Kinematoscope

I would've sworn I'd covered last year's Star Trek reboot pretty thoroughly, but then I remembered it wasn't one of the Best Picture nominees for some unfathomable reason.

So strap in, hold on, for a thrill ride that takes the framework of a beloved cultural icon and makes it even better.

That's right, I boldly went there.

The Key Players:

J.J. Abrams is the superproducer and director who masterminded or co-masterminded awesome things like "LOST," "Alias," "Fringe," Cloverfield, Mission Impossible III and also "Felicity." Breaking his teeth as a screenwriter (Forever Young? Really?) and maturing as a tv producer, he's been on a course as a blockbuster visionary ever since writing and directing the "LOST" pilot (the most expensive pilot ever at the time) in 2004.

Leading men Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are probably most-associated with Star Trek this early in their careers- which is a relief for Pine (The Princess Diaries 2, Just My Luck), but a slap in the face to fans of Quinto's work on "Heroes."

So many, many other roles support these two: surely we could get to them all, but my favorites are Karl Urban's about-face into scene-stealing comedy from Lord Of The Rings seriousness and our old friend Simon Pegg from the third countdown entry.



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The Story:

A massive Romulan ship, captained by a crazy Romulan named Nero (Bana), comes seemingly out of nowhere and attacks the USS Kelvin- in the fracas, the Kelvin's captain is killed, and George Kirk briefly takes command before evacuating the ship, setting a collision course to buy the escape shuttles time, and tearfully saying goodbye over the ship's comm to his wife and newborn son.

Some years later, we see that son, young James Tiberius Kirk, steal his stepfather's car and drive it off a cliff as he jumps out- we also see a young Spock on planet Vulcan, struggling with his half-human, half Vulcan heritage. Some years even later than that they both join Starfleet as young adults, Kirk (Pine) because he was tired of back-country bar brawling and Spock (Quinto) out of a seemingly knee-jerk response to the prejudice of the Vulcan Science Academy.

Eventually, Spock graduates with honors and serves as an instructor or TA or something and accuses Cadet Kirk of cheating on a test simulation. The hearing is interrupted by news of an attack on Vulcan, and everyone rushes off to man the new fleet of ships (the rest of the Federation is busy in the Laurentian system, which must be super far away because it only takes three minutes to get to Vulcan at warp).

Adventures and peril follow, during which each of the characters we semi-recognize rise (Uhura, McCoy, Sulu, Checkov, Scott) take over their destined posts and save the day in various ways. Also there's another Spock floating around (Nimoy, of course) for some reason, and a giant ball of something called "red matter."

The Artistry:

A disclaimer: I would describe my appreciation for "Star Trek" the original series as 'casually enthusiastic' at best- I mean, I love the premise, the characters, and so forth, but I can't say I have the whole thing memorized, and I wouldn't defend the stodgy pacing and Shatner's scenery-chewing to someone without the patience for them.

To me, it's always been a relic of another time- I was more into the "Star Trek"s that were on tv during my youth, the later years of "The Next Generation" and the heyday of "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager." But for all that the loss of a sense of philosophical trappings and parlimentary debate to the film reboot doesn't pain me in the slightest.

I wrote here about how great I thought the film was (and here and there about its technical merits during the 2010 Oscarthon), but to sum up: great script, great performances, excellently made (lens flares aside), shoddy science but all-around fun.

Here's the paradox: I would have like it probably less if I cared a whole bunch about the original series, but I also would have liked it less if I knew nothing about it at all.

Why? Because nostalgia is a tricky thing- an ideal of the past, not the thing itself- and considering it went off the air before I was born, "nostalgia" might even be too strong a word. All Star Trek had to do for me then, was remind of the parts I enjoyed of TOS without replicating it exactly. That would be the camraderie between Kirk, McCoy and Spock (check), the basic concept and design of the Federation (check), spaceships that fire space torpedoes at one another (check), and Leonard Nimoy (super-check!).

In a way I think it's partly an issue of ownership, of primacy. There are these big, pop-culture institutions that exist before we all come along and participate in the culture, and even now that we can watch them all on DVD it's hard to feel included- "Star Trek" is great, but it was never meant for me to see in the first place.

And then these remakes come along, and as disheartening as the paucity of originality in Hollywood can be, it helps these institutions belong to entire new generations. This could be why I'll argue for Batman Begins over Batman every time, or the new "Battlestar Galactica" over the old one.

