On DVD and BLU RAY -
-----"Admission" - So timid, predictable, unfunny and underwritten, this utterly forgettable Romantic Comedy made me want to gag- it's the celluloid equivalent of spoiled tofu. Tina Fey portrays a Princeton admission's officer romantically pursued by Paul Rudd's overseer of an alternative high school- I'm not so sure Princeton should be proud of being represented in such a ham-fisted manner.
I think the only thing that will stick with me is just how much plastic has overtaken what was once Lily Tomlin's face.
I've always had a thing for the sexy Tina Fey (I think it's her scar), though she may want to reconsider her career in feature films and stick with television fare...
5.0 out of 10
Director: Paul Weitz
Starring: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Wallace Shawn, Gloria Reuben, Nat Wolff, Lily Tomlin and Michael Sheen
Running Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for language and some sexual material
-----"Prince Avalanche" - Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch portray two road surface marker operators laying down traffic lines on a long stretch of countryside after a devastating wild fire. Far from home and smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, the two disparate men find themselves trying to cope with the loneliness, isolation and overwhelming boredom of the situation at hand.
Naturally, tempers flare and insults fly, yet it's all so quirky and light-hearted that it's impossible to take the more dramatic aspects of the narrative seriously.
Filmed in Bastrop, Texas after the Bastrop County Complex fire, I was taken with the strikingly gorgeous cinematography of the fire ravaged area and a few amazingly well-constructed slow-motion sequences set to a hypnotic original soundtrack by Explosions In The Sky & David Wingo.
It's a little weird and not quite what I was hoping for as David Gordon Green (The Pineapple Express) is an ecclectic, but highly capable filmmaker. Scenes featuring the late Lance LeGault (Stripes) as an alcoholic trucker that intermittently drops in on the duo are a little off kilter and certain other sequences aren't fully realized, though the film is beautiful to look at and ends on a positive note. Prince Avalanche is one of those films that comes along every now and then that I can't quite figure out how I truly felt about- some may absolutely love it while others will be left wondering aloud, "What the hell was that!?"
7.0 out of 10
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch and Lance LeGault
Running Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for some sexual content.
-----"This Is 40" - Maybe it just caught me in the right mood, but I found this self described "sort-of sequel to Knocked Up" decidedly entertaining, eliciting a wealth of hearty laughs throughout. It doesn't feature any appearances from Katherine Heigl or Seth Rogen, though Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann's characters from that film return as a married couple both pushing forty and experiencing their mid-life crisis's simultaneously. I bought into the charismatic family of four, with the couple's two young daughters played wonderfully by Director Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann's real life children together, Maude and Iris Apatow. I'll be damned if the onscreen family didn't feel authentic in nearly every imaginable manner.
Expect worthwhile appearances from Jason Segel, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Chris O'Dowd, Melissa McCarthy and John Lithgow, with cameos from Graham Parker, Billy Joe Armstrong and Ryan Adams.
My only real knock against the film would be it's unnecessarily EPIC runtime of well over 2 hours- it could definitely use a stream-lining, but it's still very much worth checking out.
Recommended
8.0 out of 10
Director: Judd Apatow
Starring: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Jason Segel, Chris O'Dowd, Melissa McCarthy, Maude Apatow and Iris Apatow
Running Time: 134 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for sexual content, crude humor, pervasive language and some drug material
FWIW- The Films Of Judd Apatow
The 40-Year-Old Virgin - 8.5
Knocked Up - 8.0
Funny People - 5.5
----- "Wanderlust" - Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston portray a newly jobless Manhattan couple forced to take up a new residence, eventually landing in a hippie commune. The only thing remotely interesting about this improvised, scatter-shot mess from the Director of the substantially better Role Models (David Wain) is the complete lack of onscreen chemistry that real-life couple Aniston and Justin Theroux display in their "amorous" scenes together. I can only recall a couple of half-hearted chuckles amongst a host of flat sequences and painfully bad ideas.
Dear Jennifer Aniston- Quit farting around and teasing millions with your annoying flirtations with full-blown nudity and just go ahead and get nekkid already... then again, that wouldn't have done very much to have helped this turd of a movie.
Wanderlust is one of the worst films of 2012 and should be in considerations as one of the lamest comedies of all time.
Skip it.
2.5 out of 10
Director: David Wain
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Malin Akerman, Justin Theroux, Alan Alda, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Kathryn Hahn, Lauren Ambrose and Kerri Kenney
Running Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, language and drug use
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