"Going Ape, 1981!"

Bromance w/ Michael Cera, Tony Danza & Martin Starr from Michael Cera

Michael Cera, Martin Starr, and Tony Danza randomly get together for Michael Cera's birthday and go see a gallery show of paintings of comedians. Weirdness/hilarity ensues.

I like that Tony Danza made an Arrested Development reference. "I love that episode! 'There's always money in the banana stand!'" Good episode, that.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World Mini-Review

 

After months and months and months and months and MONTHS of hype, I finally saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World yesterday. HOORAY! It's very likely that if you're reading this right now, you know exactly what Scott Pilgrim's about, so I will refrain from saying anything more than 1. the graphic novels set expectations at exceedingly high levels and 2. this movie definitely appeals to a certain "type."

But was this the type of movie for me? The answer is YES YES YES.

Here we go with bullet points:

• The casting was nearly perfect. Knives, STEPHEN STILLS (!!!), YOUNG NEIL (!!!), Stacey, and even Wallace, who I was worried the most about, were all perfect. Guess who else was awesome? Michael Cera as Scott. Haters gonna hate, but I thought he was...I'm trying not to say great because that rhymes excellent. He did not play "himself" (although if you've ever watched this kid in an interview you would know that he's not quite as awkward as you think), he played SCOTT. 
• More on that: Scott was a bit "toned down" from the comics. However, he was still the most enjoyable character to watch for me; maybe this was because he was the one who received the most characterization.
• More on THAT: Okay, so obviously this movie tried to adapt six volumes into one two-hour movie, which is a hard thing to do perfectly. And while I think a lot of the plot changes that were made helped to make it more cohesive and fit better into the allotted time, certain choices were made at the expense of character development. Biggest offenders: Kim, Ramona, Envy. Envy isn't as important, so it's okay, but up until the fight against Todd we keep hearing about how Scott dated Envy and she broke his heart and blah blah blah. But we never delve into their back story, which is the most interesting part, and when Envy shows up you think, "What? How the heck did Scott ever date this girl?" Also, she's just bland as heck and she and Scott don't have any closure or anything. She's just never mentioned again. We got an idea of who Ramona was: mysterious and distant. But that was it. You never really understand why Scott is in love with her and fighting for her. It's like he's just going with the motions. They don't have too much nice alone time, which was too bad, because the scenes where they did were amongst my favorite (their second (?) date, the Seinfeld-esque scene although Ramona technically isn't in that one). Basically, Ramona is flat. 
• The most egregious offense OR more on that AGAIN: KIM. I HATED KIM IN THIS MOVIE. Kim is one of everyone's favorite characters. She's a cynical, misanthropic jerk, but she really does care about Scott and everyone else. In the comics, she has depth. However, in this movie, Kim hates everything and everyone, especially Scott. She is never happy and she is never not being sarcastic. When she sees Scott her eye starts throbbing and that scary, dramatic music even plays. (Those screechy violins, you know.) She HATES him because he dumped her in high school, but the real Kim didn't care about that THAT much. Also, the real Kim was interesting, and that was what made me the most upset. This Kim was boring and I can't remember almost anything she said.
• I missed Joseph. He's one of my favorite characters. Thankfully, they had the guy that Wallace stole from Stacey in a number of scenes, kind of as a replacement. Although he was nowhere as awesome as Joseph.
• Let's talk about stuff I liked again, though. I LOVED the music. Sex Bob-omb were, for being self-loathing and "terrible," really good. I really liked their "Garbage Truck" song. Stephen Stills was a good singer, and Scott was a surprisingly competent bassist. I liked his "Ramona" song, too, although Ramona kind of blew it off. THAT GURL, WAI SHE GOTTA BE LIKE THAT
• The opening credits. The opening credits made my heart race. (I'm a little over-dramatic like that.) The visuals were just very, very cool. I loved the opening scene, too. I don't know, I just found it perfect. 
• The fight scenes were pretty awesome, although I think some of them went on for too long. (Most notably the first one, against Matthew Patel.) I did love that Ramona talked about her relationships with most of them via black-and-white cutscenes. I think my favorite fights were Scott vs. Lucas and maybe Scott vs. Todd. That one was hilarious, mainly because of how it ended. (I loved the Vegan police high-fiving in slow motion.) 
• More hilarity: The Ninja Revolution game, that aforementioned Seinfeld scene, Young Neil's idiocy, Knives' stalkerish tendencies, Scott and Ramona's date, etc. etc. There's a lot. (Oh, also, but this comes towards the end: "Do you know how long it took me to collect all of the Evil Exes' contact information? TWO HOURS!"
• I'm just going to mention it again: Wallace ruled.

