User reviews

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People looked like it might be different to the average rom-com we get these days, it looked like it was going to be a smart and satirical look at mainstream Hollywood. It isn't and it wasn't. It's in exactly the same vein as Run Fat Boy Run. I'm not saying that it's a bad film because it isn't and neither is Run Fat Boy Run, but I just felt like I'd seen it all before.

The start was rushed and lacked that flowing feeling. The middle was the best part, with a couple of laugh out loud moments. The end was a walking cliché which came straight from the school of Cameron Crowe (once again not always a bad thing).

Simon Pegg stuck to his normal schtick when he's without Mr. Wright and Mr.Frost, playing the lovable but overall clumsy fish out of water Brit. Jeff Bridges was and still is The Dude so he can do no wrong. Kirsten Dunst stuck to her guns and Megan Fox was thrown in as the so hot at the moment crumpet.

An entertaining film. Not bad. Not great either.

Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) is a boorish, unlikeable, annoying, inappropriate, douche idiot A-hole. He crashes parties and ridicules famous celebrities in his London magazine. He gets noticed by Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) and hired onto the glitzy "Sharps" magazine as the cultural editor. He tries to befriend co-worker Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst) and win over starlet fame-whore Sophie Maes (Megan Fox).

Simon Pegg doesn't fit this character that well. Even in 'Spaced', he had a streak of likability. He's an adorable guy. It's a little better when he shows some vulnerabilities later in the movie. For a guy trying to show how shallow everybody is, he's the most shallow of them all. I wish they wade through some of his depths earlier in the movie. The other problem is that he has no chemistry with Kirsten Dunst. She's almost as hopelessly uncompelling as a character. The movie really struggles to find its way in this rom-com formula.

Straughan's adaptation of 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People' is a charming and funny albeit familiar film. Yes, the story itself isn't anything new to the screen. The film also had potential of being an engaging satire but it remains rather a feel good romantic comedy. I liked the mixture of American and British humour. It is a well executed film that is rushed in the beginning and clichéd in the end. I enjoyed the mid-sections the most. Pegg, yet again, dominates the movie with his comic power. He's simply hysterical even though he isn't very different from his other films. Jeff Bridges is fantastic. A smoking Gillian Anderson is cast against type as the neurotic, stuck-up and arrogant publicist. Kirsten Dunst looks quite cute here and delivers a charming performance. Megan Fox pretty much plays herself. 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People' has got some hilarious dialogues brilliantly delivered by the actors. It is the comedic sequences that stand out while the romantic scenes and the more dramatic ones feel rather deja-vu. Pegg proves that he can carry a film on his own and 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People' remains, at the least, highly entertaining.

This could have been so much better. Sure it delivered laughs but the plot fell short. The only reason i saw this was because of Simon Pegg( Who i loved in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the dead). Pegg was still great but this movie felt like it didn't deserve him. This had the material to be up there with Pegg's other movies but it just fell under. Simon Pegg should stick to the British comedies with Nick Frost. This was a good comedy to sit back and have a laugh with but if your going for Simon Pegg then you won't get the quality of the other movies.

I recommend it if you want a comedy that you don't have to take seriously. Toby Young should have handed his memoirs to Edgar Wright. He could have made it funnier. This was funny but if you came here for the next Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz then turn around and run.

6/10

When I settled in to watch this movie, I wasn't expecting much. The many negative reviews I had already seen of the film had me braced for a crap fest of epic proportions.

I was surprised to learn that this movie really isn't that bad. The plot follows a British journalist who works for a tabloid in England, and is hired to write for the prestigious NY magazine "Sharps". He quickly realizes that he doesn't fit in at all with the pretentious and snobby society that inhabits the publication, and his frequent run-ins with Kirsten Dunst and Jeff Bridges illustrate a lack of general people skills.

As the movie progresses, however, Pegg starts to shed some light on the character's history, his likes and dislikes, and in general lends a greater understanding to Sidney. Dunst also starts to warm up to him as his personality becomes less chafing and more tolerable.

The only problem I really had with this is that Dunst and Pegg really never seemed to genuinely feel any emotion toward each other other than brute hostility. I'm not sure if it's because either of them is necessarily bad at conveying happy emotions, but they both seem to be better at loathing than at loving.

