I was expecting this movie to be about as good as say Anchorman or Envy (ie, crappy but at least watchable) and better than say Kicking and Screaming (a major piece of crap). Instead it was totally excellent, in the league of School of Rock or Run Ronnie Run. (That's high praise indeed my friends). We didn't get to see much of Steve Carell's considerable talent as the dumb guy in Anchorman where we also saw co-stars Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan. Seth was also in Freaks and Geeks. The movie was co-written/directed by Judd Apatow who was the main writer on Freaks and Geeks. (School of Rock was written by another Freaks and Geeks writer, Mike White). The extra features on the DVD are awesome. You should watch the making of the waxing scene and Paul and Seth's ad-libbed "How I know you're gay" scene. Actually it's quite interesting to see how much of the movie's dialogue was ad-libbed by the talented cast. Also I discovered last night that the American version of The Office is being shown on Channel Ten at 11pm Sunday night and it stars Steve Carell. When I learned that I thought maybe that show could work after all. Though it seems weird that Americans couldn't just watch the original with American subtitles... Now I have two free-to-air shows worth recording on my media thing. (Three if you count Biggest Loser but I would never admit to watching that. Big Wal, no!!! ;) Ps, while researching this post I discovered they are making a movie of Reno 911, one of my favourite TV shows, plus there's a Tenacious D movie coming soon. Sweet!
Update 28-March
Well I watched one episode. It was the one where Jim (Tim) and Pam (Dawn) convince Dwight (Gareth) to hide in a box. It was kind of weird but I think if I try to forget the original show I can enjoy it. The cast is pretty good. The writing is basically the same.
1 comment:
I was originally horrified at the idea of an American remake of The Office. But, like you, after seeing Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin, decided to give it a shot and downloaded a few episodes (I mean, watch a few episodes on free-to-air TV *ahem*).
Steve Carell is the best thing about the show, but even then he can't hold a candle to Ricky Gervais, and the whole thing really doesn't work. Just saying. Don't expect too much.
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