Non-Movie Post

I thought this was pretty funny, so I'm linking to it. Jian BBQ is a Korean barbecue hotspot on Beverly Blvd. in West Hollywood. And apparently, they've got a thing or two to learn about customer service.

ADAM - A Romance with Asperger's

Saw ADAM last night, a quirky romance about a woman who falls for her neighbor with Asperger's. Probably wouldn't have seen it if the girlfriend didn't offer to treat me to a movie.

AN ASS-FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW

ADAM hit upon a unique premise. I can't recall a love story between a "normal" woman and someone suffering from Asperger's (basically a high-functioning form of autism where the sufferer has problems reading facial cues, knowing what people are thinking, and the inability to pick up on sarcasm, innuendo, irony, or any situation in which words have a connotation as well as a denotation).

It tells the story of Adam, a single electronics engineer with a fascination for space. Adam's father just died; his dad took care of him and helped ease his transition into the world. Without him, Adam's got some problems. His new neighbor Beth seems intrigued by Adam, but a little put off by Adam's rudeness. Eventually, she realizes he has Asperger's. The two date after Adam engages in a couple of romantic gestures -- dangling outside her window in a spacesuit to clean it and showing her a family of raccoons who took up residence inside Central Park. Beth's father faces a trial for some accounting irregularities at his business. And Adam, with his lack of social skills, grills him about possibly going to jail. When Adam gets a job offer in a new town and wants to move away with Beth, Beth's dad (now about to go to jail) tells Adam Beth can do better. Eventually, the two split and Adam makes the move on his own.

Despite some good performances and a realistic script that makes the action and characters feel believable, there are several problems with the film.

First, in any kind of romance-based movie, be it an action film, a drama, or a romantic comedy, if you don't buy that the romance is important, the movie doesn't work. It never seemed believable that gorgeous, rich, smart Beth (Rose Byrne) would date a high-functioning autistic. The film sets up that she went out with a rich asshole who cheated on her and so she's looking for something different. But isn't there a middle ground between rich asshole and almost-RAIN MAN?

The romantic gestures don't offer enough explanation for why Beth goes out with Adam either. She mentions she can't see outside her windows, so he dresses up in his space suit and dangles outside her windows to clean them. Or attempts to. Instead, startling her. Because this was random and ineffectual, it doesn't feel like a big deal or that impressive. In fact, he almost kills herself and doesn't even manage to clean the windows. This could have been remedied with a bit of dialogue about how her last boyfriend (the rich asshole) never listened to her or what she wanted. When she said she wanted tickets to a concert, he even got the wrong tickets. That's when she knew the relationship wouldn't work, long before the cheating. Then, Adam cleans her windows based on an off-handed comment she makes and she's smitten.

Since we don't buy these two would ever date, we don't really care that they break up eventually. That's a major problem, removing the stakes from the movie entirely.

Film also tries to set up Beth's father as a jerk. He tells her she can do better than Adam. But he happens to be right. Adam's not that great. He's nice when he's not freaking out and he knows a lot about space. But he can't hold a normal conversation or interact with her friends and family properly. And he tends to freak out in full-0n child tantrum mode. What's more, since Beth actually doesn't end up with Adam, her father is proven right in the world of the film. Also, this whole dynamic -- overbearing father who's in legal trouble and eventually goes to jail doesn't like her underachieving boyfriend -- seems ripped from SAY ANYTHING.

Finally, the film makes a really odd choice in having Adam go to California by himself for a new job. While there, he suddenly becomes non-autistic -- or way less so. Script shows Adam at the beginning and throughout not picking up on verbal cues (sarcasm about continuing to carry heavy bags by himself) and having severe social anxiety where he won't go out with work friends and fears going out with Beth's. But for some reason, when he gets to Cali, he's noticing a co-worker's face while carrying heavy boxes and he offers to help and he's suddenly going out to bars with his co-workers. This would be fine if this was a normal character arc -- a guy goes from awkward to socially integrated. But it's Asperger's syndrome. Not a character weakness that gets worked out through the plot of the film. The reason Adam has those problems is because his brain is wired differently. It's not like he has one relationship and all of a sudden he stops being a high-functioning autistic. That'd be like a dude with paraplegia moving cross-country after a failed relationship and suddenly starting to walk.

DVD Corner - FALLEN, SPEED, DIE HARD 3 - Thriller Time

Been watching a lot of thrillers lately as "research" for a thriller I'm starting. And some action movies that verge on thriller territory.

BOATLOADS OF SPOILERS BELOW

I'd never seen FALLEN. You'd think Nick Kazan script + Denzel Washington + great supporting cast (Elias Koteas, Donald Sutherland, John Goodman, Aida Turturro, James Gandolfini) + great premise (detective watches a serial killer he caught get put to death; serial killer is really a demon who can jump bodies; demon comes back and frames/torments detective) would equal a great movie. But it doesn't.

First, the film is horribly slow and boring. This thing drags. Directory Gregory Hoblit chooses to use a washed-out, shaky POV shot to represent Azazel, the demon. And he does it literally every time something happens with the demon. So you see this nauseating shot hundreds of times. The plot, as such, is underbaked. You'd think an immortal demon would really have it out for the man who's getting in his way and have a great way to annoy him or kill him. You'd also think the demon would have some sort of big plans after thousands of years. Nope. Apparently all he wants to do is sort of mildly annoy Denzel. Which he does by framing him for some murders. Which could've been good, if that was the first act break. Then you'd have an entire movie of Denzel trying to figure out what's going on (his enemy's really a demon!) all the while avoiding the cops and trying to clear his name. But that action doesn't come until the end of the film, which is too late. Also, Azazel literally has no plan or anything. He's not trying to spark the end of the world (although he does write "Apocalypse" in chunks on various bodies), he's not trying to rule the world, he's not trying to let Satan out of hell. Just annoy Denzel.

The rules are also unclear. Azazel can jump into any body he wants. Except Denzel at the beginning. But by the end of the movie he can get into Denzel for some reason. That'd be fine if Denzel was somehow corrupted and it was all part of Azazel's plan. But it's not setup that way, so it just feels random.

There's no arc for Denzel's character. The obvious one would be a man who lost his faith, and in encountering the supernatural, he gets it back. That would easily mesh with the "action" as it were.

Denzel's got a retarded brother for some reason, I guess so he seems like a good guy for taking care of him. And so Azazel can eventually kill him. Azazel doesn't even seem that evil. He kills a couple people and then Denzel's brother. The film could've upped the body count and made him more threatening.

