TRUE STORY Is Oblivious To How Obvious It is

Opening today at both art houses and multiplexes:

TRUE STORY (Dir. Rupert, Goold, 2015)

Maybe the tag-line for this film should be “James Franco and Jonah Hill together again, but this time you won’t be laughing.”

In this adaptation of Michael Finkel’s 2006 bestseller “True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa,” Franco and Hill ditch the stoner shenanigans (and their stoner buddy ensemble) of their previous movie, THIS IS THE END, and play it dead serious.

Hill steps into the shoes of Finkel, who we first meet as a star New York Times reporter working on a story in Africa about the modern-day slave trade. In short order we are also introduced to Franco as fugitive Christian Longo on the lam in Cancún, Mexico using Finkel’s name as an alias.

Finkel is fired by the Times for fabricating large portions of his article, while Longo is apprehended by the FBI for the murder of his wife and three children in Oregon. After learning that Longo used his name, the disgraced and desperate Finkel arranges to meet with him in prison.

Longo, graced with Franco charm, tells Finkel that he’s a big fan, and before you know it, they’re collaborating on a book about the murders together. Longo agrees to give Finkel exclusive access on the condition that the journalist teaches the suspected killer how to write.

So it’s got a SHATTERED GLASS meets CAPOTE vibe, with Hill’s Finkel and Franco’s Longo developing a creepy relationship as Longo’s trial looms closer. It’s obvious that Longo is manipulating Finkel from their initial encounter, but the film trudges onward continuously trying to make a point that it had already made in the first 10 minutes.

That point is that these two guys are alike. They are both characters with deplorable moral ethics; every action they make can be seen as self serving. And, of course, they’re both using each other – we get it.

The rest of the cast seems to know this. Felicity Jones, as Finkel’s girlfriend Jill (the archetypal worrying woman on the side), even goes to confront Longo to tell him she’s got his number in one of the film’s most contrived scenes. Even if this really happened, and I bet it didn’t, it’s a horribly handled plot point that adds nothing. Well, except that it gives Jones something to do.

Scripted by first time filmmaker Rupert Goold and suspense scribe David Kajganich (THE INVASION, BLOOD CREEK), TRUE STORY has neither the depth nor thrills (or even attempts at thrills) required to be considered a psychological thriller. It’s more a tense drama with transparently artsy ambition.

The storytelling, whether true or not, gets pretty muddled and strained towards the end. I got annoyed at Finkel for falling for Longo’s shtick, which at times reminded me of Franco’s breakout Freaks and Geeks role, Daniel Desario, but with a brain.

This whole overly calculated, and bleedingly obvious, exercise will most likely be jokingly dismissed by Franco and Hill someday in another meta-minded project with their fellow graduates of Apatow University. Probably like this: “Remember when we did that TRUE STORY shit? We were all so serious ‘n shit? Remember that? Yeah, me either.”

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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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Blu Ray/DVD Review: The Lame HELL BABY Can't Scare Up Legitimate Laughs

Out now on Blu ray and DVD:

HELL BABY

(Dirs. Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon, 2013)

The genre of comedy horror movies has a very sketchy history. For every gem of spooky spoofery like Mel Brooks’ 1974 classic YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, you get decades of duds including the SCARY MOVIE series, SATURDAY THE 14TH, NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CLASS REUNION, CLUB DRED, the “Chucky” franchise, and this year’s Marlon Wayons atrocity A HAUNTED HOUSE.

Now we can add Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon’s HELL BABY to the pile of dreck in the gross-out genre. Garant and Lennon, best known for the ‘90s MTV sketch show The State, and the Comedy Central series Reno 911!, co-wrote the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM movies, as well as such multiplex fodder as HERBIE: FULLY LOADED and the Jimmy Fallon vehicle TAXI.

Now, I don't want to dismiss Garant and Lennon as just high paid hacks, but it says a lot that they wrote a book together entitled “Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at The Box Office and You Can Too!”

HELL BABY, Lennon’s first outing as co-director (Garant previously helmed 2007’s RENO 911! MIAMI) is their take on the demonic possession premise, i.e. it’s yet another EXORCIST parody. It concerns a expectant couple played by Rob Corddry (The Daily Show, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE) and Leslie Bibb (TALLADEGA NIGHTS, IRON MAN 1 & 2) who purchase an old run down house in New Orleans.

Keegan-Michael Key (MadTV, Key and Peele) pops up in the window, scaring them half to death, and tells Corddry and Bibb that their new abode is known in the neighborhood as the “house of blood,” “the place where the dead never left”, and “the spooky house down the way,” but not to worry because “nobody’s been murdered here for a long time.” It’s been 2 months and a week as a matter of fact.

