5/2/14: You Horny Little Devil, You

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Ana Gasteyer, Anna Kendrick, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Bjorn Yearwood, black comedies, Calum Worthy, Chris Matheson, cinema, comedies, Craig Robinson, Earl Gundy, end of the world, fantasy, film reviews, films, giant lasers, God vs the Devil, Jesse Camacho, John Francis Daley, Ken Jeong, Lil' Beast, Movies, Paul Middleditch, Paul Scheer, plague of locusts, Rapture-Palooza, Rob Corddry, Robert C. New, the Antichrist, the Beast, The Greatest American Hero, the Rapture, Thomas Lennon, Tyler Labine, voice-over narration, wraiths

If you think about it, nothing happens without some kind of bureaucracy. What to change your name? Fill out a form in triplicate. Shoot an armed robber during a bank heist? Make sure your commander gets the paperwork by the end of the day. Need a loan? Sign here, here and initial here. Hell, even selling your soul requires a contract: you can be damn sure the Devil had his lawyers look at it, so you probably should, too. After all, who could possibly be more well-qualified to be the “patron saint” of paperwork and bureaucracy than ol’ Scratch, himself? Paul Middleditch’s newest film, Rapture-Palooza (2013), takes this idea one step further, positing a post-Rapture world where the plague of locusts may be a bummer but it’s the middle managers that really get ya down.

Lindsey (Anna Kendrick) and Ben (John Francis Daley) are a couple of kids who happen to be in love. They also happen to have been left behind by the Rapture, an event which we first see during an intense bowling game (natch). Lindsey and Ben may have been damned to spend the remainder of their lives in a fiery wasteland populated by dope-smoking wraith security guards (Tyler Labine and Paul Scheer), haranguing human-faced locusts (Suffer! Suffer!) and raining blood (more of an irritation than a horror, since the damn blood gets everywhere and windshield wipers just smear that shit around) but they’ve got each other and that’s good enough for them. Complications arise, however when the Antichrist, one Earl Gundy (Craig Robinson) takes a lascivious interest in the virginal Lindsey. Since this is, after all, his world now, Gundy swipes Lindsey, determined to break through her demure protests and make her his infernal queen. Ben, for his part, just wishes his Gundy-employed dad, Mr. House (Rob Corddry), would quit trying to set up Lindsey with the Devil, in order to curry favor.

Eventually, all hell breaks loose (even more than usual, let’s say) and Ben takes on the Antichrist’s minions, with the help of Lindsey’s drug-dealing brother, Clark Lewis (yes, his name really is Clark Lewis) and his best buddy, Fry (Jesse Camacho). The Devil won’t go down without a fight and a quip (or three), however, and things get even messier when Jesus (Mark Wynn) and God (Ken Jeong) show up. Spoiler alert: God’s just as big a dick as the Devil, at least when you’re one of the “little” people. Through it all, however, Lindsey and Ben never lose sight of one thing: if you’ve got true love, you don’t need eternal salvation…just a little sandwich cart and a piece of Apocalypse to call your own.

Similar to the way in which 1997 featured the dueling volcano films Volcano and Dante’s Peak (which, I think, were basically the same film), 2013 featured dueling post-Rapture films: James Franco’s in-joke This is the End and Rapture-Palooza. While I genuinely enjoyed This is the End (which, ironically, also featured Robinson), there was a lot of the film that was too meta and self-concerned to be much use for the average viewer (read: anyone who wasn’t actually in the movie). I found myself smiling quite a bit and appreciated how smart the whole thing was (and it really was a smart film, despite my natural desire to slam Franco for simply existing) but I didn’t find it uproariously funny, bar a few moments (Michael Cera, for the win). Rapture-Palooza, on the other hand, is extremely funny, packed with so many righteously hilarious bits that picking favorites was a little hard.

I absolutely adored the locusts and wraiths (I’ll watch Tyler Labine do anything, including reading a grocery list) but there were dozens of other bits that caught my eye/tickled my funny-bone: Gundy’s son, Lil’ Beast; the surface-to-air anti-Jesus laser; Jeong’s wonderful slant on God as an irritable jerk; that damn sandwich cart; Ana Gasteyer getting sent back to Earth, post-Rapture, for being “too annoying”…these and many more provided a near constant source of amusement throughout the film. My rules for comedy are generally pretty open: just make me laugh and I’m a happy guy. Rapture-Palooza made me laugh more often than not, so that’s a big check mark in the “Positive” category.

The biggest check mark in the “Negative” category? That would have to be Robinson’s endless and increasingly obnoxious sexual innuendos and come-ons. The whole plot of the film is precipitated on the Antichrist desiring Lindsey: we get that. When every third thing out of Robinson’s mouth is another tired variation on “hide the salami,” however, things get old awfully quick. Even more iffy is the notion that 99% of his “jokes” and innuendo involve raping Lindsey, something which never makes for good humor. Since Lindsey has made her feelings plainly clear and repeatedly (and clearly) said “no” in any given situation, it’s hard not to see the Devil’s continued attempts as anything short of an attempt to take her by force. At one point, the Antichrist even makes it plainly clear, telling Lindsey that she’s going to “get it,” whether she wants it or not. While I get what the filmmakers were going for and fully acknowledge that Robinson is known for a bit o’ the dirty talk, I always found this aspect of the film to be in bad taste. Truthfully, without the excessively “rapey” jokes, I would have found Rapture-Palooza to be a nearly perfect film, at least for my sensibilities.