Finally, there are some really silly beats. For example, Embeth Davidtz is being chased by Azazel in various forms through a crowded street. Instead of Azazel getting in a fast, strong body and running her down, he jumps from body to body. So you've got a "chase" scene where a girl's running and various strangers are touching each other down a line, with the demon body-swapping in serial. All accompanied by a cheesy "whoosh" sound. This isn't cool or threatening, it's just stupid. The demon inside a big, strong guy is possibly threatening; the demon inside an old lady, not so much.

On to SPEED...

I hadn't seen SPEED since the theater and didn't remember it being that great. It's got a fantastic premise and was competently directed. But that was all I could remember.

Well, I was wrong. SPEED is a very good action movie. The premise is just as great as ever, the bad guy's clever, and the obstacles and escalations are great. Keanu gets dropped in a shitstorm at the beginning and things just keep getting worse for him throughout.

There are perhaps two weaknesses in SPEED. Keanu's character (Jack Traven) has no arc to speak of. He's not a reckless guy who learns how to reign it in to keep others safe; he's not a do-er who figures out you should look before you leap.

And after the bus blows up, the movie keeps going for a half hour and gets a bit silly. Dennis Hopper's character is so smart and methodical with his planning of the elevator job and the bus caper that what happens after his plans are foiled seems a bit reckless. He thought far enough ahead to get money away from hundreds of cops and escape onto the subway with a hostage wired with a bomb, but because Traven's chasing him, he loses his shit and kills the subway driver? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

However, with the action, you don't really miss the arc. And there's almost a solid hour of bus stuff just getting worse and worse, so you tend to forgive the movie for the third act. (And Keanu's awful retort to Dennis Hopper after he knocks his head off with a subway light -- "I'm taller.")

DIE HARD 3 marked John McTiernan's return to the franchise. And a great idea in having Hans Gruber's brother come back for revenge on John McClane. And a cool premise with Jeremy Irons running McClane all over town on a scavenger hunt (under threat of blowing shit up) as a distraction to robbing the Federal Reserve.

There's plenty of great action. And screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh does a good job with the action beats, with plenty of smart twists and turns, like the heroes getting out of handcuffs using a metal scrap embedded in McClane's arm from an earlier slide down a fraying cable.

Where the film slips is that McClane has little to no arc -- just warming up to calling his wife whom he hasn't talked to in over a year. So Hensleigh tries to give one to Sam Jackson's Zeus, a racist who hates white folks. Except that Jackson doesn't really start to like white people. He just warms up to McClane a bit. If that situation was played out in reverse, with a racist white guy, people would find it patronizing.

Another problem is that Irons' plot falls apart when you look at it. The first task he gives McClane is to walk around Harlem with a sandwich board stating "I hate N-words" (it actually says the N-word, I'm just being polite). And McClane is nearly killed by a street gang; Zeus jumps in to save him. If Zeus didn't, McClane would die. Now, Irons wants McClane dead. But he needs him alive long enough to keep running goofy errands on the scavenger hunt and keep the police tied up so he can rob the reserve. He plans on killing McClane via sniper at Yankee Stadium at the end of the day. Irons clearly didn't plan on Zeus being there or helping out, so that's clearly a big plot hole.

Another silly bit is that the way McClane catches Irons is... Irons has McClane and Zeus tied up to a bomb on a ship. McClane asks for some aspirin -- Irons suffers from migraines -- and Irons tosses him a bottle. After our heroes get off the ship just ahead of the bomb, McClane looks at the aspirin bottle and it's stamped Nord de Lignes, a big truck stop north of the border in Canada.

Here's the several problems with this.

1) Generally, if someone suffers from migraines, they have prescription migraine medicine like topamax or imitrex. Aspirin and the like don't really help with migraines.

2) I've never known truck stops or any other store for that matter to stamp aspirin bottles with their name/location

3) McClane somehow gets to fly to Canada with his gun and shoot at the bad guys; the US has no jursidiction north of the border. And McClane is a New York City cop, so he has no jurisdiction outside of the city

4) This whole beat is convenient. If McClane didn't ask for aspirin and Irons toss him some and the bottle was stamped, etc., McClane never would have found him. If McClane had somehow tricked this information out of him, that would've been fine. That shows our hero being smart, rather than our hero relying on a happy coincidence to solve his problems.

5) How the hell did the good guys find the bad guys? Presumably this is a major area filled with shipping containers, trucks, etc. The bad guys could just hide out there.

And then you've got McClane shooting an electrical wire with two bullets and dropping it on a helicopter and then saying "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker." Sigh.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Wrong Spelling, Right Moviemaking

Not too much to say here, because I loved this film. Jews killing Nazis as brutally as possible? I'm in.

SCALPED SPOILERS BELOW

Basically, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is Tarantino's Jewish version of THE DIRTY DOZEN meets Spaghetti Westerns. It's funny, unique, and super-violent. And manages to string together the obvious influences along with a healthy dose of film history love. And for all its quirks, including slapping up a character's name in giant logo and a couple of asides hilariously narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, it pretty much works.

There's no reason why anybody in particular should like a film in which the heroes mash heads with bats, scalp fallen foes, shoot unarmed prisoners, and in which hundreds of people are roasted, shot, and exploded. But you do anyway. Because it's so unusual and so much fun.

The film's strengths are:

Most of the characters are fully dimensionalized, or at least enough for us to like or understand them. Particularly well-rendered are Shoshanna and Col. Landa, the delightful villain. Others, like Stiglitz, you get enough to understand this guy hates Nazi officers and is bound to snap. Brad Pitt's Lt. Col. Aldo Rayne is a bit of an enigma; you know he hates Nazis and is a cruel bastard, but you're not sure entirely why. But Brad Pitt does him with such flair, you don't really card.

Tarantino sure knows how to turn a scene, particularly in assembling all the elements of suspense and then cranking the tension up with everyday dialogue. Whether it's an oncoming basement shootout, Landa interrogating a French dairy farmer hiding Jews under his floor, or Landa and Shoshana sitting in a restaurant eating strudel, these scenes are all super-tense. If and when the violence erupts, it's almost a relief.

And finally, perhaps the film's biggest asset is its uniqueness. For example, when Pitt and crew pose as Italians to inflitrate a Nazi film premiere... Most films would have Pitt and his buddies barely pulling off the masquerade. But Tarantino wisely has them speak atrocious Italian with their horrible accents, and Col. Landa is so aware of it that he laughs hysterically and exposes their plot. It's funny, it's tense, and it's a bold choice that works well.

Plus, you gotta love a film that has Jews killing the shit out of Hitler and the entire Nazi high command.