You still have to make a good film- the Transformers and G. I. Joes of the world can testify to that. But J.J. Abrams, with his madcap camera shaking, lens flaring, witty sensibility fully intact, has managed to create something new and old all at once, and I can't wait for the sequel.

THE ENDING! SPOILERS!

Does it matter how we get there? Kirk and Spock end up as Captain and First Officer of the Enterprise after saving Earth (but not Vulcan, which implodes on itself), Nero explodes, the stage is set for the vague, open-ended mission "To explore strange new worlds" and so on.

Hopefully Abrams and co. will take this as a cue to make new stuff up for the sequels instead of rehashing old villains like Khan and so forth.

END SPOILERS


Overall: Should It Be Higher, Lower?

Well, I did see it three times in the theater. Let's nudge it up a bit. I just realized that when I'm finally done I should re-rank the 250 films I cover, a project that will be nearly as impossible as watching them all (except that Crash will be last).

The Legacy:

It was the first Star Trek film to win an Oscar (for makeup), the highest grossing ever, and the launch of a new franchise. Not too shabby so far.

The Best Video Of It On YouTube:

This clip (where Kirk goads Spock into attacking him) wins solely because the poster titled in "Erotic Asphyxiation IN SPACE."



Leftover Thoughts:

-Michael Giacchino's score here is so great I'm thinking about tagging his name in all of the countdown entries in which he appears.

-Can you do the "live long and prosper" hand thing? If not I feel for you, because it's awesome.

-I'm working on a screenplay for a kids' movie called Ouroboros about a snake that comically always mistakes its own tail for food.


Coming Up...

168. The Wages Of Fear

167. Ratatouilee

166. Dog Day Afternoon

My favorite films of 2009. Since they're already semi-covered in detail in my preferred Oscar nominations and since we have best of the decade stuff coming up, let's go with some best-of particulars in lieu of paragraphs about why they're each awesome.


10. In The Loop

Best quote: "..it falls well within my purview!"
-"Within your 'purview'? Where do you think you are, some f**king regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some f**king Jane fucking Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your sh**ter with a lubricated horse c**k!"

Best Quote Safe For Work: None.

Best Post-Script: When you, presuming you're an ignorant American like myself, are informed by Wikipedia that In The Loop is a spinoff of the BBC series "The Thick Of It," which means there is at least nine more hours of Peter Capaldi as Malcom Tucker.


9. Broken Embraces

Best Left Field Soundtrack Selection: "Werewolf" by Cat Power


Best Plot Twist: Most of the plot, for once, seems plausible, which is rare for Almodovar. But late in the film we find out that someone is someone else's father, in a familiar soap-operatic moment that is never adressed again. It made me chuckle.

8. Inglourious Basterds

Best Film Within A Film: There's a German propagande movie in the big premier at the end of IB about a sniper that kills 300+ Allied soldiers, and it seems to be entirely composed of hilarious pratfalls and Wilhelm Screams.

Best Mangled Italian: "A-ree-ver-DARE-chee."

Best Mangled English: the title.


7. Sherlock Holmes

Best Victory Of The Rational: Spoilers: much of Sherlock Holmes points toward a villain that controls the Dark Arts, but the big ending reveals it was all trickery. I nearly clapped: I'm sick of things coming down on the supernatural side anytime there's a question- even if its mostle religous horror films (The Reaping, Stigmata, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) or every episode of "The X-Files" (was Scully's skepticism ever prudent?).

Best Broken Instruments: To give the score more "edges" to be in tune with the mid-Industrial-Revolution period film, Hans Zimmer just up and broke stuff. From an interview: "A lot of the percussion in the movie isn’t percussion...It’s someone totally mistreating their upright bass."

And what became of the out-of-tune piano they used? "...then I thought, rather than use big drums what would a piano sound like if you dropped it down a flight of stairs? ...We rented 20th Century Fox’s underground car park one Sunday and did hideous things to a piano."

6. District 9

Best Pre-Emptive Strike: I think an underrated part of the Best Picture race is the degree to which District 9 stole Avatar's thunder some months beforehand- who would have thought it would only be the second-best sci-fi actioner in which a human betrays his own kind to save an alien race, ultimately becoming one of them? It makes it easier to argue for The Hurt Locker, which is truly one of a kind this year.

