ROCK OF AGES trailer drops...with a load of bad karaoke

There's a reason that certain shows are created for the stage and others are created for film. Musicals need a certain sense of disbelief to work. Do people usually break out into song and dance? Not normally, but on the stage, it's all part of the show. It's the same as believing you change "locations" in a show simply because a piece of furniture is moved or a backdrop is changed.

So, it takes a certain talent, script, and all the right things to make a musical work for the screen. There hasn't been much success nowadays with the trend of adapting musicals. ROCK OF AGES is the latest victim of this trend. Directed Adam Shankman (HAIRSPRAY), ROCK OF AGES is about a young couple falling in love during the 80's era of rock n' roll.

Check out the trailer after the break

DIFF Review ARTHUR - He Said

ARTHUR

Directed by: Jason Winer

Written by: Peter Bayhan, Steve Gordon

Starring: Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, and Jennifer Garner

So Russell Brand, for better or worse, seems to be the male version of Megan Fox, in that there's so much whining from the Internet whenever he gets cast in movies. I totally get why people would not dig the guy: he looks half like a super feminine hipster/dude-bro covered in leather, he married Katy Perry, and his humor might not even be considered funny at all! Regardless, maybe it was my first impression of him in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, but the guy doesn't bother me, plus I don't watch MTV or any of that nonsense where he usually appears. So needless to say, I was not negatively biased towards this movie as much as some other people, and take into account I haven't seen the original ARTHUR in such a long time, I might as well never have seen it, plus Helen Mirren is in it, so I was pretty OK watching this. So how does this remake about a selfish, frivolous, alcoholic millionaire man-boy do? Surprisingly well, if your expectations are well grounded.

As I stated above, I can't quite remember the original movie. Given this, I was still surprised that "in this economy" someone would dare release a movie starring a highly polarizing dude playing basically a drunken asshole throwing money around. I think not even director, Winer, seems to know. Early in the movie, a reporter asks him that question, Arthur (Brand) exclaims "What recession?" and gives a crowd about $100,000 in cash. Ok, so I can get past this. Once we get into the story, you see that fortune has warped Arthur's perception of the world in a very tragic way. He literally is a little kid trapped in a horny, booze-loving body. He parties recklessly, he seems to sleep with whoever, his behavior seems downright psychotic given his lack of normal and healthy social skills. I must say though, half of the time I was jealous of this character, between the BATMAN FOREVER Batmobile and the floating magnetic bed, I don't see how anyone couldn't be. Arthur relies too much on his nanny Hobson (Mirren) to get around, yet she is always there trying to protect him all the while being frustrated at the apparently stunted growth he has experienced.

The story starts with Arthur embarrassing his Lucille Buth-type mother, Vivianne, during fundraiser after crashing his Batmobile. His mother gives him the ultimatum of marrying a respectable woman such as Susan (Garner) to help him get his life together, or be cut off his $980,000 inheritance. Not quite ready to give that up, he is willing. That is until he meets the whimsical Naomi, a poor illegal tour guide with an eye for making the world beautiful, who he is immediately attracted to for some reason. After bailing her out of going to jail, Arthur becomes pretty obsessed with her, maybe because she is one of the few women that seems to not put up with him, or maybe she is just that magical.

I found that the privileged guy with demons seems to be Brand’s go-to role; he basically plays the same guy in GET HIM TO THE GREEK. Yet for all of the praise that movie got, I feel he plays that type of character better in this movie. There’s a bit more subtlety to his acting here which I enjoyed. That’s not to say that all of the sudden he is an amazing actor, but at least he’s getting better. I think that his relationship with Hobson is really amusing but ultimately familiar, with Hobson being the strict one with a sarcastic tone and Arthur making some funny remark towards her when he doesn’t get his way. Helen Mirren has done better comedic acting in RED, but I’m not sure if she’s to blame because I would like to bet she could only do as good as what she got from the script. As good as all of this is, I have to say Gerwig steals the show; every time she steps on camera you cant help but focus on her 100%. Her character is very self-aware which leads to some of the best lines in the movies. It’d be easy to once again use the Manic Pixie Dream Girl title to her, but that seems to fall short of the charm her character exudes. Yes, she inspires Arthur in an almost magical way, but she also challenges him and doesn’t put up with his shit. For the majority of the movie she’s actually a very strong character.