That pretty much defines the level of humor present here. Scene after scene go by without a single funny line or decent gag. Key continues to appear and scare the Hell out of Corddry in a miserable running joke that he lives there in their crawl space for reasons unexplained. That seems to be the one element of modern horror films or supernatural thrillers that Garant and Lennon have seized on to satirize, that these films often just succeed in giving the audience a jolt instead of a legitimate scare. “I’m so tired of being startled!” Corddry even yells at one point, but that still doesn’t result in a legitimate laugh.

Garant and Lennon wrote themselves into this nonsense as a pair of pervy priests from the Vatican who are on hand to perform an exorcism on Bibb, now carrying the spawn of Satan supposedly.

The newly possessed Bibb, so pregnant that it looks like she is smuggling a beach boy under her clothing, has started killing people, including former “The State” cast mate Michael Ian Black as a her therapist. A few incompetent cops, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer, come to investigate, but are more interested in wolfing down a few Po’Boys at Domilise’s on Bourbon Street in another lame running gag.

Gratuitous nudity (largely provided by Riki Lindhome as Bibb’s free-spirited sister), vomit, and gallows humor galore tiresomely fill up the gaps between predictable story beats, all of it boring me to tears way before the ending.

Such a sorry enterprise made me more appreciate the high hilarity, and much better EXORCIST-spoofing that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s THIS IS THE END pulled off earlier in the summer. It’s really sad, and a bit surprising that this cast and crew couldn’t scare up anything funny in HELL BABY. I bet these these folks could do improv in their sleep that would be better than this tossed-off horror comedy.

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The Best Of The Goodbyes To Blockbuster

Truth be told, the empty Blockbuster above closed way before the recent announcement that the company was closing every last store. I drive past it a lot since it's near the vet my wife and I take our cats to, but it's telling that I never stepped inside it when it was open.

Although I have a lot of video store experience, I never worked at a Blockbuster. I worked at several North Carolina competitors - Video Review, North America Video, Action Video, and finally VisArt Video (a few of these are still in business) - which were often the stores that people would go to when they couldn't find what they wanted at Blockbuster. None of these places had much of a dress code, so I was happy I never had to wear the khaki pants and blue Oxford shirt Blockbuster employees had to wear, but I do remember being envious at how clean their stores were.

Anyway, a bunch of folks online (and on TV) have been saying goodbye to the chain, so I thought I'd share some of what I think are the best of the obits.

First up, this amusing photo taken at a Hawaii Blockbuster tweeted by @blockbuster went viral last week:

It was accompanied by the tweet: The last BLOCKBUSTER rental 11/9 Hawaii 11PM @ThisIsTheEnd #BlockbusterMemories @Sethrogen @JamesFrancoTV @JonahHill

Seth Rogen, the star, co-writer and co-director of the last film rented, THIS IS THE END, saw this post and tweeted:

“@blockbuster: The last BLOCKBUSTER rental 11/9 Hawaii 11PM @ThisIsTheEnd #BlockbusterMemories http://ow.ly/i/3GRDZ ” this is nuts and sad

Nathan Rabin, formerly of the A.V. Club, was once a Blockbuster employee himself, and he wrote this  heartfelt farewell for dissolve.com:

“R.I.P. Blockbuster: A Conflicted But Sincere Video Store Requiem”

Last weekend, Saturday Night Live jumped into the saying goodbye to Blockbuster game with a digital short featuring Bobby Moynihan, Taran Killam, Beck Bennett, and Michael Patrick O'Brien as Blockbuster employees who find it hard to cope when learning that the store is done. Host and musical guest Lady Gaga cameos in the clip as some kind of queen of VHS/DVD rentals that the guys hallucinate in their desperate stupor. Check it out:

Over at rogerebert.com, Matt Zoller Seitz put together a collection of tweets in which folks wrote lyrics (sometimes full songs) in the style of Bruce Springsteen about Blockbuster's demise: 

“They Closed Down The Video Store In Philly Last Night: Laments For Blockbuster In The Style Of Bruce Springsteen”

It's funny, and actually touching stuff, including a choice submission by a friend of Film Babble Blog, William Fonvielle, of Filmvielle.

Another friend pointed out this piece by Alex Pappademas at grantland.com:

“Blockbuster Video: 1985-2013”

Finally, there's this good thoughtful read at esquire.com by S.T. Vanairsdale:

“What We'll Lose When We Lose Blockbuster”

So farewell Blockbuster, I'll salute you every time I drive by your abandoned store on Capital Boulevard here in Raleigh, even after they open something else there. Now I'm gonna go watch something on Netflix Instant.

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 10/1/13

One of the raunchiest and funniest films of this year, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen’s THIS IS THE END tops the list of new releases this week on Blu ray and DVD. The film, which features Rogen and his fellow graduates of Apatow High (and I do mean *High*), including James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, and Jay Baruchel deal with doomsday while partying at Franco’s fortress of a homestead in the Hollywood Hills, is available in a Two Disc Combo (Blu-ray / DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy) and a single disc DVD.

