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That's about the meanest review I've read in a long time. I don't know if the venom is fully warranted. I really liked The Foot Fist Way and East Bound is funny too. Please save the anger for something like Twilight, which I just watched on dvd and managed to make a mediocre book into a horrible almost unwatchable movie.

Wow. Usually, even when I disagree with you DP, I can gleam a few nuggets of "I see his point there" from your reviews...but you missed the boat on this one. In fact the few things you DID like in the film (namely the Pena character) I didn't really care for.

The movie is funny BECAUSE it's fucked up. It's not humor like the Farrelly's or Dane Cook nor is it supposed to be even though everything from Rogen thus far has been. This is dark humor. You really pulled your cards from your vest when you said "This guy has nothing on Bruce, Carlin or Pryor's sense of truth-telling." Yeah you new comedy folk...get off my lawn!

DP...I know people in the real world JUST LIKE Ronnie. They are obsessed with being cops and one guy has a rap sheet for violent outbursts and fighting and the other guy (an ex of a relative in fact) is a deadbeat dad who has been accused of the lowest of crimes-and been pulled in for questioning- and both of those guys keep trying to get on the force. You say there's no truth in the story and I heartily disagree.

Plus, that whole date rape soundbite is as overwrought and played out as the Paul Blart angle and the stupid "Taxi Driver" angle. I mean, really. C'mon. Your whole review smacks of you reading too much going in and sitting there waiting to take the film down a peg.

I hate to be one of "those" posters cuz Lord knows there's enough around here...but I don't think you get the humor Jody Hill is putting out there. It's very dark and creepy and, yes, truthful. I know Kenny Powers types just like I know Ronnie Barnhardt's. Clueless assholes who live their life acting like they're going to achieve their dream when the reality is, they have a screw loose which is why they're mall cops, plumbers or register jockeys.

It's not a laugh-out-loud kind of film. It's a train wreck of events. In fact I liken the comedy to a horror film when people laugh or gasp because they aren't sure what they've seen and how to respond.

Sigh.

And the transformation into Bosley Crowther is complete.

(BTW, Hill would rather talk about KING OF COMEDY as an influence than TAXI DRIVER)

Those are some harsh words for Anna. It looks very clear to me that she's wearing a top notch pushup bra and may have temporary collagen lip implants for the movie. The pics of her at the premiere are vastly different from what she looks like in the trailer.

Ok, third sentence pretty much indicated that this review would be pretty useless to me.

I stopped reading when he said Eastbound and Down was mediocre. That was really helpful. I think every critic should start a review with how he feels about Eastbound and Down, Shaun of the Dead, or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. If he hates them, I stop reading. If he likes them, I keep reading. This could save me a lot of time.

I'm not so sure Faris did anything to herself. Recall how Catherine O'Hara looked at the end of "For Your Consideration," which she said was mostly about her moueing her lips and didn't even involve much make-up.

Oh, and I'd like to add an "'O and R' is brilliant," as well.

"this guy’s style of hateful, white-trash-mocking humor."

Disagree entirely -- Hill and McBride ARE borderline white trash, and likely portraying people very similar to those they know. In fact, McBride has said that his Eastbound and Down character is a riff on himself, after he gave up on acting the first time and went home.

The first two times I saw McBride in a movie -- All the Real Girls and Foot Fist Way -- I thought that this was clearly not a Hollywood actor, but clearly some local who was "playing himself." I wonder, David, how much experience you have in Appalachia, as McBride under Hill's guidance (to me) nails it in a way that movies usually cannot fake very will.

I would rather have seen Danny McBride in the lead here too. But Rogen won me over with the way he pulls off the climax.

Then again, funny is subjective. I can't persuade you to laugh at a movie through force of argument. And I do agree that Hill should save his money, because I'm not sure his style is going to resonate with the majority.

BTW, just to make my Bosley Crowther crack a critique and not just a jab, here is the moment where you earned it:

The difference between Apatow and The Farrellys and Hill is that the first two understand that The Guy has to learn something in order for his former bad behavior to be something other than hateful.

That's some excruciating tone deafness and misreading of the text. This is like say Coppola doesn't understand crime films because Michael doesn't go to jail or die at the end of THE GODFATHER.

Everyone should save their money. What does that even mean? I hope his review for Paul Blart starts with:

"Steve Carr... go buy a castle. You've earned it. YOU WILL NEVER BE BROKE AGAIN."

You don't get it. At all. You've lost touch completely, DP. You have gotten progressively whackier over the last couple of months, and if you were openminded enough, you would see that the reason the message boards have gotten more critical is because you've gotten more ridiculous. Not because we all love WATCHMEN so much.

reading this, it sounds like the humour in 'o & r' is akin to that of the (real) UK series of 'the office', in that you either love and totally get the excruciating, cringe-inducing, rude, idiotic, nasty sensibility or you really DO NOT and find it repugnant, ill-considered and NOT FUNNY!

(personally, i think 'the office' - led by the epic delusional tosser 'david brent' with his crew of mostly irredeemable tools - is all-time, so i'm holding out high hopes for 'o & r', which looks like my cup of tea in the clips and red band trailers, anyway)

Now I gotta see this movie.

Oh, and what's the deal with DP's labia obsession?

i sorta wondered about that, too, jeff

'I would argue that the “turnabout” argument made by some women is inaccurate, as the analogous body part to the make penis is not the breast, but the labia… and when is the last time you saw labia in a studio movie? How impotent do you have to be to feel compelled to put male genitalia on display to get a laugh? And how immature is the laugh you get? Just wondering…'

dp, you use the labia-as-penis-equiv. argument yet again, but the labia simply is NOT the female equivalent of the penis, a fairly sizable external organ naturally visible outside the pubes, in plain view at all times (unless your ray finkle or jame gum). the female body part equivalent to the penis is the clitoris, and it most certainly isn't out there beyond the hair hanging low and wobbling to and fro (and neither is any normal, non-freakish labia; on screen/visually, female bush is the anatomical equivalent to the penis)

i just wonder, why must a man feel impotent to use male nudity for comedic effect? i hate to break it to you, but as lovely as they may be, penises are rather funny, bless them, and i say this as a big fan. perhaps the problem is that penises are so seldom seen in the mainstream - bizarrely taboo - whereas female nudity is far more common, and yet used almost exclusively in the narrow, airbrushed-to-perfection context of 'the male gaze'; so perhaps the problem really lies in the fact that female nudity is not used nearly ENOUGH for comedic effect, unless it's for an unimaginative/insulting sight gag like in 'something about mary'.

in real life both gender's nekked bodies can be comedy, but women's bodies are so traditionally glossed over/body-doubled or otherwise altered so as to appear perfect to men, all the funny is airbrushed and photoshopped right out them! the boys are allowed to go au natural and let it all hang out for laughs, which is far more honest if you ask me. female nudity is that which is depicted dishonestly.

(i do know the diff between 'you're' and 'your', honest i do, i'm just tired)

"I guess it is easy to overstate just how bad this movie is."

You hit the nail on the head. tl;dr.

"You don't get it. At all. You've lost touch completely, DP."

I don't think that's particularly fair. Critics are split down the middle on O&R, and many of the negative reviews are unequivocal pans.

Whether it's a good movie or not is certainly a subject to debate, but I think certain critics who don't like the film are missing the fact that Ronnie is not supposed to be likable. He is a frighteningly obsessive, blindingly judgmental psychotic, and a racist to boot. What happens to Farris is probably legally date rape, but the humor comes from A) wow... he really is pathetic and B) wow... he honestly thinks that he had a wonderfully romantic evening. Frankly, I loved that Farris played the female lead without any redeeming qualities, as it was a nice spoof on the idealized dream girl. Those complaining that it was sexist for Melanie to be so horrible are missing the point - she is horrible and so is Ronnie.

I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your reviewing work there, David.

This review is 1500 words long and there's not one word about what niche this movie is in. How am supposed to know if I'll like it?

Can't say that I disagree all that much with DP on this one. I went in knowing to expect a dark comedy with unlikable characters, but a lot of it just didn't work for me. Just because people like this exist doesn't make having their story told on screen all that compelling. And many of the attempts at obvious humor fell flat -- Patton Oswalt's cameo, the "fuck you" sequence between Rogen and Aziz.

SPOILER WARNING

Did anyone else think the end was merely a delusional fantasy of Ronnie? I mean, if you want to anchor this film in "reality," I just don't buy Ronnie getting the girl and his job back. The shooting of the flasher felt over-the-top and, in my mind, pushed the whole thing into dream territory. Ronnie is obsessed with guns, so of course his fantasy would involve using one to protect Brandi from the flasher he believed would be coming back to murder Brandi. And the way the flasher went for Brandi only adds to the delusional aspects -- Ronnie honestly believed the flasher would be coming after her, even though throughout the entire film we see that he was just flashing random women and didn't have anyone particular in mind. I don't know how else to read the ending -- if it's not a dream, it is utterly ridiculous and further undermines the rest of the film, and redeems Ronnie in ways that a "realistic" film should not.

END SPOILERS

As an aside, I'm seriously tired of the AICN and CHUD crowd telling me I just don't get it if I did not like this movie (or Watchman, or whatever). I got it. Hill just wasn't very effective at what he was trying to pull off. Devin makes a fair comparison to KING OF COMEDY, but that movie was light years better than this attempt. And Devin, your analogy to GODFATHER is utterly useless. Just because Michael isn't dead or in jail doesn't mean he hasn't lost something. Taking control of the family costs Michael his soul.

I have just finished screening Taxi Driver. And once again, I see nothing here to indicate that Travis Bickle's killing spree -- or the subsequent public reaction to that spree -- is, as some have theorized, intended to be interprted as fantasy. I haven't seen King of Comedy for a long time, but I don't recall the ending of that film being a fanasy, either. As for Observe and report -- nah, don't buy it for that one, either. But then again, I did think that what we see of a character's "murder" at the end of Brokeback Mountain was indeed a worst case scenario fantasy by another character, and the death really was accidental, so go figure. (When I told this to the scriptwriters, they didn't try to dissuade me.) To each his own.

I haven't seen "Observe & Report" yet, but "Eastbound and Down" - particularly the character of Kenny Powers - feels almost documentary accurate to my experience with self-aggrandizing rednecks growing up down south (he'll, I'm not afraid to admit recognizing my own dumbass self in him at times). It's a pretty great show that's final moments of the first season were about as devastating as they get - which only worked because they really worked and worked that character. Kind of feels to me like "King of the Hill" without the manufactured sweetness. Just a dipshit. Not saying that's "Observe & Report," but I kind of dig Jody Hill.

I say all that as someone whose future brother-in-law has a website with a photo of him shirtless racing around his property on an ATV waving a machine gun. And not only is he a WAY better role model for my nephew than my last brother-in-law, I also quite like the guy and we get along famously.

This review was a waste of my time. And so completely wrong. I just love it when a reviewer insults you for enjoying a film, don't you? I miss you, Kael.

And Joe - I agree with your BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN take. I never really bought that Twist was murdered. I thought that was an image going through Ennis's mind as well.

Having not seen Paul Blart, David, are you really saying they're the same movie? If so, I've got to now see Paul Blart.

I think the reason why people want to believe in the "third act fantasy" version of Taxi Driver or OaR are the people who probably relate to the MCs and don't want to believe how far the film/they could go. I think because fucking it up with a woman you feel is beyond your station is a pretty universal fear/thing that could happen.

Judging from photos of the Observe and Report premiere, whatever Faris may have done to her lips for that film was temporary. Doesn't look like she had a boob job to me either.

Tastes differ on movies, but I do have a problem with a review that not only says the critic disliked the movie but that also insults those who do like it. And a review that reviews the audience, as if that backs up the critic's correctness. And that refers to any human beings as "trash."

it's hard to take seriously a review of a comedy written by someone who has absolutely no sense of humor....

Anna Faris is so awesome I had to hold up a piece of cardboard to cover half the screen when watching her season of Entourage, so I could block out the fact that she was occupying the same space as Kevin Connolly and his fake New York accent.

hell, i'm just glad Dave is reviewing movies again!!! Thanks man.

Btw... i saw O&R. Still don't know what to think.

This review really shows that anyone can review films for a living, even if they don't have a gift for it. Negative reviews are fine as long as they're well written.

I think the idea of the ending of "Observe and Report" being Ronnie's fantasy is a pretty broad leap. Isn't it just him finally "becoming a man" and even more, the old adage of if you see a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the 3rd. Or 2nd? I dunno, I only got a BA in screenwriting.

From the above review (parenthesis are mine):

"It’s not funny.

I laughed out loud (once...)"

Funny. At my screening, the roped off critic section laughed the most and the seatfillers didn't. Saw it at the Grove Tuesday night.

Having heard Hill speak, I think he's ready to move on and take Rocchi's advice: "It'd be fascinating to imagine Hill doing something like 'Nashville,' a small-town Southern saga of politics and pop culture in which he couldn't just jump to his fallback equation where fighting = funny, and seeing if he actually had something to say.", which he said in a positive review.

Who's afraid of the fat guy's cock, the fat guy's cock, the fat guy's cock?

Who's afraid of the fat guy's cock?

Tra la la la la!

Excepting Manohla (but not Armond who's just a smarty-pants without actually being remotely wise), the "smart critics" seem to dig "O&R" while the morons/mental defectives/retards (Ben & Mank; Puig; et al) aren't digging it at all.
What side are you on?

"Which side are you on?"
Gawd; nearly finished that bottle of Cab...

...that teensy 'lil (hey Ms. Rounds!) dick ain't worth being scared of, LYT.
Nearly finished off that whole bottle of Cab...
Never drink and blog, kids.
Who's watching "A.I." this season? I see that Tarantino is once again doing the mentoring for their "music in the movies" theme night (coming up next Tuesday). The only remaining contestants remotely worth listening to/watching each week are Allison, Adam and Kris.
The rest (including "Dead Wife Guy" and "Jamal from 'Slumdog Millionaire' Dude")? Nope, sorry.

movieman's on the piss! (personally, i'm a pinot girl, cab makes me want to hurl for some reason...)

i hope to be on the 'smart' side and not the 'tard' side when i see 'o & r' in 5 looooong months time!

Pinot? How tastefully "Sideways" of you, Leah.
P/noir is too mellowed out for my taste: I prefer the bold, rich red wine-iness of a good Cab or Merlot myself. But then I've always been an easy (and cheap) drunk.
"O&R" doesn't hit New Zealand for another 5 months!? Holy crap,
Leah. You'll probably be able to buy the (American) dvd online well before then...as well you should. It's a truly kickass film, and the recipient of the only 4-star rating I've awarded a studio release so far this year.

Leah- As far as wines that make me hurl, just about any white wine will do....I simply can't abide the stuff.

Leah, I just had to say, this is one of the smartest comments I've seen on this blog in a long time. Rather brilliant rebuttal of the labia=penis argument -- and I say that as a big fan of the penis myself.

"i just wonder, why must a man feel impotent to use male nudity for comedic effect? i hate to break it to you, but as lovely as they may be, penises are rather funny, bless them, and i say this as a big fan. perhaps the problem is that penises are so seldom seen in the mainstream - bizarrely taboo - whereas female nudity is far more common, and yet used almost exclusively in the narrow, airbrushed-to-perfection context of 'the male gaze'; so perhaps the problem really lies in the fact that female nudity is not used nearly ENOUGH for comedic effect, unless it's for an unimaginative/insulting sight gag like in 'something about mary'.

in real life both gender's nekked bodies can be comedy, but women's bodies are so traditionally glossed over/body-doubled or otherwise altered so as to appear perfect to men, all the funny is airbrushed and photoshopped right out them! the boys are allowed to go au natural and let it all hang out for laughs, which is far more honest if you ask me. female nudity is that which is depicted dishonestly."

SPOILERS

"Did anyone else think the end was merely a delusional fantasy of Ronnie? "

Actually, I thought much of what we saw in the film (at least in the latter half-to-third) is a delusional fantasy of Ronnie.

- The scene where he tasers the guy after he puts a boot on his car.
- The scene with the skateboarders
- The whole bit where he assaults, what, like a dozen police officers?
- And yes, the ending.

As for the now-infamous "date rape" scene, I'll have more on that in this week's column.

'Pinot? How tastefully "Sideways" of you, Leah.
P/noir is too mellowed out for my taste: I prefer the bold, rich red wine-iness of a good Cab or Merlot myself. But then I've always been an easy (and cheap) drunk.
"O&R" doesn't hit New Zealand for another 5 months!? Holy crap,
Leah. You'll probably be able to buy the (American) dvd online well before then...as well you should. It's a truly kickass film, and the recipient of the only 4-star rating I've awarded a studio release so far this year.'

i know, movieman, very depressing and i'm still in denial that i likely won't see 'o & r' on the big screen first time out, i've been so looking forward to it :-(
(and i haven't had a sip of merlot since i saw sideways', how easily swayed am i?!)

'Leah, I just had to say, this is one of the smartest comments I've seen on this blog in a long time. Rather brilliant rebuttal of the labia=penis argument -- and I say that as a big fan of the penis myself.'

kim, thank you, i appreciate that, and it means a lot coming from you, it really does! (fans of the penis, unite)

I would be interested in knowing what in the movie makes you think that the film goes subjective. Not what you think the character should be capable of, but what are the actual clues in the film that the movie itself has broken from reality.

Thanks, Kim. At least there's one person! :-)

I didn't even consider those other scenes, but now that you mention them, they are rather ludicrous if you want to argue this film is a "realistic" depiction of PAUL BLART. This is the law student in me, but no way a mall keeps Ronnie on the payroll after the assault on the skater kids.

Devin:

For me, it was the moment after the coffee girl kissed him, when the flasher shows up. I can't remember now, but I think the kiss was in close-up. I felt like, once we pulled back wide and the flasher appeared, it was so over-the-top ridiculous that I had a hard time taking anything after it seriously. I guess you could argue that the flasher was just progressing to more risky situations to get off, but the running through the mall stuff just seemed "unreal" to me. Also, the moment of recognition, when Ronnie realizes that the flasher is going after Brandi. Did the flasher even know where she worked, or that she would be there? The film clearly established this guy was running through the parking lot and approaching women randomly. Also, earlier in the film, Ronnie suggested the flasher would try to murder Brandi. Thus, the end felt more like Ronnie playing that situation out in his head. Finally, it strains suspension of disbelief to think Ronnie can shoot someone without repurcussions, or that the head of the mall would let Ronnie take the flasher himself, rather than calling 911 for the cops and an ambulance.

The reason why I don't buy the 'fantasy' angle? He trips during the end chase. Who trips during their own fantasy?

Devin,

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I believe the transition happens at some point not too long after he stops taking his meds. At the very least, we know at that point that he's manic-depressive. The drug he gives Brandi is Clonazepam, which is a drug used to treat primarily anxiety, similar to Xanax or Valium.

If we go with the assumption that he's not lying about the manic depression, and we know he's being treated for it by a doctor (the prescription), he would probably also be on one or two other meds to go with it, because so far as I know, Clonazepam isn't given alone in treating manic depression. And withdrawing suddenly without medical supervision off the kinds of drugs used to treat manic depression can seriously fuck a person up. You have to wean slowly off those drugs over a period of weeks, or you can have serious episodes.

Ronnie's behavior pattern from the beginning is pretty classically manic: the inflated ego, the physical agitation present in his body language, the aggressive behavior, the talkativeness, the poor judgment. From the point he goes off his meds, all those indications are magnified to the point that they're increasingly delusional, and the film becomes almost farcical in its absurdity -- and I don't mean that in a bad way.

But breaking skateboards over teenagers heads in a mall parking lot? The physical assault of a pack of police officers? Shooting -- SHOOTING -- the perv with a gun he wasn't supposed to carry when he was on the job, after already being fired from that job -- AND he gets to escort the bleeding perv to the police station in his security car and then gets his job back?

Seriously, how is any of that not delusional? The whole film, IMO, is shown us from the perspective of a delusional person seeing the world through his misfiring brain cells, from his adoration and objectification of Brandi to his relationships with his fellow security guards and other mall employees, his bizarre social interactions, the complete lack of awareness with which he answers the shrink's questions for the psych exam and conviction that he'd nailed it (presumably, he would have had a comprehensive psych exam like the MMPI as well), even the physical transformation of Nell at the end.

