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[DVDVRMC] PAUL (Mottola, 2011)


RIPPA

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I will get back into the swing of this eventually.

Anyway - since I spaced on the Countdown thread. Here are the links

 

IMDB

ROTTEN TOMATOES (71%)

WIKI

METACRITIC (57)

 

I have watched Paul in fits and spurts so I haven't watched the whole movie start to finish yet but I have the DVD sitting at home (God Bless the library) so I will wait to comment.

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Man. I just watched this three weeks ago, but I'm having difficulty remembering much of anything about it.

 

I remember that it was a love story about two boys, who dig science fiction and comic books. They go on a road trip in which their boyhood dreams come true, as they get to smuggle a alien to his ship so he can go back to his home world. They meet a sweet one eyed gal, who sounds like she's totally into them, but she's a dumb, uncultured girl...ewwwwwww. Some stuff blows up, one dies but doesn't die. Then they get everything they ever wanted, 

 

Frost and Pegg are funny and they give the characters they play a sense of honesty, which makes them endearing. If you have to watch one Bromance this year, I would say this would be it. It's just funny enough to keep you going, but not funny enough for you to actually remember the jokes, so it's like a new experience every time!

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I don't have a problem with Seth Rogen in general, but I wasn't really feeling the idea of him being the alien going in. After watching it, I thought he did a pretty good job with the whole thing - so that was a surprise. 

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I remember that it was a love story about two boys, who dig science fiction and comic books. They go on a road trip in which their boyhood dreams come true, as they get to smuggle a alien to his ship so he can go back to his home world. They meet a sweet one eyed gal, who sounds like she's totally into them, but she's a dumb, uncultured girl...ewwwwwww. Some stuff blows up, one dies but doesn't die. Then they get everything they ever wanted, 

That's an important part of it, and an important part of geek movies in general.  They're all about escapism and selling perfect fantasies and Mary Sues and everything.  That's why Twilight sold a zillion copies, because Stephanie Meyer managed to come up with the perfect storm of unrealistic character traits and stupidly good luck that every 12-year-old girl who read it felt like she was getting everything she ever wanted.  

 

 

When i saw it on dvd when it came out, was definitely disappointed, because iwas comparing it to Cornetto films and Spaced.

Oh yeah, that's the one bad part here.  Greg Mottola is simply not as brilliant a writer/director as Edgar Wright is.  Greg's canvas is similar but smaller, more laid back, more lazy.  The gay jokes about Pegg/Frost in Cornetto are hilarious in their shameless bluntness; the gay jokes in Paul feel more like Rob Schneider and Dane Cook stumbling into the Blue Oyster Bar in Police Academy 17.  

 

 

It's a perfectly decent love letter to geek culture.  I got (and laughed at)  most of the references; your mileage may vary.

 

And Seth Rogan's a LOT easier to take as a CGI Grey.

Actually, I usually like Rogen: and do ya know the one time I didn't?  Fanboys.  A movie which was SO similar to Paul that they almost feel like negative-image doppelgangers of each other.  But while low ambitions and studio bungling killed Fanboys in the cradle, Paul manages to take the "it's fun when nerds get to do cool stuff for real" idea and run with it to a place that works.  

 

I wish they woulda toned down the ignorant redneck shit.  As a white guy from the South, it seems like our own hillbilly version of the classic minstrel show is the last category in which it's okay to laugh at racist jokes.  EVERY American they meet is just so weirded out by the fact that our heroes are ENGLISH, oh my god!  

 

I love Sigourney Weaver's trend of becoming a professional surprise guest villain at the end of movies.  This is at least the third time she's done it this decade, and it's awesome.  Similarly appreciated the unexpected heel/face turns among the federal agents, it keeps the story from falling asleep out of predictability.  

 

I also loved some of the simple little shit, like Paul's invisibility power.  Well, it's not really fair to just be able to turn invisible at will, is it?  Superpowers are fun fantasy, to be so STRONG that the universe itself must bow down to you; but let's face it, reality doesn't work like that.  If you could be invisible, wouldn't it come with some kind of catch?  Like only being able to do it while holding your breath.  

 

Kristen Wiig has replaced Anna Faris as my favorite film comedienne.  "You bet your big fat cock I do!" is awesome.  She just GOES for it, you never catch her Acting, she inhabits the part and makes it real and makes it her.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did the member who made this selection even post an opinion? I'd love to know why this was selected. Which isn't a knock against it, by any means, I'd just like to know what sort of conversation was expected. I'd like to able to add more than "it's OK," but, uh, well, it was OK.

 

 

I have a soft spot for Rogan--he's unabashedly Canadian, to such an extent that his characters in UNDECLARED and KNOCKED UP are both Canadian, even though they don't have to be. He has even starred in a Canadian film, Sarah Polley's TAKE THIS WALTZ, which further establishes his Canadian cred.

 

I love Pegg and Frost in this, but you can tell that both men still do their best work when Edgar Wright is at the helm.

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I thought this had some neat ideas but having not really taken an interest in sci fi outside of casual Star Wars and Star Trek viewings, I obviously didn't pick up on alot of the *wink wink* moments and I think that's where this movie is let down a little.

It's a double edged sword really - People who get all the in jokes will love and talk to their friends about them but people who dont get it will be left sitting there wondering when the next funny part is coming up.

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I thought this had some neat ideas but having not really taken an interest in sci fi outside of casual Star Wars and Star Trek viewings, I obviously didn't pick up on alot of the *wink wink* moments and I think that's where this movie is let down a little.

It's a catch 22 really - People who get all the in jokes will love and talk to their friends about it them but people who dont get it will be left sitting there wondering when the next funny part is coming up.

That's not a catch 22.

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I thought the in-jokes and sci-fi references were pretty obvious in execution, so they came off as cutesy little bits - not really laugh out loud kind of moments.

Some of 'em, yeah.  But some of them were just "hey guys, remember when This Happened?  Well, we're kinda recreating it!  Isn't that HILARIOUS~!?"  No, sir, it is not.  Parody (let alone satire) isn't just doing the straight line with a funny hat and a fake voice; or worse, stating the line straight with no changes and pretending it's supposed to be a joke.  Those fucking terrible Date/Epic/Disaster Movie holocausts do the same shit for seventy-five minutes straight, and there's nary a laugh to be found.  I kinda felt the same in Paul at uninspired moments like when Wiig shows up at the end wearing Princess Leia's bounty hunter costume (although that still feels WAY less pandering than when Kristen Bell showed up at the end of Fanboys wearing the Slave Leia bikini).  Just reminding us that something happened isn't funny.  You've gotta put your own twist on it, or five or six of your own twists.  

 

 

...anyone else wish Spielberg had showed up in person, instead of just making a voice cameo?  Yeah, it's cute to have Paul dictating the plot of E.T. from the giant government warehouse at the end of Raiders, but it woulda been cuter if we'd actually seen Steven interacting with the alien.  

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