ENDING SPOILERS HERE:

• The ending was weird and not wholly satisfying. That last fight went on forever, and what are they trying to say -- they're basically suggesting that Self-Respect > Love, which is kind of stupid and kind of a bad message. I guess they were trying to set up an ending where Scott and Ramona DON'T end up together. Instead, Scott would end up with Knives (word is that that's an alternate ending). I actually kind of like the idea of that, because I really liked Knives, as creepy as she was at times. She was a sweet girl and Scott actually had a rapport with her. However, Knives basically says, "Dude, we just spent nearly 2 hours murdering people so you could make out with this chick for a little bit. Seriously? LYK GO GET HER LOL" so then Scott has to go get her. It was pretty stupid that Ramona STILL hadn't "found what she was looking for" or whatever, instead keen on leaving behind yet another ex. Sister sure is flighty. Which ending do you like better, Scott and Ramona or Scott and Knives? (Look at me, trying in vain to initiate conversation between commentators and myself.)
• Either way, I like the ending that Bryan Lee O'Malley chose for volume 6 instead. That was more meaningful.

ENDING SPOILERS, OVER

The movie's not perfect, but it's about as good as a live action Scott Pilgrim could ever be. I really liked it. Really liked it. I think your mileage may vary, and I don't see many "older people" enjoying this as much although you never know, but it's a sort of ADD-addled film that could possibly define my generation. Although I really hope not. I hate my generation. We don't deserve a movie this fun.

I give Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World 4 Slutty Wallace's Sleeping Next to Various Guys and Scott's out of 5.

P.S. Even though I gave Inception a better score, I think I enjoyed this more than that. It's being a comedy certainly helps. But they're both great so see them!

For the other movies I saw this summer, you can read my Inception Mini-Review here and my quick post about Toy Story 3 here.

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #2

Me cosplaying as Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now. LOLOLOL (That's not funny, is it?)

It seems like every time I want to write these things, I'm watching something on MTV. This time, it's True Life: I Hate My Face. Ladies, don't worry, you're not alone; I hate your faces too!

So, that aside:

• MTV Movie Awards: I saw them yesterday, and then again today (not by choice the second time!) They weren't that good, at all. Predictably, Twilight swept everything. Pretty lame. Trying to think of funny moments right now and failing really hard. Oh, actually, no, Aziz Ansari was surprisingly funny; I liked his Human Giant skit and the one with Zach Galifianakis. He was teaching Zachy G. how to have "swagga." It was as funny as it sounds. The opening with Les Grossman (from the stinking 2-year-old Tropic Thunder, I mean, come on guys, he's funny, but why are you bringing him back now? So random) was pretty funny. Michael Cera bookends. Yep.
• Apocalypse Now: Just saw the end today. It was a pretty excellent movie, aside from the fact that I had no clue what was going on half the time. But that's what happens when you watch it over a period of a week. You know. "THE HORROR, THE HORROR!" Why is "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" such a popular line? Really. But I did love that character, even though he really wasn't that important in the long run. And --spoiler-- who ever thought that Lance would be the only one in Martin Sheen's party left? NOT I STEVE CARELL
• The Hard Times of RJ Berger hatred: Okay. So. You should probably know me well enough to know that I kind of HATE a lot of things. Sometimes I just make assumptions. Usually, though, my assumptions are OVER 9000% CORRECT. This is one of those times. RJ Berger is some little demon that reared its ugly little head in some MTV/Viacom office saying "PUT ME ON TELEVISION OR I WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU AND MAYBE ALL OF YOUR SHETLAND PONIES TOO." We all know how much Viacom employees love their complimentary Viacom Corp. Shetland ponies, so they, begrudgingly, obeyed Mr. Berger's commands and gave him his horrible show. Okay, so, back to the assumption thing: I kind of haven't seen the whole show yet. But really, if you saw the commercials, you'd know - it's not necessary for me to see it to know that it sucks. I MEAN. COME ON. RJ is supposed to be 15 and HE LOOKS CORY MONTEITH-AGED. Man, it's just not okay. After it premiered on Sunday, I checked the Internetz and saw that most people above the age of 14 called it crud. I also found out that it was a lot more...um...yeah, just read this: http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hard-times-of-rj-berger-pilot,41841/
• Old video game commercials: Okay, these aren't that old, but remember now: I'm young and stuff. There's the Kirby! Nightmare in Dreamland one that has that song that everyone who was worth my time (oh snizz oh snizz) knew all the words to back in, like, fourth grade; then there's the Super Smash Bros. one from all the way back in the 90s. That one's one of the GREATEST. EVER. It's even greater than my cat. And my cat is pretty darn great. (ETA: Upon further consideration, I have decided that my cat is still greater than this commercial.) Oh! Then there's the Pokemon Red and Blue commercial. Guess who's in it? DRAKE BELL. Gasp! Giggle! Squee! Here's another one that's actually really depressing for a commercial trying to sell you two really expensive kids' games. Man, Nintendo had the best commercials back in the day. Now? Meh.
• E3 excitement: OH MY GOD IT STARTS NEXT TUESDAY GAIZ. I am SOSOSOSOSOSO excited. I think this year's going to be AWESOME BEYOND BELIEF LIKE TOTALLY FERRLZ. I probably shouldn't hype it so much BUT IT'S HARD NOT TO, MAN! Last year it was really early, and I had Study Hall 9th period so I left school early to go watch the press conferences. Now it's during my Finals week, so I come home even EARLIER! :D ...but then I have to study. But PSH THAT CAN WAIT. Plus, on the last day I don't have any tests. I might have to be resuscitated, guys. Be on hand.
• Glee season finale: This season was insanely long. Insanely. Scarily, even. The thing is, it wasn't really any longer than the average season, number of episodes-wise. It just lasted the ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR. It was crazed. This episode had a lot of problems; it felt completely like a different show. Refer to this annoyingly positive but still pretty on-the-nose review: http://www.avclub.com/articles/journey,41944/ Here's the single-greatest moment from not just the episode, but also probably the season (next to Kurt's "Rose's Turn" and that sweet moment with him and his dad and Finn); it's Jonathan Groff singing "Bohemian Rhapsody!" 

New Scott Pilgrim Trailer!

If I haven't made it clear enough yet, I love video games. I love everything about them. I love playing them, watching them, reading about them, talking about them, even singing about them. YES, I SING ABOUT VIDEO GAMES. Poorly!

That's why I like Scott Pilgrim so much. It's this graphic novel series that's about cool people who like video games and anime and manga, and live very video game/anime/manga-esque lives. And they make it seem totally normal.

I would give you the whole synopsis but I'm lazy. Let's let other people do that for me!

Obviously, there is a movie coming out. This is the brand-new trailer for it, released yesterday. It will probably become a huge thing, and I guess that's good if it gets more people reading the comic books. I just hope that people don't just watch the movie and come up to me when I'm talking too loudly about it and they're like, "Scott Pilgrim! I love that movie!" because then I'll give them the stink eye, and no one wants to see that.

Ahem. Anyway, some of my favorite people are in this movie: Michael Cera, Johnny Simmons (HOTEL FOR DOGS SAY HAAAAY just kidding, god, don't ever admit it if you've seen that movie), Aubrey Plaza, etc. So of course, I'm excited, although I would be anyway.

And Edgar Wright is directing! You probably know his stuff (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz); my favorite thing of his is Spaced, which is this hilarious British comedy series that's similar to Scott Pilgrim in that it has lots of video game and other "geeky" references in it. It's good stuff. You should rent it. If you want, I can consider lending it to you...in ten years. OH SNAP.

So, yes. Enjoy that trailer and go out and buy the Scott Pilgrim comics. I'll probably be talking more and more about it as we get closer to the release date of the sixth/last volume and the movie. And then MAYBE I'LL WRITE SOME REVIEWS. Because Google tells me that everyone loves those! And by everyone, I mean the five people who read my blog.

Buy Scott Pilgrim volumes 1-5 here.

(Whoa, lots of caps! And sorry that the videos always get cut off! Stupid Youtube is stupid?)