Hamlet 2

Steve Coogan and Co. go absolutely insane in Hamlet 2

by Gary Sundt

Okay… so Hamlet 2 is about Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), a struggling actor-turned-high school drama teacher who needs a good play to save the department, which is being cut as a result of a) a tightening budget, and b) the fact that the plays (which have all been adaptations of movies, like Eric Brockovich) aren’t “Oscar-winning or anything.” After reaching deep down in the creative well, the teacher comes up with Hamlet 2, a sequel to the classic Shakespearean masterpiece. The show is about how Hamlet and Jesus Christ travel through time to save everyone that dies at the end of Hamlet (which, according to this movie, is everyone in the play).

Does this sound especially awful? The play definitely is, but the film isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s laugh-out-loud hilarious most of the time, due in no small part to the great cast led by the brilliant Coogan. This was the flick at Sundance that found the people who saw it making fun of the people who didn’t. Appropriate that happened, really. The movie is as mean as any episode of South Park, which might be due to the fact that the co-writer of Hamlet 2, Pam Brady, was one of the writers on both South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut and Team America: World Police.

But enough about how mean the movie is. Let’s focus on how funny it is. Director Andrew Fleming is a hit/miss filmmaker, with the hilarious Dick to his credit, but the utterly underwhelming The In-Laws and Nancy Drew tarnishing his record (The Craft is a fence-sitter – a love it-or-hate it affair). With Hamlet 2, he has been given the gift of Coogan, who carries this movie all the way to the hilarious stage show and beyond. This will no doubt be a star-turning role for the actor, much in the same way Napoleon Dynamite was for Jon Heder. If Coogan’s very expansive resume is any indication, it will not be a mistake.

If it hasn’t become very clear, I like Steve Coogan’s work as Dana Marschz. If the actor were to put on a one man adaptation of this movie (ala Patrick Stewart’s Olivier Award-winning work in A Christmas Carol), I would be the first in line for tickets. However, the film’s supporting cast is just as valuable in making this comedy shine, and I suppose they need love too.

He has his wife (Catherine Keener), who hasn’t been able to get pregnant and thinks Dana’s tight bike shorts are to blame, and their roommate Gary (David Arquette), who doesn’t think much of anything. At school, his life is made difficult by his boss and nemesis, Principal Rocker (Marshall Bell). There is Octavio (Joseph Julian Soria), the streetwise actor-in-the-rough, who the teacher thinks is just a thug until he finds out he has been accepted to Brown. And finally we have the “drama pets,” Rand (Skylar Astin) and Epiphany (Phoebe Strole), who are just hilarious and very much reminded me of similar acquaintances in high school.

And then there is Elisabeth Shue as herself. She plays Dana’s hero and muse. And it is very, very funny.

Everybody in the cast works, and succeeds, at playing it straight against Coogan’s manic energy. In fact, its everyone else’s realistic composure that makes the nutty drama teacher’s behavior just all the more wonderful. This might be exemplified by the unsung hero of Hamlet 2, freshman drama critic Noah Sapperstein (Shea Pepe). Dana desperately pines for the lad’s approval, who responds with logic and reason. And, like all interactions in the film, all logic and reason is taken to insane and illogical extremes.

Proof: Consider the plot of Hamlet 2. When faced with the impending destruction of his precious drama program, the drama critic’s advice for Dana to make an original play, not one based off of movies he has seen. His reaction is to make a sequel.

Note: Hamlet 2 is set in Tucson, AZ, and the film hates the city a whole lot. While I understand to a degree (I used to live there myself), I had an opportunity to personally ask the cast and crew about this, and it became painfully obvious they had never really been to Tucson. In one of the recent television advertisements following this encounter, there can be found a list of individuals and groups that the film apologizes to. The City of Tucson made that list. I’m not saying I’m responsible. I’m just saying.

Note 2: The film insists that everyone dies at the end of Hamlet. This is not true. Most of the really interesting people die, but some people survive. Who would feed the final lines in Shakespeare if some poor schmuck didn’t survive it all?

Running time: 92 minutes. Directed by Andrew Fleming. Produced by Eric Eisner, Leonid Rozhetskin and Aaron Ryder. Written by Pam Brady and Andrew Fleming. Starring Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Joseph Julian Soria, Skylar Astin, Phoebe Strole, David Arquette, Marshall Bell, Shea Pepe and Elizabeth Shue. A Focus Features release. Rated R

Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. reflect on the cruelties of war movie-making in Tropic Thunder

by Gary Sundt

Movies like Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder are the reason I hate vomit-inducing endeavors like Epic Movie, Date Movie, Meet the Spartans and the upcoming Disaster Movie. Stiller’s parody, which has bones to pick with war films and (more importantly) Hollywood in general, has a biting wit and an agenda beyond making a few quick dollars for the studios. And get this: it’s actually funny, which is more than I can say for any recent flick ending in the word “movie” or “spartans.”

I mean, consider the production values in Tropic Thunder. If it were one of these Stereotype Movies (which is how I will refer to them from here on in), it would be cheap shots at pop culture that could essentially be recreated on YouTube with a group of thirteen-year-olds, mom’s make-up kit, and a slightly better-than-average home video camera. By contrast, we have fine cinematography by Oscar-winner John Toll (Braveheart, The Last Samurai, Gone Baby Gone) and Robert Downey Jr. in black face as “the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.” The script is only okay, but these actors sell their lines and lift the entire affair to a place that will make you laugh and laugh and laugh.

Tropic Thunder is about the blundering production of… Tropic Thunder, the story of a Vietnam War mission gone awry, based on the first-hand account by one the platoon’s survivors (Nick Nolte). Three A-list actors, one nobody actor and a rapper are reinventing themselves as war movie heros in this movie. Tugg Speedman (Stiller) has built his career as the headliner of the Scorcher series, a film franchise that has lost its spark. Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) is tired of being famous for his antics as the funny fat guy in a Meet the Klumps-style comedy. Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), the five time Oscar-winning Australian film star, has gone through a medical procedure to make himself the aforementioned ”dude” (or more specifically, the movie-within-the-movie’s Sgt. Osiris). The cast is rounded out with rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and Hollywood hopeful Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) as two other soldiers in the party.

These men are shooting in Southeast Asia with first-time filmmaker Damien Cockburn (the soon-to-be-infamous Steve Coogan), and things are not going well. The director is just not getting what he wants from these primadonnas, and they in turn are not getting what they want from the script. The only member in the mix having any fun is the pyrotechnical expert (Danny McBride), who is directly involved in the onset catastrophe in which millions of dollars are spent, lots of things blow up, and the camera is not rolling. 

This causes studio chief Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) to practically pop an artery, and communicates to Cockburn that his career will be over if he messes up this movie. It is at this point when the veteran informs the director that the only way to get the shots he wants is to put these men in real combat. What follows is simply hilarious, with each character attempting to survive and conquer their acting demons, while Speedman’s agent (Matthew McConaughey) working diligently to get his client the TiVo specified in his contract.

The plot and the writing is almost as ridiculous as Stiller’s last directorial effort, the 2001 hit Zoolander. I was not really on board with whatever Zoolander was, but I can get behind Tropic Thunder. While I have a deep love for movies like Apocalypse Now and Black Hawk Down, my experience with most war movies is a certain impatience for the story. Maybe the endless battle doesn’t interest me. I’ve never wanted to be a soldier. With that in mind, seeing the standards of the war epic lampooned properly makes laugh a deep belly laugh.

However, the real target here is Hollywood, which gets a good spanking from Stiller and Co. in this film. This is the type of movie Peter Sellers would have gone after back in the day, a time when parodies were funny. Movies are best when they are about people and their troubles, not effects and their ability to be special. I think parodies are the same way, and Stiller has done fine work here. Yes, there are quite a few special effects used in Tropic Thunder, but they are always in service of the people and the story. 

On reconsideration of my earlier thought, I think I know why I prefer war epics in the vein of Apocolypse Now. They are not war movies, but rather character pieces. Stiller has the smarts to make Tropic Thunder a story about people and their struggle. Sure, the people and the struggle were goofy as hell, but it was interesting. And more importantly – Downey Jr. is really, really funny.

Running time: 107 minutes. Directed by Ben Stiller. Produced by Ben Stiller, Eric McLeod and Stuart Cornfeld. Screenplay by Ben Stiller and Justin Theroux Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel, Nick Nolte, Danny McBride, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise and Steve Coogan. A Dreamworks SKG release. Rated R

Pineapple Express

 

Seth Rogen looks to be developing a hernia as he carries James Franco to safety in Pineapple Express

by Gary Sundt

So, I’m going to be very honest and say I’ve smoked some weed in my time. I’ll be even more honest and say I’ve smoked a whole lot of weed. Sometimes there were adventures, other times it was sitting on the couch playing multiplayer Halo 2 for hours on end (badly, I might add). So it goes without saying that I get the whole “stoner comedy” thing. I had to give up pot a few years ago (I have control issues), but I will say I never felt more in the mood to be stoned then while watching Pineapple Express.

Now, there are many reasons to get high, and Dale (Seth Rogen) certainly has some good ones. Is there a breed of individual more hated by total strangers than the process server? He issues subpoenas to people, and has fun dressing up in a variety of costumes to make his job a little easier on himself when bearing the bad news. It is no wonder this guy is stoned on a regular basis. He buys his weed from small-timer Saul (James Franco), who in turn buys his weed from a middleman named Red (Danny R. McBride), who in turn buys his weed from Ted Jones (Gary Cole), the big dealer in town who is currently at odds with the competition (referred to only as “The Asians”).

It just so happens that Dale has to serve Mr. Jones, but everything goes terribly awry when the server sees the dealer shoot one of The Asians. Dale freaks out, and ditches the joint he’s smoking during his rather clumsy getaway. He heads over to Saul’s, throws up on his printer, and informs him of the situation. At this point in the film, it is well-known that the weed Dale was smoking was a new strain called Pineapple Express, and Saul is the only person who has gotten the hook-up thus far. Accordingly, the guys go into hiding, causing them to have many mini-adventures, while two of Ted’s thugs (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson) work to track them down.

With Pineapple Express, I believe we’ve witnessed the mainstream return of marijuana (if that event hadn’t come already). Couldn’t be a better time either, because I know way too many people who get stoned on a regular basis who will be quoting this movie for years. The movie is at its best in those quotable stoner moments, where Saul and Dale talk through the random whatnot that floats through their brain. It also provides an interesting twist on the whole Abbot and Costello thing, with the big guy playing it straight while the skinny guy gets to be goofy.

It should be noted, however, that this is a mighty violent movie, which causes it to feel a little disjointed most of the time. The script by Rogen and Evan Goldberg (the writing team who gave us Superbad) is pretty solid and the performances are wonderful, so it feels a little out of place when things get as bloody as they do. Maybe it is a necessary evil, as those are the moments where the target audience will go “OH #$%@!!! YOU SEE THAT BRO?!?!?,” but it seems odd that director David Gordon Green decided to get so graphic with the violence.

While we’re on the subject, I have to stop and ask: What is Green doing here? This is the guy who made two of most utterly wonderful but little seen films of the last 10 years: George Washington and All the Real Girls. I have to wonder what attracted Green to the project, and even more so why producer Judd Apatow felt he was the right fit. Did everyone look at the material and say, “god dammit… we’re going to need somebody really good for this.” Green handles the against-type project well enough, but I am wondering if he was the right fit for this flick.

Perhaps he is, because this stoner comedy has to it a level of authenticity that would probably be unfelt otherwise. Then again, most of the flicks that Apatow is involved in feels that way. Movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad and Knocked Up have a certain spark to them, an energy that occurs in comedy only once in a great while. They seem to be as perfect as their genre will allow them to be, and I think the same can be said for Pineapple Express.

