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Labels: Amanda Peet, Emily Blunt, film, Jack Black, Jason Segel, movie trailer

As a rule I loathe films with Jack Black. I know the man has his fans, I ain’t one of em’. If I want to see an out of shape, unwashed guy act kooky I’ll ask my brother-in-law about politics. I don't think there is a film with Jack Black that I have enjoyed, until now.

Along with my rule about films with Jack Black, I have another regarding non-Pixar animated movies – in short, they stink. Pixar revolutionized big budget animated movies and have established the measure for the genre. Animated movies now fit into two categories, 1) Pixar movies forgettable animated crap. This is the first animated film (except Wallace & Gromit) made in the last twenty that has made it into the first group from the second. The story centers around a bumbling Chinese panda named Po. Po dreams of fighting alongside his heroes Furious Five -- Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. Predictably enough, he gets his chance when he is accidentally chosen to join their ranks and do battle with the villainous snow leopard Tai Lung. The plot isn’t brilliant; actually it is rather paint-by-the-numbers. The film works because of the clever dialog and animation. The script by former King of the Hill writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger is lighthearted yet smart. The cast, which includes Black along with Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Ian McShane and Seth Rogen is given plenty of space to perform and they each deliver. I have to admit that even Jack Black gives an impressive performance as Po. As much as I hate to admit it, he was the best choice for the role.

A majority of animated films, despite that they are made to be viewed by small children, are loaded down with sexual innuendos, political agendas and scatological jokes. This film avoids those traps and delivers a solid, family friendly film worthy of your consideration.




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Labels: Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, film, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, movie review, Seth Rogen

Screenwriters: Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg and Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters)
Director: Harold Ramis (Bedazzled)
Actors: Jack Black (Be Kind Rewind) and Michael Cera (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist)

Labels: comedy, film, Harold Ramis, Jack Black, Michael Cera, movie trailer

I have a number of complaints about this film and hardly any praise. The broadest complaint I cast at this production is that it is simply not funny. The jokes are heavy handed and buried in self-referential smugness and/or so blatantly intended to be edgy they come off as sophomoric pranks. The film follows a group of self involved actors and a director into the depths of a Vietnamese jungle as they attempt to shoot an improvised war film. When the director is killed by a landmine the actors are left to fend for themselves. Still thinking the film is loaded with special effects and extras, the actors are in reality attacked by drug runners. Essentially, this is The Three Amigos without the plotting.

The biggest problem with the film is sloppiness. It is just messy. The scenes trail on for too long and stumble over obvious attempts at industry in-jokes. When they're not busy with their self-mockery the cast doesn't have anything to do. Their characters are very flat so when it comes time to pull on their conflicts to create comedy the results are hobbled by a lack of depth. This pushes the cast (Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Junior, Jack Black, Steve Coogan, and Jay Baruchel) to improvise, a task they are clearly not up to completing. With the exception of Robert Downey, everyone fumbles about like their stuck in the trailing moments of a poorly executed Saturday Night Live skit. They appear to be sticking to humorless vein attempting to find something to deliver and coming up dry. Downey only succeeds to be interesting because of his portrayal of an white Australian pretending to be an African American. This isn't funny but it gives him something to play off of. An example of this fumbling is seen directly following the death of the film's director when he steps on a landmine. His body is decimated by the explosion. In the scene action-movie star Tugg Speedman (Stiller) is convinced that the horrible death he's just witnessed is fake. He locates the director's decapitated head and holds it up for the other actors to see. He proclaims that its all movie magic. He then reaches into the shredded neck of the dead man's head and licks the blood from his fingers. To push things further, Stiller then pulls out the guts from the neck and head while claiming it is a fake head. To push things even further he puts the dead man's head on the butt of his gun. This is all intended to be funny. The whole movie is like this scene. No creativity, no genuine humor, just a bunch of careless elites trying to be edgy and over-the-top.

