Netflix Instant: Movie & TV Picks: Stand-up edition!

I love comedy. I love listening to stand up sets, listening to various comedy podcasts, and watching specials. I'm actually amazed at the great titles that are available on Netflix. Here are some of my favorite ones:

DIFF 2012 Review- THE BROOKLYN BROTHERS BEAT THE BEST

THE BROOKLYN BROTHERS BEAT THE BEST

Directed by: Ryan O'Nan

Written by: Ryan O'Nan

Starring: Ryan O'Nan, Michael Weston, Arielle Kebbel, Jason Ritter

Synopsis: A broken-hearted singer-songwriter goes on a cross country trip to a battle of the bands competition after being dumped by his girlfriend and his band. 

Fantastic Fest 2011 movie review- NEW KIDS TURBO- He said/She said

NEW KIDS TURBO

Directed by: Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil

Written by: Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil

Starring: Antoine Kamerling, Steffen Haars, Flip Van der Kuil, Huub Smit, and Tim Haars 

Synopsis: Five friends are fed up with not having jobs and being cut off from welfare, so they decide not to pay...for anything...anymore.

Fantastic Fest 2011 movie review- SUMMERLAND- She said

SUMMERLAND

Directed by: Grimur Hakonarson

Written by: Olafur Egilsson and Grimur Hakonarson

Starring: Olafia Hronn Jonsdottir, Kjartan Gudjonsson, and Snorri Engilbertsson 

Synopsis: Oskar is wanting to sell the family's sacred elf stone to keep the house, but the stone is sacred to his wife, who also works as a medium.

Fantastic Fest 2011 movie review- INVASION OF ALIEN BIKINI- She said

INVASION OF ALIEN BIKINI

Directed by: Oh Young-doo

Starring: Eun-Jung Ha and Young Geun Hong

Synopsis: A young hero meets and saves a damsel in distress, takes her home for a game of Jenga, but she has other plans for him.

DIFF review BURKE AND HARE- She said

Directed by John Landis

Written by Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft

Starring: Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry and Isla Fisher

Paul Review-He Said!

Directed by: Greg Motolla

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, and Seth Rogen as Paul.

Synopsis: Two best friends from England come to the US to attend San Diego Comic Con and see the most famous alien landmarks.  Along the way they pick up an actual alien.  Hilarity ensues.  

Two questions: are you nerdy and are you religious(ly uptight)? If you said yes and no, then this movie is for you! At this point, I'm pretty comfortable with how nerdy I am.  Shocking, right? And I'm glad that there are those people as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost that have been steeped in this culture making movies about people like us.  I'm not talking about that annoying trendy "G4" sort of nerd; I'm talking about the real ones.  I feel that Pegg, Frost, and director Greg Motolla have made a movie that feels as much of a love letter to geekdom and nerds as director Edgar Wright's movie SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD was.

The story begins with an awesome recreation of San-Diego Comic Con.  If you read Elisabeth Rappe's set report, you'll know that a lot of time and care was taken into recreating what has now become the overstuffed geek event of the year.  The minute you meet Greame (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) you can tell that they are not acting in these scenes of wandering around the Comic-Con floor room.  The first 20 minutes of the movie are nothing but geek fan service, and I swear there should be a medal if you can spot all of the references to all of these classic nerdy franchises.

Once you actually starting getting into the road trip part of the movie, that's where Pegg and Frost's relationship from so many years ago begins to show its benefits. Their chemistry is really loose and  feels like two friends hanging out, but not in that annoying way that Adam Sandler/GROWN UPS sort of way. The scene where the duo find Paul is pretty hilarious, and it's weird to see such a good sense of chemistry with two guys and an CG alien.

I do have a personal complaint about this movie, and maybe it's not so much the movie, as it is the culture which we live.  Throughout the movie, almost up until the end, you get various characters always questioning Clive and Greame on whether they're gay.  This annoys me to know end, and it's like all of the sudden because homosexuality is being accepted more, two dudes can't just be friends? That's ignorant, and from a writing point of view, it's a lazy way of writing in jokes.  

