Review: This Is the End (2013)

* * *
Director: Seth Rogan & Evan Goldberg
Starring: Seth Rogan, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride

Each of the principal actors of This Is the End have made their share of bad movies, but for every bad movie they've made since, they can at least point to this one in order to regain a little bit of good will. An apocalypse comedy in which everyone plays an exaggerated (I would hope) version of himself, This Is the End plays upon the public personas of its stars and supporting players to great effect, playing into and against what we think we know about the stars based on their movies and public appearances, all while telling a surprisingly potent story about the difficulty of sustaining a friendship as circumstances change and physical distance gives way to psychological distance. Mostly, though, it's just really funny - though it probably could have gotten by with at least one fewer rape joke.

Canadian Film Review: Goon (2012)

* * *
Director: Michael Dowse
Starring: Seann William Scott

To call Goon a kinder, gentler version of Slap Shot seems odd, given that it centers on a character whose only purpose is to inflict pain on other hockey players, and yet there's really no better way to put it. Despite his rough work, the film's protagonist is actually a pretty sweet guy - even, surprisingly, when he's pummelling the hell out of someone, as he often is. How much you enjoy Goon may depend on how much you like hockey, but personally I think it hits the sweet spot between lightweight comedy and dumb comedy.

Maythew #10: Fanboys (2008)

* * *
Director: Kyle Newman
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Chris Marquette, Don Fogler, Sam Huntington, Kristen Bell

Who says you never learn anything from movies? Until seeing Fanboys I had no idea that there existed such a fierce rivalry between Trekkies and Star Wars fans (... Warsies?). I'm not someone who really understands the kind of obsessive fandom that those two franchises inspire but I found a lot to like in Fanboys. I'm sure there are plenty of little in jokes that I missed since I'm not part of fandom culture, but I still found it very accessible and very funny.

Set in 1998, the story centres on five friends: Linus (Chris Marquette), Eric (Sam Huntington), Windows (Jay Baruchel), Hutch (Don Fogler), and Zoe (Kristen Bell). While Eric has grown apart from the others since high school, the rest remain connected by their love for comic books and Star Wars. When Eric learns that Linus is dying, he realizes that he needs to find a way to reconnect with him before it's too late. He also wants to take the opportunity to make an impossible dream come true by dusting off an old plan they had had as children to break into the Skywalker Ranch. Windows and Hutch are game and the four set off on a road trip in Hutch's rickety van, which he fancies is the automobile equivalent of the Millennium Falcon.

Along the way, the boys have a series of small adventures, including a run-in with Star Trek fans, a drug fantasy involving an Ewok, an arrest, another run in with Star Trek fans, and encounters with William Shatner and hookers (not in the same scene). After being called to bail the boys out of jail, Zoe joins them for the rest of the journey and the five successfully break into Skywalker Ranch, which apparently has the worst security ever. Inside they find the Holy Grail of Geekery, including a copy of the as yet unreleased The Phantom Menace.

The film has a lot of affection for its characters and the world of fandom, which goes a long way. Fanboys are probably an easy target for mockery but the film isn't mean spirited in the way that it ribs the characters and instead celebrates their devotion to the mythology that certain pieces of work inspire. It has heart, in short, and a strange, disarming charm.

Matt's Thoughts: Fanboys is a love letter to Star Wars, and, as much as I glaze over everytime anyone starts talking about Star Wars to me, I think it's just awesome how unabashedly geeky these guys are about what they love. Each of the main characters are fleshed out in such a way that I would get along with them quite well, and I root for them in their pursuit, so I was taken by surprise when the film took that sharp turn from madcap romp around America to heartwarming tale of a friend's last adventure. It wouldn't affect me so much if they didn't make you care for these people, but, by the end of the movie, you really do care, and even though you know it's coming you just don't want it to. I never thought I would see camping out for the release of a new movie as a memorial for a fallen comrade, but it really works this time, and it becomes one of the films I could watch repeatedly and not tire of.