Megan Fox is pretty much relegated to a hyped up version of herself, a sex goddess looking to be taken seriously in Hollywood. This reminded me of Johnny Depp's heartthrob character in "Cry Baby", but where it fell short is that you never feel like you know Fox at all other than what you see in the ads throughout the movie. Perhaps that's what it was going for, and if that's the case it certainly succeeded.

Overall, I gave the movie a 6/10 because it wasn't as bad as everyone cracked it up to be. However, it did have a couple of fatal flaws that definitely limited the enjoyment factor, and I can see why some moviegoers hated it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was nowhere near as 'gross-out' a comedy as the trailer had led me to expect. I rapidly became absorbed in the unfolding of the narrative and remained engrossed throughout. Pacing of the more visual humorous content was, I thought, spot on. (I mean I got the impression I was witnessing Pegg's attempts at restoring lost control very much 'in real time', so to speak.) At other moments there was time allowed to share the main protagonists' (i.e. Pegg's and Dunst's) reflection on how events were affecting them and what had led them to where they now found themselves. All the characters were well cast, to some extent interesting in and of themselves, and generally quite likable. (Any apparent ruthless ambition displayed tended to be tempered by a corresponding good natured resilience.) An entertaining, intelligently scripted, brilliantly directed and superbly acted film that I would thoroughly recommend.

Sidney Young (Pegg) moves from England to New York to work for the popular magazine Sharpe's in a hope to live his dream lifestyle but struggles to make a lasting impression.

Based on Toby Young's book about survival in American business, this comedy drama received mixed views from critiques. Labelled as inconsistently funny but with charm by the actors, how to lose friends seemed as a run of the mill fish out of the pond make fun at another culture comedy, but it isn't.

This 2008 picture works on account of its actors and the simple yet sharp story. We start off in the past, then in the present and are working our way forwards to see how Young made his mark at one of America's top magazines.

Pegg (Hot Fuzz) is too likable for words. Whether it's hitting zombies with a cricket bat or showing his sidekick the nature of the law the English actor brings a charm and light heartedness to every scene. Here, when the scripting is good but far from his own standards, he brings a great deal of energy to the picture and he alone is worth watching for. His antics with "Babe 3" are unforgivable, simply breathtaking stuff as is his over exuberant dancing, but he pulls it off splendidly.

Bridges and Anderson do well at portraying the stereotypical magazine bosses where Dunst fits in nicely to the confused love interest. Megan Fox, who stole Transformers, reminds everyone she can act here with a funny hyperbole of a stereotype film star. The fact that her character Sophie Myles is starring in a picture about Mother Teresa is as laughable as her character's antics in the pool. To emphasize the point there is a dog, and Pegg rounds that off in true Brit style comedy, with a great little twist.

Though a British film there is an adaptation of American lifestyle for Young as he tries to fit in and we can see the different approaches to story telling. Young wants the down right dirty contrasted with the American professionalism. The inclusion of modern day tabloid stars will soon make this film dated but the concept of exploitation of film star's gives this edge.

Weide's first picture is not perfect. There are lapses in concentration as the plot becomes too soapy with an awkward obvious twist and there are too many characters to be necessary. The physical comedy can also be overdone. As a side note, the bloopers on the DVD are some of the finest you will ever see, which are almost half an hour long.

This comedy drama has Simon Pegg on shining form again and with the collective approach to story telling and sharp comedy, it is worth watching.

Greetings again from the darkness. Effectively odd comedy based on Toby Young's book and directed by "Curb Your Enthusiasm" regular Robert Weide. With so few quality comedies these days, it is refreshing to see a unique approach ... a bit of a satire on the whole celebrity thing while also commenting on the outsiders or "looky-loo's".

Simon Pegg ("Hot Fuzz") stays under control most of the time and is well cast as the Toby Young-type lead who gets his shot inside the red rope. While there, he quickly falls head over for the hot new thing played by Megan Fox (who in real life is for some reason, the hot new thing). Of course, we do get the sidebar of true love building with another in the form of Kristen Dunst, Pegg's co-worker, who also has a thing going with their married scumbag boss, played devilishly well by Danny Huston. Pegg, Dunst and Huston all work for the burned out, once rebellious celebrity magazine editor, Jeff Bridges (who flashes immensely more hair here than in "Iron Man").

