21 Jump Street (Phil Lord & Chris Miller, 2012)

21 Jump Street is such an unnecessary remake that even the film itself acknowledges its own pointlessness. It's a moment of upfront honesty rarely seen in the current sausage grinder of audience-insulting retreads that prevent original material from being produced at the expense of works with a (theoretically, at least) built-in audience. Yet what makes the movie such an unexpected delight is that it never lapses into the lazy self-awareness waved around weak films like incense swung from a thurible. Rather than merely name-checking its weaknesses and moving on, 21 Jump Street tinkers with conventions to believably update its subject matter while affectionately parodying the '80s buddy cop tropes that fueled the original TV show.

As such, it better positions itself to mock the old and the new, commenting equally on classic action film stereotypes and modern stylistic elements. Like Hot Fuzz, 21 Jump Street so faithfully embodies its targets that it winds up an excellent buddy cop film in its own right. How good is the chemistry between its two mutually and self-deprecating leads? So good that I emerged liking, if not loving, Channing Tatum. God help us all.

Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)

"It's hard not to be romantic about baseball," Oakland As GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) sighs near the end of Moneyball. Clearly we've never chatted. Based on the bestseller that revolutionized America's pastime, Moneyball deals with the As' 2002 season and how Beane, along with a handful of statistical whizzes, evened the playing field by taking a team they barely scraped together with a paltry budget and broke the record for most consecutive wins in a season. It is also a film that captures the spirit of baseball as I see it, meaning that it is arduously drawn-out and involves far more math than I ever want to do when eating junk food and becoming, in theory, emotionally invested in the grab-assing of 'roided-up men.

Moneyball opens with footage of the 2001 American League elimination game between the As and the New York Yankees, the richest team in baseball. Intertitles contrast the teams not by score or stats but budgets, positing baseball as a metaphor for class warfare that seems especially apt in the current economic climate. Still, it's hard to see the As as underdogs when 25 people split $40 million a year to play a game. So as director Bennett Miller is trying to make me shake my head at the unfairness of it all, I was already so uninterested that the one thing that drew my eye was how incredibly old TV footage from exactly one decade ago looks.

Get Him to the Greek

Early in Get Him to the Greek, an unlikely spin-off of Apatow Productions' most emotionally rewarding feature to date, Forgetting Sarah Marhsall, writer/director Nicholas Stoller gives the impression that he will fashion his comedy into a commentary on the changing musical landscape. Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), an intern for Pinnacle Records, eloquently posits Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), the notorious rocker ported over from FSM, as the last remaining rock star in an industry defined by derivative acts whose sound is entirely made of samples and thumping beats. Green's boss considers this, then promptly plays one of those unoriginal hip-hop acts filled with misogynistic lyrics that do not rhyme so much as repeat the same words over and over.

The film never returns to this idea, though perhaps it was just too busy. Get Him to the Greek is This Is Spinal Tap from the perspective of one of those terrified label representatives sent to make sure a failing artist gets to gigs of decreasing quantity and venue size. Green, who largely resembles Hill's obsessive Aldous Snow fan in Forgetting Sarah Marshall with a name and location overhaul, manages to sell Pinnacle's head honcho, Sergio (Sean Combs), on the idea of a comeback for Aldous. The human interest story alone would generate attention and revenue: we first see Snow in flashback, tumbling from the top of the charts with one clunker of an album, a bad break-up with tarty pop starlet Jackie Q (Rose Byrne) and a relapse into substance abuse. Confined to his roomy London flat when not pub crawling (which takes place for the entirety of local pubs' hours of operations), Snow agrees to perform a show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his legendary show there. For unclear reasons, Sergio trusts that a plush toy like Aaron can wrangle the most infamous, egotistical addict in the biz, and the mogul sends the geeky fan to drag Snow to New York for a morning show appearance before heading to L.A. for the gig.

What then follows is a screwball comedy in the style of the buddy film. As much as Get Him to the Greek immediately shuts off its brain to become a zany, episodic free-for-all, one understands why Stoller was content to just stick with Hill and Brand: the two have worked previously as supporting characters, Hill as the coiled spring à la Jason Lee, Brand, well, as rock star Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, as well as playing opposite Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories (his stock is considerably higher back in native Britain, where he's a top comedian and, until a recent controversy, a radio and television presenter). One look at the two paired together, however, and you see what Stoller must have seen: comedy gold. Rarely has an odd couple been so well contrasted physically: Brand, with his recovering addict wire frame and cheekbones to rival Cate Blanchett's, stands tall over Hill, with a chin that has now become his neck and sporting thin, wispy adolescent stubble to Brand's kempt beard.

