"Those British mother****ers never die!"
I am always pretty useless on Monday night, and I wanted to see Get Him To The Greek anyway, so last night I figured what the hell and after work I went to the movies.
If you have seen the trailers you may, like me, have been thinking, "This movie is going to be either absolutely dire or hysterically funny." I wavered until I saw the discussion thread on the pop culture message board I frequent and realized the people there who'd seen it thought it was a gas. And the link above takes you to RottenTomatoes.com, where it's rating a solid 75%, so apparently those folks were not alone.
And now I have joined them, although I will put my comments about the movie behind a cut for the sake of those of you who might still want to see it. (I should comment, though--after seeing this movie a few of us might wish to reconsider referring to our horses as "rock stars" when we want to compliment them.)
The premise: Aldous Snow [Russell Brand] is the Last British Rock Star, a guy whose pretentious save-the-world "anthem," "African Child," was apparently the third-worst thing ever to happen to Africa. The video clip probably killed off the video industry all by itself.
Aldous and his girlfriend Jackie Q [Rose Byrne, who is unbelievably funny] go on the wagon, then she falls off the wagon and he jumps after her. They turn into one of those spectacularly tiresome on-and-off couples whose every romantic foible is splashed all over the gossip magazines (virtually all the star cameos in the movie happen at this point, in photographs, as they date their way through Hollywood.) Jackie disappears from the scene as Aldous's behaviour gets more and more outrageous.
At this point the opening credits roll. By then I had gotten my money's worth in laughs so everything else was gravy.
The body of the movie is a mismatched buddy-flick, in which Aaron Green (played by Jonah Hill, who kind of looks like Mark Addy's nebbishy American baby brother) is a low-level record company schmoe, genuinely in love with music and also with a cute but equally nerdy, chronically sleep-deprived intern named Daphne [Elisabeth Moss]. Aaron is the standard Guy Who Needs A Rock Star To Teach Him How To Have Fun in movies like this, but Daphne is not the standard Ball-Breaking Bitch Girlfriend who gets dumped in this type of movie.
Actually, Aaron is a music nerd and a pretty good guy. He's funny and goodnatured and unlike a lot of movies of this general type, you can totally see why Daphne is with him. Which telegraphs something about the movie from the get-go, and it's a good thing.
Anyway, Aaron works at a record company run by Sergio [an absolutely hysterical Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Sean Combs, and who knew he had such timing?] The company is in need of a boost, and Aaron convinces the boss that a comeback concert by the Last British Rock Star (who frankly does not have a lot else going on right now) will lead to a pyramid of sales of the back catalogue, concert DVDs, and the like. Aaron is genuinely a fan of Snow, and as a low-level office guy he seems to have very little idea what he's getting himself into when the boss sends him to babysit Aldous Snow from London to New York for the Today Show to the concert in LA at the Greek Theatre.
Obviously there will be anarchy, and obviously Aaron is in for a lot of hilarious yet cringeworthy fish-out-of-water antics, especially since, just before he left for London, he and Daphne had a genuine-feeling argument that he thinks ended in a breakup. He doesn't have time to nurse his broken heart, since Aldous Snow is looning along like the spiritual heir of Keith Moon, and since Aaron can't control Aldous the best he can do is try to aim him. In fact, he ends up flapping along like the tail of a particularly outrageous kite.
The over-the-top rock star antics are funny, but you eventually realize that Aldous is not entertaining himself, he's bottoming out. And, while Brand as Aldous is really funny as the over-the-top rocker, he's surprisingly touching when he explains things to Aaron--like the drugs, for example. Why should he give up drugs? He was clean for several years (although Jackie points out, "And you did yoga five hours a day. There is NOTHING you can't turn into heroin") and when he was clean he worried about his career and his son and his relationship and the state of the recording industry. Now that he's back on drugs, the only thing he worries about is getting more drugs. Simpler. Brand is absolutely convincing in this moment--you can feel when the wretched excess just gets wretched.
