Saying Things that Aren't: The Invention of Lying

There's a moment in The Invention of Lying where you can see a sketch idea thrown in that, while funny, doesn't entirely mesh with the rest of the movie. Ricky Gervais (whose character has a name I can't remember, because it doesn't matter) has invented lying in a world where no one has ever conceived of not telling the absolute truth. In the process, he told his dying mother a lie about where she would go after (Heaven), it gets overheard and, suddenly, the entire world wants to know what he knows. So, he makes up this story about a Big Man in the Sky and it becomes a sketch that you could title "The Invention of God." It's a funny few minutes of the movie, but it never really pays off and is only there because it's funny to make fun of the insanity of religious thought. Which is fine with me. The moment where everyone learns that 'God' is responsible for bad stuff and the first reaction is "I say fuck the Big Man in the Sky!" is something I can't help but laugh at.

Despite this odd misstep (in the sense of working that bit into the rest of the movie well), I enjoyed The Invention of Lying. It's really your typical romantic comedy with a clever premise. Ricky Gervais is basically himself as a lacklustre screenwriter whose area of focus is the 14th century -- since, in this world, all scripts are based on factual events and are written for someone to simply read to the camera. That alone was clever enough to win me over. The movie begins with him going on a date with Jennifer Garner, who is hot and... actually, I don't think she possesses another positive quality. In fact, no one really possesses any positive qualities. The point of the movie seems to be that, without lies, we'd all be fucking assholes to one another. Everyone is mean and critical, rarely saying anything positive about another person, often revealing themselves to be miserable. Is that how we all are really?

One flaw I really had was that this wasn't simply a world where everyone says what they really think, this is a world where everyone blurts out what they really think. Under one defition, you could say that this is simply adhering to the idea of lying by omission, but I'm not sure that really holds up since that concept of lying is based upon knowing what a lie is. Here, the difference is that people don't say anything that isn't true (except for opinions, but, even then, they don't disguise what they really think)... but you'd think they would have learned to simply not blurt shit out. I mean, why would a waiter feel the need to ask out a woman when he wouldn't say a lie to cover up the desire to do so? He'd simply not say it. Having characters just blurt things out is a way to make the movie funnier, of course, but it took me out of the movie somewhat at first, showing off the artiface and effort of reaching for the jokes.

Later in the movie, the emphasis is placed on the idea that Jennifer Garner loves Ricky Gervais, but won't marry him because of his genetics, instead she's going to marry Rob Lowe because he's handsome despite him being a douchebag. It's typical romantic comedy fare with it laid bare on a superficial level, but it never rings true. There's this idea that despite all of his success and, basically, being God's prophet, Ricky Gervais is nonetheless a loser, while Rob Lowe is a winner even though I can't imagine anyone would be able to spend more than two minutes with him before they decided to beat him to death. They approach other arguments for what would make a good husband/father than simple genetics, but never pull the trigger: namely that someone who will love his wife and kids, and help raise the kids to be decent, caring people is better than being a goodlooking douchebag. Then again, maybe that's just what I wanted to see.

Jennifer Garner ultimately chooses having fat, pig-nosed babies with Ricky Gervais, but I was left wondering why he was so hung up on her aside from her looks. She's fairly stupid and superficial throughout the movie, only liking Gervais once he had money and power. Maybe that's the point: Gervais falls prey to the same traps that Garner does, but has no one to point out that, yeah, she's just a female Rob Lowe, except less openly obnoxious (slightly).

Despite the larger plot problems, there are some good laughs in here. The scene where Gervais is in a bar trying to explain how he said something that wasn't to Louis CK and Philip Seymour Hoffman is genius: he keeps saying lies and they reshape their subjective realities to suit whatever lie he tells them.

If anything, The Invention of Lying seems like a dry run for a better movie ten or twenty years from now that 'adapts' it, but decides to really go with the concept and forget the bullshit love story.