This reliance on aggressively bad taste is a shame, really, because the 1% of Robinson’s dialogue that isn’t given over to imaginative euphemisms for intercourse is pretty spectacular. Robinson is an incredibly gifted comedian, a performer who has a way with a withering line (and glance) that’s almost peerless: his work on The Office is a master-class in the “friendly asshole.” When Gundy isn’t obsessed with Lindsey’s lady parts, he’s spot-on fantastic, no more so than his interactions with his son, Lil’ Beast (Bjorn Yearwood). The Antichrist shows such disdain for his son that it becomes a running joke and a marvelously cruel one, at that. Perhaps it speaks more to my sense of humor but Robinson’s delivery of the line, “Don’t be a dud, little fucker,” made me laugh so hard that I cried. Really. I just wish there were more moments like that in  Robinson’s performance and fewer bits that made me cringe.

The rest of the cast ranges from good to pretty great, with only Gasteyer’s shrill, over-the-top performance as being a bit of a wet blanket. Corddry is fantastic as Ben’s practical, if spectacularly untrustworthy father and Calum Worthy brings just the right touch of “douchbaggery” to his portrayal of Lindsey’s brother. I wish Labine and Scheer (so wonderful as the idiotic Andre on The League) had bigger roles, since either one of them could have carried a lead or supporting performance on their own. What’s here is excellent, however, and I’ll never get tired of Scheer’s pot-smoking wraith, especially when he’s berating Corddry: the whole ensemble has great chemistry together.

While there are plenty of big names/faces in front of the camera, two of the behind-the-scenes folk are just as interesting. The sharp, witty screenplay was written by Chris Matheson, better known as the scribe behind Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). Matheson’s script is full of great lines and scenes…when it isn’t overly focused on Robinson’s potty-mouth, that is. Nonetheless, there were enough genuinely great moments to make me wish Matheson would write more. He appears to be working on an adaptation of The Greatest American Hero which could be pretty great (remake notwithstanding) if he brought a tenth of the energy and nerve from this script. Cinematography duties on Rapture-Palooza, meanwhile, were handled by another ’80s-’90s-era vet, Robert C. New. While he might not be a household name, genre fans should be more than familiar with his work, since he served as director of photography on films like Prom Night (1980), Night of the Creeps (1986), Big Bad Mama II (1987) and John McNaughton’s classic, The Borrower (1991). Thanks to New, Rapture-Palooza always looks great, with vibrant colors and plenty of nicely composed shots: it looks like the furthest thing from a cheaply made, direct-to-video offering possible, even if it never received much (if any) theatrical love.

Ultimately, Rapture-Palooza, like Kevin Smith’s Dogma (1999) is one of those films that’s designed to split an audience in half. If you have any reverence for religion, particularly Christianity, this might not be the film for you. While the movie frequently takes easy potshots at its targets (to be honest, the last secular film that dealt with the Rapture in any way other than humorously was the odd Mini Driver-starrer The Rapture (1991) ), its final revelation may be a bit much for some people: to find true peace, humans need to give up their reliance on religion. While it’s not a surprising revelation (I would have been more surprised had this ended with a truly religious message, to be honest), it’s definitely something that might tune a few people out. If you have an open-mind, however, and are in the mood for some rude laughs, Rapture-Palooza could just be a little slice of Heaven on Earth. It’s the end of the world, as we know it…and it feels good.

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1/15/14: Hollywood Deja Vu

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Apocalypse, celebrities, cinema, comedies, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, dark comedies, end of the world, Film, Hollywood, James Franco, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, meta-films, Michael Cera, Movies, Seth Rogen, This is the End

Any film that delves into the metaphysics of storytelling/genre automatically sets itself up with a big handicap. When done properly, a film like that can blow up a genre from the inside-out, revealing nuances and tropes that only a hardcore fan would ever appreciate. Wes Craven did this, with some success, in his Scream franchise (full disclosure: I’ve never been a big fan) and Joss Whedon did it to spectacular effect in Cabin in the Woods. The Airplane films were great examples of self-referential comedies that also succeeded in commenting on their source materials. Less successfully, we have things like the Scary Movie franchise and any of the endless low-brow offerings that slavishly parody current films (Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie, et al). These are films that understand only the basest level of what they seek to mock: if the little girl in The Exorcist barfed up a gallon in the original, make her barf up an airplane hangar in the parody. You know…the easy way out.

If making a meta-film about a particular genre or subject is difficult, how much more difficult must it be to make a meta-film about actual, real people? For my money, I can think of very few films that have even attempted this, much less pulled it off. Spike Jonze gave us the head-scratcher that was Being John Malkovich and (somehow) wormed his way into the cultural zeitgeist. More recently, we had A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III which, although not explicitly about lead Charlie Sheen, was pretty obviously about Charlie Sheen.

