POWER BALLAD****

Writer-director John Carney specialises in funny, heart-warming, music-centred films about ordinary people whose lives are transformed by song.  If that sounds schmaltzy and earnest, it is, and the world is better for it.  His latest movie is a genuinely delightful genuinely laugh-out-loud funny film called POWER BALLAD.  

It stars as Paul Rudd as an ageing wedding band musician whose music is ripped off by Nick Jonas' former boy bander who needs a hit to turn his career around.  So Rudd's character and his best mate and band mate Sandy (co-writer Peter McDonald) go to LA to confront the musician and get paid.  The moral of the story is that real love, real family, real friends matter more than success but that most people haven't got the emotional depth to realise it.  I laughed a lot - McDonald's Sandy is iconic - but it also got a little dusty in the cinema at the end. A good time was had by all!

POWER BALLAD has a running time of 98 minutes and is rated R. It is on limited release in the UK and USA.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE*

The original 1984 GHOSTBUSTERS was a thing of perfection - inventive, hilarious, perilous, epic, buddy-bromance intimate. For decades, people have been trying and failing to resurrect its unique magic, not least SATURDAY NIGHT's Jason Reitman - son of the guy who directed the original.

Unfortunately, FROZEN EMPIRE is no exception to the sucky sequel rule.  It's a bloated film, both in terms of characters and running time, with disappointingly few moments of levity and no actual jump scares. 

In this contemporary retelling Egon Spengler's daughter (Carrie Coon - The Gilded Age) has taken over the family business with her two kids and partner (Paul Rudd).  There's a plot line about how hard it is to be a bonus dad and how the teenage daughter's only pal is a ghost in what may or may not be a queer relationship.  Meanwhile, a MacGuffin owned by some guy played by Kumail Nanjiani is about to unleash hell on earth and only the old school ghostbusters can stop it.  Ray (Dan Ackroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) - now conveniently rich - do most of the heavy lifting here. We get a cameo from Bill Murray as Venkman and that's literally the only scene that's actually funny. Kumail Nanjiani tries, but he can't carry a film this bloated on his own.

Enough already.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released in March 2024.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM*****

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM blew me away with its wonderfully grungy, plasticine-y, incredibly dynamic animation style; its hilariously funny script; its ridiculously impressive voice cast; its 90s nostalgia; and its heart-felt debate about whether mutants can ever be accepted by humans (echoes of X-MEN). Kudos to debut directors Kyler Spears and Jeff Rowe, and screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, for creating something so genuinely compelling, that deserves to spoken of in the same breath as SPIDERVERSE. Five stars FTW!

The movie starts with our teenange mutant protagonists living in hiding in New York, under the tutelage of their ninja rat daddy voiced by JACKIE CHAN!!!! He suffered rejection from humans and just wants to keep his kids safe. So they are left pining for real High School life, absurdly informed by watching FERRIS BUELLER at a drive-thru, and wondering whether if they came out of hiding to help people with their mad skills, humans would accept them.

Lucky for us they get a chance to test out their theory.  They meet April O'Neill, their wannabe journalist ally, here recast as a young African-American teenager with glasses, smarts, and a penchant for chundering on air. Together they realise that the person terrorising New York is an evil scientist (Maya Rudolph) who wants to take their Precious Bodily Fluids and create even more mutants. She and her  evil henchman (Ice-T) will then assert mutant dominance over humans for good.

I absolutely loved the knowing pop-culture references, the funny dialogue, and the genuine feeling of camaraderie I felt among the turtles. I genuinely felt that Jackie Chan's rat was their surrogate dad and that they loved each other.  The whole thing was clever, knowing but also just wonderfully uplifting.  Honestly, I wouldn't change a frame and really hope this is the first in a franchise.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM has a running time of 99 minutes and is rated PG. It was released in early August.

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP

I'm so far behind on Marvel movies it's an embarrassment but I blame peak TV and the relentless churning out of these rather similar films.  In catching up I had all my worst fears confirmed with this ANT-MAN sequel.  Paul Rudd returns as the smart-ass superhero in the ant suit - a kind of cut rate IRON MAN or DEADPOOL.  Why do all superhero movies now have to have a wise-ass hero?  Evangeline Lily returns as his partner/romantic interest, THE WASP.  Both are working to rescue her mum slash Michael Douglas' ex-Shield scientist's wife, played by an almost scarily well preserved Michelle Pfeiffer, trapped in some super-magical alt-realm.  Problem is, there's an evil baddie woman after them - out for vengeance - and only magical mum can save her.   