There is perhaps one minor flaw, but it's an editing decision, not a script problem. Because the film's so long, it seems as if QT cut some of the action for time. So we're treated to Pitt captured, and then he's in a truck with one of his men who wasn't at the premiere. We never find out how BJ Novak got captured or what happened to the rest of the Basterds. But it doesn't really affect anything, because the film's almost over at that point and sailing along delightfully under its own weird steam.

Video Corner - GIGANTIC, Gigantic Disappointment

Ah, the quirky indie romantic comedy. There've been good ones throughout film history (ANNIE HALL, THE GRADUATE, I even enjoyed most of GARDEN STATE). And then there are the ones that seem to just be quirky for quirky's sake (500 DAYS OF SUMMER). GIGANTIC falls squarely into the latter category.

BIG-ASS SPOILERS BELOW

GIGANTIC tells the tale of Paul Dano's Brian Weathersby. We're introduced to Dano visiting his friend doing experiments on rats in a lab. Then he gets the crap beaten out of him by a crazy homeless guy. Then he goes to his job, selling high-end mattresses, where obnoxious millionaire John Goodman comes in to buy one. Later, he sends his daughter, Happy (yes, happy) to pick up the mattress. She falls asleep on the bed for hours. Happy and Brian start dating, or more specifically, start having sex in odd places. Brian's dream since he was a little child was to adopt a Chinese baby, something he's on a waiting list for. He hangs out with his elderly father and brothers, taking mushrooms and gathering wild mushrooms in a field. He's shot at, then shot, by the homeless guy. He eats a fancy French dinner. He gets approved for a baby. He stabs and kills the homeless guy, who turns out to be a figment of his imagination. Happy gets freaked out and breaks up with him. And some more stuff happens.

This movie was highly annoying, despite the fact that Zooey Deschanel gets completely nude in it. I have no idea why anyone in it, including Deschanel, Goodman, Dano, even Ed Asner, wanted to be in it. It's just plain weird. The protagonist is an oddball, the love interest is an oddball, and there's absolutely nothing driving the movie. It's not the story of a guy who had a jacked-up family, so he has to do whatever he can to provide a home for his incoming baby. It's not about how a woman comes to find the man she loves in the most unexpected of ways and how she gets the family she's not looking for. Things just happen for no reason whatsoever.

Why does Brian sell weird mattresses? Why is he taking drugs with his family? Why does he want a Chinese baby (he's wanted one since he was 7 is not a good backstory or proper motivation)? About the only thing that happens that makes any sense is that Happy freaks out and breaks up with Brian because it's too much too fast. But then she comes around again later anyway, having seemingly changed her mind for no discernible reason.

The film's filled with some truly unique scenes and characters, but none of them are grounded in any sort of coherent reality. There's no throughline to the plot, just a bunch of stuff happening. And the whole subplot with the homeless guy and Brian's imagination is odd and jarring. If he's insane, this guy shouldn't have a baby.

It's one thing to do an unconventional take on a romantic comedy. New characters provide a new perspective, and interesting settings and plot turns can tweak stale genre tropes. But you can't just make a movie where everything's weird, there's no logic behind anything, and the film's just a collection of oddness slapped together on the editing table. Well, I guess you can, but what you get is GIGANTIC.

EAGLE EYE - Half-Blind

I'm working on a techno-thriller, and I never saw EAGLE EYE. Wanting to make sure I didn't repeat anything they did (it was a pretty big movie) and wanting to see it to boot, I finally rented it.

SPOILERS FOLLOW YOU BELOW





















EE has a truly great premise -- a 20-something loser suddenly finds $750,000 in his bank account, a room full of guns, military schematics, and bomb-making material, and gets a call from a mysterious woman telling him the FBI is about to arrest him. The loser, Jerry, doesn't listen and gets arrested. But the mysterious woman -- seemingly all-seeing and all-powerful -- contrives to break him out of custody with a crane and directs him on a series of errands, all the while the FBI and Air Force agents are hot on his tail. Meanwhile, a single mother finds herself in the same boat as the mysterious woman threatens her with the death of her son (who's on a field trip).

Okay. Great start. And we've got a character who hates authority and can't follow through on anything, so he's the worst guy to finish this task.

The film pretty much falls apart once it reveals what's going on, however. Turns out that:

• There's a Department of Defense computer Artificial Intelligence tasked with analyzing data and making decisions


• It's tied into pretty much every computer system (surveillance cameras, power grid, traffic lights, cell phones, etc.) imaginable


• It went rogue and wants to wipe out the entire US government minus the Secretary of Defense


• Jerry's twin brother worked on the project and put a voice lock keyed to his DNA on the computer so it can't go apeshit and kill everyone -- the computer needs Jerry to undo it


• It's plotting to decaptiate the US government by using a crystalline explosive cut into a necklace gem


• AND a frequency detonator stuck in the son's trumpet reed and keyed to vibrate when he hits the high "F" in "The Star Spangled Banner"

Um, okay. Here's the various problems with that.

One -- doesn't make any sense. Assuming we had the technological capability for the AI to exist and be tied into the systems it's tied into, the AI is making really stupid decisions. In the film, the computer recommends not killing a terrorist because it's not sure it really is the terrorist and there could be significant collateral damage. Turns out the computer was right, we blow up the wrong guy and terrorists around the world blow up Americans in response. But the computer decides the way to end this is by killing everyone in the US leadership except the SecDef. Nevermind that: A) This is extremely faulty logic in general B) Terrorists aren't apt to stop blowing folks up because a computer killed the leadership C) Why would the computer spare the SecDef (who tried to do what the computer recommended) but kill literally dozens of other cabinet officers below the President who presumably had no part in the decision? I doubt the Secretary of Transportation or Education had much of an opinion either way on whether we should try to take out an Afghani warlord.

I suppose the film could've explained this in some way if it wanted to -- like the computer blew a chip that regulated logic, or it was programmed by a crazy arch-conservative wackjob to do this kind of thing in the first place. As is though, it's nonsensical.

Two - The computer's plan is needlessly complicated (and stupid when you think about it). The computer really needs to do two things. One, get Jerry to it so he can log in and take off the voice block preventing it from activating its mission to kill the US leadership. Two -- kill the US leadership. The film makes a big point of having the computer point out Jerry's antisocial tendencies and problems with authority; it tells him the only way to motivate him is through coercion. But why make Jerry go all over the country, fake that he's a terrorist, put him in the custody of the FBI (who eventually help stop the computer solely because they're investigating Jerry), and have him do dozens of things including stealing experimental drugs? Why not threaten Jerry by killing a couple of close people, then get him right to the Pentagon where he can remove the voice block? The computer's basically omnipotent and can get anyone it wants to comply by threatening them with death or the death of loved ones. It doesn't need all this other b.s. The b.s. helps make the movie exciting. But it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. And the computer could easily have called in an airline ticket for Jerry and a visitor's pass and had someone escort him down to its mainframe.