Hill, normally the manic friend who gets all the good one-liners, must now assume the role of straight man, which he does effortlessly. There's a subtlety to his performance even when being sucked into Snow's underworld of excess, boozed out of his mind and often pasted with his own vomit. Unsure whether or not his girlfriend, Daphne (Elisabeth Moss), broke up with him after he did not agree to her plans to move the two to Seattle for her to work in a quieter hospital than the one in L.A., Aaron constantly waffles between venting his hurt and trying to preserve his relationship, though at times it appears as if God is attempting to make this idiot cheat.

Brand, meanwhile, is left to play up his own rock star persona, which he does with greater abandon than in Snow's previous filmic appearance, which showed him still on the wagon even if he did still try to sleep with anything with an accommodating cavity. As a comic -- hell, as a human being -- Brand clearly wants to capture some of the rocker aesthetic and aura, so he takes to this role with relish. What we see with his character is a Spinal Tap for the post-reality show era; as far as we know, Aldous never wound up on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! or Big Brother, but he lives in a world that now jockeys more than ever to get a look at failure. When Sergio preps Aaron before dispatch and tells him that people want to see Snow "fucked up, but not too fucked up," the comedy of the scene is undercut by a nagging suspicion that such lines are too accurate to be satiric. Thus, Snow gets carted onto the set of the Today Show -- one of the film's funniest sequences, as Aaron attempts to send the rocker in as straight as possible by consuming all the alcohol and drugs in the limo -- to be poked fun even by someone like Meredith Vieira for being a train wreck. In retrospect, at least Spinal Tap

Numerous rock clichés make some sort of appearance: the record that kills Aldous' career is a soulless, crass attempt to latch onto the dire living conditions in Africa whilst promoting the rocker's magnanimous contribution (the phrase "white African Christ from space" will line surprisingly well to a number of condescending pop artists whose hearts may be in the right place but who also donate only a fraction of their album and tour revenues to the continent that "inspired" their work); Jackie Q's solo work consists of a series of auto-tuned pop songs that move from openly suggestive to flat out declarative in their innuendo; Aldous' father is an abusive leech, trying to claim credit for his son's genius by virtue of having sired him.

As a piss-take on the music business, Get Him to the Greek doesn't go to the same lengths as another Apatow Production, Walk Hard, but the gags here contain an undercurrent of actual humanity. Aldous gives a candid, blunt speech about the appeal of drugs to Aaron, yet the scene does not suspend the humor as one of the two is sitting with a balloon of heroin wedged in an uncomfortable hiding location to get through an airport. Brand's own history with numerous substances of his own gives a great deal of his behavior, no matter how outlandish, a bedrock of verisimilitude, and a haunted look passes his eyes at times that may well not be an act but a recognition of a past life. When Aaron finally snaps at his hero and says that the man is genuinely smart but only uses his intelligence to romanticize his pathetic self-destruction, we can't be sure whether Hill is speaking to Aldous Snow or to Brand himself.

Sadly, moments like these fall to the wayside in favor of a contrite ending that attempts to piece Aaron and Daphne's relationship back together through an outlandish sequence that works not as a legitimate resolution, a sensible progression of a plot even as crazy as the one seen here, nor as a piece of comedy. The otherwise magnificent Forgetting Sarah Marshall suffered a similar problem, building up its titular ex-girlfriend into someone actually deserving of empathy and compassion only to be brutally shot down at the end to get quickly to a finale with the "new girl," though Get Him to the Greek never bothers to build Daphne into a fleshed-out character, and her only significant action occurs near the end.

Setting aside how tidily it resolves, however, Get Him to the Greek is a sharply written buddy feature. Aldous' father, set up to be something of a Michael Lohan, claims to reporters that he managed his son and just wants to help (by taking to gossip shows and airing his child's secrets for greater notoriety), Snow hits back with a gem like, "He managed me when I was in his testicles, but once he ejaculated, management's been indie." When Sergio comes at last to force the out-of-control pair to get their rears to Los Angeles, he sparks a grandiose and hilariously pointless fight between himself, Aaron, Aldous and Aldous' dad that tops even the magnificent inanity of fight with Red in Pineapple Express (can all future Apatow Productions have a stupid-awesome fight scene as well? They're the best part of the movies). As Sergio chases Aldous and Aaron through a hotel corridor, the characters point out how absurdly long the set is, with Aldous even shouting, "It's Kubrickian!"

