Movie Review: Neighbors (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

I've long been a fan of actor Seth Rogen, director Nicholas Stoller and just about anyone else that comes from the Judd Apatow school of comedy. Writer-produced Apatow himself does not appear to be directly involved with Rogen and Stoller's new film Neighbors. But it does evince the kind of hallmarks one would expect from an Apatow film: a wistfulness about attaining a certain stage of maturity; a focus on a mismatched couple that is more wish-fulfillment than reality, usually a schlubby guy with a nearly unattainable wife (not unlike Apatow and his beautiful wife Leslie Mann); and an ability to sneak in raunchy, gross-out humor in a fairly natural, often semi-improvisational manner.

Movie Review: This Is the End (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

A clever, funny and, most of all, incredibly original comedy, This Is the End is a surprising contender for most hilarious movie I've seen all year. Concocted by Evan Goldberg and actor Seth Rogen as a nihilistic, self-reflexive satire featuring Rogen and his actor friends as themselves, This Is the End successfully overcomes its biggest potential liability, extending its one-joke premise too far, by keeping the movie short and, as this film's version of Jonah Hill would say, tight.

Movie Review: Funny People (2009)

Is Judd Apatow willing to gamble on his wife's acting ability at the expense of his own stratospheric success? That's the question I kept asking myself after the wonderful first half of his newest movie, Funny People, a film which represents Apatow's attempt to move his films in a more mature direction. Even by including some of his repertory performers like Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Jonah Hill (Superbad), and adding Adam Sandler (who proves the dramatic ability he displayed in Punch-Drunk Love was not a fluke) Apatow deftly manages to maintain an engrossing drama from going off the rails into his usual sophomoric, yet superior, humorous territory for at least this portion of the movie. Make no mistake, lest you leave the theater disappointed. Despite its broad cast of stand-up comedians and its setting in the corresponding milieu, Funny People is a drama. Sandler plays George Simmons, a stand-up comic who hit it big in the movie business. After being diagnosed with a terminal disease, he looks back at his life and wonders what it would have been like if he hadn't been so arrogant and selfish. George cheated on Laura (Leslie Mann), the only woman that ever loved him, leading her straight into a marriage and family with Clark (Eric Bana), a lout with the same tendencies to philander. George barely speaks to his parents and sister. And he has no friends outside of the cynical acquaintances he hangs out with in the stand-up world (all played by familiar comedians as some version of themselves). So George decides to get an assistant who will serve him as writer, friend, and confidant; a younger, more naive version of himself that he can hopefully steer away from the abyss he now faces: Rogen's Ira Wright. For the first hour and a half, the premise unfolds quite naturally, which is a first for a movie set in Apatow's high-concept universe. Rogen and Sandler's characters bond over their shared love for comedy, their desire to do right by people, and even over Apatow's customary dick jokes. Sandler plays George close to his heart, with early video of Sandler's comedy routines helping to give one the sense that this is a thinly veiled version of Sandler himself being opened up for all to see. It's the first time one sees the emotional burden of age lying heavy on this comedian usually known for his man-child performances. And he carries it well. Rogen shows a respectable deference to his comedic antecedent, Sandler. He wisely plays Ira as more of an optimistic sounding board and straight man than the antic misanthrope he often portrays. Ira is more often the butt of the joke than the instigator of it. And yes, there are plenty of jokes in this drama, which is to be expected in a film titled Funny People. But one should also expect an implied irony in the title, as an all-out comedy so named would otherwise invite even more criticism than this one is already receiving. So Funny People is a drama nonetheless. I could tell by all of the people in my theater walking out midway through the movie when things get even more serious with the introduction of Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife, into the mix. As Sandler and Mann's characters grow closer, the film turns into a family drama. Sandler questions whether this is the life that he should be living, with Mann and her two daughters. He feels justified in disrupting her relationship with the brutish Clark because of the man's infidelities, despite having perpetrated his own in his previous relationship with her. Todd McCarthy's review in Variety seems to put equal parts of the blame on both the script and Leslie Mann's performance for Funny People coming up short in its second half. I disagree. Funny People's storyline may turn but it does so organically, never feeling forced. The tonal shift the movie takes, and the complex emotions that the situation calls for demand a lot from an actor, and Sandler is up to the task. But Mann isn't. Yes, she is funny enough in bit parts in Apatow's previous efforts, but here she lacks the dramatic range to make us sympathize with her character's quickly shifting circumstances. Another irony since her Laura is a former actress who lost out to Cameron Diaz when both were up for The Mask (1994), and Bana's Clark implies it was for the same lack of ability. So please keep Mann in the supporting tier of your next film Judd because any blame for Funny People's second half derailing lies squarely on her shoulders, and on yours for casting her in a significant role in a movie that will unfortunately now be relegated to the interesting footnote section of your filmography.