Best Dodged Bullet: Does anyone really think that a movie based on the "Halo" video game series, which fell apart and led to District 9 instead, would have been anything but a big-budget disaster? When has a video game movie ever worked? Seriously, try to read the plot summary for "Halo" without your eyes glazing over.


5. Up In The Air

Best Trailer Of The Year: The first teaser was craftily edited to Clooney's motivational speech:


Best Scenes Of Destruction: For me, the most resonant images of our economic times from Up In The Air weren't the real people they worked into the firing scenes, but a few images of ravaged workplaces- our heroes arrive to fire the last few people in a stripped empty cubicle pool, or seeing Kendrick sitting in a room full of unused chairs.

4. Star Trek

Best Flawed Science: Though the time-travel logic in Star Trek is sound, nearly everything else is completely backwards. Among many innaccuracies, there's no way to conceivable drill to a planet's core without the hole collapsing, a black hole made out of a planet would only be the size or a marble, how big Vulcan would be in the sky on Delta Vega, supernovas can't really "threaten the galaxy," and there's no way the warp core explosion would have saved them at the end.

But you know what? It was too awesome for me to care.

Best Terrible Pun: "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?!"


3. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Best All-Purpose Curse Word Substitute: Expressions uttered by claymation animals in this film include "Cuss yeah," "The cuss you are," and "A real cluster-cuss." That's how you keep it PG.

Best Vague Anthropomorphism: The Fox family and friends all walked, talked, and listened to Burl Ives records, but I wasn't clear if they could speak directly with humans- at one point there's a recording of an animal hostage, but there's no dialogue. They do communicate in notes written with cut-out magazine letters, though.

2. The Hurt Locker

Best Abrupt Snap To Reality: One of my favorite lines from The Hurt Locker comes about halfway through- Anothony Mackie's staff seargeant, after a night of dunken bonding with his renegade superior Jeremy Renner, asks him if he thinks he has what it takes "to put on the suit," the protective gear of the OED squad leader.

In a boilerplate sappy war film or Hollywood action movie, he would of course reply: "Someday," or whatever, but instead Renner snorts a derisive "Hell no."

Best Stand-in For Civilian Banality: the grocery isle at the supermarket:





1. The Brothers Bloom

Best Opening Sequence In Rhyming Verse: "What kind of cave? -A Cave..Of Wonder! -Psh! -Shut up, Dave."

Best Card Trick: None of this is CGI:



True story.

As previously stated, this award is for the film that best interweaves effects, dialogue, and music into the overall sound design. Let's hop to it:

1. Avatar- Christopher Boyes (4 for 11), Gary Summers (5 for 7), Andy Nelson (1 for 12), and Tony Johnson (0 for 1)

I can't say there was anything interesting or unique about the sound mix in Avatar, but the scope remains impressive. It's hard to think anything will beat it- remember that while the specific branch members choose the nominees, the entire Academy votes on winners, so the bigger picture often takes the prize.

Even with Slumdog Millionaire pulling a hardly deserved win in this category last year, I think Avatar won't get overlooked in the categories where it merits winning. It's just too big.

2. The Hurt Locker- Paul N.J. Ottosson (0 for 1) and Ray Beckett (0 for 0)

But if anything's going to split the Sounds up, it's the wonderful mixing in The Hurt Locker- so many moments pack a sonic punch in this film: the split-second breakdown of the opening explosion:



...the lurch of the score when the car trunk opens to reveal enough bombs to level a city, or when Jeremy Renner follows the wire to find he is surrounded by bombs and it builds to a howl.

3. Inglourious Basterds- Michael Minkler (3 for 10), Tony Lamberti (0 for 0), and Mark Ulano (1 for 1)

I'm much more game for Basterds' inclusion in this category, as Tarantino films are always multiple sounds at once: part rambling talk-radio, part noise-maker, and part jukebox.

4. Star Trek- Anna Behlmer (0 for 9), Andy Nelson (1 for 12), and Peter J. Devlin (0 for 2)

That would be the same Andy Nelson from Avatar- something about the number of people with double-digit nominations makes me suspect this isn't a very big field. Star Trek might stand a better chance if it had a Best Pciture nomination, but the opening transition from Giancchino's score to the blips and beeps of the U.S.S. Kelvin is one of the most memorable moments of the year for me.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen- Greg P. Russell (0 for 12), Gary Summers (5 for 7), and Geoffrey Patterson (0 for 1)

Didn't see it. But I'm sure it was fine work with all the aircrafts, imaginary robots, and awesome dialogue like the following:


Anyway, another call for the tall blue people.

