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Archives for : Paul Rudd

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

October 23, 2012

Cursed Indeed

The sixth entry in the Halloween franchise picks up some years after the conclusion of Halloween 5.  Jamie Lloyd is now a full grown adult, and she’s just given birth.  Unfortunately for her, Jamie has been kept in the basement of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium (the facility that has housed Michael during his stints in and out of custody) by the likes of an underground Druid cult that seeks to somehow restore the once great night of Halloween to its former glory.  What that former glory entails is anyone’s guess; some gibberish about mayhem, bonfires and star alignments is thrown into the mix, but said references are every bit as vague as they sound.

The question you likely have is this: How does Michael Myers fit into all this ridiculousness?  Well, as the previous movies have indicated, he’s somehow connected to the Druid sacrificial rite, but a lucid explanation of the exact role he plays is—yet again—conspicuously absent.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though; he’s still alive, still pissed off, and still killing people. Once again he’s after the last living remnant of the Myers bloodline, the newborn baby of his aforementioned niece.  Oddly enough, Tommy Doyle—one of the children from the original Halloween that Laurie babysat “the night he came home”—has become obsessed with the persistent rumors about Michael and has rented a room across the street from the Myers house to keep tabs on its residents, one of whom is a kid with the same penchant for murder that Michael himself demonstrated so many years ago.

Loomis is back, too.  He is, of course, not surprised in the least when Michael reappears in Haddonfield, and the usual hijinks ensue (namely, people don’t believe the famed serial killer is still alive, make the mistake of writing him off, and end up getting axed in oh-so-creative ways).  The atmosphere generated in the movie is admirable, and this is one of Michael’s more menacing outings.  Still, one can’t help but feel disappointed by the lack of story development, and the movie’s conclusion feels much too abrupt.  This almost certainly is a direct result of director Joe Chappelle’s apparent distaste for Pleasence.  According to the Internet Movie Database, Chappelle found many of Pleasence’s scenes “boring,” and thus engaged in heavy editing in an effort to trim down his presence in the movie.  The result is a disjointed affair that’s not nearly as effective as it could have been.

In short, The Curse of Michael Myers is a convoluted mess that only pretends to answer some of the longstanding questions surrounding the Halloween mythology.  The movie has its moments, and the presence of Paul Rudd as the now adult Doyle adds some memorability to the cast of characters.

  out of 5

Our Idiot Brother

September 15, 2011

Director: Jesse Peretz

Starring: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel

Release Date: August 26, 2011

The “Hippie” Uncle Buck

our_idiot_brotherThere have been plenty of movies about deadbeat family members, but it’s hard to imagine that any of them have been quite as lovable as Ned (Paul Rudd).  Okay, so maybe John Candy as Uncle Buck comes close, but Ned is on par with “The Dude”—he’s a younger, infinitely more naive version of the Jeff Bridges persona that has become the stuff of cult legend.

The guy’s just so darn nice—it’s hard to fault him for any of the bone-headed decisions that land him in jail or shuffling between the homes of each of his three sisters.  Be that as it may, there’s not really much all that original about the plot itself.  If someone were to “inject” the aforementioned Uncle Buck with a healthy dose of indie sensibility, he’d end up with something pretty close to Our Idiot Brother.  The latter is smarter than the former—and certainly more grounded in real world drama—but it doesn’t really do anything all that innovative.

What elevates the movie above its contemporaries is the inclusion of just the sort of deadpan humor that we see from Rudd in previous Apatow films.  Though it’s guilty of “beating a dead horse” in terms of the plot, the interplay between its personable cast members is undeniably infectious.  Zooey Deschanel is her usual quirky self, though she’s more vulnerable to the issues confronted by grown-ups here than in just about anything else I’ve seen her in.  Each of the remaining “sisters” have their trademark personalities, and they’re fleshed out just enough to lend some credibility to the levels of patience they’re willing to exercise when in the present of their dumbly honest male sibling.

Again, there’s nothing notably fresh about Our Idiot Brother, but it’s stars do such an admirable job of breathing life into the tired material that it’s hard not to like.  While a rousing barn-burner-of-a-movie that “changes the rules” of the genre would have been nice, this is a perfectly acceptable little flick that makes for a pleasing hour and a half.

redstar21redstar21redstar21redstarhalfout of 5

–Chris Flowers

I Love You, Man

March 30, 2009i_love_you_man

Director: John Hamburg

Starring: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel

Release Date: March 20, 2009

Quite honestly, there’s not a whole lot to say about I Love You, Man other than it’s funny. Really funny. Even though (to the best of my knowledge) Apatow had nothing to do with the production of this film, it’s representative of his usual humor–the pseudo “true” behavior of the idiosynchratic, nerdy, 20-to-30 something male. If you enjoyed the likes of Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Knocked Up, this will likely be right up your alley, even though it’s admittedly less complex (in terms of the interactions depicted by the relationships featured in the movie) than the latter of the two flicks just mentioned.

The plot of I Love You, Man, as just indicated, is easily accessible (and, at times, easily predictable). You, as the viewer, know that at some point there will be a conflict between the developing “bromance” between the characters of Peter and Sydney, and you also know that, ultimately, it will be resolved in some way, shape, or form. As with most Hollywood story lines, you can sense the ensuing equilibrium that our protagonist must achieve in order to maintain a peaceful existence.

When I reference all of this, it’s certainly not to bash I Love You, Man. Quite the contrary. Director John Hamburg is keenly aware of the cliches present here, and makes a decision that a lot of movie-makers just don’t seem to have the gumption (or ability) to. He opts to include them only as bare necessities and let the humor take center stage.

And the humor is fairly non-stop from start to finish. There’s a real sense of authenticity to I Love You, Man, and the quirky inclusions of things like projectile-vomiting, bass-slapping in Sydney’s man-cave, and a dog that looks uncannily like Anwar Sadat is the sort of comedy that you’d expect from the cast included here (and, of course, it works extraordinarly well). This is one of those movie-going experiences–like Liam Neeson’s latest effort, Taken–where, when referencing the trailers, “what you see” is literally “what you get”. If you’re in the mood for a movie that’s laid back and consistently hilarious from beginning to end, you can’t do much better than I Love You, Man.

Oh yeah–did I mention that it also has Lou Ferrigno?

redstar1redstar1redstar1redstar1 out of 5

–Chris Flowers

Rated R for pervasive language, including crude and sexual references.