Posts Tagged ‘Kristen Wiig’
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I remember being bummed that I wasn’t able to catch the coming-of-age comedy film Adventureland when it was in theaters last April, so it was a real treat to finally catch up with it when it was released on Blu-ray last Tuesday.
Writer / director Greg Mottola’s semi-autobiographical tale about a recent college grad languishing away at the “worst job on Earth” at Adventureland Amusement Park in 1987 doesn’t exactly benefit visually from the Blu-ray format. But the movie has an intentional, gritty feel – as if it’s been filtered through someone’s memory.
The movie does a good job setting itself within the time period without pushing too many “Hey, it’s the 80’s!” cultural touchstones. Yuppies and Madonna are mentioned here and there, but the protagonists in this movie are far, far away from the mainstream. For the most part, they’re grossly over-educated, analytical and sarcastic shoe-gazing romantics with a Lou Reed obsession. I guess the comedy is supposed to come from the contrast of otherwise smart people doing what Martin Starr’s supporting character called “the work of pathetic, lazy morons.”
Falling somewhere between Shia LaBeouf and Michael Cera on the Geeky/Sensitive Leading Man Scale, Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan – a recent college grad whose plans to travel Europe with a friend are dashed when his Father loses his job. As things get worse for James’s family and his future in grad school at Columbia University is threatened, he’s forced to take a summer job. Overqualified for every job he applies for, James is forced to take a job at the local, run-down amusement park Adventureland.
The movie serves James a romantic interest in the form of Kristen Stewart’s Em Lewin. I have to admit that I was prepared to hate Stewart going into the movie by virtue of her preening, posturing, sneering performance in Twilight. But in Adventureland, she’s fascinating to watch. Em has a lot of problems at home and despite her cool and friendly exterior, she doesn’t really want to be known by anyone. Her performance really made me reconsider my previous negative attitude toward her as an actress.
James’s confidant at Adventureland is Joel, played by Martin Starr. A sarcastic and somewhat lonely intellectual who shows James the ropes at the park. Mottola gives Joel the pretentious habit of smoking a pipe, but makes him self-aware enough to know that it’s obnoxious. “It’s a revolting affection,” he acknowledges. “But it relaxes me.”
The rest of the cast is rounded out by Ryan Reynolds as the park’s mechanic and Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park’s managers.
Reynolds finally does something very interesting with his innate charm and makes his character a little sleazy for once. Hader and Wiig aren’t in the movie as much as the advertising for the film would have led you to believe. But they are used effectively throughout the movie to add comedic punch between scenes.
There really isn’t anything in Adventureland that hasn’t been done by a thousand other coming-of-age movies. But the film is very relaxed and sure about itself. More than anything, it seems to be about hanging out, getting high and letting relationships unfold. Watching it, I was actually reminded of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused – another period piece about hanging out, getting high and letting relationships unfold. The only difference here is that the jocks and popular kids have been completely replaced by the intellectuals and misfits.
Similar to Dazed and Confused, however, is the film’s excellent soundtrack. David Bowie, Big Star, The Cure, Crowded House, The New York Dolls, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Replacements, The Velvet Underground and, of course, Lou Reed wrap the film in a perfect period time capsule.
Inventively, in addition to skipping ahead to specific scenes, one of the menu features on the Blu-ray lets you skip to scenes using specific songs from the soundtrack. Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” appears as a menu option no less than 4 times – a funny callback to a running joke throughout the film.
Additional bonus features include audio commentary with Greg Mottola and actor Jesse Eisenberg and the requisite deleted scenes. There’s a 17-minute making-of documentary and a few interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes utilizing some of the supporting cast members. “Lisa P’s Guide To Style” instructs you on all the “latest” 80’s fashion. “Welcome to Adventureland” gathers a couple of commercials promoting the park, the employee orientation kit and a peek at the official drug policy. “Frigo’s Ball Tap” instructs you on the proper technique and variety that is the art of tapping your friends in the balls.
Adventureland didn’t set the world on fire at the box office last April, pulling in $16 million domestically during its theatrical run. That’s a shame. The movie is confidently told and competently performed. It deserves a bigger audience and hopefully it will find it on DVD.
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On Monday I talked a little bit about seeing a sneak preview of Whip It! last Saturday. I promised a review at some point. A review the never came. So, instead, you get this comic and I’ll kind of splice in portions of the review I was going to write here in the blog post.
I think I said on Monday that Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut has a certain level of enthusiasm that I think can be attributed by Barrymore’s usual rah-rah “Girl Power” mantra. Despite being a film about hard-nosed roller derby chicks, the film is optimistic and sunny.
Ellen Page as the film’s heroine is serviceable. Her character is a mousy beauty pageant competitor by day and a roller derby chick by night. Unfortunately, she doesn’t really fit into either of those roles very well.
To me she seems too sharp, her wit to acerbic, to be some mousy teen bullied into pageant life by an overbearing mother. Conversely, she doesn’t have the physical presence to skate around a rink and throw elbows.
The film explains away some of the later by acknowledging Page’s pocket-sized physique. Her roller derby alter-ego “Babe Ruthless” gets by on her speed and agility and less on her right hook.
Still, I think it would have been interesting to see someone like Kat Dennings in the role. Then I might have found the dichotomy between pageant queen and roller girl a little more believable.
As I mentioned in the comic, the cast for this film is amazing. Not just for the depth of the semi-recognizable names, but for the variety. In what other film are you going to see the stunt woman from Death Proof roller skate with the female rapper who was once First Lady of Ruff Ryders?
Gotta give points to the casting director for bringing Juliette Lewis into the mix. Sinewy, snide and possibly smelly, Lewis fits perfectly into the role of Page’s riot grrl nemesis.
