Paul

The movie Paul is a culmination of science fiction, referencing popular movies, comics, books, nerd conventions, Area 51, and all other such nerdome, as experienced by British travelers Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost).

After attending the San Diego Comic Con, Graeme and Clive rent an RV (recreational vehicle for all you city-folk) and map out a course of extraterrestrial legends across the desert-Southwest of the United States that they plan to visit. As you would expect anywhere outside of New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles, America is inhabited by lunatic right-wing religious nuts carrying guns, wearing camouflage, and spitting on the floor. Clive and Graeme run into such characters and thus begin their flee from the law.

However, in this dramatic flight, they nearly literally run into Paul, an alien (Seth Rogen), with quite an attitute (like Seth Rogen) and a propensity for some of the finer vices of society, (like Seth Rogen).

What they didn't know is that Paul is also being pursued by Special Agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman), Agent Haggard (Bill Hader), and Agent O'Reilly (Joe Lo Trulgio) under the direction of "The Big Guy" (Sigourney Weaver).

Along the way, the Brits run into one-eyed redneck Jesus girl named Ruth (Kristen Wiig) and her father Moses Buggs (John Carroll Lynch), of which Graeme strikes up a love interest (with Ruth, not her father).

All tensions culminate at the end with some good ole' fashion violence. The movie is strung together with some hysterical reference to science fiction pop culture (such as Star Wars). Check out the music being played in the country bar! Or the Han Solo reference, which is more subtle.

There are cameo appearances by Jeffrey Tambor, Bateman's castmate on the hysterically funny show Arrested Development, and the occasionally funny David Koechner.

Paul is Rated R for language, violence, drug use, sexual reference, and at times an inappropriate attack on religion, though interestingly, none of the other reviews mentioned that. But then again the other reviews probably came from liberal atheists out of New York and Los Angeles. The movie is about an hour and 45 minutes long.

I thought Paul was very funny at times, but dragged along at others. I agree with some reviews that the movie had a lot of potential and left it on the drawing board. Paul could have been absolutely hysterical, but unfortunately achieves only moderately funny.

I'll beam down 3.4 stars.

Despicable Me

Despicable Me is the latest movie from Netflix that I got for my kids. I usually allow for one per month, though it looks like they will also be getting Megamind this month. Well, actually, I think Despicable Me counts as February and Megamind will count as March. So we're good.

Despicable Me is a animated movie (read cartoon) made by Universal Pictures. It stars Steve Carell as Villanious Gru, the evil mad scientist who is plotting to steal world-wide monuments. For his latest swipe he needs the incredible shrinking machine, but younger evil mad scientist Victor "Vector" Perkins (Jason Segal) has swiped it first. Now Gru's only chance of getting the shrinking ray gun is by exploiting the 3 young female orphans: Margo (Miranda Cosgrove, duh - Carly Shay from iCarly!), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) and having them swipe it. And how in the world did 3 young girls in today's society end up with old lady names like Margo, Edith, and Agnes?

Despicable Me also stars the voices of Julie Andrews as Gru's mother, Russell Brand as Gru's older scientist mentor, Will Arnett as the evil bank administrator, Danny McBride as Gru's neighbor, and Kristen Wiig as Miss Hatie, the mistress of the orphanage.

Rated PG for crude humor and mild action (sounds like something else I know), Despicable Me is 95 minutes long.

My kids loved this movie. It made all of them laugh - the 11 year old, the 9 year old, even my 3 year old. This movie is great for them. I thought it was okay, too. They all lived the little yellow working guys.

Together, we give Despicable Me 4 stars.

Extract

Jason Bateman seems to be everywhere lately. We all remember him as the brother of Justine Bateman, the hot girl from Family Ties who disappeared from the face of the Earth. He made a name for himself on the show Valerie, which was then renamed Valerie's Family, then subsequently renamed The Hogan Family. But that's a different story.

Jason Bateman didn't really hit it big again until Arrested Development, one of the funniest shows ever and set the tone for his movie characters to follow. Since 2007 he has been in the following movies that I have seen:

The Kingdom

Juno

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Hancock

State of Play

The Invention of Lying

Up in the Air

Extract

Couple's Retreat

This time, he stars as Joel the owner and manager of a company that makes extract, you know - like vanilla-flavored extract used in baking. His company is doing really well, but his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) sucks and won't have sex, his employees are disgruntled and think they should be paid millions of dollars, and his best friend Dean (Ben Affleck) is a crazy bartender who's a little free willy with dolling out the drugs. Meanwhile, Joel is about as straight-laced as you can get.

There is hilarious interaction between him and his obnoxious neighbor Nathan (David Koechner) and the lawyer (Gene Simmons) who represents Step (Clifton Collins Jr) who is injured at work. And then there is the gigilo that he hires for his wife so that he can get a divorce.

Joel thinks he may have found something special when he runs into Cindy (Mila Kunis) who joins the company and takes an active interest in him. However, things start going amok at the factory and Joel is about ready to throw in the towel.

Having worked at a factory, I can totally relate to this movie. There is one line by one of the factory workers that I have heard no less than 3.721 million times - "Everyone knows that I'm the hardest working employee here!" I couldn't stop laughing. I even rewound the movie to hear that again.

Extract was directed by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill. The movie is 92 minutes long and is Rated R for language, sexual references, and drug use. Mila Kunis is totally hot, so look for her in some future movies.

The movie also stars J.K. Simmons, no relation to Gene Simmons, the lead singer of Kiss. You'll remember J.K. as J. Jonah Jameson, the chief of the Daily Bugle from the Spiderman Movies.

I really liked Extract for its quirky dry humor. Jason Bateman is becoming one of my favorite actors and this movie was perfect for him. I give Extract 4 stars.

Whip It!

When I saw that a movie titled Whip It! was coming out I figured it was a movie about the 1980's band Devo who was known as one of the one-hit wonders known for their song Whip It!. However, this movie had nothing to do with Devo. Nor did anyone in the movie have a red plastic flower pot on their head.

Whip It! stars Ellen Page, the young girl who seems to be type-cast as the disenfranchised teenager of her generation, though she's actually 23 years old. You'll remember her as the pregnant girl from Juno, the one that you wondered why in the hell she had sex with Michael Cera. But I digress.

In Whip It! (let me add that typing the name of this movie is driving me crazy because it ends in a punctuation mark and the auto correct wants to capitalize the next letter), Bliss is a young high schooler whose mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is living vicariously through her and pushing her to be in beauty contests, which Bliss could not care less about. Bliss finds a flyer about joining a roller derby in nearby Austin, Texas. She sneaks out of town and joins the roller derby despite being too young. And to her surprise, she's really good. What happens when her disingenuous commitment to beauty pageantry and her secret life as a roller derby collide?

Whip It! Is directed by Drew Barrymore, who also stars in the movie, along with Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis (sorry, that woman is getting nasty looking!), and Jimmy Fallon. Lower on the billing is Daniel Stern who plays Bliss' father. You'll remember him as the narrator of The Wonder Years.

Whip It! is 2 hours long and is rated PG-13 for some mild sexual content, crude dialog, language, drug use, and some violence (it is a roller-derby!).

I really enjoyed the movie, though I thought the middle was a bit long. It could have been a better movie if it was about 20 minutes shorter. However, the movie made me laugh and that's important. I liked it enough to give it 4 stars.