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HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE
You could have done a whole lot worse with a lot less.
One of the attractions everyone should have when you see HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE is that it’s a good film in the romantic comedy realm; it doesn’t necessarily insult your intelligence nor does it really respect you for it. You can essentially boil everything down to its bare essences: boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy tries to get girl and, eventually, and I hope I’m not spoiling anything for anyone planning on seeing the thing, boy gets girl.
Why should I even care about this film, then? When it follows a route well traveled by other films that people attach their affections to it should be no surprise that this movie explores nothing new about the peculiarities between men and women. Nor should it. I know it seems like I’m kinda of down on this movie but I’m really not. Simon Pegg plays his character Sidney with a freshness that you don’t see very often in pudgy protagonists of this variety. He has his own flavor, no doubt honed by the many incarnations of roles he’s played of this ilk, and he brings his own chipper sense of humor that absolutely plays well in this movie and bucks the mediocrity that any other actor put in this position would put up on the screen,
Kirsten Dunst, as well, does a little bit better than your usual tart who tries to protest too much when it comes to deflecting the advances of Pegg but not by much. The love story that wraps these two people up in a comedy of many errors actually does go down better than anything Julia Roberts and her many cinematic suitors ever slapped to celluloid.
One of the other things you probably didn’t already know is that this film revolves around Pegg’s ambitions to be a famous magazine writer who profiles the travails of celebutards in ways that Truman Capote spun history. The boss that pulls Sidney away from England and to New York, played by the always affable Jeff Bridges, is a real treat from the standpoint that it gives us something to dawdle on other than the forced relationship between Pegg and Dunst. There is a moment where Bridges, admonishing Pegg like the hackneyed magazine editor he is, tells Pegg do his “fucking job†and it really is a moment you don’t see often in romantic comedies. Pegg is put through the proverbial ringer as he tries to make it as a successful writer for a magazine that really is a joke when you see shows like “Ugly Betty†making this look a lot funnier but less pretentious. Some moments I didn’t know whether we’re supposed to believe this is really how it was or if this is again a Hollywood-ization of what we’re supposed to believe actually exists in an alternate universe.
Ultimately, Pegg deserves credit for taking the material that genuinely would be slop in any other actor’s hands and he truly takes the comedy to a special level; he’s more than comfortable in his skin and he is an unconventional choice as a man who would be even in the same baseball league as Kirsten Dunst but he makes it work by being his foppish self.
He saves this film from mediocrity and elevates a love story that could have been relegated to a Lifetime movie of the week. Pegg does comedy well in ways that I wish other people could learn from and be inspired by; he’s subtle, not over the top, and, in the end, you really are rooting for the man; that’s why the movie isn’t treated as complete saccharine by your body as it’s absorbed through your eyes. Pegg knows how to tap into the everyman that guys respond to, he certainly brings his usual sensibility with him, and he is great at making this romance not seem like an impossibility.
As for Megan Fox? Completely useless, completely tired, played out and if I could have fashioned a way to excise her from any and all prints of this film I certainly would have done it. Her character is a poor ruse in a laughable Doug Henning, sleight of hand, kind of way and it really is insulting to try and shoehorn her into this narrative.
Men across America would be wise to take the bullet on date night with this movie compared to the other players in this field. You couldn’t pick a better film.
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RELIGULOUS
“And I can’t tell the difference between ABC news, Hill Street Blues and a preacher on the old time gospel hour, stealing money from the sick and the old. Well the God I believe in isn’t short of cash, Mister.†– U2, Rattle and Hum
There is a moment in Bill Maher’s RELIGULOUS where he’s talking to a leader of the Muslim faith. In this moment the Muslim man receives a text on his phone during the interview with Maher. Instead of turning away for a moment and then picking up the conversation about religion where they left off there is a screen graphic that imagines what this man is texting back to whoever was calling him in the first place. What the filmmakers envisioned he was texting back was blatantly done for comedic relief and while I found myself laughing at the moment it was only on reflection when I realized this film is filled with these kinds of moments.
Bill Maher is a welterweight when it comes debating an issue he has obviously mulled and crafted logical thoughts about but it hardly seems fair when you watch this movie and you see him sucker punching people who don’t really know they’re going to be made to look like Class A buffoons to a nation who will watch this and be amazed that Larry Charles (of BORAT fame) has once again conned unsuspecting individuals to reveal their souls. Almost literally. The two of them scour the world, mostly America, in search of the divine truth that seems to guide many people to lives of happy and quiet joyousness while, others, to violent hatred and, ultimately, to kill.
