Reviews of I Love You, Man and Obsessed

I Love You, Man
Paramount
$30
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: After popping the question to his longtime girlfriend, Peter (Paul Rudd) realizes that he’s in need of a guy-pal to serve as his best man at the wedding.

Opinion: I Love You, Man is about as innovative as your typical romantic comedy, which is to say, not very.  But that’s largely by design.  Writer/director John Hamburg is deliberately following the rigid formula that drives movies like 27 Dresses, Made of Honor and his own 2004 rom-com Along Came Polly.  That formula usually involves a boy meeting a girl, fighting with the girl, making up with the girl, making out with the girl, breaking up with the girl and then getting back together with the girl after resolving some easily avoided misunderstanding.  I Love You, Man hits all the same story beats, but applies them to a boy/boy friendship as opposed to a boy/girl romance.  Fortunately, the rest of the film is much, much funnier than 27 Dresses and Along Came Polly, thanks largely to its terrific cast.  Jason Segel and Paul Rudd are the stars of the show, of course, but they’re ably backed up by Rashida Jones and a supporting ensemble that includes ringers like Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons, Rob Huebel, Jaime Pressly and Jon Favreau.  It’s a real pleasure to watch these pros at work.

Bonus Features: Lots of deleted and extended scenes, a gag reel with some pretty funny outtakes, a making-of featurette and a commentary by the two stars and their director.

Verdict: Buy It

—————————————————————————————————————————

Sony
$29
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: A successful businessman (Idris Elba) finds his personal and professional lives imperiled when he strikes up an office flirtation with a psycho homewrecker (Ali Larter).

Opinion: All of the trailers for Obsessed hyped the Beyonce/Larter stand-off as if it were the second coming of Ali vs. Foreman.  And as fans of exploitation cinema know, well-staged catfights are guaranteed crowd-pleasers, particularly when the fighters are as hot as these two.  Director Steve Shill milks this sequence for all that its worth.  Too bad the rest of the movie is overlong and, occasionally, overly serious.  In an interesting twist on the Fatal Attraction formula, where it was up to the man to solve his own psycho bitch problem, Obsessed depicts its hero as something of a cuckold who can’t bring himself to confront his would-be mistress—or his wife—head-on.  Instead, mama tiger Beyonce ends up having to do his dirty work.  The movie never tries to address the thorny racial politics behind its premise—predatory white woman tries to break up a happily married, upwardly mobile black couple—but that’s probably a good thing.  Like the movies it’s imitating, Obsessed is best enjoyed as glossy, campy fantasy.

Bonus Features: Three making-of featurettes, including one devoted to chronicling all the training and stunt work that went into producing that memorable catfight.

Verdict: Rent It

—————————————————————————————————————————


The Soloist
Paramount
$30
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: A cynical journalist (Robert Downey Jr.) learns important life lessons after meeting a homeless musician (Jamie Foxx) with mental problems.

Opinion: Try though they might, it’s difficult for any A-list movie star to resist the lure of playing a character with a physical disability or mental illness.  How can they when they’ve watched so many of their bretheren win critical acclaim and golden statues for playing deaf mutes, autistic blackjack players and one-legged skydivers with terminal elbow cancer.  But for every My Left Foot or Rain Man, there’s a film like I Am Sam, Radio and now The Soloist, where a respected actor (in this case Jamie Foxx) delivers a performance that’s the equivalent of cutting one on the first date—completely embarrassing.  Ironically, it’s Foxx’s gift for mimicry—the same skill that made him a perfect Ray Charles—that defeats him here.  He focuses the brunt of his energy on recreating Nathaniel’s physical tics and rapid speaking style, but never gets at the emotional core of this man.  As a result, it often feels like he’s delivering a stand-up routine rather than a dramatic performance.  The Soloist also suffers from a pronounced case of split-personality disorder, repeatedly cutting between Nathaniel’s genuinely tragic story and the cynical Lopez’s self-pitying quest for something or someone to believe in.

Bonus Features: A commentary track from the director, deleted scenes and a featurette focusing on LA’s homeless problem.

Verdict: Skip It

—————————————————————————————————————————

The Class
Sony Pictures Classics
$29
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: One year in the life of a French public school teacher and his unruly class of teenagers.

Opinion: Leave it to the French to school Hollywood on how to make an inspirational teacher movie that’s not only genuinely inspiring, but also completely realistic.  Start by casting an honest-to-God high-school teacher as your main character; no joke, the film’s star Francois Begaudeau is an author and former teacher whose book about his experiences in the French public school system was the inspiration for the film.  Next, hire actual high-schoolers–and not 25-year-old models–to play the pupils in the movie.  Then, toss all these folks in a small classroom together and stand back to film what happens.  The result is that rare film that depicts the act of learning in all its messy, difficult and, at times, joyous glory.

Bonus Features: Director Laurent Cantet contributes commentary over select scenes and a making-of featurette showcases the movie’s semi-improvised production process.

Verdict: Buy It

—————————————————————————————————————————

Also on DVD:

That crazy New Zealand folk-rock band is back for more hilarious songs and deadpan hijinks in Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season (HBO, $30), the sophomore (and possibly final) season of HBO’s cult comedy series.  At the start of the last TV season, The CW was ridiculed for reviving that ’80s chestnut Beverly Hills 90210, but the new primetime teen soap serial did boffo ratings for the network.  Before Season 2 begins, catch up on what you missed with the new box set, 90210: The First Season (Paramount, $50).  In other box-set news, the Blu-ray only release Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 25th Anniversary Collection (Warner, $85) offers all three live-action Ninja Turtles films, as well as the recent animated feature.  Finally, the low-budget sci-fi action flick Mutant Chronicles (Magnolia, $27) features such genre stalwarts as Ron “Hellboy” Perlman and Thomas “The Punisher” Jane battling mutants in the distant future.

Monsters vs. Aliens scores 2009′s best opening to date.

Despite finishing behind the opening weekend grosses of its predecessors Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Kung Fu Panda, DreamWork’s Animation’s newest animated blockbuster Monsters vs. Aliens still set a record its first weekend out: biggest opening of 2009 so far.  The sci-fi action comedy earned $58.2 million, besting Watchmen‘s $55.2 million opening earlier this month.  That record will likely fall in another month when the summer movie season kicks off with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but for now, Ginormica, B.O.B. and the rest of the gang can hold their heads high while fighting the good fight against extra-terristrials that pop up on Earth with plans for world domination.

Speaking of Watchmen, Zack Snyder’s disappointing adaptation of Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel fell to the number eight spot, earning just $2.8 million for a total gross of $103.2.  Almost certainly destined to drop out of the Top Ten next weekend, the movie will likely finish out its theatrical run with a little over $105 million–not a great return on Warner Brother’s rumored $140-$150 million investment.  In other words, don’t expect to hear that Snyder will be directing a movie version of another Alan Moore book (Lost Girls anyone?) any time soon.

In happier news, Lionsgate has to be thrilled with the second-place finish of their haunted house tale, The Haunting of Connecticut.  After what felt like a never-ending promotional campaign (seriously, I’ve been seeing the trailer for five months at least), the film opened to a robust $23 million, the studio’s best opening of 2009.  Last week’s number one movie Knowing dropped to third place this weekend with $14.7 million, knocking former bonze medalist I Love You, Man down one spot to fourth.  The Julia Roberts comic thriller Duplicity rounded out the Top 5 with $7.5 million.

Elsewhere, in the battle of the WWE superstars-turned-actors, Dwayne Johnson gave John Cena a B.O. smackdown.  Race to Witch Mountain earned $5.6 million in its third week of release, finishing roughly $300K ahead of the new-to-theaters action movie 12 Rounds.  That’s $4 million below Cena’s last big-screen effort, 2006′s The Marine.  The Liam Neeson revenge picture Taken made what will likely be its final appearance in the Top Ten, finishing in ninth place with $2.7 million.  During its nine-week run, the movie banked an impressive $137 million, which is even more amazing when you consider that it arrived on U.S. screens a year after its international run and was widely available online and via bootleg DVD.  Taking the final spot was the remake of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, which has earned $28.4 million over three weeks–only $5 million than what The Haunting of Connecticut earned in one weekend.

Looking at limited releases for a moment, Ramin Bahrani’s critically acclaimed Goodbye Solo had a sparkling debut, earning $40,000 from just three theaters.  That’s about $13,000 per screen–not bad for a movie with no movie stars or glamorous locals.  The fashion doc Valentino: The Last Empero contineus to do big buessiness as well.  The movie earned another $30,000 in its second week out for a total gross of $88,000.

The full Top Ten list is below, courtesy of the-numbers.com.  Next weekend, Vin Diesel looks to recapture his former box-office glory with Fast & Furious and the baseball-themed indie film Sugar arrives in theaters just in time for Opening Day.

Click here to read GIANT’s review of Monsters vs. Aliens and Goodbye Solo

The Top Ten: March 27-March 29, 2009
1. Monsters vs. Aliens: $58.2
2. The Haunting in Connecticut: $23
3. Knowing: $14.7/$46.2
4. I Love You, Man: $12.6/$37
5. Duplicity: $7.5/$25.6
6. Race to Witch Mountain: $5.6/$53.2
7. 12 Rounds: $5.3
8. Watchmen: $2.7/$103.2
9. Taken: $2.7/$137
10. The Last House on the Left: $2.6/$28.4

Nicolas Cage delivers a box-office smackdown to Dwayne Johnson.

It took awhile, but moviegoers finally got tired of seeing the same films–Slumdog Millionaire, Taken and Paul Blart: Mall Cop–over and over again.  Three new movies hit the marketplace this weekend and all three finished at the top of the charts.  The Nicolas Cage disaster movie Knowing came out on top with $24.8 million.  That’s the fifth-best opening of Cage’s career, behind both National Treasure movies, Ghost Rider and Gone in 60 Seconds.  Landing in second place was the Paul Rudd bromantic comedy I Love You, Man with $18 million, while the Julia Roberts/Clive Owen romantic thriller Duplicity had to make do with the bronze medal, earning $14.4 million.  That’s not great news for Roberts, whose last #1 hit in which she had a starring role was The Mexican way back in 2001.

After topping the box-office charts last weekend, Dwayne Johnson couldn’t fend off Nic, Paul or Julia his second week out.  Race to Witch Mountain fell to the number four spot with $13 million.  Witch Mountain stands to take another heavy hit next weekend as the family-oriented animated blockbuster Monsters vs. Aliens crashes into theaters.  Still, with $45 million already in the bank, the movie should finish its theatrical run with a decent $70 million haul and stands to turn a profit on DVD.  And at least Race to Witch Mountain cost substantially less than Watchmen.  The Zack Snyder-helmed comic-book blockbuster reportedly cost around $150 million and, after its fifth place finish this weekend, has only earned $98 million.  Somewhere, Alan Moore is chortling.

Our long national nightmare is finally over: Paul Blart: Mall Cop finally dropped out of the Top Ten, ending its improbable two-month run as 2009′s biggest hit so far.  The Liam Neeson action flick Taken continues to hang in there, finishing in seventh place behind The Last House on the Left.  Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire finished in eighth place and will probably drop out of the Top Ten this weekend, just in time for its DVD debut next Tuesday.  Madea Goes to Jail took the number nine spot and looks to finish just shy of $100 million.  No wonder Tyler Perry has already announced that he’s donning Madea’s wig again for his next film, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, which as GIANT reported, is also set to star Mary J. Blige.  Finally, Henry Selick’s Coraline made what will undoubtedly be its final Top Ten appearance in tenth place.  But the movie can leave with its head held high; with $72 million in the bank, Coraline is the second-highest grossing stop-motion animated film in history, finishing just behind Chicken Run.

Looking at limited releases for a moment, the new documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor, which chronicles the months leading up to the legendary fashion designer’s retirement, set records in its premiere at New York’s iconic Film Forum theater.  The Matt Tyrnauer-directed movie has earned $39,106 since it opened last Wednesday, making it the highest-grossing doc so far this year and one of Film Forum’s highest-grossing premieres ever.  Pick up the March issue of GIANT Magazine, on stands now, to see our review.

The full Top Ten list appears below courtesy of the-numbers.com.  Next week, look for Monsters vs. Aliens to dominate the competition, while the action movie 12 Rounds and the horror title The Haunting in Connecticut fight each other for the scraps.

The Top Ten: March 20-22, 2009

1. Knowing: $24.8
2. I Love You, Man: $18
3. Duplicity: $14.4
4. Race to Witch Mountain: $13/$44.7
5. Watchmen: $6.7/$98
6. The Last House on the Left: $5.9/$24
7. Taken: $4.1/$133.1
8. Slumdog Millionaire: $2.7/$137.2
9. Madea Goes to Jail: $2.5/$87.2
10. Coraline: $2.1/$72.8

Reviews of I Love You, Man, Hunger and Sin Nombre

I Love You, Man
Directed by John Hamburg
Cast: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones
***1/2

In 2008, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel starred separately in two of the year’s funniest movies, Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that their first collaboration I Love You, Man is 2009′s best mainstream comedy to date.  The movie is toting itself as a bromantic comedy—which basically translates as a romantic comedy with two dudes—the film casts Rudd as a socially-awkward dork named Peter, who is only months away from walking down the aisle with his perfect girlfriend, Zooey (Rashida Jones).  But his impending nuptials remind him of a gaping hole in his life, specifically the lack of a close male buddy to serve as his best man.

So with the full support and encouragement of his fiancée, Peter embarks on a series of “man dates” in search of the perfect dude.  Unfortunately, this quest is harder than it sounds.  After enduring a series of awkward nights out with a string of losers, Peter is ready to give up on men altogether…that is, until he meets Sydney (Segel), a goofy bachelor who is all the things Peter isn’t—laid back, unattached and effortlessly cool.  The two shouldn’t get along, but as the song goes, opposites attract and Peter quickly starts spending all his free time with Sydney, which understandably puts a strain on his relationship with Zooey.

Truth be told, I Love You, Man is about as innovative as your typical romantic comedy, which is to say, not very.  But that’s largely by design.  Writer/director John Hamburg is deliberately following the rigid formula that drives movies like 27 Dresses, Made of Honor and his own 2004 rom-com Along Came Polly.  That formula usually involves a boy meeting a girl, fighting with the girl, making up with the girl, making out with the girl, breaking up with the girl and then getting back together with the girl after resolving some easily avoided misunderstanding.  I Love You, Man hits all the same story beats, but applies them to a boy/boy friendship as opposed to a boy/girl romance.  That’s probably why the movie drags in all the exact places you expect it to drag.  The misunderstanding that breaks Sydney and Peter up, for example, is lame even by rom-com standards and the final scene is marred by the same cringe-inducing public declaration of love that’s a staple of the genre.

Fortunately, the rest of the film is much, much funnier than 27 Dresses and Along Came Polly, thanks largely to its terrific cast.  Segel and Rudd are the stars of the show, of course, but they’re ably backed up by Jones (who proves that her funny turn on The Office wasn’t a fluke) and a supporting ensemble that include ringers like Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons, Rob Huebel, Jaime Pressly and Jon Favreau.  It’s a real pleasure to watch these pros at work.  Like a good buddy, I Love You, Man is the kind of film you want to kick back, relax and grab a beer with.

Verdict: See It

Click here to read GIANT’s interview with Rashida Jones

————————————————————————————

Also in Theaters:

Hunger
Directed by Steve McQueen
Starring Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham
****
The most brutal prison story I’ve seen since HBO’s Oz went off the air, Hunger tells the real-life story of Bobby Sands, a member of the Irish Republican Army who led a hunger strike in 1981 while locked up in Northern Ireland’s infamous Maze Prison.  Divided into there distinct parts, the movie devotes its first half-hour to depicting daily life in the Maze, where prisoners are regularly beaten by the guards and train themselves to smuggle letters and even makeshift radios in various body cavities.  The second section is an extended conversation between Sands and the prison’s priest over the ethics and morality of his planned hunger strike.  The final thirty minutes give us front-row seats to witness Sands’ death from starvation.  His transformation into a human skeleton is depicted in almost clinical detail and I can only imagine the toll this experience must have taken on the actor playing Sands.  Normally, I’m not a fan of performers abusing their health for their profession, but I have to admit that Hunger wouldn’t be as powerful had Fassbender not subjected himself to such extreme measures.  Seeing the havoc starvation wrecks on a body makes it that much more difficult to view Sands as some kind of heroic martyr.  Director Steve McQueen (no, not that Steve McQueen) admirably maintains an objective point of view throughout the film, a tricky balancing act to pull off with such incendiary material.  A difficult, but wholly enveloping experience, Hunger is an auspicious feature filmmaking debut.
Verdict: See It

