Cyrus deeply resents any division of Molly's affections with another -- she tellingly reveals she hasn't had a serious relationship since Cyrus was born -- and sets about to use himself as a wedge between them.
In essence, John has walked into the middle of an Oedipal complex, with him taking on the role of the guy about to get whacked.
Hill is terrific, and what's most striking about it is that it isn't all that different from what he does in his comedic roles. He's become a master of the deadpan stare where he says seemingly benevolent things, but in a cutting way. His Cyrus is a sweet-faced emotional terrorist.
I really liked Reilly in this. He starts out as such a pathetic figure, we practically cringe for him. But he slowly gets his baggage together, and has enough self-respect to fight back against Cyrus' manipulations.
Tomei's role is a bit under-realized -- Molly acts as a vessel into which these two flawed men pour their emotions, good and bad. I kept wishing she would take a proactive role, and kick both of them out.
I was not expecting much out of "Get Him to the Greek." It's a quasi-sequel to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which I was only too eager to banish from memory. And the appeal of British comedian Russell Brand had so far eluded my senses.
But "Greek" is one of the consistently funniest movies I've seen in a good long while, and it's got some genuine heart, too.
Consistency was actually my biggest beef with "Sarah Marshall": It had three or four uproarious moments, and a whole lot of drag in between. "Greek" builds laugh upon laugh, to the point where you're missing jokes because the audience is hooting so loud at the previous one.
This film is a coming-out party for Jonah Hill, who's been a reliable comedic sidekick closely associated with Judd Apatow (who's credited here as a producer). Now Hill moves to the front of the stage, and proves an engaging and witty leading man.
Hill actually has quite handsome features underneath all that blubber, and his liquid blue eyes are capable of seeming meek one moment, hard and brazen the next. He plays Aaron Green, a nebbish who comes out of his shell when he's assigned to escort a notorious rock star to a big gig, and it's to Hill's credit that the shy guy doesn't lose his innocence even when he's wallowing in sex and drugs.
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs plays against his smooth persona as egotistical record mogul Sergio Roma, who cares only about sales, not making quality music. At first he rejects Aaron's suggestion of a 10th anniversary concert of Aldous Snow's watershed show at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre, since everyone seems to think the drug-addled rocker is on the downside of his career.
Snow (Brand) is still famous and fabulously wealthy, but has lived inside the celebrity bubble for so long he isn't even aware that his last single, "African Child," was an embarrassing piece of condescending pop puffery. After seven years of sobriety, he's fallen hard off the wagon after being dumped by his special lady, Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), a fellow star singer.
Part of the film's appeal is the hard shots writer/director Nicholas Stoller takes at the music industry -- not just its excesses, but the sheer awfulness of so much of what it produces. (One of Aldous' hits is "I Got the Clap.") Watching Jackie Q or Aldous writhe and bluster in some music video, blurping out lunkhead lyrics to overproduced techno beats, one can't help be reminded of some of the drek that's popular on the air waves.
A ton of celebrities make cameos, including Lars Ulrich, Pink, Christina Aguilera and Billy Bush.
Sergio eventually signs off on the show, and it's Aaron's job to get Aldous safely and soberly from London to the Greek in 72 hours, stopping off to appear on the "Today Show" along the way. Of course, the rocker is much more interested in drinking, doping and partying.
Soon enough Aaron is flying high, rubbing up against strippers and puking all over himself. He sobers up long enough to remember his duties, and frets at his lapses -- and what effect they'll have on his relationship with Daphne (Elisabeth Moss).
We learn that Aldous, despite his asshat front, actually has a little soul to him, underneath mounds of narcissism.
Even though it's kind of a modern-day knockoff of "My Favorite Year," I still loved spending time with the duo of Hill and Brand. "Get Him to the Greek" rocked my funny bone -- hard.
"Funny People" should come with a warning announcement: "And now folks, a serious moment with Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow."
Yes, this is the movie where the dudes behind "The Waterboy" and "Knocked Up" team up and get all weepie.
Sandler plays a thinly-disguised version of himself, a massively successful star of mainstream comedy films, who has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. He hires a young wannabe comedian, played by Seth Rogen, to be his assistant/friend, and sets about to learn him some life lessons.
This formula actually works for awhile, as the big star and the young schlub bond. George Simmons (Sandler) teaches Ira how to hold his own doing stand-up, and Ira helps George see that there's more to life than his opulent mansion and anonymous hook-ups with female admirers.
There's also some pleasant byplay with Ira's roommates, who are both much more successful than him. Jonah Hill plays another comedian, and Jason Schwartzman has become the star of a horrible television comedy called "Yo, Teach!" Oh, and there's a girl comedian (Aubrey Plaza) for whom Ira is laying out a three-month seduction plan, but the Schwartzman character gives him 10 days to make a move before he turns on the star charm.
So the movie is humming along quite nicely, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, a little bit of serious stuff with George's illness, and then Ira and George take a trip to Marin County to look up an old girlfriend of George's, and the movie flushes itself right down the toilet.
The visit to see the girlfriend just goes on, and on, and on, until you realize it's taken up almost an hour of the film's ungodly 145-minute run time. The old saw about Judd Apatow movies is that they go on 20 minutes too long, but "Funny People" qualifies for a multiplier.
I hate to say this, but I think this section is only in the movie because the old girlfriend is played by Leslie Mann, who is Apatow's wife in real life. And although she's a talented performer, the whole concept of the girlfriend trip just kills the movie. She's married (to an Aussie played by Eric Bana) and has two daughters, and because of George's illness she convinces herself they're still in love.
This happens right after George learns that his disease has gone into remission. I'm not giving anything away here; this twist is in the trailer. I just find it ironic that it's only after George learns that he's going to live that "Funny People" becomes a death march.
The one truly interesting thing about this movie is that it seems to be making fun of Adam Sandler, or at least his movies. There are numerous clips from made-up flicks like "Merman," in which he's a half-fish, and "Re-do," where he has the body of a baby but his regular head. It's made clear that no one actually thinks these are funny, and yet they are essentially barely-disguised take-offs of Sandler's actual movies.
Since Sandler and Apatow were roommates when they were first breaking in, it raises the question of what the former roomies really think of each other's work. Based on "Funny People," they should have ditched the reunion.
