I know, I Love You Man is not the name of a new superhero; I Love You, Man is in fact a week-old release which I just saw, and liked, a lot.  Not much story or conflict going on there, but it’s just two hours of a great ensemble cast obviously having a lot of fun, playing characters that you could hang with all day.  I’m not up to love levels as yet, but I sure liked it a lot.

 

I like that it’s a romantic comedy between two straight guys.  That’s funny to me.  It’s of the moment.  Guy-guy friendships today are as homoerotic as ever.  Fair to say things have changed.  I wonder what Howard Hawks would have thought of this movie.


I like that the movie is just sly enough to announce itself with a huge phallic symbol, the U.S. Bank Tower.

 

I like that it’s a Paul Rudd starring vehicle.  He’s been the Apatow team’s cleanup hitter for a while now, and that was a strong starting lineup to begin with.  Proof to me that I’m a huge Rudd fan is when I see his name crop up on all those wish-lists to head up Ghostbusters 3, and it’s one of the few names I can live with.  (We are, after all, admittedly or not, talking about someone stepping into Bill Murray’s shoes.)

 

I like Jason Segel.  He’s got a twenty-first-century Judge Reinhold thing going on that just wins.  His one-liners and line deliveries in this movie are right on.  Plus he’s into puppets.


I like Rashida Jones.  I think Rashida Jones is the kind of girl that justifies the search.  She’s pretty and she can hang.  I do wish she had just a little more to do in the movie, but I’m sure she’ll get the chance to do more in movies soon.

 

I like Jon Favreau a whole lot.  He’s a smart and steadily growing filmmaker, fun to follow, and in his supporting role here, I honestly think he steals the movie, with comparatively few lines.

 

I like ANY movie with the following dialogue:  “Peter, I have Lou Ferrigno on line three.”  If you can’t see the joy in such wording, we’re not likely to be bro’s.

 

If there’s anything that bothers me, it’s that the marketing people don’t seem to entirely get the joke.  It skeeves me out that the commercials are working so hard to make catchphrases out of “Totes Magotes”, etc.  But that’s not the movie’s fault.  The movie is actually pretty canny about its potential catchphrases, among its other virtues.

 

And look, if I didn’t genuinely like I Love You Man, I hope I would be smart enough not to go on the internet and write negatively about it.  Approximately half of Hollywood is represented in this cast list.  I’m not gonna talk mess about I Love You, Man and thereby piss off all of the following:  the Apatow fraternity, the original and present casts of SNL, the State guys, the Upright Citizens Brigade, the Human Giant guys, the Broken Lizard guys, the aforementioned Jon Favreau (who knows everybody), and least of all, JK Simmons.  I watched Oz.  I’m not fucking with JK Simmons if I can help it. 

 

That Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game is already dead as disco, but if it weren’t, I Love You Man would put it in the ground permanently.  You don’t need six degrees to connect pretty much anyone anymore; you just need the one.

 

So I dig the movie a whole lot and I recommend it, and like I said, if I didn’t, my trap would be clapped. 

 

 

But all this relentless positivity might be getting a little dull, so let me try to drum up a little shit-talking before I go.  Best way to do that is to handicap movies I haven’t seen yet, right?  Let’s take a quick look at some recent trailers that have been rearing up at the multiplex:

 

 

SOME TRAILERS!

 

Public Enemies :  At the risk of repeating myself, Michael Mann is probably my favorite active filmmaker and GODDAMN does this trailer raise the excitement bar to the top of the limbo post.  I like how Mann appears to be taking the decidedly modern filmmaking techniques that he’s been honing over the past few pictures and applying that to the period setting.  Translation:  It looks badass!  This looks to be everything good that movies can do.

 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine :  Remembering the last Oscars show and now watching this trailer, something is revealed:  Hugh Jackman is like the anti-Sean Penn.  Sean Penn in real life is this romantic world-travelling badass who somehow turned out to be brilliant at playing a gay guy.  Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman is so good at playing the badass in movies, really is solid casting for Wolverine, and in real life has probably had sex with more beautiful women than I ever will, but somehow he still apparently turned out to be a gay guy.  This new Wolverine movie can’t be remotely as cool as it wants so badly to be (tipoff: black guy in cowboy hat!) but should be fun to watch all the same.

 

Up :  I love Pixar, because they’ve built up so much goodwill by now that they’re really gathering it all up in their arms and climbing out on a limb with it.  You know this latest movie is going to be great, but the premise is absolutely insane.  Let’s recap:  Grumpy old man floats his entire house away on balloons.  Boy scout stowaway on his front porch unwittingly becomes his travel companion.  They have adventures in some tropical jungle and apparently do battle with another old guy, and also with biplanes.  Okay.  I have a friend who described a mushroom trip he had that was something like that.  Of course, his story had something this teaser does not: vomiting.

 

Dance Flick :  Speaking of vomiting…  (Segue!  All right!)  These sub-MAD Magazine parody movies are like rectal probes for the eyes and ears. There’s no way I will have the time in my life for Dance Flick, but still I am dying for the answer to the question raised by this trailer:  Where the fuck did they get another Wayans brother from?


Year One :  Harold Ramis movie.  Didn’t need a trailer, I’m sold.  The only remotely critical thing I plan to say about it is that, in his caveman wig, Michael Cera looks a lot like a girl I know.

 

Observe & Report :  Are you watching Eastbound & Down on HBO?  Should do.  It’s unapologetically, hilariously misanthropic.  Some of the same behind-camera people overlap the two projects.  So I can’t wait.

 

The Proposal :  I like Sandra Bullock, because she’s cute, and as us gangsters say, because she “got away with it.”  She made a ton of money in movies without making a single one that could be called good.  There are a few on her resume that I like, but not any with any real staying power, not even any I will admit to liking.  Incredible feat.

 

Adventureland :  In what is sure to be a prouder moment for Ryan Reynolds, he also has his name on the following eyebrow-raiser:  Director of Superbad does another high school comedy, with current SNL MVPs Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig featuring prominently.  Got to be worth a look.

 

Star Trek :  If they say there are two kinds of nerds in the world, Star Wars nerds and Star Trek nerds, then I guess I’d have to be considered an Indiana Jones nerd.  I don’t know the first thing about Star Trek, but after this trailer, I’m excited to see this movie.  That’s got to say something!  But if this movie turns me into a Star Trek nerd, I’m gonna be pissed.

 

 

 

Love?  Hate?  Both?  jonnyabomb@gmail.com