On This Day in 2007: Remembering SUPERBAD...

It was 15 years ago today that the Greg Mottola-directed hit comedy Superbad was released in theaters nationwide!

Superbad is probably one of the funniest movies that I've ever seen on the big screen (next to 1994's Dumb and Dumber and 1998's There's Something About Mary—both directed by the Farrelly brothers); which is interesting considering the fact that this film is produced by Judd Apatow, whose other flicks I'm not a big fan of.

The dialogue between Superbad's three main characters, Seth (Jonah Hill), Evan (Michael Cera) and Fogell, a.k.a. McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), is so gut-busting hilarious that I actually posted a blog entry back in 2007 listing a lot of memorable quotes by these three goofballs...as well as other characters like Officer Michaels (Seth Rogen) and Officer Slater (Bill Hader). Even the ladies (Jules, played by Emma Stone; Becca, portrayed by Martha MacIsaac; and Aviva Baumann's Nicola) got in on the raunchiness!

I watched Superbad twice on the big screen 15 years ago (the second time for free while I was at work), and even have it on DVD. Not bad, Apatow... This is one of his films where the phallic jokes are actually funny. And not just funny, but really funny. Happy Hump Day.

The 86th Annual Academy Award Nominations...

Earlier today, the nominees for this year's Oscars were announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...with the sci-fi thriller Gravity and the crime drama American Hustle leading the way with 10 nominations each. Both flicks are up for Best Picture, Director (Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity and David O. Russell for Hustle) and Actress (Sandra Bullock for Gravity and Amy Adams for Hustle), as well as technical categories like Film Editing and Production Design. Gravity also got a nod for Visual Effects—which it should surely win over competitors like Iron Man 3 and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.



Peter Berg's Navy SEAL flick Lone Survivor got recognized for its audio work by getting nominations for Best Sounding Editing and Mixing. In terms of other Best Picture contenders, 12 Years a Slave was third in receiving the most nominations with 9 nods. With regards to the acting categories, Jonah Hill continues to shed his Superbad image by winning a second Best Supporting Actor nomination...this time for Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (Hill's first nomination was for Moneyball two years ago). Another nomination in that category that didn't surprise me at all was for Barkhad Abdi—who went from auditioning for Captain Phillips (another Best Picture candidate) with his close friends in Minneapolis to getting rave reviews for his intimidating portrayal of a Somali pirate in that film (with his Minneapolis friends getting cast as his marauding gang by director Paul Greengrass as well).



This year's Academy Awards look to be an exciting one to watch—though I've yet to view 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street and other Best Picture nominees like Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Nebraska and Philomena at the theater. However, with the amount of nods that Gravity and American Hustle received today, I may have already watched the likely flick to win the crown for best movie of 2013...so I'm probably not missing out on anything. We'll see. The Oscars air on ABC on March 2.

This Is the End... "Like tears from the tip of my penis." So were the words from party crasher-turned-evil cannibal Danny McBride when describing what happened when he had a good time at James Franco's house party in the hilarious movie, This Is the End. I saw the comedy flick last weekend (right after I watched Man of Steel), and it did not disappoint in delivering the kind of nasty but all-out funny gags that one would expect from Seth Rogen and company after seeing such films as Superbad, Pineapple Express and Knocked Up. What's ironic is that Michael Cera, who exchanged tons of witty banter with Jonah Hill in Superbad, was more interesting playing himself than say, Nick in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or Scott Pilgrim in...Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Of course, this must've been due to Rogen (who co-directed and wrote the screenplay for This Is the End with Evan Goldberg) allowing Cera to perform such shenanigans as slapping R&B singer Rihanna on the butt and blowing (as well as getting blown; no comments) cocaine powder at Kick-Ass's Christopher Mintz-Plasse's face. Also game to showing up in This Is the End (and meeting their demise once the Apocalypse begins less than 30 minutes into the film) is Mindy Kaling, Paul Rudd, Aziz Ansari and Jason Segel. Trying to survive the end of the world with Rogen, Franco, McBride and Hill is Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel (who along with Rogen is the star of the movie), Emma Watson and Channing Tatum—in a hilarious cameo that I'm sure will be more than welcomed by females in the audience.



