reisch

As someone who enjoys shameless chick flicks and Josh Radnor, but is also a Sundance enthusiast, I really wanted to like this film. The storyline was fine, the music by Jaymay was awesome, the actors are all decent.

That being said, it was totally apparent that Radnor is still an amateur at writing and directing. You know how, in high school, when your friend asked you to read their angsty poetry, and it took all of you not to roll your eyes? That's what watching this movie was kind of like.

There was so much contrived drama that it would have been better suited to a soap opera or comedy. Instead, the actors had to take a superficially dramatic script and try to wring some drama out of it. For instance, the movie starts off with a one-night-stand leaving Radnor's apartment just as he wakes up and realizes he is late for an interview. Conveniently, his best friend leaves a voicemail as he's getting ready, as if she would know he were there listening, perfectly timed to tell him to tuck his shirt in right as he finishes dressing. But it's not a comedy! It's just trying to be clever. He ends up speaking with her on the phone and says something like, "Why did I oversleep? Why am I so afraid of success?" This sounds exactly like what some screen writing student would think that a self-pitying artist would say. The rest of the movie moves conveniently along these lines: things a screen writing student THINKS his characters would say. Unfortunately, film enthusiasts will be unsurprised by every line fed to them from here on out.

Rasheen's character was great and would have made this a promising movie if only his presence in the plot was not based on some ridiculous presence.

I'm curious to see what Radnor will do next, but he'd probably be wise to work on short films and practice the art of delighting the audience in as little time as possible before attempting a longer format again.

I thought "puppets making crank phone calls" was pretty low, but I don't believe that Carlos Mencia's show even qualifies as comedy. His main objective is to make the audience incredibly uncomfortable while using the word "beaner" as many times as he possible can. I have never felt compelled to write a review declaring the awfulness of anything on IMDb before, but I really do hope this show is never renewed or rerun.

Mencia is trying to be the next Dave Chapelle, and perhaps he was only hired by the network because they hoped he would fill those shoes. It is obvious right down to the rip of Chapelle's intro (blues guys vs. mariachi band). However, Mencia has absolutely *no* attitude, and does not delve into popular views of the hispanic culture enough to come up with a creative poke at it each time. Instead he sticks to a small number of hardly-shocking nicknames for his fellow latinos and makes "jokes" about immigration. Every once in a while, he'll take advantage of the slight darkness of his skin to make fun of someone else, like middle eastern cultures. These jokes mainly consist of reiterating every joke or stereotype made against the culture, and perhaps some incredibly old topics (such as 9/11), in a watered down, stand-up style, while he laughs at himself to cover up the audience's style. I think he's too afraid of really offending anyone, so it just makes the viewer feel awkward. He also beats jokes to death. If you've ever seen "Why the f*** is this news?" you'll know what I'm talking about. It's funny at first, but he just rambles on and on and becomes Captain Obvious at some point.

It's a trainwreck that is purely painful to watch.