What then follows is a movie that self-consciously tries to tug on our heart strings.  Isn't Paul Rudd cute playing a hands-on father?!  Isn't it so adorable how he co-parents with his lovely ex (Judy Greer) and her huggable hubby (Bobby Canavale)?!  Isn't it cute how Michael Douglas' scientist joshes his daughter and Antman about getting together. Isn't it entirely predictable that  Laurence Fishburne's evil villain scientist is actually rather decent and that magic-mum is gonna cure the vengeful baddie who isn't gonna be that bad after all?

In other words, this is a really banal anodyne film, film of try-hard goofy humour and self-conscious feel-good vibes. The action sequences are predictably CGI driven, dull and silly. That said, Paul Rudd is funny doing his Paul Rudd thing and Michael Pena as his side-kick is funny too.  Just not enough to justify a two-hour run-time.

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP has a running time of 118 minutes, is rated PG-13 and is available to rent and own.

SAUSAGE PARTY

SAUSAGE PARTY is a very funny very smutty animated comedy by the team that brought you THE INTERVIEW and PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen make R rated comedies that contain a lot of truth and some things you just can't believe are being put on screen.  To wit, they have a Holocaust joke in the opening 3 minutes of this film, the first of many, liberal use of the C word, and a plot that basically hinges on a radical atheistic debunking of religion and breaking the fourth wall.

The conceit is that all the characters are foodstuffs being sold in a supermarket.  They believe that the Great Beyond lies on the other side of the supermarket doors, with benevolent Gods (humans) caring for them in paradise. The drama begins when a jar of mustard is returned and reveals the shocking truth that humans EAT food.  This prompts our hero and heroine, a sausage and a bun, to escape their trolley and go in search of the real story from a bottle of fire-water and his baked side-kicks.  Meanwhile, another hot dog is trying to find his way back to the store and stumbles onto some handy scientific knowledge from a Stephen Hawking-style piece of gum.

ANT-MAN

ANT-MAN.  Gotta admit, not a massive comic book fan, never heard of him.  But, seeing how great Marvel have been in reviving properties and having loved GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY despite no prior knowledge of the characters, I had high hopes. And with Paul Rudd cast in the lead role, I was expecting a similarly fun-filled, effects heavy action movie. But no. While ANT-MAN is certainly full of special effects and enhances and extends the Marvel Universe, it's the most unmemorable entry in the franchise. This is actually quite an achievement given that it stars Michael Douglas who retains his charisma.  But the problem is that the movie just isn't funny  - and in not being funny it wastes Paul Rudd. Worse still, the movie isn't interesting. It feels like it's being played exactly by the book with nothing new, nothing subversive, no real chemistry between any of the characters.  All of this made sense when I recalled that ANT-MAN was originally meant to be written and directed by Edgar Wright - a script that Joss Whedon called the best Marvel movie ever.

THEY CAME TOGETHER

THEY CAME TOGETHER is a high quality spoof of the romantic-comedy genre from writer-director David Wain (ROLE MODELS) and Michael Showalter. It stars Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler as the lovers and features comedians of the calibre of Ed Helms, Bill Hader and Jack McBryer (30 ROCK). It comes out of the gate strong - absolutely nailing every cliche of every dumbass Jennifer Aniston or Katherine Heigl movie you've ever seen.  "New York is almost another character in the story" leading to those opening credits where a helicopter sweeps over the city on a bright sunny morning. The romantic lead Joel (Rudd) is a nice guy with a bitch girlfriend who he catches cheating.  He has close friends who fit all the stereotypes - the married one with kids, the dickhead womaniser who isn't as hot as he thinks he is - and as they rightly point on the basketball court - he needs to combine all their strengths to win!  Meanwhile, the romantic heroine Molly (Amy) is a classic manic pixie-dreamgirl in the Zoe Deschanel mould - running a cutesy shop threatened by evil corporates where, you got it!, Joel works. They meet cute at a party, and ultimately get over their immediate antipathy.