Little nuggets like that keep the film going even when it hits some dull spots, and Get Him to the Greek could have stood trimming another five or seven minutes. But in a summer that's already shaped up to be even more disappointing than the last few years, the many pleasures of Stoller's comedy outweigh the momentum-killing finale. I've had my reservations about Brand, having first caught some of his stand-up and his presenting work on 1 Leicester Square on YouTube and found him a bit too much. But Forgetting Sarah Marshall used him sparingly to great effect, and here he calms his manic energy just enough to be wild but not overpowering. He's a gifted comic and an intelligent man, and he seems to have found a way to calm himself without losing the persona for which he is known. The biggest surprise, however, may be Diddy, who proves to be a terrific comic side character and almost certainly just got himself stenciled in as a possible cameo in a number of future comedies. His portrayal of the record mogul as Stoic drug pusher and mafioso psychopath is as funny as it is accurate, and Combs does a good job of knowing when to drop the laughs to show the darker, profit-driven side of music. He's just one of several pleasant surprises in a flawed film that nevertheless contains enough laughs to warrant a second viewing to hear what jokes you missed while laughing at previous bits. Besides, we should support artists who continue to write unbelievably catchy tunes about venereal diseases. Even fictional ones.

How to Train Your Dragon

It is not enough to say that How to Train Your Dragon is the finest picture to roll out of Dreamworks Animation's studio, particularly given their nearly decade-long bath in the slop trough with a series of increasingly banal sequels and failed attempts at launching new franchises (who could forget Shark Tale, other than the people who saw it?). But the studio finally followed through on the initial promise of their early features -- Antz, the underrated Prince of Egypt, the first Shrek -- with 2008's Kung Fu Panda, and now they've put out a film that easily ranks among the finest achievements in contemporary animation, as well as one of the few delights of this young year.

One of those "the title says it all" flicks, How to Train Your Dragon is a high-concept family comedy executed nearly without flaws. It presents the small Viking village of Berk, situated on a craggy rock that barely yields enough tasteless crops to feed the populace and their sheep. Complicating matters is the routine invasion by dragons, who scorch the spare fields and seize livestock for their own gullets. Every Viking in the hamlet is raised to hate and kill dragons, and everyone excels at it.

Everyone, that is, except Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), son of the clan chief, Stoick (Gerard Butler). In a demimonde filled with bulky warriors, Hiccup is a scrawny geek, eager to please his peers and especially his father but unable to join in the fighting. So, he builds contraptions to compensate for his utter lack of muscle mass, and during one raid he uses one of his weapons to shoot down a Night Fury, an incredibly agile type of dragon so deadly that no one has ever managed to kill one. When he tracks down the wounded beast, however, he cannot bring himself to slay the poor thing, even though it would catapult him into fame.

Dreamworks, as the other major 3D animation studio of the last decade or so, always finds itself in competition with Pixar, which is like forcing the Police Academy films to compete with Dr. Strangelove. Where Dreamworks has a leg up, though, is in the company's more lenient attitude toward realism. Pixar movies occasionally hit a snag when the precise construction of their worlds come into conflict with the exaggerated character models, but Dreamworks is so inherently goofy that it gives itself a broader range. With Dragon, the studio finally takes advantage of this. The Night Fury, Toothless, looks strikingly different from the other types of dragons seen throughout the film, including a bulldog-like reptile and a two-headed beast, one of which emits inflammable gas that the other sparks. The equally outlandish Viking models, from Stoick's friend and Hiccup's watcher Gobber (a very game Craig Ferguson) to the sexy young brute Astrid (America Ferrara), who appears to have the same physique as Hiccup but can hurl axes and swing swords with the adults, stress the animators' attempt to detach us from the (often ridiculous) need for reality in the most surreal form of the most surreal medium of art.