On the same note -- why does the computer go through this elaborate process to get hex crystal/detonator/Star Spangled Banner going to kill everyone? We've seen it kill through traffic accidents and power lines. And it can track thousands of people simultaneously. So just find where the leadership is in separate locations and have separate "accidents." Or, much like it can take over subway cars, cranes, and jets -- do that to something with missiles and just blow everyone up.

MOON - Little Zowie Bowie Grows Up

MOON is an indie Sci-Fi film directed by Duncan Jones. Jones is David Bowie's son, and was born Zowie Bowie. He smartly changed his name, which probably resulted in a lot more people taking him seriously (he had the double whammy of a famous last name and a ridiculous, rhymey first name).

Like DISTRICT 9, MOON Is a smart, small film.

SPOILERS FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON BELOW



















It tells the tale of astronaut Sam Bell, who works alone on a base on the dark side of the moon, overseeing Helium-3 harvesting. Nearing the end of a three-year contract and getting ready to return to earth to his wife and young daughter, Sam's going a little stir crazy. He has no one to talk to except a Hal-like robot, Gerty, nicely voiced by Kevin Spacey. And he starts seeing things. After crashing a moon rover, Sam wakes up with some gaps in his memory and Gerty acting strangely. Although the moonbase's antenna is supposedly broken, he catches Gerty having a live conversation with earth. And Gerty's under strict orders to keep Sam inside.

Sam finagles his way outside and to the crashed rover, where he finds himself still injured inside the vehicle. He brings himself back to the moonbase and things start getting weirder from there. Eventually, injured Sam and a younger, angrier Sam discover that the base is surrounded by jamming antennae blocking their live communications signals from getting back to earth. Sam also discovers that the "return vehicle" set to bring him back home at the end of his contract is an incinerator. That his body starts to decompose after three years. That he and the other Sam are clones. That there's a whole secret room filled with hundreds of other, non-activated clones. And that this whole process has been repeated over and over again for decades.

Sam manages to escape back to earth by sacrificing a version of himself in the crashed rover to confuse a "rescue" mission and then hiding out in a Helium-3 launch vehicle.

The whole thing is done rather subtly and creepily, playing out slowly. There are some nice moments, such as Gerty helping Sam out by giving him the password to his video log (so he can see that this process has happened again and again), and Sam and Sam getting into a violent fight.

There's really only one misstep in the entire film and that's at the very end. We're given snatches of voiceover dialogue as Sam's launch vehicle enters earth atmosphere; they explain that one of his clones is testifying against the corporation that hired/imprisoned him. Then there's a snatch of radio talk show call-in dialogue, I guess meant to be a joke, in which a caller says that the clone Sam is either a liar or an illegal alien. Not only is this unnecessary, but it's out of character with the rest of the film. And since it's the very last thing we hear, it has the effect of like dining out at a fancy, wonderful French restaurant, and finishing off your meal of endive salad, foie gras, boeuf bourginon, and tarte tatin with an undercooked McDonald's cheeseburger.

But it's not enough to ruin the movie. It just shouldn't be in there.

And Sam Rockwell proves he's an awesome actor, too. In case anyone still doubted that.

DISTRICT 9 - Nine Out of Ten Stars

DISTRICT 9 is a small(ish), smart Sci-Fi film, directed by Neill Blomkamp, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson. It's basically an Apartheid allegory, cloaked in Sci-Fi trappings. An alien ship appears above Johannesburgh, completely disabled. The South African government cuts its way in, finding all the aliens severely malnourished and dying. It relocates them to a "temporary" resettlement camp that, over the years, turns into a slum. Twenty years later, with tensions at an all-time high, the government plans to move them to a permanent camp outside the city. That's when things go wrong.

SPOILERS LANDING BELOW




















Wikus, a bigoted alien beaurocrat, is put in charge of the eviction process because of his marriage to the daughter of a higher-up at the multinational corporation he works for. Wikus isn't particularly smart or tactful, and his obvious dislike for the aliens comes across. And leads to a lot of unnecessary alien deaths. The script does a fantastic job of making the whole situation feel real. Wikus and the company he works for seem like a real MNC, the way they treat the aliens smacks of condescension, and there's even a whole gang of Nigerians that live in the slum and profit off of exploiting the poor aliens. That's the strong suit of the script -- this feels just like any slum on earth, and the government and MNC's response feels very real.

The best part of the film comes when Wikus gets blasted with some alien goo -- collected from alien junk machinery -- and begins to turn into an alien himself. His company, including his father-in-law, want to kill him and harvest his DNA because there are thousands of alien weapons that are DNA-encoded, and he's the only human who can work them. Wikus has to leave, turn against the company he works for, and evade capture to eventually team up with one of the aliens he oppressed and lead what basically amounts to a revolt effort.

The film's at its most believable and human when we see Wikus turned into an alien and he realizes how shittily he's been treating them. And it's at its most fun when we see Wikus and his alien buddy Christopher blasting dudes with lightning into little chunks with the alien weaponry.

The film is produced very smartly. Most of the film contains VFX of some sort, whether it's shots of the spaceship, the insect-like aliens, or people getting blown up by alien robot, sonic waves, or lightning guns. Because a lot of stock footage is used with aliens/ship effects laid over it, the whole thing was made for a reported $30m. Which makes CLOVERFIELD look positively wasteful by comparison (there were only a few shots of the monster, and they were mostly hidden through smoke).

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. You genuinely feel for Wikus and the aliens and it's a fun ride.

There are, however, some pretty major logic problems with the film. They don't really ruin your enjoyment of the movie, but you do think about them, particularly after it's over.

Chief among them is that the film doesn't explain how the aliens kept hold of so many weapons. If the aliens were so weak and malnourished they could be forcibly resettled without any fight, how do they later come to have hundreds or thousands of rifles (and they're obviously rifles)? How do they have giant exoskeleton attack machines? The film shows the government, MNC, (and Nigerians) want these weapons, and the MNC even runs a top-secret genetic testing program to make alien-human hybrids who can fire the weapons; so why would they let the weapons stay in the hands of the aliens (who resort to selling them for cans of cat food)?

Similarly, when a population is oppressed and downtrodden and they have access to insane firepower, why wasn't there an armed uprising? The film mentions much of the alien leadership died off on the way to earth, but that's not much of an explanation. If you got kicked around for 20 years and hundreds or thousands of your people were killed AND you could explode people with a single shot, you'd go apeshit on them. All you have to do is look at any people in revolt now (Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghanis, etc.) to see the truth of that statement.

It also feels like instead of the big climax being Christopher activating the defunct mothership and going home for reinforcements, there simply could have been a revolt-in-progress, either utilizing the weapons systems onboard the mothership or in the aliens recognzing the activation of their formerly defunct ship and taking up arms against the human oppressors. We saw how a human and an alien with a few guns and one exoskeleton could take out the MNC headquarters and their top mercenaries. Obviously armed aliens could overpower the humans.

Though these are major plot holes, they're small flaws in the overall achievement of what is a smart story deriving from a very unusual take.

DVD Corner - GHOST TOWN

And because I don't just watch movies when they come out (although I do see a lot of them then), today we've got a film I watched at home.

HAUNTED BY SPOILERS BELOW


















GHOST TOWN was a big studio feature, written by David Koepp and John Kamps, directed by Koepp, and starring Ricky Gervais. It tells the story of a jerky dentist who values his privacy and, after a near-death experience, sees ghosts who want his help in order to resolve their unfinished business. This bristles against his desire to protect his alone time, particularly because pushy ghost Greg Kinnear won't leave him alone until he helps break up the marriage of his widow to a human rights lawyer.

Koepp has written some truly amazing scripts, including the first Spider-Man movie. And he and Kamps have done good work together as well. At the end of the day, though, this feels oddly more like an indie film than a major studio release. There's some great character work, and the plot of the story flows naturally out of Gervais' intense desire from privacy and how that conflicts with Kinnear's plan to screw up his wife's impending marriage. And also how Gervais has to deal with the widow (Tea Leoni), particularly after being rude to her in the past. However, the very execution of the script in a way feels like the smallest possible version of the story and slightly a failure of imagination. It reminded me in many ways about BRUCE ALMIGHTY, and how the writers hit on a brilliant premise (regular guy gets to be God for a while), but instead of doing something big with it, they limited to having a newscaster try to win his job and girl back. There was a much better, bigger version of that idea instead of the one they made.

Now this is a much better written, acted, and directed film than that. It just feels...small, I guess is the right way to describe it. A guy finds out he can talk to ghosts and instead of going down several wrong paths with it (using their knowledge for some sort of personal gain, like investing in the stock market, stealing stuff by supernaturally knowing the combination to a safe or an alarm code or where the keys are kept, or wooing a woman using inside info a la GROUNDHOG DAY) and then finally using it for right, our hero just avoids dealing with it altogether. And while that's a choice and an action on his part, it's kind of a boring one. Even when he finally decides to help the ghosts, almost all of their problems are small too and easily solvable -- showing a woman where a formerly hidden letter from her dead mother was; showing a truck driver an accident wasn't his fault by pointing out some damage on his truck; finding a child's doll under a car seat; even wrapping up Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear's problem is solvable in about three minutes of screentime.

To Koeep and Kamps' credit, I liked Gervais despite his jerkiness, a credit to the writing (and Gervais' acting). And I got emotionally involved in his journey from jerk to nice guy. I just can't help feeling like the film would've worked better if the main character was more active, more involved, and the overall story was bigger. That's part of the reason GROUNDHOG DAY works so brilliantly; even though it's a contained story in a small town, it feels like the movie fully explores what someone would do if he found himself death-proof and waking up in the same day over and over again.

A PERFECT GETAWAY, NOT SO PERFECT

I'm a huge fan of thrillers. A thriller's what go me my agent. So it doesn't matter if it's a techno-thriller, a paranoid '70s thriller, or a personal, action-oriented thriller like RED EYE (the spec version of which is far superior to the produced film), I tend to be partial to the genre and its films.

PERFECT GETAWAY is a more personal, action-oriented version of the genre. I'd read the spec a few years ago and didn't fully enjoy it for the same reasons the film doesn't entirely work. It tells the story of a honeymooning couple taking a hike in Hawaii. Out on a remote trail with two other couples, they discover that there's a killer couple who made the jump from Honolulu with them. Alone and with no one to rely on, they try to figure out who the killers are and stay alive.

SPOILERS ARE GETTING AWAY WITH ME BELOW





















The biggest problem with the film is that it cheats. There's a pretty big twist -- that the two leads turn out to be the killers and that you've been following and empathizing with the bad guys the entire time. Writer/director Twohy plays fair most of the time, setting up actions and dialogue that work both to drive the story forward and mislead you. But there's one big, dopey patch of dialogue that's completely plays false with the audience. After Tim Olyphant's ex-special forces character returns from bow-hunting bearing a dead goat, and his girlfriend, Gina, skins it, we're treated to a big dialogue scene between Tim Zahn and Milla Jovovich in which they talk about how crazy Tim/Gina are, how the two of them should make an excuse and sneak away, but how they probably can't and just need to make it down the hiking trail to the beach where they'll be safe. This is completely moronic because Tim and Milla are the murderers. They're in no danger from Tim and Gina, no matter how crazy they are. They have no reason to make it to the beach, nor are they "home free" once they get there (the beach is filled with other hikers and far more dangerous to them). In fact, since Zahn and Milla are iced-out serial killers, they're in perfectly fine shape out on a secluded chunk of the trail at night with Tim and Gina -- that offers a far easier, safer place to kill them than the beach (and in fact, when Tim and Milla get to the beach and finally try to kill them, they fuck it up).

Films that rely on twists really only work if two conditions happen. One, the twist has to be something that makes logical sense (Tyler Durden is one aspect of Ed Norton's character's personality; Dr. Malcolm Crowe is dead the entire time in SIXTH SENSE; Darth Vader is Luke's father) and not something that is either painfully obvious (THE VILLAGE is really part of modern times) or moronic (the apes in the new PLANET OF THE APES made it out of the wormhole and back to earth where somehow history played out exactly the same but with an Ape Abe Lincoln). And the twist has to be played fairly -- you can't have it work solely because you play out bullshit versions of a scene (unless you clue the audience in that your narrator is unreliable) -- this is why USUAL SUSPECTS is such a brilliant movie, because you get some clues that Verbal is full of crap, but you don't think that means he's making the whole thing up and is really Keyser Soze. Conversely, this is one of many reasons why TAKING LIVES (caveat -- I worked on the film but didn't write it) doesn't; there's a major scene where Ethan Hawke's character is relating how he killed Kiefer Sutherland's character (whom he frames as the serial killer), which is just Hawke lying; since he's never set up as a liar and not really as the possible serial killer, this is just a cheat. If you play fairly with the audience, then the script usually comes off as intricately crafted and hugely dramatically satisfying. Any of the above examples of films that work prove this, as does MEMENTO. But when you get a film/script with a twist that doesn't, you can feel why (i.e. HAUTE TENSION, a film that works brilliantly for 3/4 of the movie, and then you learn everything you saw is complete and utter bullshit and the killer is one of the girls). Cheats are almost like mini-versions of the hacky old standby "it was all a dream," basically negating what you saw since it couldn't possibly have happened that way (or at least makes no sense that it's shown that way).

