FUNNY PEOPLE (2009) (***1/2)

30 07 2009
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

For Judd Apatow’s third directorial outing, he’s more personal and matures his material. Like Roger Ebert mentioned in an interview with the director, his films have a way of taking a typical plot and putting an unexpected twist on it. The losing your virginity plot is skewed in THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN with the age of its lead. The unwanted pregnancy is skewed in KNOCKED UP with a pretty successful woman trying to make her relationship work with the child’s lazy frumpy father. Now in FUNNY PEOPLE, Apatow skews the near death experience with a man who learns nothing.

George Simmons (Adam Sandler, PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE) is a world famous comedian who stars in stupid family films that would even make Eddie Murphy wince. He learns that he has a rare blood disease and must go on an experiment treatment regiment. Before he got sick, he was a miserable person to be around and he only gets worse. At a comedy club, he does painful morse and egotistical routines that audiences laugh at awkwardly. I mean he’s George Simmons, so must be funny, right? At one performance, he meets the young comic Ira Wright (Seth Rogen, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) and asks him to write some jokes for him. This gig leads to him becoming George’s assistant. Ira finally gets a taste of success — both the sweet and bitter.
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THIRST (2009) (***)

30 07 2009
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

OLDBOY director Chan-wook Park tackles the vampire myth in an interesting way. Like has been done before, he deals with vampirism as a disease. But how do people react to that infected person when he’s a priest?

Sang-hyun (Kang-ho Song, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE) is dedicated to the sick people he cares for. He’s so caring that he decides to submit himself to an experimental treatment that might find a cure for a mysterious disease that is killing his patients. No one has survived the procedure yet. The main researcher Immanuel (Eriq Ebouaney, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN) always wonders if his volunteers are suicidal or have a martyr’s complex. Sang-hyeon seems truly compassionate. But as the old saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
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