Movie Reviews

Who would have thought? After I watched the trailer and headed to my little seat in the grand theater, I expected to have my funny bone tickled all night long, instead all I got was life. Think about the story, here is a boy (young adult) who has a stuttering problem. He’s hit on by the chief hottie from the school’s debate team and ultimately recruited to be her debate partner. Of course, he’s not looking to debate more than he is looking for love, the young experimental puppy love, that is. His brother is whacked, his mom is whacked, his neighbor is whacked, his dad is bored and his only friend tried the Kama Sutra on the family dog and killed it; this film should be an outright riot. Life and the shit that happens along the way is funny, but somehow Rocket Science made it depressing and, at times, a little boring. A few highlights that I must note would be a killer soundtrack and at least Hollywood didn’t get the opportunity to bastardize it; you got it folks, there is no special happy ending here.

Rocket Science
2 & 1/2 Stars

I’ve got to give the film credit, it’s a fresh approach to what so many would expect to see the underdog rise to the top and conquer the evil bitch at the end, but he doesn’t and ultimately comes nowhere close to winning. Newcomer, Reece Daniel Thompson, is brilliant in his stuttering struggling teen role; he keeps up the dialogue and character 100% never letting the audience down. It’s quite wonderful that there are absolutely no “beautiful” bobble-heads in this film, the talent all look like real life people who have been around the block a few times or so green that they just stepped out of their training pants. A few humorous moments do appear from time to time, but not a laugh-out-loud type of humor, but more a “damn, I could see myself doing that” kind of humor. The storyline meshes fairly well and the music blends right in with every scene. It’s a film that many can relate to, whether or not you’ve ever stuttered, certainly many of us have experienced some form of utter humiliation in high school; mine was high waters.

Rocket Science…Great Soundtrack.

Partially based on real life experiences, Rocket Science brings a spark of life to the teen indie circuit. The director, Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound), shows a great deal of compassion and interest through the characters and finished product of Rocket Science. A teen, Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) is approached by a very beautiful debate captain, Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick), and asked to join her team. Hal, baffled by her straightforward approach and cold direction towards his handicap, stuttering, finally decides what the hell and joins up. At the same time, his brother, Earl Hefner (Vincent Piazza), has become a thief, but he’s a thief with a plan and a constant desire to show his brotherly love and taunt Hal on a regular bases. The boys’ mom and dad had recently separated and started to date, leaving the boys to their own dysfunctional relationship with life. Living with their mother, they get to experience the nasty freak out sex that their mother and next door neighbor, Judge Pete (Steve Park), have on a regular bases and deal with Judge Pete’s, possibly gay and not all there in the head, son, Heston (Aaron Yoo). Back to the studying and practicing for the big debate; Ginny, leading Hal around by his teenage male fantasies, bails at the last minute leaving Hal to defend for himself and utterly ruined. The stalking begins, he starts to hang out at the house across the street from Ginny’s, here he meets Lewis Garrles (Josh Kay) a younger comrade in awe who runs around in women’s bras and practicing the Kama Sutra on anything that will hold still. Better yet, Lewis parents are going through couples music therapy to fix their relationship, that’s a nice touch with the cello and piano, a better touch when Hal gets wasted and throws the cello through Ginny’s front window, after tossing it up there multiple failed times. Finally Hal decides to get even with the coldhearted bitch and finds her archenemy, Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D’Agosto), known better as the god of debate. In the beginning of the film Ben and Ginny were mere sentences away from being national debate champions, when Ben went silent and started to grin. He had decided that he was tired of debating, dropped out of school and began working in a dry cleaning store; he thought that was the true meaning of life. Hal hunted Ben down and convinced him to return for one last debate, to help him show Ginny what for. When they arrived to the debate as a home-schooled team, the duo was found out and kicked out of the competition for not truly being home schooled. Hal finally got up the nerve to go confront Ginny and tell her that he may have failed to exact revenge this time, he might have had an off day, but it wouldn’t always be that way and just she watch out when he has an on day. The film ended with Hal ordering pizza on the boardwalk and asking his father for a bit of advice, of course, his father was way too tired to oblige and referenced to just giving up and accepting life as it is.

Wasn’t that a depressing ending, but then again it’s nice not to see your typical boy is a weird gooey freak and no girl wants to lay him and then boy gets all better and strong and gets the chic in the end. Rocket Science might be a tad slow in places, but isn’t life that way? It might have had a more realistic happy ending and didn’t match up to what the trailer (or a few critic’s quotes) eludes to, but overall it was a pleasant surprise and got a few giggles out of me. The actors did a damn fine job and the director certainly added his heart and passion to every scene; nice job, I think I’m going to change my rating from a 2 to a 2.5. (I’m like just a smidge away from a 3)

If I remember correctly, I decided that I was going to love Superbad the second I heard the title.  Probably not a great thing for a critic to do, but at least I improperly fell in love with a movie that I can now justify falling in love with – Superbad is a romp through high school that, only one year removed from the institution, made me nostalgic for secondary education.

Superbad
4 Stars

You may have read my review of Knocked Up, in which I praised the film for being a hilarious but realistic look at the complications of real-life people and their relationships.  Well, with apologies for being one of the zillion film-goers that will easily compare these two Judd Apatow-produced films, but Superbad is Knocked Up for teenage guys who don’t care about anything else more than loosing their virginity and sobriety – a comedy that, though spiced up to be a wide-release summer movie – is still mostly a real-life look at two best friends.

Hey, do you remember that night in high school that you and your friends tried to impress some girls by buying them alcohol?  Maybe.  But do you remember that night in high school that you and your friends got hit by two cars, escaped the fuzz and danced with a girl who really felt the flow?  Probably not, so it’s a good thing we get an entertaining, outlandish but still grounded comedy like Superbad so that we can experience such a night.

We’ve got Michael Cera and Jonah Hill playing two guys trying to seal the end of their high school careers by nailing the dream girls, only to find many a hilarious obstacle thrown in their path.  Then, on the other side, we have first-time actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse playing the absolute geek who, amazingly enough, spends a Friday night with two cops drinking and tackling hobos.  Let me repeat that for you: “spends a Friday night with two cops drinking and tackling hobos.”  Okay, if the end of that sentence wasn’t enough for you to decide that you need to see Superbad, I don’t think any other clause I could write will be, so don’t be afraid to stop reading this review entirely.

Screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been writing a the script since they were in high school ten years ago, and it shows.  The final product is packed with so many flawlessly executed jokes, there’s no way even the funniest screenwriters today could have written this script in any less time.  Though the first act primarily serves to set up the characters and their mind sets, it continually adds more and more laughs per minute until you the end, at which point you can’t believe how much your roaring, doubled up in your seat.  The humor mostly comes out of the dialogue of the actors, but for Mintz-Plasse’s character’s story, just the set-up is enough to make you howl your lungs out.  Every laugh is outrageous, but still possible enough; and thanks to the strong characters and their actors, it it all works in the end.

There’s no ass that’s easier to kiss in Comedy than that of Judd Apatow, so I can’t help but feel like a tool for heaping on another load of big wet ones on his newest film.  But you know what, when that ass belongs to a guy who is behind the majority of all the notable comedies from the past few years, consider these lips taken.