Movie Review: Pineapple Express - Stoner Comedy is a Disappointing Mess

by Tony Dayoub



Pineapple Express is the latest comedy from the guys who hang under the Judd Apatow (Knocked Up) shingle. And it is the first to utterly disappoint, I'm sorry to say. The movie's a mess. It doesn't know whether it wants to be a stoner comedy, or a mismatched buddy caper, or a crime thriller. Yeah, I get it... indie director David Gordon Green (Snow Angels) is trying to demonstrate he can bust all genre limitations with this one. And maybe it works as his audition reel for joining the studio system. But as a movie, it fails big.


It starts so promisingly, too. Process server Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) is sleepwalking through his thin misguided life. He dresses up in phony disguises to serve his subpoenas. Occasionally, he stops to visit his girlfriend, Angie (Amber Heard), at her high school. Any reflections on the sorry state of his life are mostly smoked away with pot he purchases from Saul Silver (James Franco). Saul is so insulated by his paranoia at getting caught dealing, that he aches for a friend. Dale is nice enough and cool enough to fit that bill, so Saul shares his newest batch of weed known as "Pineapple Express" with him. This batch is so uniquely good that smoking it is a shame. According to Saul, "It's like killing a unicorn... with a bomb."

Dale leaves to serve Ted Jones (Gary Cole), supplier of said "Pineapple Express", with a subpoena. Arriving at the wrong time, he witnesses Jones and his cop girlfriend, Carol (Rosie Perez), murdering a rival dealer. Dale takes off in a hurry, but Jones and Carol identify a roach the pothead leaves behind as containing his batch of marijuana. When Dale goes back to Saul, and finds out he's the first to buy a sample of the "Pineapple", they both realize that it is only a matter of time before Jones tracks them down and eliminates them.

This is where it begins to fall apart. Scenes go on far too long as we hang with Dale and Saul in the woods while they consider what their next move is in their pot-induced reverie. Conversations that show the beginnings of a joke or two, go around in meaningless circles till they finally just die. Is it meant to represent the feeling of being high? Sure it is. But it doesn't make for good entertainment if a comedy fails to make you laugh as this one frequently does. Cheech and Chong's films, Friday, and even the Harold and Kumar comedies all knew how to wring laughs from the stoner premise. Part of it is their fearlessness when descending into total inanity.

But director Green is hoping to elevate this to another level. The film fails there also. Attempts at giving the two buddies some depth through their shared experience seem forced, and ultimately squelched by the filmmakers' own hesitancy to venture into emotional territory. When, at various repetitive times, the two leads are in desperate straits, they frequently profess affection to each other. But it's always done tongue in cheek, or defused by a well-timed quip.

So is it a parody? I don't know. It seems to be too serious for that. At times, presenting itself as a crime thriller, like when Dale and Saul are finally confronted by Jones and his goons, the movie gets pretty graphic and intense with its violence. If Green is going for a Landis-like twist on chase movies, a la The Blues Brothers or even Into the Night, it fails there also. Landis knew how to tie up loose ends, for instance. Dale has Angie and her parents (Nora Dunn and Ed Begley, Jr.), hide in a motel, revisits Angie twice (with parents nowhere to be seen), only to never be heard from again before the movie concludes. I doubt that Dunn and Begley deigned to do this movie only to appear in one short, throwaway scene. I suspect, instead, that there are large chunks of this film on the cutting room floor.

This film is about as disjointed a one as I've seen in some time. It's like they threw everything at it but the kitchen sink, and hoped some of it would stick. Not silly enough to elicit laughs, not deep enough to explore the two stoner-buds' friendship, and not tight enough to serve as a thriller of any sort, Pineapple Express isn't even worthy to watch while high. So save yourself some time, money, and laugh-enhancing medication and just skip it.