The Great Gatsby

            Warning: I have not read 'The Great Gatsby' nor did I know anything about it going into the weekend.  My small rural school did not make it required reading nor did my 20 year fantasy/sci-fi bender slow down long enough for me to catch up on what is widely considered to be an American Classic.  For better or for worse, I will be judging the movie as a movie.

           

            On to the review!

            The first thing I have to say about The GreatGatsby is centered on the director, Baz Luhrmann.  He directed one movie I love to watch when I need to shut my brain up, Moulin Rouge, and another movie that I don't mind at all, Romeo+ Juliet.  He has a very, shall we say, distinct style in that everything he does is incredibly loud and bright as fuck.  There is not a single color in the goddamn spectrum visible by birds that Baz has failed to use in his films.  He is a bright, ostentatious, over-the-top sort of guy.

            This is fine for a movie like Moulin Rouge where even when things get serious the film deliberately relies on overacting, melodramatics and ridiculousness.  It is not, however, fine for a film that involves any sort of subtlety.

            The Great Gatsby is a narrative within a narrative.  It is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) who has moved to New York City to try his hand at the stock market.  He rents a tiny cabin in a very ritzy area, which puts him right next to Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).  Gatsby happens to throw giant parties every weekend, where a veritable who's-who of New Yorkers show up just to get drunk and revel.  Eventually, Nick is invited and ends up befriending Gatsby, impressed by his kindness and honesty.  Little does Nick realize, however, that Gatsby has an ulterior motive.

            For those of you who have not read the book, I do not want to spoil anything else, as it is a decent story.  For those of you who have read the book, you don't need me to tell you what happens next. What you want to know is, is it worth paying money to see this adaptation? 

            No, no it is not.

            Here's why:  While the party scenes are most definitely Baz Luhrmann (loud, ostentatious, over-the-top) the rest of the movie suffers under his heavy hand.  The bright colors may be useful for the bright scenes, but when the script turns dark he has no idea what to do.  Even during some of the most dramatic moments one cannot help but laugh at how ridiculously cartoonish the entire world looks.  It's almost as if he tried to recreate the set of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

            On top of that, the characters are given a little bit too much free reign to overact.  While DiCaprio again amazes me with his acting ability, Tobey Maguire falls flat a few times, giving the wrong faces for the wrong scenes.  While he makes up for it towards the end, the middle part is frustratingly difficult to put up with.  The same goes for Carey Mulligan as his cousin Daisy Buchanan.  Both her and Joel Edgerton (as Daisy's rich husband, Tom Buchanan) are caricatures of people.  It's downright frustrating to watch.

            Then there's the soundtrack.  While his mix of old and new worked great in Moulin Rouge his attempts at recreating that same sound here are laughably terrible.  Rather than modernize that amazing 20's sound, Baz went and took all the new rap, hip-hop and rock he could find and tried to cram it into a 20's setting.  No, throwing in a jazz trumpet does not automatically make something sound old-school. 

            Basically, The Great Gatsby is a giant mess.  Overwrought, overdramatic, overacted, overmusic'd (that's a thing now), over colored and overly ostentatious.  I think I'm gonna go read the book now.

Two For One Special: Zero Dark Thirty/Shame

            I now live near a Fry's Electronics.  But it's ok, I don't like having money anyways.

            On to the review(s)!

            I've been doing some catching up on good movies and I wanted to share two of them with you.  On Monday, I watched my newly-owned BluRay of Zero Dark Thirty and yesterday I had time to view my Netflix copy of Shame.  Two completely different films that are similar in that they both unfold with painstakingly slow efficiency.

            Zero Dark Thirty is about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, but it is much more than that.  By taking the route of following one CIA agent, Maya (Jessica Chastain) from 2001 until the raid on Bin Laden's compound in 2012, it charts a very difficult and oftentimes uncomfortable course.  This movie is not just about how we found America's most wanted terrorist, it also highlights how we have changed and adapted to danger over the last decade.