The movie itself is set up most adequately. We’re given Maher’s reasoning for why he is going on this pilgrimage to find out what is happening in this world when it comes to religion, why people elect to believe in the things they do and, I think, poke fun at some people along the way just to make this something more than a PBS special on Religion Across The World.
We’re introduced to a flavorful cast of characters, truckers who worship in a 53’ reefer trailer, an ex-Jew for Jesus, Maher’s own mother and sister, a black minister who obviously loves his fine tailored suits, the second coming of Christ who seems to share more with the devil than he does divinity and a host of other obnoxious fundies who could have entire stations of reality television programming made after their lives as we see just how in the world they can subsist on the kind of blind faith they have in their Maker.
Maher takes all of them on and I think that’s inherenly one of the problems with this movie: There’s just too much to say and too many topics to cover. At times we are moving at breakneck speed just trying to comprehend exactly what religion Maher is discussing at the moment and, other times, the segments feel like they’re shortchanging the religion he’s supposed to be discussing. “Oh, yeah, Mormonism. Excellent topic, great interview…Hey wait, Bill, where are you going? We were just getting going here!†These seem exercises in small bites and small bundles of information. There’s a lot of ground to cover and there are no rest stops along the way, the film seems to make known.
However, and this is where and why you should see this film, the movie doesn’t take anything at face value. Bill seems to take a lot of pleasure to make it known when he thinks he’s being fed a line of bullshit and he will slice anyone down like a 795 AD Japanese samurai who is ready to get down to business. This is where Bill really is in his own element but the people he’s talking to don’t, and aren’t, ready to fight with a guy who obviously has his hypothesis ready and isn’t going to let anyone sway it. For example, he talks with Jesus. He talks to a few Jesuses, or is it Jeezi, but one Jesus who plays him for a theme park in Orlando that explores the life and times of Jesus for the benefit of tourists everywhere actually comes off like someone you would like as a neighbor. Sure, he wouldn’t be down with all the whoring and liquor drinking you do on the weekend but you feel compassion for this gentleman who simply believes in Jesus Christ and is being challenged by a guy who is able to navigate around anyone at any time on any topic with Ginsu precision. Is Jesus real? Did he really rise from the dead? Did he really do any number of things which are all supernatural in nature? There was just no way this poor schlub was going to come out of this looking good.
I felt sorry for him.
Maher absolutely has his own point of view and he absolutely falls on the side of not knowing what the answer is but that those who pervert the emotions and hopes for thousands of people who need spirituality in their lives really are the corrupt philistines who deserve to be tossed to the lions. I agree with him. The film, honestly, preaches to the choir from the standpoint that no one in this world is going to be seeing this movie hoping to get a Fox News fair and balanced report on the state of modern religion.
This film is ambitious in trying to cast a wide enough net to contain the major religions of the world and pop each one of them wide open like a throbbing piñata just asking to have its entrails drained for the world to see. It falls short on many of these aims as it executes its agenda but, at the end of the film, I cannot take away the powerful closing remarks about what happens when religion is used as a rallying cry for war, for pestilence, intolerance and a host of other ironies in that the world may not be coming to and end because of other people living in sin but because of those who think their faith is the one that should rule the world.
Comments: 3 Comments
3 Responses to “Trailer Park: REVIEWS – HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE / RELIGULOUS”Leave a Reply |
October 6th, 2008 at 12:49 am
The Movie Was Great A+
October 6th, 2008 at 12:51 am
On Religulous I Haven’t Seen The Simon Pegg Flick Yet
October 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am
The Simon Pegg flick…You can wait until video. It certainly shouldn’t be something you should seek out to see. Even if you’re a latter-day completest. It’s OK, not great, and like I mention it’s not the worst movie you could get dragged to see if you have a special someone in your life who drags you to it. You could do a lot worse.
Ooo..Suggestion Time. Can I make a suggestion? Sex Drive is having a sneak preview on Saturday night this week (the 11th) and you should make a play at catching it. I’ll be reviewing it next week but it’s a movie that’s made me laugh in public and I haven’t seen many of those this year.