The Hangover

Up earned another $30 million, while The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 debuted in third with an okay $25 million. Eddie Murphy’s Imagine That fell flat with only $5.7 million.

I finally posted my Hangover movie review… Read on for more…

In The Hangover, a desperate bride finally reaches her fiancé’s best man five hours before the wedding and is informed that the event is not going to happen. It’s not that the groom, Doug (played by Justin Bartha), has changed his mind; it’s just that his three friends can’t find him, and they don’t remember what happened. Cue the opening credits.

The Hangover is a man’s movie, but not one that resorts to ridiculous over-the-top storytelling for the sake of it. One of the more clever comedies in recent memory, the movie makes us laugh while keeping us guessing as to what happened and where the groom is. After the first scene, the movie jumps back two days to introduce us to the eclectic group of guys that will be taking part in the bachelor party in Vegas. Then, we see is the three “survivors,” played by coolheaded Bradley Cooper, pushover Ed Helms and strangely idiotic Zach Galifianakis (he changed his name when he became an actor, clearly), waking up to find their penthouse suite trashed and burned. Doug’s bed is literally missing, and there is a tiger in the bathroom.

Read the rest of The Hangover movie review.

Watch the Taking Woodstock movie trailer here:

What do you think?

His new movie is Extract, a well-casted little film that looks more along the lines of Office Space that many of his other films. The movie is about a group of employees working in a factory, and the shenanigans that occur. Extract stars Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Mila Kunis and Ben Affleck, among ohters.

Watch the first Extract movie trailer now:

Watch the Away We Go movie trailer now:

For more information, go to the Away We Go details page.

The movie looks entertaining enough, and Malkovich appears to be in his element here as the overly enthusiastic and seemingly fake title character. Unfortunately, the movie trailer itself is not that good. It’s about 45 seconds too long, not very well structured and altogether just a little bland. Worse is that it establishes no sense of conflict – things just seem to get better and better for Howard – so now that I’ve seen this trailer, what’s the point of seeing the movie?

Watch The Great Buck Howard movie trailer yourself:

I’m not sure that Jackson was the lucky one.

After all, Jackson most likely attended the premiere, which means that he had to be embarrased in front of everyone when he saw the final product. Soul Men is pretty disastrous, and is definitely not the way Bernie Mac would have wanted to go out.

Read my full Soul Men movie review here.

And, given that it is one of the most hilarious movies of 2008, I was disappointed. Nevertheless, the movie should make plenty of money this week as it spins its way onto DVD. Those who haven’t seen this movie should, and those who have already seen it should definitely consider buying the 2-Disc Edition, as it is packed with bonus features.

Most notably, Zack and Miri Make a Porno includes over an hour and a half of deleted scenes. Some of them are alternates, but these deleted scenes give you a sense of just how much improv was conducted by the cast. There are plenty of hilarious lines (”what do scrotums taste like?”) and exchanges, especially between Rogen and Justin Long. An entire movie could be made just around Justin Long’s character – if you liked his brief involvement in Zack and Miri, you’ll definitely get a kick out of the deleted scenes.

Beyond those, there’s a pretty strong making-of featurette, which goes through every stage of filming, from casting to filming to getting the film past the MPAA. The making-of documentary is impressively in-depth and honest, and well worth watching.

A series of webisodes are included, some of which are better than others. One with Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen exchanging barbs is pretty good (”What’s Jersey Girl?” “Let’s not talk about it.”).

Some footage from Comic-Con 2008 puts the cast altogether in an audience-driven interview setting. There are no major takeaways here, but it’s not worthless, either.

The outtakes and bloopers are surprisingly disappointing.

Lastly, Seth Rogen and Justin Long face off in an improvisation battle. Most of this can be found in the deleted scenes, but it’s still pretty disappointing.

Between the hours of deleted scenes and the making-of featurette, Zack and Miri Make a Porno 2-Disc Edition is well worth buying. The movie itself is hilarious and surprisingly sweet, so the combination of the film and bonus features make for one of the first great packages of 2009.

