Funny People

From Steve (again). This was directed by Judd Apatow, and I did quite like The 40-Year-Old Virgin so I thought I'd give it a go.

This one irritated me from the outset, really. It was partly because of the title. What we have here is a bunch of Hollywood comedians playing comedians (ooh, clever! Life imitating art eh?) but actually exposing the fact that stand-up comedians are insecure, whiney and ruthlessly ambitious to the point of screwing over their friends on a regular basis. This is a risky strategy on the part of the director - apparently the irony of having Adam Sandler "playing" a comedian who's not even slightly funny and is in reality an arrogant, unsympathetic arse has been lost on all concerned.

It's hard in this film to know how you're supposed to feel. It's poorly structured, too long and Apatow seems to think he's being some kind of directorial maverick by not having a single sympathetic character in there. I think you're supposed to like Seth Rogen, but you get the impression that he's slow on the uptake rather than a nice guy lacking in the vices that characterise the others - he has his moments of being just as shallow, insecure and untrustworthy as all the others. I also think you're supposed to find the jokes funny. They're not (deliberately not in places, accidentally not in others) and this is the problem - there's no reason to care about anyone or anything that happens to them.


So by the time Sandler's character George Simmons is staring at his own mortality, any element of this story that might be moving at all has already been wrung out. You find yourself watching completely dispassionately as he struggles to get to grips with what's happening to him and what he's done with his life. He's just too much of a bastard for the movie to have the charm of This is Spinal Tap, which is probably the closest reference to what it's aiming for.


The last part of the film shows Simmons trying to fix his empty life by pursuing the now unhappily married one-that-got-away. Again, it's hard to care about anyone in the scenario, sympathies are undermined all round. Maybe there's supposed to be something clever about the ending, some defying of expectations, but ultimately movies should take you on some kind of ride, and this is like sitting for two and a half hours in Apatow's car waiting for him to start the engine.  This is ultimately my objection - despite being vain, weak, unpleasant and unfunny, Apatow still thinks Hollywood's comedians are worthy of my undivided attention. Ultimately, it's an arrogant film and that puts me off.


This was the 2-disc collector's edition of the DVD as well. I have to say I have never in my life seen a wider range of extras or been less tempted to investigate. "35 minutes of deleted scenes and classic stand-up!" If you deleted everything self-indulgent, smug or painfully unfunny from the movie you could really add to the bonus material.

 

Lake Placid

Again, this one was borrowed from Steve - cheers bud!

It's a horror/comedy hybrid about a giant man-eating crocodile living in a Lake in Maine. After it gruesomely kills a diver, a team made up of the local sherrif and his deputies, a paleantologist, a park ranger and a kooky crocodile obsessive head off to find it.

The plot is paper thin, as is the characterisation, but it's pretty clear  that the director has no interest whatsoever in putting those things in the film,  figuring (correctly) that the audience for a horror-comedy about a massive killer crocodile aren't really going to be too interested in the characters' motivations or the whys and wherefores of how the creature came to be in the lake. This is explcit in places - for example, there is a debate at one point about why they would send a paleantologist to track down a killer reptile (clearly they wouldn't) and why she hangs around the camp instead of going back to the town if she hates the countryside so much.  It's obvious that the real answer is "because that would lower the ratio of snappy dialogue and amusing one-liners as the motley crew bicker amongst themselves", and even the crocodile comes second to this to be honest. As for the old lady who lives by the lake - nothing about that makes any sense whatsoever. But she says some rude words, and despite yourself, you do laugh.

As a horror film it's not amazing. There are some gruesome moments but overall I'd say this is weighted towards the comedy end of horror-comedy, and the comedy's pretty good - not witty, not clever, just well-timed and dry.


Next time you feel like switching off your brain completely, give this a watch and see what you think.

 

Alfie

Mandy brought this one over the other night. I'd never seen it before and I've got to say it wasn't what I was expecting.

