Friday, December 5, 2008

Action Comedies!

Recently watched two great comedies. One of them recent and one a couple months old, but heck, a movie is a movie.

Tropic Thunder - Great for fans of movies. This movie just keeps the jokes rolling on acting and filmmaking in general. It also goes along with spoofing war movies including "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now." The film deals with actors in a war movie who end up in the middle of a real war in the jungle.



What I really enjoyed was how unique the film was. it started of with fake trailers for other movies that introduced the characters, and then it not only continued to spoof movies and acting, but it had a great cast of characters (including amazing cameos). Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. round-up a great ensemble of actors (both in real life and fake in the film). Downey Jr. definitely steals the show as an Australian that takes his roles too seriously and becomes a black man. From speaking to some of my African-American friends (yeah, I'm pale), they say it did not offend them, especially since there was a real black person in the film that was questioning everything too. From what I hear the real controversy was of Stiller trying to perform as a mentally handicapped person. It is true that I didn't find that part to be really funny...

Other great actors in the film included Nick Nolte, Bill Hader, Matthew McConaughey and a very hard to spot Tom Cruise (not for me, but for others). Great cameos include Tobey Maguire, Lance Bass, Jon Voight and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

This movie is not just about movie making, it is about trust and friendship and...well, making fun of people in the movie business. If you are a fan of movies in general and have a more in depth knowledge of the movie business, then you can truly appreciate this film. If not, there will still be tons of laughs for you. And in what comedy do you see as much action as you might see in a "Rambo" movie?

8.0/10 "I'm a lead farmer, motherf**ker!"

Role Models - One could question the action in this film, but I still found it epic.



It is another coming of age story about men growing up and becoming better people. It is one of those comedies where you know what the ending will be like, that everyone will be happy and etc. What keeps you watching is you want to know HOW the movie will get to that ending, and afterwards you just feel all happy inside.

The film is about two guys who end up screwing up and having to serve 150 hours mentoring as bigs for children. Sean William Scott plays his usual 'cool guy' attitude, but the kid he mentors, Ronnie (played by Bobb'e J. Thompson) is like a kid version of Stifler (from "American Pie"). Paul Rudd plays the disgruntled adult who mentors Augie (played by Chris Mintz-Plasse, McLovin from "Superbad"). he film just deals with the hilarity between these two men and how they try to reform their littles while reforming themselves.

Some cool characters in the film include Jane Lynch (the boss with an 'open door policy' from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin") as the leader of the kids center, Elizabeth Banks (Miri from "Zack and Miri Make a Porno") as Rudd's girlfriend and Ken Marino (who I am just throwing in here because I loved him as Vinnie Van Lowe from "Veronica Mars") as Augie's stepdad.

The action that I mentioned deals with a little thing called L.A.I.R.E. I forget the full terminology of that acronym, but it is where people dress up as knights and try to kill each other (with fake swords obviously). But there are a lot of intense battles and people running around and battling. It may not be pure action (not real, but is it really ever) but it is enough action to make your adrenaline pump. Plus, the action itself turns out to be very entertaining since it is all role-playing.

So this is the type of movie that anyone can really watch and enjoy (as long as you are old enough, there is foul language and nudity).

8.6/10 "No venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact tall is large and grande is spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's also the only one that's italian. Congratulations you're stupid in three languages."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha, I told you it was an awesome movie. And I do love that Starbucks scene-I can't look at a Starbucks without thinking about it anymore

Head Hero said...

Both were great comedies! Might have to add both to my DVD collections!