            Throughout the film, Maya is forced to come to terms with the very harsh tactics that America was willing to use to get confessions and information from known and suspected terrorists.  In fact, much of the beginning of the film highlights our torture techniques to the point that if you aren't squirming uncomfortably in your seats, you're probably former CIA Black Ops.       We follow Maya from one lead to another, one country to another, always with world events occurring in the background.  Occasionally those world events happen in the foreground, surprising both the characters and the audience with their devastation and ferocity. 

            Of course, we all know how the film ends.  But the last 30 minutes, in which we actually witness a fictionalized account of the raid on Bin Laden's compound, is so amazingly captivating that I found myself unwilling to blink for long stretches of time.

            Director Kathryn Bigelow is now my favorite go-to director for honest, gritty, realistic takes on the trials and tribulations of war.

            Shame, meanwhile, is all about Brandon (Michael Fassbender).  Although for some damn reason I kept hearing it as Random and I thought that would be a pretty cool name.  Brandon is a sex addict.  We know this, because the entire film is basically dedicated to reminding the audience of this fact whenever possible.  His days are perfectly routine, and his every action seems predicated on the knowledge that he will be able to free up enough time to masturbate, have sex, or pay for a hooker.

            His routine is interrupted, however, when his little sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shows up and begs to crash on his couch.  Now that he no longer has the freedom to do what he wants, when he wants, he starts to lose control.

            Where Zero Dark Thirty was a slow film that eventually built up to a tense, fantastic last 30-or-so minutes, Shame is a slow film that eventually builds up to a climactic final 3 minutes.  And by climactic, I mean that something happens that doesn't take 15 minutes of slow, lingering camera-work to digest. 

            Shame is not a bad movie at all, but it is a patience-tester.  If you want your plot spoon fed to you, or if you don't like movies where you actually have to pay attention to the characters to see their emotions rather than have them tell you what they're thinking, you're going to have a bad time with this one.

            Also, it's NC-17 due to gratuitous early shots of Lil' Fassbender and lots of interspersed female nudity.  The entire film is about a sex addict, after all.

            At least I can now say that I've seen Michael Fassbender urinate, so there's something.

Our Idiot Brother

            Sometimes you watch a movie on a whim.  Sometimes you watch a movie because it's from your favorite director.  Sometimes you really love the star of the film.

            But sometimes, just sometimes, you check out a movie because you're intensely curious about it.  Sometimes a film looks way outside your preferred genres but something compels you to watch it anyways.  That was the case with me yesterday.

            On to the review!

            I don't much care for feel-good movies.  They're usually too predictable for me to get into the film, and the cast generally doesn't do enough to keep me interested.  This includes most romantic comedies as well as the touchy-feely indie/comedy movie that crops up once or twice a year.  Little Miss Sunshine made me flinch just as much as laugh, and I generally avoid these types of films unless straight-up hands me the DVD and tells me to watch it.

            Fortunately, I've found one of my few exceptions.  I cannot say enough good things about Our Idiot Brother.

            In it, Paul Rudd stars as Ned, a super-positive hippie with absolutely no common sense.  The movie starts off with him selling weed to a uniformed police officer, sending him directly to jail, skipping go, and certainly not collecting $200 let alone the price of the dime bag.

            Once he gets out, he tries to go home to his girlfriend Jan (Kathryn Hahn), but she's moved on.  With little other choice, he starts crashing with family.  First his mother Ilene (Shirley Knight), then his three sisters.

            Each sister, however, has problems of their own.  Oldest sister Liz (Emily Mortimer) is having marital issues with husband Dylan (Steve Coogan), and their son River (Matthew Mindler) is a miserable child.  Sister Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) is a bossy go-getter who only wants to get ahead in her job and the only man in her life is neighbor Jeremy (Adam Scott), who she treats like a manservant more than a friend.  Finally, Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a free-spirit who lives with her girlfriend Cindy (Rashida Jones) and doesn't do much in the way of real work.