By the time they get into introducing Kristen Wiig's obvious romantic interest character, the movie gets in to some pretty interesting place.  You see, Wiig's character, Ruth, is a fundamentalist Christian, and when she encounters Paul, the movies gets pretty philosophical.  What would someone that has a strict definition of the Bible in their mind as the ultimate truth do after meeting an alien? I know this sounds very controversial, but seriously get over yourself.  It's interesting because when you see this movie, you will see two very opposing points of views regarding this question. I feel this was a bit of a risk to take, but it's one that it serves the comedy of the movie, while also making the movie have a bit more weight than just another road trip movie.

The little green guy is obviously the catalyst of this movie, so how does he hold up? Surprisingly well actually.  Apart from one flashback scene, you pretty much forget that he is not real. I really expected Paul to be like Mike Myers' Cat in the Hat character where you could not ever get into the movie since Myers kept on switching between Shrek, Austin Powers and whatever idiotic character he has portrayed before.  Plus, I remember not being too impressed with his work in MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, I will admit I was very negatively biased towards having Rogens' voice in this movie.   But, there's something to the character of Paul that Rogen's voice compliments.  Mind you, we're not talking Gollum levels of realism, but it's pretty close.

I'll also mention that as supporting cast members Jason Bateman, Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio were pretty plain.  None of them are not going out of their range. Bateman especially needs to get way from the uptight proper white guy routine he has done since the Arrested Development days.  A really frustrating thing about PAUL is that it has a tendency of having too many plot points going on at the same time. The amount of "bad guys" chasing them goes up to five at one point in the movie.  It's too much, especially when you consider that some issues are resolved in the most lackluster sort of way.  They could have pared this down and made the movie a lot leaner and it would've benefited greatly from it.

I realized after finishing the movie that it really is more about the relationships.  The friendship between Greame, Clive, Paul and Ruth is what holds this movie together. There is enough conflict and differences to keep it interesting, and there are enough nerdy references that only make the movie a bigger joy if you're a part of that culture.  This is probably the best movie I have seen in theaters this year so far. So go see it now nerds!



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Take Me Home Tonight- she said

Directed by Michael Dowse

Written by Jackie Filgo, Jeff Filgo, Topher Grace, and Gordon Kaywin

Starring: Topher Grace, Anna Faris, Dan Fogler, and Teresa Palmer

Synopsis: A young, aimless college grad pursues the girl of his dreams at a party with his best friend and twin sister as they all struggle to find their place in the adult world.

Scenario: Young adult graduates from college, and he doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. He ends up living at home, again, working at a local video store. His high school crush conveniently walks in one day and invites him to the party. You know, the party that happens after everyone graduates from college and turns out to be a mini high school reunion. That party (Not sure where these parties actually happen because I've never seen or heard of one in my area). He goes with his semi-overweight best friend excited to spend time with his long-term crush, yet still wondering what he should do with his life just waiting for an Epiphany. Can you guess what happens next? What if I told you the movie was set in the 80s? Does that change your view?

TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT is the typical romantic, coming of age comedy that has a few laughs but overall is very, very mediocre and predictable. The plot follows every cliche point of a modern day Rom-Com, just now the story is set in 1988. The movie doesn't even attempt to find the charm of a Hughes movie, and unlike HOT TUB TIME MACHINE which embraced the radness and the insanity of the 80s, TMHT uses it as a backdrop. I snickered a few times at a character's clothing choice or seeing Farrah Fawcett hair, but it lost its charm.

There was a real glimpse of hope for the movie because Topher Grace does well as a relatable, lost twentysomething, but his character gets lost in the muddled storytelling. Anna Faris, who plays his sister, had the most interesting storyline where she is forced to decide between marriage to her long-term boyfriend (who I swear looked like a modern day dude-bro named Chad) and graduate school. However, she is completely underused and forced into the background and unfortunately, ends up with a mediocre payoff. Dan Fogler, who has been described as the "poor man's Jack Black", is the loud, obnoxious best friend who somehow always gets into trouble, steals a car, and finds cocaine. Not sure why these two characters are best friends considering all the antics they find themselves in; the chemistry on screen between the duo is awkward and just off.

The bulk of the movie is Topher Grace trying to impress his crush, played by Teresa Palmer, by pretending to have a big kid job and finding himself in weird and almost implausible situations all the while wallowing in the fact he doesn't really know who he is or what he wants. The antics ensue throughout the night, and while you're expecting a breakthrough for the characters or a real insight to the troubled "after world" between college and adulthood, nothing ever really happens. It takes the safe route back to the normal Rom-Com formula, and we're left with a very forgettable movie.