All-in-all, This Is the End was totally entertaining. Along with ball-busting humor, it had some pretty amusing visual effects that you would see in 1980's summer blockbusters like Ghostbusters (the first one, mostly) and Gremlins. The highlight of this flick was seeing James Franco constantly sparring with Danny McBride over such issues as wasting limited food and water and not staining Franco's porno mags with McBride's um, tears. Jonah Hill, even when he was possessed by a demon that molested him while lying in bed, was still reserved in his performance...which is due to the fact that Hill is obviously playing himself and also because he's trying to act more serious ever since his Academy Award nomination for Moneyball. Rogen, Robinson and Baruchel played their usual selves—while Ms. Watson must've had fun spouting profanities after playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films for so many years. If I were to recommend a comedy to watch after being bombarded by non-stop comic book action in Man of Steel and Iron Man 3, it would definitely be This Is the End. Unless of course, you hate boy band groups...'cause then you might wanna leave the auditorium before the start of the final scene. Backstreet's back, alright!

Wreck-It Ralph... I saw the new animated film earlier today, and needless to say, it's another Pixar masterpiece. Wreck-It Ralph combines the awesome action sequences of 2004's The Incredibles with the heartfelt sincerity of 2001's Monsters, Inc. Like Monsters, Inc., this latest movie revolves around a character who—despite making a living out of scaring people and causing havoc—just wants to feel accepted and learns that he has a soft-side to him after befriending a young child. While this may sound like a bad thing in that it makes Wreck-It Ralph look not-so-original, this is actually a plus in a long line of pluses that made this film totally entertaining to watch. There are lots of nice plot twists in Wreck-It Ralph...even though it's a kid's flick and not say, The Usual Suspects.



Wreck-It Ralph has a stellar cast in it—with John C. Reilly lending his voice as the title character Ralph, Sarah Silverman playing the adorable 'glitch' named Vanellope, Jack McBrayer (of NBC's 30 Rock) voicing Fix-It Felix, Jr. (who's supposed to be like Super Mario while Ralph is paying homage to Donkey Kong), Glee's Jane Lynch as the bad-ass Sergeant Calhoun, comedian Adam Carolla as Wynnchel, the always-hilarious Alan Tudyk as King Candy, The Office's Mindy Kaling as Taffyta Muttonfudge, Superbad's Joe Lo Truglio as Markowski, Modern Family's Ed O'Neill as Mr. Litwak and 24's Dennis Haysbert as General Hologram. Clearly, Disney spent lots of money to get such talented actors to lend their voices to this production.



Wreck-It Ralph has lots of familiar video game characters in it...such as Pac-Man, Bowser from Super Mario Bros., various combatants from Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Paperboy from Paperboy and even the high-tech soldiers of Xbox's ultra-popular Halo (though the title was changed to Hero's Duty...most likely due to copyright issues with Microsoft, and the fact the title is making a reference to another mega-hit video game series, Call of Duty). Wreck-It Ralph makes clever use of actual characters (I wonder how much Capcom was paid to allow Ralph to be featured in a Street Fighter II gaming scene where he gets electrocuted by Blanka?)...and found a funny way to integrate these characters into a storyline that, as mentioned in the first paragraph above, has unexpected moments in it. What kind of unexpected moments, you ask? Well— Let's just say that the main villain isn't what you'd expect him to be. There's a reason why it's a bad thing to go 'turbo' in the world of Wreck-It Ralph.



Like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo and WALL-E, I expect Wreck-It Ralph to get a Best Animated Feature Film nomination (and possibly win it) at next year's Academy Awards. I never saw Pixar's summer film Brave because it quite frankly looked unappealing...but I'll be rooting for Pixar to get some nice accolades for this latest cinematic hit. Now if you excuse me, I think I'll go play Streetfighter II on Super Nintendo. No wait— I don't have my SNES anymore. Darn it.