Canadian Film Review: The Trotsky (2010)

* * * 1/2
Director: Jacob Tierney
Starring: Jay Baruchel

Sometimes it all just comes together. I was starting to have my doubts about The Trotsky because all the advertisements I saw seemed to reuse the same jokes, but luckily this is a case where the marketing doesn't give away all the good stuff. If you're looking for a smart, clever comedy, look no further than The Trotsky.

Jay Baruchel stars as Leon Bronstein, a Montreal teenager who is convinced that he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and that his life will ultimately follow the same path. His politics exasperate his father (Saul Rubinek), whose Capitalist success makes it possible for Leon to enjoy his ideals while also enjoying the fruits of the system he opposes. After Leon tries to unionize the workers in his father's warehouse, he's given a harsh dose of reality in the form of being yanked out of his private school and enrolled in public school. Once there he finds a new cause, unionizing the students against the rule of Principal Berkhoff (Colm Feore) and his "demonic concubine" Mrs. Danvers (Domini Blythe).

Leon forms a solid core of followers including shy Skip (Jesse Camacho), and bored student union reps Tony (Ricky Mabe) and Laura (Jessica Pare), but has trouble rousing the rest of the student body into caring enough to take action. His eventual dejection in his quest to become a leader coincides with his dejection over his romantic life following his rejection by Alexandra (Emily Hampshire), a woman he is convinced he is meant to marry because Trotsky's first wife was named Alexandra and, like this Alexandra, was 9 years older than her husband. Alexandra, understandably, thinks Leon is a bit nuts and does everything she can to avoid getting involved with him, though she ultimately finds herself drawn to him time and time again.

Baruchel, an actor I like more the more I see of him, carries the film with ease. Leon is a character who could easily come off as annoying or too clever by half, but Baruchel is able to infuse him with enough vulnerability that Leon actually becomes very likeable and easy to root for. He has great chemistry with the supporting cast and he and Hampshire find a nice balance in the relationship between Leon and Alexandra so that a) it doesn't seem creepy, b) she doesn't seem unnecessarily mean, and c) he doesn't seem pathetic or delusional. I particularly enjoyed their final exchange in the film, which I would be loathe to spoil for anyone who plans to see it.

The Trotsky is a very cleverly written film that never dumbs things down. You certainly don't have to be an expert on Russian political history to pick up all the references in the film, but it definitely helps to have some cursory knowledge of the figures and movements related to Trotsky, and I like that the film doesn't shy away from that. So often films - particularly comedies, particularly teen comedies - unfold as if they have absolutely no expectations of their audience and it's refreshing to see a film that actually has some intellectual heft behind it. It definitely makes me want to see Tierney's next film - which stars many of the same actors who appear here - Notre Dame de Grace.

Canadian Film Review: Real Time (2008)

* * *
Director: Randall Cole
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Randy Quaid

90 minutes. That’s all the time Andy (Jay Baruchel) has left to make things right before a lifetime of misdeeds catches up to him. It is perhaps a thin premise, but writer/director Randall Cole makes the most of it and manages to create a fairly compelling film out of what is essentially two characters having a series of conversations for an hour and a half. As the film approaches the end, however, you start to sense a bit of panic on Cole’s part: either the film will end honestly but grimly with Andy’s death, or a means of saving Andy will be discovered, leading to an inescapable feeling of falseness.

Andy is a gambler and has been since he was a teenager. He’s in debt to everyone and no one wants to give him another chance – he’s wasted all the sympathy anyone will ever have for him due to his recklessness and because of his attitude. And still, all he can think about is that next big score. The first time we see him he’s pacing up and down the street, trying to decide whether his luck would best be used on scratch tickets or at the track. A car pulls up beside him and the driver tells him to get in. The driver is Reuban (Randy Quaid) and he’s been dealing with Andy for years. This time, however, he hasn’t been sent simply to collect or to rough Andy up; he’s been ordered to take Andy out. Andy tries to talk his way out of it, but even Reuban has had enough. He’s going to kill Andy but, since he doesn’t have to be anywhere until 3 p.m., he decides to give Andy until then to make a few amends and maybe set things right with some of the people he’ll be leaving behind.