I do like Michael Caine and his performance was very good, but the character wasn't the swinging-London-cheeky-chappie I'd been led to expect. He's a deeply selfish, misogynist bully, deluding himself that he's found a way to skip through life avoiding responsibility whilst actually getting trapped in the ever-more problematic mire of the consequences of his own actions.


Although probably not something to stick on to watch when you're in any way depressed (it's a feel-bad movie) it's still well worth watching for fans of Michael Caine, fans of movies that make you think, or fans of truly hideous sixties wallpaper.


it's pretty dated too - not something I mind though, but I'll be interested to compare it to the remake.

Bruiser

Thanks to Amazon recommendations for this one, otherwise I'd never have heard of it.

It's a sketch show with a number of writers starring Mitchell & Webb, Olivia Colman (Peep Show), Matt Holness (Garth Marenghi), Martin Freeman (The Office & stuff) and Charlotte Hudson, who apparently is on Braniac though I didn't recognise her (makes me zone out, that show).

This is a before-they-were-famous deal, similar in style to The Fast Show and Big Train, with a number of recurring characters. It's hit and miss (I find most sketch shows are) but there are enough good ones to keep you interested. I particularly liked the patronising A-level revision Bitesize programme ("Fact 1! Don't Panic! Help is at hand!") and the horny macho Australian tosspiece ("Know why I do archery? It's pussy on a stick!") but my favourites were Gary the Tottenham-shirt wearing faddy "lifestyle" enthusiast and his permanently irritated wife ("See this is what he's like. He comes home Friday night saying he's a Muslim and I don't get no say in the matter, I just gotta lump it").

Worth a watch for fans of anyone in the show, but otherwise I'd Youtube it first to see if you like it. That way you can skip Sparky the puppet. You'll be glad you did. So will Martin Freeman, who went onto better things but was obviously young and needed the money.

Daddy-Long-Legs/ Dear Enemy by Jean Webster

D

Daddy-Long-Legs is a novel that I first read as a kid. It was a big favourite of my Grans. It tells the story in a series of letters of a girl (Jerusha "Judy" Abbott)  brought up in an orphanage who is sent to college by a mysterious benefactor, who asks that she writes to him without her knowing his name. All she knows about him is the shape of his shadow, elongated against the wall in the lamplight, and so she refers to him throughout her letters as Daddy Long Legs. 

The sequel, Dear Enemy, is written in the same style but this time the protagonist is a college roommate of Judy's called Sallie McBride, who has been given the task of running the orphanage.

Jean Webster has a lively style and the two heroines are smart and feisty enough to overcome a degree of predictability in the plots and hold the reader's interest. Easy, entertaining reads. 

On a side note, it was interesting in Dear Enemy to read about the books the Doctor leant Sallie because I'd studied some of them doing psychology at Uni. Mostly they were discussed in disapproving terms because of the pro-eugenics/sterilisation slant. Different times I guess - it's important to remember that it wasn't just the Nazis who were interested in weeding out what they saw as the weak links in society.

Moon

T

Thanks to Steve again for this one. The basic premise is that in the future we learn how to harvest energy from the moon, all from a station manned by one guy on his own...stay with it....

Steve warned me beforehand that this was psychological - no action...to me, with a film, that means "bring it on". The movies that stay with me engage the brain rather than the eyes, and this one was a thinker.

Too much at times, but oddly it was the action bits where I found my attention drifting. I found it hard to get involved with anything that happened outside the base - too little pace with too little dialogue makes the Melv's mind wander.

While I'm pickin' the nits, there were plot holes at times from a motivation point of view - nothing I couldn't forgive though - but I would definitely recommend this film, and that's due to the thought-provoking power of the theme, but mainly due to some amazingly good performances.

Firstly, Sam Rockwell is fantastic. I say this because I found myself reminding myself that there is only the one Sam Rockwell. There is a seamless brilliance to how he handles his roles - and kudos to the director for this too. I was completely absorbed in the situation presented; even more so when I started thinking about how it must have been put together.