A bunch of Special Features enhance the package: Audio commentary with Goldberg and Rogen, a smattering of featurettes (“Directing Your Friends,” “Meta-Apocalypse,” “Let’s Get Technical,” “Party Time,” “The Cannibal King,” “The Making of "The Making of Pineapple Express 2”), the original “Jay & Seth vs. The Apocalypse” short that inspired the film, Line-O-Rama segments, “This is the Gag Reel,” deleted scenes, and “This is the Marketing,” a collection of satirical shorts promoting the movie.

Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders’ prehistoric family comedy from DreamWorks Animation, THE CROODS, featuring the voices of Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone, and Ryan Reynolds, releases today in a Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD + UltraViolet edition, a Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy + Toy edition, and a stand-alone DVD. Special Features include “Belt’s Cave Journal,” “Croods Cuts (Lost Scenes),” “World of DreamWorks Animation,” “Be An Artist!,” “The Croods Coloring & Storybook Builder App,” and “The Croodaceous Creatures of Croods!”

Other new titles out today: Scott Walker’s straight-to-Blu ray thriller THE FROZEN GROUND starring John Cusack as a serial killer and Nicholas Cage in non-animated form as the cop on his trail, the wilderness documentary miniseries North America narrated by Tom Selleck, and Luc Besson’s 2010 French fantasy film THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC, based on Jacques Tardi’s acclaimed series of historical fantasy comic books.

On the older films new to Blu ray front, there’s the 75th Anniversary Limited Collector’s Edition of THE WIZARD OF OZ (Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD / UltraViolet + Amazon Exclusive Disc Drive), THE LITTLE MERMAID (Two-Disc Diamond Edition: Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy), and Fred Zinneman’s 1953 classic FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, the Vincent Price classic HOUSE OF WAX (also 1953) available in both 3D and standard formats, and the 1925 silent World War I epic THE BIG PARADE.

Also out this week: THE AMITYVILLE HORROR Trilogy box, which contains Stuart Rosenberg's 1979 original, starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder, packaged with the first ever Blu ray releases of AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESION and AMITYVILLE 3-D - 2 movies that the horror community will be thrilled to finally have on the fancy format, right?

TV season sets releasing today: How I Met Your Mother: Season Eight, Beauty & the Beast: The First Season, Glee: The Complete Fourth Season, New Girl: The Complete Second Season, and the late '80s Vietnam war drama China Beach Season 1.

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Summing Up The 2013 Summer Movies Season So Far

I’ve decided to take most of July off from writing about movies to finish a book project, largely because my mind has been over cluttered with debris from all the ginormous destruction on the big screen I’ve experienced so far this summer. 

But I’ve seen much worse summer fare in seasons past so I’m not going to go on a rant about the money-making mechanisms of Hollywood or the glut of superhero comic book movies. No, I’m just gonna clean out my notebook by summing up some films in current release, including a certain cowboy and indian centered blockbuster wannabe that just opened, so I can move on. So here goes:

THE LONE RANGER
(Dir. Gore Verbinski)

The majority of critics are bashing Verbinski’s update of the iconic Western character (it’s at 23% on the Rotten Tomatometer), and it’s already been deemed a flop, but I actually thought it was a not bad blockbuster wannabe. It’s way too long, and Johnny Depp as Tonto too often dominates the screen with his typical shifty eyed mannerisms (sometimes under pancakes of unconvincing old man make-up), but Armie Hammer does a decent job as a gallant doofus of a hero, and the story winds back on itself in a very entertaining way. It's Verbinski’s expected over-the-top action thrill-ride all the way, but I went along with it, perhaps just because it wasn’t another PIRATES movie, and it wasn’t in 3D, but either way I don’t mind being in the minority.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 
(Dir. Joss Whedon)

Considered the antithesis of his superhero smash last summer, THE AVENGERS, Whedon’s small budget black and white modern day Shakespeare adaptation is a breezy delight that my wife and I quite enjoyed one recent evening at the Colony Theater in Raleigh. The exquisitely fluffy film is basically a filmed party at Whedon’s house in Los Angeles over 12 days, with veterans of the directors TV shows such as Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Reed Diamond, and Clark Gregg spouting out the original text of Shakespeare’s 16th century play. If you can get into the rhythms of the old timey language, it’s a fun time, if not, then maybe the Bard isn’t for you.

