Observe and Report Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As 2009 approaches its halfway mark, it's a good time to reflect on the cinematic themes we've seen represented so far. Given the current economy, it's no surprise that banks and financiers have been villainized in movies such as Drag Me to Hell and The International. Perhaps we're tired of babies, too, as infants have been harmed or endangered for comic effect in Dance Flick and The Hangover. But the most prevalent theme in all of Hollywood this year? Vomit. Chunky, steamy vomit.

I don't know if so many movies with puke scenes have ever appeared in one year. And I'm not talking about where a character is seen discreetly from behind, kneeling over a toilet and ralphing, with no barf actually visible. That sort of thing is relatively common. No, I'm talking about scenes where we actually see the vomit as it's spewed from the person's mouth, graphically and in color. That's a lot rarer. Yet so far in 2009 it's happened in Adventureland, The Haunting in Connecticut, Drag Me to Hell, Observe and Report, The Hangover, Year One, and My Sister's Keeper. And wow, the first four of those seven all played at South By Southwest. Fixated much, SXSW programmers??

The causes of the chundering vary from film to film. In My Sister's Keeper and The Haunting in Connecticut, it's cancer-stricken teenagers suffering from nausea. Year One has its heroes afflicted with motion sickness (eating the poop didn't bother them at all), and I believe that's what makes an amusement-park customer hurl in Adventureland, too. Drag Me to Hell has a woman (possibly a hallucination) vomiting maggots on somebody. In the other movies, it's good ol' drunkenness or hungoverness.

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

Well, seven seconds has gone by and here I am, thinking about sex again. Not like that, you little perverts... I was thinking about sex in movies. It seems like, lately, the movies have learned to become sexy again. In the late 1960s, it became slowly acceptable to show nudity in American films. By the 1970s, many filmmakers were running with it. At some point during the 1980s and 1990s, some kind of conservative mood took over and the MPAA and other forces began taking sex out of movies, replaced with violence. As one clever soul put it: "if you show a breast, you get an R rating, but if you cut it off, you get a PG-13." Perhaps people have grown tired of conservatism lately because this year has been a good year for sex. In movies.

If you like sexy, funny women, for example, you can do no better than Anna Faris, who played a Playboy bunny last year and this year plays mall makeup countergirl Brandi, who listens to vulgar hip-hop and wears her good-time girl attitude like a revealing halter top. Her sex scene with Seth Rogen in Observe and Report (119 screens) contains so far one of my favorite lines of dialogue this year. She's downed several shots of something or other and a few pills on top of that. She's about 99% passed out as Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen) pounds away on top of her. He stops, concerned about her well-being: "Brandi?" he asks. Suddenly, from between smears of lipstick: "Why are you stopping, motherf----r?"

If you're feeling bored at your desk and you don't feel like playing good games while toggling between work documents and your desktop, might we suggest a few Paul Blart time-wasters? (And by suggest, I mean, go straight to PopCap Games and get Peggle or Plants vs. Zombies.)

You have two choices for Blart-tastic web-based fun, and one downloadable game as well. In "Mall Cop The Game," you ride your Segway around the mall looking for criminals, alarms, and special goodies that increase your time or give you extra points. And in Paul Blart: Mall Cop Slalom, you're just zooming away on your little Segway trying to avoid a skateboarding punk, potted plants, and benches. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - Mall Maze is actually the best of the bunch, relatively speaking, as it's a sort of Pac-Man game where you avoid criminals and collect candy and badges.

So where are the Observe and Report games? It could be totally old school, with Ronnie as Pac-Man trying to collect his pills and avoiding Detective Harrison and Brandi as Ms. Pac-Man collecting lipsticks and margaritas. The Yuen brothers could be like Super Mario Brothers. Or Hey, 2K Games! Call me!

As Spin-ematical alerted you earlier today, the cinematic wonder that is Paul Blart: Mall Cop is now available on DVD and Blu-ray for our movie-loving paws. But that doesn't mean we want it. (I hope!) Why go for the "harmlessly humorless" when you can revel in true commerce comedy?