For someone with less than two hours to live and who has messed up with a lot of people, Andy has a hard time thinking of what it is he wants to do. His first thought is to visit a hooker he knows of who looks like Rosie Perez, but it turns out that she’s not working that day, so that’s a bust. He then decides to visit his grandmother and uses that as a pretence for an attempt at escape. This results in him hurting his leg a little when he jumps from the second storey of his grandmother’s house and then hurting his leg a lot when he subsequently dares Reuban to shoot him. Reuban is understandably annoyed by Andy’s behavior. This is his last last chance and he’s pissing it away just like he has every other chance he’s been given. He delivers a monologue in which he explains to Andy why it is that he gave him this last chance and why he ultimately feels some guilt for Andy’s current predicament. And then it’s time.

As the film's opening moments unfolded before me, I was prepared to really dislike it. Baruchel’s performance seemed like it was going to be one built on intense affectations and Quaid, for some reason, has an Australian accent. Very quickly, however, the film settled and seemed to find its centre and it became apparent that Baruchel and Quaid had such complete control and understanding of their characters that any trepidations faded away. It helps that the two actors play off of each other extremely well and manage to make the relationship between their characters multi-dimensional. Obviously, on a surface level, Andy and Reuban are antagonists - one wouldn't have to have anything to do with the other if all were well in accounting - but there's a strange sort of affection between them as well. For Andy, whose mother is dead and whose father is a deadbeat, Reuban is one of the only consistent figures in his life. Reuban, for his part, seems to relate to Andy in an almost paternal fashion, exasperated by his screw ups but also trying to knock some sense into him and set him on the right path before it's too late. Which brings us to the film's ending (spoilerish, be warned)...

Will it surprise you to hear that Andy is still alive at the end? Reuban decides to give him another chance and bail him out of his present difficulty, a development which might have worked if it didn't come right on the heels of Reuban's speech about how he wished he hadn't bailed Andy out when he was 13, since letting him suffer the consequences of his bad decisions might have inspired him to change his ways. Now, granted, if the film ended with Reuban killing Andy, it would be kind of depressing because despite his idiocy, you do start to feel for him a bit through the course of the film. However, it also would have felt true whereas the ending as it is just feels like a cop out. That being said, the film is still worth a look. The first few minutes and the last few minutes are less than perfect, but everything that comes in between is so good and so well acted that those missteps are easily to forgive.

Canadian Film Review: Just Buried (2007)

* * *
Director: Chaz Thorne
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Rose Byrne, Graham Greene

Boy meets Girl. Boy wants Girl. Boy accidentally kills first one man and then another. Girl comes up with the idea to start killing people on purpose – after all, at this point he might as well. Just Buried is not a horror film, though it has some startlingly grotesque moments, but a very black comedy about two people who get into a very bad habit and at a certain point cease to see what they’re doing as criminal and think of it as mere necessity.

The Boy is Oliver Whynacht (pronounced “Why not”) and is played by Jay Baruchel, who usually plays the gangly sidekick in Hollywood movies and the gangly hero in indies. The Girl is Roberta and is played by Rose Byrne, which should tell you just about everything you need to know about how she talks him into killing people on purpose. The two are brought together by the death of Oliver’s father, who was also Roberta’s employer. The senior Whynacht leaves his funeral parlor to Oliver, not because the two were close (they hadn’t seen each other in years), but because from what he can tell Oliver has done nothing with his life. Oliver does not slip easily into his role as boss: on his first day he wanders out of his office to ask the groundskeeper/secretary/accountant Henry (Graham Greene) what, exactly, he should be doing in his capacity as boss.