A more minor flaw in the film is the cheesy, self-reflexive movie/screenwriting talk. Since Zahn's character poses as a screenwriter and Olyphant's character wants a movie made about his life, the two talk about movies, which comments directly on the action of the film. This would probably work if it was subtle, but instead, we're given really on the nose dialogue about red herrings and one glaringly noticeable bit of throwaway dialogue after the red herring couple is arrested in which a passerby on the trail remarks that "There's plenty of twists and turns ahead." Ugh. This doesn't add anything to the movie. In fact, it takes away from it by being so lame.

There's a beat at the end of the film in which Gina tries to call for help from a remote mountaintop. She can't get a cell signal and is in real trouble. And then a guy from AT&T calls to change her cell service, and she convinces him to call for help. Which arrives in the form of a police helicopter, complete with sharpshooters. Yes, that's right. Our heroine overcomes an obstacle to her survival through blind, convenient luck. That's never a good thing. And something stupid happens with the helicopter. Milla makes it there first, riding along with the cops and telling them to shoot Tim Olyphant. For some reason they believe her, even though she could possibly be the killer. And then she abruptly changes her mind after Gina saves Tim by blocking the shot, and decides to sell out her boyfriend. Which might work if he'd done something in the film (like hitting on Gina) to upset her. But he doesn't. All Twohy gives us is that Zahn can't tell Milla he loves her. Which, considering the fact that they're both meth-addicted spree killers, seems like a minor quibble on her part.

Finally, the script paints itself into a bit of a corner by revealing about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through that our protagonist(s) are really bad guys. It realizes we don't really have anyone to root for. So there's an awkward bit of structural gymnastics interrupting the film's momentum and tension where we go back and see that Olyphant was all set to propose to his girlfriend after all. While this is sweet, it comes in the wrong place. Olyphant's such a good actor that you like him despite the misleads that he's creepy. Twohy should've just made him a little more empathetic despite his possible villainy (e.g. Denzel in TRAINING DAY) and setup the proposal-to-come in advance instead of interrupting the flow of the entire movie. If we didn't like Olyphant (and Gina) by that point, throwing in backstory and setup that should've come earlier won't make us like him now.

So what are we left with? A mostly serviceable thriller that succumbs to its own cleverness and cheats when it doesn't have to. Which makes it slightly better than mediocre instead of solid all the way around.

PAPER HEART - This One's Shredded

The girlfriend and I went to go see PAPER HEART. I like Michael Cera, she's in love with him. I appreciate quirky, unconventional narratives. She's a fan of talky, meandering films that are light on plot. We should've both gotten paper arrows through our paper hearts for this film. But we didn't.

CUPID SHOOTS SOME SPOILER ARROWS BELOW




















The film's an odd blend of documentary and narrative/fiction. But this isn't used in an interesting way like REAL LIFE (where Albert Brooks plays a documentarian named Albert Brooks), instead, it's used in a confusing way. The film has "Written by" credits. And the real life director is played by an actor. So did Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi have an actual relationship? Or is that all bullshit concocted for the sake of the film? Wondering about those questions is actually the most interesting part of the movie. Which makes the film fascinating, but only in a meta sense.

Nothing really drives the story. We learn that Charlyne doesn't believe in love (through a phone call with a friend and some dialogue with her parents and actor friends), but we don't see anything about her past relationships to better set this up. She travels around the country, interviewing various people -- high school sweethearts, old married couples, bikers, scientists, a divorcee -- about love and relationships. And there are occasionally amusing puppet recreations of key moments in the interviewees lives. And then Charlyne starts to fall for Michael and vice-versa. Michael becomes uncomfortable having his entire relationship play out under the eyes of a film crew. Will she come to love him? Or is she incapable of it? Will he get fed up with always being watched?

Well, we get a tiny bit of her not being able to say she loves Michael. But in terms of an overall plot structure, it basically boils down to one line of dialogue in the film, when an interviewee (a romance novelist) says that it always comes down to love being that one person makes a sacrifice for the other, showing s/he loves them. And then in the end, Charlyne tells the crew to shut down the cameras. And then we get a puppet recreation of a fake, bigger ending. Which is just strange, because it has nothing do with the film and isn't particularly funny.

Another part of the film that's wearying is that after a while, all the alt-comic quirkiness tends to wear a bit thin. Between the two leads painting pictures of each other, the puppet show recreations, the playing goofy songs for each other, and shooting BB guns and setting off fireworks for no reason, it's too much twee crap. A little quirk goes a long way.

At the end of the day, in choosing to blend reality and fiction, the film fails on both counts. It's not a particularly great documentary about love because there's so much falseness. And it's not a particularly great romantic comedy, because that part of the film's underwritten and doesn't amount to much.

JULIE & JULIA - Who Cares About Julie?

Nora Ephron is one of the most inconsistent writers around. She's responsible for WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, one of the best romantic comedies of all time. And other works of varying quality. JULIE & JULIA held some interest for me, as it's about cooking (a passion), blogging (something I do), and Julia Child (a woman I admire). Based partially on Julie Powell's food blog/book of the same name and partially on the life of Julia Child, J&J tells the story of how both women came to find purpose in their lives. Unfortunately, it's yet another mediocre movie by Ms. Ephron.

COOKIN' UP A FRESH BATCH OF SPOILERS BELOW

First, let me say that Meryl Streep is amazing. After about a minute, you forget that she's doing a Julia Child impression and become lost in her flawless portrayal of a big, loud woman who loves food. She's by far the best thing about this movie, and she's almsot entirely wasted in it. Anything good about the film belongs solely to Meryl Streep.

