Sunday, June 11, 2006

VinceVaughnathon

Had a little VinceVaughnathon with the wifey this weekend. That is if you can call two movies an -athon. I'm calling it.

Friday we went to see The Break Up at the local megalopoplex. It's a c0uple of weeks into the run, but still a pretty full theatre, so good for you ... Jence? Vinnifer? We'll call it Vinnifer.

The movie starts out with a full head of steam. Soon after a quick recount of their cute meet at Wrigley Field we watch Vinnifer explode in a fit of ill will and recriminations. Gary (that's Vince) is a bit of a slob who doesn't help Brooke (that's Jen) with ... anything. Brooke is a bit of a control freak who won't let Gary get a pool table. Seriously.

The breakup scene itself is a really quite realistic portrayal of how things can get out of hand so rapidly that you quickly find yourself saying things you soon wish you hadn't, but which you can't stuff back into your mouth and unsay.

So anyway, that's it for them as a couple. The problem is the choice bit of real estate that is their jointly-owned Chicago condo. Neither will just hand it over, and neither can buy out the other -- so eventually they're forced to sell. In the meantime, of course, they're still living together -- albeit in separate rooms -- and busily trying to get the other to be the first to admit to the breakup regret that they both feel.

In the end, neither is able to saddle up and tell the other that they're sorry and want them back, so they go around and around and around, then eventually sell the condo and the breakup is complete.

Well, maybe. A tacked-on little coda leaves the door open for a future reconciliation -- even though things won't work out any better then. Fact is that these two are an unlikely pair, and both would have been better off just breaking up and moving on. But that ending wouldn't be quite enough like every other movie you've ever seen that is exactly like this.

Part II of the Vaughnathon was a rental last night of Wedding Crashers. I know, I know, I'm probably the last person in the world to see this movie, but what the hell -- now everyone has seen it, OK?

Can one of you other six billion tell me what all the fuss was about?

Wedding Crashers in two words? Not funny.

I'd heard that the first 45 minutes or so were kick-ass funny, and the rest kind of petered out. Not so much.

True enough that the last 1:15 wasn't that great (that's right, at least on the video this was a 2 hour movie). Trouble was that the first 45 minutes also had pretty much zero laughs.

Listen, I'm as big a fan of Owen Wilson as anyone else, but even he can't carry a movie like this if he's got nothing funny to say. Maybe he's just better off writing his own stuff. And if Owen can't pull it off, Vin's got no hope.

Once the pair is spirited off to Christopher Walken's estate (this is Christopher Walken doing a Christopher Walken imitation, b/t/w) the movie drags to a complete stop. Will Ferrell (of course) makes a quick cameo and provides a little pulse and some laughs as the uber-playa that taught Vince the trade of crashing-weddings-to-get-laid (he's since moved up to crashing funerals), but it's all in the service of no plot and no laughs so it's too little, too late.

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