            Got all that?  Good.  What you'll notice, though, is that this film is absolutely studded with indie darlings and people we tend to root for more often than not.  The cast is quite literally so chock-full of actors and actresses that I like to see that it seemed almost like a ploy.  As if the film was saying "even if it sucks, you're going to watch it because you love these people." 

            Fortunately, it does everything but suck. 

            As Ned bounces around, his pure naivety and honest nature gets him in trouble with one sibling after another.  Of course nothing is actually his fault, but he is the catalyst that gets everyone else in their own personal hot water. 

            It sounds pretty simple laid out like that, but Paul Rudd is so winning in his role, and everyone else seems so perfectly cast to their character type that you can't help but smile the entire damn movie.  Even as things go to shit, you just know, deep down, that they'll get better.  But it's not the plot that is so winning, it's the cast.

            I know I often praise this person or that actress for being great in their role, but it's rare that every single damn person in a film perfectly inhabits their character.

            If you enjoyed Little Miss Sunshine or just like happy ending films, watch Our Idiot Brother, because it is undoubtedly the cream of the crop.

Lincoln

My thoughts on Lincoln in bullet-point format.

·         Daniel Day-Lewis will join Denzel Washington on the Best Actor list come Oscar time.

·         Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in this too?  Is there some sort of new rule that he must appear in 25% of all new movies?

·         Tommy Lee Jones looks old.  I mean old.  He's amazing and all, and it's nice to see him chew the shit out of all the scenery, but when did he get so painfully decrepit?  Just looking at the bags underhis eyes made me want to sleep for weeks.

·         Sally Field is amazing, which is good, because I think she's 33% of all women with speaking roles.

·         It's PG-13, but there are a few points where you might not be totally comfortable with a 13-15 year old watching.  At the very least, be ready for a healthy discussion afterwards.

·         Spielberg is in fine form with Lincoln but he still hasn't shaken his inability to end a film.  This could have been shortened by two scenes and a good 15 minutes and, like AI, it may have actually been better without the coda.

·         Moriarty playing Ulysses S. Grant was weird.

·         Every time you recognize a new character on screen, take a shot.  You'll be legally dead by the 50 minute mark.

·         I'm ready to say that this is the definitive Lincoln performance.  I'm glad that so much research was done.  According to historical sources, yes, his voice really did sound more like this and not some sort of bear-like rumble.

·         150 minutes rarely pass by so quickly.

·         The Biopic is the new War Movie.  Everybody wants in.

·         How many people are going to be genuinely surprised by the factual politics?  School does NOT go this in depth.

·         We need more imaginative name-calling in Congress.

·         I'm not big on biographies, but I want to read more about Lincoln and the 13th Amendment just because of this film.  Go see it.  Now.

They Might Be Giants

            I am convinced that George C. Scott was 45 years old the moment he was born.

            On to the review!

            I opened up the film-watching decisions to the internet and the first suggestion was They Might Be Giants, a 1971 drama/comedy (no, I’m not saying dramedy.  You can’t make me).  The plot seems pretty simple at first, but then it fortunately (and fantastically) goes off the rails. 

            Justin Playfair (George C. Scott) is a brilliant former lawyer and judge who, after the loss of his wife, had a mental breakdown and now believes that he is Sherlock Holmes.  His brother Blevins (BLEVINS), played by Lester Rawlins, is a total dickbag and wants his brother’s entire estate handed over to his control.  Just such a thing can happen if Justin…err…Sherlock…is committed to the loony bin.

            The doctor responsible for making that decision is Dr. Mildred….dun-dun-DUN…Watson!  Played by Joanne Woodward, Watson finds the perfect balance between curiosity, excitement and exasperation as she deals with all of Justin/Sherlock's shenanigans.