Beyond the lack of humor and the abundance of clumsy crassness, there are some other very serious issues that need to be addressed. When the film was released there was an outcry from advocacy groups for the intellectually impaired. I wrote about the controversy here. Having worked with the mentally retarded for years, knowing the families of mentally challenged people and seeing the effects of people's bigotry against the handicapped, I take the subject rather seriously. The film hit controversy because of a slew of jokes surrounding one of Tugg Speedman's films called Simple Jack. In this fake film, we see the trailer in the movie, Speedman plays Jack a mentally retarded man who can speak with animals. Stiller is shown in the role chasing a butterfly with a hammer, and generally overplaying the retarded man role. I actually didn't take too much offense at this. It was meant to be offensive and meant to mock how Hollywood handles the mentally retarded. At one point they have Downey and Stiller talk about how actors don't go "full-retard" for roles, meaning they play a mentally challenged person but that person always has a special ability (Forrest Gump was a great runner, Rain Man was a genius at counting, etc.) This is very true. Where the film crosses the line, at least to me, is with Speedman's agent Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey.) Directly following a conversation focused directly on Simple Jack, right after we see the trailer, Peck is reminded that Speedman is attempting to adopt a child. Peck then grumbles that Speedman is lucky because "At least you get to choose yours. I'm stuck with mine." They then insert a picture of Peck and his son (below.)
The son is clearly shown as being mentally deficient in some capacity. In light of the discussion that directly preceded this shot the implication is heavy that the child is mentally challenged. In an age where people righteously proclaim that it is moral to abort mentally retarded children (Google Trig Palin and marvel at things you find) it is unbelievable to me they would stoop so low as to show a mentally challenged person and push the notion they are a terrible burden. I know families of the intellectually disabled, they love their family member as any other. People with disabilities are brutally treated still in this society and have been treated as less than human throughout our collective histories. This mockery is the lowest kind of humor people can get involved in. To push it further, the film ends with a shot of Peck and his son on a private jet. The son, bib around his neck stares blankly out the window (below.)


In post-production, the controversy was heating up. In the final credits they show the characters, freeze-frame on them and insert a graphic around their image. In the case of the son, they surround him with video-game aliens. In my opinion, this was done to suggest that the kid was simply mind-numbed from too much media. This was never acknowledged in the film, something they would have mentioned since it could have been used to play up some jokes. I believe they did this to try to remove the concept the boy was mentally retarded. Of course, most viewers won't make this connection and still walk away having laughed at a boy for being handicapped.

If this weren't enough, Stiller also mocks the memorable image from Oliver Stone's film Platoon. The image where Sgt. Elias is shot and as he dies thrusts his arms up to the sky in a Christ-like motion. This mockery is done a couple of times. Throughout the film, Stiller and company attempt to make fun of war film imagery and theatrics. The problem I have here is the root of that image. Stone pulled that image very carefully from a real event and used it in his film as a memorial. The original image comes from a 1968 photograph by Art Greenspon of a paratrooper of A Company, 101st Airborne assisting wounded and dying men. Perhaps I am being overly sensitive, but the mockery of real events such as this are disrespectful. You can say, well he's really mocking Stone's use of the image besides, no one is getting hurt. I understand that there are different ways to take the use of the image. I argue that it is bad taste and disrespectful.

Ultimately, this film is little more that a gaggle of careless people who have grown up in privilege (mostly) who devised a little piece of meta-fiction to mock the frivolity that surrounds them. In doing this however they also reveal an incredible disconnect with any sense of responsible behavior or decorum. I get they were trying to push the envelope, but we need to have standards. A society without standards is one that cannot stand for long. These men are the heirs of greater talents both in a familial sense and cinematic ally. Our culture has been handed over to reckless men who care little about the results of their actions and care even less to putting in the creative energy to deliver worthwhile product. I strongly advise skipping this film. It is not funny and even if someone is completely lacking moral judgment, offensive for no reason whatsoever beyond just to be offensive. Don't you have better things to do than to watch something like this?


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Labels: Ben Stiller, film, Jack Black, movie review, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Coogan

Short Review: It was difficult for me to see the film. I scratched my eyes out after seeing Jack Black without a shirt on in the first ten minutes.


I don’t like Jack Black’s routine. I think it is forced, and relies too heavily on mugging. I have an impulsive disdain for his projects due to my low opinion of his routine. I like to be up front when I have a bias. I come to this film grudgingly.

