Could 'This is 40' suffer the same fate as 'Five-Year Engagement'?

The Five-Year Engagement was about as entertaining as the average romantic comedy, but it had marked differences in the treatment of its subject matter. Love was dull sometimes, complicated by the mundane, and the difficulty of balancing one's own career with the future of a relationship. Audiences, apparently, weren't so into the latter part, and the film had a disappointing debut last weekend, earning just $10.6 million when it was expected to take in 50% more.

Judd Apatow produced The Five-Year Engagement, and he returns to the director's chair with Christmas release This is 40, which he also wrote and produced. The "sort-of" sequel to Knocked Up focuses on Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife), who are dealing with a crisis: middle age. The just-released trailer has plenty of funny moments sure to appeal to parents everywhere, with a couple of potential gross-out moments for which Apatow is famous. However, part of me wondered if the humdrum sources of comedy will be a turn-off to audiences. After all, Knocked Up had a real crisis, an unplanned pregnancy, while This is 40 appears (at least in the trailer) to be about the couple's self-improvement kick.

Ultimately, though, The Five-Year Engagement just wasn't that good of a movie. This is 40, with its prime end-of-year placement, at least has the time-slot endorsement of its studio. Universal has reaped the benefits of Apatow's productions, including last year's megahit Bridesmaids, and stood by when Funny People, Apatow's previous directorial effort, didn't quite catch on. Growing older and raising children isn't the kind of whacky premise that sold tickets to Knocked Up and Bridesmaids, but it could be a nice halfway point between those films and the didn't-quite-work identity crisis in Funny People.

 

Trailer Roundup: 'Love and Other Drugs' and 'How Do You Know'

By Sarah Sluis

As the summer winds down, I take a look at the two recently released trailers for the fall/winter movie season.

'Love and Other Drugs'

Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal (who were briefly paired together in Brokeback Mountain) star in Love and Other Drugs, which I had pegged as a romance with some dark comedy thrown in. Based on a memoir by a Viagra pharmaceutical rep, it led me to expect something with a little bit of The Insider in it. After all, pharma salespeople are rather morally ambiguous characters, since their job is to persuade doctors to prescribe more of their drug, regardless of what is the best medical decision for the patient

Enter the trailer:

Do I like Love and Other Drugs more or less after seeing the trailer? Less. Why? The trailer makes the movie sound too much like a typical romantic comedy. Worse, it gives away moments that must take place towards the end of the movie, including crying (presumably after a break-up) and Gyllenhaal's character trying to catch up with the Hathaway character on a bus (which is usually the scene right before they kiss and go to closing credits). It's possible that the movie's premise has just been sanitized for a public that's presumably skittish about anything out of the ordinary, and the strongest sign that this is true is one striking omission. Hathaway's character has Parkinson's Disease, a plot point that never makes its way into the trailer. Maybe audiences would find that too depressing? This movie is still on my to-see list when it comes out November 24th, but now it needs to redeem itself to fall in line with my initial expectations. Another good sign? It's releasing over Thanksgiving, a prime slot that implies the studio thinks it's got a good movie on its hands.

'How Do You Know'

The latest from James L. Brooks (who last directed Spanglish and As Good As It Gets), How Do You Know places Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd in a love triangle, and also features Jack Nicholson--a cast full of great actors. It centers on a female softball player (Witherspoon) torn between her baseball pitcher boyfriend (Wilson) and a down-on-his luck corporate guy (Rudd).

Enter the trailer:

Do I like How Do You Know more of less after seeing the trailer? More. Most of all, this trailer seems thoughtful, not gimmicky. The trailer brings to mind a Cameron Crowe movie (perhaps Jerry Maguire?) but that's not a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. We learn less about plot points, which are for the most part elided, and more about the characters' states of mind. In As Good As It Gets, so much of the movie was about Jack Nicholson's character, which enriched the relationship he had with Helen Hunt. I really feel that Brooks will be able to pull off a similarly meaningful character transformation here. I also can't decide if this line of Witherspoon's dialogue is interesting or trite: "Most girls' plan is to meet a guy, fall in love, have a baby. But I don't know if I have what it takes for everybody's regular plan." It's pretty common in romantic comedies for women to say they don't want the standard package only to end up with all of the above in the end. However, if Brooks and Witherspoon can make us believe this about Witherspoon's character, I'll be right on board for this movie. It's also eyeing a high-traffic release date on December 17th, where I'm sure it will attract large audiences.

'Knowing' bests 'I Love You, Man' and 'Duplicity'

By Sarah Sluis

Knowing may have used some of those secret numbers in its plotline to glean advance knowledge of its box-office dominance: it pulled in $24.8 million, 37% more than runner-up I Love You, Man, while

releasing in only 20% more theatres. The Nicolas Cage starrer opened on par with his films Gone in 60 Seconds and Con Air, though it only pulled in half as much as his hit from two years ago, Ghost Rider.

Funnymen Paul Rudd and Jason Segal drove viewers to see I Love You, Man, which finished second with $18 million. Nearly even with the bromantic comedy, number three finisher Duplicity earned $14.4 million. All three of these titles will have little competition next weekend, giving them plenty of time to pick up more box office through word of mouth.

