Paul

BY CHRIS HARRISON

Sci-fi comedies are no new concept. Films like Ghostbusters and Spaceballs have helped pave the way for more contemporary movies like Galaxy Quest and Shaun of the Dead. Supernatural elements being made into a mockery has a certain appeal to audiences, and the latest foray into farcing the realm of science fiction is Paul, directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad).

Starring and written by Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz’s very own Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Paul centers on British science fiction fans Grahame and Clive touring the most nerdtastic spots in America, from Comic-Con to UFO sites, only to run into an actual alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). He befriends them and convinces them to help him escape from a Federal Agent (Jason Bateman) and get back to his home planet.

I went into this movie with high hopes, considering Simon Pegg co-wrote Hot Fuzz, which I would argue is one of the greatest comedic screenplays ever written, if not the greatest. While nowhere near as brilliant as Hot Fuzz (Then again, what is?), Paul does give plenty of laughs. The dialogue between Jason Bateman’s character and his two subordinates, played by Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio, was especially fun to watch. Paul is also a pretty lovable character, from his snark and sarcasm to his genuine sense of empathy. At times, it seems that he’s more “human” than the people hunting him, which showcases a good commentary on the state of contemporary humanity. However, I did notice that Grahame and Clive aren’t particularly well-crafted protagonists. Their friendship is rather touching at times, but the characters themselves seem to be somewhat flat and uninspired.

The biggest problem, however, comes from the characters of Ruth Boggs and her father Moses (Kristen Wiig and John Carroll Lynch), two fundamentalist Christian stereotypes, the former who will eventually serve as a love interest to Grahame, and the latter who will become the Zodiac killer. Wait, wrong John Carroll Lynch movie…well, he becomes a bloodthirsty sociopath, so I was still close. At any rate, this screenplay portrays the Boggs family as closed-minded, antisocial buffoons who have a distorted and deluded sense of reality (especially in the case of Moses). I should make it clear that I have absolutely no issue with the satirization of religion, including and especially Christianity. In fact, I openly welcome it. This movie, however, provides nothing new and gives the same “Christians are backward hillbillies who hate science lolz” routine we’ve seen a billion times. Although, I will admit Ruth’s t-shirt featuring Jesus shooting Charles Darwin in the face is pretty hilarious.

Despite its flaws, Paul does hold up as a very fun and entertaining comedy. Pegg and Frost have always worked well together as a duo, and their first script together was not a bad start. It provides a good amount of laughs, action and at times, some genuinely heartwarming moments. It’s definitely worth a watch, so be sure to keep this on your to-see list of 2011.◊◊

Sucker Punch

BY CHRIS HARRISON

In 2009, director Zack Snyder (whose previous works include Dawn of the Dead and 300) altered my perception of contemporary cinema with his adaptation of the graphic novel Watchmen. It was visually beautiful and stylistically-driven from start to finish, with a story and characters that provided depth and a fresh take on the superhero genre. Needless to say, after also being impressed with his 2010 animated film Legend of the Guardians, I looked forward to his next film Sucker Punch, a movie that appeared to blur the line between reality and fantasy in the coolest way possible. Boy, was I wrong.

The closest thing to a plot this film has to offer surrounds a girl nicknamed Babydoll (Emily Browning) who is forced into an asylum at the hands of her abusive stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) and a corrupt employee named Blue (Oscar Isaac). She meets four other girls, Rocket (Jena Malone), her sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Blondie (the not-blonde-at-all Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung). In Babydoll’s mind, however, she is actually in a brothel run by Blue and dance instructor Dr. Gorski (Carla Gugino) where she is going to be sold to the High Roller (Jon Hamm) if she and the girls don’t escape.

How do they try to escape? Babydoll dances in front of the brothel employees, and while she’s dancing, she imagines herself and her friends as kickass warriors fighting zombies, Nazis, dragons, and robots under the guidance of the Wise Man (Scott Glenn). While the men are distracted, the other girls retrieve the necessary items. First of all, this makes the fantasy scenes completely pointless, other than to serve as an excuse for Zack Snyder to give us kickass action scenes of beautiful girls in skimpy clothes and stockings killing bad guys. While I definitely appreciated that, I feel he should have just made a movie about female warriors and skipped the whole asylum/brothel subplot. It would have been far more entertaining and a lot less infuriating. Second, we never see Babydoll dance at all; we’re automatically transported to her dreamworld. If Zack Snyder could direct the 1990 documentary Michael Jordan’s Playground, a movie that forced us to watch Michael Jordan dance terribly, he could have at least shown us Emily Browning dancing. Jerk.