There are a number of better options to satisfy your yearnings for officers of the shopping law and mall mayhem. Most of them are funny, one is downright scary, and all offer something both entertaining and worthwhile. And that's the key -- isn't it? Being entertained without feeling like we've been lobotomized?

Read on for my selections, and be sure to comment with your own favorite mall mayhem movies. Beware: some of the following clips are full of f-bombs and adult language, so NSFW.

So maybe I was a little late to the party, but over the weekend I finally caught a screening of Observe and Report and as I wandered from the theater in a misanthropic haze, I began to wonder: Just how funny is Seth Rogen? Being hailed "the new hero of comedy" is a lot of pressure for anyone -- and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't like the guy; I know he's a great writer and a whiz at improv, but after getting a load of the darker side of Rogen's range as Ronnie Barnhardt I was kind of happy to see that maybe he wasn't the soft and fuzzy stoner (not to mention one-note wonder) that Hollywood would like us to believe.

Think back to 1999 when Rogen made his acting debut in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks as the acid tongued 'freak', Ken Miller; it was a role that was perfect for Rogen's sarcastic laid back style, and he's been doing a variation of it ever since. Whether it was Cal from 40 Year Old Virgin, Ben in Knocked Up, or Zack Brown in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, each character wasn't necessarily someone you wanted to bring home to Mom, but they charmed audiences nonetheless. Sure they were all kind of jerks, but they were all loveable jerks, and more importantly they were relatively 'toothless' when it came to their bad behavior -- compared to Ronnie, Officer Michaels was practically a choirboy.

By Scott Weinberg (original publication date: 3/17/09 -- SXSW Film Festival)

I know it may seem sort of strange to get two "mall cop" comedies within two months of each other, but really: Aside from only the most tangential of plot connections, these movies couldn't possibly be more different. Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a flat, generic farce that feels like every studio comedy from the last 15 years. Observe and Report ... is a freaking revelation. Sick, dark, halfway twisted, and drop-dead hilarious, Jody Hill's Observe and Report is a dark comedy full of shocking moments and brave material, plus it's anchored by a lead performance that could change a whole lot of minds regarding Seth Rogen.

Set in a completely familiar shopping mall, Observe and Report is about a maladjusted security guard who finds himself with a new mission in life: Find the pervert who's been flashing women in the mall parking lot, and do it well before the cocky detective (played quite amusingly by Ray Liotta) has a chance to crack the case. Also to contend with: A bubble-headed blondie, as played by the funniest woman since Madeline Kahn (aka Anna Faris), an untrustworthy sidekick (a powerfully funny Michael Pena), and a perpetually inebriated mother who isn't all that good at the "nurturing" thing.

I'd heard Observe and Report once described as a "slightly lighter take on Taxi Driver-ish material," and while I don't really agree with that assessment, it's worth repeating because (and this should be made clear) Observe and Report is not a mainstream movie, a product of assembly-line filmmaking, or a churn-it-out contractual obligation. This is an aggressively unpredictable dark comedy that doles out violence, absurdity, and a strange sense of sincerity at (seemingly) random points -- and virtually all of Jody Hill's darts hit their intended target. As a tale of one schlub's (basic but legitimate) redemption, Observe and Report works more than well enough -- but if you opt to look a little deeper, and you will, you'll notice that Hill, Rogen and company are also mocking the most basic of Hollywood conventions at the same time.

So here's the $64,000 question: Are rape jokes funny? Jody Hill's Observe and Report has just gotten its first dose of bad publicity (not counting the Paul Blart: Mall Cop connection) thanks to a post in the NY Magazine's Vulture blog. They've posed the question: "Does Seth Rogen Rape Anna Faris in Observe and Report?" ... and, as you can imagine, this has sparked a debate among feminists and film critics alike.

Now if you've seen the Red-Band trailer for the comedy about a Travis Bickle-style security guard, you probably know what scene has caught the eye of critics. If not, here's a quick description: After a night of drinking and drugging, Rogen escorts a half-unconscious Faris (Brandi) to his home and the trailer later cuts to a scene in which Rogen is having sex with the incapacitated Brandi. Nice. When he hesitates, however, we hear a slurred voice pipe up with "Why are you stopping, motherf*****?" Guilt assuaged, right? I mean he's not raping her -- she's totally into it ... right? Well, I'll leave my opinion for a little later, but it seems like the answer at large has been a big fat whopping 'No'.

