Get Him to the Greek (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Nicholas Stoller. Starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Elisabeth Moss.
Get Him to the Greek has no business being as good as it is.
This is a movie whose cover art features a screaming rock star doing the devil horns thing behind the fat guy from Superbad. It's packed with cameos by musicians on the declining ends of their careers. It has an extremely high concentration of boob and genitalia jokes. The main character vomits onscreen on at least five separate occasions.
If all of that sounds offensive and gross, then rest easy that this is not the comedy for you. But if it merely sounds stupid, then take a second look, because Get Him to the Greek is not stupid.
The movie is officially a spinoff of 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I might as well confess I never watched. I'm sure it was very nice. It doesn't matter.
This one focuses on Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a record company intern faced with the trial of escorting spoiled British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) to a comeback concert at LA's Greek Theater.Writer/director Nicholas Stoller was born in London and raised in the USA, a combination that fits GHttG's particular blend of British-style character comedy and American-style big gag comedy. The out-of-control Aldous Snow drags scenes off in schizophrenic new directions nearly every time he opens his mouth, but somehow the film stays coherent - through it all, there is no doubt that Stoller has a story to tell.
Aldous is the heart of this movie, and it couldn't have been done with an actor less talented than Russell Brand to bring him to life. Snow may be a caricature of a rock star, but he's still able to pause and ponder the meaning of his life without making the audience groan. Favorite moments are an awkward chat with his dorky son and the musician's attempt at couple's therapy.
Throughout the film's background is the relationship between straight man Jonah Hill's character and his girlfriend, played by Elisabeth Moss. Once you get past the notion of Hill living with an attractive doctor and the shenanigans Snow brings into their lives, the relationship has levels of maturity rare in a comedy.
The largest musician cameo is by Sean "P-Duff-Dabba-Doo-Diddy-Kong" Combs, who plays Hill's overbearing boss. Seeing the scrawny rapper attempt to be intimidating warrants skepticism, but he won me over with sheer lunatic persistence.
Rated R for... just about everything.
4.5 out of 5
Iron Man 2 (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Jon Favreau. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow.
Pretty good sequel to a pretty good superhero film.
This time, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) battles a crazy Russian played by Mickey Rourke, who has developed (alone in a cave, as with all the best technology of this universe) some super-advanced weaponry of his own.
The Iron Man franchise is among the best adaptations of comic book properties, but this is not high praise. These are completely watchable action flicks that leave me with no strong feelings one way or the other.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Superhero movies tend to fail miserably (Ang Lee's Hulk) as often as they succeed (Nolan's Batman) when they attempt to carry across the more mature, artsy side of their source material. Iron Man 1 and 2 don't aim to be more than a couple hours of quick thrills, and they're much better at it than something like Spider-Man.
What sets Iron Man apart is primarily its casting. Tony Stark is the perfect vessel for all of Robert Downey Jr.'s considerable flaws and charm, in addition to being one of the more interesting superhero alter-egos in his own right. Mickey Rourke is almost unrecognizable as creepy villain Ivan Vanko. Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, and Scarlett Johansson are then thrown onto the heap just because there was a talented actor clearance sale on somewhere.
Those who liked the first Iron Man will like this one; it's more of the same. The sequel is only slightly worse thanks to an overly-long subplot featuring Samuel L. Jackson and some gobbledygook about the Avengers. It serves no purpose except to set up Jackson's Nick Fury character and his inevitable deluge of godawful spinoffs.
Rated PG-13 for violent dismemberment of automobiles.3.5 out of 5
