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50/50 -vs- Funny People

50/50 (2011) -vs- Funny People (2009)

September 30, 2011 Arthur Tiersky 4

Seth Rogen’s buddy is dying. Get ready to la-augh!

This is the hook for the new dramedy 50/50, but if it sounds familiar, it’s because you’re recalling Judd Apatow’s Funny People, with Adam Sandler (2009). If it doesn’t sound familiar, it’s because Funny People bombed once word got out that a) it was not the riotous barrel of hilarity that fans had come to expect from Apatow and Rogen’s previous collaborations (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), and b) the film was two-and-a-half hours long and crammed with subplots. Fans of Sandler’s usual juvenilia were similarly caught off guard, by both the darkness of the subject matter and the fact that he was playing a bit of an asshole. […]

I Don't Know How She Does It -vs- The Devil Wears Prada

I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011) -vs- The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

September 18, 2011 Nicole Marchesani 1

A woman’s role today in the world is as vague and subject to interpretation as the U.S. Constitution. She can work or stay at home or both, but every choice comes with a price. Some women feel judged for their decision not to have families; others feel pressured to stay with their families and not work. And heaven help the women who try to master both feats with only two hands.

I Don’t Know How She Does It and The Devil Wears Prada examine the ever-so-popular and unfortunate double standard that exists between men and women in the workplace through the woman’s point of view. Both films ask the big question: What are women supposed to do? Both offer solutions. Two all-star casts. Two scripts adapted by screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna from best-selling novels. […]

Our Idiot Brother -vs- Step Brothers

Our Idiot Brother (2011) -vs- Step Brothers (2008)

August 27, 2011 Doug Molitor 2

If you have never had a loved one clout you with your own hand while telling you to “stop hitting yourself,” you are undoubtedly the eldest or the only child in your family. Who but a sibling empowered by a few years’ advantage in size and smarts and unencumbered by adult conscience or legal liability can do so much psychic damage?

Most adults must wait for Thanksgiving to revisit (then with any luck, repress) the memories of childhood battles, but every year or two, the movies allow us catharsis. In 2008, Step Brothers, the Judd Apatow-produced comedy starring the eponymous Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, was the film that made us all realize that maybe our own families weren’t really so bad. Now, in 2011, comes Our Idiot Brother, whose comic exaggeration allows us to laugh at the kind of intimate atrocities we assuredly did not find funny the first time we experienced them. Unless we were the ones committing them. […]

The Help -vs- Driving Miss Daisy

The Help (2011) -vs- Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

August 21, 2011 Rebecca Coffindaffer 4

Social upheaval. Economic strife. A wildly unpopular war. And racial bigotry that will forever tarnish a great country’s history. If it all sounds familiar, it’s because the problems of the 1960s are still pretty much with us… which is why movies about that era will probably always be popular. It’s so nice to look back in time at the battles for social justice that we’ve fought and won. It helps us forget for a few hours how much work is still left to do.

One of Hollywood’s favorite ways of remembering this period is through the partnerships and friendships that formed between ordinary blacks and whites and the ways they sometimes worked together to make things better for all of us. Civil rights stories have been prominent in cinema since D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance in 1916, but in 1989, Driving Miss Daisy pretty much set the template for telling a certain kind of ‘60s story, winning four Academy Awards in the process.

Now we have another soft-focus take on the era with The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel, which was as much of a phenomenon as Alfred Uhry’s 1987 play, Driving Miss Daisy, was a game-changer off- and later on Broadway.
[…]

30 Minutes or Less -vs- Nick of Time

30 Minutes or Less (2011) -vs- Nick of Time (1995)

August 13, 2011 Ben Silverio 0

Everyone knows, when you want something done right, you hire some unsuspecting schmuck to do it for you. Wait, that’s not how it goes. The bad guys in these two films are doing it all wrong, which is why this Smackdown includes, among other things, a competition for the title of undisputed laziest criminal in movie history. In one corner we have Dwayne, played by Danny McBride in the new comedy 30 Minutes or Less. In the other corner, Mr. Smith — no not that Mr. Smith; the one played by Christopher Walken in the 1995 thriller Nick of Time. These villains don’t want to get their hands dirty, so each one scopes out his surroundings and picks out someone randomly to act on his behalf. […]

The Change-Up -vs- Freaky Friday

The Change-Up (2011) -vs- Freaky Friday (2003)

August 5, 2011 Arthur Tiersky 1

Everybody’s favorite high-concept film is back! The exclusive club for such cinematic touchstones as Vice Versa, 18 Again!, and Like Father, Like Son has a new member.