As I said, the film is absolutely spot on in how it skewers lazy rom-com screenwriting. Let's be honest - has there been a good romantic comedy since WHEN HARRY MET SALLY?   And it's absolutely the right choice for all the actors to play it straight.  But even with the short running time of the film (80 minutes) it still got pretty boring and felt a bit like an SNL skit stretched beyond itself.  The movie didn't run out of steam but I did.

THEY CAME TOGETHER has a running time of 83 minutes and is rated R in the USA.  The movie played Sundance 2014 and was released earlier this year in the USA and Canada. It went on release in the UK and Ireland this weekend.

THIS IS THE END

THIS IS THE END is a ludicrously indulgent comedy made by the folks who brought you PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, and less impressively, SUPERBAD. It basically features a group of real life Hollywood actors and comedians - Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson - who are partying at Franco's house when the Apocalypse begins.  The movie sees them whole up in house while the world goes to shit, until they're forced out to face their final judgement.   The actors all play fictionalised versions of themselves, which allows screenwriters and directors Evan Goldberg and Rogen to satirise Hollywood excess and solipsism. I loved this opening act, with its sly in-jokes about the actors' box office failures and each actors' media persona.  James Franco is game, allowing references to rumours that he's gay, although I thought the depiction of Michael Cera as a coke-head was just bizarre rather than actually funny.  And even after they hole up in Franco's house, I liked the idea that these guys would have absolutely no survival skills, but would amuse themselves by Sweding a PINEAPPLE EXPRESS sequel.

The intellectual problem with THIS IS THE END is its hypocrisy.  It's a movie that satirises the naval-gazing self-indulgence of Hollywood, but is itself something of an indulgent vanity project.  One can only hope that the writers were aware of this, but I detected more self-congratulation that rapier-like wit in their puppyish joy at inflicting the Backstreet Boys on the audience.  The more basic problem with THIS IS THE END is the uneven pacing and narrative drift that settles in when, well, the main characters settle in to Fort Franco.  To be sure, the movie gets an adrenaline shot to the heart in a superbly executed cameos from a deranged Emma Watson (how much more piquant than the more obvious first casting choice of Mila Kunis!) and Channing Tatum in a gimp suit.  But once the crew are holed up, there's literally not much to do other than bitch about how Danny McBride is selfishly eating all the food, and drawing straws for expeditions to forage for food. Oh, and a momentarily amusing but basically weak-ass EXORCIST spoof. The screenwriters have to clumsily force the crew outside just to bring the movie to a close, and the quite literal deus ex machina feels very weak and forced.  For religious groups to be offended is laughable - it gives the film too much credit.  I was far less offended by the notion that there's weed in heaven, than by having to listen to the Backstreet Boys.

So, THIS IS THE END is no SUPERBAD or YOUR HIGHNESS - offensive and puerile - nor is it THE GUILT TRIP - quite simply unfunny and tedious.  It has its moments, and  I certainly laughed out loud more than once.   In fact, I still laugh out loud when I think of the word "gluten".  But this is no instant cult classic a la PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, I can't help but wish that instead of this uneven film we'd had a genuine EXPRESS sequel with a properly honed script, characters I could fall in love with, and real narrative tension.

THIS IS THE END is on release in the USA, Canada, Jamaica and New Zealand. It opens on June 8th in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Vietnam. It opens on July 5th in Iceland, Portugal and Estonia; on July 18th in Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore and Uruguay; on August 1st in Greece; on August 8th in Croatia and Ecuador; on August 16th in Colombia; on August 22nd in Hungary, Israel and Austria and on August 29th in Germany and the Netherlands. It opens on September 5th in Slovakia and Slovenia; on September 11th in Egypt, France and Switzerland, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Syria, the UAE, Latvia, Poland, Romania, South Africa and Turkey; on September 18th in Belgium, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Ukraine, Kenya, Lithuania, and Nigeria; on September 27th in Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil, Bulgaria, Finland, and Norway. It opens in India on October 4th; in Sweden on October 25th; in Denmark on November 14th; in Chile on November 28th; in Venezuela on November 29th and in Peru on December 5th.

