Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nicke Frost) are two middle-aged fanboys who travel to the United States to attend Comic Con in San Diego and then drive to famous UFO sites around the country.  On their journey they encounter an alien, named Paul (Seth Rogen) who has been on Earth for 60 years and who escapes from the custody of the US government.  The two friends overcome their initial reservations and agree to help Paul get to a rendezvous point where he will be picked up by the mothership.

Although the Comic Con scene is only a brief part of the beginning of the film, it is easily one of the most memorable. Graeme and Clive revel in the atmosphere where attendees are dressed up as various comic book, sci-fi and fantasy characters and they are able to meet the creators of their favorite works.  Both are particularly excited about meeting Adam Shadowchild, brilliantly played by Jeffrey Tambor.  Shadowchild has a general malaise for the entire Comic Con escapade yet he doesn’t dampen the spirits of the enthusiastic friends.

The two friends nerdiness allowed them to fit into the Comic Con environment, however, they are less successful at blending into rural America. Their general innocence compliments their “man-child” personas well, but puts them in dangerous situations with hillbillies and fundamentalist Christians.  They meet Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), who is also a prisoner, but of her fundamentalist Christian dogma. A firm believer in Intelligent Design, she wears a shirt portraying Jesus shooting Charles Darwin, with the words “Evolve This!” underneath.  Ruth sees Paul and passes out, as another life form’s existence topples her beliefs. Graeme and Clive decide to take the unconscious woman along in order to protect Paul’s whereabouts from the government.

The movie is built upon Pegg and Frost’s sophomoric humor. There are plenty of sex and bodily function jokes, most of which are clever enough to produce laughter. However, one of the funniest aspects of the film is the amount of allusions to other sci-fi movies. Both Pegg and Frost are self-confessed nerds and they make great references to Star Wars (“Boring conversation anyways…”) and Alien (“Get away from her, you bitch!”) with some help from Sigourney Weaver.  These references are closely tied with the narrative and they feel natural.  Most of them develop Paul’s character as we discover that he has played a central role in shaping pop culture by acting as a consultant on movies like E.T.

Although Paul has a great number of laughs and is not a derivative comedy narrative, there was one element of the film that I found particularly distracting—Seth Rogen. I’m a big fan of Rogen’s work, but he seems out of place in this film. His voice and mannerisms come through the alien character and it is all seems way to familiar. That being said, there are plenty of funny moments involving Paul, but Rogen’s familiarity detracted from the overall effect that the alien has on the viewers.  Paul just seemed like one of the guys, something that didn’t make much sense in the story’s context.

Plot Summary (Spoilers Follow)

The film opens in Mexico, where Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith (Liam Neeson) is being held captive. Left for dead by a pair of corrupt cops, he escapes into the desert to rescue a fellow Army Ranger, Templeton “Faceman” Peck (Bradley Cooper). En route, Hannibal encounters a disgraced Ranger, Basco B.A. Baracus (Quinton Jackson), and convinces him to aid in the rescue. On the run from the renegade Mexican forces, they stop at an army hospital to recruit H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock (Sharlo Copley), a mental patient and pilot. Fleeing in a medical chopper, they trick their pursuers into entering American airspace, where the renegades are shot down by the Air Force. This represents the culmination of Hannibal’s elaborate plan.

Eight years later, the team is now a decorated, elite combat unit stationed in Iraq. Hannibal is contacted by CIA Agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson). A group of Iraqi insurgents are transporting a set of US treasury plates being used to make counterfeit currency out of Baghdad. Against the advice of his commanding officer, General Morrison (Gerald McRaney) and Face’s former lover, Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel), Hannibal and the team recover the plates in an unofficial “black” operation. When the team returns to base, the container with the plates and Morrison’s Humvee are destroyed by contractors from the private security firm Black Forest, led by a mercenary named Pike (Brian Bloom). With Morrison dead, there is no record of the mission, and the four are arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Six months later, Lynch visits Hannibal in prison and reveals that Pike is trying to sell the plates with the help of a mysterious Arab. Hannibal strikes a deal with Lynch: in exchange for recovering the plates, the team will be reinstated with clean records. Lynch agrees and helps Hannibal escape. Hannibal frees Face, BA (who has found religion in prison and refuses to kill anymore) and Murdock. Sosa, convinced the team is in league with Pike, pursues them. While escaping from a German hospital, the team’s aircraft is destroyed by military drones. However, they escape inside a tank with parachutes, using the turret to maneuver.