I should note, this is a raunchy movie, with a lot of sex and sex jokes and vomiting (I looked away at the vomiting) and varying degrees of nudity and continual drug references. Aaron has a habit of getting very quiet when he's faced with someone who's mad at him, but he doesn't always know when to shut up: in the argument with Daphne, which spirals out of something fairly reasonable that neither of them is in a state to be reasonable about, Aaron actually utters the words, "Are you having your period?" and a guy behind me whispered, "Oh nooo..." (Later, in an unfamiliar drugged-up state, Aaron and Daphne are fighting on the phone and Aaron starts yelling that she thinks she's so great because she's a DOCTOR, well, let me tell you, the NAZIS had DOCTORS--at which point a girl a few seats away from me murmured, "Oh nooo...")
We've already seen that Aldous is surrounded by yes-people, from his usual handler to his mother (who bears a weird resemblance to Charlie Watts), so it kind of makes sense that he tests the new guy to the limit, trying to find out where he'll break. Aaron flaps along for quite a while before he reaches his breaking point at just about the same time Aldous reaches his. This is when Aldous gets his second surprisingly affecting moment, when he's about to go onstage after seriously injuring himself. Aaron tries to talk him out of it, and tries to convince him that he doesn't owe anything to an audience full of random strangers, or to Sergio (who brushes off Aaron's worry about the singer: "He's British! You can't kill those British motherfuckers! Mick Jagger, Keith Richards [Brian Jones], all those Led Zeppelin guys--they're as old as shit! [John Bonham.... Keith Moon]") I loved Aldous's response, which was to tell Aaron that he performs for himself as much as anyone. "I'm nervous. It's good to feel something." Again, he's completely sincere and believable and likable in the moment.
Obviously we know where this is going to end up, and it does, with a reference back to one of the funniest parts of the movie and yet another musical number worthy of Spinal Tap.
Anyway--not a movie for the easily offended, because wretched rock star excess is nothing if not offensive, but I found it really, really funny.
One point of interest, though: almost none of the funny scenes showed in the trailer are actually in the movie. The same thing happened with Iron Man 2: one of the funniest moments in the trailer is not in the movie. Is this now a thing? Like, instead of showing all the good stuff in the trailer, are movie makers now saving funny deleted scenes for the trailer, to give you a sense of the movie-verse without spoiling the actual movie? This could work out very badly, but it could also turn out pretty well. Hmm.
Anyway--recommended. If you like that sort of thing.
If you have seen the trailers you may, like me, have been thinking, "This movie is going to be either absolutely dire or hysterically funny." I wavered until I saw the discussion thread on the pop culture message board I frequent and realized the people there who'd seen it thought it was a gas. And the link above takes you to RottenTomatoes.com, where it's rating a solid 75%, so apparently those folks were not alone.
And now I have joined them, although I will put my comments about the movie behind a cut for the sake of those of you who might still want to see it. (I should comment, though--after seeing this movie a few of us might wish to reconsider referring to our horses as "rock stars" when we want to compliment them.)
The premise: Aldous Snow [Russell Brand] is the Last British Rock Star, a guy whose pretentious save-the-world "anthem," "African Child," was apparently the third-worst thing ever to happen to Africa. The video clip probably killed off the video industry all by itself.
Aldous and his girlfriend Jackie Q [Rose Byrne, who is unbelievably funny] go on the wagon, then she falls off the wagon and he jumps after her. They turn into one of those spectacularly tiresome on-and-off couples whose every romantic foible is splashed all over the gossip magazines (virtually all the star cameos in the movie happen at this point, in photographs, as they date their way through Hollywood.) Jackie disappears from the scene as Aldous's behaviour gets more and more outrageous.
At this point the opening credits roll. By then I had gotten my money's worth in laughs so everything else was gravy.
The body of the movie is a mismatched buddy-flick, in which Aaron Green (played by Jonah Hill, who kind of looks like Mark Addy's nebbishy American baby brother) is a low-level record company schmoe, genuinely in love with music and also with a cute but equally nerdy, chronically sleep-deprived intern named Daphne [Elisabeth Moss]. Aaron is the standard Guy Who Needs A Rock Star To Teach Him How To Have Fun in movies like this, but Daphne is not the standard Ball-Breaking Bitch Girlfriend who gets dumped in this type of movie.
Actually, Aaron is a music nerd and a pretty good guy. He's funny and goodnatured and unlike a lot of movies of this general type, you can totally see why Daphne is with him. Which telegraphs something about the movie from the get-go, and it's a good thing.