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CEDAR RAPIDS- she said

Directed by Miguel Arteta

Written by Phil Johnston

Starring: Ed Helms, Anne Heche, John C. Reily, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Alia Shawkat

Synopsis: Tom Lippe is charged with going to represent his insurance firm at the annual ASMI conference and bring home the Double Diamond reward.

There's always something special about the industry you work in whether it's teaching, insurance, sales or computers. Sometimes the people in your world annoy you, yet it's always comforting you have people to go to when they're problems, and they genuinely understand the ups and downs you may feel. CEDAR RAPIDS takes a look at the insurance world as our protagonist, Tim Lippe (Ed Helms), gets to go to the big ASMI conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa after the sudden death of the top seller at his company.

Lippe is everyone's friend in his spec-of-a-town of Brown Valley, Wisconsin. He's probably has never left his town...ever. So what a thrill to represent his company and try to win the elusive Double Diamond award for the forth year in a row. He arrives and is shocked to find out that he's rooming with an African-American, oh snap! Because I guess he's never seen one in real life; only in stories. His other roommate for the conference is Dean Zigler (John C. Reilly) who almost becomes the cliche frat boy making many, many perverted sex jokes throughout the movie. Now, some of the jokes were genuinely funny, but the act got a little old. Anne Heche rounds out this group as Joan Ostrowski-Fox who settled down early, got a job, and the annual conference is the highlight of her year. Sad existence, but she makes the most of the cards she's dealt.

We follow the foursome throughout the conference and the antics that ensue from a conference talent show, scavenger hunt, Lippe's first time drinking and befriending local prostitute, Bree (Arrested Developement's Alia Shawkat). Because this is what one does at a conference. The charm of the movie comes from Lippe who's innocence is sad yet somehow likable. He even wears a money belt...a money belt in Cedar Rapids, Iowa? He's learning the ropes as the newcomer under the wings of his comrades, and like a kid away at college for the first time, cuts lose a bit. Helms lends himself as leading man material, yet I couldn't shake the fact I could've seen Steve Carell in this role. It was good but nothing special.

Overall I enjoyed CEDAR RAPIDS. It begins with laugh after laugh, then, like most comedies nowadays, turns to a more serious yet poignant tone. It's no Judd Apatow movie, but Helms and company's chemistry keep things interesting in what's really a lackluster story. The film reminded me of a Bloody Mary or Pina Colada because it's a drink that you enjoy every once in a while, but you don't drink all the time.

CEDAR RAPIDS is open in limited release.

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Red(2010)

Directed By: Robert Schwentke

Written By: Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber

Starring: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary Louise Parker,

& Helen Mirren

Synopsis: When a retired CIA agent is suddenly a target of an assassination squad, he must 

figure out who is behind the hit, recruiting his old teammates and a government employee in the process.

WARNING:MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

Jonesy- I liked the story. I thought it took too long to get to the real problem, but in other spy movies, you always got little hints of the mystery, and I don’t feel that you got enough of the mystery to keep me focused on guessing what was wrong.  I wanted to get to the real meat of who’s trying to kill Bruce Willis.

Javier- I also really liked the story, though I didn’t care for the mystery, and I was just taking it moment by moment. This movie was probably just as funny as Get Him to the Greek, which is one of the funnier movies we’ve seen this year.  So yea, the complaints are there, but for me it doesn’t really matter because I was having such a good time. I didn’t feel there were that many issues with the pacing did you?

Jonesy- I think there were pacing issues in the beginning, but once the four main characters got together, it was great. I wanted all four to get tougher faster.  I think getting to Helen Mirren took way too long.

Javier- And it felt a little cheesy you know? I hate making the comparison, but it felt like in Mortal Kombat they were trying to get all the main characters from the video game together, like “we gotta go to this guy for a really specific reason, and only X person that is vital to the plot later on can help us with in this exact moment.” The movie had that very campy and goofy style. 

Jonesy-It’s funny because they’re old and they’re kicking ass

Javi- And they all had great chemistry.

Jonesy- I don’t think Bruce Willis’s character was as dynamic, and you never really find out much about him.  All you know is he was some ex-bad-ass-CIA dude. You find out a lot more about Freeman, Mirren, and Cox, but Willis is supposed to be the main character?  I liked Mirren the best.

