Saturday, August 9, 2008
Sadly, this isn't the single greatest movie ever made, and only turned out to be really good. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Oh well. I guess that title stays with Maid in Manhattan.
Seriously though, I dug this one a lot, but not on the level of Superbad or 40 Year Old Virgin, as I was expecting. I hate when I get myself too excited, because it can add a tinge of disappointment to something that otherwise rocked.
This mines somewhat similar material as Hot Fuzz, but with added pot humor. I was curious to see how David Gordon Green, who is more of an art-house director, would handle this mainstream material. As it turns out, pretty well. He not only knows how to sell the humor of the movie (I could have guessed that, his movies are pretty funny), but he can actually direct a respectable action scene. All the shoot-em-up shit is good, but even better is an early fight scene between 3 guys who don't know how to fight, which really builds a wonderful comic momentum. That this movie and George Washington are in the same man's filmography is pretty awesome.
2 comments:
I enjoyed this one quite a bit and ended up seeing it twice because lauren was out of town when it came out.
First time I saw it I was in the right state of mind but at the end didn't feel like it had as many laughs as knocked up, superbad, or some of the movies it was homaging.
Second time I saw it I ended up liking it alot more mostly for the little touches such as when you could tell the script ended and they just kept filming and the "hangout movie" moments like the leapfrog in the woods and the breakfast scene. It was my reaction to those scenes on the second viewing that made me realize maybe its not the laugh a minute ride I was expecting but it offers that intangible quality I like in those movies where I know all the beats and the jokes but I keep coming back anyway. Cinematic comfort food.
Also, it gets extra points for not only having a theme song named after the movies but also having that song sung by Huey "better artist then Bruce Springsteen" Lewis.
I meant to meantion the Huey Lewis song and totally forgot. That was pretty amazing. I mean, it's no "Power of Love" but you still gotta respect the effort of trying to bring back the forgotten trend of movie theme pop songs that use the title of the movie in the lyrics.
I would definitely see this one again, in fact I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up on DVD, but my suspicion is that the script just wasn't as strong as the script for "Superbad." Not to say that Seth Rogen is running out of ideas, but perhaps being suddenly so prolific is wearing him a bit thin. The best things about the movie are more its "secret weapons": James Franco is way funnier than you'd ever imagine, that guy who played Red stole most of his scenes, and director Green added a kind of laid back, ramblin' charm that not everyone could pull off.
Post a Comment