Anyway, Aaron works at a record company run by Sergio [an absolutely hysterical Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Sean Combs, and who knew he had such timing?] The company is in need of a boost, and Aaron convinces the boss that a comeback concert by the Last British Rock Star (who frankly does not have a lot else going on right now) will lead to a pyramid of sales of the back catalogue, concert DVDs, and the like. Aaron is genuinely a fan of Snow, and as a low-level office guy he seems to have very little idea what he's getting himself into when the boss sends him to babysit Aldous Snow from London to New York for the Today Show to the concert in LA at the Greek Theatre.
Obviously there will be anarchy, and obviously Aaron is in for a lot of hilarious yet cringeworthy fish-out-of-water antics, especially since, just before he left for London, he and Daphne had a genuine-feeling argument that he thinks ended in a breakup. He doesn't have time to nurse his broken heart, since Aldous Snow is looning along like the spiritual heir of Keith Moon, and since Aaron can't control Aldous the best he can do is try to aim him. In fact, he ends up flapping along like the tail of a particularly outrageous kite.
The over-the-top rock star antics are funny, but you eventually realize that Aldous is not entertaining himself, he's bottoming out. And, while Brand as Aldous is really funny as the over-the-top rocker, he's surprisingly touching when he explains things to Aaron--like the drugs, for example. Why should he give up drugs? He was clean for several years (although Jackie points out, "And you did yoga five hours a day. There is NOTHING you can't turn into heroin") and when he was clean he worried about his career and his son and his relationship and the state of the recording industry. Now that he's back on drugs, the only thing he worries about is getting more drugs. Simpler. Brand is absolutely convincing in this moment--you can feel when the wretched excess just gets wretched.
I should note, this is a raunchy movie, with a lot of sex and sex jokes and vomiting (I looked away at the vomiting) and varying degrees of nudity and continual drug references. Aaron has a habit of getting very quiet when he's faced with someone who's mad at him, but he doesn't always know when to shut up: in the argument with Daphne, which spirals out of something fairly reasonable that neither of them is in a state to be reasonable about, Aaron actually utters the words, "Are you having your period?" and a guy behind me whispered, "Oh nooo..." (Later, in an unfamiliar drugged-up state, Aaron and Daphne are fighting on the phone and Aaron starts yelling that she thinks she's so great because she's a DOCTOR, well, let me tell you, the NAZIS had DOCTORS--at which point a girl a few seats away from me murmured, "Oh nooo...")
We've already seen that Aldous is surrounded by yes-people, from his usual handler to his mother (who bears a weird resemblance to Charlie Watts), so it kind of makes sense that he tests the new guy to the limit, trying to find out where he'll break. Aaron flaps along for quite a while before he reaches his breaking point at just about the same time Aldous reaches his. This is when Aldous gets his second surprisingly affecting moment, when he's about to go onstage after seriously injuring himself. Aaron tries to talk him out of it, and tries to convince him that he doesn't owe anything to an audience full of random strangers, or to Sergio (who brushes off Aaron's worry about the singer: "He's British! You can't kill those British motherfuckers! Mick Jagger, Keith Richards [Brian Jones], all those Led Zeppelin guys--they're as old as shit! [John Bonham.... Keith Moon]") I loved Aldous's response, which was to tell Aaron that he performs for himself as much as anyone. "I'm nervous. It's good to feel something." Again, he's completely sincere and believable and likable in the moment.
Obviously we know where this is going to end up, and it does, with a reference back to one of the funniest parts of the movie and yet another musical number worthy of Spinal Tap.
Anyway--not a movie for the easily offended, because wretched rock star excess is nothing if not offensive, but I found it really, really funny.
One point of interest, though: almost none of the funny scenes showed in the trailer are actually in the movie. The same thing happened with Iron Man 2: one of the funniest moments in the trailer is not in the movie. Is this now a thing? Like, instead of showing all the good stuff in the trailer, are movie makers now saving funny deleted scenes for the trailer, to give you a sense of the movie-verse without spoiling the actual movie? This could work out very badly, but it could also turn out pretty well. Hmm.
Anyway--recommended. If you like that sort of thing.