catholiclefty

I actually went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall while in Seattle, not least because I was interested to see what US audiences would make of Russell Brand :-) (the answer : nothing specific. Oh well!) As such films go, this was definitely one of the better ones - a little too on the silly side, and slightly too obsessed with sex and anatomy jokes, but nevertheless a surprisingly watchable and fun film. It's not as good as Knocked Up, but you can see something of the same influence behind it.

Jason Segel carries the movie really rather nicely, and he is decent enough at both acting the part and the comical stuff. His naked scenes are actually quite funny too, surprisingly. Russell Brand is decent enough too, even if he is almost playing himself. Kristen Bell doesn't have much to do but look pretty, but she's certainly decent at that! Mila Kunis has a little more to do, and does a reasonable job. The rest of the cast are variable, but mostly ok. The script is sharp in places, meandering in places, but overall this works and is actually quite a lot more fun that I'd expected. 6.5 out of 10.

(Edit : I upped the rating for this to 8 in a subsequent entry)

A charming and mainly fascinating animation about growing up in Iran through the Islamic revolution and then the Iran-Iraq war, Persepolis managed to get the balance between history, outside influence and the perils of growing up almost correct, and is well worth a look. Only in the last 15 minutes or so does it begin to unravel - and the narrator does acknowledge the silliness of how it unravels, which is honest, but it really does lose focus. It is nice to see animation again, and nice to see it as well-done and telling such an interesting story as this. And, without going into too much depth, the politics is just about cutting enough into our own hypocrisy without beating us over the head with it, and anything that humanizes Iran can only be a good thing in the face of the warmongering we get fed almost every day. Far from perfect, but certainly different, and very nice in its own way. 7.5 out of 10.