But it’s not every romantic comedy that sees its young lovers meet over booze and bong hits, as happens here. When I spoke with Long, I asked him if part of the appeal of “Going the Distance” was in how it didn’t seem to be trying for ‘PG-13′ shenanigans but was instead rowdy, rude and rated ‘R.’ “Yeah, that was so refreshing, and it was written in such an honest way. I really loved that it felt that it came from a very real, honest place. It was raunchy — but it felt like it was grounded, it fit within the reality of this relationship, these people.” Long pauses and cracks wise: “I didn’t read the script; I’ve got to be honest with you.”

Long is, of course, lying, but considering the supporting cast, I suggest he’d almost be excused for signing on sight unseen — there’s Ms. Barrymore, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis … Long cuts me off: ” … They’re brilliant comedians. They’re so quick and smart. Beyond that, there was Kristen Schaal, and Jim Gaffigan, Rob Riggle … The fans of comedy, and improv, as I am, will love the supporting cast. We got really lucky … they were fun.”

With a film like this, you have to wonder if life has ever imitated art — so I ask Long about his own long-distance relationships. The answer quickly goes from reasonable to ridiculous as Long spins his own comedy riff. “I’ve done a few New York to L.A.’s — not at the same time. I’d say the longest one was, I was dating a girl who lived in the mountainous region of Waziristan, Pakistan, and I was living in New York at the time. So, that made it difficult, you know, there’s no technology there. We had to keep sending couriers, there were a lot of goats involved, animals that were equipped to deal with the rocky terrain that would be able to message her back-and forth-notes. I remember writing a letter to her, I wrote ‘Do you like me? Check “yes” or “no.”‘ And I drew two boxes. And seven months later I received (an envelope) in the mail, there were all these stamps on it from God knows where, a little sand on it, a little blood, and it said ‘yes.’ So that was the beginning of what would become the longest-distance relationship I’ve ever had.”

–From my full article at The Rundown

Part of that is the film’s not-so-subtle approach to re-creating the feel and funk of ’70s action exploitation: the unsteady zooms, the clumsy edits, the continuity errors between shots. Rodriguez and Maniquis have artlessness down to a fine art, with winking jokes along the way (every time bad guy Steven Seagal — yes, Steven Seagal — pulls his samurai sword, we hear a sound effect from “The Six Million Dollar Man“). The film glistens with digital blood spurts and prosthetic effects (Machete does a lot of loppin’) and the fistfights, firefights and car chases all look both magnificent and cheap.

But under the surface, “Machete” also has a good B-movie’s tone of rough justice and boisterous badassery. Rodriguez and co-writer Alvaro Rodriguez know that it is not merely enough to have Machete spear a bad guy with his namesake blade, but also that we should be shown plenty of reasons why that moment of dispatch has to happen. The film’s villains — De Niro, Seagal, shadowy manipulator Jeff Fahey, border-patrolling vigilante Don Johnson and hit man Tom Savini — may all be cartoon characters, but they are characters. (Compared to thrown-away deaths and anorexic parts like poor Steve Austin and Gary Daniels were saddled with in “The Expendables,” they’re Hamlet.) “The Expendables” had the volume and velocity of retro action flicks, but “Machete” has the volume, the velocity, the rhythm, the melodies and the phrasing. It’s like the difference between someone playing “Guitar Hero” and someone playing guitar.

Before you worry that “Machete” is some dry thesis on ’70s and early ’80s action styles, though, let me also mention this: sex. “Machete” has plenty of it, thanks to Michelle Rodriguez as a community organizer and Jessica Alba as an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent and a few other surprises. There’s a nudity-and-body-parts joke in the first five minutes of “Machete” that made my principles and sensibilities gasp, which I didn’t hear because I was too busy laughing like a demented foghorn. That joke, as Mel Brooks said of his comedies, rose below vulgarity.

With all the swift jokes and slit jugulars in “Machete,” though, there’s also a healthy dose of real politics underneath it all. Fahey’s Booth tells Machete why anti-immigration Sen. McLaughlin has to die: “This state runs on illegal immigration — it thrives on it.” Machete is a trained killer who can use anything at hand — and it’s only after that we realize we’ve seen him use the tools of janitorial work, food service and landscaping to slay and slaughter, moving through the jobs illegal immigrants take, in part, because citizens won’t.

And in the final act, just as you suspect “Machete” may be outstaying its welcome by about 10 minutes, one of our leading ladies turns up wearing an eye patch, a black bra and low-slung trousers accessorized with a stylish belt and carrying a machine gun that is two-thirds as long as she is. Dear reader, I am only human, and considering this is just the prelude to Machete’s ultimate showdown with a nemesis wearing a Nehru jacket that could have been boosted from the closet of “Enter the Dragon” bad guy Mr. Han, what else can one do in the face of such coarse and crass pleasures but enjoy them?

Trejo has had a movie made for him here, and he wears it like a well-worn leather jacket: casual and cool, lightly shrugged on but with a carefully calculated effect in mind. Alba, playing a part in a pastiche of the kind of film where acting doesn’t matter, may have found her natural level. The bad guys are all worthy of your hate, and Rodriguez seems game for anything with the kind of enthusiasm that jumps off the screen. I disliked Rodriguez’s “Sin City” because it felt overstylized and underwritten, hollow and humorless, but “Machete” has a joy and humor to it that makes every death a sick sight gag and turns all the blood into candy-apple-red splashes of color. “Machete” could have been a blunt, broad bore, but between the efforts of Rodriguez and his collaborators and cast, it whips by with a smart, gleaming edge.

–From my full review at MSN Movies

Talking with Bar-Lev, it’s clear that his interest in Tillman’s story was a chance to not just look at the public pageantry of war in the modern age, but also at how lies build and grow out of expediency and need. “The story really started in 2002,” he said, “and there’s not much I can say except that I was only aware of Pat Tillman kind of the way that everybody was aware, just the basic, broad strokes. It wasn’t until spring of 2007 that I became interested in it professionally. At the first (2007) Congressional hearing, that’s really the moment I got hooked, because I heard Danni (Tillman, Pat’s mother) — and her first words were, ‘It’s not about Pat.’ I think there’s a sense out there that this family is insatiably concerned about justice for Pat, but in fact they’ve been very clear and consistent all along: This is about the principle. They’re never going to get Pat back. And it was about that point that I realized that this story isn’t about what we owe the Tillman family; it’s about what we owe ourselves. It’s about whether or not we should allow (ourselves) to be lied to.”

Much like Bar-Lev’s earlier documentary, “My Kid Could Paint That,” “The Tillman Story” revolves around our willingness to accept “official” stories that are appealing, simple — and wrong. “For the MPAA rating (appeal), I had to watch the whole thing with the actual rating appeal board,” he said. “So I sat through and I saw the Jessica Lynch footage (from the stage-managed rescue in April 2003) for the first time in a while. There’s stuff in that footage that reveals the Jessica Lynch operation for what it was: a film operation. You can hear the camera crew saying, ‘Get her to smile and make sure the flag is in this shot.’ What’s so outrageous to me is … we didn’t find that footage in some kind of gumshoe operation … nobody handed us that footage in a parking garage. We got it from, I think, ABC, who got it from the military. The real question in my mind is why didn’t ABC choose to show that footage? The answer is it didn’t fit into the narrative they had decided to project, to impose on the raw tape. The narrative was borrowed from Hollywood, of a female Rambo from the hills of West Virginia who empties her bullets out, and she’s saved by these paladins from the sky that come down and make sure her virtue is left untarnished. These are old stories. They’re stories partially from Hollywood, but they resonate because they’re old myths that kick around for centuries. Anybody who takes a little bit of time — in my case it was two to three years per film — to poke around these cookie-cutter stories will find that they’re constructions.”

–From my full article at The Rundown

“Going the Distance” feels real, in no small part thanks to documentarian Nanette Burstein‘s choices in her fiction-film debut. For all of the wacky and broad funny stuff in “Going the Distance,” Garrett and Erin’s connection is taken seriously, and the dizzy fantasy of their connection is constantly knocked about by the realities of money, time and doubt. Each of them have their support systems — Erin’s lightly-clenched sister Corrine (Christina Applegate) advises caution, while Garrett’s goofball friends Dan (Charlie Day) and Box (Jason Sudeikis) offer mockery and support in equal measure. But the film never forgets to keep coming back to the real feelings Erin and Garrett are dealing with, for which we, the audience, are grateful.

