I cannot formally spill the beans yet, but lets just say that if you enjoy reading my reviews you will get a splended surprise coming soon. I'm very happy and excited about it. Big plans in motion for me. Uber excited I am! So lets not dilly dally, and tease you any further. An announcement is coming soon. Lets just make with the reviews. And a couple newer movies this time around:
BRUNO (2009)
I'll admit I'm a Sasha Baron Cohen fan. I enjoyed BORAT, and ALI G and the HBO show as well. That is, once I got the joke that people around him think that he's actually for real. Otherwise it would be simple obnoxious characters 1-3, and done before. Going into to BRUNO, I was ready for it to top the outrageous nature of BORAT, and it certainly did. It trumped it in over the top and crudeness within the first twenty minutes. Its about what you would expect from Sasha with this character.
BRUNO follows the exploits of a cancelled fashion show host coming to America to hit it big and become famous. He tries various things to gain him noterity and fortune, from filming a sex tape with someone famous, to pitching his own TV show, to adopting an African child and many more moments of madness. For the most part, it follows the same structural form as BORAT. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, yes?
What bothered me was that sometimes he would indeed go for the obvious jokes. The stereotypical types of things associated with the gay culture, coming from a straight man talking. In a way, this turned me off from the film. Not because of the content itself, but just that it seemed unfair to paint a painting of which the subject may be misconstrued. I am reminded of many of the complaints of the film, THE BIRDCAGE, which depicted Nathan Lane's character as a sobbing, swaying complete stereotype. Its one thing to play it up, but another to say that what is being depicted as truth.
Another thing that bothered me was that as he was encountering people that didn't know he was acting (Ron Paul for example), it became quite uncomfortable. With BORAT, he was to be excused because he was unfamiliar with American customs. BRUNO should know that trying to seduce someone like Ron Paul shouldn't be done. Also, there's a cringe inducing scene of him interviewing mothers of potential child actors, who agree to some outrageous things for their child to endure if they got the job. I sat mouth agape in fear that these people actually exist. It wasn't funny anymore. It was scary.
What works best about BORAT is that through Sasha's comedy, he exposes a double sided nature to us as Americans and the conventions/scruples of our society. Bruno just stands naked in our face and we have to deal with it. It doesn't become funny anymore. In the TV series, BRUNO would interview various fashion designers and expose how dumb they are, as well as exposing their dual sided nature. There's a scene where he makes a person say Paris Hilton is actually cool because it would be good for sponsors of his show, he says. He interviews another designer and keeps dancing around his answers, exposing him for the fraud he is. This is what made the character of BRUNO work for me. It didn't go for cheap jokes. But in film form, he did. And I think it suffers from that.
But I will say that I laughed sometimes. Especially at the end scene. There's cameos in there that I will not spoil, and for me it left me laughing at the end. Overall, I liked the film but I think it is a pale comparison to the far superior (and relevant) BORAT.
GRADE: B-
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO (2008)
I kept putting this one off because of the bad word of mouth. But still knowing I would get to it eventually. I'll start out by saying that I am not a Seth Rogan fan at all. I don't see his appeal. To me, he only works in bit parts like THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. But movies like KNOCKED UP, I wasn't impressed. I am a Kevin Smith fan, but I also see his flaws. So going into this, I was ready for anything.
The film follows late twenties best friends since kindergarten Zack and Miri as they are way behind on their rent and bills. They go to their high school reunion and come home back to their mediocrity and the power shut off. Desperate for cash they decide to follow up on an earlier happenstance of Miri getting filmed via a cellphone camera changing clothes (and getting a lot of internet downloads as a result) and make a real adult feature. They get a producer, hire a crew and cast and decide to shoot what they have available.
Watching all of this unfold, one cannot help but think of Smith himself, as a parallel to him making his first film "CLERKS" was done in the same manner, sans the adult movie stars. Unfortunately, as the film unfolds, we can see that the problem (once again) is Kevin Smith's dialog. I just have a hard time believing a woman spouting the same dialog as their male co-stars and not batting an eye at its vulgarity. There's a scene early on in the movie where Craig Robinson handles racist dialog like it was written by Kevin Smith. It lacks the flow and ebb of subtlety and seems "written." Especially written from the perspective of a person who only thinks they know what they are talking about. Also in the movie is another Kevin Smith cliche, is the one sexual move that will be repeated once the film is over. In Clerks it was snowballing. Mallrats, the stink palm. Clerks 2, the interspecies erotica. And this film is no different. Its a tired device, but one expects it from a Smith movie.
Lastly in the bad department, I felt the film was overly obvious in its jokes and ending. I almost preferred a CHASING AMY type of ending because its realistic and it works. Perhaps Smith was trying to play it safe with his characters. After all, he's got Hollywood darlings Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogan to play with in his sandbox. Who could blame him?
What I liked about the film was the cameos. You have Tracy Lords and Katie Morgan as some of the adult film actors, natch. Longtime Smith film star Jason Mewes turns in a surprisingly halarious and fun performance as a dumb potential actor. Jason Long and Brandon Routh have wonderful performances themselves and I think steal every scene that they show up in. They are written and acting subtlely, which I know is coming from ad-libbing... something Kevin Smith is sorely against. I think of all the characters in this, they work the best because they are allowed to stretch a bit and bring us that subtlety in humor that makes things gel. When things seem to obviously written (like female and racist humor), it comes off as extremely stale and "been there, done that."
I also enjoyed that the film centers around the Monroeville, PA area. Finally, I don't have to hear yet another love letter to New Jersey! Many subtle homages to the area abound. From Tom Savini popping up, the hockey team's name and a scene shot in the actual Monroeville Mall (Where George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD was shot back in 1977). Again, once Smith decides to stretch himself and his conventions he's established over the last seven movies, thats where I think he succeeds. I think if the story stuck to the parallels of Smith's filming CLERKS, and them filming their adult movie, then I think that would have lended some of the "heart" back into it that it seems to lack. Kevin Smith does write from the heart, but I felt this film to really be uninspired and a cry for mainstream audiences to notice him more.
I love Kevin and his films. I own everything he's released practically. And I wish him luck on future endevours. I know that his next project is a film he didn't even write, and its with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Hopefully he enjoys just playing with new toys in someone else's sandbox for a while instead of building and wrecking the same sandcastle in his own.
GRADE: C+
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