Category Five: My 5 Favorite Films Of The First Half Of The Year

The year is halfway over, and I've done a pretty good job of seeing films in the theater. A few slipped by that I wanted to check out, and there are a few still in theaters that I hope to catch soon. But here's a list of my favorites so far.

#5: TEETH

It's hard to make a good horror-comedy. I've previously mentioned my affinity for Tremors, but being PG-13, it goes fairly light on the gore. And ultra-bloodfests such as Dead Alive, while enjoyable in their own right, stop being realistic once...well, they never START being realistic.

Teeth stays as realistic as a film about vagina dentata possibly can. That's right. This movie is about a girl who has teeth in her woo-hoo.

She's a high schooler dedicated to purity, so much so that she speaks at events promoting chastity. But when one of her fellow group members takes things past the making out stage, her secret is discovered.

Luckily (well, not for him), it wasn't something she wanted. It's scarring enough for your first sexual experience to result in a severed penis; just imagine how bad it would be if she had actually wanted to have sex with him.

Jess Weixler's performance is what really makes this film work. She has to play frightened believably, but if it's too intense, it ceases to be funny. She walks the line perfectly.

I'd only recommend it to certain types of people, but if you laughed while you read this, then you are one of those people.

#4: SON OF RAMBOW


I debated whether to include this or Be Kind Rewind, since they both have a very similar concept. This one wins out because it actually has a plot. (While that's a slight knock on Be Kind Rewind, I still enjoyed that film. It was refreshing to see a movie about people being happy.)

Two British kids from very different walks of life become friends while attempting to make a "sequel" to Rambo. Other students soon become involved with the project, and the results wind up changing the family dynamic of both boys as well as teaching them about true friendship.

Sure, it gets a little cheesy at times, but it doesn't feel as heavy-handed as most children films for one simple reason: British accents.

#3: IRON MAN

In general, Hollywood has always put "stars" in its superhero movies. Sometimes those stars look the part but aren't good actors. And even when they are good actors, they often think there's no need to act in this type of film (at least, that's how it seems).

To be fair to them, a lot of superhero roles aren't well written, giving the actors nothing to work with. But that trend has been bucked a lot lately, casting great actors into superhero films and giving them the chance to strut their stuff.

One could argue that three of the four great actors in Iron Man are wasted (an argument I'd mostly agree with), but there's no denying the power of the presence of Robert Downey Jr. He's so much fun to watch as Tony Stark.

It's not necessarily the most well plotted superhero movie, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

#2: FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL


Sure it's raunchy and vulgar (but not, I would argue, gratuitous), but it's also hilarious. More importantly, it's realistic. Okay, not in the sense that everything would likely happen. I'm going on a Hawaiian vacation by myself in a couple of months, and while I think it would be awesome to make friends with all of the staff, I know this won't happen.

However, if I did take the time to actually meet the staff, I'd learn that they are real people and not just workers. And this film does a great job of fleshing out each and every character, making them feel like people you know (or wished you knew).

In addition, the love story is believable because it's so messed up. A lot of the time characters don't know what they want, and while they'd tell you in Screenwriting 101 that that's a terrible thing to put in a script, it's the very thing that makes you relate to them.

#1 WALL*E

While there is other stuff going on in the movie, at its core, it's a love story. It just happens to be between a garbage collecting robot and a probe robot. That said, it's an AMAZING love story. The greatest cinematic love story of all-time? I won't give it that distinction just yet, but here's an argument for why it might be.

The film isn't just a love story. It's a story about learning to love. And I don't mean that in the sense of learning the best way to love someone. I mean that it's LITERALLY about learning what love is. WALL-E was built to collect trash, but 700 years spent alone (save for a friendly cockroach) observing various things humans left behind (including Hello, Dolly!) has shown him the joy of having others around. And while he might not have the deepest philosophical understanding of love, I think he exemplifies it in its purest form better than most people do (sadly).

They have been countless stories about people forbidden to love each other, for whatever reason. But this film goes a step further. It's not just going against the rules handed down to them and loving anyway. It's going against rules PROGRAMMED into them. In a way, it shows that love is more powerful than anything, including technology. (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, another of my favorite love stories, showed a similar thing.)