THIS IS THE END is rated R in the USA and has a running time of 107 minutes.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is a handsomely made, well-acted and sporadically insightful coming-of-age movie set in early 1990s Pittsburgh, and based on an apparently cult novel.  Adapted for the screen and directed by the author, Stephen Chbosky, the movie stars Logan Lerman (THE THREE MUSKETEERS) as Charlie, the eponymous wallflower, who is saved from High School wretchedness by the step-siblings Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller).  These older teens have a comfort in their own non-comformity that inspires a starstruck Charlie - they delight in performing in midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Patrick is comfortable in his homosexuality.  Their friendship enables Charlie to start dating, face his feelings for Sam, and the reasons for his mental fragility.  

What I love about this film is the empathy and honesty it shows to issues of teenage sexuality, drug use, sexual and physical abuse.  It does so without feeling like a TV special, forced or contrived, and has a kind of delicate intimacy to it.  I can see why so many kids have responded so strongly to the book.  The only quibbles I have are with how underdeveloped the character of the sympathetic schoolteacher, played by Paul Rudd, is, and how such achingly hip kids wouldn't have already heard David Bowie's Heroes. 

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER played Toronto 2012 and is on release in Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Russia, the UAE, the USA, the Philippines, Aruba, Canada, Ireland and the UK. It opens on October 9th in Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and the USA; on October 18th in China, Hong Long, Israel, Brazil and Colombia; on October 25th in the Netherlands, Serbia and Mexico; on November 1st in India, Austria, Germany and Finland; on November 9th in Peru and Norway; on November 22nd in Portugal; on November 29th in Argentina and Australia; on December 7th in Uruguay; on December 13th in Greece and Ecuador, on December 28th in South Africa; on January 2nd in Belgium and France; on January 17th in Chile and Latvia; on February 7th in Bolivia and Spain; on February 14th in Italy; on February 21st in Croatia and on April 4th in New Zealand. 

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER has a running time of 102 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA. 

HOW DO YOU KNOW

HOW DO YOU KNOW is a truly execrable relationship drama that was, for some reason, marketed as a light-hearted romantic comedy. Reese Witherspoon plays a pro soft-ball player cut from the national team as she turns thirty - a move that sends her into a life crisis.  She simply doesn't know whether she wants to be a normal girl with a boyfriend and eventually a baby, let alone who she wants to be with. The choices are Owen Wilson's wealthy but promiscuous pro sportsman and Paul Rudd's earnest but hapless failed businessmen. Hardly a great set of options.  Cue lots of sex with the pro sportsmen, lots of wannabe quirky-cute conversations with the failed businessmen, and a lot of really really boring scenes in which unlikeable narcissists ruminate on how shitty their lives are, all the time in perfectly designed rooms with perfectly quaffed hair.  Witherspoon is mawkish; Rudd is mawkish; and Wilson plays that charming rogue character he always plays.  But no-one is more ill-used than Jack Nicholson.  Where's the emotional insight and wry wit of James L Brooks' AS GOOD AS IT GETS?  Where's the real heart of James L Brooks' THE SIMPSONS.  Poor, poor, poor.

HOW DO YOU KNOW is on release in the US, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Egypt, France, Ireland, Spain and the UK. It opens in February in Estonia, Australia, Kazakhstan, Peru, Russia, Bulgaria, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Argentina, Hungary, Israel, Iceland and Lithuania. It opens in March in Belgium, Kuwait, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, the Philippines, Poland and Norway. It opens on April 29th in Brazil.

I LOVE YOU, MAN - lame

Another day, another piss-poor Hollywood comedy. Do not be fooled by a cast list including members of hit comedies like ROLE MODELS (Paul Rudd) and FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (Jason Segel). This movie is tame, formulaic and just plain dull.

Paul Rudd plays against character as a dorky metrosexual who discovers, pre-wedding, that he doesn't actually have any close guy friends. He turns to his gay brother (Andy Samberg) for advice, a character presumably only written into the movie to defuse any puerile quips from the audience. Eventually, the dork meets a cool guy (Jason Segel), they hang out, the fiancee gets jealous, people argue in an attempt to create some dramatic tension, but it all ends happily.

Jason Segel seems like a genuinely likeable guy. It would be good to see him in more flicks. Paul Rudd is over-exposed. And he also needs to stick to his core strength, which is being a dead-pan wise-ass rather than a low-self-esteem metrosexual. The only thing that kept me from falling asleep was an early cameo from J K Simmons. 

Seriously disappointing.