They succeed wildly. Dragon's opening sequence is one of the most dynamic action pieces to grace a modern animated picture, so visceral that directors Chris Sanders and Dennis DeBois structure one shot in such a way that it appears as if a handheld camera was documenting the action. They also give enchantingly anthropomorphic traits to Toothless without losing his sleek, beautiful form (memorably, the animator turn his reptilian slits into heart-melting doe eyes). With this film, Dreamworks breaks wholly from the lame pop culture references and limp sight gags that propelled their limp, deflated mid-Aughts works: the humor comes from the situations and the characters, and these people feel so real that at some point you stop wondering why the Vikings speak with a smattering of Scottish and American accents led by a young'un with a nasally Canadian whine. Tedious as celebrity stunt casting is, these actors become these cartoons because they're allowed to speak lines that give themselves, and each other, depth and identity.

Most importantly, How to Train Your Dragon captures that feeling of uninhibited flight better than any other film that comes to mind. The montage of Hiccup and Toothless coming to trust each other and learning to fly together is nothing particularly original in construction, but in execution it becomes as spellbinding as the flying scenes in Avatar and magical as anything in Pixar's canon. By damaging Toothless' tail fin and rendering him incapable of flight on his own, the writers create a symbiosis between the dragon and Hiccup, who designs a replacement flap that he controls, thus giving their bond an extra dimension and their aerial acrobatics a mutually invigorating experience that is magnified on the audience. Whether gently soaring among the clouds or banking and careening in rapidly edited chases, the flight scenes are gripping, transporting and undeniable proof in the power of animation to transfix crowds of all ages -- I heard nary a peep from the engaged children in my theater, and the most enthusiastic response I heard leaving the auditorium came from an elderly couple behind me.

As with all the other movies currently slapped with a 3-D filter, one can easily enjoy the majesty of How to Train Your Dragon in two boring old dimensions. Yet I was struck that the most memorable and lasting image to take advantage of the 3-D, compared to its usual role in adding a cheap, hollow thrill to action scenes, involved Hiccup holding out his hand for the first time to pet Toothless. The directors used the gimmick to call attention to the emotional and thematic crux of the film: by showing how pre-conceived notions vastly differ from the truth and how they often lead to trumped-up fear and disgusting violence, How to Train Your Dragon suggests that the next generation might just be a little less violent and a little more willing to learn about someone or something before acting. What a fantastic message (and a fairly understated one, for a children's film), particularly in a time of increasingly extreme rhetoric being casually used in America based on fear and ignorance. Furthermore, Sanders and DeBois weave this theme into much of the film's other dynamics, preventing the contentious father-son relationship between Stoick and Hiccup from becoming too staid and adding a layer to the budding romance angle between Hiccup and Astrid. Funny, touching, insightful and as thrilling as the best of animated features, How to Train Your Dragon bypasses the hackneyed soundbite of "Fun for the whole family!" by reminding us that any animated film worth its salt should always fit that bill.

The Invention of Lying

Ricky Gervais' first major feature as writer, director and star works with an interesting premise, but the man who created arguably the landmark television program of the decade proves sadly tame when handed a film-sized budget. Together with newcomer Matthew Robinson, he never delivers on his notion of a world where people cannot lie. However, Gervais brings his sense of naturalistic comedy and affecting sentimentality to The Invention of Lying, buoying what in anyone else's hands would have been an abysmal failure.

Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a low-ranking screenwriter for the company Lecture Films. Like the other writers, his scripts are simply condensations of historical events, not performed but recited on-screen by readers. In a world where people can't lie, Mark has it rough: fat, middle-aged and underpaid, his co-workers openly profess their disgust and women ignore him in droves. A friend sets him up on a date with the gorgeous Anna (Jennifer Garner), whom he charms with his humor but has no hope of attracting.

Just as he finds himself out of a job and facing eviction, Mark manages to tell the world's first lie. It's so unprecedented that he can walk into a bank and request whatever amount of money he wants and the tellers assume that, when he overdraws, the computers are simply malfunctioning. After all, whatever he asks for must be in his account. Suddenly, the most pathetic slob in the world has potentially limitless power.

