Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay - Review

Unbelievably, Kal Penn and John Cho are both in their 30’s, but they’re still the perfect image of mid-20’s slackerdom in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the sequel no one would have expected when Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle made just $18 million in theatres. But thanks to the wonders of DVD, America’s current favorite stoners are back, bringing with them pretty much everything that made us love them to begin with.

The movie kicks off literally minutes after the first one ended, with Harold (Cho) and Kumar (Penn) preparing to fly to Amsterdam and meet Harold’s dream girl, neighbor Maria (Paula Garcés). You’d expect them to get tangled up in airport security, but they make it onto the plane and into the tiny bathroom, where Kumar can’t resist taking a puff of his special no-smoke bong. It’s no surprise than an Indian-American wielding a battery-powered bong on an airplane is doomed, and before too long Harold and Kumar have been shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, shown no mercy from the crazed Homeland Security officer Ron (Rob Corddry).

It takes them all of five minutes to escape, thanks to some handy real terrorists in the next cell, and from there they’re on the run through the deep South, hoping to make it to Texas to break up the wedding between Kumar’s ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris) and her politically connected fiancée Colton (Eric Winter). Their adventures involve a bottomless (as opposed to topless) party in Miami, a creepy trailer in Alabama, a Klan rally, an urban neighborhood’s basketball game, and, of course, a run-in with Neil Patrick Harris, who takes them to what might actually be the best little whorehouse in Texas.

Mixed in with the madness, as in the first one, are a lot of jabs of America’s simultaneous racism and fear of sounding racist. Corddry’s Homeland Security agent is so flagrantly racist he tries to tempt Jewish witnesses with a jangling bag of pennies and actually wipes his ass with the Bill of Rights. Ed Helms shows up in an interrogation scene as an interpreter who can’t understand that Harold’s parents can speak English. The pokes at racism were funny enough in the first movie, but when linked in this way to the American government they take on a deeper, more barbed meaning. And given that Harold and Kumar escape prison with the help of terrorists, the movie deftly avoids doing anything remotely like defending terrorism. When one of the angry Al-Qaeda members tells Kumar that Americans need to eat fewer donuts and pay attention to the world, Kumar shouts back, “Fuck you! Donuts are awesome!” Case closed.

Cho and Penn continue being the best part of the series—it’s hard to imagine the first one succeeding without their charm and camaraderie. Penn even gets a chance to show off his real acting chops, in a flashback to college when Vanessa helped him break out of his nerd shell. The men make Harold and Kumar enough fun to spend time with, even when the jokes get slow and repetitive. Same goes for Neil Patrick Harris, who tries valiantly to make his on-screen persona different from the character he plays each week on How I Met Your Mother; it doesn’t really work except when Harris takes mushrooms, which is something no one on CBS primetime ever gets to do.

Harold and Kumar is a bit grosser than Judd Apatow’s usual fare, and won’t have quite the same crossover appeal as the equally stoned Knocked Up. But its fans will leave the theater happy. Provided they ever make it to the theater to begin with. Hard to smoke in a public place, you know.

The Forbidden Kingdom - Review

The Forbidden Kingdom features the first ever on screen pairing of cinema’s two greatest living martial arts legends: Jet Li and Jackie Chan. That alone makes this movie a must see for anyone and everyone, but screenwriter John Fusco and director Rob Minkoff have done more than simply throw two of kung fu’s most famous faces together in the same picture. They’ve crafted a magical film using both Chan and Li’s legendary reputations as the lynchpins in telling an entertaining, crowd-pleasing, action-fantasy story.

Initially the film pours itself into the mold of The Neverending Story, only this time the kid in question isn’t obsessed with old books, but with Kung Fu movies. Like Neverending’s Bastian, Jason is a social outcast accosted by almost cartoonish bullies. He finds comfort hanging out in a Chinatown store browsing for forgotten martial arts films and chatting with its elderly, somewhat cranky owner. Forbidden Kingdom isn’t copying The Neverending Story, it’s just tapping into those same, primal geek-energies by taking its character to a place every awkward, put-upon kid can understand. And like the Neverending Story, it uses that energy to form an instant, sympathetic connection with its audience for Jason, before launching him into a fantastical adventure.

At the back of the store, Jason finds an antique bowstaff which, when trouble starts, magically propels him back through time to an ancient, forgotten China ruled by an evil overlord. Lost and out of his element, Jason meets two legendary Kung Fu masters who take him under their wing and guide him down a path which will not only free China, but send him home. The masters in question are played by Jackie Chan and Jet Li, but they aren’t just played by them, they are them. Forbidden Kingdom gives them different names of course. Chan is a drunken Kung Fu master named Lu Yan, and Li is a pious monk named Lan Cai He. But the characters are written to be avatars composed of both Chan and Li’s greatest on screen moments, and the film takes advantage of the mystique and power of our past perception of these two actors to make them seem doubly heroic.

Because of the way it uses it’s stars, The Forbidden Kingdom delivers on every level, both as an fun, fantasy film and as a the long awaited, team-up tribute to the genre’s two greatest stars. Maybe it’s ten years too late, after all Chan and Li are now long past their prime, and Jackie in particular has been noticeably slipping in his most recent previous films. Years of insane stuntwork have taken a toll on both master’s bodies. It doesn’t matter. Whatever either of these men had left in the tank, they use it all up here. You’ll thrill as the film has them revisit and pay tribute to some of their greatest martial arts fight choreography, and then lets every fan live out every fantasy he’s had by making them use it on each other. And that’s just in the first thirty minutes.

The rest of the cast is just as good. Minkoff could have gotten away with casting blocks of wood and the audience probably still would’ve been happy, as long as Jackie and Jet go at it, but Michael Angarano is capable as the film’s lead. Minkoff uses him as a stand in for us, as a way for an audience of Jackie and Jet’s fans to put themselves in the movie and be transported to a world where they get to do Kung Fu with the artform’s greatest heroes.

Some of the villains are over the top, the effects are formidable, and fight scenes frequently disobey the laws of physics, but it’s all part of the fun. The Forbidden Kingdom is an unabashedly innocent, wide-eyed movie selling the ultimate in martial arts fantasy. It delivers beautifully, on every level with fight sequences that pop, breathtaking landscapes, and classic good guys versus bad guys family-friendly drama. Forget Batman vs. Superman. Jackie and Jet are bigger, better, and they’re together for the first, and almost certainly last time in a film that’s unbelievably worthy of playing host to their formidable reputations.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall - Review

I have seen far too much of Jason Segel’s penis today. Not that I can imagine there’s any day that would be a good day for me to see his penis, or to see it any more than I have seen it today. Regardless, I have seen too much of it, specifically after viewing Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I mention this because it really is the only bad thing I can think to say about the movie, which is an incredibly realistic yet comical look at breakups and the process that people go through when they’re dumped, with some good old-fashioned raunch comedy thrown in for good measure.

Written and starring Jason Segel, the movie tells the story of Peter, a composer who has been dating actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) for five years. Both work for a hit police drama TV show, allowing lots of jokes made at the expense of the overloaded C.S.I. genre. Within minutes of the movie’s start, Sarah dumps Peter, devastating the musician into a downward spiral that leads to him sleeping with every girl he meets and eventually attempting to get away from his life by taking a vacation to Hawaii… where Sarah and her new boyfriend also happen to be vacationing.

The movie keeps things moving at a brisk pace from the get-go. We get to know Peter quickly. Within five minutes we’ve seen him naked (including full-frontal nudity) and within six minutes Sarah has broken up with him. The pace does start to slow down a bit as Peter meets Rachel Jansen (Mila Kunis) and starts a new potential relationship with her, but that’s only to allow for some wonderfully awkward moments like a dinner between Peter, Rachel, Sarah, and her boyfriend, rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), where he shares his philosophy of being allowed to sleep with any woman he meets.

Anyone who has seen How I Met Your Mother or Veronica Mars is well acquainted with the talent of the primary cast members, although Kunis may surprise some people since she was so limited in That 70’s Show and Brand is a relative newcomer to American audiences. As a film produced in part by Judd Apatow, I expected to see a lot more of his regulars and was surprised not to see Seth Rogen put in an appearance (Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd both have small supporting roles which are well executed). The true standout of the supporting players is Jack MacBrayer, who has been making audiences laugh as Kenneth the page on 30 Rock and shows a more risqué edge to a similar character here as a newlywed virgin on his honeymoon.