I LOVE YOU, MAN is on release in the US, Iceland, Romania and the UK. It opens next week in Australia, Germany, Hungary, Brazil, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Mexico and Spain. It opens on May 15th in Italy; on May 28th in the Netherlands and New Zealand; on June 4th in the Czech Republic; on June 11th in Belgium, Argentina, Portugal, Russia, Norway, Sweden and Turkey. It opens in Singapore on June 18th; in Chile on July 9th; in Denmark on July 10th; in France on July 29th; and in Finland on August 7th.

MONSTERS VS ALIENS - nothing special

MONSTERS VS ALIENS is a rather didactic, sporadically funny CGI animated film from DREAMWORKS - the studio that brought you SHREK. In contrast to SHREK, the incessant pop-culture references have been toned down, as have the fart jokes. Indeed, this movie makes a stab at being sweet and relying on old-fashioned physical humour in the manner of PIXAR movies. What hasn't changed is the classic DREAMWORKS didactisim. If SHREK is all about not being superficial and having self-esteem, MONSTERS VS ALIENS reads as a proto-feminist tract on female self-empowerment. Now, I'm the last person to object to such material, but it should at least be leavened by a steady stream of jokes. And on that score, MONSTERS VS ALIENS is well behind MONSTERS INC or THE INCREDIBLES, if not as out and out dull as BOLT 3D.

Reese Witherspoon is typically charming and engaging as Susan - a woman transformed in size and strength when hit by a meteor. She is sequestered by the government with other monsters, renamed Ginormica and asked to take-on an alien invasion by Gallaxhar, who covets her new powers. The movie is about Susan learning to embrace her strength and not to underestimate herself. It's also about her dumping her callow boyfriend (Paul Rudd) who can't cope with dating a woman who is more famous and powerful.

Where the movie does well is in its set-piece action sequences. I also loved Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie and Will Arnett as the Monsters; Rainn Wilson as Gallaxhar and, most of all, Kiefer Sutherland as General W.R.Monger. I was less impressed by Stephen Colbert as President Hathaway (although that may have been due to his part being under-written - the scene where the President greets the alien probe is painfully unfunny.) But my biggest criticism is that the movie's moral message was just very heavy-handed and got in the way of the fun.

Finally, a quick word on the increased use of 3D. This movie uses 3D in the old fashioned "stuff coming out of the screen at you" manner rather than the pretentious "immersive" technique used in BOLT. I'm not convinced that either add anything to the movie-going experience. Rather, aren't we all convinced that it's just a cynical ploy to foil the pirates? The only recent movie I've seen where 3D actually enhanced the experience was Gil Kennan's brilliant MONSTER HOUSE.

MONSTERS VS ALIENS is on release in on global release.

ROLE MODELS - genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny

ROLE MODELS is funnier than PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (though I laughed my ass off watching that flick). Funnier than TROPIC THUNDER. Way funnier than FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL and KNOCKED UP. It's the kind of movie that has fast-paced verbal wit that is genuinely driven by the situation that the characters are in. It also has beautiful little touches of physical humour. So much so that I can't wait to see it again and catch up on all the little asides that I missed the first time round.

The plot is simple and definitely contrived. Two feckless thirty-somethings screw up at their job (using the guise of anti-drug talks in schools to push energy drinks) and are sentenced to 150 hours community service. They end up mentoring two kids - one a geeky medieval role-playing game fanatic - the other a foul-mouthed kid full of attitude. That's pretty much it! But from this simpled meet-not-so-cute, writers Paul Rudd, David Wain, Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling carve a movie so funny, and in a way, so true-to-life, it's brilliant.

Take Paul Rudd's character Danny. He's painfully recognisable. He's the kind of guy who gets to 35 and realises he has a crap job and no direction and that his being smart hasn't really gotten him anywhere. He acts out by picking people up on things like putting words in quotation marks or using phrases like "asap" or "fyi". But this pernickety superiority merely serves to make him even more angry, and to alienate his long-suffering girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks). I'm guessing that a lot of people are going to relate to his character.

It's Danny who ends up having a mini-breakdown that land him and his friend and co-worker Wheeler (Seann William Scott in the kind of role - cocksure, none too smart side-kick, that he excels at) into community service. Danny and Wheeler - both work the verbal comedy route brilliantly, but they're acted off the screen by Jane Lynch as the creepy ex-crack whore, Gayle, who runs the mentoring programme ("Me and the judge have a special relationship... I don't wanna get too graphic but I sucked his dick for drugs." and Bobb'e J Thompson who plays Wheeler's mentee, Ronnie ("Suck it, "Reindeer Games"!") As the movie progresses, Wheeler and Ronnie form a bond over their common love of boobies.