Interestingly, however, Gervais keeps the film subdued, which works both to its credit and detriment. Upon fully realizing what he's now capable of, Mark immediately attempts to pick up a lady for quick sex, but he stops when he understands that what he does qualifies as rape. An American production of the same film would have followed through this bit as a joke, never pausing to let the severity of the situation sink in, but for Gervais to direct the gag into a sober revelation proves that the comedian brings layers and intelligence to his writing. Of course, other aspects of Mark's evolution are fully humorous; he returns to Lecture Films having "discovered" a long lost historical parchment recounting alien visits and interstellar romance. This document even prophesies that Mark will discover it one day and put his antagonistic secretary (Tina Fey) and rival (Rob Lowe) to shame.

About halfway through the film, though, the film splinters into two wildly different movies that never reconcile into a cohesive whole. Now armed with what basically amounts to a superpower, he doubles his efforts to win Anna. It's disappointing that Gervais would steer his premise into rom-com territory, given that no part of a pitch of this movie would suggest it should go down this route. Unwilling to use his gift to dupe Anna into sleeping with him, Mark instead relies on his new-found lateral thinking to charm her. Anna is an underwritten character, constantly sticking to her matter-of-fact desire for genetically ideal children even as she clearly falls for this dope, but Garner makes her work out of sheer charisma: she has one of the most expressive faces in the biz, and she can say entire chunks of dialogue simply with her doe eyes or a lip twitch. The subplot feels too much like Gervais wanted to ease into mainstream, made-for-Americans filmmaking, but anyone who's watched the finale of either The Office or Extras knows his gift for earned emotional payoffs, and at times the romantic aspect of the film is genuinely moving though it stays firmly within stifling genre restrictions.

The other aspect of the film is deeper, darker, funnier and probably would have been the sole focus of Gervais' script had it been part of a television series or a film he never expected to get much attention outside of Britain. The people of this world do not believe in an afterlife, so Mark's mother speaks on her deathbed about her fear of ceasing to exist. To calm her, Mark tearfully spins a vision of heaven to ease him mom's passing. Word gets out, and suddenly people across the world look to Mark for his knowledge of what happens after death. As formulaic and tepid as the subplot involving Mark and Anna is, Gervais makes up for it by openly postulating that religion could only come about through lies. The scenes involving Mark's creation of religion are wickedly satiric, particularly when Mark must endure an exasperating Q&A in response to his commandments.

Elements of these two subplots overlap in places but never in ways more substantive than setup for each other, resulting in meandering stretches in the second half that drag the film. Gervais assembled a cast that rivals all of his acquisitions for Extras combined, including Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., even the great Christopher Guest, but he never does anything with them. Their appearances, even the meatier parts like C.K.'s or Lowe's, feel more like name-recognition cameos than performances. There's also a tenuous logic to the film's premise: people can't lie, yes, but many offer up their true feelings without being asked for it. Gervais, a naturalistic writer and sharp observer of humanity in his television projects, opted for the safe route here -- his next film, Cemetery Junction, reunites him with writing partner Stephen Merchant and sounds from released information like something far more in line with what we know of Gervais' humor -- and as a result it disappoints. Yet Gervais, never trained as an actor, has such a natural presence on-screen and such a real yet inimitable method of delivery that he makes the thing not only watchable but often fun, even outside the raucous first half hour and the biting religious segments. Plus, there's something admirable about a mainstream film that, in a time when a -- according to reports from the Toronto Film Festival -- tame biopic of Charles Darwin can't find a distributor because of controversy, deals with evolution as if it was a fact. Well, a fact that everyone accepts, anyway.

Funny People

I may at last have seen an Apatow Productions film that could benefit from the inevitable extended cut on DVD. Strange, considering that, of the three films he's written and directed and the seemingly dozens of others he's co-written or produced over the last five years, this one suffers the most from his bloated running times. Funny People, however, needs a longer cut, or at least a version that substitutes new scenes for old, bloated ones.

Ideally, a re-cut of the film would drastically alter its third act, which is really a fourth act and possibly a fifth. All two (or three) of these final acts are resolved in the last five minutes of the film, and therein lies the problem. Funny People is Apatow's most personal project yet, and an objective hand needed to step in to revise the structure.

Oh well, if he insists on making a two-and-a-half hour dramedy, Apatow certainly knows how to stuff it to the rafters. George Simmons (Adam Sandler) learns that he suffers from a rare, life-threatening blood disease at the start of the film, and that he only has an 8 percent chance of survival. An hour later, however, he recovers. That leaves 3/5 of a film to handle the dissipated tension.

