Tag Archives: Michael Cera

by

This is the End – Review

5/5 – Funniest movie of 2013

On the eve of This is the End’s release, I still  had no idea what the movie was about. The poster tells you nothing. I hadn’t seen any trailers. I wrongly assumed it was a Hangover-like bachelor party movie. All I knew about it was that quite a few people  whose opinion I like said it was hilarious. And really, that’s all the information I needed.

I really liked that the actors in this film are all playing themselves. It helps that they’re all real life friends who have worked together before, as they take a lot of comedy from their past experiences working together. Like when James Franco showed off his art to Seth Rogen.

I want similar paintings at my place.

The This is the End poster says “with Michael Cera and Emma Watson.” Oh man, if these two have had funnier roles before, please point me in the direction those movies. Michael Cera was especially hilarious, playing the douchiest version of himself imaginable. There are more celebrity cameos that I’d hate to spoil here…they’re just too damn funny.

George Michael is all growns up.

There are so many funny scenes in this movie. The rapture of James Franco might be my favorite. That, or how Michael Cera comes to his end.

As I was watching the movie, I found myself falling in the Friends/Sex and the City game of trying to match my friends up with the characters on screen. Who in your group would be the Danny in the post-apocalyptic world? After you figure that out, you might want to avoid that guy from here on out.

If you haven’t seen This is the End yet, I highly recommend it. It’s easily the funniest movie I’ve seen in the theater this year. It’s probably too late to see it in any theater unless you have a third or fourth run theater near you, but it will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on 10/1 from places such as Amazon.

by

At The Theater #39: Love and Other Drugs

“1996” is the first thing you see on the screen at the start of Love and Other Drugs. The first thing you hear is Two Princes by Spin Doctors. I immediately thought to myself, “Why?” Two Princes hit the height of its popularity a couple of years earlier was so overplayed that by 1996 no one could stand it. True story: It wasn’t until 2005 that I was able to listen to Two Princes again without rolling my eyes. But here is Jake Gyllenhaal, dancing away to Two Princes in this small electronics store where he works.

It took awhile for me to figure out why Love and Other Drugs takes place in 1996 instead of 2010. Best Buy has replaced the small electronics store, but it’s basically the same place. Pharmaceutical companies are still pumping out new and improved antidepressants. There’s still no cure for Parkinson’s. Love interests that don’t want relationships still work in coffee shops. Why 1996? It wasn’t until about halfway through Love and Other Drugs that I got my answer, Viagra.

Looking at this ad might make you need Viagra.
Slick marketing, Pfizer.

When Viagra first comes up in Love and Other Drugs, it’s still in development at Pfizer and Jake Gyllenhaal, now a struggling Pfizer sales rep, has a serious hard-on to sell it. I thought it was going to be a one-off joke, similar to his showing off a Star-Tac earlier while he was working at the electronics store. But the second half of the movie largely becomes the Viagra movie. Every character gets caught up in the Viagra tidal wave. Jake Gyllenhaal and girlfriend Anne Hathaway cheer when it’s mentioned on Conan, doctors who previously snubbed Gyllenhaal beg him for hookups, and the little blue pill powers a crazy pharma-sex party that would have probably sent all my college friends into pharmaceuticals if Love and Other Drugs was released in when it takes place. There’s even a great “when Viagra goes wrong” bit that was one of the funniest parts of the movie.

Josh Gad plays Jake Gyllenhaal’s brother in Love and Other Drugs. If Jesse Eisenberg is the poor man’s Michael Cera, Josh Gad is the poor man’s Jack Black. If they make a sequel to Year One and can’t get Cera and Black, I think it would be kind of awesome if they got Gad and Eisenberg. I would definitely go see Year Two if it starred the poor man’s Michael Cera and the poor man’s Jack Black. That might be the only way I’d go see Year Two.

Josh Gad can also be the poor man’s Zach Galifianakis.

