Comedy

Movie Monday: High Fidelity

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High Fidelity tells teh story of a record store owner, Rob Gordon(John Cusack), who after a breakup is trying to figure out why he keeps ending up single.  So he tracks down the five most important ex-gilrfriends he had.  The results differ.  As he is doing this he contends with his record store, the customers and his two employees, Barry(Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso).

The film moves along at quite a nice pace and the humour is very well spread through the film.  John Cusack is really good here and even when he’s talking to the audience it works very well. Sometimes when this is done in movies it really is not good, but here it fits the movie very well.  Iben Hjejle is good as Rob’s Ex-Girlfriend Laura and Black and Louiso are a brilliant paring and bounce off each other incredibly well.  Theres also a small role for Tim Robbins and a small cameo for Bruse Springsteen. Music plays a avery big part of this movie.  Conversastion in the film tend to feature a lot about music and the effect it has on the main characters.

This film is based on the book by Nick Hornby of the same name, which I have put off reading for years because I do really love this movie.  It’s easy to watch and there is a feel good factor to it too. And in my experience movies rarely ever match up to the book that they are based on.  I think the best way to describe it is a Rom-Com for men.

 

Movie Review : Ted

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Ted is the story of a man who made a childhood wish for his teddy bear to become real so that they could be best friends forever, the wish came true and the child, John Bennett is now a thirty-five yeah old man whose teddy, Ted has grown up with him.  They spend most of their time smoking pot, drinking and watching movies.  Generally doing laddish things.  John is in a relationship with the lovely Lori who seems to get along with Ted but feels the soft toy is holding her relationship with John back.  Ted ends up getting his own place and a job but little changes and then the disaster happens and true friendships are tested, and that’s all I’m going to say so I don’t get accused of spoiling the movie for anyone.

This film was not really on my radar.  I know who Seth MacFarlane is but I’ve not got round to watching family guy yet.  I’m a fan of Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis but that was not a strong enough pull to encourage me to go and see this film, But my girlfriend, Tracie, wanted to go and see it so we went (I made her sit through The Dark Knight Rises last week lol) and I’ve got to say, I loved it 😀 It did not make me laugh as much as the Inbertweeners film did but its a good second place as the funniest new movie I’ve seen for a few years.  At it’s core it’s a buddy movie and a romance (Dont let that scare you off fella’s) but the humour of it is absolutely spot on, yes it’s in bad taste here and there but not to the point of being offensive (In my opinion) and it works very well.  The scenes with Ted and his boss deserve particular mention, so does Giovanni Ribisi’s role in the movie as the bad guy.  Although he’s playing a role not far from his normal here he does it well as in all the movies he’s in (It was great seeing him playing more of a straight role in Avatar though)  He’s an actor that I have a lot of time for because I’ve not seen a film where he does a half arsed job.

I will be buying this one when it comes out on DVD because it’s an incredible good film, Tracie loved it as well, well aside from the Taylor Launter joke which I found funny 😀

Grown Ups

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I was watching the movie Grown Ups  as I do a little research and I have to admit I did not think I’d enjoy it when I first sat down to watch it.  For a film with three actors that I’m not overly found of this is one of the best films out there today.  This film looks like one of those rare movies which is full of heart.  The producers have put together a cast which is perfect.  Adam Sandler, David Spade and Rob Schneider are not three of my favourite actors but they put in, in my opinion, career best performances in a mainstream movie.  Then we have Kevin James and Chris Rock thrown in the mix you have five outstanding performances, the outtakes must be amazing!

Throughout the entire film they just take the mickey out of each other like men who are old friends do.  This is pure gold!  I cannot remember another movie of this scale which has such easy banter between the actors, especially the five lead men.  Throw in Maria Bello, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph and Joyce Van Patten as four of the friends wifes, Marcus Higgins played by David Spade is unmarried, and we have a film full of heart and what we call belly laughs over here.  I can’t think of one scene in the film that I could not see someone doing. I’m glad the movie is in my collection because its one of those films that I can watch a dozen times and more before I get bored with it 🙂