Special acknowledgment, however, I think needs to be given to Kristen Wiig, who finally stepped out from behind the Nervous Nellie persona she’s perfected on Saturday Night Live and in supporting roles from films like Adventureland and Knocked Up.
Despite the eccentricity of being a roller derby competitor, Wiig plays her character like a normal, everyday person. At this point, playing someone normally was probably the most shocking thing she could do!
Story-wise, there’s nothing in Whip It! that you haven’t seen in a thousand other coming-of-age comedies. Basically, an awkward girl finds something she’s passionate about and comes out of her shell in opposition to her parents wishes. Do the parents come around at the end? Of course. Are valuable life lessons learned? You betcha.
But like I said, there’s a positive vibe reverberating off this movie and a certain zest of life to the characters. The live their lives on the fringe of society in an already liberal-minded alternate reality known as Austin, Texas. They skate in abandoned warehouses under pseudonyms, get drunk and listen to loud music. Their exploits are liberating and we, the audience, get to live vicariously through that.
That’s pretty much the role of any good movie. If you can watch the characters on screen and say “I wanna hang out with them,” or “I wanna do that,” then there has been some transformative effect that has allowed you to transcend whatever hang-ups or stress is waiting for you back in the real world. By that measure, Whip It! is a rollicking success.
So what about you? Any plans to hang out with Smashly Simpson and The Hurl Scouts this weekend? Does Whip It! look like a film that interests you? Did any of you manage to catch the sneak preview on Saturday? If so, what did you think? 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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Cami and went to see Bridesmaids this weekend and at one point before the movie started, Cami actually leaned over to me and said “Thank you for seeing this movie with me.” I thought it was kind of odd at the time because 1.) I was already excited to see this movie and 2.) When do we ever get to leave the house to do ANYTHING together anymore?
Then again, she might have also been thanking me for letting her drag me around to a couple of department stores to look at blouses and shoes between our dinner and showtime.
* insert sound of whips here *
That said, I really enjoyed Bridesmaids and think it’s wholly deserving of the praise and strong reviews it’s received. If you haven’t seen it yet, I encourage you to check it out.
Produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Paul Feig, Universal Studios has marketed Bridesmaids as the female response to films like The 40 Year-Old Virgin or The Hangover. If you’ve seen the TV spots, they all seem to be preoccupied with a scene where the girls contract food poisoning. It leads you to believe that you’re in for an outrageous, scatological good time.
As bombastic an hilarious as that scene is, I’ll go on the record right now and let you know that Bridesmaids is NOT that kind of film. It’s not interested in strictly using shock tactics to generate laughs. It has a lot more on its mind than that.
There’s a lot of needless controversy in comedy circles (mostly driven by sexism) about whether or not women are funny. For the record, I think women are hilarious. That said, Bridesmaids clearly has a different temperament than most big studio comedies. The audience is the benefactor from this shift in tone because the humor frequently derived from character motivation rather than misunderstandings or unfortunate circumstances.
That’s not to say that Bridesmaids don’t lean on these tried and true comedic devices. But the humor is amplified by our familiarity with the characters, their needs and limitations.
As Annie, Kristen Wiig has created a great comedic punching bag – a tragic character who lost her cake shop in the recession and has been falling further and further behind ever since. But catharsis doesn’t come easily for Annie because she is truly the architect of her own misery. She can’t be free of it until she confronts her role in it.
Of course, it’s Melissa McCarthy as the bawdy Megan that wakes her up to her reality. In an excellent exchange near the end of the film, Megan gleefully slaps Annie around. Encouraging her to “Fight! Fight for your crappy life!” McCarthy is a comedic powerhouse in this movie and practically steals it out from under the rest of the ensemble.
I guess if I could register any complaint against the film is that it doesn’t fully take advantage of the talent it has at its disposal. Wiig, McCarthy and Maya Rudolph all get sufficient screen time. But Wendi McLendon-Covey from Reno 911 and Ellie Kemper from The Office are almost completely squandered. In fact, I think Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas as Wiig’s inconsiderate roommates get more time on screen. So the film is not quite the ensemble piece it bills itself to be.
But overall the film is smart, honest and touching. On the surface, Annie’s problems and her reaction to them felt more akin to a directionless 20-something rather than how a former small-business owner approaching 40 would handle them. But, in context, it indicates how hard Annie has been thrown for a loop. Annie is an anomaly among female comedic archetypes, but a welcome one. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bridesmaids became a game-changer for chick flicks, which I would celebrate.
Look, a little bit of Sandra Bullock or Kate Hudson is fine. But their movies fail to take risks and avoid any suggestion that the lives of their heroines (who, for some reason, always seem to be marketing executives) is anything less than perfect. Bridesmaids takes those risks and should be rewarded for it.
Did you see Bridesmaids this weekend? If so, what were your thoughts? Leave your comments below!
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Earlier this week I was exposed to the trailer for the forthcoming romantic comedy Friends With Kids. I haven’t posted it until now because I’ve kind of confused by it.
On the one hand, the movie is stuffed to the gills with actors I love including Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm and Chris O’Dowd. But the trailer positively reeks of plot contrivances and romantic comedy tropes that usually only attract the likes of Katherine Heigl.
In other words, it looks dumb and I think I kind of hate it?
Watch for yourself.
Truthfully, I don’t even think you need to see the movie now. The trailer pretty much gave it all away.
Also, what the hell happened to Jennifer Westfeldt? She was an adorable chipmunk in Kissing Jessica Stein. Now she looks like she’s been wrapped in plastic.
What’s your reaction to the Friends With Kids trailer? Leave your comments below!
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