Love and Other Drugs has been getting a lot of press for both Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway having partial nude scenes in the movie. When Anne Hathaway’s bare breast first makes an appearance during a visit with Dr. Hank Azaria (not using his Dr. Nick voice), I thought “That wasn’t that big a deal. That was onscreen, what, five seconds?” I spoke (or thought in this case) too soon. Anne Hathaway’s breasts are in this movie more than Hank Azaria or Oliver Platt. Anne Hathaway’s breasts should have received third billing in the credits under Gyllenhaal and Hathaway. I hear they may be nominated for a Supporting Actress award this year.

Okay, put them away already.

Jake Gyllenhaal spends a lot of time disrobed as well in Love and Other Drugs. They are many shots of Gyllenbuutt and when he’s walking around in his underwear, I said out loud “Gyllenbaalls.”

I walked away liking Love and Other Drugs much more than I thought I would. If you’re looking for a good romantic comedy, try this one. It’s not cheesy, it will fulfill any questions you had about Anne Hathaway’s nipples, and you’ll get see the Gyllenbaalls you can take.
 
And if you really like Love and Other Drugs, Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman have a clone of it coming out soon called No Strings Attached. The preview was so much like Love and Other Drugs that I thought Love and Other Drugs repeated a joke during the movie and realized no, a very similar joke was in the No Strings Attached preview.

Love and Other Drugs – Anne Hathaway’s breasts = No Strings Attached.
by

On The Couch #10: Zombieland

I feel sorry for the producers of World War Z. Is there any point to making a movie based on Max Brooks’s zombie outbreak book now that Zombieland is here? The stories are largely similar. Sure, Zombieland doesn’t have the worldwide scope that World War Z does, but it does a great job of capturing a lot of the elements that Brooks’s book did so well: the introverted loner who initially survives because he’s walled himself off from society, cross-country zombie hunting, and rules for staying alive in World War Z, er..I mean Zombieland.

I’m catching a theme running throughout the movies I’ve been watching on the couch lately. Food Inc. showed us how easily disease can spread when you have cows packed tight, wading in their own manure. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs showed the problems of trying to play God with your food. And now Zombieland tells us that the zombie outbreat was the result of a guy eating some tainted meat at a local fast food joint and quickly developing a taste for human flesh. The lesson is obvious; eat organic or become a brain-hungry creature of the night.

Zombieland proves how important it is to be ready for a zombie outbreak. True story: I was walking through Brooklyn one day on the phone with my girlfriend when I saw a limping, smelly, bloodshot-eyed guy shambling in my direction. I told my girlfriend “Either this guy is a crackhead or a zombie.” By the looks of him, I was guessing zombie. I instinctively looked around for a baseball bat, crowbar or shotgun…no luck. I made eye contact with the crackhead-zombie and he yelled “What are you looking at? I’ll kill you!” Whew, crisis averted. Everyone knows that if he was a zombie, he would have just said “Blaaaarggghhh…”

The unlikely heroes of Zombieland.

There are less than 10 credited roles in zombieland. The majority of the zombies are extras. Woody Harrelson is great as the bad-ass zombie killer Tallahassee. Superbad’s Emma Stone is equally bad-ass as zombie movie femme fatale Wichita.

Witchita: bangs + leather jacket + dark eyeshadow + shotgun = badass.

While watching Woody Harrelson fire off multiple firearms seems natural, the biggest casting surprise was Abigail Breslin as the shotgun wielding 12-year old Little Rock. It’s very entertaining to watch an actor take a 180-turn from what she’s known for, especially if the turn involves hunting zombies.

Is there anything creepier than a child zombie?

Jesse Eisenberg seems to be setting himself up as the go-to guy for when a movie can’t cast Michael Cera. In some scenes, he is so Michael Cera-like that the only thing separating the two of them is his bigger hair. Michael and Jesse should do a movie together. Would Youth in Revolt have been better if Francois was played by Jesse Eisenberg? Maybe not, but Michael Ceara and Not-Michael Cera really need some screentime to share.

You were awesome in Juno.

