Review: Year One (2009)

*
Director: Harold Ramis
Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera

Early in Year One one character lamely tries to get one over on another and the other responds, "This is just insulting." There's no better way to describe the film as a whole. It's insulting. It's the cinematic equivalent of a school project that you forget is due until about 20 minutes before class so you slap a bunch of stuff together quickly and declare, "Good enough."

Review: Superbad (2007)

* * *
Director: Greg Motolla
Starring: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

I missed out on Superbad when it first came out, which didn't seem much of a loss to me at the time, given that I'm not really the demographic it's aiming for. Seeing it recently, I was surprised at how different it actually is from how it was marketted. Yes, it's a foul mouthed story about teenage boys who just want to get laid, but it's also strangely sweet and, of course, very funny.

The heroes of the story are Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) who, not coincidentally, share their names with screenwriters Seth Rogan (who also appears in a supporting role) and Evan Goldberg. High school graduation is looming and both are still virgins - a problem they feel must be solved before they head off to college. Evan has a long standing thing for Becca (Martha MacIsaac), whom Seth hates for reasons explained later in the film, and Seth has his sights set on Jules (Emma Stone), who is throwing a party to which the guys, to their amazement, are invited. They promise to bring plenty of booze, counting on their friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to help them out once he gets his fake ID, only to discover that he has bought the least convincing fake ID ever.

While Fogell enjoys an adventure of his own with a couple of cops (Seth Rogan and Bill Hader), Evan and Seth's quest for sex turns into a desperate quest for liquor that will hopeful pave the way for sex. Along the way they reach the crisis point in their friendship as the simmering tension over the fact that they'll be going to different colleges but can't admit that they'll miss each other ('cause, you know, they're dudes) starts to chip away at their bond. It's part of the film's charm that the big declarations towards the end occur between the two guys rather than between them and the girls they like.

Part of the reason why Superbad works as well as it does is that it's smartly written. There's a lot of foul language but it's used in a way that seems natural rather than obnoxious and is very keyed into how the novelty of cursing is still fresh enough for teenagers that it can be used to articulate every point. Eventually the desire to punctuate every sentence with "fuck" or "shit" will wear off, but when you're 17/18 it can seem like the most effective tool of expression. I think what's most important about Superbad's use of language is that it never seems to throw cursing into the dialogue simply for the sake of using it, but actually uses it in a way that tells you something about the character it's coming from. Seth and Evan both use a lot of foul language, but if you really listen to them you can hear the differences in the ways that they use it and see how that helps to construct their individual personas.

To get back to my original point about how I'm not the target demographic for this kind of movie, part of the thing that gave me pause about it was lines like: "You know when you hear girls say, 'Man, I was so shit-faced last night, I shouldn't have fucked that guy'? We could be that mistake!" That's a really troubling attitude and any guy whose goal is to be the guy a girl regrets sleeping with because she was too drunk to think better of it is going to have some difficulty in convincing me that he has admirable qualities in addition to these, uh, rapey qualities. Part of what saves Superbad for me is that it goes in the opposite direction in terms of the characters' actions. Evan has the chance to have sex with a very drunk and aggressive Becca, but ultimately declines. He also asks Seth to stop talking smack about her, which is nice because it's so rare in film to see an example of a guy (especially a teenage guy) who wants to have sex with a girl but can still be respectful about her - usually the girl who is the object of sexual desire and the girl worthy of respect are two different characters.

Superbad may not be the most sophisticated of films, but there's definitely more to it than meets the eye. It's a better film than I had expected and it's certainly one of the better examples from the teen sex comedy genre. It's often crude, but it's also got heart and, importantly, a brain.

Review: Juno

There doesn’t seem to be much left to say about Juno. It’s every bit as smart and funny as you’ve heard. It’s well acted, well paced, and definitely worth seeing. It is also, of all the films gunning for Best Picture this year, the one that seems most likely to be on the receiving end of backlash by the time the Oscars actually roll around, and one that is already being politicized in ways the filmmakers probably didn’t intend or anticipate.

Juno centers on 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) who has sex once with her friend Paulie (Michael Cera) and finds herself pregnant. Having decided to keep the baby, and found prospective adoptive parents (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), the film follows Juno through her pregnancy and her attempts to define her relationship with Paulie in light of these recent developments. Director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody present the characters very clearly, not letting any of them lapse into being stupid for the sake of a cheap joke or as a shortcut for propelling the film forward. The characters in this film – from Juno and her friends to her parents – are excellently drawn, fully fleshed in a way that characters in comedies aren’t always allowed to be. Ellen Page is the standout, but Garner, Batement, and J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney (as Juno’s father and stepmother) also give solid performances. Michael Cera is good, too, but he ought to be given that this is the same role he seems to play in everything. Hopefully as his career progresses, he’ll branch out into different kinds of characters.

The film walks a fine line. Some people will find it clever, and others will find it too clever by half, and I worry that the film might ultimately be undone by the amount of goodwill that it has already built up. After months spent hearing how good it is and how funny, I know of a few people who’ve walked out of it claiming that it isn’t that funny. The hype that it’s been building up since it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival has undoubtedly helped it find its audience, but the ensuing Juno lovefest in the media is also probably starting to turn people off or setting people’s expectations too high. This is a great movie, but it isn’t the best movie ever made. This is a great comedy, but not the best comedy ever made.

Hype is one of the reasons why I worry that this movie is a prime contender for backlash, and the other is an aspect of its subject matter. People have already begun to make note that between this film and Knocked Up, 2007 was a year with little room for the pro-choice point-of-view (which, frankly, doesn’t really make it any different from any other year. The only film I can think of in recent years that has actively explored a pro-choice argument was Citizen Ruth, which completely copped out at the end). Juno does consider having an abortion, but the time spent on this decision is brief and the film doesn’t really engage the process of her choice. With the United States going into an election year where the pro-choice/pro-life debate is already a hot button issue, and with the recent announcement of 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy, the excellence of the film might soon be eclipsed by the politics attached to it.

I hope that Juno rises above any problems that politics and media saturation might present, because it really is a wonderful movie. The acting is uniformly good and the story progresses in a way that is very believable, especially in terms of Juno’s relationship with Paulie. The performance by Page and the screenplay by Cody both seem to be givens for Oscar nominations, but hopefully some love with also be shown to the supporting cast, all of whom are given a moment of their own to shine.