Mark Schulte journalist, teacher, IT enthusiast

funny people

Where to begin with this flick. Have you seen it? Dear lord.

I was all set to hate it, with its lineup of likeable-but-massively-overexposed Seth Rogen and his ballooning sidekick Jonah Hill alongside Adam Sandler, who's got a LOT to apologize for, to say the least.

But somehow director Judd Apatow manages to keep Sandler under control (he must be going through some kind of 40s-crisis thing, which is the best thing that's ever happened to him). He's even pretty good, I mean at least for the first I guess ninety minutes, when the story maintains the illusion of having some kind of arc. I cried a little bit, really.

And then.

Gosh almighty does that thing get off its rails. We get, oh I don't know, I guess about three movies in total. I need to think about it some more, but I'm not sure it finally works. Even if it fails, though, it's still Adam Sandler's best film to date.

And yes, I have seen Punch-Drunk Love, and it was awful.

Orphan

Goodness gracious, the hubub over Orphan. Ann Hornaday went bananas (in a bad way) for, it turns out, good reasons. Ebert spazzed out similarly, but in the other direction.

Ann and Roger: attempt to calm down, please. This film is no more, and no less, than a well-made retread of some shopworn horror movie conventions.

NB: my friend Will finds Peter Sarsgaard's oevre to be, all in all, pretty creepy and suspect. But I'm not mad.

Trailer: