Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Amen, brother....

 

Hot Fuzz was outstanding, but Walk Hard was not a bad film...

 

I enjoyed Walk Hard. Maybe it's because I saw the uncut version on DVD. I didn't see the original, so I can't compare.

 

Walk Hard was hilarious.

 

Yeah, but the original was definitely R. When it came out, a mainstream comedy directed at teens that was that openly raunchy hadn't been released in about 15 years.

 

Talladega Nights sucked ass.

 

Can't agree there.

Here are the Rotten Tomatoes critics approval ratings for Apatow's films:

Anchorman: 64 percent ($85 million)
40-Year-Old Virgin: 84 percent ($109 million)
Fun with Dick and Jane: 29 percent ($110 million)
Talladega Nights: 72 percent ($148 million)
Knocked Up: 91 percent ($149 million)
Suprbad: 87 percent ($121 million)
Walk Hard: 75 percent ($18 million)
Drillbit Taylor: 26 percent ($26 million)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall: 85 percent (NA)

That's a pretty good track record. I was stunned to see that Dick and Jane made $110 million, and the only thing he did for that was write the screenplay. He did have an executive producer credit for Kicking and Screaming, but it wasn't really his film.

 

Saw it last night with minimal expectations and laughed my ass off. I enjoy much of the Apatow crew's work, and FSM certainly is among the best.

Jason Segel is a star. He's been on the ol' radar since his minor, but clutch role in "SLC Punk," and FSM proved his ability to both write and carry a movie. I read one review that said it's tough for any comic actor to be on the screen in every scene (which "Peter" was) and not have the audience grow to hate him. Segel pulled it off very well.

Comedies usually hit a point where you start looking at the watch and waiting for the formulaic conclusion to play itself out. That was the case in 40-year old, Knocked Up and Superbad, all of which I enjoyed. FWIW, it never happened in this film — I could've watched another half hour.

 

Gotta disagree, at least on F&G. Nick was too clueless to be creepy. Yes, singing "Lady" to Lindsey should have been creepy, but he didn't get why it was creepy. Ditto for his drum hobby and how he thought having 35 pieces to the kit made him successful.

And of course the show ended with Nick trying disco. He was clueless and had no one to follow at home, so he followed everyone else.

I thought Segel was brilliant in that role. Of course, the whole goddamn show was brilliant, now, wasn't it?

 

The reason Hot Fuzz worked so well, though, was that it could stand as it's own silly story if you didn't know what it was spoofing.

With movies like Date Movie (and Scary Movies 2-4), the only thing they've got going for them is that audience members remember the originals, and thus occasionally chuckle here and there because of it. Take away the knowledge of what the movies were spoofing, and these "new generation parodies" would be thought of as idiotic wastes of time.

 

you know it

 

How a piece of genius like Anchorman is the third-worst rated on that list is questionable at best.