Megan Fox's agent is played by Gillian Anderson, who also represents the hot new director, played by an unrecognizable Max Minghella ("Art School Confidential"). The brilliance of the film is that Pegg is really not all that likable, but we somehow pull for him to figure it all out ... probably because everyone else has a bit of the sleaze that we have come to hate in our co-workers and bosses.

Pegg, Huston and Dunst are all fine in their roles and Bridges is his always reliable self. The bizarre part is watching Megan Fox, who plays the role seemingly drugged out and oblivious to all that's going on. She just doesn't look, act or seem right through the entire film.

Some of the best stuff is when Pegg's father (a famous writer and British Lord) shows up unannounced and is treated to a nervous Pegg and intoxicated Dunst. Also the fake movie trailer with Fox playing a young and lustful Mother Teresa is creative, and I loved the use of 50's actress Janette Scott (complete with real movie scenes) as Pegg's deceased actress mother. Multiple laughs, and some very enjoyable vignettes throughout ... works on a few levels.

This film is diabolically bad, there is not one remark or scene of any Wit whatsoever. Peggs character goes through the movie trying to defeat the 'Gliteratti' magazine publishers contrived lifestyles by embarrassing himself over and over, somehow this is supposed to be considered as an irony an thus is supposed to elevate him to a superior level of intellect. In fact he is so obnoxious he in fact does not achieve this and the very people who the audience are supposed to find fake and shallow are in fact easily much nicer people than he is.

But finally I have looked at the reviews, and anyone who gave this trash poor reviews got hardly any votes but, reviewers who found this unbearable tale 'fantastic' got many positive feedbacks, all of these people are insecure, and they are making a nonsense of the voting. I actually watched this because IMDb users collectively gave it good reviews, next time I will consider their insecurities and realize they always vote positively as they are voting to some self imposed construction of their own online identity and not the movie. Go ahead give me no votes I don't care it, this film is an embarrassing bore if you like it that speaks volumes.

Simon Pegg so you were quite happy to make English people look like slimy idiotic crass vulgar moronic losers who stand up at lawn parties and Shout EN-GER-LAAAAND EN-GER-LAAAND. They say everyones got a price, what ever you made from that movie you should be ordered by the Queen to give it to charity.

Sidney Young runs a small alternative culture magazine in London dedicated to popping the bubble of celebrity. He hits the big time when he gets a call from Clayton Harding, the editor of Sharps magazine – a glossy celebrity magazine based in New York City. Sidney goes into the job thinking he can be different from the puff pieces the magazine is famous for and somehow has been employed as part of Harding's darker streak and longer for more. Sadly this instinct is dead wrong and Sidney finds himself a joke within the office and a failure within the world of celebrity and movie stars that he needs to work.

HTLF&AP (it's easier) is in the mould of The Devil Wears Prada as it is written as an insider's exposé of celebrity culture from someone who discovered it firsthand. Like that film, this one also struggles to tell this tale within a narrative structure that engages. It is helped though by having the central character be a major part of his own discovery, ie not only do we see the world of superficiality that is the celebrity scene but Sidney is more than a pair of eyes as he fails so impressively to assimilate himself into it. The problem is though that it is not savage enough on the celebrity culture and instead tries to draw a lot more humour from Sidney's various pratfalls and failures. This produces some moments of amusement but at the same time it robs the material of the teeth it really should have had. What is left is a reasonably funny comedy that goes where you expect it to, right down to the pat ending that was always going to be there.

Pegg has enough about his performance to be funny even though this is far below the films he has made with Wright. He makes it work better than it should at times but then he cannot bring out an edge that isn't there in the script. The starry supporting cast may be part of the reason that it doesn't tear at the hand that feeds it and indeed there are some solid turns here. Bridges, Anderson, Fox, Huston and others all do reasonably good work around Pegg. Dunst is at her best when in the "hate" part of her "love/hate" relationship with Pegg and I liked her until the film gradually started to use her character to turn the way we all knew it would go.

Not a brilliant film by any means then but still one that is amusing as it treads familiar paths to a weak ending. Should have been better but is still just about good enough to distract as a comedy.

Simon Pegg plays the part of Sidney Young, a young entertainment writer who has begun the beginnings of a career writing for a grassroots magazine that specializes in badmouthing the shallowness and superficiality of the rich and famous. He is making a career out of lampooning celebrities, although he has a desperate wish to be a celebrity himself. The movie is based on the very bizarre career of Toby Young, who also ran a small magazine in Britain called the Modern Review, which offered scathing criticism of pretty much everything imaginable, until he closed the magazine in a hail of verbal bullets with his co-editor, and then went on to a spectacularly failed career as a writer for Vanity Fair, which is pretty much the part of his life told in this movie.

