Seth Rogen & Co. Throw An Animated SAUSAGE PARTY That Couldn’t Be Cruder

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

SAUSAGE PARTY
(Dirs. Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon, 2016)

If you’ve ever gone to a Disney, Pixar, or DreamWorks animated production and wished that it had lots of profanity, dirty jokes, and graphic sex, then Seth Rogen and a bunch of his comedy colleagues have the movie for you!

It’s the R-rated crude comic adventure romp SAUSAGE PARTY, which takes place largely in a supermarket (the fictitious grocery store Shopwell’s to be exact), and stars the SUPERBAD team of Rogen, Michael Cera, and Jonah Hill as hot dog sausages, who dream of getting picked by customers, who they call gods, and taken to their new home which they call “The Great Beyond.”

The sausages are on a shelf as part of the store’s 4th of July weekend sale next to a bag of hot dog buns (in this world, sausages are male and buns are female). Rogen’s character, named Frank of course, is in love with a bun named Brenda, voiced by Kristen Wiig.

We learn through laughter that in the store full of talking food items the different aisles represent different nationalities and cultures. So there’s a Jewish bagel (voiced by Edward Norton doing his best Woody Allen impression) named Sammy Bagel Jr., who feuds with an Arabic flatbread (David Krumholtz) named Vash; a jar of honey mustard (named Honey Mustard, and voiced by Danny McBride); a lesbian taco named Teresa (Salma Hayek) who lusts after Brenda; an old Native American bottle of liquor named Firewater (Bill Hader, who also voices a guacamole gangster named El Guaco); and the villain of the piece: a feminine hygiene product, that’s right a douche named Douche, voiced by Nick Kroll amping up his best angry New Yorker accent.

The film’s story involves Rogen and his sausage pals getting picked along with the buns by a shopper named Camille (Lauren Miller-Rogen), but things quickly go awry when Honey Mustard, who’s been returned and has seen what really happens to food on the outside, tries to warn everyone in the cart that “The Great Beyond” is bullshit and they are being taken to their deaths. Not being able to convince anyone, Honey Mustard goes to leap off of the cart and Frank gets out of his bag to try to save him. A collision with another cart causes a massive mess of food destruction that is shot like a war scene a la SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

The chaos leaves Frank and Brenda stranded away from their friends still in the cart and far from their home aisle. They hook up with Sammy Bagel Jr. and Vash and go on a journey to find out if what Honey Mustard (R.I.P.) was saying was true. The foursome find Firewater, who Honey Mustard told Frank to seek out, in the liquor section, and Frank gets the lowdown in a peace pipe of pot smoking session that includes joined by a couple of Non-Perishables: Mr. Grits (a box of slang talking grits voiced by Craig Robinson) and Twink (a twinkie voiced by Scott Underwood).

Meanwhile, the food that didn’t get killed in the crash finds out for themselves their fate when they reach the home kitchen of Camille and she proceeds to prepare dinner, which to them means their violent slaughter. Frank’s best friend Barry (Hill) is able to escape and encounters a human druggie, named Druggie (voiced by James Franco appropriately) with a Shopwell’s bag so he tags along with him in hopes of getting back to the store. Back at Druggie’s messy apartment, which, of course, resembles Franco’s pad in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, Druggie shoots up bath salts and tweaks so hard that he can hear and understand the food, and agrees to help Barry get back.

The film’s last third involves Frank trying to convince the others that the so-called gods are going to kill them, but he finds resistance until he realizes that he must respect the beliefs of his fellow food items (an actual moral!). A war between the food and the humans ensues, and then the climax everyone’s been waiting for: an epic 8-miunte orgy that you can never unsee.

This is where the animators went all outrageously out. The film's directors, Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, are veterans of tons of animated children's features (Tiernan has made many Thomas the Tank Engine shorts; Vernon directed SHREK 2, MONSTERS vs. ALIENS, and MADAGASCAR 3), so every raunchy idea they've been holding back all these years got to break free.

Although the novelty of f-bomb dropping cartoon food characters wears thin at times, there are consistent laughs throughout SAUSAGE PARTY. That is, is you’re a fan of Rogen and company’s brand of scatological stoner humor. I don’t know how much longer Rogen, who wrote the movie with his frequent collaborators Evan Goldberg, Kyle Hunter, and Ariel Shaffir, can put out these crude zany bromances, but I like that they’re placing their man-child themes inside a different genre, or at least, a different-looking genre.