Javier- I did too. Rawr.  Anyways, in terms of characters, I see what you’re saying about Willis not being dynamic.  What’s interesting is that later in the movie, the interrogation scene where Karl Urban is asking Sarah- “Do you know who Frank Moses is?”, that could’ve been a great scene where she finds out all of this messed up stuff that he did.  I kind of see what you’re saying; there could’ve been ways of showing more of his past than without exposition.  One thing I will complain is they tried to Liz Lemon-ize the Sarah character, and I know I’ve read this before.  It's where they play off an attractive woman as dorky or dumpy like the Tina Fey character in 30 Rock.  However, let’s face it, Tina Fey is gorgeous even if she acted as goofy as she did, she could get herself a guy.  That just kind of gets annoying to me.

Jonesy- I like that Sarah never shot a gun, that she helped but not in a violent way.  She was able to help in her own style, and she wasn’t a damsel in distress and wasn’t a super genius. 

Javier- Going back to the story/character thing, I thought the Brian Cox character encapsulated everything that was cool and yet wrong with this movie.  I thought it was ridiculous how he shows up in the middle of the group getting hunted down in a non-armored car and helps them escape. 

Jonesy- I also really enjoyed how Cooper (Karl Urban) was super developed. I felt more for him, and I understood his motivations more than I ever did for Bruce Willis. I understood where he was coming from, and it really should be the other way around. 

Javier- Overall, I thought it was really enjoyable, and you shouldn’t really go in expecting too much. I was excited because I wanted to see Helen Mirren with a gun, and I was not disappointed, and I was surprised at how funny and amusing the movie was.  You won’t have to say it’s a guilty pleasure, which made me like it even more because it was genuinely funny and it was well acted.  The chemistry was great, and the story was solid.  If someone was to say, hey let’s go see Red; I’d probably see it again, especially in a big group of people 

Jonesy- This is definitely a big group movie; you just have to go in expecting fun.  It’s one of the best action movies of the year.  I enjoyed it, but I still have issues with it.  I’d recommend it to anyone; it’s enough fun that most everybody could find something to like from it.  It’s very kick ass and funny and sweet…just an all around fun movie. 

Get Him To The Greek

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Get Him To The Greek

Starring: Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, Elisabeth Moss, and Rose Byrne

Directed by: Nicholas Stoller

Written by: Nicholas Stoller/Jason Segel (characters)

Synopsis:

When record company employee Aaron Green gets the idea to have troubled rock star Aldous Snow play an anniversary show at the famous Greek Theater, he has to go get him from London to LA, which may be more trouble than he expects.

Get Him To The Greek- He Said

Get Him To The Greek is the latest in the many comedies produced by Judd Apatow and his ever expanding cast of friends/comedians.  This is not a widely advertised fact, but you can see hints of what makes his comedies great in here.  It’s the story of a record company lackey, Aaron Green (Hill), going to retrieve a relapsed junky and outrageous rock star, Aldous Snow (Brand), from England to play a show at the famous Greek Theater.  You can bet that hilarious hijinks will ensue throughout this movie.  The people that were at the screening, as well as myself, laughed throughout this whole movie, even if I didn’t quite get what the movie was trying to do.  It definitely was a good time at the movies, and I honestly would see it again if only because it’s one of the better movies out right now.

I went into this movie with mixed expectations; I was familiar with the Aldous Snow character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I knew this was a pseudo-sequel of sorts, with Jonah Hill playing a different character than from Forgetting.  This seemed a bit fishy to me, but once you get past this you can have a good time.  Aaron is a good counterpoint to Aldous but neither are extreme personas.  Aaron has some bad boy moments, and he can be outrageous, while Aldous’ big story arc has a lot to do with emotional growth.  I know it’s been done before, but the “bad boy with a good heart underneath” feels natural to Brand and he pulls it off well.  After having read, on AICN, an interview with his own drug and alcohol issues, it gave me a bit of chills, and I almost felt sorry for him having to relive those experiences.  Regardless, the chemistry between this dynamic duo is indeed the best part of this movie.  They fight, party, disagree but it all felt very organic in that way that Superbad did.  The songs that Infant Sorrow, Aldous’ band, play are hilarious in a Flight of The Conchords sort of way, there is a CD out by them with all of the songs played in the movie. 

