Everything Must Go Review

As soon as I finished watching Everything Must Go I had to Youtube the trailer because on the front of the DVD case the quote “sharply funny” was embedded along with “Ferrell has never been better”. These two quotes indicated to me that I would be watching a comedy and sure enough, the trailer makes Everything Must Go out to be a comedy drama. So I got all settled down, ready to laugh my head off at Will Ferrell doing some daft things… Everything Must Go should not be called a comedy.

Everything Must Go is more of an observation of five days into Nick Halsy’s (Will Ferrell) life; a small window which is enough to see his life be ruined. After losing his job for falling back into his alcohol addiction, Halsy returns home to find the locks on the door, gate and garage changed and everything he owns thrown out onto the front yard – this is the worst day of his life. Nick does nothing to change this and instead lives on his front yard until the police are called (who knew it was a crime to drink beer and have all your stuff on a front yard you have actually paid for?). Nick’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, detective Frank Garcia (Michael Pena) informs him that the law states you can hold a yard sale for five days and so Nick decides to sell all of his belongings.

It’s a nice story and despite it not being a comedy as it is so wrongly advertised what you actually get is a real gripping character piece. Will Ferrell, one of the best comedy actors of his generation (if not all time), is successful because he can actually act and here is has to rely wholly on those skills rather than comedic actions or elements and it is a terrific performance. For the most part this is an independently Ferrell film but with a few minutes on screen from the likes of Rebecca Hall, Michael Pena and Christopher Jordan Wallace the acting is really top notch.

The film doesn’t really give you that happy ending you would hope for after the first twenty to thirty minutes pretty much force you to watch the self destruction of a human life as we know it and Everything Must Go does leave the ending open without the audience knowing if Nick is going to turn his life around for good or not. One thing is for certain though, his friendship that grows with Rebecca Hall’s character and the young boy Kenny (Wallace) are very believable and warming relationships in an otherwise low tone of a drama.

Everything Must Go is a slow burner and as I mentioned before it is very much a character study but if you give it a chance and can stick with it past the first fifteen/twenty minutes then you will enjoy the story of Nick Halsy. Ferrell’s performance is enough to keep the audience’s attention even if you would rather see him in something like Anchorman. This won’t go down as one of the best films ever and it won’t win any fans for it’s guessable plot twists but it does invoke sympathy and tells a very good story.

My Rating: 6/10.

Ruby Sparks Trailer – Most Exciting Comedy for a Long Time!

UK Release Date: 12th October 2012.

Stars: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris (directors), Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Annette Bening, Elliott Gould, Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan, Chris Messina.

Plot: A novelist struggling with writer’s block finds romance in a most unusual way: by creating a female character he thinks will love him, then willing her into existence.

This trailer had me excited from the very beginning as it features someone who I am very keen to see more of and that is Paul Dano, a very under rated part of the tripod from The Girl Next Door. Ruby Sparks sees him remain in the romantic comedy world and it looks as though this will have just as much fun as The Girl Next Door and could even, dare I say it, be better.

I just think that even in the trailer Ruby Sparks looks funny, it has some real comedy moments and parts that made me laugh out loud: a good sign for a trailer. Hopefully the full length feature will include even more of these moments!

The story is very creative and inventive with a lot of potential for character growth and comedy moments. With a cast that includes several big names and a soundtrack that combines Vampire Weekend and Kaiser Chiefs you have to believe that this is going to be a hit with teenagers and young adults on both sides of the Atlantic. I certainly hope so, I can’t put into words how much I like the trailer, it seems almost perfect! Hopefully you’ll see what I mean when you watch it for yourself.

 

Why I Love… The Girl Next Door

Obviously, I mean the film… I am not about to randomly profess my love on the internet for some girl who lives on my street, that would be stupid. But The Girl Next Door is one of my favourite films and has been ever since the first time I saw it back in 2004. The Girl Next Door is a romantic comedy aimed at a male teenage audience and that genre of film doesn’t usually go down well with the target audience so it has to be something that will make them watch it so what’s the plot? Pretty much every stereotypical teenage boy’s fantasy: a high school boy starts dating a girl only to find out that she is, in fact, a porn star. Brilliant!

All the characters are really well thought out (if not a little stereotypical) but all of them seem to have layers and layers of character if you look for it in the right place. The casting really does go a long way in this film as well because you can’t imagine anyone else in any of the roles. Let’s start with the three high school friends: Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch), Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz ‘with a k’ (Paul Dano). These three characters encapsulate different three different parts of a teenage boy’s personality. Matthew is the one who is awkwardly and hopelessly romantic who falls in love, but he is also lost in his life and feels that he needs to really find out who he is; Eli is the one who just seems incredibly horny every second of every day and is obsessed with women and pornography; Klitz is the shy, reserved, quiet one who just sort of goes along with the ride rather begrudgingly and together their friendship is absolutely fantastic!

Elisha Cuthbert is Danielle the pornstar and as well as being really attractive Cuthbert really plays on the innocence of her character and her longing to be something more, whilst Timothy Olyphant as Kelly is probably one of my favourite movie villains of all time, he is hilarious! I like the fact his character’s name is Kelly; Kelly’s a girl’s name!

The Girl Next Door is one of the funniest films I have ever seen and I have watched it plenty of times (maybe more than any other film now that I think about it) but it still manages to make me laugh with every joke. There is great verbal humour and physical and Timothy Olyphant’s aggressiveness to the jocks is really funny. There are some absolutely fantastic lines, mainly from Eli, including “take her to a motel and bang her like a beast!”, “I just wanna bang hot chicks!” and the outrageous “I just gotta f**k something!”.  Eli’s phone conversation with Matthew whilst Matthew (rather really pervertedly) watches Danielle get undressed is top comedy too, as well as Matthew’s reaction.