So I commend Rogen and his buddies on making the first ever R-rated CG-animated comedy, which goes a long way in showing that these guys have no plans to grow up anytime soon.

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THE INTERVIEW Scores Some Big Laughs, But Is A Bit Of A Letdown

THE INTERVIEW

(Dirs. Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen, 2014)

You may have heard that after all of the hubbub surrounding Sony pulling the release of the new Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy THE INTERVIEW about assassinating Kim Jong-un, the studio reversed its decision to a degree.

Yesterday the film started streaming on a bunch of on demand services - YouTube Movies, Google Play, Microsoft's Xbox Video and via SeeTheInterview.com. (The cost is $5.99 to rent, and $14.99 to purchase) – and today, Christmas Day, it will be released in over 200 select theaters across the country.

Last night I rented the film and watched it on YouTube, and for better or worse it’s pretty much what I expected: a silly, raunchy farce that doesn’t care about having any political bite. It’s only concerned about getting big laughs, and it does achieve that albeit somewhat intermittently.

There are lots of amusing moments in the film’s set-up involving Franco as Dave Skylark, a Ryan Seacrest-style talk show host of a popular celebrity tabloid talk show (“Skylark Tonight”), whose producer Aaron Rapoport (Rogen) is constantly embarrassed by.

But even early on it’s pretty hit or miss material: a cameo by Eminem as himself casually coming out as gay to Franco on air is funny (“I’m more shocked more people haven’t figured it out yet; I mean it’s kind of like I’ve been playing gay peek-a-boo”), less so is Rob Lowe, also as himself, revealing that he’s been wearing a toupee since the ‘80s (a lame gag spoiled by TV spots and trailers).

Anyway, in an attempt to be taken more seriously, Franco and Rogen pursue and obtain an exclusive interview with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un after hearing he’s a fan of their show. After a night of partying on ecstasy (a thankfully brief scene), they are approached by CIA agents (Lizzy Caplan and Reese Alexander) who wish to turn their once-in-lifetime interview opportunity into an assassination mission.

So Franco and Rogen travel to Pyongyang, North Korea with the plan of poisoning the evil leader with a delayed action ricin-strip that Franco will apply via shaking hands.

As you will probably guess, their first attempt goes screwy (a guard chews the strip thinking it’s a stick of gum), so Franco and Rogen get their CIA contacts to have a drone drop-ship them more deadly strips. Rogen has to slip out in the middle of the night to retrieve the package and is almost killed by a Bengal Tiger, then is captured by a team of guards. Luckily he is able to conceal the metal mini missile they dropped by hiding it, uh, up his butt (Franco: “You got fucked by Robocop, dude!”).

While Rogen is still committed to the plan, Franco goes off track by beginning a full throttle bromance with Kim (comedy veteran Randall Park, who appeared with Rogen in last summers’ NEIGHBORS) that has them spending a fun-filled day together playing basketball, smoking joints, jamming to Katy Perry, partying with scantily-clad ladies, blowing stuff up with one of Kim’s tanks, and bonding over how harshly their fathers treated them.

The chaotic climax apes PINEAPPLE EXPRESS it its bloated and surreal action movie hysterics, plus its use of shock value gore, but, try as it might, it can't quite match the hilarity of that far superior film.

THE INTERVIEW is more in the league of Greg Mottola’s PAUL, which featured Rogen voicing an alien who befriends Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. That 2011 film wasn’t up to the par of the Edgar Wright Pegg/Frost films that preceded it, nor the Apatow projects that helped break Franco and Rogen, but it delivered a steady stream of laughs, even if most of them were only mild chuckles.

I like that Franco put so much gusto into his part – his eyes light up with almost every line, and he actually pulls off some convincing drama in his and Park’s interview scene, but throughout it seemed like he was really trying too hard.

Rogen’s affably schlubby persona seems to be set in stone. Remember that opening bit in THIS IS THE END when somebody at the airport said to him “So, like you always play like the same guy in every movie! When you gonna do some acting?”

Seems more and more like that’s less a very self aware joke than a statement of intent.

Rogen and writing/directing partner Evan Goldberg’s work here never gets anywhere near the satirical heights of real politically charged comedy classics like THE DICTATOR or DR. STRANGELOVE, and with how purposely, and surreally, stupid it is, one will wonder if North Korea or the Sony hacks would really be offended, let alone consider it an “act of war” if they actually watched it.