Ted... I watched the stoner fantasy comedy right after I saw The Amazing Spider-Man at the theater on Tuesday, and what can I say; Seth MacFarlane did it again. He hilariously brings Family Guy's irreverence and raunchiness to his latest live-action flick, which is about a dude named John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) who develops a lifelong friendship with a teddy bear that magically came to life when Bennett was a child. Originally, I thought that Ted was voiced by Seth Rogen (seeing as how the stuffed animal completely sounds like the Knocked Up, Superbad and Green Hornet actor in TV commercials)...but I didn't know that MacFarlane also lent his voice to the trash-talking bear till I actually watched the movie. Of course, an inconsistency with the film is that Ted sounds like Rogen in one scene and Family Guy's Peter Griffin (who's also voiced by MacFarlane) in another!



Along with Mark Wahlberg, Ted's cast also includes the lovely Mila Kunis (who voices Meg on Family Guy and teamed up with Wahlberg in 2008's video game-inspired action flick, Max Payne), Joel McHale (of the NBC TV show, Community), Giovanni Ribisi (in a creepy Sandusky-ish role... If you watch the film you'd know what I was talking about), Patrick Stewart as the movie's narrator, and other Family Guy cast members Patrick Warburton and Alex Borstein. Ted also features cameos by gorgeous music artist Norah Jones, Tom Skerritt of Top Gun fame, Sam Jones of the 1980s TV show Flash Gordon and Ryan Reynolds in a brief but funny role. Everyone here is game to Ted's offbeat humor...with Ms. Jones talking about how she once got it on with the teddy bear, and Warburton and Reynolds playing a newly-merged gay couple. But the movie obviously revolves around Wahlberg's Bennett and Kunis' character Lori Collins...and how Ted continuing to be "thunder buddies" with Bennett is putting a strain on Bennett's relationship with Lori.



While the romance between Lori and John may seem heavy-handed at times, their relationship is still believable...and so is John's friendship with the teddy bear that became alive on Christmas morning in 1985. Although Ted, like John, becomes a foul-mouth bong smoker once he got older, he never loses the charm that makes a stuffed animal a person's best friend when he/she's a little child. Despite Ted making sexual comments about an employer's wife during a job interview (Ted got hired anyway because the employer liked the bear's trash-talking attitude), thanking Norah Jones "for 9/11" (despite the fact Jones is actually an Indian-American who's not Muslim) and partying with prostitutes in which one of them defecated on the floor of Lori's apartment, the audience I watched the movie with still responded with an "Awww" whenever a cute close-up of the teddy bear showed up on screen. And audience members remarked with "No!" when Giovanni Ribisi's creepy dad and his fat son/lover (according to Ted) was about to maim the teddy bear after he was kidnapped by the duo in the movie's climax. Oops, I forgot to say spoiler alert.



So to give the gist of this review, I enjoyed the movie Ted. How many other films do you hear characters telling thunder (the sound that accompanies lightning...not Oklahoma City's professional basketball team that fell short of winning an NBA championship last month) to "suck their d**k"? And when's the next time you'll see an animated live-action teddy bear getting into a brawl with a duck? Yes, you heard right. And when's the next time you'll see a stuffed animal having sex with a hot blonde co-worker (despite the fact Ted commented later on in the film that he didn't have a penis. Did he use a strap-on or something? Okay, I won't go there)? These are only some of the many ridiculous scenes that make Ted a hilarious flick. If you're a fan of Family Guy and MacFarlane's other cartoons American Dad and The Cleveland Show, then you'll enjoy Ted. If you despise MacFarlane and think that the cartoons mentioned above are works of the devil, then you'll hate it. You'll probably despise it even more if you have Lou Gehrig's disease. See the movie to know what I'm talking about.

Oh, and the name of the teddy bear I had when I was a kid is Fuzzy. I'm sure he can score with a lot of hot trashy chicks if he came alive too. That is all.

SUCKER PUNCH... I saw the Zack Snyder-directed film earlier today, and much like his previous films Watchmen and 300, it was visually stunning. Plus, it had a pretty cool soundtrack. The most interesting aspect of Sucker Punch is that all the fantasy scenes in the movie involving the main character Baby Doll (played by Emily Browning...who I remember from 2004’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which starred Jim Carrey) took place while she was burlesque-dancing (which we never see on-screen) for different clients at the mental asylum she was held in. Who would’ve thought it was possible to gyrate and titillate while simultaneously picture oneself fighting against a 30-foot-tall Samurai welding a Gatling gun? Hm.



