TAG

TAG is a superb film - great slapstick and verbal wit - wonderful spoofs of action movies - and a really genuinely warm heart.  It's based on a Wall Street Journal article about a bunch of grown men who have been playing a game of tag together since they were kids. Now grown-ups, every May is hunting season, and while all of them have been tagged one time or another, Jeff (Jeremy Renner) hasn't. So they band together to try and take him out at his wedding, although they aren't complete dickheads, so they don't actually want to ruin his wedding doing it. It's absolutely glorious seeing Ed Helms, Jake Johnson and Jon Hamm take in pratfalls and stunts - they look like they're having the time of their life.  And Jeremy Renner is hilarious spoofing the super-serious inner monologue of an action hero trying to avoid being tagged. The visual humour has flair and the film just works! But what I really loved was the attempt to seriously interrogate where the line is between a fun game and obsessive competition, and what the value of friendship really is.  The ending of this film gives us a clear view on this, and it's deeply moving while never feeling cheap or manipulative.  I also love how the script - which could've just been another HANGOVER style bro comedy - managed to beef up the roles of the women - making them actual protagonists and deeply enmeshed in all of the moral questioning that occurs. Kudos to all involved!

TAG is rated R and has a running time of 100 minutes. It's available to rent and own. 

INSIDE OUT

INSIDE OUT is the phenomenally successful new Pixar movie from the directors of two films I really adored - UP and RATATOUILLE.  It's smart, witty and beautifully imagined and rendered. But for some reason it just didn't connect with me on an emotional level. In fact, two days after seeing it, the thing I remember most about my movie watching experience was the Pixar short film, LAVA, that preceded the feature. I can still sing that song and feel moved by the plight of the little volcano hoping for love.  INSIDE OUT was clever, and pretty, but I'm just not sure it's going to stay with me in that way.

This is often the problem with high concept film. INSIDE OUT posits a world in which our emotions are neatly split into five key feelings, and whichever of these controls our mood generates our memories and our feelings.  So, at first glance, our protagonist is an eleven year old girl called Riley, struggling with moving across country with her family, feeling pressured to keep a happy face for her stressed out dad, but inwardly hating it all.  But the real star of the show is Riley's emotion, Joy, played by Amy Poehler (PARKS & RECREATION).  Joy has, up to this point, been largely in charge of Riley's emotions resulting in lots of happy memories.  And Joy ascribes part of her success to keeping Sadness (THE OFFICE's Phyllis Smith) firmly off the controls.  So the coming of age journey is not really for Riley but for Joy, as she learns that everyone needs a little sadness to make the happier times happy by contrast. And sometimes a good cry, admitting your suffering, allows others to reach out to you and for you to resolve, rather than smother, your issues.  So in that sense, this is a radical children's movie, for while it still gives us a happy ending, that happiness is conditional on admitting that it's okay to be sad.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 12 - CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER

Following on from last night's sophisticated but essentially conventional genre piece, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, today we have another unusually intelligent but ultimately banal rom-com - CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER.  Both movies are a cut  above the norm, with an emotional insight and verbal with that is rare, but I can't really see what they're doing in a Film Festival that's supposed to be spotlighting pioneering and unconventional film-making.  

Anyways, enough of that grouchiness and back to the movie.  Rashida Jones (PARKS & RECREATION) and Andy Samberg (SNL) play Celeste and Jesse, two charming people who have remained best friends through their divorce.  This unhealthily amicable mock separation is kicked up a gear when Jesse  unexpectedly knocks up a one-night stand, and decides to make a go of it, forcing Celeste to confront the fact that she is really alone.  

A lot of the framework of the movie is clichéd. Jesse is the typical Apatow-esque manchild of the Seth Rogen or Jason Segel variety, and Celeste is the typical uptight career woman.  Indeed, one could see this movie as an attempt to replay KNOCKED UP or FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL from the perspective of the ambitious girlfriend that the schlubby manchild tries to forget.    Accordingly, the narrative journey involves the protagonist maturing and accepting that life goes on.  But instead of the manchild growing up, it's the woman who has to grow less controlling and judgemental. 

