Sunday, Oct. 04, 2009

With Ricky Gervais, 'Lying' has never been as fun

By Gary Wolcott, special to the Herald

With hundreds of theater movies, straight-to-DVD movies, TV movies and TV shows produced every year, originality has become a thing of the past. Depending on who you talk to there are six to 10 original plot ideas and all stories are worked into and around them.

Enter Ricky Gervais -- genius. And it's not because of his award-winning TV show, The Office. Gervais has found an original idea, a concept we've never seen before. The execution requires a visit to those six to 10 been-done-to-death plots but his creativity makes it forgivable.

Gervais has invented a land where no one lies. Ever. Thoughts automatically turn to words. Ask someone how they are and they'll really tell you. Too much information is the rule. These are statements you wish you could say but can't because our "civilized" society frowns on such honesty.

It's also boring. That's one of Gervais' and co-writer and co-director Matthew Robinson's points. By itself truth has no flavor. Then Mark learns to lie. Pinocchio would be proud. He tells some whoppers including one about the man in the sky that runs the world and when you die everyone gets their own mansion.

Instantly, Mark is a guru and very rich. Everyone believes everything he says but still he is very unhappy. The woman he loves won't marry him because they're not a good genetic mix. She's a babe, he's fat and has a snub nose.

The satire is superb. Gervais and Robinson skew the artificial thought barriers put up by society, our shallow emphasis on outer beauty over inner, organized religion, the naivetι of followers and following and take pot shots at those six to 10 plots and the movies made from them. The questions Mark fields when he delivers his version of the Ten Commandments are not only profound but are laugh-out-loud funny.

So are the situations that set up cameos from Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Guest, Edward Norton and Rob Lowe in kind of a cameo.

Lying has never been so much fun. You'll love it -- I swear.

Zombieland

The plot is the usual: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland), Emma Stone (The House Bunny) and kid acting whiz Abigail Breslin play characters trying to find other humans and a safe-haven from the zombies. Eisenberg's character sets the stage and his comical how-to-stay-alive rules pop up on the screen when they apply.

Zombie movies have pretty much run their course. Pre-George Romero zombies weren't all that scary. Since Romero's Night of the Living Dead they haven't scored very high for heart-stopping fright either. Zombie plots pretty much meld together these days. One is interchangeable with another. Romero continues to be the king of the genre but even he is out of ideas.

When you're out of ideas, twist the genre. Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright did it in 2004 with Shaun of the Dead. It quickly became a cult favorite, is a complete crack-up and probably the second best zombie movie ever. Horror never works better than when combined with comedy. As proof a TV director and two guys -- one of whose only familiar screenwriting credits are Monsters, Inc. "additional material" -- cranked out their no-holds-barred, hilarious romp through an apocalypse.

Though it doesn't have you laughing so hard you drool on your chin, Zombieland is creative, has terrific dialogue and a near perfect cameo from a surprise celebrity.

Whip It

Drew Barrymore's directorial debut takes a serio-comic look at teen angst girl style. Juno's Ellen Page, who is one of the better teen actresses, is Bliss, a kid stuck in a dinky Texas town and whose life is anything but. Her mom wants her to be a beauty queen but Bliss, who is not a total babe, isn't remotely interested. It's a duty.

Things change when she tries out for a women's roller derby team and finds it is more her thing than anything she's ever done. Keeping her double-life a secret from you-know-who comes next. Then first love. Mom and Dad eventually find out, blah, blah, blah.

Mom wants you to be her. You want to be you. No surprises. With lesser talent, the movie flops. Barrymore, however, does a good job of casting, Shauna Cross' screenplay based on her book is decent, and Barrymore's flick will hit her target audience. The point: it's tough to be a teenage girl.

Toy Story, Toy Story 2

What a treat. Pixar's first and third films, 1995's Toy Story and 1999's Toy Story 2 in 3D, as part of a double-feature. The visit with Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of Andy's toys remind us of why and how Pixar became the planet's best animators.

Toy Story is much more fun and kid-oriented than its toys-pondering-their-mortality sequel. The two films and the 10-minute intermission run just over three hours. It's a bit much for the little ones who find sitting still that long agonizing. While the attempt at three dimensions is pretty good, it won't overwhelm you.

And it is wonderful to catch these classics where they belong: on the big screen.

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