On paper, I shouldn’t have wanted to see Bridesmaids as much as I did. I usually don’t enjoy Kristin Wiig’s sketches on SNL, and wasn’t a huge Maya Rudolph fan for most of her tenure there too. I can’t sit through an episode of Mike & Molly without wondering why I haven’t changed the channel yet.
But I really wanted to see it in the weeks leading up to its release date. I attribute this to liking director Paul Feig. I loved Freaks and Geeks when it originally aired on TV. And I’d recommend his two books, Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence and Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin, to anyone who, like me, was a bit awkward growing up (okay, I was more than a bit awkward growing up).
Plus, Bridemaids had talk that it was Hangover-funny.
After seeing Bridesmaids, I’m a much bigger fan of Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy than I was beforehand (though still I don’t see myself getting amped for Mike & Molly Season 2).
Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumoto wrote a seriously funny screenplay that Paul Feig turned into a seriously funny movie. I don’t think there has ever been a wedding dress shopping scene anywhere near as funny as the one in Bridesmaids.
Melissa McCarthy steals the show in Bridesmaids. Some of her best lines are in the trailer, but she has plenty of other great bits throughout the film. Wiig and Mumoto must have had a lot of fun writing her character.
I saw Bridesmaids at the West Hollywood Arclight in Los Angeles. Without a doubt, The Arclight is my favorite movie theater anywhere. It is such a pleasure to go to the movies there. You get to pick your seats when you buy your tickets online! A seating chart pops up and you choose your seats like you would for a flight. How cool is that? They don’t show commercials before the movie, just trailers. The ushers are friendly and will help you find your seat like you’re at a Broadway show. Before the movie starts, one of the ushers gives a speech welcoming everyone to the theater and says they’ll be sticking around for a few minutes to make sure the picture and sound are good. Why can’t we have this theater in New York City?! I would see every movie there.
If you haven’t seen Bridesmaids yet, what are you waiting for? It’s the funniest movie I’ve seen this year, on the couch or at the theater.
I was fully prepared to have nothing bad to say about this movie: it was definitely good. It was definitely funny. I didn’t think The Hangover was all that, so after hearing all the comparisons I didn’t expect to love this one, but I hoped I’d like it, and my expectations were met: I thought it was roughly Hangover-funny, absolutely worth watching, but I liked the last comedy I saw — Horrible Bosses — more.
But then I came to re-read your review, and the part you singled out was the wedding dress shopping scene? No thank you. The airplane scene, or trying (unsuccessfully) to get pulled over by a cop? Everything with Jon Hamm? Great gags. Bodily functions? Eesh.
Your review was (to your credit) probably the only one in the world to avoid discussing the media’s narrative of Bridesmaids as “proving that women can be funny”. Aside from finding the presumed need for that awfully demeaning, I was surprised to see that the B-story (and almost the A-story; let’s call it the B-plus-story) was typical rom-com. Surprised, but not disappointed: I thought everything with the cop made the movie as good as it was.
I agree. The whole obsession that the media at large had with Bridemaids “proving women can be funny” thing was both ridiculous and demeaning. We know women are funny. We didn’t need Bridesmaids to prove it, which is why I didn’t mention it in my review.
Whenever I think about Bridesmaids, the first scene I go to in my head is the wedding dress scene. Everything you cited: hilarious, no arguement here. But the wedding dress scene is the one that had my entire theater laughing hysterically.
I have’t seen horibble bosses yet. But I haven’t heard one single bad review from friends yet, so I am VERY MUCH looking forward to watching it.