But while “Going the Distance” is romantic, it is never overly refined. I don’t know if Geoff La Tulippe’s script could have been sold in a pre-Judd Apatow Hollywood, but “Going the Distance” aims for the goalposts that Apatow’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and other films moved, and it scores more often than not. Garrett and Erin’s first meeting is not some chaste ‘meet cute’ but, rather, a beer-, booze- and bong-hit-fueled one-night stand that gets extended by affection. Erin and Garrett talk about sex, work, love and desire in vulgar turns of phrase that feel like the real, raunchy discussions of real city-dwellers in their 30s. Erin and Garrett abuse alcohol and each other in this film, and if you can’t identify with them at their worst, you’re either very principled, very forgetful or very lucky.

Also, “Going the Distance” knows which clichés to embrace and which to avoid. When Garrett and Erin have their first real date, we actually see them talk for a little while — about tortellini, the Beastie Boys, and lies — before the agreeably retro pop song on the soundtrack (The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” in this instance) covers up everything they’re saying in the name of story-speeding montage. Unlike other romantic comedies where the leads have never-discussed but never-exhausted resources, “Going the Distance” is also real about money, which, as Cindy Lauper reminds us, changes everything. When we see Garrett cancel a Christmastime trip west because the last-minute tickets are exorbitantly priced, it’s a welcome nod to the real world of dollars and cents, not the normal movie fantasy world of perfect romance that knows no bounds or bills.

Long is a gifted comedian — his willingness to take fake hits to the head in “Dodgeball” proved that — but he also plays Garrett as a real person. And Barrymore’s Erin does not resemble Hollywood’s idea of the girl next door as much as she resembles the actual girl who lives next door to you — earthy, confused, sincere and silly at the same time. Day, Applegate, Sudeikis and Jim Gaffigan round out the supporting cast, but there are also nice throwaway bits from comedic actors like Kristen Schaal, Rob Riggle and Mike Birbiglia, among others.

But the film keeps coming back to the realities of what Garrett and Erin are trying to do, and it treats them like real people: They can be selfish and sad and self-sabotaging, and so they are more like actual human beings and less like the sparkling creations of a screenwriter’s mind. Sure, there’s rat-a-tat dialogue in “Going the Distance,” but it’s kept small-caliber, and the film does not kid itself — or us — about how much hard work is required to keep a flickering flame of feeling alive in the face of a big, cold world. Sure, there’s a rock-and-roll deus ex machina in the film, and sure, the final button on the movie is a callback to a lesser earlier joke that slightly undercuts what should have been the final scene. “Going the Distance,” as I said, snuck up on me nonetheless, not because of any surprises in the plot or sudden change-ups in the execution, but rather because it stepped smartly and snappily exactly along the path it wanted to follow, and because it tried so very hard to fake reality that you can’t help but admire its efforts to get from point a to point b on its own terms.

–From my full review at MSN Movies

Parenting, attraction, comedy, Jeff Goldblum — “The Switch,” you would think, has plenty of stuff to talk about in and of itself. Which is why I was sitting there gritting my teeth as other members of the assembled press corps were hectoring Aniston and Bateman about hair treatments, exercise regimens and hypothetical feature-film versions of TV shows they were each in a long time ago. I, of course, was sitting there like the lame, lonely John Hughes film character who’s interested in their opposite number for who they are, but I did manage to get a question in to Jason Bateman that was not about his home life, “Silver Spoons” or being a Bluth.

His character in “The Switch,” Wally, I noted, is very similar to other characters he’s played before: spiritually strangulated guys who eventually come around to the right thing. Why, specifically, is he drawn to such roles, I asked, and why specifically is he so adroit at them? “Well,” he said, “I got this because a few other more talented, bigger, better names were busy. And B), I don’t know. I don’t know how much of that was in the script and how much of that is just me being interested in that kind of character and me trying to cram that character into what was written. I think that what you’re describing is pretty much a part of all of us. I just find that an interesting character to watch on film currently, so I like finding that part of a particular character.”

Co-director Will Speck had to say something in the face of Bateman’s modesty: “We’re gonna jump in because he refuses to be egomaniacal. Jason is amazing, and as you guys have seen in the movie, he’s incredible in it. I think that (co-director) Josh (Gordon) and I feel like what Jason brings to any role, no matter how small or big, is this real sense of integrity and a full dimensionality, and I think that what became a real character that lifted itself off the page once he came into it, was just all of those nuances that he has in his skill set as an actor that really sort of brought it forward, and we were thrilled with it.”