Right below Duplicity, kiddie flick Race to Witch Mountain earned $13 million, but will likely drop heavily next weekend with the release of Monsters vs. Aliens. Would-be blockbuster Watchmen earned half that at number five, coming in at $6.7 million and approaching the $100 million mark, which is still far under

the film's production costs. At number six, horror flick The Last House on the Left pulled in $5.9 million in its second week, but will have to withstand competition next week with the release of The Haunting in Connecticut.

Filling out the bottom four are long-lasting releases Slumdog Millionaire ($2.7 million), Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail ($2.5 million), Coraline ($2.1 million) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($1.8 million), all of which have been in theatres for at least a month. Of the four, Madea Goes to Jail and Coraline have not yet grossed $100 million, and are unlikely to pass the mark at the domestic box office.

This week, Monsters vs. Aliens and The Haunting of Connecticut open wide. The collapse of credit markets prevented many theatres from securing funding to convert their screens to digital, meaning the 3D family film will open on far fewer 3D screens than expected, yet another effect of the recession.

Preview: I Love You Man

By Sarah Sluis

Genres like romantic comedies work because they offer a predictable experience and predictable returns

at the box office. They're a safe investment, but in order to keep making them over and over again, you have to constantly innovate and twist the material. Sometimes, in the process, you move so far in another direction you create a new genre. Romantic comedies have gone through all types of incarnations, and the "bromance" might be the latest, based on my screening of Paramount's I Love You Man.

I Love You Man takes the plot structure of a romantic comedy, but recasts both the roles as men, and their relationship as that peculiar neologism "bromance." Unlike the buddy comedy, which brings to mind bantering cops and Grumpy Old Men cautiously circling each other before grudgingly accepting each other's company, I Love You Man has "man dates," nervous phone calls, and all the other hallmarks of a romantic comedy. It's also really, really funny, using that Judd Apatow-honed mix of vulgarity and sweetness. While not Apatow-produced, the movie casts Paul Rudd and Jason Segal, Apatow veterans, in leading roles.

Borrowing from those date-before-a-big-event deadline romantic comedies, Paul Rudd stars as a recently engaged "girlfriend guy," the kind of person who's always in a relationship. He lacks a cohort of male friends to hang out with�and invite to his wedding. Feeling freshly insecure about his lack of male friends, he decides to go in search of a best man for his wedding. There's the obvious joke (a botched date with a guy who assumes he is gay), before Rudd makes a friend at an open house (Jason Segal). Segal (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) plays a Venice Beach loafer who wears Uggs on the boardwalk, eclectic vintage tees, and doesn't clean up after his dog. He's really cool, so cool that Rudd goes through all those nervous first date jitters before they settle down into a friendship. They bond and jam together to the point where their friendship comes between Rudd's relationship with his fiance (the fantastic "The Office" veteran Rashida Jones). True to romantic comedy convention, it all ends up okay in the end.

As a female, I half-expected to be alienated by the story of male bonding, but Rashida Jones provides a great entry point into the film. She's totally amused by Rudd's nervousness picking up the phone with Segal, his rambling voice mails, and his awkward vulnerability around his budding relationship with Segal. Paul Rudd himself has always played the sensitive, slightly neurotic type, a "girl's guy," and he's just as puzzled and out-of-place in the "man cave" as a female would be.

Paul Rudd most recently starred in fall's Role Models, itself a story of male bonding, albeit one of a big brother-little brother mentoring variety. I Love You Man is far bolder than that film or Apatow's male bonding tales, so I'm curious to see what other stories of bromance come to Hollywood. Wes Anderson, for example, recently signed on to write a screenplay for My Best Friend, a remake of French film Mon Meilleur Ami, about a friendless man who must go in search of a best friend in order to settle a bet.

This cluster of successful films exploring extremely close male friendship begs the question--why now, what is it about these films that have made them resonate with audiences? They open dialogue about about what it means to be gay or straight, but, as a whole, have also been critiqued for negative portrayals. Screenwriter Mike White, for example, famously spoke out against Judd Apatow films for their jokes lambasting women and gay men. I Love You Man takes audience expectations of gay behavior and does the opposite. For example, Rudd's gay brother, played by SNL's Andy Samberg (of "Lazy Sunday" fame) plays an Equinox personal trainer that likes to seduce straight, married guys "for the challenge," a counterpoint to Rudd's pursuit of male friendship. In a role reversal, it is Samberg who must counsel Rudd on how to not come off as gay, and to avoid overstating his love of films such as The Devil Wears Prada. Whether this breaks down, or reinforces gay stereotypes will depend, I think, on the open-mindedness of the audience.

While I can only speculate on how America as a whole will respond to this "I need a male friend, but I don't want to come of as gay" comedy, I Love Man should be applauded for its light-hearted re-definition of the romantic and buddy comedy, and original portrayal of male friendship. The honest performances and "bromance" chemistry between Segal and Rudd is just as unusual, and real, as two teen boys telling each other "I Love You" at the end of Superbad, and makes you realize how few films put a close friendship center stage. Maybe it's only a matter of time before we see a male counterpoint to, dare I say, Thelma & Louise driving off a cliff together.