            Fortunately the main plot is set aside quickly to become almost an afterthought until the last quarter of the film.  Instead we get to watch Justin/Sherlock traipse around New York City looking for clues that will lead him to Moriarty.  Justin/Sherlock constantly skirts the law as he skips from random encounter to random encounter, his troubled mind always turning happy accidents into deliberate clues. 

            Yeah, it’s a little schlocky at times, but there is a true sense of wonder and mystery surrounding our characters.  Watson undergoes your typical transformation from stuffy to eagerly hopeful, but she doesn’t do it in such a way as to be a corny character.  More importantly, George C. Scott is fantastic as Sherlock.  He plays the character with aplomb, and even though you know from the plot that he’s not really Sherlock, he does his best to make you forget.  Seeing Sherlock navigate the filthy streets of 70’s NYC with such confidence and poise is very entertaining.

            There really aren’t too many other people that I recognized in the film, what with being negative 10 when it came out.  Rue McClanahan (Blanche from Golden Girls) plays a small part as Blevins’ wife, and Al Lewis (Grandpa from The Munsters!) has an entertaining bit part.

            When all is said and done, They Might Be Giants is a really interesting, entertaining take on the Sherlock mythos.  Can anyone be like Sherlock Holmes if they simply pay attention and expand their mind?  Is Sherlock an idea as much as he is a ‘person?’  Do we all have our own Moriarty?

            In all, I enjoyed They Might Be Giants.  It was fun, had just enough humor to keep it from being a depressing film about a nutcase, and between this, Patton and The Changeling, I’m becoming a huge George C. Scott fan.

Flight

            I really wanted to see Man With The Iron Fists this weekend.  I really did.  I love every single aspect of the film, from the director to the producer to the actors.  The plot looks solid and the film strikes me as a good time.

           

            On to the review!

            So anyways, I saw Flight this weekend, and it's nice to see Robert Zemeckis direct a movie that didn't involve the uncannyvalley.  For a man who was pretty damn awesome for so long (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cast Away) I feared his releases for the last decade or so (Beowulf, The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol).  That there are almost no special effects in Flight is awesome.

            I recently received some constructive criticism that I may be a bit too spoiler-heavy, so let me try to relate why you should watch Flight during this crowded film season without giving anything away.

            Denzel Washington is Whip Whitaker, a supremely confident yet troubled pilot.  The opening scene does everything in its power to drive home the fact that Whip is not a hero per se, merely a man who performs a heroic act.  As you've seen by the trailer, he kind of lands a passenger aircraft under duress, at one point even flying upside-down.

            What the trailer doesn't tell you is that his story intertwines with that of Nicole (Kelly Reilly).  They meet shortly after the crash, and discover that they both have some demons that may or may not need exorcising.

            Most of the film follows Whip as he tries to deal with life during the lead-up to a hearing held after the crash investigation.  One of the things I liked most about Flight is how realistic the plot was.  After a crash, everything needs to be investigated and a scapegoat needs to be found.  The union wants to blame the airline or the manufacturer, while neither the airline nor the parts manufacturers are willing to take blame either.  This cat-fighting really helps add to the overarching tension of the movie.

            In Whip's corner are his union-appointed attorney Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), his union rep Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood)--who also served with Whip in the Navy--and Whip's lawyer, Harling Mays (John Goodman).  While everyone does a great job in their roles, Goodman once again delivers an outstanding, outsized performance despite limited screen time.  In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen Goodman in a movie--good or bad--where I didn't like his performance.  He's like a much larger Christopher Walken.

            While a bit on the long side at 138 minutes, Flight makes up for it by rewarding your patience with incredible acting everywhere you look.  At no point was I bored or restless, nor did it seem that anyone in the theater could tear their eyes off the screen for even a moment.  Hell, this is the first time I can remember where not a single person in front of me (and I always sit in the back) got up to use the restroom!