HA! Paul Blart: Mall Cop

I watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop this evening, writing about it on Twitter as I watched, and I thought I'd compile those thoughts here as a makeshift review/summary/warning:

HA! You think he won't get to be a cop because he's fat, but he doesn't get in because he's hypoglycemic! HA! His wife married him for citizenship and left him with their daughter! HA! He rides a segway! HA! The segway can't go faster than this little shit of a dog and -- HE JUST RAN THE DOG OVER! AWESOME! HA! He was checking out a woman and ran into a car in the middle of the mall! HA! Now he's using the security cameras to spy on the woman! HA! He actually cares about his job when everyone else doesn't give a fuck! HA! A new trainee can't drive his segway and has gotten lost in the weird corridors you never see in malls! HA! He's nervously talking to the woman and trying to look important, but he's just a mall cop and, therefore, a loser! HA! A douchebag is pointing out that he's a fat loser in front of the woman he likes! HA! A hot chick and a fat lady are fighting over the last bra in a certain size at Victoria's Secret! HA! Paul Blart is fighting the fat lady and she's lost her shirt almost! HA! He's in a nacho eating competition! HA! He's drunk and being all drunk-like! HA! He has no matches on his online dating account so he's crying! HA! He got a tattoo while drunk of the Loch Ness Monster! HA! The weird serious plot involving tough guy robbers is beginning! HA! He's playing Rock Band while the bad guys take over the mall! HA! The new security guard is the leader of the bad guy robbers! HA! He just realised what's going on and is going to have to save the day! HA! The SWAT guy used to pick on Paul Blart in high school and is mocking him some more! HA! The bad guys are spray tanning him! HA! Paul Blart's daughter is a hostage, too, but she's talking him up to that woman he likes! HA! Paul Blart is an unstoppable killing machine! HA! He passed out because of his hypoglycemia and is forced to eat an old, dirty lollipop from the floor! HA! The douchebag that mocked Paul Blart earlier is revealing himself to be a coward! HA! The bad guy just figured out he's got Paul Blart's daughter as a hostage! HA! The bad guy just made Paul Blart look like a loser in front of his daughter! HA! The Indian ex-bf of the teenage daughter of a guy who Paul Blart knows and whose cell phone he borrowed is tracking it via GPS because the bad guys took it! HA! The bad guy is going to steal a small plane and head for the Cayman Islands with Paul Blart's daughter and woman! HA! Paul Blart has a giant tattoo on his back above the small Loch Ness Monster one! HA! Paul Blart took down the bad guy and MASSIVE SWERVE THE SWAT TEAM LEADER IS ONE OF THE BAD GUYS! HA! He was a threat for all of 30 seconds before he was taken down! HA! The hot woman is totally into Paul Blart now, because he's an unstoppable killing machine! HA! The cop offers him a job, but he's going to stay a mall cop, because that's what he does best! HA! Extra scene over the final credits: Paul Blart marries the woman he likes and they ride away on segways! HA! That movie is over and I can safely say that it wasn't entirely bad!

One final note: when I went to find the movie in the TMN On Demand directory, I first looked under comedy... it wasn't there. Consider that.

Question #3!!

Wow, so I didn't actually realise how long it's been since I've written anything on here until I looked on here and saw how many posts Chad had made! So, now that I again have some time, I thought that I would continue to answer Chad's questions to me!

So, here is question number 3: Thinking back, what movie that we saw together in the theatre have you liked the best?

Hmmmmm, well, have gone to see a number of movies, I think more so closer to when we first got together, and with my awful awful memory I'm sure that I'm missing movies that we saw together (yes, even if I loved them, there's a really good chance I forgot about them!) but one for sure that I liked a lot was the Batman movie. I don't have to say why, everyone pretty much knows why it was really good. I would say that Batman is tied with Inglorious Bastards. I loved this movie quite a bit and even just recently bought it at Blockbuster. I love Blockbuster sales.

There have also been some movies that I was suprised that I liked/didn't like. I was really holding out for The X-Files movies... I am a crazy fan, or at least use to be crazy and now I just know stuff about it, and I tried really hard to like this movie, I really did. It was simply just aweful. It was like a really badly organised episode that was trying to cram in every aspect of Mulder and Scully's character they could and a lot of aspects from the show as well, in a way that was really obvious and just really bad. Perhaps my excitement for this movie hyped it up a little, but it's one that I don't have any interest in owning because I know I may watch it once and then probably never again.

On the other hand, I am totally not a fan of the what I call 'stupid comedy' movies (a.k.a. comedies). I'm not sure why. I think it's because I have a really dry sense of humour and more vulgar/slapstick stuff just really doesn't work for me. But, I found that I actually liked the majority of Pineapple Express. It was pretty funny and cute at times, but then the plot went all weird and crazy at and it lost some of it's appeal. I think Chad has similar views about this movie, too.

So, ya! There we have it! Thanks for reading and enjoy your day!

Chad's question number 1

Hi everyone!

I am in a strange state of waiting around this morning with nothing to do at work, so I figured why not make more of a presence on this blog!

In an effort to stimulate discussion on here, Chad has written me 5 questions, all of which I will attempt to answer throughout the week (or maybe 2... we'll see!).

Question #1: While you haven't read a lot of it yet, how does the book Pride and Prejudice match up against the various film and TV adaptations you've seen? What's been your favourite version to date?

Just to give you a little bit of background info, I have been a big fan of Pride and Prejudice for a few years now, since my old roommate showed me the BBC series version. Since then, I have watched many BBC versions of Jane Austen novels and have loved most of them. For Christmas this past year, Chad bought me a book of several Jane Austen novels and the first one that I started reading was Pride and Prejudice because it is the one that I know the best and my favourite. I also own the newer blockbuster version of Pride and Prejudice.

I would say that by far I like the BBC series version the best, even compared to the novel. I think this is because in the movie, you really get to see all of the grandiose sets and costumes that you really don't get much description of in the novel. However, I do really enjoy reading the book after seeing the movies because it gives me a bit more to base the imagry off of. One thing I really do like about the book is the description of subtle details in people's body language and tone of voice, etc. that you can easily miss in the movies or just aren't included, as it is a very long story. Definately the movie with Keira Knightley is my least favourite. I just don't think that she is a good choice for the role and the whole thing was just too Hollywood and too condensed to get the same feel from it as the novel originally intended. Though, I don't necessarily think that remakes of movies need to reflect the original, it's just hard not to notice it in a story that you love so much and when it's almost impossible not to compare it to the novel or the BBC version.

Question #2 to come shortly! Well, probably tomorrow :)

Michelle

The Review Reviews: Aristocrats (2005)

Because it amuses me -- and Michelle finds it funny -- anytime I decide to talk about a movie or TV show I've already seen, I'll be sticking the posts under the Review Reviews heading. A companion piece to my Reread Reviews over at Comics Should be Good... and a stupid joke that I can't help but laugh at.

Speaking of which...

The Aristocrats (2005)

I actually reviewed this back in January of 2006 for UWO Gazette after we got the DVD for free. Meaning I got the DVD for free. That gig was awesome for free CDs and the odd free DVD or book. I'm rather fond of that review and it was one of the few things that had people around the office coming up to me to say they dug it. If you've seen the movie or know the joke it examines, you'll understand the odd structure of my review. The review strikes me as oddly short, but the size requirements for articles in the paper were different -- and work better in print.

What doesn't show up online is that I gave this movie a perfect five stars out of five (as we used five stars for movies instead of the standard four). Now, I wouldn't give it that much now. I'd probably give it somewhere around 3.5-4 stars. It's a pretty good documentary that is told entirely through the people being filmed, which is always nice. Narrators can work, but I prefer just jumping in and editing footage together in a compelling way that catches the audience enough -- and trust the audience to catch up.

The documentary revolves around an old joke called the Aristocrats. The basic premise is that this is a joke that comedians would tell one another -- a freeform thing with a framing device that could allow comedians to show off their skills by coming up with the funniest, most disgusting shit ever. The joke is: a man walks into a talent agent's office (or some variation on that basic idea), says he's got a great family act, proceeds to describe a disgusting act that involves sex, incest, bestiality, piss, shit, blood, whatever you want to make the act, and it all ends with the agent asking what the name of the act is and the man saying "The Aristocrats." Nice simple frame with an unlimited amount of room to work with in between.

The documentary is funny. It has over 100 comedians telling the joke in some form or another and it's more about showing the creativity of these people. The direction that each takes the joke. Who focuses on sex, who focuses on shit, who focuses on violence... As Penn Jillette (I believe) puts it, it's about the singer not the song.

The one that I found the funniest was Steven Wright's contribution, which was creepy and horrific in its focus on domestic violence. It stood out in a crowd of cocks, cunts, and shit.

At points, the documentary becomes far too repetitive as they highlight just how... limited the creativity of the comic community can be, cutting between a half dozen to a dozen different comedians basically saying the same thing in their versions of the joke. Some, like Wright, take it in different, unique territories, but, for the most part, it's the same joke in the hands of most of them.

That's part of the point as many comedians point out the common threads in most tellings.

I do love that the bonus features on the DVD give you many renditions in full plus some non-Aristocrats jokes.

I enjoyed this. I didn't laugh quite as much this time as previous viewings, but some tellings still make me burst out laughing. Stuff like the Cartman version when he gets to the family re-enacting 9/11 never stops being funny.

Definitely worth tracking down if you're not easily offended and are interested in the mechanics of comedy, as that's what the movie is really about.