I really appreciated a lot of what the film was trying to do. It was refreshing to see the rom-com so firmly anchored on a female protagonist and, what's more, a woman who seemed real in her fears, frustrations and actions.  Kudos to Rashida Jones for co-writing the script and bringing a new perspective, as well as strong comedic timing, to film.  The problem is that although Jones and co-writer Will McCormack are trying to break the mould, too often the movie slips back into hackneyed set-ups and scenes.  A classic example is the inappropriately revealing but endearing wedding speech by the best man, or in this case, maid of honour.  The character of the popstar Riley, and the way in which her love-life is casually "fixed" is another case in point.

So a lot to like here, and some frustrations.  CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER is an entertaining watch, but I doubt I'll remember it in a week's time.

CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER played Sundance and London 2012. It was released earlier this year in the USA, Taiwan and Singapore. It opens in Argentina on December 6th and in Germany on February 14th 2013.

THE MUPPETS

The new muppet movie is, in the manner of THE BLUES BROTHERS, all about putting the band back together to play a benefit concert for a worthy cause - in this case, saving the old theatre from which the old beloved TV show used to be broadcast.  The movie drips with an earnest nostalgia for the days when kids TV was about gentle humour, song-and-dance acts, with a healthy dollop of liberal "rainbow" politics thrown in.  The Muppets was all about trying your best; accepting yourself for what you are; pulling together; and putting your friends first.  

It's obvious from the goofy smile on his face, that Jason Segel - the star and key instigator of the movie - totally buys into the Muppet ethos.  In a sense, he really is Walter, his character's muppet kid brother.  How sad then, that instead of trusting to that earnest charm, Segel and screenwriter Nick Stoller (GULLIVER'S TRAVELS) decided NOT to play it straight.  Rather, THE MUPPETS is a movie that constantly winks at the audience - it drips with post-modern ironic commentary on its core story and characters - knowingly pointing out through sight-gags and one-liners the hokiness of the genre.   

The result is a movie that wants us to believe that the world hasn't changed so much - that kids would still fall in love with the plain vanilla muppets franchise.  On the other hand, it clearly doesn't believe this to be the case, and feels it has to go for a post-modern snarky "SHREK" style of children's movie-making.  It rather smacks of trying to have it both ways. 

For all that, I still had a good time watching the flick. For sure, the first half is far too knowing - far too slow to build - far too reliant on commenting on its own montages and Chris Cooper saying "maniacal laugh" rather than actually laughing.  But by the time you get to the telethon and we focus on the old fashioned muppet vaudeville show, the movie settles down.  It's hard for anyone who grew up with the muppets not to enjoy seeing that famous intro, hearing the "rainbow connection" or just seeing Animal play the drums!  And yes, you do leave the cinema singing "Am I am man or a muppet".

That brings me to another point - the use of Brett McKenzie of FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS fame to write the songs.  I'm a huge fan of CONCHORDS but I found the use of McKenzie distracting.   Because as fun as it was to see Chris Cooper doing a rap pastiche; or Amy Adams doing a 70s disco pastiche; I just couldn't help but feel that it wasn't as fun as seeing McKenzie or Jermaine Clement doing the numbers. In particular, Clement should definitely have played the Cooper part. 

Anyway, all this griping is definitely not in the spirit of the muppets.  Problem is, neither was this film half the time.  Still, happy to see the old gang back on our screens. Let's hope the franchise gets reinvigorated - but hopefully on TV - it's proper and fitting format.

THE MUPPETS was released last year in the USA, Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Singapore, Kuwait, Chile and Estonia. It was released earlier this year in New Zealand, Slovenia, Panama, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Hong Kong, Bulgaria and Poland.  IT goes on release on February 3rd in Italy, Spain and Portugal; on February 10th in the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and the UK; on February 17th in Belgium, Lithuania and Turkey; on March 16th in Sweden; on March 29th in Ukraine and on April 11th in France. 

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.