We're seeing everything through the lens of Ronnie's maladjustment, including the effects of going suddenly off his meds.

That's my theory, anyhow. :-)

His mom puts him back on the meds. Seriously, I don't get this. It's people refusing to believe the text.

Kim, most of the stuff you list doesn't work if you're arguing the film is showing us subjectively what Ronnie perceives. It's very obvious what everyone - from Brandi to the psychiatrist to Liotta - thinks of him.

The ending, to me, fails utterly if it's in his head. The finale is a twisted version of the Apatow comedy, where instead of The Guy learning a lesson (what David wants in a movie), it's everyone else who learns the lesson. It's Ronnie following his dreams - just as every one of these movies tells us to do - and being rewarded - just as every one of these movies tells us will happen. Just like with Cybill Shepard getting into Travis Bickle's cab at the end of TAXI DRIVER, the end of OBSERVE AND REPORT is showing us just how closely related the people we celebrate and the people we revile are.

I'll only add that, if that is the takeaway lesson from the ending of OBSERVE AND REPORT, for me it utterly failed in its objective because I couldn't take anything seriously after the flasher's appearance in the mall.

Hoping to see O&R today so I can finally read all these spoilers. In the meantime:

Leah, Kim: While I agree with you that the labia=penis theory doesn't hold, um, water, I do think Dave is correct to point out that the "turnabout" argument of breast=penis is equally inapt. Can't we just say that, visually speaking, there is NO female body part analogous to the penis? The penis is, um, "loaded" culturally in a way that breasts are not. The efforts of Apatow, Hill and others may eventually change this a bit, but my guess is that most people (yes, including women) will never be truly comfortable with willies swinging free on the big screen, especially not in the good ol' USA.

Dave's objection seems to be that penis=desperate-impotent-filmmaker-reaching-for-cheap-laugh. I'm not sure about that, since such filmmakers know that many folks will NOT laugh. They may react with disgust, anger and/or embarrassment instead. Maybe a cheap shock is no better than a cheap laugh. But in the case of a cinematic depiction of a flasher, at least, it seems like a valid approach to me. I bet if O&R were a European film, the penis wouldn't even rate a mention by reviewers.

yancyskancy,

You may be correct to a certain extent, but I would argue strongly against your argument that the penis is "loaded" in a way that the female breast is not. If that were true, women wouldn't have had to fight (and even file lawsuits) to ensure their right to use their breasts for their natural function -- the feeding of infants. Public breastfeeding has been a battle for a long time now BECAUSE the female breast has been so sexualized as existing for the purpose of turning men on and/or providing them with sexual pleasure that even a nursing mother becomes the target of objectification.

Of course, that's also at least partly tied in with the conservative/religious aspects of our culture, which insist that women's bodies lead men astray, rather than expecting men to be grown-ups who are in control of their reactions to their hard-ons, even in a clearly non-sexual context of a mother nursing her baby. Then again, it's also true that some (maybe many?) women use their bodies to achieve control over men because they know men are so easily led by their dicks, so it works both ways. It's still about sex and power, either way, though.

As for the difference between women's naked breasts versus naked penis having a "loaded" effect when seen on screen, yancy, I'd also argue that this is true, at least in part, because the men who control Hollywood have made it acceptable to focus a camera on the naked body parts of women for so long that we've become largely immune to any shock value that may have once had. Ergo, is it not reasonable to expect that, over time and given enough exposure, so to speak, to the naked penis on screen, that dangling wang might start to lose whatever shock value it now has?

Somewhat sexual power-related note: I just posted a reaction to this NYT story about this sugar babies/sugar daddies website ... would love to hear some thoughts on whether that site is condoning prostitution and objectification of women, or just a new spin on modern dating.

http://www.mcnblogs.com/filmessent/2009/04/whos_your_daddy.html

Devin,

So just to be clear, is it your argument that the events we see in the second half or so of O&R -- the assault on the skateboarders, the assault of police officers with minimal consequence, the shooting with even less consequence -- are all realistic portrayals of what would be likely to happen in those situations? That it's not completely farcical at that point in the film? Or is it your argument that it IS farce, just that it's not us seeing Ronnie's delusion?

