Friday, August 12, 2011
Film Your Briskly Paced Weekend at the Movies
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 8:55 AM
But maybe I'm off base; The Change-Up kinda flopped last weekend, and when I saw the 30 Minutes or Less trailer in front of Bad Teacher with a paying audience a month or so ago, it absolutely killed. If they had sold tickets to that movie immediately following that trailer, I think they could've sold out an auditorium or two. Eisenberg plays an irresponsible pizza guy who turns to his best friend (Ansari) for help when bank robbers (McBride and Nick Swardson) strap a bomb to his chest and force him to rob a bank. Sounds more harrowing than hilarious, but then, generally so do zombie attacks, and Ruben Fleischer did a nice job turning that into a brisk 80-minute comedy. 30 Minutes or Less apparently runs 83, with credits.
The Help: The newest installment of one of Hollywood's favorite franchises, Hero Whites! I haven't seen The Help, so I can't comment on whether it fulfills that stereotype of the black experience as seen through the eyes of kindhearted white people, but I do know that it runs almost two and a half hours, which seems a little lengthy for something I feel like I've basically seen from watching the trailers. Still, Emma Stone is adorable and hilarious and Viola Davis is pretty much always fantastic, so maybe I can overlook the fact that Bryce Dallas Howard went from amazingly promising actor (giving an excellent performance in the middle of The Village) to the kind of cartoonish shrews Marcia Gay Harden usually has to play, in the space of less than a decade. I guess those are some white-people problems right there.
Glee the 3D Concert Movie: I am a little confused about what this movie is but I am loathe to look anything up about it. This is a concert movie of the tour a bunch of Glee actors did, only the ads make it look like they also do in-character bits behind the scenes. I guess that would be fun if you were any kind of Glee fan, but going backstage and making the actors pretend to be their Glee characters performing for some kind of a big crowd for some reason seems kind of trying, basically the Fox employee equivalent of having to do skits at the company sales meeting. Or maybe the whole touring show is done in character, like it's a Disney on Ice type of thing? Finally, can someone tell me what is up with the tiny kid in the ads dressed up like he's on Glee? Is it really something that four-year-olds like? Hurry up and come back, Muppets! Four-year-olds need better things to like!
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