The film has several problems. Chief among them is that Julia Child's life is so much more interesting than Julie Powell's. Child worked for the OSS in WWII, lived abroad with the love of her life in several countries (he was a diplomat), became the first woman chef in the Cordon Bleu, brought French cooking to America and changed American cuisine in the process, and became a famous author, chef, and TV personality. Julie Powell wrote a novel she didn't finish, bitched about her job (helping people try to collect 9/11 benefits, mainly), and then cooked her way through Julia Child's famous book in a year. While the last is a clever blog topic (obviously so because of the interest it engendered and the publicity, book deal, and film deal that followed), it doesn't compare to the groundbreaking nature of Child's life. And because Child's story is so much more inherently interesting, because her character is much more interesting than that of Julie Powell, and because Meryl Streep blows Amy Adams out of the water, the Child portion of the film is much better than the Powell chunk. The film would have been much more interesting if it was just a biofilm about Julia Child. It could have also focused on some of the more problematic areas of Child's life (her inability to have a child; her constant moving around due to her husband's job; her search for purpose; her butting heads with the head of the Cordon Bleu, a lazy co-author, and some publishing dunderheads who didn't get how novel and fantastic her cookbook was) instead of glossing over them.

I'm going to assume that like most "Based on a true story" films, liberties were taken with the sequencing and nature of certain events in both women's lives. Which is all the more puzzling that Powell's life is so doggone boring. There's nothing at stake -- the central question is will she follow through on something (she never does). She has a decent job and a loving husband. So if she doesn't follow through on her food blog/challenge, who cares? There are also no real conflicts. The major plot points in her story are: Julia's publisher is supposed to come to dinner and cancels because it's raining (Oh no!); her boss finds out she called in sick to cook/blog (He tells her he's not going to fire her and doesn't want to show up in her blog. Big deal.); and one evening, her adoring husband gets sick of her being a bitch and ignoring him and sleeps away for the night (he comes back in the morning); and Julia Child isn't happy about Julie's blog (which we hear about thirdhand via a phone call we hear one side of). None of these are major conflicts; in fact, they minimize the potential sources of conflict. It would've been easy to torque these up a bit so they're a real source of conflict -- Julie builds up the publisher visit, thinking she's going to get a book deal; she needs the money due to some debt, her husband losing his job, whatever; then the publisher doesn't show and she's heartbroken. Her boss does in fact fire her; now she's out a job and money. What can she do? She and her husband almost do split up.

The film's structure is weak. Instead of alternating/juxtaposing scenes in the women's lives and playing them off of each other, we get a little of that and then apparently randomly ordered scenes that don't enforce/comment on each other at all.

There are also some lazy bits of writing, including a scene where Julie dines with her more successful friends (which is incredibly sloppy because one of the friends relies on her incompetent assistant to negotiate a $190m real estate deal), some exposition in which we're told Julie wrote half a novel she's not going to finish, some more exposition where we're told she doesn't finish anything, and an abrupt, non-motivated 180-degree character turn from Julie's mother from unsupportive to supportive. We also get the most overstated monologue of all time in which Julie states that Julie "saved" her. From what? Her moderately unhappy life? Being lazy and not writing?

The film also asserts, via Julie's dialogue, that in order for a writer to write, you have to be published. No you don't. You can just write. Van Gogh is one of the best painters of all time. He didn't sell shit while he was alive. That didn't make him less of a painter.

So what are we left with? A woman who came up with a clever idea for a blog and did very well by it, intercut with the fascinating story of a great woman's story of finding a purpose in life. The two aren't even remotely equal, and the film suffers greatly as a result.

THE HURT LOCKER - Hurts So Good

I saw a good movie, which seems to be rare these days. THE HURT LOCKER is easily the best thing I've seen since UP.

OOOH, THESE SPOILERS HURT

HURT LOCKER tells the story of a bomb disposal squad in Iraq in 2004. After the death of the bomb tech/team lead, squadmates Eldridge and Sanborn get a new team leader/tech. Whereas their former team leader did things by the book and was concerned for everyone's safety, the new team leader, SGT. JAMES, is an adrenaline junkie who prefers to get out there himself and and take a few risks. This doesn't sit too well with Sanborn, who thinks James just might get himself and his squad blown up. And Eldridge struggles with the horrors of battle and the overwhelming sense that he'll die in the field.

Script ably ups the tension at nearly every turn with some smart choices. It's structured against the timeline of the troop rotating out of Iraq (39 days and counting when the film starts). Every situation -- whether dealing with a possible IED, civilians watching on a nearby rooftop, or even interacting with local merchants -- is dealt with up close and fraught with potential peril. Even blowing up a weapons cache in the middle of the desert turns into a nail-biter with a standoff with some suspected Hajjis (who turn out to be British Special Forces) followed by a rescue attempt on the Brits' prisoners.

So you've got a great script and some superb acting, with notable turns by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty. And Katheryn Bigelow does a fine job of directing.

There are really only two flaws in the film, one of casting and one of the script. There are a number of times when famous/recognizable actors show up in bit parts, which ranges from not bothersome in the least (David Morse) to really distracting (Ralph Fiennes). I'm all for casting good people in all parts, but there's no reason to have Ralph Fiennes show up for literally 5 minutes of screentime (and die too). It's similar to the moment in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN when Ted Danson's suddenly behind a wall. You don't think -- wow, there's a Special Forces captain. You think ("Hey, Ted Danson's in WWII!") And I love Evangeline Lilly probably more than anyone except Dominic Monaghan, but there's nothing for her to do in this film. And if I had her waiting at home, I sure wouldn't be in a hurry to head back to Iraq.

The script flaw is after Sgt. James finishes his rotation and heads back stateside. He has a hard time adjusting to life without the threat of constant death, which is ably shown through scenes in which he's sitting at home bored, cleaning out his rain gutter, and overwhelmed by the choices in the cereal aisle. We get -- simply and visually -- that he doesn't fit in here like he does in the wilds of the Iraq war dismantling bombs. Then the script gives us an unnecessary scene of pure, blatant, on-the-nose dialogue, when Sgt. James has a conversation with his newborn son and tells him he'll go from loving everything when he's a baby to loving just one thing when he's Sgt. James' age. We don't need this scene, particularly because the very next scene shows helicopters touching down in Iraq, Sgt. James swaggering off the copter, and then the same swagger inside his bomb suit as he strides off towards danger, happy as a clam. If anything, the dialogue scene gets in the way of the beautiful, almost non-verbal setup and payoff of that sequence.

But those are small flaws in what is otherwise a pretty damn solid film. Go see it.

500 DAYS OF SUMMER, about 495 days too long

You can't find a cuter actress than Zoey Deschanel. And she can act too. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of the most talented actors of his generation. Just check out THE LOOKOUT to see that proven. The two of them in a romantic comedy should be great. But it's not.

SUMMERTIME SPOILER ALERT

There are several problems with the film.

