(Judd Apatow, 2015)
Extremely funny but more or less the same old romcom shit under the surface, Trainwreck is most notable for introducing Amy Schumer to the big screen. She should be a big star for years to come. Having written the screenplay, the lead role is obviously tailored beautifully to her personality. She plays Amy, a funny single girl in Manhattan, working as a writer for a laddish Mens Magazine (with stories like "You're Not Gay; She's Boring") and getting wasted as often as possible, she has a thing for casual sex. This is possibly based on the advice given to her as a young girl by her father (Colin Quinn) who informs her that monogamy is insane and can't work. When her aggressive editor (a brilliant Tilda Swinton) assigns her to write a story about a sports surgeon (Bill Hader) Amy and he fall in love, and Amy's equilibrium is destroyed. Can she change enough to enjoy a healthy relationship? The answer is obvious from the start, but the gags come thick and fast, many of them from Hader's relationship with client-turned-friend LeBron James, who gives him romantic advice and hilariously quibbles over who will pay for lunch. Most of them, however, come from Schumer's self-deprecating wit and her observations about male-female relationships, which are truthful and painful in equal measure. Apatow orchestrates it all with typical efficiency, although his tendency to glamorise is also typical.
Still, it is consistently funny, and never remotely boring.
Showing posts with label Bill Hader. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Hader. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 August 2015
Monday, 3 August 2015
INSIDE OUT
(Pete Docter, 2015)
Pixar returns with the first Pixar film to feel like the way we used to see Pixar films in an age. That is to say that Inside Out is beautiful, and incredibly cleverly-conceived and moving without ever once becoming cloying. Its a Pixar film, in other words.
It explores some profound ideas with an incredibly light touch, and manages to remain a fun and colourful adventure through the beautifully-realised landscape of a little girls mind while also addressing the importance of sadness to growth, the way we process the end of childhood, the difficulty of abstract concepts like "bittersweet" and "nostalgia" and what elements actually constitute our personality and how and when they change.
It is lovely; sweet, imaginative, touching, full of great ideas, brilliant gags and nicely-executed drama.
Pixar returns with the first Pixar film to feel like the way we used to see Pixar films in an age. That is to say that Inside Out is beautiful, and incredibly cleverly-conceived and moving without ever once becoming cloying. Its a Pixar film, in other words.
It explores some profound ideas with an incredibly light touch, and manages to remain a fun and colourful adventure through the beautifully-realised landscape of a little girls mind while also addressing the importance of sadness to growth, the way we process the end of childhood, the difficulty of abstract concepts like "bittersweet" and "nostalgia" and what elements actually constitute our personality and how and when they change.
It is lovely; sweet, imaginative, touching, full of great ideas, brilliant gags and nicely-executed drama.
Tuesday, 23 December 2014
THEY CAME TOGETHER
(David Wain, 2014)
Great gags and inspired scenes are studded through They Came Together. The best of those, oddly, are the ones that aren't parodying romcom cliches, the ones that have their own internal humour.
Like the scene where the boss of Paul Rudd's Joel finds himself unable to remove his superhero costume at a fancy dress party - shot by Wain in a series of frantic takes as he contorts his body, his face more and more crimson - and shits his pants, then denies any culpability, having left his soiled costume on the bathroom floor. Or the many random moments of exaggerated behaviour, like Molly's (Amy Poehler) Mom propositioning Joel as a "test" then casually revealing herself as a White Supremacist.
But the film is chiefly a parody of romcoms, and as such it gets so much right, ticking off cliches and conventions as it goes along. Told in flashback by Joel and Molly from a restaurant dinner with another couple, it winks at the audience consistently and from the first moment with it's acknowledgement that New York City is like the "third character" in their story. The problem is that while many of these cliches are presented in hilarious contexts, not all of them are, and it's not enough just to notice conventions; you need to use them somehow, and Wain doesn't do that quite enough.
His cast are a great help, delivering a series of arch "bad" performances full of mugging and telegraphed emotions. Rudd and Poehler have genuine chemistry, which keeps this watchable even as it gets bogged down in a series of short sketches with an at-times-tiresome narrative link. Some gags become funny through repetition (characters constantly say "Shit!" to themselves after somebody else has left, while in other situations, stop people from leaving just so they can say "Thanks.") while some fall flat instantly, but overall this is a pleasantly clever comedy. It's just not quite funny enough.
Great gags and inspired scenes are studded through They Came Together. The best of those, oddly, are the ones that aren't parodying romcom cliches, the ones that have their own internal humour.
Like the scene where the boss of Paul Rudd's Joel finds himself unable to remove his superhero costume at a fancy dress party - shot by Wain in a series of frantic takes as he contorts his body, his face more and more crimson - and shits his pants, then denies any culpability, having left his soiled costume on the bathroom floor. Or the many random moments of exaggerated behaviour, like Molly's (Amy Poehler) Mom propositioning Joel as a "test" then casually revealing herself as a White Supremacist.
But the film is chiefly a parody of romcoms, and as such it gets so much right, ticking off cliches and conventions as it goes along. Told in flashback by Joel and Molly from a restaurant dinner with another couple, it winks at the audience consistently and from the first moment with it's acknowledgement that New York City is like the "third character" in their story. The problem is that while many of these cliches are presented in hilarious contexts, not all of them are, and it's not enough just to notice conventions; you need to use them somehow, and Wain doesn't do that quite enough.
His cast are a great help, delivering a series of arch "bad" performances full of mugging and telegraphed emotions. Rudd and Poehler have genuine chemistry, which keeps this watchable even as it gets bogged down in a series of short sketches with an at-times-tiresome narrative link. Some gags become funny through repetition (characters constantly say "Shit!" to themselves after somebody else has left, while in other situations, stop people from leaving just so they can say "Thanks.") while some fall flat instantly, but overall this is a pleasantly clever comedy. It's just not quite funny enough.
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