So, I asked, how tiresome is Mr. Bateman’s humility? Speck leaned forward: “It’s exhausting! Especially during this stage, when he should be saying how incredible the film is.” Bateman smiled at his own counter-promotional ways: “It’s fun, though. Is it fun?” Gordon chimed in: “It’s very Wally.” Speck agreed: “Yeah, it is very Wally.” Bateman beamed: “I’m not dropping character. I’m ready for the sequel!”

–From my full article at The Rundown

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a bassist and slacker, inadvisably dating 17-year-old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) when he comes across Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is literally the girl of his dreams. But Scott will have to fight for Ramona’s love, as claiming her heart requires battling her seven evil exes, each of whom is a fighting force propelled by resentment and ruined romance. What was established in the yearlong timeframe of O’Malley’s original work — and glossed over in Wright’s flashy, fizzy confection — is that Scott’s real enemy is himself, his selfishness and shabbiness, and the indecisive affections of the uncertain heart.

Wright is an immensely talented filmmaker — think of him as the light, fun version of Oliver Stone. Like Stone at his most loopy, Wright is acutely aware of the possibilities of film as a medium — something to be altered, cut, edited, festooned with effects and shaped by the work of many hands. And like Quentin Tarantino, he’s a voracious consumer of other films and the tricks and tropes of other movies. And, as with both of those filmmakers, you also come away with the feeling that there might not be much going on besides technical brilliance and pop-culture savvy. Wright’s “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” were diverting genre spoofs that, for all their flaws, were propelled by character and feeling. With “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” it feels like Wright’s moving away from charm and character and instead toward spectacle and speed. “Scott Pilgrim” is undeniably the biggest and most expensive canvas Wright’s been given to work with, and yet the actual work itself has never seemed more shallow.

Cinematographer Bill Pope does excellent work, much in the mold of his work on the “Spider-Man” films, where he makes moving images burst with the frozen dynamism of comic-book illustrations that were originally made to evoke the frenzy of motion, another circular trip down the 21st-century pop-culture rabbit hole. The soundtrack is excellent, from Nigel Godrich’s original music to soundtrack singles from the likes of Beck and Metric. The special effects blur and bloom with excitement.

But there’s nothing here with the heart of “The Princess Bride,” a film that found real truth about love in a fantastic setting by never giving in to fun over feeling. Or with the heartfelt genius of Joachim Trier’s “Reprise,” a stunningly good film about youth and young manhood that was shot with wit and verve but still had heart and soul. When Jason Schwartzman shows up, all you can think of is “Rushmore” — a film that takes place in a world as fantastic and improbable as “Scott Pilgrim”‘s but keeps the focus on real pain, real loss, real sadness and felt like an instant classic. I wanted to feel a heartbeat in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” but instead I found myself kept out by the buff, brawny muscle and swift skill of it. If it sounds like I’m condemning “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” not for being bad, but, rather, for not being as great as it could have been, then I’m guilty as charged of failing to simply enjoy what could have been a mere guilty pleasure.

Wright seems content to have Cera play the same hesitant nebbish he’s always played, despite the fact that the Pilgrim character in the source material starts strong, yet wrong, and moves toward being right and real over a year, not the film’s rushed, racing, dayslong time frame. In the books, you can buy Scott Pilgrim fighting for love. In the film, Cera barely seems like he’d know how to fight for air even after he’s shown to be a martial arts machine. Wright, it must be said, can truly shoot a fight scene. It also has to be said that I never really cared what the fight scenes were for.

There are standouts in the acting cast: Brandon Routh and Chris Evans make for great lunkheaded bad guys, and Mark Webber and Kieran Culkin pop and snap as Scott’s confidants and friends. But “Scott Pilgrim” devotes itself so firmly to re-creating the look of O’Malley’s saga that it forces and fumbles the feel, full of (indie-rock) sound and (kung-fu) fury, (emotionally) signifying nothing. (Many modern films are dismissed with the phrase “It was like a video game.” Worse than that, “Scott Pilgrim” feels like watching someone else play a video game.) Wright’s work was originally praised for its energetic technique and throwaway jokes, but with “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” the inventions and technique just feel frenetic and exhausting, and it’s not the jokes that are disposable but, instead, the movie.