The true strength of the film isn’t the cast, although they wind up benefiting from it. The strength is in the characters built by Segel’s script. The writer has crafted such well-rounded characters that there’s no clear cut villain for the story. Sure Sarah has broken Peter’s heart, but she’s really not a bad person; she just has some character flaws, as does Peter. Even Brand’s musician, who had been sleeping with Sarah for some time before she dumped Peter, isn’t completely villainous and has some redeeming qualities. Segel creates characters that are realistic. Let’s face it – when you’ve been dumped, there’s a part of you that still loves the person you lost, and that’s very easy to believe here because all of the characters have such depth. The actors have a lot to work with, resulting in stronger performances and making the whole story a success.

On top of such strong characters, Segel clearly has a good mind for comedy. Here it’s executed without any sort of limitations, from his shocking nudity to free discussion of adult concepts. It’ll be interesting to see what he can do in the future with his plans of a Muppet movie (which would require a very different comedic style than Sarah Marshall) but I have full faith that he can pull it off. He gets that the characters need to be strong and not just an excuse for a punchline – a good lesson I suspect he’s picked up from Apatow.

With a strong story and complex characterizations, Forgetting Sarah Marshall could easily earn the honor of being one of this year’s best comedies, although it’s potential audience may be limited a bit by its raunchy approach. Here’s hoping Segel can continue to craft stories like this in the future, although ironically a little less nudity might give the actor/writer a bit more exposure.

The Visitor - Review

As is the case with many character driven independent films, The Visitor focuses on one of those lives of quiet desperation. In this case, it’s Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins), a widowed economics professor living in Connecticut. Walter limits his contact with students, co-workers, and just about everyone else, spending his nights drinking wine and listening to classical music. Jenkins, who has a familiar face thanks to appearing as the doctor, executive, neighbor, or friend in every other movie you’ve ever seen, is brilliant at conveying a life that is basically over. He’s running out the clock and hardly fighting it, despite a half-hearted attempt to learn piano (the instrument his wife played.) Against his will, he’s assigned to go to New York to present a paper and heads down to stay in an apartment he owns but rarely visits.

When he arrives, he finds Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian musician, and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira), his girlfriend, living in the apartment, thanks to an unscrupulous real estate agent. Walter doesn’t have the heart to throw them out on the street and offers to let them stay while he's in the city for the conference. Zainab is wary due to the couple’s illegal residency status but Tarek, friendly and outgoing in an almost too good to be true way, begins to break through Walter’s wall by teaching him the drum. As Walter begins to come out of his shell, a little, Tarek is arrested following a misunderstanding in the subway and, due to his illegal alien status, is tossed into a “detention center” in Queens. This leads Tarek’s mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), to come out from Michigan and Walter invites her to stay in the apartment as well.

While all of this asking strangers to live with you sounds a bit far fetched, it feels very natural. The relationship between Walter and Tarek is a little “movie-cute” but enjoyable as Walter begins to reengage with part of society. It’s after Tarek is arrested however, that Walter is really forced to do what he seems to hate most, interact and care about other people. He’s not mean or unfeeling, he’s just been in a deep freeze for so long that he doesn’t have the ability to see things from anyone else’s point of view. Watching him warm up is really a joy and the budding relationships between Walter and Tarek and, later, Walter and Mouna are perfect in tone and nuance.

The film is fairly quiet and character driven, although it does touch on the politics of immigration. Tarek is such a nice and friendly guy that his arrest and detention seem to be fear and bureaucracy run amok. The fact that he is, in fact, in the country illegally is mostly brushed aside. Several characters point out that he “didn’t do anything,” but, of course, he did. That said, with the exception of a couple of outbursts and a few subtle ironic posters and visual images, McCarthy mostly lets the humor, tenderness, and humanity of his characters take precedence over political diatribes. It’s the smart choice.

While all four leads turn in strong performances, the movie rises on Jenkins’ talent, which is formidable. He turns Walter into a real person rather than a cliché and that, in turn, makes the whole movie work. Even hard hearted conservatives, like myself, will find much to like in this quiet and actorly film.