Better comedy laughed its way to the bank
Anyone who has followed the NBA Finals this year had to sit through the countless boring times Jack Black and Michael Cera got up to promote their movie, “Year One” will be glad to see the movie came in third this weekend at the box office. It may be funny (I personally chose a different comedy to take my girlfriend to see on Friday), but Jack Black’s style of humor is over the top at best and seems to be losing its value. Michael Cera, as an actor, shows more promise in his future career, but this movie seems to be just one step on his way to headlining an A-list movie.
“Year One” is comedic kryptonite.
There was another movie released this weekend. Compared to “Year One,” you may have thought this movie was showing at the Cannes Film Festival for all the advertisements it ran in comparison to its weekend competitor. But in the end, “The Proposal,” which is a romantic comedy chick flick that even the most masculine of steroid junky bodybuilders can enjoy and laugh until cramps ensue. It also dethrowned the hysterically popular film, “The Hangover.” With that, comedy really has packed a punch this summer, now in its its third week owning the office.
The movie took a woman who’s been in the romantic comedy business forever, Sandra Bullock, and placed her opposite probably the best comedic relief actor in the business, who got his break in “Van Wilder,” Ryan Reynolds. Entertainment Weekly published a piece about their onscreen chemistry, and through that, an otherwise predictable formula-based movie was saved. Ryan Reynolds is an actor who does more with facial expression and the subtle emphasis on speech patterns than anyone in Hollywood. Sandra Bullock has forever been the goofy girl who gets the gold.
“The Proposal” is creativity’s touch of Midas, or comedic gold, derived from the dirt that romantic comedies are grown from.
Seeing how Hollywood had resorted to mass producing flicks with big names that held no real quality (outside of the massive blockbuster films that are years in the works), it is refreshing to see that some quality is still possible if the formula is right, without having to drop $200 million on production costs.
Rob @ June 21, 2009