They really need to rename the two sound awards, to avoid the yearly confusion about which is which. Don't get me wrong, I don't think people at large care all that much about the tech awards, but at least all the rest are self-explanatory (we all know what costumes, makeup, visual effects, and cinematography are, right?).

To wit: sound effects editing should really be called Sound Effects Creation- it's for the making, from scratch, of footsteps and explosion sounds and gunshots to match pre-existing footage (or CGI-work). To a lesser extent Editing is also about cleaning up dialogue shot on-set and removing background noises and imperfections to make it better for the finished film.

Got that? Sound Mixing is exactly what it sounds like: mixing all of the finished audio together- the effects that the sound designers created, the on-set dialogue they've cleaned up, Additional Dialogue Recording in post-production, and the score.

An analogy: Sound Effects Editing is to Sound Mixing what Cinematography is to Film Editing- the first one designs the raw materials, the second one fits it all together.

Now, let's see what kind of effects our five nominees had to create.

1. Avatar- Christopher Boyes (4 for 11) and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle (0 for 0)

If this seems like another Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker category, remember this: Critics Don't Matter. Past winners of this trophy include Pearl Harbor, U-571 and Peter Jackson's King Kong. They like big things, expansive projects- Avatar fits that bill to a T and should win this award- Boyes is also the only heavyweight in the field with four sound wins.

It's got everything: explosions, multiple alien creature noises- they even made Sam Worthington sound like he had a pulse two or three times.

2. The Hurt Locker- Paul N.J. Ottosson (0 for 1)

Another war film, with plenty of explosions, lots of gunfire, and what must've clearly been difficult dialogue to record onset in blistering conditions. If people are really in love with this film, it has the potential to sweep (except for Best Actor), but considering the indie darling (Slumdog Millionaire) lost to the popular action movie (The Dark Knight) in this category last year, I wouldn't bet on it.

3. Inglourious Basterds- Wylie Stateman (0 for 4)

Not really one that occurred to me would be here, but hey- it had as much going on as any other. I wouldn't necessarily vote for multiple sounds of Christoph Waltz chewing things over a giant spaceship shattering every window in Johannesburg, but I don't get a ballot, do I?

4. Star Trek- Mark Stoeckinger (0 for 1) and Alan Rankin (0 for 0)

Another worthy entry, perhaps a winner in a weaker year. Between the background noises on the enterprise, the destruction of planets, and your various beeps and boops, there were more sounds to create than there were lens flares to perfect.

5. Up- Michael Silvers (1 for 4) and Tom Myers(0 for 1)

Pixar is a frequent combatant in Effects Editing, but has only won for The Incredibles, which Silvers shared. Up, however, is the least sonically diverse thing they've made in a while, and another thing that I think shouldn't have beaten out District 9.

So for the record that's my pick going to Avatar. But will it win any more than this and Visual Effects? Stay tuned to find out.

Let's knock off the other three nominee category. If only I knew anything at all about makeup...


1. Il Divo- Aldo Signoretti (0 for 2) and Vittorio Sodano (0 for 2)

Unheralded Italian film scores its lone nomination for the makeup team from Apocalypto. Since this is a biopic of Giulio Andreotti, I will assume this is an old-age makeup nomination. The trailer doesn't really make it clear.


2. Star Trek- Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow (all 0 for 0)

All new to the ceremony, the Trek team created some memorably seamless looking alien prosthetics- Vulcan ears, Romulan noses, and so on. Other than a campy throwback green-skinned girl, I found their work delightful.

3. The Young Victoria- Jon Henry Gordon (0 for 0) and Jenny Shircore (1 for 1)

Can we all agree to move past period pieces for Best Makeup? Come on, people. We get it, queens wore a lot of powder on their faces (Shircore's win being for Elizabeth). Did her hand suddenly turn into an alien tentacle? No?

That said, hairstyling is supposed to count for this award as well, and I sure they deserve it on that front.


Star Trek seems like a sure winner to me- biggest fan base, most unique work, and it's got the "looked over for Best Picture" vibe going on.

A short entry in the Oscarthon, with only three nominees and a clear winner already. Each individual nominee's name is followed by their record at the ceremony. Let's get to it:

1. Star Trek- Roger Guyett (0 for 1), Russell Earl (0 for 1), Paul Kavanagh (0 for 0) and Burt Dalton (1 for 1)

With Dalton's win for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button behind them, the Star Trek team seems nominated more for workmanlike efficiency than anything innovative.