The screenplay, co-written by Snyder and Steve Shibuya, is like Inception if it were beaten repeatedly over the head and drugged. First, why do we need Babydoll to imagine she’s in a brothel? It’s not like Snyder cuts back and forth from the asylum to the brothel (like the levels of dreaming in Inception); most of the movie is Babydoll’s brothel dream and her fantasies within said dream. Also, what girl would ever imagine herself in a brothel? It’s clear that Snyder hardly understands the female psyche at all. If he ever decides to write another female-centered film, he might want to co-write it with his wife and producer Deborah Snyder.

Folks, take my advice and skip this one. Aside from its admittedly breathtaking visuals and decent performances from the cast, the script is the film’s biggest downfall and corrupted any pleasure I could have received from it. Here’s hoping that Snyder’s upcoming Superman film The Man of Steel will fare much better than this sloppy, unpolished and confusing mess of a film.  ◊◊

Somewhere

By Chris Harrison

After she realized that acting was not her forte, Sofia Coppola found that she was more successful behind the camera than in front of it…well, in the eyes of most critics, that is. In my opinion, The Virgin Suicides was a boring, heavy-handed “liberate your daughters or else” kind of film and Marie Antoinette placed historical integrity behind pure artistic indulgence (There’s a friggin’ pair of VANS in the background during a montage set to “I Want Candy”, for Christ’s sake!). Lost in Translation, however, I will agree is a masterpiece, both script-wise and in its beautiful shots of Tokyo. However, Coppola only seems to talk about one thing in all of these films: Rich people with problems. And in her latest film Somewhere, she continues her spiral of redundancy and somehow manages to bring herself down even further.

Somewhere stars Stephen Dorff as Johnny Marco, a typical “livin’ in the fast lane” actor (literally, the first scene is him driving his Porsche in a circle for a good minute and a half) who spends his time having random sex and watching twin strippers dance to outdated pop songs when he’s not hanging out with his best friend Sammy, played by none other than Jackass’s Chris Pontius (Because having your penis yanked by a toy helicopter is the embodiment of cinematic regality, Sofia) as well as spending quality time with his 11 year-old daughter Cleo, played by Elle Fanning. This is where I’d normally say where the events lead, but honestly that would be giving away the very ending because that’s literally ALL that happens in this film’s 98 minutes.

First of all, there are scenes in this film that should not be nearly as long as they are. I get that she’s going for a minimalist type of film, but that’s only when she feels like it. Like the Porsche scene mentioned above, there are scenes of literal silence for 1-2 minutes followed by scenes with pretty average-length dialogue. To me, it felt uneven and that Coppola didn’t know what direction she wanted to take this story’s narrative. For instance, Johnny hires blonde twin strippers twice throughout the film, and both times we see them dance for two minutes. Trust me when I say, thanks to Coppola, this isn’t nearly as sexy as it sounds. Then there’s a scene where Johnny is watching Cleo ice skate for the entire song length of Gwen Stefani’s “Cool” over the loud speakers. Had there been a reason to put an otherwise silent moment in this film, I’d be fine with it. But we were only introduced to the daughter not even five minutes ago. There’s another scene where Sammy is sitting on a couch watching Johnny and Cleo play Guitar Hero. I then immediately realized I was literally watching people who are watching people play video games.

And another thing: Going back to my original gripe about Sofia Coppola only being able to talk about rich people, this movie follows the exact same routine. We’re supposed to be sad for poor Johnny Marco. Oh yes, a millionaire actor who gets to travel to Milan and drive a Porsche deserves all of my sympathy. Yes, he has problems, but aside from the estranged relationship with his daughter, they aren’t problems everyday people can relate to.

Rehashing her “being rich totally sucks and no one understands me” mantra, Coppola proved in Somewhere that she only knows how to write about her plush, rich and “sheltered” life. That would be fine considering the best writers write about what they know, but she actually wants us to feel sorry for her. Um, Sofia, you’re so rich you’re making Mark Zuckerberg nervous. You’ve had literally one of the most prestigious childhoods of any celebrity family…oh and your dad made The Godfather trilogy (which you ended up ruining with your acting, but that’s another story). Either give us a movie about something different, or maybe even about rich people whose lives aren’t totally plastic and miserable for a change, or put the camera down and just go shopping.