Superbad was Super Awesome!

I've found I'm a sucker for teen comedies with funk soundtracks and gushing bromance.

Superbad (2007)

We ended up watching this as the word superbad had gradually entered my vocabularly somewhere along the line (super-anything really) and then Chris helpfully remembered that it was a film.

Even watching it at 1am on a worknight, this was the most enjoyable films I've seen in ages. Even the opening credits were awesome. 

Whilst practically all the main cast are excellent, it's Jonah Hill who pretty much makes this film as the obscene, rageful fatty Seth who comes up with the madcap plans to get alcohol and get laid dragging along Michael Cera's straight man and best friend - Evan.

Bear through the slightly dull first 10 minutes set in class and you're in for laugh after laugh as the action ratchets up. I was seriously impressed with the the creativity (and hilarity) of the situations they end up in and how they all end up back together after being split off.  The cops are slightly anoying at times, but it's ok as they're never really apart from Christopher Mintz-Plasse's Fogell (LOL at that actor's name) whose akward socially stunted nerd exterior may seem like a tired and overdone stock character at first, but is actually pure comedy gold. If you can cope with Seth's profanity (it gets endearing after a while!) it's actually prety touching and life-affirming. Yes, really.

My only criticism is that writers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg seem incapable of developing any female characters whatsoever, or even giving just one of the cardboard cutout dull and uninteresting girls ONE DECENT line between them! The most you can look forward to in this respect is 'period girl'. Enough said. Hmph!

But watch it all the same.

~Aim

From Weeds to a film about weed

Not long ago Aim and I watched "Superbad" together, I had watched it a few times before but it was the first time for Aim, and she enjoyed it just as much as me. So we decided to look up a couple of similar films and we finally settled on...

Pineapple Express

This film is about a weed smoking guy and his dealer friend and their fight for survival while being chased by mafia weed growers/sellers. IMDB describes it as following "A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after he witness his dealer's boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.".

The film involves a lot of comedy fighting, or what is supposed to be comedy fighting but just ends up as silly and quite dull. I wasn't too impressed by the storyline and the film in general but James Franco does a decent job as the constantly high weed dealer while Seth Rogan and the rest of the cast were on the verge of awful.

I just couldn't find myself getting attached to any of the characters and I just ended up being bored and drifting off not concentrating on the film. It seems like a lot of people find this film really good but I will just have to disagree there because it was just plain dull and silly at the best of times. Maybe you have to be in a special mood to enjoy it and not have your hopes up after watching "Superbad".

Should you watch it then?

~ Chris

Who got smoked?

Weeds Season 8

This is a The little filmblog special, once in a while we come across a TV-show that we enjoy so much that we have to see every episode of it. These TV-shows deserves a post once in a while and a season premier is one of those occassions, and today the eight and final season of Weeds premiers in America.

This is a show that we have thoroughly enjoyed from episode one. It has everything a good show needs and then some.

It seems like forever ago since season eight was announced and we have been waiting for the episodes ever since. We really can't wait to see more of Andy, Nancy, Shane, Silas and Doug!


 Should you watch it?

~ Chris

Three is the magic number...

or is it?

This time we watched a film that I have been looking at in the DVD bargain bins more times than I can count. Finally I got to watch it even after being on our backlog for months and months!

The Number 23 

This is a film with Jim Carrey, but it's not a comedy! It's a tense and densely plotted thriller and IMDB describes it like this "Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. As his obsession increases, more and more similarities seem to arise.". And that's quite a good summary. The style of the film reminds me a little bit of Sin City, a film I really can't say if I like or not, but it definitely worked in this film.

To see Jim Carrey in a film like this is quite surprising and you just expect him to throw off some weird line in the middle of the serious murderous plot, it never happens though. He's absolutely brilliant in the film and even though I liked him before we watched the film he's actually risen to be one of my favourite actors after watching it. It makes me want to go through his filmography and see what other serious roles he has done. The rest of the cast also pulls off a good performance but they're completely overshadowed by Mr. Carrey.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this film. After all those years of hesitating to watch it, the reason for that I will never now, it has become one of my favourite films of all time. And I'm a picky man when it comes to films, not many get past my radar as really good and even less become my favourites.

If you haven't already figured it out. Should you watch it?

~ Chris