Welcome to Alternative to What: a weekly column that tries to find a great alternative to driving to the multiplexes. Based on releases of that week, the selections will either be thematically related or feature recurring cast and crew. The goal is to help you better understand the diversity of cinema and hopefully find you some favorites while saving a few bucks. At worse, this column will save you money. Expect each installment to come out on Fridays, unless specified.
THIS WEEK:
Get Him to the Greek (2010)
- Alternative To -
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Music comedy may be one of the hardest things to achieve. For starters, it requires a certain dedication to craft that goes unnoticed if it is done correctly. The reason that This is Spinal Tap works well enough is because while the joke is obvious, the perfectionism that goes into how the instruments play is undeniably sound. One could easily mistake it for a real song written by a musician being genuine. I am unsure if Popstar is going to continue that trend, even if The Lonely Island have made a great career out of creating great hooks and getting nonsense like "Jizz in My Pants" stuck in your head. However, it only felt right to choose another Judd Apatow-produced film that satirized real life pop stars. Unlike Popstar's influence on a younger breed of stardom, Get Him to the Greek is going after something a little more rich: drug addicted celebrities.
The elephant in the room is going to be whether or not Russell Brand is at all interesting to you. Speaking as he started his career doing pranks and getting ridiculously wasted, he already is hard for some to take seriously - especially as he has evolved into being a tad preachy. However, 2010 almost seems like a different version of the same man, a time when Brand-X was just a talk show and not an ideas springboard. It was a time when he was known for being Katy Perry's husband. He was on the track to becoming healthy while his old persona was still fresh in audience's head thanks in part to his stand-up as well as his memoir "My Booky Wook." This is all stuff that fuels one of his rare hits as an actor, which sees him entering the familiar Apatow-style of comedy.
It's hard to tell how much of the humor is basically Brand poking fun at himself. However, the general vibe is this. The film opens with him doing a misguided song about African children - you know, for charity. Soon his destructive girlfriend (Rose Byrne) comes into the picture and conversation about his neglectful father (Colm Meany) comes in. It's a halfhearted study of what makes a celebrity become destructive. However, it's also an excuse to hear Brand sing songs, based off of his memorable supporting role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jonah Hill plays someone who has to supervise Brand long enough for him to get to a show at The Greek. If he fails to show up, there's unthinkable consequences to face from his boss. The rest is sheer antics.
The elephant in the room is going to be whether or not Russell Brand is at all interesting to you. Speaking as he started his career doing pranks and getting ridiculously wasted, he already is hard for some to take seriously - especially as he has evolved into being a tad preachy. However, 2010 almost seems like a different version of the same man, a time when Brand-X was just a talk show and not an ideas springboard. It was a time when he was known for being Katy Perry's husband. He was on the track to becoming healthy while his old persona was still fresh in audience's head thanks in part to his stand-up as well as his memoir "My Booky Wook." This is all stuff that fuels one of his rare hits as an actor, which sees him entering the familiar Apatow-style of comedy.
It's hard to tell how much of the humor is basically Brand poking fun at himself. However, the general vibe is this. The film opens with him doing a misguided song about African children - you know, for charity. Soon his destructive girlfriend (Rose Byrne) comes into the picture and conversation about his neglectful father (Colm Meany) comes in. It's a halfhearted study of what makes a celebrity become destructive. However, it's also an excuse to hear Brand sing songs, based off of his memorable supporting role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jonah Hill plays someone who has to supervise Brand long enough for him to get to a show at The Greek. If he fails to show up, there's unthinkable consequences to face from his boss. The rest is sheer antics.
Much like Andy Samberg's brand of comedy, Brand is a tough recommendation largely because of the persona that he embodies. He is eccentric and there's enough addict humor here to be reminiscent of his past. Even Hill is a divisive presence for some, especially in a pre-how-did-he-get-TWO-Oscar-nominations (?) phase of his career. However, it's a madcap comedy, and one that manages to work if you're just going in for a good time. The music is witty and catchy with plenty of underlying innuendos to spare. It may not quite be the greatest recommendation, but speaking as Popstar looks like an excuse just to do a million jokes a minute, this seems like an adequate recommendation.
The truth is that maybe Apatow is doing the best work with music parodies nowadays. Between Walk Hard, Get Him to the Greek, and Popstar; he has managed to make a universe of inspired parody songs that reflect what they can be when they're in the right hands. Admittedly, maybe Popstar won't be as great as The Lonely Island shorts that lead to this possibility, but it will definitely help to inspire more people to do silly songs like this. Maybe Brand has faded into obscurity (at least in comedy), but hit 2010 film allowed him to flex his muscles and produce something that was unique, frank, and a whole lot of fun in skewering the pop world long before The Lonely Island thought it was a good idea.
Comments
Post a Comment