I also saw the sci-fi adventure comedy Paul. It was funny... If I had the funds I’d totally go to Nevada and visit the "Extraterrestrial Highway" that leads to Area 51, just like what Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s characters did. Seth Rogen was amusing voicing the alien, while it was interesting to see Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor (who both appeared in the long-defunct but very hilarious FOX TV series Arrested Development) show up in the film...along with Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio (who, along with Rogen, both showed up in 2007’s smash hit Superbad. Greg Mottola, who helmed Superbad, also directed Paul). Nice um, cameo by Steven Spielberg in the movie... I’m looking forward to watching the upcoming J.J. Abrams-directed film Super 8—which is produced by Spielberg. The film comes out in theaters on June 10. So, yea. You know what I’m gonna say next: That is all.

KICK-ASS... I saw the satirical comic book flick this weekend, and all I can say is...Kick-Ass kicked ass! I could care less about what people are saying about Hit-Girl, she f***in’ rocks! One of my co-workers who I watched the movie with yesterday pointed out how some people are objecting to that scene where she’s dressed up as a schoolgirl (since Hit-Girl is around 11-years-old in the movie)...because it makes her look like a sex object. Um, really? Hit-Girl says the word c**t, uses profanity left-and-right, stabs people left-and-right, and blows people’s brains out with a Glock left-and-right, and the schoolgirl outfit is what people are taking issue with the most? Um...okay.



A lot of you will probably be asking why I think Hit-Girl is awesome despite her doing the despicable things mentioned above, but that’s what makes Kick-Ass an amusing film. The title character of the movie is portrayed as some douchie punk teenager who constantly gets his ass kicked whenever he dons his green superhero outfit, and yet here comes this little girl clad in bulletproof attire, using night vision goggles during a gun battle and fights in a way that would remind you of The Matrix or a number of Japanese anime that The Matrix was ripped off from. Oh, and her dad (Big Daddy) is what Chris Nolan’s Batman would be like if he actually decided to use guns (and made an intentionally poor but hilarious Adam West impersonation). It just comes to show you that someone can become a superhero in the real world if they had the right equipment (RE: firearms and body armor) and amazing fighting skills. Haha. Of course, the short answer for why I find nothing wrong with Hit-Girl is that Kick-Ass is a friggin' dark comedy. Get over it.



Will I buy Kick-Ass on DVD? You bet. Will I buy the Kick-Ass film score (I don't care what my co-worker thinks, the music was cool)? If it was available on CD—yes. Do I think Lyndsy Fonseca is as hot in this movie as she was in the recent film Hot Tube Time Machine? You bet again. Oh, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse was as much a dork playing Red Mist as he was being McLovin in 2007’s Superbad. That was a compliment. Later.

NINJA ASSASSIN... I saw the film yesterday, and on a positive note, it lived up to its title. For those of you thinking that Ninja Assassin is a superfluous name (haha), the movie is actually about an assassin who kills ninjas. And that assassin, named Raizo (who's played by Korean pop star Rain), kicks ass! I actually saw the film, or at least the last 20 minutes of it, at work when it was test-screened earlier this year. Needless to say, I was so impressed by the climactic action sequence that I had to see the rest of the movie when it officially came out in theaters. Ninja Assassin is what those live-action Mortal Kombat films during the 90's should've been! (Other flicks that I paid to watch despite already seeing their endings during marketing screenings were 300, Superbad and Zombieland. We also screened Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen too...but the only shot I saw, since I had to remain outside the auditorium for much of the movie, was that end credit scene where The Office’s Rainn Wilson calls Shia LaBeouf ‘Professor Einstein’ in that astronomy class.) After Ninja Assassin ended, I overheard a fellow moviegoer who attended the same screening as me compare this film to 300. It’s an appropriate comparison...seeing as how Ninja Assassin, like the 2007 Zack Snyder flick, also had lots of cool action scenes, neat CGI effects and gallons of fake blood...