            I absolutely will not be surprised to see Denzel Washington nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, and I would not be disappointed to see him win it.  He plays such a morally ambiguous character to such perfection that you are constantly unsure if you should root for or against him. 

            It's good to see Zemeckis back and directing people who are just people, not CGI or motion capture.  He still has incredibly skills, and this story keeps you guessing until the final scene.  You may hate me for this, but I don't care: I say this is far better than Forrest Gump and almost as good as Cast Away.

Goon

            Thanks to the 4th of July's The Amazing Spider-Man release and the push to still get movies out on Fridays, the only option here in Mississippi this weekend was the new Ice Age film.  When I began doing Mainstreamin' I said I wouldn't review children's films, and I've mostly stuck to that.  Because of that I had absolutely no idea what to write about.  None.

            Thankfully, Netflix has saved me again and I've decided to review an overlooked future classic.  I watched this film two weeks ago and was incredibly impressed.

            Now, it's not like I hadn't heard of it before, it's just that I had a hard time believing what everyone else was saying.  I like Sean William Scott, but I'm not exaggeration when I say that some people were trumpeting this as his film.

            I wasn't sure what to think, but now I'm a believer.  All thanks to Goon.

On to the review!

            In Goon, Sean William Scott is Doug Glatt, slow-witted son of Doctor Glatt (Eugene Levy) and brother of Doctor Glatt, who also happens to be gay (plot-point).  While his parents and brother embody the Jewish Stereotype (hell, his father flat-out expects it from his children), Doug is a simple bouncer whose only skill is the ability to beat the ever-loving shit out of people.

            This skill pays off while attending a local hockey game.  Doug's just trying to enjoy the game when his friend ticks off one of the players so much, the guy climbs the glass, looking for a fight.  Unfortunately for him, he hurls a few anti-gay slurs at Doug.  This leads to the entire stadium witnessing the guy's massive beat-down by Doug's hands.

            This stadium fight gets Doug a job offer on the local team, and his showcased fighting skills eventually get him a contract with the Halifax Highlanders, a Minor League hockey team.  The thing is, the part of Doug that matters to the Highlanders are his fists.  His job is to protect talented-but-skittish potential star, Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), and demolish any opponent that tries to hurt his teammates.

            Thing is, Doug may be a little dumb, but deep down he's a really sweet guy.  He fights because he wants to protect his teammates.  He often apologizes to the guys he just finished knocking unconscious, and while I can't say that violence is his last resort, he really wants to do good by people.

            I know that I'm making this out to be some sort of underdog drama, but that's only half of it.  Goon is a sports movie done in the classic old-school style.  This is 2011's The Longest Yard (1974 version, of course).  This is the sort of movie you watch if you love Slap Shot, The Bad News Bears, or Major League.

            You've got the angry coach (Kim Coates), the obnoxious best friend (Jay Baruchel), a love interest (Alison Pill, yay!), a slightly crazy play-by-play announcer,  a 'nemesis' in Professional Hockey's greatest enforcer Ross Rhea (Liev Shreiber) and all sorts of crazy teammates.

            While there are lots of hilarious one-liners and situations, Goon does what so few sports movies manage to do, especially the recent remakes (yeah, you, 2005 The Longest Yard­).  It lets the humor come naturally.  Yeah, there are all sorts of crazy people, but they're convincing.  You can see why they're nuts, and you end up thinking of them as real people, not stereotypes shoved into the film to create a couple of laughs.

            Basically, Goon is an amazing movie that could easily have come out in the 70's when sports movies still had huge balls and weren't afraid to cater to adults.  It's a loving homage to all these films that came before.  Even more surprisingly, just like his fictional counterpart, Sean William Scott proves that he can do more than most of us thought him capable of.

Dark Shadows

As many of you are well aware, I despise misleading trailers.  I hate them enough to bring it up whenever the possibility arises, and I’m always cautioning others to wait and talk to someone who has seen a movie if you’re on the fence about it.  There is nothing worse than walking into a theater with expectations of A, but being served B.

