Step Brothers

2008 "comedy"

Rating: 6/20 (Anonymous: 4/20; Pump or Astro-Pretzel: 3/20)

Plot: A couple unemployed middle-aged good-for-absolutely-nothing jackasses become the titular step-brothers after their parents hook up at a convention and later marry. Initially, they can't stand each other, but once they realize they have a lot in common, like their shared affinity for night vision goggles, they become friends. But their shared interests and attempts to start their own company threaten to tear the happy newlyweds apart.

I wanted to watch In the Line of Fire, but my step brother wanted to watch this instead. We fought over that for a while--rolling around on the floor, poking eyes, farting on each other, giving wedgies, kicking nutsacks, etc.--before realizing that we had a love of Mary Steenburgen in common. Then, we high-fived each other awkwardly, and he broke his finger. And that story, ladies and gentlemen, is just as clever as the one in the movie Step Brothers. Attempting to recapture the magic of Talladega Nights, a movie I've been told is a classic, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly stupid it up in this one that reminds me simultaneously of a whole bunch of predictable 80's crap and every single other Will Ferrell movie I've ever seen. There's not a single laugh to be had in this thing. It fits right in with that disturbing trend in modern comedies where lazy writers assume that creating really uncomfortable situations for characters who could never actually exist is automatically going to be funny. Awkward is not a synonym for hilarious. I should know because I looked it up, and I'm an English teacher.

It took me a while to remember it, but I made a promise around Christmas that I would not have another Will Ferrell movie on this blog. See? I'm really sorry that my own step brother made me break that promise. Maybe I'll fart on him later.

Hunger

1966 Dutch feel-good movie

Rating: 17/20 (Mark: 17.5/20)

Plot: It's late-19th-century Norway, and everything is grayish brown. A hopeful writer wanders despairing streets. He looks for work, loses his sanity, dreams of love, and has a rumbly in his tummy. Gradually, his grip on reality slips more and more. He takes his frustrations out on a candle.

Ah, anonymous, this film's actually Danish and filmed in Oslo. I don't know what's in the gray waters in Scandanavia, but something's got to making the Dutch so bleak. Now that I know it's Danish, I'm instantly reminded of Carl Theodor Dreyer's work. This is a bleakness with a fervor, a provocative bleakness. I love this kinds of movies where almost nothing at all happens for almost two hours, yet it somehow remains captivating and moving. And I was moved by this haunting, dismal movie. At the center of things is the performance of Per Oscarsson who plays the starving protagonist. He's in nearly every single shot and luckily, was very easy to connect with. He effectively uses abnormal nonverbal communication and body movements to realistically portray this guy who is very obviously losing it. You can't quit put your finger on it, but from the very first scenes where he eats a piece of paper and promises a woman he'll buy bread from her at ten o'clock the next day, you know that something's not right with this guy. My brother had previously seen this and had read the Knut Hamsun novel and kept making the claim that we were dealing with an unreliable third-person narrator. That's a funny thing to say about a movie, but in a way it's accurate. There seems to be a point in this movie where the guy and reality officially part ways, but thinking back, I can't decide what that moment is. A lot of this seems to be happening and a lot of this seems to be an interpretation of a sick mind of what's happening and a lot of this might not be happening at all. The ambiguity is fascinating and adds a depth to the story. Hunger is shot starkly and beautifully, one of those movies where the setting, filthy and desolate, is as much a character in the movie as any of the people. The guy's rotten teeth are also almost a character on their own. And although there's this staggering, almost engulfing bleakness, there's also a bit of humor in this. This is a great movie, and I'm really glad my brother made me watch it. I still feel bad about eating sausage while watching this poor guy.