The big issue with this movie is the writing. There are a lot of jokes that fall flat in an almost uncomfortable way. I get where they tried to go with those jokes, but it just doesn’t work. Then the characterization of Arthur is insanely uneven. He is characterized as a man-child with no knowledge of how to make even a simple cup of tea or Spaghetti-os, and yet his dialogue is very clever and referential in a way that would lead you to believe he keeps up with the news or at least reads. It seems that the writers just turned on one aspect of Arthur to suit the situation without much thought to consistency. This is beyond frustrating. The alcoholism subplot is something that I think was handled decently, with a few very tragic scenes relating to it. I'm not sure if that would have drastically changed the movie, but there was a point where I felt it would have been really appropriate to deal with the subject, but instead that moment gets pushed back 20 minutes.

The story itself goes through many of the same plot points you would come to expect from this sort of movie, which is fine and you can tell that they were trying to go for something deeper from this comedy in the veins of Judd Apatow movies, and yet once again, it fails because of the unnecessary situations the characters are put in that start conflict and give them something to overcome. A big example is when Susan puts bigger strain in Arthur and Naomi’s relationship, where she reveals that Arthur might be using his money to sneakily help Naomi. That would have been fine and dandy and cemented Susan as evil, but there is absolutely no reason why she should have known that information prior to this scene. Other big issue is Jennifer Garner; she is given nothing to do in this movie but play an even bitchier version other character from JUNO. Her character is not developed at all and just shows up randomly to mess stuff up. Her biggest scene where she shows up drunk at Arthur’s place to show she’s spontaneous is so out of character, for what little we know about it, that it could have been cut out completely and the movie would’ve been better for it.

Overall, this movie is ambitious in where it is trying to go, in terms of a comedy, but I think that adhering to the constructs of a comedy with romance and some downright awful dialogue seem to kill the chances of this movie, which is a shame because any movie with Helen Mirren in a Darth Vader helmet should be Oscar material. What’s worse is that the ending is so safe it almost belittles the journey Arthur goes through. If you see this movie, you will laugh, and Brand, Mirren and Gerwig are pretty funny here, but don’t expect a comedic revelation here. I couldn’t tell anyone to spend his or her $10 at the theater for this movie, but it would be a great matinee or Netflix rent.

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Despicable Me

Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud

Written by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul

Starring: Steve Carell, Russell Brand, and Jason Segal

Synopsis: Gru wants to outdo his nemsis, Vector, by becoming the best villain in the world by stealing the moon.  However, Gru's plans are foiled when he becomes a dad to three orphans.

Despicable Me- He said

Dreamworks Animation studios got its start in pop culture as the makers of Shrek, a great little movie everyone knows by now. Unfortunately, after the success of Shrek, Dreamworks stuck with the same formula of celebrity voices and adult humor undertones, with mediocre animation and stories, giving us such gems as Shark Tale, Bee Movie, and the second Madagascar movie. This all finally went away when they released Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, and subsequently this year’s runaway hit How To Train Your Dragon. I am glad to say that while Despicable Me is not nearly as great as the other movies mentioned, it is an insanely enjoyable good time and pretty endearing to boot.




When I saw the first trailers for this movie, I was confused and rather apprehensive. The trailers made little to no sense when put together, and the marketing was all over the place. It wasn’t until the minions showed up, and my sister kept on raving about them, that I got a bit interested. The Minions are the cute, yellow things that serve our main protagonist/villain Gru. Gru, from what we see, is a mediocre villain who thinks rather highly of himself. When he goes to the Evil Bank to get a loan for his new plan that involves stealing the moon, he is rejected because he is no longer a hot new villain. That villain is Vector, a super geeky inventor that wears orange spandex and stole the Great Pyramid from Egypt. After Vector foils one of his plans, Gru tries to best him and he’s going to use three orphan girls, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, he adopted to unwittingly help. If you’ve seen any movie when the main character changes his or her way, you know how this movie will turn out for the most part.