The romantic element to the story holds it’s own against the comedy and it is really wonderful to watch the relationship grown between Matthew and Danielle. They are so perfect for each other; Danielle will push Matthew to be the person he wants to be and Matthew is her escape to the real world and a better life, keeping her on the right track. You can really feel for their relationship as they go through the ups and the downs together.

The end is particularly satisfying. I am a big fan of character development and I think that the majority of characters have completed a full arc in the entirety of the film: Matthew goes off to DC, taking Danielle with him, Eli has become a famous director thanks to the sex education video the group made, Klitz is pretty much the biggest thing in town (that’s a little pun you’ll get if you remember the end of the film) and I really like Kelly’s ending. Kelly on set making the porn movies he loves to receive a box of cigars from Matthew with the famous quote from the film “the juice was worth the squeeze”.

I love The Girl Next Door and everybody else should too!

The Five-Year Engagement Reviewed.

The Five-Year Engagement sees Jason Segel continuing to try and cement his place as one of Hollywood’s greatest comedy actors following The Muppets and Jeff Who Lives At Home with the help of writing partner Nicholas Stoller. Segel’s latest offering comes in the form of a romantic comedy when exactly a year after meeting Tom (Segel) proposes to his girlfriend Violet (Emily Blunt) but unexpected events keep on getting in their way as they attempt to tie the knot with one another.

With most films of this genre you get the same thing over and over again: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl split up, boy and girl get back together and live happily ever after. In The Five-Year Engagement what you get is an in depth look at the ins and outs of a stable relationship as it journeys through the ups and downs of life. I think that this is a great idea and shows that relationships don’t always run smoothly as plenty of other films would have you believe. I also believe that The Five-Year Engagement separates itself from other comedies aimed at an adult audience by being cleverer and, although we do get to see Jason Segel’s rear end on more than one occasion, a lot of the comedy is very well written and obviously well put together.

There is clear chemistry between the two leads of the film, Jason Segel and Emily Blunt which is obviously helped by their off screen friendship and the fact that the two of them have worked together previously. Segel puts in a great performance but I don’t think that we ever get to see the best of him like we have seen in The Muppets and television sitcom How I Met Your Mother. He is a very fine comedic actor though and brings out some good laughs here; I’m not a fan of Emily Blunt too much and at times her comedy efforts seemed a little forced. Also, her accent seems overly British even though it’s authentic, how weird is that?

The Five-Year Engagement starts off very well with some hilarious moments and really sets you up for what should be a laugh a minute film from start to finish. A lot of this is the emphasis put on the characters of Tom’s colleague and friend Alex (Chris Pratt) and Violet’s sister Suzie (Alison Brie). Whilst their relationship offers very little to the film as a whole their individual contribution to scenes are very well delivered. Chris Pratt is wonderfully funny in almost every scene in which he features and a particular scene featuring Pratt’s Alex delivering a presentation of Tom’s former girlfriends is my favourite part of the film and a brilliantly written and acted scene. Unfortunately, their characters seem to fizzle out and so does the film itself.

There is a reason that most romantic comedies are only an hour and a half long; the plot cannot sustain a two hour movie without lagging. The Five-Year Engagement does try and stretch over two hours and you would think that with five years of a relationship to tell then it would easily manage this without getting too boring. You would be wrong. It gets to a point where you think it could be coming to an end only to realise there is still about half an hour left and after a while the laughs become a sparse item. Don’t get me wrong, The Five-Year Engagement at times is hilarious and it is definitely a great romantic comedy with real stock in the lead characters but it tails off towards the end. It is still, though, definitely worth watching!

My Rating: 7/10.

The Muppets Review

 

***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***

 

There isn’t a lot to say about The Muppets that hasn’t already been said a hundred times before. This new release is an attempt to introduce and make appealing some of the most famous television and film characters to a new audience and it definitely triumphs in doing so. It’s a film that will make sure you leave the cinema happy.

The story is pretty simple. The Muppets have been on hiatus for a number of years and when they learn of an oil tycoon’s plans to knock down their old studio they must reunite and put on a show that earns the ten million dollars they need to rescue their home.

The (human) cast is led by Jason Segel, who also co-wrote the film, and the wonderful Amy Adams who was nominated for an Oscar at last years ceremony. Both of these actors do as good a job as they need to; they play their parts convincingly but in all honesty it’s not them you’re going to see this film for. Kermit and Miss Piggy, Animal and Fozzie Bear, The Muppets are the stars of the show and it’s like they never went away. The humour is top class, the film is filled with gags and great references to the fact that they are just in a movie.

It seems like a whole host of celebrities were lining up to be in this film and nearly all of the cameo appearances were brilliant and are sure to draw laughs from audiences, Jim Parsons’ cameo in particular is a highlight of the film.

In a time where most high grossing films are fuelled by the use of CGI and computer effects it is refreshing to still see the hand held puppets of The Muppets on the big screen. Despite not being real you really do feel for their characters and their stories. The musical element has always been a huge part of The Muppets success and this new version mixes in some old classics with some great new songs too even being nominated for the ‘best original song’ award at the 2012 Oscars.

The Muppets has been a success both critically and commercially and Disney have ultimately triumphed in bringing The Muppets back to the big screen. I don’t think it will be long before we see another outing from Kermit and his friends, hopefully with Jason Segel and Amy Adams both still featured.

My Rating: 8/10