This structure is the film's strength and weakness, because it opens a bold, real type of movie that seeks to relay its message naturally, without plot contrivances or a need to get plot out of the way first. On the other hand, a film about a person coming to terms with a near-death experience and bettering himself as a result should address that experience, something Funny People constantly sidesteps.

Filling the gaps in the first hour (and the rest of the film) is a small group of struggling actors and comedians who share an apartment in L.A. Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) works a deli counter by day, but his real passion is stand-up. Noticeably rough around the edges, Ira nevertheless manages to slightly impress George, who came to the comedy club to vent some of his fears and frustrations on stage. George hires Ira to write jokes and, eventually, to serve as a full-time assistant, much to the jealousy and awe of Ira's flatmates Leo (Jonah Hill), another amateur comic clearly destined for the big leagues, and Mark (Jason Schwarztman), a moderately talented actor who scored the lead on an insufferably painful sitcom about a teacher connecting with inner-city youth.

Rogen and Sandler carry the film, and they both produce some of their finest work. It's a shame, that some people profess an exasperation with Rogen, as he's finally nailed down a style that allows him to utilize his impressive gift for improvisation while remaining on-topic. His Ira is wonderfully and hopelessly awkward on-stage, and he provides the film a beating heart to replace George's calloused, blackened one in the reflective moments. Sandler channels that darkness he brought to the fore in Punch-Drunk Love; still funny but searching for life's meaning, George at last realizes his solitude after a lifetime of losing himself to the false love of Hollywood, and Sandler beautifully captures the pain of a man who has everything but the only woman he ever loved.

That woman is played by Apatow's wife, Leslie Mann, who must shoulder the burden of much of the film's drama. When George shows signs of recovery, he attempts to reconnect with her Laura, and Mann brings serious weight to a character who must reconcile her lingering feelings for George, her anguish and resentment concerning her husband (played by an alternately loopy and intimidating Eric Bana in an interesting role clearly, tragically cut down in post-production) as well as her fears of divorce. She doesn't fully factor into the story until the last hour, which is a vital mistake because she lifts it out of the mire of its bloated middle section. Mann stole the show in Knocked Up, and she nearly does so here, though Schwartzman reigns triumphant with his irascible, pompous jerk.

Funny People is unlike anything Judd Apatow has ever made or produced, indeed unlike any comedy-drama that I can think of at the moment. The near-death epiphany is a well-trod road, but filtering it through the bleak no man's land of stand-up comedy gives it an edge. Most people tend to think of stand-up as some glorious job that lands you fame, wealth and nookie, but in reality most spend their whole lives struggling to even pay the rent (when they're even home, that is). Incidentally, when I was a kid, my friends used to encourage me to become a comedian when I grew up, not realizing that A) half of the jokes I told from the ages of 5-15 I'd cribbed from films and television and B) they were essentially trying to condemn me to a life of poverty and crippling cynicism. Notice how George, who broke out of the stand-up circuit and into Hollywood megastardom 20 years ago, returns to the stage as much out of fatalism and resignation as a desire to recapture a moment of youth.

That's what makes the massive flaws of the film all the more glaring: it has so much going for it. For all its dark comedy and interesting characters, it spends far too much time repeating segments to pad the length. Only two Yo Teach! clips should have stayed in the final cut, and the first act needed to leave a good 15 minutes on the cutting room floor. In the final, shortest act, Apatow bombards us with both Ira and George's relationship woes, an argument between Ira and his friends and conflict between George and Laura's husband (which in turn leads to conflict between George and Ira), and then he seeks to resolve all of these threads in a disjointed semi-montage. It undoes much of what makes Funny People great, and it results in a film that manages to connect enough to warrant a ticket purchase but severely disappoints in the end. Its most damning aspect, though, is that, for a film about bettering oneself, George never really changes until the final moments. What, then, was the point of sitting through those repetitive two-and-a-half hours?

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

A poster on one of the forums I frequent once described Forgetting Sarah Marshall as the "Apatow-produced film most like Freaks and Geeks." That only adds to the laundry list of reasons why I desperately need to sit down and watch that show. Of all the major works of Apatow Productions (and the lesser ones too), I find myself returning to Forgetting Sarah Marshall the most often, as it offers not only a slew of laughs but the most honest romance to ever grace one of the production company's films.