            Why do I bring this up? 

            On to the review!

            Before I get into why I feel like I was lied to, we must first answer a question:  What exactly is Dark Shadows?  Well, it’s an adored gothic soap opera that ran for hundreds and hundreds of episodes in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, was briefly revived in the 1990’s and turned into a TV movie in 2005.  So, yeah, it’s kinda popular.  You can call it the Dr. Who of fantasy soaps, only without enough studio backing to bring it back to stay.  Fortunately for fans, there was one man with the perfect amount of vision, gothic sensibilities and quirky humor who also had the clout to make it happen again, for the fourth time. 

            But was it worth reviving?

           

            In short:  Ehhhhhh.  Sure.  A little.  Maybe?

            My biggest problem with Dark Shadows is how everyone but Johnny Depp plays the straight man.  Actually, Depp also plays the straight man (or vampire, as it were).  Once again Tim Burton asks him to fall into the role of a very strange, fish-out-of-water character.  This time he is Barnabas Collins, a great, beloved man, cursed to be an undead vampire for eternity.  The curse comes about because he spurned the advances of a witch, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) and she decided that if she couldn’t have him, he’d just have to suffer for all eternity, buried alive.  Or is that buried undead?

            Of course, two hundred years later, his coffin is disturbed and he’s free to return home to the now-dilapidated Collins estate, where he finds the sad, pitiful remains of his once-mighty descendants.  You see, it wasn’t enough for Angelique to torture him.  She decided to stick around and make every Collins descendent suffer.  That’s right.  She was so obsessed over Barnabas that she feels she must ensure the Collins family slowly, pitifully slides into a mockery of their once-great power.

            Compared to the original soaps, the whole plot is fine, really. Well, except for one thing.  You see, every single damn trailer for Dark Shadows promised me a gothic comedy.  Every second of every trailer was jam-packed with quirky characters, oddball situations and general fantastical silliness that sold me on a goofy, gently mocking take on the original.

            What was delivered ended up being a dark, depressing film that only delivers its humor via Barnabas’s observations and poorly timed comments.  On top of that, the humor falls flat after the first half-dozen ‘oh goodness look at this crazy technology, are you sure it isn’t Satan?’ jokes.  To be brutally honest, the jokes are one-note and cease to be in any way humorous after about 45 minutes.  That leaves almost 75 minutes of humorless, colorless movie.  Even worse, most of the truly clever jokes were in the trailer.

            I’m not saying that this film is bad.  I’m saying that it’s absolutely not what you may have been looking for.  It’s misleading, and that’s a shame.  I don’t think I would have gone out of my way to watch it if the trailers were honest, but I like to think that Burton and Depp would have delivered a better product if the studio had put more pressure on them, rather than just making a misleading trailer.

            As for everyone else in the movie, they’re pretty much single-note characters.  Eva Green isn’t impressive as the bad guy.  In fact, the camera makes her cleavage more important than her emotions. Michelle Pfeiffer is fine as the matron of the Collins family, but she’s not given much to work with.  Helena Bonham Carter and Chloe Grace Moretz are completely wasted in their roles; Moretz especially is creepy as an over-sexualized teenager, delivering all her lines with a constant sneer.  It’s unsettling, and not in a cinematically impressive way.

            Nobody else stands out, just as nothing in Dark Shadows stands out.  It’s blandly predictable, and I really think Tim Burton needs to take a break from filmmaking for a while or try something radically different.  Maybe a buddy cop comedy or a war movie?

            What I’m trying to say is, go see The Avengers again.  If you really like Dark Shadows, you’ll be fine with this version.  Same goes for those of you that really like Johnny Depp in white face paint.  For everyone else, this movie won’t make you a fan of the series, and it may even deter you from checking out the weird, oddly entertaining originals that I used to watch on SciFi during my summer vacations.

50/50

50/50 is the sort of movie that I don't mind giving my money to.

