8 Temmuz 2011 Cuma
HORRIBLE BOSSES (Dir. Seth Gordon, 2011)
As the most recent in a spate of crude R-Rated comedies, HORRIBLE BOSSES is just funny enough to recommend. Although maybe just as a matinee.
Anybody who clicked on this review surely knows the plot, but I'll state it anyway: 3 guys who want to murder their bosses concoct a plan to do so with comical results.
As the 3 guys we've got Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudekis, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Charlie Day, and Arrested Development's (as well as the everyman in every other comedy movie made these days) Jason Bateman.
The bosses are Colin Firth with a combover as a chemical company coke-head who takes over Sudekis's workplace after his father (Donald Sutherland) dies, Kevin Spacey as a corporate asshole (shades of his likewise character in SWIMMING WITH SHARKS) who denies Bateman a promotion, and Jennifer Anniston playing against her girl-next-door type as a dentist who sexually harrases Day as her dental assistant ("Yours doesn't sound so bad" Sudekis says about Day's predicament).
Think STRANGERS ON A TRAIN + THROW MOMMA OFF THE TRAIN (both of which are referenced in this movie), with a sprinkling of 9 TO 5 thrown in for good measure. It takes a bit to really get going, but when it does the frantic scheming of the 3 leads makes for some big laughs especially from Day doing his patented screaming, not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer, It's Always Sunny stuff.
Sudekis with his sex-snarkiness seems so much like his character in HALL PASS that I kept expecting him to call his wife back home, and Bateman is playing the same nice-guy notes he has in many a movie, but these guys' recognizable and relatable personas all anchor the movie nicely.
Spacey, Firth, and Aniston have fine funny moments, but none is funnier than Jamie Foxx who steals every scene he's in as a "murder consultant" the guys seek out in a seedy bar when they are looking for somebody to do their dirty work.
Scripted by John Francis Daley (who played protagonist Sam on Freaks and Geeks), and Jonathan M. Goldstein, the film feels oddly restrained at times - like it never quite goes over the top.
However when it busts out a car chase/phone sex climax it's gets mighty close.
More later...
25 Haziran 2011 Cumartesi
THE TRIP (Dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2010)
The best parts of this eccentric comedy featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, as fictionalized versions of themselves is when the pair try outperform each other's impressions of British celebrities, especially of Michael Caine.
There's some other stuff happening too, as they travel the North English countryside from one Bed and Breakfast Inn to another on a restaurant tour Coogan is writing about for The Observer. Coogan is on an unhappy break from his girlfriend (Margo Stilley), who was originally supposed to go on the trip, and Brydon, who is going in her place, has a new wife and child that he's leaving behind for this week-long excursion.
There's angst about aging, career paths, and flawed friendships, much of it poignant (though maybe a bit slight), but it's the hilarious dueling imitations that make the movie.
Coogan, who is a bigger star internationally than Brydon, carries a considerable amount of mental baggage around as he suffers the fool he thinks his aggravating partner in whining and dining is.
Brydon has a glibber, more laid-back demeanor than Coogan's crank, but he's obviously blanketing a bunch of insecurities under his charming ability to do an impeccable Hugh Grant impression, among many others.
THE TRIP was edited together from 6 episodes of a BBC program which explains its over-long length (107 min.) and it's disjointedness, yet it contains enough laughs and genuine emotion to carry you through.
Having previously worked together in a lot of projects (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, TRISTRAM SHANDY, lots of British television), Coogan and Brydon have a great naturalistic energy in their largely ad-libbed exchanges.
Aesthetically, the scenery is pretty, but very grey toned (it is England, of course), and there are a nice amount of delicious looking shots of fine food.
But, as I said before, it's those funny as Hell impression-offs that make me rate this movie so highly. For the record, although it's really close, I think Coogan does the better Michael Caine.
More later...
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