For all the press about the casting choices that came with updating an old universe, the effects crew did just as well putting their own stamp on classic touched like warp speed and transporter beams. They also came up with some impressive effects involving planet destroying singularities.

2. District 9- Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken (all 0 for 0)

Not that I'm in the know among FX Academy members, but it's easy to think that this nomination was largely for stretching out a dollar.

With a $30 Million budget to $150 for Trek and $237 for Avatar, it certainly doesn't appear to have one-fifth of the effects-shots at all.

3. Avatar- Joe Letteri (3 for 4), Stephen Rosenbaum (1 for 1), Richard Baneham (0 for 0) and Andrew R. Jones (0 for 1)

The heavyweights from WETA digital, winners past for Lord Of The Rings and King Kong, are joined with the unstoppable James Cameron machine for aneasy trip to the podium.

Full 3D environments, special motion-capture face-cameras, these guys are the real stars of the highest grossing film ever, and I sincerely hope they each get time to speak up there.

The economy being what it is (which to say, terrible) and myself being who I am (which is to say, a former English major), I’ve seen disappointingly few movies in theaters this year. Fortunately, that’s kept the quality to quantity ratio of 2009 pretty high. Mini-reviews follow, reverse order again:

The Hangover:



What I Liked: The long-overdue stardom of Zach Galifiankis, and the less overdue but still enjoyable stardom of Ed Helms. Those two, along with generic every dude Bradley Cooper, elevate what pretty much is an hour and a half “What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas” commercial into an enjoyable farce from the director of Old School. It’s telling that my sides hurt not during the ridiculous farce, look-how-Vegasy-this-is moments (A tiger in the bathroom! Que ridiculo!), but during the character moments, like when Helms tells Galifianakis he is “literally too stupid to insult.”

What I Didn’t Like: The “villain,” of the film, such as it is, is an Eddie-Murphy-in-Norbit level Asian stereotype, and there were plenty of other cheap attempts at laughs here and there, but it wasn’t as if I had expected to see Woody Allen type sophisticate humor.

The Verdict: Two And A Half Stars. Maybe I’ll kick in an extra half in hindsight if it elevates Galafianakis, who’s nearly an Andy Kaufman-level comic persona, to bigger and better things.

The Brothers Bloom:



What I Liked: Everything.

Every time Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenabums, The Darjeeling Limited) releases a movie, critics tend to rouse a chorus of minor variations of the theme “He does the same thing every time!” And while I agree whole-heatedly that yes, he does, I hope he keeps right on doing it. It’s not as if whimsically detached, artfully symmetric pastiche-pieces are clogging the screens at the Majestic every week. And if more filmmakers dive headfirst into the Anderson indie-twee style of filmmaking (like Rian Johnson with his sophomore film The Brothers Bloom), then it will still be a long time before I start complaining.

On the heels of his new cult classic Brick, Johnson got the funding for a beautifully shot ode to con men and European intrigue, and brought the same raw energy to a twisting, bantering screenplay for stars Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, and Rachel Weisz to work with. The plot might get a little too cutesy for some near the end (mostly leaving us guessing whether or not people have been shot), but The Brothers Bloom is too much fun to ask questions, and too well-made to get mad at.

All that and a great, rambling score had me waltzing out of the theater.

What I Didn’t Like: There were two songs in the movie that weren’t on the soundtrack I downloaded from Amazon? Seriously, the combination of Rian Johnson’s raw enthusiasm for film with an Andersonian (Andersonish?) sensibility hit all the right notes for me.

The Verdict: Four Stars, and one derby hat slickly rolled onto my head. Watch the first seven minutes of it here, and then tell me you don’t want to catch it at the Downer Theater before it’s gone.

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Star Trek:



What I Liked: Again, pretty much everything. As a casual fan of the original series, and only a fan-in-general of later incarnations (except for Star Trek: Voyager, which premiered whilst I was in middle school and I briefly thought was the BEST SHOW EVER), I was more than ready for J. J. Abrams to re-imagine the Star Trek universe, unlike some older critics more tied to the past, perhaps.

