just friends Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's something to be said for those plain old reliable comedies, those that don't bust guts or break records but are always good for a spin in their inevitable cable circulation, stuff along the lines of Role Models, I Love You, Man and Just Friends. That last one has proven particularly endearing (to me anyway) due to the priceless pairing of Ryan Reynolds' perfect snark with Anna Faris' endearing ditziness (they also went at each other in Waiting..., to much amusement).

It's that combination that gives me reason enough for me to care about TMI, an all-too-honest rom-com reuniting these two. Hell, their teaming is itself enough for me to hope that they can do right by a screenplay written by the minds behind Serendipity and The Ugly Truth; after all, Faris did bring all the funny to co-writer Kirsten Smith's The House Bunny.

Not sure how much else there is to say, really. It's like hearing that someone's about to get your sexy, funny peanut butter in your sexy, funny chocolate... all over again.

Despite having starred in a series of spoofs that have together raked in over $400 million on the domestic front, it still doesn't feel like Anna Faris is quite the household name she deserves to be. All dollar signs aside, this comedienne has that endearing mix of whip-smart comic timing, goofy mugging, general hotness (what?), and a sense of self-awareness in even her ditziest roles. Time will only tell if tomorrow's release of The House Bunny will formally launch her into the ranks of, say, Reese Witherspoon after Legally Blonde, but even if she doesn't, here's at least seven reasons why she'll always be our funny bunny.

1. Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie 3 (2003)

Say what you will about this parody franchise, but it's been a minor blessing that Faris keeps coming back to ground these puppies from evaporating into pure irrelevance... although it's pure irrelevance that keeps me coming back to this one in particular. Call it a guilty pleasure if you must, but there are glorious non sequiturs a-plenty that help me cope with the slapdash plot and already dated pop culture riffs (oh, right, Simon Cowell, he's that guy...). Naturally, not the least of the credit goes to Faris, who, as the aloof reporter/single mom, is just as inept at either job as we'd like her to be.

• Breaking News - Hong Kong action director Johnny To delivers this watchable Woo-alike about a police force that loses the support of the public when a robbery goes bad and is covered by a local news program. The set pieces are pretty tight, even if the drama and the statement To tries to make about the power and responsibility of the media doesn't fully come through.
• Free Enterprise: Special Edition - A self-effacing turn akin to Marlon Brando's in The Freshman and Pauly Shore's in Pauly Shore Is Dead is William Shatner, sending up the cult of personality that has followed him since the original Star Trek series ended its five year mission two years early in 1969. When fanboys Rafer Wiegel and Eric McCormack meet their boyhood idol, he is far from the super-cool man for all seasons they have long worshiped. He's bent on staging a one-man musical version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a great running joke that culminates in the brilliant payoff that is the Shatner/The Rated R rap duet, "No Tears For Caesar". Writer-director Robert Meyer Burnett has created a love letter, not just to Trek, but to anyone who has ever loved anything with fanatical passion, and this long-overdue 2-disc treatment gives it the respect it was not afforded when it was first released in 1999. Check out the Pop-Up Video style trivia track, which annotates the geekery, new special effects, the making-of feature Where No Man Has Gone Before, and the unaired TV pilot, Café Fantastique, which features the real fans who inspired this smart, hardy-har-har trek. A sequel, My Big Fat Geek Wedding, has been listed on the IMDB for nearly 3 years now, and Mindfire Entertainment's website features a rudimentary mention of it, though no firm details are available as yet.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Special Edition - Death, and the gloomy heft that comes with it, visits Hogwarts in the fourth and most satisfying installment in the ongoing series so far. When an evil thought vanquished literally rears its ugly head again, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine (Emma Watson) team up to expose it. Like the overwhelmingly dark Revenge Of The Sith, this is the first to bear the PG-13 rating (for "sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images"), though its decidedly down ending makes it feel more like The Empire Strikes Back. It is not unreasonable to expect studio Warner Brothers to keep their three leads on through Harry Potter and the As-Yet-Unwritten-and-Untitled Year 7 Story. This, of course, is despite the fact that they will be in their early 20's by then, but let us not forget that at least one of the 90210 kids was practically eligible for Social Security by the end of that run. Even at 157 minutes, the book has still been truncated, but it is doubly encouraging to know that kids will know what is missing and will sit still for that long in order to be able to go on smartly about it. The second disc is chock-full-o' extra goodies, and is available in full- and widescreen editions. A single disc version is also available.