Note: I find it interesting that Apatow and friends have no trouble putting out an R-rated film filled with illegal drug use and violence where the title is a strain of marijuana, while director Kevin Smith has been facing trouble securing an R-rating on his new film, presumably because of a little sex and the word “porno” being in the title. Oh well, Smith got his R, and all is right with the world. Still, interesting stuff…

Running time: 111 minutes. Directed by David Gordon Green. Produced by Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson. Screenplay by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Gary Cole, Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson. A Columbia Pictures release. Rated R

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson stand dramatically in the snow in The X-Files: I Want to Believe

by Gary Sundt

I occasionally watched The X-Files during its nine season run on FOX, and was a fan of the 1998 feature film effort Fight for the Future. It was an intriguing show, and it opened the door for other television programs to tell better and more-complex stories, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias and more recently Lost. Growing up in a time when television was finally finding its story-telling ways was needless to say very exciting, and looking back, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the cultural influence that a little show about martian-and-monster hunters would have.

That being said, The X-Files: I Want to Believe is not a really great movie, and won’t be influencing film history any time soon. Yes, Fox Mulder (David Duckovny) and Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are back to solve another mysterious mystery, and its a doozy of a case. An FBI agent has been kidnapped, and the psychic, convicted pedophiliac ex-priest Father Joe (Billy Connolly) is apparently getting visions that could lead to the answers. Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) doesn’t quite know what to make of this, and Agent Drummy (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner) thinks he full alien excrement, so they call in the retired Mulder and Scully to help find the truth.

Scully has moved on from her X-Files work, and is making a living as the very-skilled surgeon that she is. However, Mulder is right at home with Father Joe and the manhunt. But, see, Scully and Mulder now live together and have this… thing… going on between them, so there is a conflict of interest. Meanwhile, another woman is kidnapped, peoples body parts are being found in the snow, and there is a two headed dog somewhere in the mix. Was that a spoiler? Maybe, but it was worth mentioning.

Co-writer/director and X-Files creator Chris Carter has not been overly busy since the show wrapped production 6 years ago, so it was a reasonable expectation that I Want to Believe would come with a great story.  More importantly, it should come with some good X-Files moments. Truthfully, and while I won’t mention them here, I can think of three. That may cut it for an episode of the show, but not for a movie. But perhaps Carter was trying to step beyond the lore and hit a wider audience with this film.

But who is he trying to please? For “X-Philes” (loyal and avid watchers of the show), there isn’t much in the way of X-Files mythology to go on. But for those non-fans, there are too many brief and obscure references to things that happened in the show (Scully and Mulder’s baby, their complex relationship, a surprise visit from a beloved character in the film’s finale) to keep any real momentum going. And then there are those bizarre moments that are just plain out of character for The X-Files (e.g. the musical theme playing randomly over a picture of a well-known political figure). Those are the greatest crimes of all, because they are simply disjointing for the audience, pulling us right out of the film.

The good news is that Duchovny and Anderson have returned to the roles that made them household names. For some viewers, they are like the half-brother and sister we haven’t seen for a while. For others, they are more like distant cousins. Regardless, we know them all too well, and it is nice to see them back to their old ways.

However, something is amiss with their relationship. Perhaps we expect more than we should, but the spark is very much missing in I Want to Believe. The characters and the actors have both moved on to other projects, and the fact that they remain chained to one another, both in this film and the rest of time, is showing its wear and tear on Mulder and Scully. There are several points where they go through the old motions, feeding lines about Mulder’s dead sister and Scully’s infamous stubbornness, and I found myself thinking back and wondering how the show kept these droll conversations interesting for 9 years. 

The truth: they didn’t. They kept it good for 6 years, and then it was downhill from there. Television was growing up, and a new generation of writers and producers were improving on the progress made by The X-Files and like-programming. Also, The Sopranos came out, once again redefining what television was allowed to do. While I Want to Believe has a theme of not giving up, but perhaps its time. There but for the grace of Pop Culture go The X-Files, and maybe Mulder and Scully have said and done all they have to say and do.

Running time: 104 minutes. Directed by Chris Carter. Produced by Chris Carter, Brent O’Connor and Frank Spotnitz. Screenplay by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz. Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly and Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner. A Twentieth Century Fox release. Rated PG-13