There are two plotholes that I noticed in the movie though: Who was the lady who called Raizo on the phone prior to him rescuing Mika (Naomie Harris) from an assassination attempt at her apartment? And who rescued Raizo from that river after he was injured following his betrayal of master Ozunu (Sho Kosugi) and the rest of his clan atop that rooftop? Anyways... Ninja Assassin is directed by James McTeigue, who also helmed 2005’s V for Vendetta, and was also the assistant director for Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and The Matrix trilogy. That is all.

SUPERBAD... For those of you who haven’t seen the film yet (and are planning to), I just couldn’t resist the urge to list some of the most hilarious lines in the movie. So DON’T read on! Unless you want to be spoiled. Note: These are the lines that stood out to me after watching the movie (twice last weekend... The second time was for free). Only one of these quotes were looked up online, as I didn't know the exact wording.

-Seth (after Evan’s mom walks away): "I am truly jealous that you got to suck those tits when you were a baby."
-Evan: "Yea well, at least you got to suck your dad’s dick."

-Seth: "Look at those nipples."
-Evan: "They're like little baby toes. It's just not fair that they get to flaunt that stuff, you know...and like, I have to hide every erection I get."

-Seth (commenting on Fogell's vest): "You look like Pinocchio."
-Evan (to Fogell): "Take that vest off. You look like Aladdin."

-Officer Michaels (as he, Officer Slater and Fogell watch surveillance footage of Fogell getting punched by a thug who robbed the liquor store Fogell was trying to buy booze at): "You took that hit like a champ!"

-Seth (talking about Jules to Evan): "She wants to fuck me. She wants my dick...in and around her mouth!"

-Seth (to Evan): "You know how girls say 'Oh, I shouldn't have gotten shit-faced and fucked that guy at that party', we can be that mistake!"

-Jules (after she asks Seth if he could buy her booze for her party): "You scratch my back. I scratch yours."
-Seth: "Well the funny thing is, Jules, my back is located on my cock."

-Evan (commenting on Fogell's fake ID): "McLovin? What kind of name is that? Are you trying to be an Irish R&B singer?"

-Seth: What? "Making her tits small is like slapping God across the face for giving her a great gift!"
-Evan: "She got back problems, man."

-Officer Slater (to Fogell after checking his fake ID): "You're an organ donor. My wife wanted me to become one."
-Officer Michaels: "It's just like a woman... Even when you're dead, she wants to tear your heart out."

-Officer Michaels (to Fogell regarding a comment made about the TV show "CSI" and semen): "If the man ejaculated before he punched you in the face, we'd have a really great shot at finding him."

-Seth: "No one's gotten a handjob in cargo shorts since 'Nam."

-Officer Michaels (after he and Officer Slater raid Jules’ house party): "Prepare to get fucked by the long dick of the law."

-Officer Michaels (to Officer Slater after he breaks into the room where Fogell is getting laid): "You cock-blocked McLovin!"

-Officer Slater (to Fogell): "I am truly sorry that I blocked your cock."

-Becca (straddling Evan in bed while wasted): "You have such a smooth cock."
-Evan: "Thanks. If you were a man, yours would be too."

-Becca: "I'm so wet."
-Evan: "Yeah, they told us that would happen in health class."

-Becca (after getting frustrated that Evan doesn’t want her to do him ‘cause she’s drunk): "Why are you being such a bitch?"

(You would understand the magnitude of that question if you saw that scene and realized how crazy Evan was for turning down Becca’s numerous “propositions”.)

-Fogell (as Nicola starts sucking on his finger in bed): "I have a boner."

-Jules (after Seth, completely wasted, stumbles forward and headbutts her before collapsing to the ground): "Whaaat the fuuuck??"

-Becca (the day after she got wasted at Jules' party): "I didn't vomit on you, did I?"
-Evan: "No, it went past me. I was like, stay away!"

And last, but not least:

-Fogell: "I AM McLovin. Chigga, chigga YEA!"

There are A LOT more hilarious lines in the movie, but I won’t ruin those for you...