Ted (2012)

1/3

Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, has a quirky and crude sense of humor. In Family Guy and other stuff he's done, he often draws humor from his own nerdy fan base's inside jokes of esoteric, little-known cult classic trivia (like Flash Gordon and Star Wars, to name a couple perennials). This has made him, I can only imagine, a dork in real life, probably something of an outcast growing up, but ultimately popular and successfuly because of the crowd of fellow nerds who get his humor (and references). I dig that. We're all a little nerdy, aren't we? He’s obviously an intellectual person, but I also think he uses his inside jokes and references as a way to show off, to earn his self-validity. It's almost an arogant humor, really. But let me do say that this odd quirkiness works in his 22 minute cartoons. Though crude and punchy, it's a funny show.

A cartoon is different from a movie, however. On the silver screen, you have to have a longer plot development. Obviously, since he’s not used to writing screenplays, he couldn’t find a way to escape a god-awful cliché story line to keep the audience connected for two hours. You know the cliché story line, right?: protagonist must choose between an immature best friend and a serious girlfriend in order to grow up, accidentally pisses off girlfriend, they break up, he tries to get her back, goes through great distress and problems but gets her back and somehow everyone's learned something. I could probably list a hundred films with this  basic structure. 

I will concede, nonetheless, that I’ve often said that I can tolerate crappy story lines for actors’ quality natural humor (I think Pineapple Express is my favorite example of this, in that despite the predictable storyline, it was a hilarious movie experience because of James Franco, Danny McBride, and Seth Rogen). The humor in Ted, however, didn't quite hold up as well. There were just too many cheesy cartoon-style effects (Ted, the bear itself; cutaway joke scenes interrupting the present tense, like 30-second flashbacks; stupid sound effect plugins; bad narrator jokes; 80's humor, God help us; stupid fantasy cutaways, etc etc). It was an overload. We drowned in it.

On an unrelated note, the friend that I saw this with and I both agree that Mila Kunis is smoking hot here and very much in her prime at 28 years old! Damn. Giovanni Ribisi played a hilarious and very disturbing creepster and we almost needed more of his character.

In the end, MacFarlane is obviously in love with his nostalgic cheesy 80's and the city of Boston and his dorky self. I think this movie was more Seth's tribute to all that than to quality humor or writing. So I did laugh out loud in a couple of places, yes, but mainly I got annoyed and bored. Next time I want this humor, I'll just watch 22 minutes of Family Guy.

Extraordinary Measures (2010)

1/3

I didn't even finish this movie, so I have no idea if the sick girl dies or not before Fraser and Ford find the cure for her disease. And, the thing is, this movie was so poorly written and acted that I just don't really care.

Brendon Fraser is fat and a bad actor and Keri Russell, who was his wife in the film, only plays one note and that gets old. Harrison Ford in this movie is probably much like the actor is in real life: a jerk who spends the entire movie yelling and whining. The plot moves very slowly and the writing was generally quite bottom-of-the-barrel.

After this movie put me to sleep two nights in a row, I decided I wouldn't waste my time trying to finish it. I didn't really want to see it to begin with, please note, but this was one that I had on my computer, having picked it up not knowing what it was. I guess this is what happens when you're bored at night in another country.

Crazy, Stupid Love (2011)

1/3

There were a few amusing parts but overall it was just too sappy and cliché for my liking. I ended up being kind of bored with the emotional fluff that took up a vast part of the film.

I thought that Ryan Gosling played a super smooth guy who was amusing to watch. Too cool for school. And the babysitter (Analeigh Tipton, who has been a model) was super hot, as is Emma Stone, always. Both are of age, by the way. I checked.

Steve Carell has been on this binge of doing semi-serious family/love roles and I just don’t get it, especially thinking back to his days on "The Office" and hilarious Will Ferrell/Apatow-esque roles in The Anchorman and 40 Year Old Virgin. What's up? I guess this is sort of what lots of comedians do when they hit their mid-life crisis: Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, and, God help us currently, Adam Sandler.

Julianne Moore here reminded me of her family role in that one where she was a lesbian (The Kids Are Alright) as kind of a clueless person dealing with the complexities of love and marriage, driven to ramble to herself. The take-away message was that you should fight for your soul-mate no matter how crazy or stupid that may seem to you. Cliche. I want more humor and less sap please. Is that cuz I'm a guy?

Polar Express (2004)

1/3

 

I feel like Scrooge or the Grinch for giving a kids' Christmas movie just one star. But compared to the classics in the Christmas film "cannon" (like A Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Christmas Story etc.), Polar Express just didn't stack up in my opinion. This puts me at a minority, since most people seem to enjoy it.

For one thing, I thought the animation in Polar Express was somewhat elementary in comparison to other CGI films, lacking the finer touches of Pixar or of Dreamworks or even of some of Zemeckis' other films (like Monster House or his version of A Christmas Carol). I guess I found the relatively poor quality of animation, of the characters' faces especially, distracting.

Another thing is that both the story and the physical setting of the plot were dark and kinda gloomy (literally and figuratively) for a kids' movie, especially for one about Christmas. Sure kids' movies can get dark as the characters encounter difficulties in the story, but there just didn't seem to be many bright or happy moments here to counterbalance. I wanted to experience more of the magic of the train and of the North Pole instead of getting bogged down in the foggy, eerie, and dark roof of the train or in the abandoned inner-workings of Santa's shop. There was plenty of opportunity to show us some neat Christmas excitement and I felt let down.

Finally, I didn't like the Oscar-nominated original song. It was too much like the storyline and setting and animation in that it lacked zest for the fundamental joy and exhilaration of Christmas.

Tom Hanks certainly did a great job doing so many diverse voices throughout. I'll bet he enjoyed doing something like this, something quite unique for him. But Hanks could not keep this film afloat all by himself (like he did in Cast Away, another Zemeckis film, one which I liked). Overall, I wanted and hoped for more than I got with this movie. Zemeckis has done better.

American Splendor (2003)

1/3

I seriously wanted to like this movie. It is an indie classic and it starred Paul Giamati, so it was supposed to be right up my alley. But American Splendor was not my cup of tea.

The main character, Harvey Pekar (based on the real life guy, who made a few cameos throughout the film), was about the most vile and obnoxious protagonist in the history of protagonists, in my opinion. He was a whiny, disinterested, ungrateful slob who spent all of his time complaining about his life rather than trying to fix it. When in reality, he was actually a pretty lucky guy- he had a job, friends, a loving wife, fame, he survived cancer, people made a movie about his life etc.

From a writing standpoint, this movie was slow. Pekar's character was, as has been mentioned, very passive (at least from his own perspective). Things happened to him instead of him making them happen. No wonder I didn't sympathize with him. It seems like the only thing he actually did for himself was start to write comics, but even then, it was only after he stumbled across a random person who happened to be a cartoonist.

Another thing that annoyed me about American Splendor was the sort of artsy director thing of plugging cartoons into the frame. The technique may have been well received by critics who are more appreciative of that sort of thing, but I found it distracting. I think it reminded me of Hulk, which has made it to my worst-movies-of-all-times list.

So I can understand why Pekar's comics earned their acclaim; I'll admit it. His readers took all of his depressed insights with a grain of salt and found them funny as opposed to annoying. They might even be able to identify with one or two of his thoughts. But put into the context of his life, every single one of these pessimistic ideas every single second of this guy's life was just too much for me to handle. His depression and whining is so constant and overbearing that it's beyond funny for me. I get that the title of his comics and of this movie is sarcastic, but I think our way of life in America deserves a little more credit that the way Pekar views it all.

Thanks but no thanks on American Splendor. Sorry Giamati, not your best movie.