Is the notion of two likable 30-something guys who really aren’t that different switching bodies as lame as it sounds, or does the movie itself pull the ol’ switcheroo and actually work? Is the R-rated The Change-Up worthy of this respected family of films — most of which, in fact, are family films? […]

Friends With Benefits -vs- No Strings Attached

Friends With Benefits (2011) -vs- No Strings Attached (2011)

July 21, 2011 Jackie Zabel 5

Apparently in 2011, film couples are taking the Nike slogan literally. They would rather “just do it” than have to suffer the emotional consequences of a real relationship. Or at least so goes the premise of two separate movies released this year — Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached.

Both movies are about casual sex, and there’s lots of it onscreen. The challenge is to make it funny, which they do, with mixed results, by talking about body parts and functions in graphic detail. Some of these scenes are even educational. Women will learn even more about the male perils of having to pee with a hard-on than they did from Steve Carell’s bravura bathroom struggle in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Quite the visual here. Who says Americans are puritanical? […]

Kutcher to the Max

No Strings Attached (2011) -vs- What Happens in Vegas (2008)

July 15, 2011 Arthur Tiersky 6

Ashton Kutcher has led a charmed life. Since breaking out as a sitcom star with That ‘70s Show in 1998, he married Hot Babe Brat-Packer-Turned-Actress-Turned-Celebrity Demi Moore and produced and hosted a veritable buttload of mindless but lucrative reality shows. Now, the undisputed Twitter king and anti-child-pornography crusader, he’s been recruited to fill the puke-stained shoes of Charlie Sheen on sitcom cash cow Two and a Half Men, leaving America relieved that Sheen did not, despite concerns, do enough cocaine to kill two and a half men, but at the same time alarmed by the potential disruption this will cause to Ashton’s film career.

Yes, Kutcher has also starred in several movies, the lion’s share of which were broad comedies largely ignored by America, fortunately for Kutcher (and America). Earlier this year, however, it seemed like he was dipping his toes into the water of more mature projects such as No Strings Attached, a fairly realistic comedy/drama/romance, which featured no less than two Oscar winners as well as that Indian chick from The Office (Mindy Kaling).

With Kutcher set to (temporarily at least) abandon filmdom for TMZ’s favorite sitcom, it’s time to evaluate his still-young career once and for all: Is Kutcher a major movie talent whose agents having trouble finding him the right projects, or did his film career peak early with Dude, Where’s My Car, essentially a rehashing, so to speak, of his success on That ‘70s Show, thus making his U-turn back to sitcom-land a wise career move?
[…]

Horrible Bosses -vs- Office Space

Horrible Bosses (2011) -vs- Office Space (1999)

July 11, 2011 Rebecca Coffindaffer 2

We love to watch glamorous Hollywood people be glamorous. More than that, we love to watch glamorous Hollywood people pretend to be Just Like Us and satirize the humdrum jobs the majority of Americans — at least, those of us lucky enough to be employed — are stuck with.

That’s the reason workplace comedies go over so well: They’re accessible and relatable, and God, don’t we all need a good laugh to get through the work week now and again. It’s a time-honored tradition from The Apartment to 9 to 5, and it even includes Dilbert and The Office, for those whose tastes run toward comic strips and TV.

When these satirized workers, over-burdened with indignities, finally snap, we get an offshoot of the office comedy — the Everyman-gets-his-revenge line, which serves up a satisfying order of comeuppance along with the laughs. Mike Judge’s Office Space typifies this subgenre, looking to prove there are still plenty of laughs to be milked from the rebellion of the American cubicle jockey. Now Horrible Bosses takes the ring against it with an impressive opening weekend at the box office. […]

Zookeeper -vs- Dr. Dolittle

Zookeeper (2011) -vs- Dr. Dolittle (1998)

July 10, 2011 Nicole Marchesani 2

Animals have more acute senses than people do and an entirely different way of looking at things, so it stands to reason that audiences have been lapping up talking animal stories since that snake was introduced in the first act of Genesis. Hollywood really pricked up its ears back in ’98, when the Dr. Dolittle remake starring Eddie Murphy became the highest grossing live-action film ever made in the genre. That’s when the industry started tossing them out like so many chew-toys: the Babe sequel, Stuart Little, Narnia… and that doesn’t even count animation.

Now, along comes Zookeeper, which has more than a few things in common with the good Doctor: a depressed animal that needs tender loving care, a know-it-all beast that dispenses good advice when necessary, a really annoying creature that talks too much, and a likable human being — in this case played by Kevin James — who has less success with his own species than he does with his furry friends. Dr. Dolittle and Zookeeper both go for the laughs, but both also play as wish-fulfillment for the odd duck within us all — the one that craves a little primal understanding when we don’t quite fit in. […]

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