While watching the movie “Popstar” I remember thinking that I have not seen many comedy movies that are essentially a documentary parody about anything, much less about Pop Stars or the music industry. Andy Sandberg was a long standing member of Saturday Night Live and is mostly famous for his videos which are mostly very well done. You could say that this movie is a long 2-hour video documentary that he used to do on Saturday Night Live. Interlaced with the difference scenes and videos in this movie are interviews with other celebrities who comment on the rise and fall of “Connor For Real” who is at first part of a boy band and then goes off on his own as a solo act. Of course, the music and lyrics are ridiculous on purpose which is part of what is suppose to be funny here but the question is: is this movie funny enough? Not according to the people in the audience I was in. There were some laughs here and there, but not too many and because of that, this movie fails as an effective parody.
If you are a big fan of Andy Sanberg and his videos on Saturday Night Live then this movie might be for you, otherwise, you would probably be better off skipping this one.
One of the earmarks of a great movie are the questions they ask you. The movie “Me Before You” asks several very good questions. #1. If you can have only 2 out of 3 of the most important things in life, “Money, Love or your Health”, which 2 would you choose? Most people would probably want to have the health issue defined in more detail before making this decision. Some health problems are tenable, some are not. #2. If you were married or in love with someone who became crippled would you stay with them? #3. If you were suddenly found to be paraplegic and you had the legal choice to end your own life, would you decide to die rather than sit in a wheelchair for the rest of your life? All of these are very difficult questions and they are all addressed in this well-acted movie.
The actress Emelia Clarke is an up and coming star who starred in last year’s “Terminator Genisys” which is also reviewed on this blog and has been the star of “Game of Thrones” which is an HBO series for several years. She has a great face for acting, big eyes and a great smile and very unusual long eyebrows. Her facial expressions make some of the funny scenes in this movie funnier and some of the sadder scenes more difficult to watch. She will have a very long career in movies as well as Television because her acting is on a par with her very good looks.
I thought that this movie was very well done despite the very depressing subject matter of a very athletic young rich man who is walking on a public road one afternoon, then looks to his right and is hit by a motorcycle and is crippled for life. This movie also teaches you about some of the ongoing health problems with paraplegic’s which includes medical issues with their lungs and other problems. Included in this film is a great love story with the young man who is crippled played very well by another newcomer Sam Clafin and Emilia Clarke who plays a completely inexperienced caretaker who is desperate to find a job and needs to make money to help her family.
I thought this movie was very well acted and had a solid story behind it so I do recommend it.
In the history of the Academy Awards, only one movie has won best picture as a comedy and that was Annie Hall which came out in 1977. As a screenwriter, I recognized when I first saw it that the flow, moments, timing and comedy brilliance of this great film was flawless throughout. There many great moments in this film but some that stand out include the “meeting of the teamsters” outside of a theater when Woody Allen is being harassed for being famous. His comment to Annie Hall played by Diane Keaton when she arrives about “2 guys named Cheech” harassing him was one great moment. The timing of the scene where Woody Allen tells the insane relative of Annie Hall, played by Christopher Walken that he is “due back on the Planet Earth” was a funny moment followed by the scene where Allen is in the car with Walken realizing that Walken’s character just admitted that he had fantasies of commuting suicide by driving into oncoming traffic. Allen’s crouched down look to the left at Walken is another priceless moment. As stand-up comedian Alvie Singer, Allen has several great lines in this movie including one where while being drafted, he was categorized as 4-F, which meant that in the “event of war, I’m a hostage”.
This movie above all else is about relationships and the difficulty in finding and keeping one and Allen’s character struggles throughout with several woman and ultimately with Annie Hall. Great lines include “if a Shark stops moving forward it will die and I think our relationship is a dead shark” and the line where I don’t like chickens, meaning relationships, but I “need the eggs”, which is another great moment among so many in this great film.
Annie Hall won for best picture in 1978, Woody Allen won for best director and Diane Keaton won for best actress. Allen also won for best original screenplay and as awards and accolades go for any movie, this is about as good as it gets.
Annie Hall is probably the best comedy in the last 50 years and movies this funny and well done are very rare.
One irony in this movie is Alvie Singers philosophy of life and the “horrible and the miserable”, where people are in two categories either horrible or miserable. Horrible are people who are blind, crippled or terminally ill and the miserable is everyone else. So be thankful that you are miserable. This line in Annie Hall is very ironic because it makes you wonder if this has helped Woody Allen get past the child molestation charges that first started in 1992 and have continued every time he received an award or is honored, most recently at the Cannes Film Festival. Woody Allen will be 81 this year and he has a body of great work that is the envy of any writer or director in movie history. To have accusations like this happen after so many great years of success has to be devastating and probably half the people in the world think he is guilty and the other half mostly don’t believe the charges. Woody’s own children are the ones coming out against him even 24 years after the original accusations were revealed and that has to be even more painful for Woody Allen and his legacy. All of this reminds me of Gilda Radner’s famous line from her book which came out in 1989, It’s Always Something.
I have also added a great scene where Woody Allen is in line waiting for a movie and there was this know-it-all behind him. The ending of this scene is how we would all love for real life to work, which is why we go to the movies in the first place.
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A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 