For me, the most interesting character in the film was the computer, and Kevin Spacey was perfectly cast. It's the best portrayal of AI I've ever seen, and it undermined a lot of cliches.  (Kevin Spacey could read the phone book and I'd be agog, but don't let this sway you.)

This film raises a number of fascinating questions and i know it's one that will stay with me for a long time. Hearty thumbs up!

The A-Team

Thanks to Matty for the cinema trip to see this one. 

I absolutely loved The A-Team when I was about six - it was Saturday afternoon viewing round at Granny Mary's, and I used to sit there avidly with my BA figure waiting for them to start blowing things up (I was too young to know if there was much of a plot to it). I did think it looked pretty good from the trailer, but I'd heard mixed things about the movie version.

If you like cheesey macho action films, this isn't a bad one. You have to really like cheese though. Take along some crackers. Liam Neeson and the guy who played Face were pretty good. The BA character was up against it - Mr T is a hard act to follow, but he did OK. The Murdoch character just wasn't funny, however, which pretty much killed it as a nostalgia exercise. The other thing that killed it as a nostalgia exercise was the lack of appreciation of how much we all liked the original theme tune as kids. The movie ends...the old familiar voice-over rattles through and then...some pointless metal track starts up. Luckily some reasonably imaginative action sequences meant that I didn't feel compelled to demand my money back, though I did feel a hankering to watch the series as it was back in "the day".

I am informed that there were some cameos from the original Murdoch and Faceman at the end of the credits - I missed these due to pressure to conform to the Sixfields tradition of getting out of the cinema the very second the credits start to roll. Do they do this in other places?

Click

I've borrowed this one from Steve, and I realised a few minutes in that I'd actually seen it, or at least the first part of it, before. 

The fact that I'd forgotten tells you quite a bit about the movie - as with all the Adam Sandler films I've seen, it's based on a lightweight and pretty daft concept. If it was a crisp, it would be a Quaver. Usually I can happily nibble on Quavers but every now and then they annoy me because they're just not enough like having a real, satisfying crisp. So it is with Sandler films.


Click just about stayed the right side of the line for me, despite essentially fitting into the "hilarious comedy!!" genre that consistently fails to amuse me (I know that some people will  watch The Hoff get resized/talk in a funny voice and split their sides, but it makes me feel so...very...tired...). It's quite warm and hard to dislike in places, particularly the scenes with his kids. I also felt they ended up with quite a clever metaphor from what started as a daft idea, and I like the the way the playfulness of the early part of the film morphed seamlessly into something really dark and existentialist by the end. It never quite stops being silly, but it definitely gets reflective.


On a side note, I was troubled by Christopher Walken more than usual in this film. How did his voice get like that? I will be pondering this...

The Wrestler

I was first told about this film by my friend Jonas, and I know that he is a gentleman of discerning taste, so I was looking forward to this one despite the fact that I've seen Mickey Rourke on enough talk shows to be of the opinion that he is in fact a nutter.

I have a fresh respect for the guy now. He brings a lot of warmth and pathos to the title role of a man who's dedicated himself utterly to something that the world doesn't take seriously, only to find himself without any other anchor points in life when he starts to realise that he can't go on forever.

Everything that's tacky and daft about wrestling comes across really well in the film, yet the overriding sense that you're left with is that this is a story with a lot of heart and humanity to it.

Five stars, which means I'll probably buy it at some point :)

Intro

Hello all. This is my first go at writing a blog. It's August 2nd which means I'm in the middle of my holiday, but like the dedicated professional that I am I'm always thinking of ways to develop and enhance my English teaching. At the same time I'm on holiday, so I can stretch my definition of doing constructive work to include learning how to create and keep a blog. Yay holidays!

The plan so far is to use it as a record of what I'm reading, watching and listening to. Let's see how it goes!