You may need help Forgetting Sarah Marshall but you will never forget Jason Segel's penis

Title: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Rating: R, or Unrated
Released: 2008

Format: DVD

Version: Unrated Collectors Edition

Run Time:  1 Hr 51 min. (unrated is 1 Hr 58 min.)

Purchased: Scarecrow Video
Price: $9.99



Plot according to imdb.com: Peter is a composer and a likable sad sack who's devastated when his girlfriend of five years, Sarah Marshall, the star of a cheesy CSI-style crime show, dumps him. He weeps, he rails, he mopes. Finally, his step-brother Brian suggests Hawaii, so Peter heads for a resort on Oahu where, as he's checking in, he sees Sarah and her new beau, Aldous, a polymorphously perverse English rocker. The weeping and moping start again, until Peter is rescued by Rachel, a thoughtful hotel clerk who invites him to a luau and to hang out. Although he constantly runs into Sarah and Aldous, Peter starts to come alive again. Will Sarah realize what she's lost, and what about Rachel?

Plot according to Allen: See that above plot?  It's kinda like that but it's a lot easier.  Sarah breaks up with Peter.  Peter is broken.  In an effort to fix it Peter goes to Hawaii.  Sarah is in Hawaii. This complicates things because it is physically impossible to get over an ex if they are always there, especially when they are always there with a pompous douche like Aldous Snow.  He eventually meets some people and makes friends with the locals, who help him get over losing the love of his life.

While on the surface this movie is about the interactions between Sarah, Peter, Aldous and Rachel but really it is the whole cast that really make this movie work.  Paul Rudd is once again brilliant, Jonah Hill plays a wonderful and kind of creepy waiter to perfection.  And of course my absolute favorite characters are the newlywed couple played brilliantly by Jack McBrayer and Maria Thayer.  Really though there is no bad performance in this movie.

The straightforward story isn't anything you haven't really seen before in movies, but instead of focusing on a relationship that we have developed interest in seeing survive it takes a more interesting approach of the necessary growth that Jason Segel's Peter needs to make after the end of a relationship to become a happy person.  It really is refreshing.  I also can't stress enough just how much I love Mila Kunis.  There is a very short list of things I would not like to see her do.

Also refreshing is the fact that while being an R rated comedy the excessive female nudity has been replaced with male nudity.  You just don't see enough flaccid penis played for laughs and awkwardness these days.  Don't you worry straight men who are afraid the sight of a penis will make them gay there is plenty of breasts in this movie too.

A brief warning: While it is advertised as being from the people behind the 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, this is NOT a Judd Aptow movie.  He's a producer but really that is it.  It is Written by Jason Segel and directed by Nicholas Stoller.  I could write an entire essay on why this sort of advertising is immoral but I don't have the time and it would be really boring so I will save you the trouble of reading it.

Some jokes do get run into the ground, for example they show at least 38430983 clips from Sarah's show to show just how terrible CSI is that were funny the first time, but by the fifth time you just want them to go away.  As a whole though it was a really funny movie that really made me laugh from beginning to end.

Final rating: 3.5 out of 5

Blankman or A Prequel of Kick Ass

Title: Blankman
Rating:PG-13
Released:1994

Format:DVD

Version: A very basic DVD that is incredibly lacking, though honestly special features for this would be redundant.

Run Time:  1 hour 36 minutes

Purchased: Not a clue.
Price: I certainly hope I didn't spend actual money on this.



Plot according to IMDB: Darryl is a childlike man with a genius for inventing various gadgets out of junk. When he stumbles on a method to make his clothes bulletproof, he decides to use his skills to be the lowest budgeted superhero of all.

Plot according to Allen: Okay so the stereotypical socially awkward genius has his grandmother played by The Chief from Where In the World Is Carmen San Diego is killed by the mob and he slips off the deep end and decides he needs to fight crime.  His common sense stick in the mud brother becomes his side kick and eventually they thwart the mob boss and bring justice to the world.

So you know those movies you love when you are a kid but when you watch them again when you grow up suddenly you realize just how horrible your taste was as a kid?  Yeah I am pretty sure I hated this as a kid too.  It isn't funny.  It has a lot of chances to be funny, but it resorts far too often to ridiculous physical humor that isn't funny.  They could very easily be a good movie, I mean I liked it when they made it into Kick Ass.  Instead they decided that they needed to make a stereotypical Damon Wayans movie in that they take the easy joke and then drive it relentlessly into the ground.  Easily the best part of the movie is Jason Alexander as David Alan Greir's wheelchair bound boss, and really he is just playing a somehow more horrible and disgusting George Castanza.

I really don't understand why I own this movie.  There is no possible way I could have looked at this DVD cover and thought "I need to spend money on this right now!"  Even if I was horribly drunk as a fourteen year old kid, I would think I would have seen something else and immediately forgotten that this movie existed.  It is so bland looking and the description on the back doesn't look like it would have appealed to me.  Yes it is a superhero movie in a time when there were none but still, this movie should not exist.  There are very few movies I can't validate it's existence in my DVD collection this would be at the top of that list.  I seriously can't explain why I own it.  There is no amount of alcohol or drugs that would be able to consume that would encourage me to own this.  It truly is the most horrible thing I could ever convince myself to inflict onto someone else, never mind myself.  And yet I am leaving it on my shelf and I can't convince myself to get rid of it.


I have problems.

Final rating: -45 out of 5

The Fifth Element is Love

Title: The Fifth Element
Rating:PG-13

Released:1997

Format: Blu-Ray

Version: A very bare bones edition with no special features at all.

Run Time:  2 Hrs and 2 min

Purchased: I forget, but I think I bought it at Best Buy
Price: Let's say $15

 Plot According to imdb.com: Two hundred and fifty years in the future, life as we know it is threatened by the arrival of Evil. Only the fifth element can stop the Evil from extinguishing life, as it tries to do every five thousand years. She is helped by ex-soldier, current-cab-driver, Korben Dallas, who is, in turn, helped by Prince/Arsenio clone, Ruby Rhod. Unfortunately, Evil is being assisted by Mr. Zorg, who seeks to profit from the chaos that Evil will bring, and his alien mercenaries.

Plot According to Allen: Alright so there is this giant ball of evil out in space that is slowly coming towards Earth and the only way to stop it is with these magical stones.  In a race for the stones it is Bruce Willis versus Gary Oldman, just try and guess who is the good guy and who is the bad guy (hint: Oldman is the crazy and creepy looking guy.)  Along his way Bruce has the lovely Leeloo fall into his life and she becomes the key to the whole saving the earth thing.  So really it's a love story.

In all honesty I have always had a soft spot for the Fifth Element.   From it's vibrant colors and vivid environments to it's rich history and of course wonderfully simplistic story it really is a perfect movie.  It is Sci-Fi enough to satisfy any nerd, action packed Bruce Willis with a dash of a half naked Milla Jovavich for the guys that encapsulates a really beautiful love story for the ladies.  Yeah that's right that movie that features Bruce Willis digging through the chest cavity of a blue tentacled singer is a love story.

The action really is minimal in this movie, but it is perfectly timed to keep the pace at perfection.  Yes Chris Tucker is annoying as Ruby Rhod but you know what?  If the biggest complaint I can come up with is that a minimally used side character is mildly annoying but still entertaining I'm gonna go ahead and let that one slide on Allen's scale of awesomeness.

There is no real debate here - this movie belongs in your movie collection and your collection is not complete until this is there.  The only real debate is if you want to have this on Blu-Ray or DVD, and honestly even the bare-bones special feature free version that I have on Blu-Ray is a must own for your Blu-Ray collection though I am a little worried that the good folks at Columbia will try and hit me up for a double dip by releasing a special collector's anniversary deluxe edition with an entire second disc full of awesomeness and a somehow even crisper transfer that will run about $35 just to trick the early purchasers into buying two copies of the same movie.

AND I WILL BUY IT FOR IT WILL BE AMAZING!

Final verdict: 5 out of 5

Funny People actually not so funny

Title: Funny People

Rating: R

Released: 2009

Format:DVD (Blu-ray is also available)

Version: 2 disc Unrated Edition

Run Time: 2 Hours 26 Minutes

Purchased: Scarecrow Video
Price: $4



Plot according to imdb.com - George is a very successful stand up comedian who learns that he has an untreatable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Ira is a struggling up-and-coming stand up comedian who works at a deli and has yet to figure out his onstage persona. One night, these two perform at the same club and George takes notice of Ira. George hires Ira to be his semi-personal assistant as well as his friend.

Plot according to Allen - Adam Sandler gets sick, and as a result becomes bitter and angry about life.  He then meets a now thin Seth Rogen while doing standup comedy and hires him to write jokes for him.  they become friends.  Sandler reconnects with the love of his life, who comes back into his life because she is  sick and feels bad about how things ended, and that she has moved on with the first Hulk.

Alright first off Funny People is NOT funny.  I can not tell you how many people were misled and frustrated with this movie because they thought it was going to be funny.  Yes it was written and directed by Judd Apatow.  Yes it stars Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jason Schwartzman, and Jonah Hill, all very funny people.  Yes the trailer looked funny.  However this movie is in no way shape or form a comedy.  Here's how you can tell it isn't a comedy:

1. the main plot revolves around the death of a main character who is very sick.
2. Adam Sandler does not speak like a child except when he is mocking his character's horrible movies.
3. It is over two and a half hours long.

Are there funny parts?  Of course there are funny parts.  You can't get that many funny people in a movie about stand up comedians and not have it have funny parts.  Make no mistake though this is Punch Drunk Love Sandler not Little Nicky Sandler.  And really it is an amazing performance from Sandler too.  he is both charming and sympathetic without losing the fact that this guy is generally not a good guy, but he tries.  Rogen was good too.  The evolution of his character throughout was a lot of fun to watch, especially through his stand up.

As a movie about stand up, an area of life that movies haven't really touched on since Punchline staring Tom Hanks and Sally Fields, you really get into the way these court jesters actually feel through their lives.  the loneliness of living on the road for so long, the pressure of having your entire career hang on whether you are funny that night or not, the cut throat nature of needing to step on those you think aren't as funny as you to get to the top.  It is all there, and it is all dealt with such reverence that you almost don't realize it is there.

Much like 300 this movie does seem a little long in the tooth, the Unrated version is 11 minutes longer too so I recommend sticking with watching the theatrical cut unless you really love hearing about balls, then the unrated is for you.  There were still a few characters I wish they developed more, specifically Elizabeth Mann and Jason Schwarzman's characters respectively, but I can see why they chose to focus mostly on Sandler and Rogen.

I hadn't seen this movie before today when I took it of my shelf to review it.  It was just one of those movies where I meant to see it in theaters, forgot about it then when it came out on DVD other things were ahead of it in my queue and it got lost.  I saw it on the shelf at Scarecrow Video in the middle of one of their used DVD sales and decided that I would risk it because of my love of stand-up and Judd Apatow as a writer and director.  I do not regret that decision.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5