And such a powerful love story is told with characters that say less than 10 different words combined. It just proves the old saying: "Love isn't something you say. It's something you do."

Are Judd Apatow Movies Sexist?

While rewatching most of Knocked Up last night with my roommate Sky, I noticed something that I hadn't the first time. (For the record, I enjoyed it but didn't think it was that great.)

The female characters aren't very good. Yes, they are funny at times. (Leslie Mann is funny pretty much the entire time.) But they aren't very realistic or given any true depth.

Since there's been talk of sexism in this film as well as Superbad, I thought I'd take a look at recent films associated with Apatow and give my take on whether or not they are sexist.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Well obviously. That's pretty much the point. The film is little more than a parody of the blatant sexism that existed in most workplaces in the 70's.

Still, it gets most of its laughs from making us laugh AT the ridiculous actions of the horny, chauvinistic male characters. And by making Christina Applegate's character a plucky professional who fights back, it avoids being completely sexist.

The 40-Year Old Virgin

Sure there are some one-note female characters (the drunk, the inappropriate older woman, the slut, etc.), but Catherine Keener plays a believable, complicated, emotional (without seeming crazy), well-rounded woman. And her daughter is pretty good too.

I still think this is the sweetest of all his films and the best one that he's personally directed.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

I'm not saying I didn't laugh, but let's examine the female characters: Bobby's mother (the awesome Jane Lynch) is the only one that is semi-believable and not entirely one-note. Leslie Bibb, who plays his wife, is an airhead that clings to money and success. Molly Shannon is a drunkard.

And as much as I love Amy Adams, her role is this film is ridiculous. She appears for like, five seconds, disappears for the entire movie, then shows up to be the love interest.

Superbad

I have to defend this one a little bit. Yes, the film's main characters are definitely sexist towards women. But I must remind you that they are high school boys. You'd be hard pressed to find a high school boy that ISN'T. Some are more vocal than others, but just wait until they get alone with other guys. Believe me, I've been there.

The two main female characters, while relegated to very little screen time, are actually pretty interesting. We find out one character isn't all about sex and getting drunk. In fact, she doesn't drink. It's not much, I'll admit, but it is interesting.

The other character gets trashed and suddenly turns sexy. Well...tries to be sexy. But vomit isn't so sexy. At least to most people.

It's not as if this take on a character hasn't been done before (see Allison Hannigan in American Pie), but I wasn't expecting it.

Knocked Up

After watching this film again, I have to say that the two main females are pretty ridiculous. Sure Heigl's character is pregnant, but even taking that into account, she's excessively crazy. As my roommate pointed out, part of her reason for breaking it off with Rogen's character is because he didn't read the baby books. But as proven later, she didn't read them either.

Mann's character is a little more believable but is ultimately depicted as someone who loves her husband...and that's it. Everything else she does or says is a response to that. Even in her breakdown scene while trying to get into the nightclub, she's mainly worried about being old because she thinks her husband is leaving her.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

I haven't seen it, but considering that it's a parody of musicians' life stories where they are with a woman and then leave her for another woman, I'd imagine the female roles are pretty shallow.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I thought it was a pretty believable film, in a weird way. And the two main female characters, played by Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis, are very believable in their actions and well-developed with their motivations.

But considering that the only other female characters are Jack McBrayer's unsatisified horny newlywed and Bill Hader's cloying, naive girlfriend (Or wife? I don't even remember.), the overall female component fails in comparison to the numerous male characters that could have been one-note but are given time to shine.

What really stuck out to me is that ultimately Bell's character is called the "devil," and since we don't really see any resolution, it appears that we are supposed to agree with that assessment. Sure, she cheated, but she seemed genuinely troubled by the pain she had caused and really DID want her old beau back. Branding her as Satan in female form seems a bit harsh.

Ultimately, I don't think you can accuse Apatow of being sexist. Unless sexist means that "his" films don't usually have very well developed or believable female characters. But if that's the case, then almost everyone in Hollywood is sexist.

P.S. I'd really like to see an Apatow film centered around a female lead. I'm curious what he could do with it.