The Other Guys.

I went to see this one on impulse. I usually stalk the movies I want to see for a long time, ensuring that I'm going to like them... For this one I just saw the trailer during the summer and thought it could be quite good. OK, I did check a few reviews first...

Another point was that I had never watched a Will Ferrel movie (only saw parts of Elf, which I found surprisingly entertaining, although not quite hilarious), so for my culture I just needed this. And I like Mark Walhberg. And Michael Keaton.

I had a slight worry coming in that I wouldn't be in on the jokes. There's nothing worse than going somewhere to laugh and ending up not laughing. In some occasions I do worry like that which is weird because I didn't worry for Shaun Of The Dead or Hot Fuzz or Scott Pilgrim (no idea why those titles popped into my head EDGAR I LOVE YOU (IN A SORT OF MANLY WAY)). But I guess they weren't really marketed (I hate that word but can't find another one) as "funny movies", just movies with a few laughs in it. Anyway.

Fortunately I did have a few frank and good laughs there.

The movie uses the reverse formula of the supercop-action-thriller (which would be the losercop-action-comedy). It's similar to KICK-ASS in the sense that KICK-ASS is a comic book movie that focuses on the "normal guy" instead of a super hero, here it's an action thriller that focuses on the normal cop instead of the super one.
And some very cool things come out of that, as well as a few totally hilarious moments (which come handy since that's what we were here for in the 1st place).

The one thing that I regreted was that with those few moments I laughed my face off, I wished the movie had been funnier overall. Not that the rest isn't funny, quite the opposite actually and if anything it's always satifying, but it's just that it's not AS funny.
Expectations are such a pain...

For the rest, I'd say it's all good, Will Ferrel seems to play mostly the same type of roles, but he does it brilliantly, Mark Wahlberg is excellent as the frustrated angry cop that wish he could shoot anything and I have to put a special mention to Michael Keaton (didn't know about TLC, but a brilliant idea).
There are even a few good action sequences thrown in the mix!

Oh yeah and the soundtrack is good (although I'm obviously biased towards anything that uses RATM or The White Stripes) and I enjoyed very much the educationnal ending credits, listing some of the most memorable financial scams in history...

So all in all, a good movie. Could have been better I guess, but it gets the sympathy vote with all those side great ideas...

Scott Pilgrim VS The World.

I came out of Inception saying I couldn't possibly think how I could see something better this year.
Well I just did.

I did know that Scott Pilgrim was coming up and it had this label "movie made for me" slapped firmly on it. But although I expected it to be good I was far from expecting the kind of pure awesomeness it actually delivers.
To give an idea, I was already wanting to clap only a few minutes in.

It's a movie that succeeds on just every level. And it has many.
It is a (not dumb) teen comedy, an action movie, it is about music, video games and blends everything in a way that is unique and completely natural.
It's completely over the top of course, but it all makes sense.

I, of course, loved Spaced & Shaun Of The Dead & Hot Fuzz and Wright already showed through these that he's the ultimate geek, but here he also shows how much he's digested all his references and shows what he's capable of doing his own thing. As a matter of fact, Shaun & Fuzz were tributes to other movies and therefore the way they were shot in the same way of their models. Pilgrim shows Wright unleashed, proving the true virtuosity his capable of. I knew he was good, that he was THAT good.
The integration of the special effects, the way he films the fights and the rest, it's just incredible.

And that's just the surface.
Because the universe of the original comic is also quite excellent. I mention the comics here, because, not having read them, I don't know to who the credit should go.

The leads are likeable, but just, which only makes them more interesting.
And all the others manage also to be clearly fleshed out, even if there on screen only for a few minutes.
Kudos to the cast for this. You could single out Michael Cera, Mary-Elizabeth Winstead and Kieran Culkin, but all the others rock all the same.

And then there's the music.

It's one of those movies where you have 1 genius idea per shot.
It rocks. If not it's cool. If not it's funny (and weeeell funny).
Every moment is awesome. Every line is quotable.

And it's so radical, that there will ever be only one. That's also a deeply satisfying thing.
Instant cult classic doesn't even qualify here. Because this is an instant cult classic made for ME.

Funny how for Inception, I would just go and recommend it to anyone. Like "if you like cinema, you have to enjoy this".
For Pilgrim, this is a way more personnal thing. Because it is not for everyone. Some people won't get in all the references and in-jokes (I'm not saying I got them all here, as an example I noticed in the credits that I didn't recognised a Sonic & Knuckle track somewhere, I'm quite annoyed at that actually). Some people will bail over the visual overload. So I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Just the handful few I know will enjoy it truly, as much as I did. I find this precious.

Edgar (and the team!), I love you man.