For Your Anticipation: Your Momma's So Fat

I really do think that Will Ferrell is a commendable comedic talent. The problem is that it doesn't show through most of the decisions he's made in the past. I would like to think that Everything Must Go is going to be a change of pace for him, but it looks a little bit too friendly for my tastes. This is the process I go through with an indie comedy. "Oh, that looks cute, but what else is there?" It's hardly the sort of film I'll travel five hours to see, so you have to ask yourself if it's worth traveling even 15 minutes to see.

Theatrical Trailer: Casa de mi Padre

Last week gave us the passable trailer for Everything Must Go, tonight gives us Will Ferrell's first appearance on The Office, and now we get a look at one of his most hilariously peculiar projects on the horizon. Going into this trailer knowing nothing, as I did, you can't help but wonder how Casa de mi Padre went over your head. Right off the bat, you get the idea that this isn't your average comedic venture. It looks like one of the most wisely crafted comedies of this year, not to mention one of the most original. Take a look below, and comment on your thoughts.

Theatrical Trailer: Everything Must Go

I really do think that Will Ferrell is one of the greater heroes of the comedic world. Unlike the typical Adam Sandler or Owen Wilson shtick that comes off as forced and often annoying, he has always had a generally down-to-earth sense of humor. He is a legitimately grounded actor with nice comedic timing, provided he isn't handed something that requires him to go completely over the top. Everything Must Go looks like a regular sort of comedy, not relying on a massive comedic ensemble, nor a wacky premise to lure curious audiences in. More often than not, comedies with such thin plotlines have greater opportunity for organic humor. This one looks really amusing and entertaining, even if it's not much above a B.

Power and Control: Best Performances in Otherwise Awful Films of 2010

5. Will Ferrell as Allen Gamble (The Other Guys)

I often have double takes about exactly what I thought of Will Ferrell's performance in The Other Guys, because even though a lot of people enjoyed it, I just ended up hating it. So, as is the case with many an awful film, it's difficult to pick out somebody and say they did well. I've never been a fan of Will Ferrell, but the fact of the matter is that he steps up his game for this one. He's not the same sort of child in an adult's body. He was actually a pretty decent guy, and his character felt closer to what a real person would be like in those situations. Wildly and ignorantly out of control, but close to realistic. The script just doesn't serve him well enough, as it should. Luckily, he had Megamind to turn his year around.

4. Taylor Swift as Veronica (Valentines Day)

This is probably the best cameo appearance of the year, and it's in a film that I didn't even end up paying to see. Valentines Day is the traditional romantic comedy that uses all the pathetic jokes that have been used in the genre before, as well as the same cliches. The one aspect of the film that I was ever on board with was the Taylor/Taylor cameo, featuring Lautner and Swift as a high school couple. Lautner does a pretty traditional job, but you'd have to have a cold heart of stone not to like Taylor Swift. She's always put forward that adorable and bubbly persona that put everyone on her side when Kanye West ruined her VMA moment. Here, she just displays a pure sense of joy that the rest of the film is surprisingly lacking. Feel free to rail against my choice, because I expect. I'm just glad that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

3. Alfred Molina as Maxim Horvath (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)

I both hate and love that my impatience to see Inception eventually pushed me to see this film. I knew long before the trailer came out that this film was prematurely busted and broken. There is no dignity in remaking the beloved musical short of the same name, and then reformatting it as a live-action adventure. Nicholas Cage doesn't help credibility either. The one thing that this film had going for it was Alfred Molina, the patron saint of fantastic actors in bad films. The man is always placed into these truly awful films, and he's usually the most likable actor of the group. He's got a deceptive charisma about him, and that fits most of the villains he plays. Horvath isn't exactly a well written character, but Molina's personality just clicks with relish, and we too relish every moment he's onscreen, because for that moment, The Sorcerer's Apprentice isn't painful to sit through.

2. Carey Mulligan as Cathy H. (Never Let Me Go)

Never Let Me Go was the ultimate love-it-or-hate-it film of 2010, and I unfortunately ended up in that second group of people. I know that the film must have been impeccably crafted, but it just didn't rub off on me the way it should have. Kiera Knightly and Andrew Garfield's performances began to grate on my about halfway through the film, because they both had an expiration date. Carey Mulligan, on the other hand, proved that her spectacular performance in An Education wasn't just a fluke. She doesn't have to carry this film on her shoulders, but she does, and she does it with a rich sentimentality and deep sorrow. Her character has never had hope, but she'd like to believe that it exists. It's a sweet performance tucked into a cold narrative.

1. Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn (TRON: Legacy)

You've already heard me attest to everything that is wrong with TRON: Legacy. It's derivatively plotted, it trucks along rather aimlessly at some points, and it's just a simple plot stretched out illogically to make it seem complex. It's all but saved by the music, the visuals, and most importantly, Jeff "The Dude" Bridges. I put an emphasis on "The Dude", because that's basically who the character of Kevin Flynn has become. He's been in this tripped out land of cyberspace for what must have been centuries, with his only real companion being an extremely hot higher being with stunning black hair. At the same time, he's got a major slice of God in him, with his unprecedented desire to do the right thing, no matter the cost. It's an especially poignant work that Bridges pulls off with flawless grace. Very few things in this film could have been said to be perfect. Bridges is one of them.

Film Review: Megamind

We've had quite a year for animated films, with plenty of ups (Toy Story 3) and downs (Despicable Me). I was expecting Megamind to land somewhere in the middle, probably more on the side of such Dreamworks films as Madagascar. So I was pleasantly surprised as the film got into the groove of things, eventually proving itself to be the most simple fun to be had at the movies all year. It carefully treads the line between Dreamworks and Pixar, this time to somewhat better success than How to Train Your Dragon. It's still mainly a Dreamworks film, which means, among other things, that it can have the best of both of worlds, along with a bit of the bad.

The film focuses on Megamind, a blue-skinned intellectual villain from another world, who has spent his entire life combating against the hero of Metro City, Metro-Man. When Megamind finally bests (and by bests I mean kills) his foe, he finally realizes that having a nemesis was really what kept him going. So he creates a new superhero out of his frequent kidnap victim Roxanne Ritchi's cameraman Hal, who becomes the villainous Tighten. From there on the story escalates into a tale of redemption with Megamind learning who he really is and who he wants most to be. In any of the old Dreamworks films it would've come out cheesy, but this was rather heartfelt and struck true.

There are quite a few things that I absolutely love about this film, the first of which is the voice-cast. Will Ferrell really made me forget that he was the man behind the voice, which helps liken him to the audience and myself, especially since he turned me off from The Other Guys. Brad Pitt is totally solid as Metro Man, who most closely resembles the Harry Potter character in A Very Potter Musical. It's a strange reference, but the one that most rings true. Jonah Hill is the most recognizable of the voices, just because he plays a fat guy in this film, and he's a fat guy in real life as well. David Cross is pretty good in the role of Minion, and since I still don't know what he looks like in real life, he blends in pretty seamlessly. However, the best person in the cast is without a doubt Tina Fey as Roxanne Ritchi. The last time we got such a spectacular connection within an animated character based solely on the voice acting was Ellen Degeneres in Finding Nemo. Fey just goes above and beyond with everything she does simply with her voice. If I didn't already know it would never possibly happen, I'd recommend her as a Supporting Actress contender for this film.

In so many ways, I actually prefer Megamind to How to Train Your Dragon. I know that the latter may have more realistic emotional content to it, along with the powerful sense of danger. Megamind was simply the sort of film I can envision going back to over and over again and still having a fantastic time. I was laughing at most of the jokes, which is pretty much a prerequisite for any animated feature. The romance in this film comes off in a genuinely emotional way, and doesn't seem to come out of the blue (no pun intended). You can tell that Ritchi and Megamind have a nice long-standing relationship, even if it is in something of a negative light starting out.

Finally, the action in the film is just a return to form for superhero films, live action and animated. Iron Man 2 didn't really give us anything that made us care about the characters, which is important for the action to feel necessary at all. By the end, you're hoping Megamind will win and save the day, and that's the key to all of this. It only helps that Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer have put together a superb action score as usual, and that theme almost never gets old. It doesn't forget to inject some humor into it, including a moment that briefly parodies how some final battle sequences seem to keep finding excuses to go on and on. Megamind is definitely going to have people set against it, and it is at least five minutes too long, but the last time I can remember having this much fun at the theaters was last year when I went to see Star Trek for the first time. It's a fantastically enjoyable and fast paced experience that I hope more people take in.

B+

For Your Anticipation: Extended Warranty

I must admit that Megamind has slowly been warming up to me. It has slowly edged its way to the top of my list this weekend, so I'm probably going to be reviewing it instead of Due Date. It has the advantage of coming from a studio that's just coming off their best film yet. It won't be nearly as good as that, but I think it will be good for what it is. It's a Dreamworks style spoof of the superhero genre, which should pack some nice comedy and action into that 90-minute runtime. I don't expect anything close to The Incredibles, as none should. I hope it will be good for what it is. Here's a clip featuring the three top actors in the film engaging in some hilarious banter about good and evil.