Jason Segel (who wrote the film) stars as Peter Bretter, a television composer who creates not music so much as -- as he terms it sardonically -- "tones." Chiefly, he works on the hit show Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, and he's dating the star of the show, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). Well, at least he was, as she visits him at the beginning of the film to break up, saying that she's met someone else. The break-up sends Peter into a tailspin of one-night stands to forget Sarah, but to no avail. Finally he strikes upon an idea: head to Hawaii for a week or so to get away from it all, only to find himself in the same hotel as Sarah and her new beau, rock star/professional Lothario Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

From this comedy of errors comes a story about heartbreak, moving on, the awkwardness of relationships, and puppet musicals. Strap yourself in, it's a wonderful ride. As Peter copes with having to face his ex -- and with neither party willing to "run away" to another hotel -- he meets a group of tourists and locals who all get in big laughs and help propel the story. There's the zonked-out surfing instructor (Paul Rudd) who takes Peter out on the waves for the day and doesn't remember who he is by nightfall, the conservative newlyweds trying to consummate their marriage without offending the Lord, the kindly bartender who enthusiastically invites Peter to come snorkeling to watch the turtle mating season. All off-kilter little weirdos on an island just foreign enough to the average American (even though it's a damn state) to make them plausible.

While there, Peter meets Rachel (Mila Kunis), the receptionist, who pities Peter's state and even gives him a room free of charge because of it. The two socialize and even go out on pseudo-dates, and we begin to learn what both of them, and indeed all the characters, seek in this sunny paradise. Rachel, like Peter, came to Hawaii in order to forget a broken relationship, and remained there when it didn't work. Seeing how happy the move off the mainland made other staffers at the hotel only hurts more. Even Sarah, I think, visited Hawaii to squash any lingering guilt over dumping Peter, or at the very least to continue her fantasy getaway with the rock star.

What sets FSM apart from the other Apatow Productions is that it finally gives the women in a voice. Apatow placed Catherine Keener's character on a sort of detached pedestal, and made the women of Knocked Up flat and boring in order to set them apart as "mature." And we won't even get into how ridiculous it was when Jonah Hill somehow got with Emma Stone in Superbad (and that was after he passed out and accidentally smashed her in the head). But Segel lets each character have its own pathos, warmth, and killer humor. Yes, it's still two beautiful women essentially battling for that mountain of a man, but for once the women don't seem like afterthoughts tossed in amidst the improv.

But even without the pathos, this would still be the best film to come out of the ruins of Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, as it by far the funniest. Superbad and Knocked Up, funny as they are, suffer from excruciating lulls in the middle when the characters head into situations obviously designed for a joke. Now, Chaplin did that and he's the greatest comic director of all time, but that was then and two-reelers aren't exactly the rage anymore. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, on the other hand, features dialogue that rarely plays into its location (save for discussing Hawaii), so the jokes flow smoothly and the story never sags. Not to mention that the lines are almost all screamingly funny and real, mixing awkward humor with Allen/Smith style monologues and even broad moments like the over-the-top brilliance of the Dracula musical (I wish they'd made a full version of this and put it on DVD).

When I revisit the films of Apatow and his ilk, I usually find myself spotting glaring flaws that can be overlooked on a first viewing but grate like missed notes in a recital when you're no longer in a room of people laughing over lines and generally ignoring everything else. The two exceptions I've found to this are Pineapple Express, which works because it doesn't try to be deep, and this film, which tries to be deep and succeeds. It has the power that a great romantic film must have, the ability to carry you along to unknown places you can't wait to visit, just as you do when you first meet someone special. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is simply one of the best comedies in a decade, and one of the most knowing.

Knocked Up — Unrated Version

The more I watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall the more I see the flaws in the relationships found in other major Apatow Productions. On the one hand, there's The 40-Year Old Virgin, certainly a wildly funny film, but Catherine Keener's character more or less rests on a pedestal and almost seems like a deus ex machina than an actual human being. But at least that film centered on Steve Carell's character Andy; Knocked Up, on the other hand, absolutely depends on both its male and female leads, and it suffers greatly for it.

Ben (Seth Rogen), a chubby stoner, spends his days getting baked with his friends (a number of former castmates from Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared essentially playing themselves, same names and all) and designing a web site that lists the titles of movies in which actresses appear nude and when the scenes occur. Allison (Katherine Heigl) works for the E! channel and lives with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and brother-in-law Pete (Paul Rudd). One night, Allison and Debbie go to a club to celebrate Allison's promotion; meanwhile, Ben and the gang show up at the same club. Somehow, Ben wins Allison over and, despite her sister's warnings and signals, she stays to party with the schlub. Then she invites Ben back to her place for some hot love-maki- cuddling and snuggling, kids! The next morning brings cold sobriety, and the two part, putting the one-night stand behind them.

8 weeks pass. Suddenly Allison comes over with morning sickness all the time and realizes with horror what it might mean when a co-worker (Bill Hader in a scene-stealing bit part) suggests she could be pregnant. Sure enough, there's a bun in the oven, and it belongs to Ben. When she seeks him out and breaks the news, he gives just about the most unexpected reaction I could have heard in reaction to a pregnancy, and I used to watch Maury. It's funny and vicious and it sets up a tension between the two that drops far too quickly in favor of sentimentality. When it rears its ugly head again, the blame gets uncomfortably placed on a hormonal Allison.

But it's the sentimentality that wears me down more and more with each viewing. Ben has a meeting with his father (Harold Ramis), who's overjoyed with the news and kindly supports his son. His father's geniality turns him around, but we get no such moment for Allison. The common sense answer to her problem would be abortion, leading to the equally sensible response "Well, then, there wouldn't be a movie would there?" but that doesn't excuse the fact that we get no real reason for Allison to keep the baby. But whatever, she does, and Ben announces he'll support her decision. Soon they're a genuine couple, picking out baby clothes and gradually changing each other.

All this might have worked if the characters were well-written enough, but Apatow shoots for improvisation, not character depth, and it shows. After the film became a hit, Katherine Heigl went on record saying that the film was sexist because it portrayed the women as "shrews" and boring and, while it's certainly biting the hand that feeds and her argument would have a lot more clout if her follow-up was 27 Dresses, she has a point. Personally, I think the film turned out that way because it more or less gave all the screen time to Rogen and his buddies to show off their improv skills, while the women had to basically stay within the script because they needed to be the mature people in the situation. Why mature people can't get more chances to get laughs is a bit beyond me, but whatever; some people just can't write for women.

This clear disconnect between funny improvisational moments and Let's Get Down To Business really hurts the film, and a great deal of the jokes fall flat, particularly in the beginning. The entire first sequence, for example, could easily been cut if it didn't half-heartedly introduce Ben and his friends amidst the slew of lame jokes. Things pick up in the club and they generally remain very funny throughout, but the moments of exposition grind things to a halt, especially in the sagging middle. At some point I found myself focusing more on the subplot of Pete and Debbie's rough marriage, because it went for the dark laughs and mixed pathos with killer one-liners far better than the stop-start nature of Ben and Allison's relationship. Really, they're the reason I keep coming back to this film.

However, one moment does combine the two with flourish, and that's the delivery scene. Emotions overflow, and it results in a madcap, gloriously filthy sequence that remains one of the funnier scenes of recent years. Even if I no longer care more most of the lead-up, I never grow tired of these moments. Some may object to a certain visible object, but I thought it was hilarious. I mean, how often do you see a birth on film from that angle?

This used to be perhaps my favorite of the major products of Apatow Productions and, looking back, I cannot for the life of me figure out why. With the possible exception of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, all of the big AP movies drag, but none as overtly as this. Nevertheless, it's got enough gags to keep me coming back occasionally, and I particularly love the show-stealing moments from Alan Tudyk and Kristen Wiig. Knocked Up, sweet though it may be, doesn't offer any real insight into characters who have to grow up fast to deal with a serious situation (see Juno for that), and you can never really see why Allison would stay with Ben. However, I really do laugh for most of its running length, and isn't that what matters?

Note, I should mention that I am referring to the extended cut of the film, not the theatrical, so like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, its entirely possible that trimming the DVD fat would boost this film significantly, and when I check out the original version I'll write a little addendum if my opinion of the film changes significantly.

P.S. I rarely mention much about the DVD itself, but really, Knocked Up has to be one of the best DVD packages ever put out for a film that isn't some established hallmark of movie history (think Criterion). It's loaded with fake behind-the-scenes documentaries funnier than the film itself, complete with blistering improv segments from Ken Jeong, who plays Dr. Kuni. The only person who gets comedy DVDs that even rival this is Kevin Smith.