What I found interesting about the way this movie handles its world and how believable everything is. You don’t question a geek stealing the Pyramid, yellow Minions walking around and doing nutty stuff, and the villain banks. I really enjoyed this considering that most movies need a long set up, and it felt refreshing to just jump into a world headfirst. Gru’s life is an eccentric one full of colorful characters like his mom and his assistant/mentor Dr. Nefario; they are both your typical over the top-senior citizen types, which usually seem rather annoying (I never bought into the Betty White hype), but they work rather well. I will say that the issues that the mom give Gru are interesting but felt tacked on at random times of the movie. Once we meet the little girls and their very distinct personalities, the movie starts to pick up in a positive manner. If you have seen the commercials you know that Agnes, the little girl will steal the show along the minions, and that’s not a bad thing at all. If you have seen Toy Story 3, think of Bonnie but a much younger version.



With the kids and the minions stealing the show, it does show Gru to be a slightly boring protagonist, his overly confident persona that masks a guy full of insecurity is something we’ve seen quite a bit. Vector is the worst character of the whole movie; he’s a very one-note sort of characters that did very little to nothing to add to the story. But these are all rather minor complaints about the movie. The weird thing is that there is nothing truly wrong with the movie, and its story is one that we have seen before but it is done well. As I stated before Gru and Vector being weak characters is a detriment to the overall story.



Overall, this is one of the better Dreamworks Animation movies, sure they are following the same formula that has gotten them in trouble before, but this time like in their last two movies it works just fine.

Despicable Me- she said

I don’t usually buy into Dreamworks movies. I enjoyed Shrek, but after that, their movies seemed so much more blah than Pixar movies. It wasn’t until this year’s How to Train Your Dragon by DreamWorks (I never saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs until recently) that I realized someone besides Pixar could make a decent animated movie. Even with that, I still wasn’t expecting much when Despicable Me was being advertised. I was indifferent towards the movie going in, but I found myself really, really enjoying it.


Despicable Me creates this amazing world where villains live next door, have their own banks, and regularly steal major landmarks like the Great Pyramid. Gru is a villain who was probably very good at his job at some point, but he has lost his edge. He is very old school having a cascade of miniature twinkie-looking things as his minions working on new and brilliant gadgets and gizmos. He has developed the best idea to get him back on top…steal the moon. Unfortunately, he can’t get the loan for his idea from the bank (the loan goes to his nemesis, Vector), so Gru adopts three girls, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, to unknowingly help him. At first, Gru is initially annoyed with having these three new personalities in his home, but then they grow on him.

Gru initially uses the girls to get inside Vector’s house. Vector is like the Mac version of the villains, while Gru is the PC. Vetor’s home is clean, slick, and shiny. Gru’s home is worn, creaky, and has history. Vector has a remote control for everything, and Gru has to create a new gadget for everything. Gru wants to prove that he’s still the best villain, so he takes it upon himself to steal the moon to outdo Vector. However, his plans get foiled when his feelings change for his new “daughters”.

As the girls begin to find a place in Gru’s heart, he is faced with a problem: does he save his career as a villain or does he take his new found role as a dad? Or is there room in this world to be both? We’ve seen this situation before, work or family, but it’s nice to see a fun take on the classic situation.

The person who steals the movie is the youngest girl, Agnes. The actress, Elsie Fisher, does brilliant voice work. She walks the line of being annoying and endearing, which is a difficult line to walk, but she pulls it off. At first, you think she’s going to be this annoying little girl who’s obsessed with unicorns, but she’s so lovable, you want to adopt her by the end. The other girls are equally as adorable. They each have their very distinct personalities and quirks. I found myself more interested in their story than Gru’s plot.

Another fun aspect is the minions. These creatures are Gru’s workers, who live (I guess) in the bowls of his home. They’re like smart four year olds that look like mini twinkies. They work hard with the tasks they’re given, but they giggle and laugh at any instance of a fart joke. The minions are there for the crude humor that draws in the younger crowd, and even though I did find them kind of cute, the jokes got old.

Overall, Dreamworks is clearly taking a turn for the better. They must have found some new writers. Despicable Me is quirky and fun and is one of the better movies of the summer. There’s a new formula that Dreamworks must be drinking because their past few movies have been heads above their earlier ones (yes even Shrek). Whatever they’re drinking, they need to stay on it, then maybe they can actually begin to compete with Pixar.

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.