ST reminded me a great deal of Pirates Of The Carribean: Curse Of The Black Pearl in the way it seemingly effortlessly accomplished the introduction of several characters, incorporated several different action set pieces, maintained a break-neck pace, and kept the audience laughing or oohing and aahing at all the right points. The cast was largely spot on, although that depends on your attachment to certain characters since they were all different levels of homage to each original portrayal- they ran the gamut from Karl Urban’s absolutely spot-on (and scene stealing) Bones, to John Cho’s largely businesslike Sulu.

Without getting too much into the plot, the writers also explained the reason for a new look at Star Trek in a way that not only made sense, but provided an excuse to include Leonard Nimoy.

What I Didn’t Like: The film’s villain, Eric Bana’s Nero, was reasonably well-done, but I was left wishing that the Enterprise might get involved in more than a conflict with a very traditional Star Trek trope: the lone despot with a powerful ship. Doesn’t the Federation function as a galactic peace-keeping organization?

I suppose that might be best left for some other series, however. But what would it be called? “Star Galactic Peace Keeping Operations?” I feel like it’s on the tip of my tongue.

The Verdict: Four Stars! I’ve seen fewer movies, but rarely do I find three of my year end top ten (probably) before it’s half over (Bloom, ST, and Coraline, if you’re counting with me).

The Soloist:



What I Liked: Robert Downey, Jr. as a journalist at the end of his rope, delivers another quietly solid performance, opposite Jamey Foxx’s more obviously dramatic schizophrenic homeless cellist. I enjoyed the script, at least in the way that it patiently depicts a friendship that falters as often as it grows, and doesn’t overdo any redemptive element- Foxx’s character never has any sort of Hallmark life-turnaround, nor does Downey reconnect with his ex-wife.

Joe Wright continues to develop as a visual filmmaker, abandoning the sweeping tracking shots of Atonement for grittier montages of Los Angeles street-life: The Soloist is about the plight of the homeless and mentally handicapped as much as it is about music. I also loved a scene mid-way through the film when Foxx hears an orchestra rehearse- he closes his eyes and Wright brings us on a journey with him, punctuating each crescendo of the music with bright visual flares on a blank screen. It might qualify as an indulgent touch, but I’m a fan of the orchestra (I’m even a sucking for the cool “warming up” noise) so it worked well.

What I Didn’t Like: Despite admiring the unhurried way the plot moved, The Soloist could have been paced a bit better- it makes the most of it’s nearly two-hour runtime. The minor subplots (the ex-wife, the animal urine (?) Downey orders to protect his garden from scavengers) weighed it down, and the brief looks at Foxx’s childhood and subsequent unraveling were more voyeuristic than they were necessary.

The Verdict: Two And A Half Stars. It might have been higher if there were more Bach and less Beethoven. Personal preference, sorry.

State Of Play:



What I Liked: A passably fun thriller about evil corporations, idealistic reporters, and possibly corrupt politicians. Russel Crowe was gravelly, Helen Mirren was a fun mean-spirited editor. Jason Bateman had a fun cameo. The plot twisted and turned.

What I Didn’t Like: Not to say that it was predictable, but it certainly felt rather familiar. In fact, the only unique part of the film was the most overblown and hackneyed- a constant emphasis on the death rattle of print journalism and how sad that is. Rachel McAdams plays the young reporter who runs the newspaper’s blog, and just doesn’t get how things should be done, Crowe uses an ancient DOS-based black-screened thing, and the film ends with a big story being printed, step by step, on an industrial printing press and delivered to newsstands. I get it. End of an era. Yawn.

The Verdict: Two Stars. Kept me watching, didn’t go anywhere unexpected, could’ve taken itself a little less seriously.

Observe And Report:



What I Liked: There’s a certain amount of downright insane edginess you just sort of have to admire, in that you wonder how they got film studio’s to agree to fund it. I’m sure it mostly had to do with Seth Rogen’s still rising star, and he does an admirably believable job as a suburbanized Taxi Driver-style psychotic mall cop.

What I Didn’t Like: With that edginess always seems to come a pervasive distaste for every character in the film, or at least that’s what we’re left with. Even cameos from some of my favorite comedy stars (like Patton Oswalt!) usually are for little purpose other than to act awful and expect laughter. And even though the abrasive wackiness gets laughs, it’s nice to have a straight man here and there.

The Verdict: Two Stars. Seemed a little too proud of itself for being risqué, with lots of musical montages and slow motion, but honestly the trailer sold that sensibility pretty well.