Danny takes longer to bond with his geeky mentee Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) but in the end the feel-good factor and character development comes from this storyline. Danny learns to actually be positive and try something that seems weird, joining Augie in his medieval role-playing games. Danny defends Augie's weirdness to his truly awful parents, and in the process ires the RPG King Argotron (Ken Jeong) who banishes Augie. (In fact, you could make a case for Ken Jeong as the best actor in the movie with his subtle physical ticks - watch him finger Paul Rudd's face as Danny kisses King Argotron's hand. Pure Comedy Gold!) The final scenes centre heavily on how far Danny and Wheeler come to accept their responsibility as mentors, and how far they'll go to stand by their kids.

What more can I say? ROLE MODELS may sound contrived but it contains grains of human truth. Better still, it contains the funniest lines and delivery since PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. I can't wait to watch it again!

ROLE MODELS is on release in the US, Australia and the UK. It opens on January 1th in Croatia; on January 23rd in Iceland and Norway; in Spain on January 30th; in France on February 4th; in Estonia on February 6th; in Germany on February 26th; in the Netherlands on March 12th; in Finland and Sweden on March 20th; in Brazil on March 27th and in Italy on May 22nd.

Overlooked DVD of the month - I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN

I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN is a very witty satire at the expense of the superficiality of TV studio execs, played out in the form of a romantic comedy. It features a star cast including Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Rudd and Saiorse Ronan, who went on to win acclaim for her role in ATONEMENT. British comedy fans will be delighted with cameos from Graham Norton and Mackenzie Crook. And yet, this film went straight to video in the UK.

I have no idea why this movie bombed. I found it really hillarious, spot-on in its social critique and pretty insightful about how men and women approach ageing. Pfeiffer plays a forty something TV exec who writes a teen sitcom in the manner of SAVED BY THE BELL. She's trying to "moisturize her way back to her twenties" and believes that by wearing a Ramones t-shirt and maintaining her college weight she can fight off the ageing proces. Paul Rudd plays the twenty something cast-member who tries to date her. Already, you've got a movie that takes the piss out of the fact that all the supposed teens on US TV are actually married with kids. And then you have the meta critique with Rudd and Pfeiffer playing people ten years younger than they are.

All I can say is, that this movie is definitely worth seeking out. It far surpasses all those Judd Apatow movies on the laugh-out-loud-o-meter. If you liked CLUELESS or KNOCKED UP - this is one for you!

I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN opened in Spain, Belgium, Greece, Brazil, Turkey, Poland, the Netherlands, Russia, Hungary, Estonia, Indonesia and Israel in 2007. It opened earlier in 2008 in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and Mexico. It went straight to video in the US and UK.

Al's review of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is the latest romantic-comedy to bear the thumb-print of Judd Apatow (KNOCKED UP, THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN). In true Apatow-style, a geek is dumped by his gorgeous girlfriend. He goes on holiday to forget her, only to land up in the same hotel as her and her ludicrous new boyfriend, a Brit rocker played by Russell Brand. Despite Judd Apatow's involvement, this movie is basically a debutante effort, from director Nicholas Stoller and writer-lead actor Jason Segel. So, let's check out what Al, our Asia-Pac correspondent, makes of it all.....

As screenwriter, Jason Segel's idea of a story is to basically make it as complicated as possible. There's hardly a moment in the story anyone pauses to genuinely think: they're all swaggering around in this giant move-about because something new happens every five minutes. A whole lot of noise: not much meaning.

It's not all bad. Some of the jokes worked, but for every one of those you had 20 stinker gags seriously testing an already bored and quiet audience. You get a heap of low ones like "You sound like the women on Rock of Love-"I'll KILL YOU"-jokes like these seriously question whether there were any standards when it came to writing jokes for the film. The best jokes were no doubt the small ones-slipped into conversations and having little to do with anything. When Segel aims big or tries to pull off situational comedy, I couldn't help flinching, thinking that maybe I had inadvertently walked into a bad Ben Stiller film.