My favorite parts of Zombieland were the inventive use of titling throughout the movie that displayed on the screen showing Columbus’s rules of surviving in Zombieland. These would pop up any time that a character followed or, usually at the cost of their life, didn’t follow those rules.

There’s a reason there are so many fat zombies in Zombieland.

The special features on the Blu-ray aren’t too special. The deleted scenes were deleted for good reasons and the two making of featurettes spend most of the time showing you scenes you just watched in the movie. The main highlight of the making-of featurettes is Abigail Breslin complaining about how jealous she was of all the people in zombie make-up and how she begged the director constantly for her character to become a zombie in the end.

I’m giving Zombieland five stars on Netflix. It’s great. For the easily quesy among you, be forewarned the movie is very bloody right from the start. Looking back on it, the beginning of the movie seemed much more gory than the rest of the movie. Either they did a great mix of gore and humor throughout the film, or the they did a great job at desensitizing me to gore very quickly. Either way, kudos.
 

Batter up!

 
I think Bruce Springsteen sang it best:

Kids flash shotguns just like switchblades hustling for a Twinkie or two
The hungry and the hunted explode against the bat in his hand
They face off against each other out in the street
Down in Zom…bie…land

by

At The Theater #5: Youth in Revolt

I have a new favorite movie of the year, and it is Youth in Revolt. I’m really surprised that Youth in Revolt didn’t do better both financially and with critics. I thought this movie was hilarious and would label it a must-see. It is the story of Nick Twisp, a nice guy who can’t get the girl. Nick, played by Michael Cera, invents a new personality for himself named Francois Dillinger. Francois is everything that Nick isn’t, namely cool and more aggressive. He’s like a teenage Tyler Durden, compsenating for Nick’s shortcomings, sometimes to extremes.
Francois makes me almost want to reverse my stance on moustaches.
Francois does such a good job of transforming Nick that I wouldn’t be surprised if skinny white pants and pencil thin moustaches become the standard look for nerds trying to make a stand. At least it’s a better look than modeling yourself after Napoleon Dynamite. If you’ve got $800 to spare and a yearning to really wear Michael Cera’s clothes, you can buy the whole Francois outfit package here. But you could probably also by the same outfit for 1/10 that price at H&M too.
The new look for bad boy nerds?

I think that Youth in Revolt will be remembered as the movie where Michael Cera stopped being so Michael Cera-like. There’s plenty of Michael Cera being Michael Cera for anyone who can’t enough of Michael Cera’s trademark awkwardness. Nick Twisp is basically George Michael Bluth or Paulie Bleeker. But Francois Dillinger definitely isn’t. He’s something new, and if you’ve grown a little tired of Michael Cera being Michael Cera, this is definitely worth seeing.
I was really happy to see Adhir Kalyan show up, playing Nick’s school friend Vijay Joshi. I was fan of his short lived TV series Aliens in America, so it was cool to see him here. In their first scene together, Nick and Vijay don’t look too dissimilar from Justin and Raj from Aliens in America, except Justin never had a Francois Dillinger and Vijay isn’t quite as pure as Raj.
I miss this show.
Jean Smart is really carving a place for herself as the go to actress for white trash moms. Her role as Nick’s mother Michelle is almost identical to her role as Mark’s mom in Garden State. I half expected Jim Parsons to show up in a full suit of armor because her two roles were so similar.
The worst part of Youth in Revolt was the previews beforehand. Wow, there are some seriously bad looking movies making their way to a theater near you in the near future. The previews were so bad that I started being worried about the movie I was about to see. Most of them were unmemorable, with the exception of Repo, whose preview was too bad to forget. I seriously doubt I’ll be writing about that movie this year.
I saw Youth in Revolt at the Regal Cinemas Union Square 14.  A note to the frugal, on Mondays all candy is only $1 and if you buy a large soda anytime, you can get free refills. Another note to the frugal, movies here are $12.50, which might kill your candy and soda budget.

Have you seen a good movie lately? Hit me up with the title, because the pickings look pretty slim right now. My plan is to see the An Education this coming week and maybe The Hurt Locker the following week. But after that? Hopefully not Repo.