And for all of the good that it has, I was still left confused as to what the point to the movie was.  Normally most of these raunchy types of comedies don’t really have anything in the form of a message.  But, given how many serious moments involving Aldous and Aaron, I can’t help but feel that Nicholas Stoller tried too hard to emulate Apatow and failed.  For example, there are moments where Aldous become contemplative and tries to repair various relationships and every time he does, it seems that the most outrageous and random things happen that take away from the emotion.  Like I said, if it hadn’t be for the fact that they try to be serious I wouldn’t have minded.  My other big complaint is Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ performance; you know I get it…he’s supposed to be a caricature of the eccentric music executive, but where I have seen actors tackle this same role, Combs’ performance was very one note, and ridiculously annoying by the end of the movie.  We get it; you want to make money and you need Aldous there at the Greek.  He felt like the weakest part of the movie when it came to characters.  Also there is an almost climatic “emotional” scene at the end with Aaron, Aldous and Daphne, Aaron’s girlfriend, that was supposed to be for laughs but honestly felt more uncomfortable in general, and this scene but it left a bad taste in my mouth. .  I will say that Russell Brand needs to get away from these roles; I fear he will start being typecasted even if he is good in the bad boy persona. 

Overall, I’d say you should go out there and check out the movie.  It’s not an opening night sort of movie but this will go great with a group of friends.  It is a funny and entertaining movie, with a few missteps, tonally speaking.  If you have seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it definitely feels like its spiritual sequel rather than a formal one.

Get Him To The Greek- She Said

One thing I never wanted to be was a rock star. The life seems very hectic: flying across the world to play at a show for three hours only to hop on a jet and fly back, radio interviews at all hours of the morning, TV interviews which require you to look and act coherent, recording new songs, learning new shows, and having a life somewhere in the mix. No, seems too insane for me. The only job that would seem worse is their assistant because not only do you have to keep up with the rock star, but you have to organize them and deal with their demands and mood swings.

In Get Him to the Greek, Aaron (played by Jonah Hill), gets a chance to prove himself to his music industry boss, Sergio (played by Sean Combs), by going to London and bringing back legendary rocker, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), to the States for a Today Show appearance and a show at the Greek in LA. Seems pretty simple, but Aaron has never really seen the rock star side of the music industry before, so let the fun begin!

Yes, the movie is as funny as the commercials advertise. In fact, I would say they keep some of the best parts out of the commercials, which is rare nowadays for comedies. Aaron gets thrown into this world with Aldous, and on their way to LA, pretty much anything and everything happens: sex, drugs, alcohol, more drugs, and more alcohol. Honestly, I’m not sure how their livers handle the binge. One of the best shots of the movie is when Aaron and Aldous are running out of a hotel in fear of their lives, and Aaron has a manic, terrified look on his face that he’s about to die, but Aldous has this almost excited, pleasurable look as if to say, “this happens everyday!”

This movie is odd because it’s half raunchy comedy and half mid-rocker-crisis-epiphany story? The second half of the movie deals with Aldous coming to the realization of how alone in the world he is. He has no real friends, except his mother, an estranged relationship with his dad, divorced, doesn’t see his kid that often, and relapsed into drugs and alcohol. He finds a somewhat friend in Aaron, but doesn’t know how to keep it because he’s destroyed almost every other relationship in his life up until now. Russell Brand, believe it or not, can actually act. I found him really endearing during this revelation. He makes Aldous an actual character instead of a stereotype.

Sean Combs as the outlandish record producer, Sergio, brings a great edge to the movie. He’s the black version of Cruise’s insanity that was Les Grossman. He brings amazing energy to the movie, including having a voice over of a text message that, I have a feeling, will become very popular among friends.

The only problem I have is, tonally, the movie seems all over the place. It felt a little like Apatow’s Funny People, where you weren’t sure if it was an all out comedy or drama-dy or drama. You know the movie is good, but you’re not sure what you were supposed to get out of it. You think it’s going to become sentimental, then Aaron has to shove heroine up his butt before they board a plane. Or there’s an insanely awkward moment between Aldous, Aaron, and Aaron’s girlfriend, and I won’t get into it, but you can probably guess what the moment is.

The movie is fun; go with friends and laugh, and don’t ever accept a “Jeffrey” from anyone…ever.