Most of the characters are self-absorbed and obnoxious loudmouths. Jonah Hill & Jack McBrayer (who plays Kenneth in 30 Rock) gave bewilderingly humorless performances and were painful to watch. Plus it didn't look like they were enjoying themselves either. Kristen Bell (who played Veronica Mars brilliantly throughout its 3-season run) is totally devoid of sex appeal in this supposedly sexual role,and is frustratingly whiny and tool-like (appearing right when Segel seems to have come to terms with the break-up, just to inspire another "hilarious" love run-around. Jason Segel himself seems determined to thoroughly humiliate himself for humor, constantly doing dumb things to get the story going (often into new territory). The only characters inspiring real laughs were Paul Rudd's light-headed surfer and Russell Brand's pompous Brit rocker who were both consistently funny and entertaining.

With the amount of comedy talent attached, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL should've come out soaring, but the script's limp brand of humor was a damning curse - often immature and just plain unfunny. Also,the way the film goes bulldozing past things and never once considers developing on anything (that past 90 minutes, so many things have happened but it feels like story hasn't taken off). With a loose sense of purpose and no set of bearings, it falls way off the mark and doesn't come close to the ranks of Judd Appatow's previous efforts.

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL was released this weekend in Australia, Iceland and the USA. It opens next weekend in Hungary, Russia, Estonia and the UK. It opens in May in Norway and Sweden; in June in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Spain; in July in the Netherlands, Denmark and Singapore; in August in Turkey and Mexico and in Argentina in September.

Crimes Against Cinema 2: WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is a deeply unfunny spoof of portentious rock-star biopics like WALK THE LINE, RAY and DREAMGIRLS. Instead of intelligently ridiculing the genre, it lazily re-creates key moments and relies on audience recognition to raise a chuckle. And if all else fails, why not resort to something as crude as full frontal male nudity? The only sketch that is remotely funny is when the Beatles, here played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman and Justin Long, have a punch up in the Maharishi's tent. Other than that, the sketches are pretty obvious and lame. How funny is it to hear Dewey's dad say "the wrong kid died" a million times? The only thing that saves this flick from the seventh circle of hell is the music. The lyrics are spot on and John C Reilly is absolutely brilliant in his pastiches of everyone from Cash to Dylan.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is currently playing in USA, South Korea and the UK. It opens in Australia later in January and in Iceland, Singapore and Germany in February. It opens in Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, Russia and Italy in March and in Norway, Argentina, Estonia and Finland in April.

Justifiably overlooked DVD of the month - RENO 9-11 MIAMI

Let's give RENO 911 MIAMI the benefit of the doubt and say that it's the latest in a long line of funny TV shows that spawn pathetically unfunny movies. In fairness, I've never seen the Comedy Central original but judging from the movie it's a sort of mockumentary about ineffectual rozzers in Reno. The ne plus ultra of this genre is, I suppose, THE OFFICE, which creates genuine humour from close observation of the minutiae of real life. It's so close to reality that it actually makes you cringe. RENO 911 MIAMI, on the other hand, is very broad and rather lazy in its humour. Instead of exposing the little habits of the ordinary people we work with, the movie creates freakish stereotypes. And the stereotypes are very dated and borderline offensive. So, we have the supposedly hillarious concept that a camp gay man could be a cop. We have a sub-Carry On "joke" about a slutty, big-chested female cop. The hispanic characters is "obviously" a drug-dealing Tony Montana spoof. And we have a black woman wearing a prosthetic big ass. I mean, seriously people, did the 1990s never happen?

RENO 911 MIAMI was released in the US, USA, Australa, New Zealand, Spain, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Singapore earlier this year. It is available on DVD.

KNOCKED UP - best comedy of 2007?

This review is brought to you by guest reviewer Al, who can usually be found here.

This is the kind of movie you'll miss due to it drowning in the inevitable over-hype for other blockbuster films released at the same time (I'm looking at you, Homer,) only for you to watch it on a lazy Saturday afternoon years later after discovering a dvd copy of it by accident somewhere in your house, or actually running out to get one because you're done hearing bloody Al rave endlessly about KNOCKED UP and you want to see for yourself if it's all that good.