He is at first thrilled to go work for a major publication (called Sharp's Magazine in the movie), and despite active nerves he is positively beaming on his first day. He meets the chief editor, Clayton Harding (played by Jeff Bridges), who is hard as nails but who is also exactly the kind of editor he needs to be for a goof-off like Young to keep his job at the magazine. He offers little in the form of immediate acceptance of Young, but he also has what can only be described as a liberal tolerance of Young's off-the-wall antics and inappropriate behavior.

Much of the comedy in the movie is derived from Young's misunderstanding of or indifference to the generally accepted code of public behavior and the peculiar etiquette involved in dealing with the rich and famous. But Sidney's reasons for acting in such a weird way and for giving outwardly offensive interviews is because he believes that he loathes the entire celebrity culture and, it would seem, he believes in that age-old saying – 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em…and THEN beat 'em."

Complicating matters are two very different women. There is a charming, regular girl at the magazine named Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst) who at first is appalled by Sidney's obvious arrogance and womanizing ways, and a stunning model named Sophie (Megan Fox), who represents the celebrity culture. Needless to say, Sidney's endless attack of superficiality and stardom is a superficial lust for Sophie, the one with the look of a star.

Sophie is stunningly beautiful, it's true, but also comes across as having not a single thought rattling around in her head. Alison is a regular girl, not very interesting or attractive, but Dunst's performance makes her a real person. A relationship with her would have all the reality of a Britney Spears marriage, and yet the movie retains some level of believability because, despite how obvious this is, we also feel Sidney's pain in not pursuing her (I felt it, anyway).

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People has a pretty interesting premise and is full of honest, satisfactory performances, and although it turns into a bit of your standard romantic comedy by the third act, it has a variety of well-developed and interesting characters. Danny Huston, for example, gives us a great performance as Alison's other love interest, who pays homage to The Big Lebowski (also starring Bridges) with his ever-present White Russian, one of my personal favorite drinks. Buying Absolute and Kahlua here in China costs the equivalent of about $350, but my kitchen is never without them.

I am looking forward to the day when Simon Pegg will branch out a little bit, because I love his films but I am completely unsure about his range. He played a serious character in Hot Fuzz, but only serious in relation to the lunacy surrounding him, and ultimately went back to being himself again, which he has pretty much been in Shaun of the Dead, Run, Fat Boy, Run, and now How To Lose Friends. He's a rising star, it will be interesting to see what else he can do.

"How to win friends and alienate people" is the story of Sidney Young (Pegg), the brains behind "Post-Modern Review", a British celebrity rag that pokes fun at celebrities. One day to his amazement he gets offered a role at "Sharps" magazine in NY, one of the most respected magazines in the industry. He figures he's there to shake things up, but he's wrong and is given some very boring "work your way up from the bottom" work to do.

From early on Sidney alienates most around him by being obnoxious, a little too rough around the edges and unwilling to "play the game". He struggles to find any allies until he gradually wins over Alison (Dunst, in her finest work since "Jumangi"), a co-worker in his department. Sidney soon learns though to get anywhere he'll have to sell-out to get their respect and fulfill his dream of having sex with rising actress Sophie (Megan Fox, who I know nothing of except learning she has an older sister from her IMDb.com profile).

Not bad overall, with Pegg surprisingly good as Sidney. At first you instantly hate him, but eventually he wins you over. A solid cast also featuring Jeff Bridges (who I'd assumed was dead) and Scully from the X-Files, who seems to be making a comeback. Some pretty clever scenes and some freaky ones.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is in all honesty one of the best comedies I've seen this year along with Pineapple Express and Step Brothers. Its not one of those "gross out" comedies that heavily relies on fart jokes and toilet humor but instead moves at an affable pace and you will be easily attached to the unfolding narrative. Simon Pegg nails it in the coffin with his hilarious portrayal of a fish-out-of-water character and is quickly detaching himself from the tripod he once belonged to back in England (the other two would be Nick Frost and Edgar Wright). Getting yourself in the top of the Hollywood food chain is a hard thing to do as we can clearly see with Pegg, his first jab at the lead role was David Schwimmer's comedy Run Fatboy Run but it received lukewarm reviews from critics and audiences alike. His second try is this movie, got fairly positive reviews from the majority but was a flop in the box office. I, for one still haven't lost faith in him and I'll still be there whenever he wants to take that third shot for glory.