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY 
(Dir. Dan Scanlon) 

This Pixar prequel, #1 at the box office right now, is fun, and just funny enough to make it not matter that it’s a pretty unnecessary project. Billy Crystal and John Goodman return to voice the one-eyed green monster Mike, and his big blue furry friend Sully in this charming coming-of-age story about their days at the School For Scaring. Amusing plot similarities to the recent Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson comedy THE INTERNSHIP are noted by friend and fellow film writer, Will Fonvielle, who attended the screening with me, in his dead on review which you should read here at his movie blog, Filmvielle.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT 
(Dir. Richard Linklater) 

The best film of the summer has no CGI, no explosions, no high octane action at all. It just mostly features married couple (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) walking and talking through Greecian ruins as they take stock of their relationship. It’s the third in Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy’s sweet series about love, life, and talking these subjects to death. Read my review here.

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

The most hilarious film of the summer has a crew of graduates from Apatow Academy finding the funny in facing the apocalypse which hits Los Angeles during a wild party at James Franco’s house. Rogen and Franco along with Jay Barachel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride, all playing exaggerated versions of themselves, litter the extremely crude, profane, and insanely graphic (there’s a 60-foot Satan with a swinging penis, you see) with wall-to-fall big laughs. Read my review.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN 
(Dir. Roland Emmerich) 

I had more with this than I did with THE LONE RANGER, but audiences seem to be rejecting this because of its all too familiar DIE HARD formula. Which is understandable, what with OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, you know? But I enjoyed seeing Channing Tatum, of course in a wife-beater, and Jamie Foxx as an Obama-ish President tackle White House action set-pieces with great gusto, and it made me laugh more than the cop comedy that's been out-grossing it, in more ways than one, since it opened. I'm talking about:

THE HEAT (Dir. Paul Feig)

Some film folks have called attention to the fact that this is the one of the few female fronted major releases this summer, and that it may be the first female buddy cop movie ever (I guess the Cagney and Lacey TV movie doesn't count), but it's a mediocre movie barely worth a matinee price.

There can't help but be some big laughs provided by the immense comic energy of Melissa McCarthy, but Sandra Bollock is bland, many scenes are clunky - especially when it comes to the silly underwritten sitcom fodder or McCarthy's bickering family, which includes Michael Rappaport and Jane Curtain - and a great number of lines fall flat. However, since it seems to be striking a chord with movie-goers (it's #2 at the box office at the time of this writing), maybe I'm too burned out by blockbuster bombardment to recognize its brilliance.

And the rest:

MAN OF STEEL (Dir. Zack Snyder) Read my underwhelmed review of the new Superman reboot here.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (Dir. J.J. Abrams) Likewise.

WORLD WAR Z (Dir. Marc Forster) Ditto.

THE INTERNSHIP (Dir. Shawn Levy) Uh huh.

Okay, so that's my summer so far sum-up.. Like I said before I’m taking some time off from reviewing movies this month and will be skipping some upcoming screenings in the weeks ahead, so there will be fewer posts, and the weekly feature New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD will be on hold until August.

More later…

A Few Fine Films Keep The Summer Movie Season From Sucking

Although summer doesn’t officially start until later this week (Friday, June 21st), the summer movie season has been long underway. So far we’ve had a slew of big ass sequels (IRON MAN 3, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, FAST & FURIOUS 6), a few flops (AFTER EARTH, THE INTERNSHIP), and a couple of surprise hits (NOW YOU SEE ME, THE PURGE). 

Some okay popcorn picture action there (and some suckage), but nothing that notable.

But this last weekend, while all eyes were on the mammoth Superman re-boot, MAN OF STEEL, one of the best films of the summer (and of the year so far) snuck into local theaters: Richard Linklater’s BEFORE MIDNIGHT. 

The art house indie, which as the third in a series is actually another sequel, is a charmingly talky romantic drama that continues the story of Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy), a couple of star-crossed lovers who first met in 1995’s BEFORE SUNRISE. 

Read my review of BEFORE MIDNIGHT in the Raleigh News & Observer last week: “‘Before Midnight’ talks a blue streak and that’s a good thing” (June 14, 2013).

Another movie that opened last week that I quite enjoyed, albeit in a completely different way, is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s THIS IS THE END.

Unless you’ve been hiding out in a hole in the ground you should know from the massive advertising that the outrageous and über crude comedy concerns Rogen and a bunch of his Hollywood player pals, including James Franco, Jonah, Hill, Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride, playing themselves dealing with the world literally going to Hell while they’re all partying at Franco’s fortress of a mansion.

Read how funny I thought it was in the Film Babble Blog review: “The Apocalypse Hilariously Hits Seth Rogen & Gang In THIS IS THE END” (June 11, 2013).

The summer movie season continues this week with the most expensive zombie movie of all time, WORLD WAR Z, a Pixar prequel, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, and a few interesting looking indies: Zal Batmanglij’s ecological thriller THE EAST, and Josh Whedon’s modern-day adaptation of William Shakespeare’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Here’s hoping that there’s something there that will join BEFORE MIDNIGHT and THIS IS THE END in keeping this summer movie season from being a suck-fest.

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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.

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