As far as comedies go, I usually walk in with relatively low expectations. The usual culprits are uninteresting one-dimensional characters with superficial problems; formulaic, paper-thin stories littered with holes (all overlooked, if only for the sake of a good joke), and aside from the exceptionally hilarious BORAT, I can't think of a comedy I've seen in the past two or three years that's managed to stick in my mind. Things look grim for the comedy genre - the current trend shows a surge of popularity for sick and unfunny parodies (EPIC MOVIE, SCARY MOVIE 1 thr 4), your once-adorable-but-now-deplorable-and-exhaustively-unimaginative-comedy-archetypes: be it another wide-eyed, narcissistic Will Ferrell character or supposedly cute and loveable animated creation carrying with it a script of terminally dull gags (SHREK 3, CHICKEN LITTLE) - all films destined to end up in the massive black hole of forgettable comedies that should've never existed.

Which is why Judd Apatow's new film comes off fresh and genuinely amusing. The characters here are fleshed out and human. The problems they face and situations that occur don't simply function as a disposable platform for the writers to throw in a couple of mild jokes but are actually driving the story forward. The writers are brave enough to introduce and clever enough to delicately manage some pretty mature themes (pregnancy, questions about abortion, marital problems etc.). At the same time, they never abandon the film's persistent spirit of comedy.

More importantly, anyone who's been in a relationship would appreciate and understand how the film deals with both the male & female perspective without seeming biased towards either, and it's interesting to see such things dealt subjectively for once. Likewise, none of the characters are written to be more or less favourable but are three-dimensional. This stands in contrast to how certain comedies tend to label 'good' and 'bad' characters from the get-go. As a result it's not only an immensely enjoyable comedy, but an intelligent story that encourages the audience to think and participate, as opposed to simply turning their brains off the whole time.

Not to say it doesn't stumble a couple of times. For one, all that realism preceding the final 20 minutes is ultimately phased out in favour of a sweet ending that I would personally change. Katherine Heigl has the smile of a goddess but overacts a little and it would've been terrific to give the film a good soundtrack. And I would give Micheal Cera a small cameo at least (as if the fact that half of the now all grown-up cast of Freaks & Geeks is in there isn't cool enough). But those are strictly minor complaints and there were plenty of times I had to catch my breath from laughing so hard. Certainly one of the best comedies I've seen in a long, long, long time.

Jay: I'm going to be there to rear your child.
Jason: You hear that, Ben? Don't let him near the kid, he wants to rear your child!
.....
Ben: Do you want to do it doggie style?
Alison: You're not going to fuck me like a dog.
Ben: It's doggie style. We don't have to go outside or anything.
.....
P.S: Don't try googling 'Knocked Up' without safe search on, unless you have a fetish for pregnant women.

KNOCKED UP is already on release in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Singapore. It opens on August 19th in Russia and on August 17th in Estonia, Norway and Germany and on Augsut 24th in Germany, Mexico and the UK. It opens in September in Denmark, Brazil, Finland, the Netherlands and in Iceland. It opens in October in Hungary, Poland, Belgium, France, Argentina, Italy, Turkey, Egypt and Spain.

P.P.S. Bina007 totally agrees with everything here except that she LOVED the sound-track - chock full of The Fratellis and Mika!

THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN - a surprisingly sweet comedy

I have a tremendous affection for the new comedy THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN. It pulls of the rare trick of combining fairly explicit frat-boy humour with the more sympathetic touch-feely quality of a straightforward romantic comedy. The story is simple: a bunch of guys work in an electrical retailer. One day the guys find out that one of the team, Andy Sitzer (played brilliantly by Steve Carrell) is a forty-year old virgin. This prompts them to “lay down the knowledge” on him and try to get him laid. However, Andy is a fundamentally decent guy and manages to form a relationship with a cool woman who works across the street (played by the ever-brilliant Catherine Keener.) That’s pretty much it. Along the way, we have a lot of out-and-out physical comedy, some wry observational comedy and a warm fuzzy feeling. Kudos to writer-director Judd Apatow for coming with such a finely balanced script (in conjunction with Carrell.) Kudos to Carrell and Keener for creating a genuinely feel-good movie. And kudos to the talented ensemble cast, including Paul Rudd, Jane Lynch, Romany Malco and Seth Rogen. So, I implore you, do not be put off by the explicit title to this movie. It is far sweeter than the title implies.

THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN is on release in the US and UK. It goes on release in Germany on September 29th 2005, in Austria on October 5th and in France on November 9th.