Filed under: Movie Reviews | Tags: clueless, forgetting sarah marshall, i love you man, jason segel, john hamburg, judd apatow, paul rudd, stella
It’s undeniable – Paul Rudd made falling in love with your former step-brother no longer “icky” when he charmed the wits out of every brain-dead tween in the 90’s hit Clueless back in the days of yore. And strangely enough, despite having depicted hapless husbands, nauseating newscasters, and sleazy summer camp counselors, he’s still everybody’s favorite guy. So perhaps it’s Rudd himself who lends a large helping hand to his newest love-child, I Love You, Man, because frankly, he’s just that damn likable. Sure, Man brings on the laughs – aided wholly by newly-wraught comic vet Jason Segel of How I Met Your Mother fame – but it’s certainly no side-splitting feat of fury that will keep you quoting for weeks.
What’s light and fun about I Love You, Man is that it doesn’t try too hard, which allows to film to glide through you – and, perhaps, over you – while trying to evoke just enough chuckles to get by. Rudd’s character is dopey while still dashing; he’s earnest and completely hopeless. The plot is nothing devastatingly brilliant nor is it painfully dull – it’s just a blip on the radar of weekend enjoyment. Director John Hamburg’s connections with those Stella fellas and Judd Apatow really ties the knot, while the film’s renowned names give it the extra jounce it needs to contend with the big boys. So while I kicked back and enjoyed a number of hearty, heartfelt laughs, I couldn’t help but notice that Boyfriend was less than impressed. Upon inquiring, he rated it, “a poor man’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Yes, but Honey, in that film, Paul Rudd was so terribly underused.
Filed under: TV Shows | Tags: alice, buck, californication, dexter, diablo cody, john corbett, showtime, t, the l word, toni collette, united states of tara
Despite the fact that my three other roommates and I have less than a few bucks to expend, when it came to making the pressing decision as to how to manage our cable bill, we knew there were two highly pertinent staples we simply could not thrive without – the creature comforts of DVR and the premiere premium channel Showtime. Luckily, between bouts of Dexter, The L Word, and Californication, we were able to catch wind of the latest tour de force to grace elitist television – United States of Tara, an obscenely expertly-crafted tour through the wry, perplexing states of mind that plague a D.I.D.-stricken housewife. The latest feat of Oscar-winner/creator Diablo Cody, this succinct twenty-five minute saga rages on like fire and fury, tugging at the heartstrings of the modern American family.
Tara (played by the profoundly talented Toni Collette), is an artist who is slightly more than right-brained – in fact, her brain takes on a life of its own. After facing a carefully-concealed trauma at boarding school decades ago, the mother of two teenagers and wife to the explicitly patient Max (John Corbett) began to take on a myriad of starkly-varying personas, or “alters,” which wreak havoc when stress should arise. There’s T – a perverse, perverted teenager with a zest for trouble, Alice – a goody goody housewife straight from Levittown, and Buck – a Vietnam vet with a penchant for cigarettes and spirits. But Tara is far from a one-woman show; the ensemble cast is compulsory for the story’s survival, and it boasts the most genuine, rollicking, and tender slew of characters any well-rounded piece could ask for.
When the recent season finale reared its foreboding head, we sighed and sunk into ourselves, warmed by the heart and hilarity of it all, and we began to wonder just how we’d make it until 2010 without tattered Tara in our lives. We then began to wonder what the hell we have Showtime for anymore.
Filed under: Events, Music | Tags: hoboken, indie rock, jenny lewis, maxwell's, morgan nagler, Rilo Kiley, swim, the whispertown 2000, vanesa corbala
Roommate and myself, having been longtime fans of indie-rock-woman-thrush Rilo Kiley, have followed the band in a near biblical way since they first graced our ears back in the early years of collegedom. Having frequented many a show, we soon became privy to their comrade band Whispertown 2000, a raspy, melodic grass-roots ditty fronted by Jenny Lewis’ longtime compadre Morgan Nagler. Having witnessed the near-birth of the band, we opined that the folksy quartet made for a kitschy guilty pleasure, but that the sparse and waivering vocals, tweedle-dee-picked guitar, and sloppy instrumentation colored the band green and a bit wet behind the ears. However, there was something there – something underlyingly wonderful to it all, something that made you tap your toes in bed at night and mimick Morgan’s flustering blustery voice. We quickly shed all notions that Whispertown 2000 was not a band to be taken seriously, and we began to listen to them with the car windows down for all the world to hear.
The year 2006 brought the band’s debut album, aptly titled “Livin’ In a Dream,” so we archived the archaic analog bootlegs we had snatched from early shows and enjoyed the stereophonic version for a change. The band would continue to tout about under the success of their high-profile friends, telling tales of mountain men and wishing wells while making the underground world stamp and stomp along. But in 2008, [The] Whispertown 2000 (strangely adding an article prefix) released “Swim,” a taut, tight wall of sound reminiscent of swaying cattails and sullied whiskey jars, and they began to join the big leagues.
So after years of favoring the west coast, The Whispertown decided to join forces with indie darling Maria Taylor (formerly of Azure Ray) and hit Maxwell’s in Hoboken for a short set. We followed suit and made the trek, only to be bowled over by their impressive growth and full sound mirrored by depth of soul and purpose. Their songs spoke of woe and hope, death and depravity – both haunting and sweet. The intertwined voices of Morgan and songbird Vanesa Corbala creep out of clarity bell to the sandy soot of New Mexico and echo off the Rio Grande. It was a beautiful poison that sank into our ears for that short half an hour – and their appearance, an adorable candid Polaroid of Morgan flexing her musical marksmanship, and a delectable sliver of Maxwell’s fried brie made the trip more than worthwhile. Throw back a six pack in the afterlife!
