Posts Tagged ‘Jonah Hill’
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Apr18
I’m not exactly sure what part of my brain the idea for this comic escaped from. I just started thinking about Forgetting Sarah Marshall and how it’s a Judd Apatow production, ALL of the Judd Apatow productions lined up for release in 2008 and the rest just kind of leaked out of my ear.
I’m sure the working environment on an Apatow film is much less contentious as I’ve depicted here. But you can’t help but notice the low-grade nepotism involved with these movies anymore.
At first I thought it was pretty cool to have the same stable of actors on call for any given movie. Now I can’t imagine a comedy that DOESN’T feature Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, or Jonah Hill in some capacity. Do they even make comedies without their involvement anymore? It’s hard to tell.
Then again, maybe that was the point.
At this stage, Apatow productions have become like the Laff-O-Lympics for my favorite comedy actors. I just watched Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story on DVD last week and there are tons of small cameos from the likes of Jack McBrayer and Ed Helms. Complete throwaway roles that could have been played by anyone. But then they show up on screen and that wave of recognition hits you. “Hey! That’s so-and-so from [insert popular comedy television show here]!” In a weird way, it’s like it adds some kind of credibility to the affair.
As far as Forgetting Sarah Marshall is concerned, it’s a movie I’ve been looking forward to for a while. It looks like it’s got the same mix of crudeness and sweetness and they’re mixing things up a little bit by adding Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis to things. Also, those two actresses are very attractive and I’ll take any advantage I can get in terms of muting the amount of wang that is supposedly in this movie. Reportedly, Segel shows the goods 3 times in this picture. At what point did the wiener become a standard visual gag? I know it looks weird, and everything, but…
Peter Segel is an actor I kind of like, but not really – and mostly for the roles he’s chosen. Specifically, the stalker boyfriend from Undeclared and the dirtbag MILF-chaser in Knocked Up. I don’t watch How I Met Your Mother, but I understand he plays a much more squeaky clean version of himself on that show. So maybe it’s been the wrong exposure for me.
That said, I’m impressed that he wrote the screenplay for this one and somehow managed to wring A NEW MUPPETS MOVIE out of his involvement with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Apparently there is a sequence with puppets at the end and people from The Henson Company were doing the puppeteering. Segel floated the idea past them and the rest is (soon to be filmed) history.
Cami and I are trying to line up a babysitter this weekend so we can get out of the house and see this. I know I say that a lot, but this is the first movie in a long while that I feel extremely motivated to see. Motivated enough to inconvenience another family member and deep-six their Saturday night to hang out at our house and make sure my baby doesn’t drink a case of Colt 45 while we’re away.
Wow. That’s a visual for you.
One last thing — If you missed it on Wednesday, be sure to download the first recorded broadcast of Boxcar Comics Hobo Jamboree. Myself, Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies, Phil Chan from Martriculated and Clay Yount from Rob & Elliot were all in attendance and we laid down the ground work for what you can expect from our monthly podcast. We had a good time recording it and I’m already looking forward to the next one.
A couple of people wrote to tell me that we didn’t give you guys enough notice to listen to the show live. Sorry about that. It all came together kind of quickly and we just ran to press with it. Next time, we’ll try to talk it up a week or so in advance.
I’m really excited about the progress that Boxcar Comics has been making lately. So far we have one jam comic and this podcast under our belt. We’re working on our second jam comic as we speak. Boxcar has been around since 2005. I think we’ve gotten more done in the last few months than we have in the last few years. I feel good about it. We’ve justified ourselves beyond just sharing traffic. Good times.
That’s all from me! Have a great weekend everybody!
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I get sent news releases, trailers and photos from studios all the time and I generally do a very poor job of passing them on to you.
Part of the reason behind this is because there are a million and one movie blogs and they all tend to post the same stuff at the same time. So there’s no reason Theater Hopper will ever become your exclusive outlet for this kind of thing.
The other piece of the puzzle is, frankly… a lot of the stuff I’m sent is crap. Or at least *I* think it’s crap. If you’d like to see more photos, trailers and press releases from the studios here on the site, let me know. Maybe it will lead to something.
Anyway, I was just sent a trailer for a movie I am legitimately excited to see – Judd Apatow’s Funny People coming out on July 31.