Over at Jezebel, fans have decided that Rogen and Hill have just gone too far, and that this is another in a long line of examples of the anti-woman stance today's successful comedies seem to be taking. But go for a stroll over past the New York Times and in their review of the scene, they acknowledge the rape, but also go on to say, "Before the scene is over she indicates that she had given her consent." Now Farris and Rogen have also participated in a little damage control regarding the scene in question, but unfortunately most of their answers have only managed to make it worse for those offended.

I knew Fast and Furious was going to be number one, but holy jeez, who expected this? Adventureland missed the top five entirely, pulling in only $5.7 million. Here's the top five:

1. Fast and Furious: $70.9 million
2. Monsters Vs. Aliens: $32.6 million
3. The Haunting in Connecticut: $9.5 million
4. Knowing: $8.2 million
5. I Love You, Man: $7.7 million

We've got three new ones this week, combining fantasy kung foolery, a teen pop phenomenon and raunchy comedy.

Dragonball Evolution
What's It All About: Adaptation of the long running manga and anime about Earth's champion Goku and his battle against an invading race of aliens.
Why It Might Do Well: This movie speaks to the young male geek better than any other new film this week.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Young male geeks, however, know what they want and I'm not hearing any kind of excitement from the manga/anime fans. Combine with some unappealing trailers and you've got a film destined for fifth place.
Number of Theaters: 2,100
Prediction: $9 million

Hannah Montana The Movie
What's It All About: You haven't heard of this kid? Seriously? This adaptation of the hit Disney Channel series sees the young pop star visiting the family farm to get away from the limelight and to get a dose of reality.
Why It Might Do Well: The Hannah Montana concert movie from 2008 racked in $65 million on only 687 screens.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Teenage boys won't be caught dead at this one.
Number of Theaters: 3,000
Prediction: $41 million

I read a story earlier (forget where exactly it was) that Seth Rogen needed oxygen after rehearsing an action scene for The Green Hornet -- and as a recovering fat kid, I totally gained more respect for this dude because, let's face it, he's not exactly the ideal action star, but he's losing weight, busting ass and risking his health to bring us a superhero flick unlike any we've seen before.

In a new interview with Moviefone, Rogen talks up his voice role in Monsters vs. Aliens, as well as several other projects he has on his plate -- like Observe and Report, this summer's Funny People and, of course, The Green Hornet (which hits theaters next summer). Regarding the latter, Rogen says, "Me and Evan [Goldberg] have thought, in our writing, we'd be able to reinvent a lot of the conventions of how these superhero movies generally go -- but we want to be sure that in the visual look of the movie we'd be able to do the same thing, and having a guy like Michel Gondry pretty much guarantees that we'll be able to do that. In my head, he's kind of an unmatched visualist. He conceives of things that aren't even on other people's radars. So it's exciting."

Rogen also made a pretty interesting observation when it came to his character's past in the upcoming dark comedy Observe and Report. He notes, "Actually, after watching Observe and Report again recently, I feel like that character in a way could be a continuation of Ken from Freaks and Geeks. I do. It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up like that." Check out the rest of the interview over at Moviefone, and read about Rogen's Playboy cover, his fear of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, his contributions to Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno and more.

Welcome to the inaugural broadcast of The Cinematical Roundtable, our latest podcast here at the site, where we'll speak with writers and readers alike about the latest in film offerings. Our first episode has Drew McWeeny of Hitfix fame and our own Scott Weinberg joining you and I on the road as we discuss March's The Haunting in Connecticut, April's Observe and Report, May's Drag Me to Hell, and June's The Hurt Locker following their respective SXSW premieres in Austin, Texas.

Please pardon our dust as we get this puppy off the ground, please brace yourself for some mild profanity, and please tell your friends. Especially that one cute redhead. She's not seeing anyone, right?



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