After a night of drinking, Oliver hits a man walking along the road with his truck. Roberta helps him move the body, tells him where to dump it, and then advises him about what to do with his truck. If Oliver weren’t so panicked, one might expect him to question how Roberta knows so much about getting rid of evidence and consider it with the fact that Roberta was the one who told him he was fine to drive in the first place, reasoning that everyone in town drives drunk. Fortunately for Oliver, Roberta is the town coroner in addition to being the funeral home embalmer, which means that she can record the official cause of the death as accidental. A second man is killed, again by accident, though his death is fortuitous as he was in possession of evidence that would prove the first death was not accidental. It is what happens after this second death that makes Oliver and Roberta decide to start actively killing people.

There are two funeral homes in town. The one that now belongs to Oliver (and, we learn, was once owned by Roberta’s mother), and one that moved into town a few years ago, set up shop near the old folks’ home, and has been ringing in business ever since. When the second corpse is claimed by the other funeral home, Oliver and Roberta decide to do the sensible thing and blow up the other funeral home (and its owner). Now they’re the only game in town and business is booming, though there remain questions about those first two deaths which necessitate more killing. Oh, and did I mention that murder acts as an aphrodisiac for Roberta? So… that worked out, then.

Just Buried isn’t an especially clever film, though it does have its moments and the actors approach the material in the spirit which was intended. It’s ultimately a very silly movie, particularly as it approaches its over the top, verging on soap operatic, finale. Is there any point to this movie? I don’t know. Maybe it was intended to be a parody of other “small town” movies where the fish out of water hero is baffled by his quirky new neighbors, only in this case the hero doesn’t learn to love those quirky neighbors and their quirky ways, but instead systematically kills them. Whatever its intention, the film works better than it probably should and the leads are engaging despite the story’s overall coldness.

Review: Tropic Thunder (2008)

* * *
Director: Ben Stiller
Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black

Well played, Mr. Stiller. Tropic Thunder is the rare Hollywood satire that actually satirizes aspects of Hollywood and movie making rather than just taking light, easy shots that have already been well-trod by several other movies. It also manages to balance its elements, easily mixing comedy with action and plays kind of like a comedic version of Hearts of Darkness, the documentary which details the tumultuous filming of Apocalypse Now.

Tropic Thunder is the title of the movie within the movie as well as the book that movie is based on. The book was written by Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) and relates the story of his rescue from a Viet Cong prison camp. Four Leaf acts as a consultant on the film adaptation and, when the cast starts acting like prima donnas, suggests to director Damien Cockburn (Steven Coogan) that he take them out to the jungle and shoot the film gorilla style. Shortly after being dropped off, a combination of Indo-China era landmines and drug traffickers brings the film to a halt, but the cast still thinks they’re making a movie. Following the lead by waning superstar Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), the cast makes its way deeper into the jungle, still in character and still acting out scenes they think are being filmed by hidden cameras.

The other four members of the cast are Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a drug addled comedian, rapper Alpha Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) whose greatest concern is promoting his energy drink “Booty Sweat,” Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.), a celebrated actor who engages in intense preparation to get into character, and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), a young actor making his film debut and the only person who has actually read the script (“I don’t read scripts,” Lazarus informs him, “scripts read me.”). These four become separated from Tugg after an argument and later have to rescue him when he’s captured by the drug traffickers.

The actors in the film are all pretty much perfectly cast from Nolte down to Baruchel. Black is an actor I like a lot but, School of Rock aside, I think he’s better in supporting roles, as little bursts of spastic energy rather than as the chaotic force that drives the whole movie. Stiller, too, is pulled back in the best possible way, rendering a more restrained (and effective) performance than he has in a long time. As for Downey, he quite simply walks away with the movie. I don’t even really know how to describe the performance; I think his stunning dissection and deflation of full immersion method acting is something you just have to see for yourself to fully appreciate.

What raises Tropic Thunder above the more typical Hollywood self-mockery is Stiller’s control over the subject. So often movies like this edge a little too far over the top so that as a viewer you feel a real disconnect from the material because it bears no resemblance to what you’ve already seen for yourself. The trailers which precede the film and the Oscar ceremony that comes at the end, for example, are satirical without being ridiculous (I would totally see Satan’s Alley and I’m kind of surprised that The Fatties and Scorcher aren’t already movies). It’s a cleverly written movie and well executed both in front of and behind the camera.