#1 TONE

The tone is all over the place. At times, it's a lighthearted comedy. Sometimes it's postmodern, like when JGL breaks the fourth wall and looks into camera, or when there's a song-and-dance number complete with animated bird. Other times, the film's a mopey affair. In fact, most of the time it's sad. None of these tones particularly gel -- we're laughing one minute, enjoying the antics of JGL's precocious kid sister, and then we're wallowing in self-pity. Some of the film's realistic, some of it's very postmodern, and sometimes there are visual effects for no discernible reason. Seems like the writers and director were going for something hip and edgy, but it just feels fuzzy and undisciplined. In fact, if you got rid of the film's happy ending, you'd have a very miserable movie.

#2 THE STRUCTURE

The film bounces around at various points in the relationship, from the end to the beginning and back. It feels like it was trying for some sort of ANNIE HALL feel, but where that film's structure is used as an asset to explore how a relationship starts great and ends poorly, here, it just feels like movement for movement's sake. We're not exploring the relationship in chronological order, and in most cases, the juxtapositions between early and late-stage scenes aren't used for irony or to drive the story forward. The creators aim for a structure in which JGL tries to win ZD back, but he doesn't really try much and instead acts mopey and depressed, which isn't an impressive strategy.

#3 ZD's CHARACTER

The writers engage in some truly lazy writing. Other than the fact that Zooey is adorable and happens to like the same depressing '80s music as JGL, we don't get why he likes her. Oh wait -- the writers have the narrator speak over scenes where he just tells us she's great and that everyone loves her (scenes where the narration duplicates the voiceover). So instead of seeing that there's something special about her, we're told it. Which is very, very weak.

#4 THEIR RELATIONSHIP

With nothing particularly in common, we don't root for the two of them to get together. So it's no big tragedy when they break up. And it feels as if JGL should just get on with his life. Zooey's not into him, and besides, she told him she wasn't looking for anything serious before they started dating. Seems pretty commonsense that their relationship would end the way it did.

In order for any romance-based film to work, we need to buy into the relationship at its core. We have to know that Harry and Sally belong together so that we're willing to sit through all the bullshit that comes between our desire and that actually happening two hours later. Here, we know ZD and JGL don't belong together, so we don't care that they break up.

#5 THE NARRATION

Narration can be good in a film, if it adds a layer to the film that you wouldn't get otherwise. Whether that's the ironic commentary of something like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE or SUNSET BOULEVARD or the unreliability of THE USUAL SUSPECTS, all three of those films would be lessened if you removed the voiceover. In 500 DAYS, the narration tries for irony and jokiness, but instead usually just duplicates what we're seeing and fills in backstory and character that we should see through character action. It's also used inconsistently, falling away for great stretches of time and then reappearing for no reason.

And the most glaring mis-use is at the end of the film, when the narrator comments about how JGL finally learned that there's no such things as fate and destiny (and then returns to talk to the girl who's interviewing for the same job as him). Which is weird, because the movie isn't about fate and destiny, and neither concept is even mentioned before this. ZD works in the same office as JGL, but she doesn't start working there due to some accident or quirk of kismet.

500 DAYS aspires to a post-modern ANNIE HALL, but instead falls way short of the mark due to its muddled script and direction and the inclusion of quirks for quirkiness' sake rather than some story purpose.

FUNNY PEOPLE, not so funny

I like Judd Apatow. He's a funny guy with a good grasp of comedy and a great handle on characters. He tends to make long, sloppy movies about people hanging out, and often the dialogue and screwing around that comes between setpieces is funnier than the setpieces themselves. And he's gathered together a great ensemble of actors, actresses, and writers that he uses in all his movies and mentors in the things he doesn't direct. So I was really looking forward to FUNNY PEOPLE.

Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mess.

Stand up for some spoilers below...

Here are the problems with the film.

#1 LENGTH

Unless you're making an epic sort of film, your movie should aim for under two hours. If you're telling the story of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI or SEVEN SAMURAI, you need length to get across all the details. If you're making A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and you're detailing the rehabilitation and humiliation of a thug (and his return to brutality), clocking in at two-and-a-half hours and change is a-okay. But in a comedy, that's unforgivable. Even TOOTSIE, one of the most densely plotted and character rich comedies of all time manages to get its business done in 116 minutes (with credits). A 2:45 comedy isn't all that funny.

#2 LESLIE MANN

I like Leslie Mann a lot. She's cute, she's funny, and she's a good actress. And she's Judd Apatow's wife. So I get he wants to make her the female lead and give her a lot of screentime. But the movie's about Adam Sandler's George Simmons character and how a near-death experience affects him. Most of the movie's last 45 minutes becomes the Leslie Mann character's story. How she's unhappy in her marriage. How she falls for George again. And ultimately how she's disappointed by him and chooses her husband and her marriage. This is weird for a couple of reasons. One, she's barely in the movie before this. Two, it's George's story, and George becomes completely passive and reactive for this entire long chunk of screentime. And three, the film doesn't need it. We could easily have gotten a scene or two where the two reconnect and she almost goes away with him and ends her marriage instead of the sprawling, Mann-focused mini-movie.

#3 GEORGE AND LESLIE MANN

This relationship feels underwritten and set up wrong. We get a few scenes of George looking at old pictures, watching her old reel, and talking to her on the phone. But we don't see the two of them together, and we don't know why they belong together. He mentions she loved him before he became famous, which is a good idea (as opposed to the scores of women George now sleeps with solely because he is famous), but it isn't developed. And we learn that they broke up because George cheated on her. This is hammered home with Leslie Mann's husband (Eric Bana) and her upset that he's now cheating on her too. So you'd think that when George and Laura hook up again, things would go well and then he'd cheat on her again. It's easy enough to do -- we've seen George can't resist sleeping with fans (even two in the same night), and we know women fall all over themselves to get with him due to his fame. This is the expectation Apatow creates, and to see it not paid off is disappointing. Instead, we get a small character moment of George not appreciating Laura's daughter singing CATS. While it's a good beat, it's minor, and not the crushing disappointment that could've come. Imagine Laura sleeping with George again, deciding to leave her husband because he cheats on her, and then catching George with another woman. That would be a great beat.

#4 IRA

Seth Rogen's Ira doesn't have a lot to do in the film. He has no character arc to speak of, and that makes him feel like a weak sidekick. It would have been fairly easy to develop something the film hints at -- that what's holding Ira back (in standup and in life) is his insecurity. We could see that onstage and in how he interacts with the cute comedienne has has a crush on. And it builds to a head when he has to decide whether to speak up about George fucking up Laura's whole marriage or not. He does speak up, loses his job, but gets the confidence he needs to perfect his act and finally ask out Daisy (this last bit would've been better than the odd setup now where he likes Daisy but gets turned off after she sleeps with his roommate).

On the plus side, the film has plenty of cock jokes to go around.