Be forewarned that this is the red band trailer, so the language is a little salty. But if you’ve seen The 40 Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, you’re probably already on board with it.
Anyway, enjoy!
For a little extra fun, check out some of the web sites created in support of the film – several of them featuring work from different characters in the film!
So what do you guys think? Are you interested in seeing Funny People? I think it’s going to be interesting to watch Adam Sandler interact with other talented comedians. His films tend to isolate him, put the focus on him. I’m curious to see how he handles himself in an ensemble.
For me, Funny People kind of feels like the last hurrah of the blockbuster season. Yeah, yeah – I know G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra comes out after that. But does anyone think that counts?
Leave your comments below!
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I had a difficult time writing today’s comic because the joke is kind of crass and I kept trying to censor myself as I was constructing it. That’s a lose-lose situation every time. So I decided to just kind of go for it.
I prefer to think of Theater Hopper is a family friendly comic. But sometimes, you just have to throw caution to the wind.
I don’t know if this joke is particularly funny, but an imaginary sexual euphemism was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about How To Train Your Dragon.
I actually got a chance to see the movie on Saturday and I’m surprised how much I liked. Or, rather, I’m surprised how much my enjoyment of the film mirrored critical and fan response leading up to the release.
In the few days before Friday and on Friday itself, I was seeing all kinds of effusive praise for the film and thought it was almost going over the top. I was skeptical that if the film was the first moderately good film of the year that people were going overboard heaping praise on it just so they would have something to talk about.
Well, it turns out the praise is justified. The movie is spectacular. Even if the film lacks some of the wit and heart of your average Pixar film, Dreamworks was finally able to put the cap on the annoying pop culture references they’ve been making since the first Shrek movie.
And while the film’s story of an outsider who finds acceptance (and his reticent Daddy issues) won’t win points for originality, you never really notice the tropes as you’re watching the film. The plot moves briskly, explains it’s rules succinctly and never treats the audience like idiots. Kind of a tall order for what is otherwise a kids film.
At the insistence of others, I watched How To Train Your Dragon in 3D and I strongly recommend you do, too. The flying scenes alone are a wonder to behold. Talking with my friend Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies, he said “It does for flying sequences what Iron Man did. It’s almost becoming its own genre.” He couldn’t be more right.
Bottom line, the movie looks fantastic. And I’m not talking about the computer animated bells and whistles. I’m talking about the cinematography, the lighting.
It should look good. Directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders hired Roger Deakins to make sure the film looked top notch in this department. You may not know it, but you’ve seen Deakins work before. He performed the same role for Pixar’s Wall-E.
If I could make one complaint about the film, it would have to be the voice casting. Jay Baruchel can sometimes come off a little too nasal and whiny. Kind of like Woody Allen’s grandson snuck into a Viking village.
Similarly out of place are Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson as tribal leaders. Their thick, Scottish brogue’s on full display in a Scandinavian village. If I were Nordic, I’d be kind of peeved. What? They couldn’t at least cast Stellan Skarsgård?
I was also very distracted by the inclusion of America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Kristen Wiig as Baruchel’s friends in “dragon training.” Every time I heard their characters speak, I was distracted by trying to figure out where I had heard their voices before.
Hill’s character in particular, Snotlout, threw me because he looked like he was modeled after Jack Black. I kept expecting the character to break into song and over-enunciate his consonants at any minute.
But these are minor distractions, really. For the one or two things the movie gets wrong, it gets four or five things really, really right.
The dragon referenced in the title – a “Black Fury” Baruchel names Toothless – is an excellent reflection of the animators skill of showing without telling. Toothless does not speak, but we know exactly what he’s thinking throughout the entire course of the movie. His facial expressions flow effortlessly between snarling distrust to wide-eyed playfulness. His body language is equal parts dog, cat and jet-black gila monster.
How To Train Your Dragon does an excellent job of accessing that part of your childhood that fantasizes about dragons all day. The part that doodles them on a sheet of paper when you get distracted. It is an immensely enjoyable film and if you don’t leave the theater wanting a dragon of your own by the end of it, then you must be one of those people who likes unicorns. If that’s the case, then I don’t know how to save you.
If you saw How To Train Your Dragon this weekend, feel free to leave your comments below. Let’s talk about it, shall we?
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