Take Your Shirt Off

1. In Bruges
   Most people haven’t seen this movie, but it is certainly worth it. Unlike the four or five movies that follow on this list, In Bruges may not be the non-stop laughfest, but it comes pretty close. More importantly, it is a unique and surprisingly excellent drama-comedy that features Colin Farrell bashing the poor town of Bruges for two hours, getting overly excited about cracked-out midgets and telling fat Americans that they can’t climb up some steep stairs. OK, so that explanation does the comedy absolutely no justice, but this is a movie that blew me away in more ways than one.
2. Role Models
   Based on the previews, who could have seen this one coming? Role Models flew in under the radar, looking like a decent but generic comedy starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott. But from the first minute, Role Models is a consistently funny and vulgar picture that has a surprising amount of heart and more laughs than you’ll know what to do with.
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
   This one looked like an instant dud. It’s not that the previews weren’t funny, but the movie starred Jason Segel (who?), had a rather odd name, and, more than anything else, there just wasn’t any buzz leading up to the release. And then… surprise hit. Why? Because Forgetting Sarah Marshall is hilarious and anything but forgettable. Fans of Knocked Up and Superbad found more of the same kind of humor here, once again with a heartful touch combined with raunch humor. And way too much Jason Segel penis.
4. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
   This one seemed like a match made in heaven: Sudden comedy heavyweight Seth Rogen teams with the father of heartfelt-but-crude comedies Kevin Smith to make a movie that is about making amateur porn. The reality: quick flop. Why this one failed to register with audiences is anyone’s guess, though one has to assume that the general audiences that were being lured into all of the crude comedies over the last few years were turned off by the “porno” word. Or maybe it was that Smith found it hard to market his movie appropriately when cities and the MPAA were banning most of their rather innocent marketing initiatives. Regardless, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is hilarious and also features the most disturbing scene you’ll see all year.
5. Gran Torino
   As I point out in my review, Gran Torino is not a comedy. It’s a drama. It’s a drama about what Dirty Harry would be like in retirement, and his efforts to protect a family of Asian immigrants from a local gang. That being said, between all of the earthy growls and racial slurs Clint Eastwood unloads upon the audience, Gran Torino is indeed one of the funniest and entertaining movies of 2008. Sadly, I’ve read several reviews where the critics just didn’t get the humor, but if you want some good laughs coupled with a strong story, look no further.
6. Religulous
   Bill Maher’s so-called documentary is biased and will do nothing to help his cause, because anyone who feels strongly about their religious beliefs would screw a nun before sitting down to be subjected to Maher’s onslaught of why religion – and God – make no sense. For atheists like me, however, Religious is a hilarious, how-can-other-people-not-get-this-through-their-thick-skulls adventure into absurdity. Still, it’s a big step down from the top five movies listed above.
7. Pineapple Express
   Seth Rogen is on this list for the second time, and his co-star, James Franco, earned a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of a smoked-out drugdealer in this rather odd buddy action-comedy. Yet another Judd Apatow production, Pineapple Express has an indie look to it but a mainstream presence that is surprisingly effective. As many laughs as there are, though, it doesn’t quite get into a rhythm the way some of Apatow’s best films do.
8. Sex and the City: The Movie
   I’m a guy, yes, and I’m straight. But having lived with women for a year or two in college, I’ve seen just about every Sex and the City episode and have to admit that it’s a pretty damn good show. And the movie, despite being nearly two and a half hours long, is a pretty good continuation of that show, both in terms of character and entertainment value. Non-fans may not get the quirkiness of the characters, but if you’re used to the four gals, you’ll find plenty to laugh about here.
9. Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
   The highly anticipated Harold and Kumar sequel picks up where the last one left off – literally. This time, though, the two Americans are confused for North Korean/Al Qaeda terrorists and sent to Guantanamo Bay, from where they escape into the south to be persecuted by the KKK and NPH. The movie’s many jabs at racism resonate well, though the film doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor. Still, it’s worth seeing of only for the cyclops. Yes, the cyclops.
10. Kung Fu Panda
    Kung Fu Panda is not the best animated film of the year – that title easily goes to Wall-E – but Wall-E isn’t nearly as funny as this surprisingly excellent cartoon. Frankly, despite glowing reviews, this one looked God-awful, but it has just the right levels of charm, wit, humor and action to pull off a story about an overweight panda who becomes a kung fu legend. Jack Black leads an all-star cast, and really raises things another notch.

Now view the worst comedies of 2008.

From CHUD.com, from Seth Rogen:

Me and Evan [Goldberg] talk a lot of shit. We have one rule when writing, and that’s don’t get attached to anything. One day we want to make a serious film and then Stephen Chow comes in with a good idea and we’re like, ‘Well it’s funny.’ Should we not do it because we originally wanted to do a serious film? We come from, nah fuck it, we’ll just take the idea that seems good. So it’s definitely less serious than a serious film, that’s for sure. We want the action… I say now that we want the action to play serious but Stephen could come in tomorrow and say ‘You know what? I want to throw you 400 feet in the air!’ and I’d go, ‘OK, that sounds cool.’

We’re very open now. Right now is when we’re in the process of deciding what this movie is going to be on a practical level. The story is the same; we’ve always known the story we wanted to tell, so it’s easy within that to discuss the various sensibilities and reality levels and humor levels and stuff like that. To us, we hoped the director would come in and give us lots of ideas and directions to work with, and that’s what he’s doing.