Other characters were well cast from Jeff Bridges to Danny Huston and Gillian Anderson. Surprisingly, Kirsten Dunst in my opinion fared well in this movie as the love angle to Pegg's character however, the spark that I saw in Interview with the Vampire is still lost. She needs to find it, fast or she might suffer the consequences of being lost in the land of "rom-coms" forever.

Oh dear we don't like it when our super-hero love interest develops a brain do we?

Something has happened to people, they have lost the ability to enjoy, a simple feel-good, love story/comedy? Kirsten Dunst is a revelation - funny, sexy and real. I laughed out loud ooh at least five times and I'm not ashamed to say had a tear in my eye a couple of times too. The cast, acting and script is great, I watch a lot of films right across the board and I haven't seen one in this genre that has been as successful. Those who disagree please tell me where I can find some! I'm sure the book is good too but I think you have to judge it on its own merits.

I watched this thinking I would have a fun time watching simon pegg making fun of Hollywood.

Instaid I watched almost two hours of the most predictable crap I have ever seen... This is seriously at the same level of humor as Plump fiction. At least four times someone started a two line gag (for example "maybe it's better I don't have any" by megan fox) and each freaking time I knew the joke line that would follow. besides being predictable it's just plain non funny, there are no real jokes...you might give off a small laugh once, I did. but one laugh in 2 hours of comedy means you are not watching anything good.

And not just that, simon pegg is so unlikeable in this film that I just wanted him to fall off of a roof. When he makes his so called reversal and turns into an "evil sellout" all I see is a man who learns to f-ing grow up, who no longer acts like the most ignorant and stupid man on the planet, and who you could see yourself talking to for longer than two seconds.

I advice against watching this, and would say watch any other simon pegg film for a second ,third or even 100th time before going for this.

Amazing performance from Simon Pegg who just gets better and better with every role. As usual he plays the part of a very cringy character who makes you want to hide behind your cushion in embarrassment for him sometimes, but thats what Pegg is all about.

The laughs were regular and eye watering and everyone of them aimed at Penn. The movie was very cleverly put together where every character plays a very sophisticated and serious part with Penn being the only humour involved which is a huge credit to the Director Robert Weide.

And I cant let this one go without a quick round of applause to Gilliam Anderson who shone throughout. Highly recommended to all.

Simon Pegg (Sidney Young) plays the legal "alien" (or fish out of water), who's so full of himself, that he really believes everything he says. Problem is, he's almost the only one who does ... believe. A problem of the movie is, that there quite a few flaws in the story/plot department.

Simon Pegg and the ever so beautiful Megan Fox, almost make up for it all. Especially Megan Fox is quite great. She plays her role so convincing, that you could be forgiven to think, that she might actually be like that in person. Which she most likely isn't. And although there is a scene, with her and Simon Pegg, where he "has" to leave earlier than he wants to, it almost works here (if you watch it, you'll know what I mean).

Jeff Bridges gets to play Peggs mentor and there a few others, that you might recognize. Logic get's beaten by comedic moments and a very gross scene threw me off the movie ... not completely, but almost.

Toby Young may be an annoying attention-seeker (his latest wheeze is to organise a protest in favour of UK government cuts) but he can write, certainly has a way with a title, and although his memoir of his time in the U.S. has a self-deprecating attitude, has had a reasonable successful career. Simon Pegg has also had a reasonably successful career, but as a comic actor playing hopeless losers. But someone chose to cast Pegg as Young, and make a disappointingly slapstick film based loosely on Young's story, devoid of any subtlety or plausibility. Most disappointingly, the film has been turned into that most depressing of genre movies, the rom-com. The problem here is not with the idea of romantic comedy per se, but its drearily mundane conventional realisation, and it's as if the makers of this film have gone out of their way to replace any hint of originality with the formula: so goofish Young is surrounded by impossibly beautiful women, but spends most of his time in the company of a deep, artistic woman who can't stand him for most of the movie but who eventually falls in love with him. Both the rom and the com and predictably crass; and the innate interest in Young's tale is utterly unrealised, in this example of how to lose audiences and alienate people.