–From my full review at MSN Movies

Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love” may be a beloved book, but playing Gilbert is Roberts’ biggest on-screen role since 2000′s “Erin Brockovich.” Did she worry about taking such a large part for the first time in a long time? “I took a lot of deliberating to come to a decision, because it was such a big workload,” she says. “When I did ‘Erin Brockovich,’ I packed my little bag and drove to Barstow. That was an easy decision to make. This was a decision that we had to make as a family, and all of us really be committed to and invested in, because it was a long shoot, there was a lot of traveling and I worked every day.”

And, it should be noted, worked with Ryan Murphy, a director with only one other feature film to his name. To Roberts, that seemed appropriate. “I thought, well, it’s a leap of faith, which is really what a lot of the movie’s about, and I just had to put all my trust in Ryan and say, ‘Well, let’s go and see what happens.’ And I just got really lucky that he stayed true to who I thought he was in the beginning up to the very last moment. I’m just so in awe of what he did as his second movie. Are you kidding? As his 20th movie it would still be an accomplishment.”

Roberts also had to play two sides of the same character — not just Gilbert’s observational, dry, detached voice as a writer, but the slightly more immediate reality of the confusion and chaos of Gilbert’s actual life. Was that an appealing part of the role? “Utterly appealing,” she says. “Anytime you can play messy or crazy, it’s just fun as an actor. But she’s so smart, and she does have a very great, clear description and depiction of things, so it was nice to be the voice of that side of her.”

Finally, ask Roberts about the best meal she enjoyed during the whole globe-spanning production, and her answer’s as carefully thought-out as it is culinary: “I don’t know — everybody’s so taken with the spaghetti that I ate in the movie. It was really delicious, so I should probably — since we are promoting the film — stick with that bowl of pasta.”

–From my article at The Rundown

On a recent press tour at a gleaming highrise hotel set amid the shining-but-empty new developments of downtown L.A., the cast of The Other Guys — Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes and Michael Keaton — cracked wise alongside director and co-writer Adam McKay. But the laughs were on Ferrell, who played it Dragnet-straight.

Asked if comedy, like police work, means having your partner’s back, Ferrell never slipped a smile. “No. I feel like it’s more fun to be really cut-throat on a set and not look out for each other. That provides a certain tension . . . and it makes for a horrible work environment . . . but boy, does it ‘pop’ onscreen.”

The Other Guys is the fourth collaboration for McKay and Ferrell. Unlike Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby or Step Brothers, there’s both an actual plot (about mismatched New York cops who team up to take a case nobody else wants) and a “serious actor” co-star for Ferrell to bounce off of in Walhlberg, who plays Ferrell’s action-craving detective partner.

Ferrell notes, with no small amount of surprise, “This is probably the most plot-driven movie we’ve done.”

McKay explained how the familiar moments of the buddy-cop film gave The Other Guys a backbone to build upon.

“There are certain beats you have to hit. Then there are scenes where you can just go off. If it’s Mark saying a monologue to Will or Will chewing out Mark, you know you have room there.”

With a resumé including gritty police thrillers from The Departed to The Corruptor, Wahlberg was in his element throwing punches, but not necessarily throwing out a punchline.

“I had a lot of fun making this movie. I certainly felt very comfortable when it came to anything cop-ish or action,” said Wahlberg. “With all the other stuff, I just basically wanted to follow their lead.”

This level of movie-making action and mayhem was an unknown for McKay and Ferrell. “It was funny because Will and I would be shooting a big giant action scene and we were like, ‘Wow look at this, we’re breaking a window!’ and Mark would come over almost yawning going, ‘Yeah, yeah, we did this one time. Only I was being shot out of a cannon and I was on fire.’ ”

Mendes, meanwhile, couldn’t have been happier to work with McKay, especially given the chance to be as goofy as she is glamorous. She plays Ferrell’s wife in The Other Guys and one scene sees her disguised as her own grandmother, locking lips with Ferrell while in bottle-bottom glasses and headscarf.

“It was oddly arousing is all I’d like to say,” she said. “Just interpret that as you wish.”

Ferrell and Wahlberg were asked by an earnest reporter looking for some deep meaning if they ever played cops-and-robbers as kids.

Straight-faced, Ferrell quipped, “As a kid, I’d walk around with a pair of nunchucks on my side, which is not really law enforcement-related. I guess like a martial arts thing.”

“Well, you had incarcerated your mom there,” Wahlberg added, as Ferrell nodded, expression blank, lying about his childhood for laughs.

“I built a jail in my closet . . . and I would incarcerate my family from time to time.”

–From my full article at The Toronto Star