"Now This Is What The Music Industry Is All About!"

Just a quick review of "Get Him To The Greek," while it's all fresh in my contemplative little head: in the Apatow-associated-but-not-produced pantheon, better than "I Love You Man," but not quite "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." Definitely worth an evening's attention and diversion though. That was the super-short wrap-up I composed in my head earlier today; now here's my reasoning. "Greek" may tread in the same character footsteps as "Sarah Marshall," but I found "Greek" to be somehow less personable and relatable. Maybe it was the fact that the people's problems seem somehow more abstract/contrived: Jonah Hill, we can immediately tell, has relationship issues lurking just below the surface, but at the same time he's nearly completely blameless; Russell Brand, returning as Aldous Snow, has deeply ingrained personal problems that are messing up his life. These problems will somehow be solved, as in all Apatow-affiliated productions, with some deep soul-searching scenes and awkward humor, and we know this when we buy the ticket in the first place. Yet there was a complexity to "Sarah Marshall," the closest relation, that I could really dig on. Jason Segel must have really had his heart destroyed at some point, because it shows in his writing, but being a funny dude he can convey the situation of wanting to be with/semi-stalk the woman who dumped you, then finding someone else who's cool, but not being entirely sure of what anyone wants, least of all yourself, and then the first girl ends up wanting to get back together, and you don't want to hurt anyone, and BOOM! You've used too many commas in a sentence describing the total mess that is the essence of the "Sarah Marshall" relationship diagram. Of course, Jason then went and abstracted the whole thing to a degree for humor, and then glamorized everything by making Sarah Marshall a Kristen Bell-played TV superstar who runs off to Hawai'i, but that heart of confusion is still there, and that's what makes "Sarah Marshall" realer for me. I just preferred Aldous as a two-dimensional sex machine, an ego with a libido, who could spout off and be funny. Sure, even Rockstars have feelings, but the movie simplifies things a bit to accommodate the dual focus of Jonah and Russell (and sorry for switching between actor names and character names so freely this evening), leaving us only with empathy. Sure, they're likable enough dudes, but there's not the same question of "should Peter get back together with Sarah or stay with cool new girl whose name escapes me right now?" Maybe it's because "Sarah Marshall" has become what Tarantino would call a hang-out movie, where I watch it to chill with the characters. I'm invested in Peter's life for those two-ish hours, and get caught up in his psyche. With "Greek," I kind of just pitied Aldous and Jonah Hill's character for having to deal with him.

Anyways, that's my long-winded explanation for why I like "Sarah Marshall," cleverly disguised as comparative review. For all that, though, "Greek" was still pretty good, because even if I didn't click with is as emotionally as a certain other movie we've discussed at length today, it had the benefit of more Aldous Snow and an excellent Sean Combs as Sergio, music producer and batshit insane dude. Seriously, without Diddy to balance everything out, I would have written things off as Sarah Marshall-sploitation. But Diddy we have, so Diddy we shall enjoy. Every scene with him is wonderful, and the other actors do a fine job in their own rights. Some inspired sequences, more Infant Sorrow songs (always a plus), and a good-time vibe, what's not to like in an evening's entertainment?

Up next: a hopefully thoughtful review of the Banksy movie.