Kim: For what it's worth: yeah, it's farce. All of it. No delusions. Within the realm of farce, everything is "really" happening. Like, in Eugene Ionesco, everybody is really turning into a freakin' rhino.

This is a movie for critics who equate shock with value.

That's a curious comment coming from you, Christian. Don't some of your favorite movies function that way?

C'mere, Christian. I got a skateboard I wanna show ya.

From John Waters, yes. From today's school of humiliation, no. I weary of awkward pain gags.

Kim, yeah, the whole movie happens. I don't actually see why most of that stuff - up until the reaction he gets at the end - is all that unbelievable.

Joe, I assume it's made of wood...so I'm ducking!

It's all subjective anyway, Devin, but I do find a lot of the later scenes quite unbelieveable. It seems like you and Kim both liked it, though for different reasons, but to me it just went off the rails and could not redeem itself, as drama or farce.

Unlike DP, though, I do think Jody Hill should be applauded for trying to do something different. I may not have necessarily liked the result, but I would certainly give Hill's next film a chance.

Good new word in the "Should Critics Facebook Artists" homepage link: chary. We all have our blind spots and could be a little charier, like in exercising caution when assuming normal girls hate us and are just like mother who passes out drunk every night.

I think I would've like O&R better if I were sure that Hill intended certain developments, especially the ending, to be part of Ronnie's delusion. If he intended that, he failed miserably, because the only cues, if they ARE cues, are narrative and not stylistic. Extreme absurdity is never a guarantee that a film is breaking with its own reality. If Devin's right that the ending is a subversion of the typical Apatow ending, I'm not sure that's enough either -- though it may be more interesting. I think I have to stew on this one a while, because Hill's shifting tones really do muddy my response to the work.

Re Dave's take on Ronnie's mother: I don't see her as a booze "hider" at all. Yes, she is shown pouring booze into a plastic (soda?) bottle. But Ronnie is sitting right next to her, and she isn't trying to hide what she's doing. In at least one later scene, we see both the booze bottle and the soda bottle sitting side by side on the coffee table. Again, where's the hiding? I just thought she was using the soda or whatever as a mixer. So I think maybe Dave's riff on this bit is based on a misreading of what's on screen.

The only parts of this movie I didn't like were the parts with that sawed-off fat dwarf no-talent lead-singer-from-Accept-looking poseur hack Patton Oswalt.

That guy fucking blows.

And for all the detractors, I'm sure there's a nice Pixar kiddie cartoon on the horizon -- UP, perhaps -- that's more suited to your limp-dick, P.C., Monty Python-watching genteel ass.

Lex, how about you actually make an argument in favor of the movie instead of just spewing insults and garbage?

Okay.

This movie fucking rules and it was funny as FUCK when he and Pena beat the shit out of those kids.

Only thing that would've made it funnier is if the skaters had more specifically been L.A.-style "EMO" kids in their stupid black hooded sweatshirts.

Also, Anna Faris is hot in this movie and I wish I knew a chick who liked to party like that.

'...limp-dick, P.C., Monty Python-watching genteel ass'

i grew up on monty python and i'm pretty sure i could kick your chubbly fuckwit ass, lex luthor

Sorry, leah, you almost get a pass for being Commonwealth, but Americans who are into PYTHON (whatever the FUCK that is) are usually nerdy sketch comedy dweebs.

Other than John Cleese and Terry Gilliam, everything about Monty Python or anyone associated with it is PURE BULLSHIT. "Graham Chapman." What the fuck is THAT? Answer: British Bullshit. Don't forget to set the telly for KEEPING UP APPEARANCES and CRACKER while you're at it.

Americans: BETTER AT EVERYTHING THAN ANYONE. DEAL.

Also, I'm not chubby. I'm Rogen-sized.

Also, this just in: ANNA FARIS RULES.

Hmm. Sober Lex = angry at the world. Drunk Lex = angry at himself.

I prefer drunk Lex.

technically i said 'chubbly' with an 'l', meaning slightly chubby, but i'm willing to amend that to 'rogen-sized' (i'm assuming pre-superterrificrogenslim)

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