————————————————————————————

Sin Nombre
Directed by Cary Fukunaga
Starring Edgar Flores, Paulina Gaitan
**1/2
One of the most beautifully photographed films I’ve seen so far this year, Cary Fukunaga’s Sundance-approved Sin Nombre lacks a rich story to complement its lush images.  Shot entirely on location in Mexico, the story follows a gang member who kills his leader in retaliation for the rape and murder of his girlfriend.  Marked for death, he rides the rails north to the U.S. border, hoping to cross to freedom before his former colleagues catch up to him.  Also making the journey is the teenage daughter of a recently deported illegal immigrant, attempting to get back to the other family he left behind in New Jersey.  An unlikely—and, quite frankly, implausible—friendship blossoms between the two young refugees as the story builds to a tragic climax that borrows heavily from Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven.  Fukunaga is clearly a talented director with a great visual eye, but for now his screenwriting skills leave a lot to be desired.
Verdict: Rent It

————————————————————————————

We Pedal Uphill
Directed by Roland Tec
Starring Polly Adams, Kate Blumberg, Judith Barcroft
**
An admirable attempt at examining the state of our union post-9/11, We Pedal Uphill collects 13 short movies (all written and directed by Roland Tec) set in various cities around the U.S. that address such hot-button issues as voter fraud, racism and the violation of civil liberties.  Sounds like heady stuff, but the big problem with the film is that it all too often reduces these complex subjects to cheap melodrama or easy “Take that!” potshots.  The best segments are the most abstract—a single tracking shot of a deserted factory corridor echoing with the voices of the employees that once worked there or a man driving miles out of his way to thank a stranger for saving his life.  Whenever Tec spells out what he’s getting at—as in a sequence where a group of beef industry executives chow down on a huge lunch of ribs and steak—the movie feels like a class project from a first-year film school student.
Verdict: Skip It

GIANT talks to I Love You, Man starlet Rashida Jones here.

“I’ve always been a big comedy geek,” declares 32-year-old actress Rashida Jones. “Humor is so subjective, and if you can make an entire group of people laugh, that’s a godly accomplishment.” The task poses little problem for Jones, who is, quite obviously, divine. Throughout her 13-year career, she has quietly owned each of her roles. From Karen Scarfolli on Judd Apatow’s Freaks & Geeks to her run as Louisa Fenn on Boston Public to her “dream job” as Karen Filippelli on The Office, Jones has made a keen impression on small screens.

This March she hits the box office as Zooey in writer/director John Hamburg’s bromantic comedy, I Love You, Man (watch the trailer below). In the film Zooey is engaged to Peter (Paul Rudd), who is looking for a best man. High jinks, hilarity and wildly awkward male bonding ensue. “[It's] the male version of women’s lib,” Jones says about the evolution of bro-on-bro love. “Women can be nurturers, and they can let themselves be nurtured. They can be independent, and they can be a part of a relationship….Guys didn’t have that cultural phenomenon, so they’re constantly looking for their role.” Heady stuff for a flick with a Lou Ferrigno cameo.

Although female characters in dude-centric flicks have been criticized for being flat, Zooey is anything but. “I think there’s still a deep sexism in this country,” says Jones. “But more and more there’s an acceptance that women and all of their complexities are interesting to write about.”Jones, the youngest daughter of music legend Quincy Jones and Mod Squad bombshell Peggy Lipton, certainly has her nuances as well. A far cry from typical tabloid-soiling celeb spawn, she graduated from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in comparative religion. Jones is also a gifted vocalist, a published writer and has twice been named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People.”

The total package hasn’t gone unnoticed. Based on I Love You, Man test screenings, Hamburg describes an overwhelmingly positive reaction to Jones’s character. On response cards, many viewers even scrawled, “I wish she was my girlfriend.” “When I read those, I give the audience member her phone number,” deadpans Hamburg, “which I’m sure she’d be cool with.”

Thankfully, the actress can soon be seen weekly when she joins Saturday Night Live alum Amy Poehler for NBC’s Parks & Recreation, a highly anticipated sitcom that will only leave us pining for more.