Entries in the Category "paul rudd"
Movie Reviews: Talented Teens and "Actresses of a Certain Age" edition
This is kind of sick, but one night I was on Netflix Instant looking for a short movie to watch before bed, and I had read on the Internet that day about a girl who was killed by an Amtrak train. So, uh, I decided to watch Stand By Me, a great coming-of-age movie which is about, among other things, kids getting hit and/or almost getting hit by trains.
I’ve never read the Stephen King story on which the movie is based, but I’ve heard it’s great. The movie definitely charms with its 50s detail and foul-mouthed little boys. What’s really distracting, though, is looking at all those young Hollywood actors and thinking about how none of them ended up where people expected. Like, the fat kid slimmed down, is now a regularly working actor (I may have watched his former show, Crossing Jordan, a time or two) married to a former model. The kid who actually seems to have a future as an actor is the one who didn’t (instead he died from drug addiction). The smartass who was already a pretty big star is in the reality TV doldrums now. I especially like that the kid who, in the movie, grows up to be a writer, actually did. Wil Wheaton, one of the few teen Hollywood success stories.
More movies follow!
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Movie Reviews: Holiday Weekend Edition!
Thanksgiving is a movie-loving time.
I mostly watched this under duress; it was playing at my parents' house on Thanksgiving Day, and to avoid it I would have had to leave. I don't really want to review these kinds of movies, because it just seems petty--I mostly hated it, yeah, but I knew that it wasn't made for me, it was made for someone who finds people getting slammed into the floor and kicked in the balls and whatnot hilarious. For someone who isn't totally fed up with the "uptight woman who loves her independence secretly wants a baby of own; she didn't even know it until she saw the negative pregnancy test" trope. Also for someone who can suspend belief enough to think that someone as aggressively uptight as Reese Witherspoon is a good match for a laid-back wiseass like Vince Vaughn (I like both actors and I think they are both capable of really good performances, but they so do not belong together). On the positive side, there were some great actors of a previous generation playing the four parents, the best of which was Sissy Spacek, who also had an awesome artist's colony house.
Click ahead for more! Many are holiday-themed.
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I Love You, Man!
That's right, I saw I Love You, Man tonight! Jealous?
Case had a free screening tonight, two days before it hits those movie theaters that only suckers go to. Jeremy and I saw the film, although we did have to give up our cell phones (and any other potential recording devices) at the door.
I won't write a full review (those get too spoilery) but I will say that Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are both memorable and hilarious in the movie. They both play full-fledged characters with lives, with believable personalities, with motivations that make sense--and it's all still funny. Hardly any actors (or movies) can show both sides of that coin at once. I wish I could describe some of their best moments, but I will not ruin them. Just know that both guys are funny in completely unexpected and unusual ways.
What else you can expect: a pretty typical Apatow experience, although Apatow was not involved in this one as far as I know. Lots of swearing and other kinds of naughty talk. A quite savvy satire of the difficulty of "making friends" as grown-ups and the fine line walked between male bonding and utter gayness. And they do say, "I love you man" to one another, and it's magnificent.
By the way, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is on television right now, and I'm watching it. Jeremy should consider himself lucky that Paul Rudd is too married and too famous to ever offer himself to me, because I would take him up on it so fast.