I found that I enjoyed the parts of THE INTERVIEW that were somewhat grounded; it started to lose me whenever it got more outlandish. As a fan of Franco and Rogen and their stoner-toned schtick, I can’t help but feel let down by it a bit, since I felt it never fully launched itself into the zone of total hilarity. But as I got plenty of yuck yucks for my six bucks I'd say that it’s funny enough to recommend.

That is, for Franco and Rogen fans. Folks who are on the fence about them, but are curious because of the current controversy it sparked, may want to think twice about plunking down their money.

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The Apocalypse Hilariously Hits Seth Rogen & Gang In THIS IS THE END

Opening this evening at a multiplex near you:

THIS IS THE END (Dirs. Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen, 2013)

In a scenario that was no doubt conceived between bong hits, Seth Rogen and his gang of Hollywood player pals - James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, and Jay Baruchel - all play themselves facing the end of times when the Apocalypse hilariously hits Los Angeles during a wild party at Franco’s house.

After the nearly laughless endeavors that were THE HANGOVER PART III and THE INTERNSHIP, comedy lovers have reason to rejoice this season, because the directorial debut of Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg (SUPERBAD, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) is surely the funniest film of the summer.

I laughed more than I remember laughing at a screening in a long time, and with the lines and sight gags coming so quickly, I feel like I may have laughed over and missed a whole other movie’s worth of jokes.

It starts off amusingly on an easy going meta level of these people being relatable guys despite having been in hit movies, with Baruchel, who starred with Rogen in Judd Apatow’s short-lived Fox series Undeclared (2001-02) before going on to be in films like SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, flying out to hang with his best pal Rogen in L.A.

Baruchel doesn’t feel comfortable around Rogen’s other buddies - i.e. the rest of the cast - so he doesn’t want to go to a party at Franco’s fortress of a house in the Hollywood hills, but Rogen talks him into it.

The party that the full of himself Franco is hosting is filled with other celebrities playing exaggerated comic versions of themselves including Michael Cera (one of the funniest as he portrays himself as a coked-up bisexual douche), Paul Rudd, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Emma Watson, Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (you know, McLovin!). When firestorms and sinkholes start appearing, some of the famous folks present are immediately goners, but the core crew of the six above-the-title stars hole up in Franco’s mansion, divvy up supplies, and try to figure out how to survive the Biblical rapture.

But Baruchel is the only one who actually believes it’s the rapture, the others stupidly dismiss that idea as much as they do him, as Hill and Franco seem to see themselves as rival BFFs to Rogen, while Robinson and McBride, who shows up uninvited and unwanted, are only thinking of themselves.

The film puts the same amount of energy into jabs at the silliness surrounding friendships, and the selfishness of stardom, as it does the scads of gross-out humor involving a severed head being kicked around the room, drinking one’s own urine (how Robinson is able to sell this with charm is a gag to behold), and, via some not bad special effects, a 60-foot Satan with a swinging penis (that’s right). This non-cynical approach to this ridiculous material reveals over and over that these guys’ only concern is pure comedy, and they go all out trying to give the audience as much as they can take.

Things that made me laugh: the makeshift sequel to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (virally released as a fake trailer on April Fool’s Day earlier this year) that the gang produces to amuse themselves (Rogen: “We should make sequels to more of our movies.” Franco: “How about we not do ‘Your Highness’”), how Hill identified himself when praying (“It’s me, Jonah Hill, the guy from ‘Money Ball’”), McBride’s arrogant and obnoxious behavior (funnier here than on Eastbound & Down) that lead to him getting kicked out of the house, and how the film wraps up in a pop culture-fied heaven (don’t think that’s really a Spoiler!).

Looks like former mentors and collaborators Apatow (whose name is surprisingly absent from the credits here), David Gordon Green (PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, MY HIGHNESS), and SUPERBAD director Greg Mottola weren't needed by Rogen, Evanberg, and crew to help bring the funny this time.

Practically everything that was supposed to be funny in THIS IS THE END was, though I’m sure in a film with such a high volume of jokes, one-liner, sight gags, and scatological silliness in it had some misfired groaners here and there. I was just laughing too hard at the stuff that hit to notice them.

More later...