The team tracks Pike, recovering the plates and capturing the Arab, who is revealed to be General Morrison. Morrison was working with Lynch and Pike to steal the plates, but faked his own death to double-cross Lynch. When Lynch discovers that Morrison is alive, he orders an air strike to eliminate the team. They escape, but Morrison, the only one who knows the team is innocent, is killed.

Desperate, Face comes up with a plan. Hannibal contacts Sosa (knowing she is being tapped by Lynch) and agrees to hand over Morrison and the plates at the LA docks in exchange for his freedom. Face then contacts Sosa on an untapped phone he had given her earlier. Lynch and Pike prepare to trap the team at the docks. Face has anticipated this, and executes an elaborate plan to draw Lynch into the open. However, when Pike uses a bazooka to sink the ship the team is using, the plan nearly falls apart until Pike is killed by BA. Lynch confronts Hannibal and a hooded figure he believes to be Morrison, shooting the figure in the head. Just as it seems as though Lynch has won, the container they are fighting in is lifted, revealing Sosa and a squad of Federal agents. The figure in the hood is revealed to be Murdock in a Kevlar helmet. Lynch is taken into custody, but the team is arrested again for escaping prison. Before he is taken away, Sosa kisses Face. As the frustrated team is taken away, Face produces a key from his mouth, repeating Hannibal’s catch-phrase: “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Anyone familiar with a flip book knows that when you put a series of still pictures together in succession, it can create the appearance of movement and activity. Sadly, this film does not seem to have mastered this basic principle of film making. The overall narrative of the film is incredibly disjointed and the plot is so poorly executed it is impossible to follow. Much of this is due to one critical error: there are three different factions chasing the team. As each of these factions schemes against and chases the others, it is easy to get them confused. Much of the time, the viewer will be trying to figure out who is chasing the team. Why the chase scene is occurring is too frequently a question that is also left unanswered. The villain’s motivations are never explained and their performances suffer as a result. In particular, Agent Lynch is portrayed as an inept bumbler, who will annoy viewers rather than intimidate or scare them. The character is such a pathetic caricature of a corrupt CIA agent that he is not even worthy of the title of comic relief. Biel’s character fairs little better, as it feels like her only role in the film is to look pretty for 90 minutes and kiss the hero at the end.

However, another reason for the film’s scattershot of a plot is that it tries to incorporate too many elements into the story. Viewers will find themselves confronted with an exhibition of clichéd twists: the jilted lovers confronting each other, the senior mentor who is revealed to be a traitor, the second in command taking his mentor’s place. The worst offender is the unnecessary subplot involving BA’s pacifism, which is unconvincing and immediately abandoned after a single lecture from Hannibal. None of these scenes are bound together convincingly into one grand narrative. The latter half of the film feels like watching several mediocre short films.

This is not to say that the film is a complete failure. A few of the individual scenes are good in and of themselves. The opening scene is decently exciting and does an admirable job establishing the personality of each of the four team members. That is where the film shines. The interactions between the four are genuine and often hilarious. While the action half of the action-comedy label is disappointing in the second half, the comedy in the first half of the film is genuinely funny. Face’s cool, quick wit is perfectly complemented by BA’s over the top personality and Murdock’s cartoonish ramblings.  All of this is brought together by a solid performance from Neeson’s Hannibal, whose calculating command provides their scenes with a focus that gave the initial action sequences purpose and direction. While some may criticize the individual characters as one dimensional, together the performances exceed the sum of their parts. These moments of comedic comity make the first half of the film enjoyable.

However, the uninspired series of action movie vignettes loosely attached to the first half lack any of these interactions. The fight sequences at the end of the film are dark and the camera is jerky, leading to a confusing and disappointing final confrontation. The ending is nonsensical and thoroughly disappointing. Pity the fools who sit through this entire movie. But if the viewer is in need of a decent laugh for 40 minutes and nothing else can help, maybe they should hire the A-Team.

The movie scored a major coup by having John Cusack, a star of many films of the 1980s, as the lead. By doing so, it allows the audience to ask what happened to the characters like Lloyd Dobler, who were supposed to live happily ever after their eighties exploits. The answer is that they are emotional nightmares, either too clingy or too cowardly or too antipathetic to have an actual successful relationship.

Cusack plays Adam, a forty-year old who can’t keep a girlfriend because he’s too compartmentalized. His friend Lou’s (Rob Corddry) attempted suicide prompts him and his friend Nick (Craig Robinson) to rent a cabin in the ski lodge where they had many fond memories. Along for the trip is Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), who plays the straight man to the outrageous Coddry.

"It must be some kind of Hot Tub Time Machine"

When the protagonists arrive at the cabin, the place is in shambles, but that is no worry because a sagely repairman (Chevy Chase) is able to get the titular hot tub running and that’s really all you need for a party. Through a series of accidents, the hot tub transports them back to the 1980s, and that’s when the fun begins. References to many facets of eighties culture (and even contemporary culture) appear left and right- everything from “The Drive” to Michael Jackson is lampooned. The characters provide many humorous situations as they attempt to relive the past in an attempt to keep the future intact. But if Back to the Future has taught us anything, you can’t relive the past in the exact same manner (and to reinforce this fact, Crispin Glover has a supporting role as the hotel’s bellhop).

The only problem with Hot Tub Time Machine was the lack of development of certain subplots. Though the gang references a bad time in Cincinnati that led to a falling out of the main characters, the audience is never shown what exactly happened in the Queen City. Though it can be inferred that Adam did something that cemented his reputation as a self-absorbed jerk, a reveal of the exact incident (like the Albuquerque incident in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard) does not occur. Thus, Hot Tub Time Machine misses a key opportunity to provide more jokes and more humor.

However, this slight missed opportunity does not detract from the overall quality of the movie. This movie is destined to become a college humor classic with its many quotable lines and funny references. Plus, it’s a movie with a hot tub time machine- what can be wrong with that?

This summer, studios have expanded the reach of the typical “guy comedy” movie. Movies such as The Hangover have broad appeal due to the affability of their characters, which allows an advertising executive to spin the movie as being about friendship, thereby overshadowing some of the movie’s raunchiest bits.  The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard does not fit in with this expansion. This lack of conformity is why I enjoyed the movie. It is rude, crass, and ultimately hilarious.

Before this review progresses any further, a word of warning: if you do not enjoy blue humor, you will not enjoy The Goods (the title is abbreviated from this point forward in this review because the full title is absolutely asinine). Many people do not enjoy blue humor, which is why The Goods currently has only 27% favorable reviews according to internet aggregator Rotten Tomatoes while the Disney Channel teen comedy BandSlam is “certified fresh” at 80%. Many people are morons as well, all making the same cash for clunkers joke while calling the movie offensive.

Jeremy Piven portrays Don Ready, a fixer for used car lots that have fallen on hard times. His job is to sell cars by any means necessary, and those means increase in absurdity and hilarity as the movie progresses. Assisting him in his goal are Brent Gage (David Koechner), Babs Merrick (Kathryn Hahn), and Jibby Newsome (Ving Rhames). Headlining his first film since 1994’s PCU, Piven uses the overconfident personality that he has developed as Ari Gold on Entourage to ensure a fair amount of laughs. Rhames is on a quest to “make love” (but make no mistake, he has had sex) and consistently delivers some of the best lines in the movie (you’ll never think of James Van Der Beek in the same way again). Unfortunately, Koechner and Hahn fade to the periphery. While each of them deliver quality comedic moments, they either come too infrequently in the case of Koechner or the character disgusts you so much that you don’t want to see her on the screen in the case of Hahn.

They've got The Goods.

Aside from Ready’s team, the movie presents a supporting cast of ridiculous characters, including a xenophobic World War II veteran turned car salesman (Charles Napier), a dealership owner with homoerotic tendencies (James Brolin), the leader of a boy band for men who wants to see the dealership fail so that he can have more rehearsal space (Ed Helms), an unfortunately named DJ who does not live up to his name (Craig Robinson), and his former car sales partner (Will Ferrell in an outstanding cameo role). Piven plays the straight men to these characters and others that I did not mention, and much of the movie’s humor comes from the interaction between them. It is in this regard that I must compliment Neal Brennan, co-creator of Chappelle’s Show and the director of the movie. Because most of the movie is based upon interaction of a plethora of characters, it is essential that there is quality direction. Otherwise, the movie would have meandered through its own jokes.

The best way to describe this movie would be to call it a mile a minute comedy. There is a plot, but the real fun comes from the rapid-fire pace of the one-liners scattered through the movie. In this regard, The Goods resembles last year’s summer breakout comedy, Tropic Thunder. However, while Tropic Thunder only connected on about roughly 60%-70% of its jokes, The Goods connects on 90% of them. While there are many scenes that could be considered extraneous, you don’t mind viewing them because they keep you in stitches.

Was this scene unnecessary? Yes. Did it stop me from enjoying the movie? No.

The only cringe-worthy moments of this movie were when Hahn interacted with Rob Riggle’s character, a ten-year old boy who has a forty-year old’s body due to a pituitary problem. She obviously lusts for him, which is okay in real life, but not when he is supposed to be a ten-year old. Thankfully, this subplot is not pursued for more than five minutes. Otherwise, the movie would have been turned from a comedy to a bad episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

In this era where romantic comedies and bromances have become top earners, I’m glad that there are movies that can deliver the funny from beginning to end. The raunchy comedy is an art form and there is more potential to miss the mark and create a bad film, because there is little story upon which to fall back. For every Old School, there is Miss March and a Meet the Spartans. The Goods definitely belongs with the former, and not the latter.

Apatow makes funny movies, plain and simple. There are plenty-o-penis jokes in all of his films yet his movies are different than sophomoric comedies so popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Growing up, I absolutely adored films like Dumb and Dumber and Billy Madison. Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler were two of the funniest people alive and their best movies (yes, I said BEST) included jokes about farts, penises, and poop. I find those things funny, as long as they aren’t overdone.

What has happened in the past, to Carrey, Sandler and almost every other comedian is that the humor is getting more ridiculous and the films worse. There were fresh comedies throughout this period that were definitely funny, I don’t want to make it seem as though we were living in the Dark Ages of funny business. However, comedies were more-often-than-not rehashes of the same jokes about bodily functions.

Then Mr. Apatow came and started the comedic renaissance. He decided to make comedies that are both funny and show complexity in their storyline. Imagine that! You mean that it wasn’t just going to be about how a bunch of high school/college kids trying to get laid? Well actually, no…they are many times about people trying to be with women. But in Apatow’s films the characters’ reasoning and ideologies change by the conclusion. It is not simply a film about guys making a pact to lose their virginity even if it starts out that way. Instead, the characters are lovable losers who actually explore their psyches and undergo character development. Yes, character development!

In many of Apatow’s films, the characters are nothing but young minded fools with one focus on their mind—sex. This is actually a pretty realistic idea, young men are really only interested in sex for much of their youth. Apatow knows this and all men know this. Yet Apatow also knows that men are also looking for relationships and acceptance, no matter how nerdy, geeky, or unattractive they are. It seems as though Apatow’s comedies are about growing up, but also realizing that laughter surrounds all elements of life. In his first films, the point was to find love and happiness, something everyone can connect to even if they haven’t experienced it themselves. In Funny People Apatow shows the importance of laughter is during life’s heartbreaking moments.

I won’t ever forget watching the red carpet pre-Oscar show a couple of years back and hearing movie critic Pooh-Bah Roger Ebert talking to Steve Carrell about 40-Year-Old Virgin. Ebert believed that it was one of the best films of the year and that Carrell gave one of the best performances. The talk was mostly tied to debate over whether or not the Academy should give more awards to comedies.

If you fast-forward to more recently, you can see that a change in mindset has already started to occur. Juno was a touching, hilarious comedy about a not-so-funny subject—teen pregnancy. It was showered with praise and awards and hailed as the epitome of a great comedy. I fully agree with these sentiments, but I do believe that Juno’s success was largely due to Judd Apatow’s groundwork. His movies had begun to change the way people were looking at comedies—as serious narratives that explore human emotions and existence.

Of course Apatow owes a lot of his success to the people in front of the camera: Steve Carrell, Seth Rogen, and company. But for all the help he has received, he has put in even more work.  He is noted as one of the hardest working people in the movie industry and his films are always on time and on budget. Through this hard work he has gained commercial and critical success, something that has eluded so many other comedic filmmakers. With this success Apatow has more freedom to make projects of the same nature, but ones that can be even more complex in their narratives and themes.  What is important is that Apatow has ushered in a comedic renaissance which will increase the legitimacy of my favorite movie genre.

Three years after the rousingly successful Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen returns to the screen with another of his original characters: Bruno. The gay, Austrian fashionista and host of the Funkyzeit comes to America with the goal of becoming rich and famous after he is blacklisted from the European fashion scene.

Bruno is filmed in a similar style to Borat as much of the hilarity is derived from fooling people into believing that Bruno is a serious TV show host and fashion critic. Many of the people are the stereotypical, uneducated Southerners who Cohen plays off of to create funny situations. This is never more evident when Bruno attempts to become straight by employing the services of a born again Christian minister who believes he can turn Bruno into a heterosexual—or show him the error in his “choice”.

Bruno also has the opportunity to interview Paula Abdul and Ron Paul, both of whom go along with the idiotic questioning and surroundings until they are put into overtly sexual situations. Cohen has an amazing ability to ask hilarious questions that seem like honest mistakes by an ignorant individual. He is also wonderfully quick on his feet, as he is able to ask follow up questions and interject with his own comedic tidbits. Later in the film, Bruno adopts a cause (because all famous people have causes) and attempts to make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians who he believes only disagree over the nature of hummus which he has confused with Hamas.

Obviously, a large part of Cohen’s comedy is through his stereotypical portrayal of groups and cultures. Cohen shows the ridiculousness of bigotry through his situational comedy. He is not anti-Semitic or anti-gay but rather he shows how ignorant people are for holding their specific beliefs. However, whereas in Borat people with anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim ideologies were combated through Borat’s making such claims himself, Bruno makes social arguments differently.

Unlike Borat, this film largely relies on shock value revolving around homosexual stereotypes and raw sexual situations.  The film includes many scenes that include graphic actions between men and more nudity than any other film in recent memory. Although many times these scenes are humorous, Bruno doesn’t seem to really attempt to change people’s opinions about homosexuality. In all actuality, the film made both pro and anti-gay people cringe. Many people who support gay-rights believe that people should be allowed to do what they wish in private. However Bruno is overly sexual in public which makes the regular folks in the scene angry and upset while it makes many in the audience cover their eyes.

In one of the closing scenes, Bruno begins wrestling with another man and then proceeds to make-out with him. The crowd from the Deep South is shocked and appalled by the events unfolding in front of their eyes. Many begin to throw objects into the ring to try to physically harm Bruno and his new friend. This scene was the perfect manifestation of my fears about what the film would do to people who do not accept homosexuality—it would make them angry. Unlike Borat, which could seemingly make people rethink their bigotries after watching, Bruno could very well have the opposite effect—causing people to be grossly offended and galvanize their hatred.

Although Bruno is a funny movie, it will probably deservedly receive criticism over its content. In some respects, the film is lazy in some regards as Cohen relies too heavily on shock value in specific segments. Many people will be disgusted by particular scenes but there will also definitely be laughs. The movie going experience will be different for everyone and is largely dependent upon their personal stance on homosexuality.