It's also the sort of movie that I will not regret recommending.  So what are you waiting for?  Check it out!

...

...

...

Well....assuming you're still here....

On to the review!

            If you've seen the trailer, then you have a decent idea of what's going on.      Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has been diagnosed with cancer and has about a 50% chance of survival.  What you may not know is that the script loosely autobiographical, based on the real fight with cancer undergone by screenwriter Will Reiser.  Also, Seth Rogen is Will's real life friend, so I really have no idea why they even bothered having Seth play a guy named Kyle when he's really playing Seth Rogen.

            The rest of the plot is pretty simple, really.  Adam's got a girlfriend, Rachael (seriously, guys?  Do we HAVE to spell names the silly way in movies?) played by Bryce Dallas Howard who is kinda....weird.  He also has a very flightly, worry-wart mother in Diane, gamely played by Angelica Huston and a father with Alzheimer's.  As you can surmise, these relationships do not get any better for him once he tells them about his cancer.

            That's it for friends and family, but there are a few more characters that make fantastic, impactful impressions during the film.  First, Adam starts to see a therapist, Katherine, to help him deal with the mental anguish of fighting cancer.  Anna Kendrick plays the role of graduate-school therapist perfectly, even channeling what appears to be a little Michael Cera at a few points, to good effect.  Also, she is freaking adorable.  Even though I was supposed to be emotionally invested in what was happening on-screen, I just wanted to hug her.  Wait...is...is that weird?

            Finally, Matt Frewer and Phillip Baker Hall stop by to play fellow chemotherapy patients and, though they appear far too infrequently for my taste, they may be the best, most fleshed-out minor characters I have ever seen in a film that wasn't a crime drama. 

            50/50 finds a perfect level of balance between humor and drama.  Frewer, Hall and Rogen are the three people mainly responsible for the humor, but Mizz Huston does have a few really funny parts that all hinge on the realistic desperation of an overprotective mother.  Whenever the movie threatens to get too serious for too long, one of those characters pop up and diffuse the tension, but their welcome is never overstayed.

            Honestly, I think that's what makes this film work so well.  It's not so dramatic as to be overbearing, and it treats cancer like real  people would treat it.  Yes, there is depression and anger and sadness in this film.  BUT there is also joy and joking and friends trying to keep friends from freaking the fuck out. 

            That's what made this movie so enjoyable -- the realism.  This movie realistically explores a man's journey through a potentially painful, fear-filled, deadly problem and makes sure not to go too far either way.  Yes, there is doom and gloom and parts where people will cry.  But it's not all doom and gloom, and the humor is natural and easy even if some scenes are still a bit contrived.

            As for the theater....holy shit do I regret going to a movie on a Monday.  I actually thought that it would be nice and quiet, but I forgot about how weekdays are more likely to bring out the type of people who have no problem seeing a movie.  I mean really, who sees a movie on a Monday?

            That is how I ended up sitting in a nearly empty theater with three morbidly obese teenagers who were either incredibly high or incredibly stupid.  They giggled at all the wrong times, wouldn't shut the hell up even when threatened with having the manager called, and had a friend with them who was somehow even more idiotic.  How, you may ask?  Their fourth friend brought a 5 year old to a damn R-rated film.  Just old enough to understand, too young to not jump on every damn stair several times during the film when going to the bathroom.

            So...go see it in theaters anyways!  I still recommend it, but if you just don't wanna to out for this film, please rent it or put it in your Netflix queue the moment it's available on DVD.  It has been a long time since I've seen a good comedy/drama (I refuse to call anything a dramedy.  Ever).  I will say it's much better than Observe and Report or Aventureland, two movies that I did like but didn't love.  In fact, it's very difficult to think of a film that balanced the two genres so well.  The Specials, maybe?  Maybe, but that was more farcical than dramatic....hrmm...

              Well, guess you'll just have to see this and tell me what you think still tops it.