Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Earlier this year, I wrote a review for Bad Teacher (find it HERE) and talked about how I really liked my first experience of watching Jason Segel.  Thats when my actual friend and fellow blogger, Jelliefishie, suggested that I should check out Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  I hesitated on this one a while but then after horror and action lined up, I felt like it would be good to get some comedy in, even if it included the annoying Russell Brand.  Let’s check it out!

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Cast: Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill

Struggling musician Peter (Jason Segel) gets dumped by his 5 year TV celebrity girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).  To escape from his pains, he goes to a Hawaiian resort where he coincidentially ends up at the same time with Sarah Marshall and his new boyfriend Aldous Snow.   (Russell Brand).  As he makes friends and tries to move on, he meets the resort front desk employee, Rachel (Mila Kunis) who helps cover up and encourage him to break out of his shell and embrace life.

I had no idea what to expect from this mostly because Jelliefishie recommends awkward humor movies.  Last time was The House Bunny which I grew to like a lot.  Funny enough, when Forgetting Sarah Marshall started, I had that feeling.  I should mention that I watched the Unrated version, since Rotten Tomatoes seem to view it as two different films.  Anyways, as the movie progressed, it actually had a lot of really funny moments and turned into a nice balance between romance and comedy.  I ended up having a really good time with this.

Jason Segel is a pretty awesome actor.  He has this silly adorable vibe.  Sometimes, thats just the charm that brings out the right level of not too sappy romance.  Maybe he was a tad overexaggerated, (or do guys that break up really act that way?) and in this unrated version, we saw him fully naked.  Did they do that in the original theatrical version? Either way, he had great chemistry with Mila Kunis.  On that note, I have seen Mila Kunis a few times in movies.  She’s actually a pretty fun actress and in this one, even I thought she had really nice style.

On the other side, Kristen Bell fit right into the role of the crazy ex girlfriend who is super full of themselves matched with the very well-deserved (still annoying) boyfriend in the form of Russell Brand.  Honestly, I don’t like him anymore after this.  I walked away halfway through one of the scenes because it was just ridiculous… That was the only downside for me.  I can see how if that type of humor was your type of thing then he was supposed to be the comedic relief.  I found many other parts funnier.   However, in the parts with him and Jonah Hill (as the waiter), those scenes were pretty epic.

Jelliefishie definitely gave me a decent recommendation.  Will it be my fave comedy? Probably not but it sure was fun! It was what I needed to lighten my mood. It had a good amount of hilarious moments, a solid cast with Jason Segel, Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell and a great supporting cast with Jonah Hill and even a cameo with Kristen Wiig.  Plus, the girls had a beautiful wardrobe and even I started wondering, how can I get Kristen Bell’s core… That aside, c’mon its in HAWAII! Who is in for a vacation Hawaii? I know I’d go in a heartbeat (if I had the money)!

I talked about Jason Segel before.  What do you think of Russell Brand? Are you into his comedy style? How about the two beautiful girls in this: Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell? Do you like them? Any notable performances that come to mind? Did you see this flick? Love to hear your thoughts 🙂

Remember to go check out Jelliefishie’s awesome blog! She’s very artistic and take awesome photos and she writes awesome stuff, even recently dipping into the world of movie reviews 🙂 I linked her up on top!

Bad Teacher (2011)

I wasn’t expecting to get back into romantic comedies so soon but this one just happened to be chosen out of the unwatched list at home. It was time to watch it since I should return it to my friend afterwards. The past weekend was CRAZY! I have a good amount of reviews to write up and its getting all backlogged.  Hopefully I’ll get it up this week.

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Lucy Punch

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is a junior high school teacher who is just has her engagement broken off from a rich man.  Her priority has always to find a rich husband and now she wants to do that by getting herself breast implants. Conveniently, as she is forced to go back to work as a junior high school teacher, she meets Scott (Justin Timberlake) who is a rich substitute teacher.  She tries to get him to notice her while pretending to be involved in the school activities and her class, when all she does is be disrespectful, inappropriate and rude.  However, when she learns that if her class can score the highest score in the state exams, she will be rewarded with a huge monetary prize, she starts changing the way she teaches.  As she is pursuing Scott, Elizabeth is being chased by the persistent gym teacher, Russell (Jason Segel).  While Scott seems to be growing more fond of another teacher, Amy (Lucy Punch) who suspects Elizabeth of her bad teaching ways and wants to continuously dig up dirt on her to get her kicked out of the school. Between everything going on, will she get what she wants?

Let’s just say I didn’t hate the flick, however, I won’t be adding it to my collection either.  The story is pretty simple.  If you are a Cameron Diaz fan, she really does amazing.  My boyfriend and I sat there hating on her character and shaking our heads as to how disgusting a person like that actually would be.  Thats exactly what her role is supposed to do, so she did it right on! Went straight for getting under our skins as a superficial, inappropriate and rude effortless teacher.  You can’t get any better at that (maybe you can), and she lights up this movie.

 

On the other hand, Justin Timberlake has yet to convince me that he can act.  Maybe he just needs to pick better movies.  If you have one, please tell me.  JT was part of N’Sync and I liked that group when I was younger (I know I know, you can laugh) On top of that, he had the weirdest expressions in this movie. Maybe the movie required that, but it was disturbing to me.  Especially one of the scenes…but I won’t say which one to not spoil anyone’s “fun” if you haven’t seen it.  Okay, I have to move on from this character and attempt to erase that image from my mind.  So I’ll move on to Jason Segel, whom I loved.  I haven’t seen him in much before this but he was awesome! Maybe I like to root for the underdog in love stories but he was a fun character, plus he delivered some good lines.  I’m down for more Jason Segel after this…(about that, I have to find time to finish The Muppets)

For this one though, it was less about the romance than it was the girly unfriendliness between the characters of Elizabeth and Amy.  It wasn’t anything bad but it was entertaining to watch.  It had me guessing as to what would happen next.  Lucy Punch isn’t a bad actress.  She’s average but she had some ridiculous moments as well but then, the parts where she interacted with Cameron Diaz, it made me laugh.

I’m not sure I’m totally down to see this movie again and I’m definitely not going to recommend it highly.  But, if it happens to land on TV for free and you happen to want a laugh here and there, its not completely bad.  Cameron Diaz shines at being the ultimate bad teacher and she, at the very least, will entertain you 🙂