“It didn’t suck.” were the words my long-suffering wife exclaimed when the final credits began to roll. This is as fair of a review as I could scratch together in my activity deprived brain. It didn’t suck.

Converse to it not sucking, it wasn’t great either. This is a mild film that doesn’t produce laughs, but then again it doesn’t create yawns neither…either…wait, no it’s neither…I always get this piece of grammar screwed up. When in doubt, pretend like you know what you’re doing…it doesn’t create yawns either. This film comes from the Nickelodeon stable, so the production was tempered to fit the restrictions of family faire. I was left with the impression that this may have been the reason the film seemed so neutered. It’s like listening to someone wanting to tell a story in all of its glory but forced to edit themselves on-the-fly because kids are in the room.

Jack Black stars as Ignacio, a friar who works at an orphanage who dreams of becoming a great wrestler. Through a series of uninspired plot twists, Ignacio goes out on the wrestling circuit with his companion Esqueleto. The two follow the obvious trajectory and once you are in the film, you can guess what will happen next. The story is paint-by-numbers, leaving the audience with little or no surprises. Since the film doesn’t roll out the laughs we are left with a meek film with a few interesting nuggets and some smile inducing moments.

Black is solid in the lead and manages a good performance. Since his material is bland, his efforts are essentially lost. He reverts to his mugging routines at times, in fits of what can only be described as acting tourettes. He’s a Mexican monk with a slight accent and then he turns into a Southern Californian smart-mouth for a few seconds. It seemed like he would fall back into being Jack Black when he needed filler to complete his scenes. The remainder of the cast is good. Héctor Jiménez as Esqueleto is a calming counter part to Black’s more manic persona. Ignacio’s love interest is a sweet little nun played by Ana de la Reguera. De la Reguera answers the question, “What would Penélope Cruz look like if she were pretty?” Both Jiménez and de la Reguera do well and are not overshadowed by the upstaging Black.

Overall, this film is not a complete waste of time. Then again neither (either, darn which is it?) is cleaning the pan under your refrigerator. I can’t recommend this film; I can’t endorse it neither…either…darn! I give the film some credit however, it has some good morality and presents Christians in a relatively good light. It doesn’t mock the faith, as one would expect, in fact, it defends it. For this I have to lean towards a recommendation…without actually giving it.


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Labels: Ana de la Reguera, film, Jack Black, Jared Hess, movie review

Here's the latest foul deposit tugged out of Ben Stiller's cat box of comedy. Thanks to a string of coincidences a group of actors filming a war movie get caught up in a situation where they must act like soldiers. If this looks good to you just remember this was penned by Stiller who is also responsible for the cinematic blight Zoolander. This production seems to match Stiller's other offerings, a solid concept completely ruined by a lack of actually humorous jokes.

Movies about making movies are very rarely worth the effort. They are usually littered with inside jokes and shop talk and give the audience little to identify with. Maybe they'll pull this off but given Stiller's track record of making truly awful comedies, it doesn't seem very likely to me.



Screenwriter: Ben Stiller (Zoolander), Justin Theroux, and Ethan Cohen (Idiocracy)
Director: Ben Stiller (The Cable Guy)
Actors: Ben Stiller (Mystery Men), Jack Black (School of Rock), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Brandon T. Jackson (Envy), Steve Coogan (Night at the Museum), Nick Nolte (Weeds), Tom Cruise (Vanilla Sky), Tobey Macquire (Spider-Man), Matthew McConaughey (Sahara), and Mickey Rooney (Baby Face Nelson)

Labels: Ben Stiller, comedy, film, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, movie trailer, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Coogan, Tobey Macquire, Tom Cruise

I've always felt Dreamworks Animation has the sense of trying too hard. I consider them to be a poor man's Pixar. Where Pixar focuses on sharp stories and clever writing (The Incredibles, Finding Nemo), Dreamworks tries to match up by pulling out extensive cast lists and petty pop-cultural references (Over the Hedge, Shark Tale). Of course, you can have as many brand name actors as you want, but if your writing stinks so will your movie.

Hopefully, this outing will be different than what we've seen before...I see they've already pulled out the extensive cast list...

Labels: Angelina Jolie, animated, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen