Funny People has confirmed something that I’ve known for a very long time: Adam Sandler is marginally proud of his bird-brained, baby-voiced comedies like Billy Madison, but please don’t carve their titles onto his headstone when he dies.
Life needs more substance, he comes to learn, and substance can’t be found in silly voices and situational comedies where he adopts a kid to make picking up women easier (Big Daddy) or that one with a magic remote control that could mute out his nagging wife (Click). And, apparently, beating people senseless was counterproductive on some sort of metaphysical level.
Say what you will about Adam Sandler — and I’ve said a lot of mean, hateful things (all justified) in reviews over the years — but he bares his soul in Funny People, a movie that could easily be his life story, or swan song. In fact, the film opens with real home videos of a teenage Adam Sandler prank calling restaurants and wandering around New York City. This is pre-SNL Sandler, and he has this sparkle in his eye as he tells a restaurant manager in an elderly woman's voice that "the roast beef is really good, but it makes me go to the bathroom every time." Of course, Sandler grows up to become a megastar, which is basically the route Funny People follows. Where Sandler ends and George Simmons, the character he plays, begins is a seamless, fluid transition that is almost imperceptible. It’s a testament to Sandler’s abilities, of which he has many (Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me) when he’s not chasing invisible penguins or, and I quote, “shlibby-dibby-doo gally-hoo-hoo.”
Simmons is a Hollywood comedy star whose films could easily be real Sandler vehicles, including one where he plays a man transformed into a baby with a giant adult head, and another where he plays the bumbling oceanic superhero Merman. These blockbuster films have alienated him from real comedy, especially from his roots, stand-up, where people much funnier and much more talented than him stare up at his mega-grossing comedy with bitterness and resentment — call it the Dane Cook Syndrome. Or maybe the model was really Eddie Murphy, who started raw and ended up doing kiddie comedies with talking animals and day care children.
Anyway, a funny thing happens: George gets an incurable form of blood disease. Suddenly his reign on top — alone with no wife, no children and no real happiness — doesn’t feel so glorious. In a bid to recommit himself to life, what little of it he has left, he hits the comedy circuit, calls his ex-girlfriend to apologize and begins eBaying all his unopened Hollywood freebies. Helping him through all this is Ira (Seth Rogen), an amateur comic George meets at a Los Angeles comedy club. Ira, seeing an opportunity to write for a legitimate star, jumps aboard not realizing the implications caused by George's celebrity personality.
The film’s highest priority is the salvation of George’s broken and barren soul, but the buddy-buddy relationship between Ira and George comes in a close second. They’re both commiserating Jewish comics, both playful wordsmiths and both are hopeless when it comes to women, although George is fairly good with the one-night-stands, including one who asks for the Merman call during the big show. The two comics share one key difference, though: Ira’s comedy is organically funny and George's is forced and synthetic coming from a man who no longer experiences life from the perspective of a normal person. It goes back to an old saying: Never trust a comic who arrives to the show in a limousine.
In these types of films — call them Illness Movies — it’s typical to see the dying person change for the better. Funny People abandons many of the clichés, including that one: George is still a self-centered jerk, still a pompous windbag, still a hack comedian with a bad catalog of pictures. He barks at Ira, orders him to fetch Diet Cokes, steals his potential sleeping partners and he pulls the celebrity card too frequently. But the film doesn’t apologize for his behavior. It simply exhibits it as a form of character study: Here's a man who's laughing on the outside and crying on the inside. And even that dynamic fails him in the end.
Funny People is largely about George and Ira (sadly, no Gershwin turns up), even though the rest of the cast could fill up three other comedy movies. Jonah Hill (Superbad) plays Ira’s tightly wound roommate, as does Jason Schwartzman, whose character is on one of those laugh-tracky high school sitcoms that real comedians groan at. The always-terrific Leslie Mann (Knocked Up and the director's wife) plays an ex-girlfriend who wants George back after discovering her husband (Eric Bana) is cheating on her in China, with massage therapists no less. Refreshing newcomer Aubrey Plaza plays Ira’s crush, an emotionless comedienne with a 10-day window. Oh, and the cameos, there’s plenty: Paul Reiser, Andy Dick, Norm McDonald, Eminem, Ray Romano, Sarah Silverman and Wu-Tang founder the RZA manning a deli counter.
As many people as there are, though, George is never outplayed or overwhelmed. He and Sandler are the stars, and the famous director, comedy juggernaut Judd Apatow, knows this and gives them ample time to share their stories. And as funny as it is, it’s also very mature and focused, even if there are more wiener jokes than at an Oscar Meyer stockholder’s meeting. In one scene Ira turns to James Taylor to ask if he ever gets tired of playing "Fire & Rain," to which Taylor responds to the comedian, "Well, do you ever get tired of talking about your dick?" Touche, Mr. Taylor, touche. The film is a little long at 150 minutes, but I liked that Apatow allowed his characters time to grow, or maybe just shrivel in George's case.
Funny People is a lonely, unapologetic look into a man’s deepest fears — being forgotten. Watching it you can see why funny people like Chris Farley, John Candy and John Belushi went through bouts of depression before self-medicating the solitude away. Sandler, it seems, has beaten that trend and Funny People is the proof.
As confusing as all the spells and magic formulas are in these Harry Potter flicks I doubt the children who flock to them in drooling packs will be as perplexed by the Horcrux spell or dragon’s blood potions as they’ll be by all the snogging in this, the sixth Potter film.
Yes, there’s lots of snogging in Half-Blood Prince, enough so that I can begin a review with it. Snogging is the cheeky British word for making out, although it sounds like it requires a cigarette afterward. Ginny Weasley snogs with Dean Thomas. Ron Weasley snogs with Lavender Brown. Hermione wishes to be snogging with Ron while Harry Potter longs to be snogging with Ginny, even as he makes tactical moves to snog with a cute waitress and then a batty Luna Lovegood. At one point Ron takes a love potion and nearly snogs nice and hard with Harry, who is clearly not so keen to snog back. And then there’s emo-king Severus Snape, who’s wound so tight he needs a good snog just to lighten up.
That’s a lot of names to hit you with so soon (and a lot of snogging, too), but by now some of those names have entered into the pop-culture lexicon and need no introduction. Han Solo, Fozzie Bear, Donald Duck, Vito Corleone, Harry Potter … some names just speak for themselves.
Aside from all the rump-slappin’ love that’s floating through the cast of characters, all the usual J.K. Rowling fantasy elements are present and accounted for: a train ride through the country to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Quidditch matches, paintings that come alive from the walls, Hagrid and his creepy pets, and a wacky new teacher, this time it’s Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent). Thankfully, one thing's not returrning — all the floppy homeless-looking haircuts.
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), still reeling from the calamity of the last movie, Order of the Phoenix, is taking orders directly from an increasingly worrisome Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Voldemort and his many black-cloaked minions are still in an undeclared war with Dumbledore and Hogwarts. Many of Voldemort’s tactics are guerrilla incursions — espionage, abductions, random terrorizing, mischief. By the end of the film, war will be officially declared with a salvo that strikes at the heart of Hogwarts. I am, of course, referring to the spoiler — "______ kills ______" — those meanies (read: heroes) from the YouTube video yelled at the group of kids who had just purchased the minutes-old sixth book.
The plots, as fiendishly inventive as they are, have never really been the high points of Potter films; this one is a mystery (they all are) with Harry trying to mine the brain of Slughorn, who taught a young Voldemort at Hogwarts. What I admire over the plots are all the characters, and all the things that create the atmosphere of Potter’s world: the lavish sets, the hundreds of little magic props, those wonderful costumes and all the special effects, magic tricks of a different variety — movie magic. Many of the effects are disposable sights sprinkled into the film just because they’re so delightful, like one of a little penguin skiing in the icing on a cake.
Really, though, Harry Potter films work because the core trio — Hermione (Emma Watson), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Harry Potter — can carry a film all on their own. I truly hope these three young actors all find important roles in other films when the series ends in 2011 after a two-part Deathly Hollows, although I can’t imagine Grint as anything else but a Weasley. And I pray that Watson, now that her eighteenth birthday has passed, can escape the Internet perverts and skirt-invading paparazzi (one word Emma: "Panties") so she can concentrate on the acting talent she seems to have.
I draw attention to the trio, but it helps that the they are surrounded by a talented ensemble including Gambon as wizard Gandalf the Gray … er, Dumbledore the Gay, and Snape, played by Alan Rickman, who is my own personal cult-figure superhero. Even the extras are interesting; you’ll know Elarica Gallagher when you see her. And then there’s Potter friend Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch), who’s so spaced out you have to wonder if she’s naturally this silly or just stoned. I could watch a whole movie of her brushing her teeth or mowing a lawn or something even more mundane.
I must also comment on Tom Felton, the apparent long-lost son of Hulk Hogan who plays miserable little twerp Draco Malfoy. I can't remember the last time a character was so vile and venemous just by existing as a static peice of flesh in time and space. This poor kid; he'd even scowl at a wet snogging. As over-the-top as the character is — and how cruel for Felton, who perfectly delivers the same lines over and over again — I love Draco Malfoy. You gotta applaud him because his contempt for everything is refreshing.
Half-Blood Prince is not the best of the Harry Potter films, but it’s in a six-way tie with all the rest. Am I a coward for not picking a favorite? Maybe. But they’re all so fantastical and charming — and they’re all so consistently well made — that picking one favorite would betray all the other favorites.
I’m certain of several things this summer, mainly these two: First, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the worst film of the decade. And second, The Hurt Locker, which is effective counter-programming for transforming robots, is the best film of the summer.
Talking with Hurt Locker star, and early Oscar contender for best actor, Jeremy Renner, he agrees with me on all these points. Except maybe that Transformers one, to which he simply says, “Hey, to each his own. Nothing against Michael Bay.”
Renner, whose claim to fame before this was playing cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Dahmer, plays a hotshot bomb disposal tech in Iraq in this gritty and excruciatingly intense Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days) war movie. I type “war movie” with some trepidation, though, because the movie is so much more: it’s an action movie, a psychological thriller and, ultimately, a character study about men drawn to the flame of what might be their own demise. Why do men go to war? This movie has that answer and many more.
Above all else, though, Renner just nails this nuanced, provocative performance of a man riding the razor’s edge that is bomb disposal in a warzone. In one scene he removes his bomb-proof protective gear so he can lay against a bomb, feel it’s mechanisms, channel its soul. “If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die comfortably,” he says. No movie is half as intense as this one this year.
Renner, who said he is one of five actors being considered for the lead role in a Road Warrior reinvention (by Mad Max creator George Miller, no less), sat down and spoke with Volume/Pick-Up Flix before Hurt Locker opened in the Valley on July 10, and then expanded on July 17. Take mine and his word, and see this movie.
Volume: Is America ready for movies about this war?
Jeremy Renner: I think America’s ready for this film. Without a doubt. If we box it into saying this is a war film, we’re boxing it in unfairly. At that point there have already been preconceived notions put upon it. It’s almost unfair to say that about films, like, “Oh look here, this is a real tearjerker movie.” That’s unfair to the film because it sends viewers into it with expectations; it’s going to limit the experience. So to call this just a war movie is unfair to the viewers, especially since it’s so much more. As far as being “ready” for this film, there’s a big audience for it. This film is an immersion. You go in to experience it, to feel it. That’s how well it’s made.
Volume: War is, for the most part, a boys club. Do you think having a female director brought a fresh perspective to these types of actions scenes and also just the bonding soldiers go through?
JR: Kathryn has always proven to be a phenomenal, detail-oriented action director. She does film male subject matter for the most part …
Volume: There is nothing more male than Point Break.
JR: Exactly. But her gender doesn’t come into play here because her abilities are so focused and her energy is so exact in the details. I wonder if, in her mind, she wasn’t directing a war movie, the way I was thinking I wasn’t acting in a war movie. I can’t fathom how she works, because she’s so intricate. She’s a painter, a voyeur, an artist with a camera … she’s so many things, and I never thought, “Oh and she’s a woman, too.” She’s better than that.
Volume: You’ve said the words voyeur and immersive. They must have been themes because the film was shot with dozens of cameras from dozens of different angles allowing an immersive, almost voyeuristic look at the material.
JR: The idea was to put you in those streets watching these guys diffuse bombs. There were days on set that I never saw a camera. Literally, days. We called them ninja cameras because they were on roofs, on balconies, under cars to get my feet walking past. She put her cameras in the most interesting places.
Volume: What kinds of things did real soldiers tell you before you went into this project?
JR: It was more me asking them questions, because they weren’t volunteering too much because they’ve never worked with actors. They learn how to make bombs and diffuse bombs for real, so dealing with some jackass actor was low on their list of priorities. I knew when I started asking good questions, though, because they told me stuff was top secret. One thing they stressed was that they would never run up to a car bomb that was on fire, which happens in the movie. Unless, of course, the president was in a nearby building or something. They’d send the bot down almost always. Some guys told me they relied on the bots so heavily that they rarely got out of their cars to take care of these roadside bombs. The soldiers I talked to did tell me about one guy who would walk up to IEDs, kick them and say things like, “Well, I guess I won,” and he’d pick the bomb up and drag it back.
Volume: As far fetched as it was, though, I felt like your character’s renegade behavior was always justified, even when he ran up to bombs on fire. He was going against the grain on everything, even his own life.
JR: That’s a testament to how well this film was written. My character is clearly going against what he’s learned is safe, and going against all the instincts that pull people away from a bomb. He goes because he feels like he has to. He’s drawn to the danger out of necessity.
Volume: There are no villains in this movie. No nefarious bomb-making schemers. No ex-Marine Jihadists. Nothing like that. A lesser film would have been you hunting down and killing a bomb maker rather than you and your motivations in war — call it the Hollywood version.
JR: That makes the film more real. I mean, look at Hurt Locker: there isn’t a whole lot of plot, right? It’s just characters. A more Hollywood-type movie would have all the necessary plots and turns and developments. This film is free of all that. It moves on its own, to its own beat. It’s unrelenting.
Funny People has confirmed something that I’ve known for a very long time: Adam Sandler is marginally proud of his bird-brained, baby-voiced comedies like Billy Madison, but please don’t carve their titles onto his headstone when he dies. 
Say what you will about Adam Sandler — and I’ve said a lot of mean, hateful things (all justified) in reviews over the years — but he bares his soul in Funny People, a movie that could easily be his life story, or swan song. In fact, the film opens with real home videos of a teenage Adam Sandler prank calling restaurants and wandering around New York City. This is pre-SNL Sandler, and he has this sparkle in his eye as he tells a restaurant manager in an elderly woman's voice that "the roast beef is really good, but it makes me go to the bathroom every time." Of course, Sandler grows up to become a megastar, which is basically the route Funny People follows. Where Sandler ends and George Simmons, the character he plays, begins is a seamless, fluid transition that is almost imperceptible. It’s a testament to Sandler’s abilities, of which he has many (Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me) when he’s not chasing invisible penguins or, and I quote, “shlibby-dibby-doo gally-hoo-hoo.” 
Simmons is a Hollywood comedy star whose films could easily be real Sandler vehicles, including one where he plays a man transformed into a baby with a giant adult head, and another where he plays the bumbling oceanic superhero Merman. These blockbuster films have alienated him from real comedy, especially from his roots, stand-up, where people much funnier and much more talented than him stare up at his mega-grossing comedy with bitterness and resentment — call it the Dane Cook Syndrome. Or maybe the model was really Eddie Murphy, who started raw and ended up doing kiddie comedies with talking animals and day care children.
The film’s highest priority is the salvation of George’s broken and barren soul, but the buddy-buddy relationship between Ira and George comes in a close second. They’re both commiserating Jewish comics, both playful wordsmiths and both are hopeless when it comes to women, although George is fairly good with the one-night-stands, including one who asks for the Merman call during the big show. The two comics share one key difference, though: Ira’s comedy is organically funny and George's is forced and synthetic coming from a man who no longer experiences life from the perspective of a normal person. It goes back to an old saying: Never trust a comic who arrives to the show in a limousine.
Funny People is largely about George and Ira (sadly, no Gershwin turns up), even though the rest of the cast could fill up three other comedy movies. Jonah Hill (Superbad) plays Ira’s tightly wound roommate, as does Jason Schwartzman, whose character is on one of those laugh-tracky high school sitcoms that real comedians groan at. The always-terrific Leslie Mann (Knocked Up and the director's wife) plays an ex-girlfriend who wants George back after discovering her husband (Eric Bana) is cheating on her in China, with massage therapists no less. Refreshing newcomer Aubrey Plaza plays Ira’s crush, an emotionless comedienne with a 10-day window. Oh, and the cameos, there’s plenty: Paul Reiser, Andy Dick, Norm McDonald, Eminem, Ray Romano, Sarah Silverman and Wu-Tang founder the RZA manning a deli counter. 
As many people as there are, though, George is never outplayed or overwhelmed. He and Sandler are the stars, and the famous director, comedy juggernaut Judd Apatow, knows this and gives them ample time to share their stories. And as funny as it is, it’s also very mature and focused, even if there are more wiener jokes than at an Oscar Meyer stockholder’s meeting. In one scene Ira turns to James Taylor to ask if he ever gets tired of playing "Fire & Rain," to which Taylor responds to the comedian, "Well, do you ever get tired of talking about your dick?" Touche, Mr. Taylor, touche. The film is a little long at 150 minutes, but I liked that Apatow allowed his characters time to grow, or maybe just shrivel in George's case. 