The big problem, in some ways, is that the average audience member has absolutely no connection with people like John Malkovich and Charlie Sheen: we only have their films, live appearances and tabloid gossip to give us any sort of indication as to their actual personalities. Since there’s an inherent element of classism to most of our preconceived notions on celebrities, it’s always nice when these fine men and women reinforce our opinions. We’d like to think that Sheen is as much of a loose cannon in real life as he was in his many cinematic appearances: all sources seem to point to “yes.” We’d like to believe that Tom Hanks is as nice in real life as his endless film portrayals of such seem to indicate: not much to indicate the contrary, at least thus far.

How best, then, to head off any criticism of your personality/values/actions? Why, beat the naysayers to the punch, that’s how! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what writer/actor and now director Seth Rogen has done with This is the End. By presenting himself and his cadre of famous comedian friends (James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Michael Cera) as being, essentially, as obnoxious as many people probably assume they are, he’s taken the words right out of our mouths and, in the process, crafted one of the funniest, smartest meta-films in quite some time.

The plot, such as it is, is pretty simple: Jay Baruchel has come to Los Angeles to visit his (presumed) best friend, Seth Rogen. Jay’s not much for the hustle and bustle of Hollywood, whereas Seth appears to have made himself pretty happy with mover-and-shaker party monsters like James Franco and Michael Cera. As Jay and Seth bicker over the changing nature of their friendship, something sort of significant happens: the Rapture. Once all of the “good” people are gone, Jay, Seth and their egotistical friends are left with, literally, Hell on earth. They must do all they can to avoid flaming bottomless pits, hell-hounds and the Devil himself, all while trying to put back together the pieces of their shattered lives. And keep McBride from eating all the goddamn food, of course.

Let’s just get the bad stuff out of the way first, shall we? For my money, there was a bit more bathroom humor in this than I normally care for: chalk this up to personal preference but there it is. There was also a tendency for the effects to vacillate between really effective and kinda dodgy, with the climax of the film sporting the majority of the dodgy moments. I also wish they had left the possession subplot on the cutting-room floor. I realize why they did it (set up a parallel between the affected character’s pre-/post-possession behaviour) but it dragged a bit and ended up yielding more gross and/or unnecessary moments than it did treasures.

And that, friends and neighbors, is just about as negative as I can really go with This is the End. Everything else in the film works, either spectacularly well or at least well enough to get you to the next audacious moment. What to single out…what to single out…well, let’s start with the razor-sharp dialogue. Forget all of the Hollyweird parody (which is, admittedly, very funny): This is the End is one great line after another. From the subtle (“Your references are out of control”: a reverent Jonah Hill to Jay; Seth’s classic explanation of gluten as a generic term for anything bad or unhealthy) to the ridiculously underplayed (“So, last night, something not chill happened…”: one of the characters after being raped by a demon) to the absolutely outrageous (“I call him Channing Tate-YUM!”), This is the End is one laugh-out-loud line after another. Truth be told, I was often laughing so hard from one scene to the next that I would miss what was (I’m sure) even more funny lines: this is definitely something that could benefit from repeat viewings.

If This is the End were just great dialogue, however, we’d still only have an interesting experiment. Rogen, however, has made damn sure that he and his famous friends have enough stuff going on to last through ten apocalypses. We get Michael Cera as the most amazing, sleazy, creepy character ever created (please, please, please let this be his true self! Please!); Craig Robinson singing “Take Off Your Panties” to Rihanna in the middle of a crowded party, complete with merciless come-back; Craig and Jay fighting a giant monster dog (shades of Ghostbusters); a kitchen-sink reenactment of Pineapple Express 2 (almost worth the price of admission on its own); Danny McBride making one of the top-five entrances in the history of cinema (no hyperbole: it really was that good of an entrance); Jonah sleeping “Scarface-style” with Jay and Seth; James Franco and McBride having an imaginary “cum fight” (really must be seen to be believed); an armed and dangerous Emma Watson and one of the best uses of “I Will Always Love You” ever committed to film. Ever.

Is This is the End a perfect film? Far from it. Unlike something like Tucker & Dale vs Evil, for example, This is the End spends a pretty fair amount of its time spinning wheels (they’re funny wheels, don’t get me wrong, but they do tend to go round and round and round and…). It’s a longish film (almost two hours) which is always a dangerous tack for a comedy, especially one with such a high energy level. Ultimately, though, these are pretty minor quibbles.

I went in to this expecting some mindless, good-natured celebrity-bashing (albeit bashing administered by those being bashed, similar to Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes victims handing him lists of bullet-points before the ceremony) and some goofy end-of-the-world humor but was pleasantly surprised to find much more. At its heart, This is the End is really about Jay and Seth’s (on-air, at least) friendship and the ways in which we all much continue to grow as people. That a message this sweet and positive can be crammed in between multiple dick and Exorcist jokes is, if you think about it, something of a modern miracle. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t take long for Seth and the guys to pull their cinematic alter-egos out of mothballs and give this whole thing another shot.

I, for one, would love to see these goons pull off a good ol’ fashioned bank heist: somebody get Rogen working on that, stat!