Duplicity & I Love You Man
I’ll admit it, I’m a Julia Roberts fan. She’s not my very favorite actress ever, but I do like her, and when she has a new movie out, I’ll usually go see it. Our local theaters charge $6 for the first showing of the day, so Friday at 11am, I was found with popcorn and diet coke, plopped down in the seat to see the newest Julia Roberts’ film, Duplicity.
Claire and Ray are special agents, aka spies, for their respective governments, and when they first meet she plays him and walks away with the secret information. The film takes place 5 years later. They’re both still spies, but now they’re corporate spies, and their goal is to steal some information from their battling companies, sell it to the Swiss, and retire together to an extravagant love nest in Rome. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen have pretty decent chemistry, and it was fun to watch them try to figure out whether they could actually trust one another, or even themselves, over and over again. But the film lacked any real emotion, and while the corporate secrets they were looking to steal were certainly worth stealing, I didn’t find myself caring very much about the outcome. The end, when it came, was clever, and I was glad that it ended the way it did.
Saturday, Ted wanted to see I Love You Man, partly because he read that it was very funny, but I suspect also because it had a cameo by his favorite rock group, Rush. So Ted and I saw this “Bromantic Comedy”, while Maya went to see Knowing. Good choice, because this one was crass enough to deserve it’s R rating.
Peter is a mild mannered real estate salesman, happy to live his life for his lady love, Zooey. Zooey finds herself disturbed by Peter’s lack of male friends, and he overhears her talking to her group of girlfriends about her concerns. He decides that it’s about time he gets some male friends, and he has a timeline…he needs to bond soon, or else he won’t have a best man for his upcoming nuptials. His attempts at finding someone he can connect with are funny and crude, as are the jokes all along the way, both male and female. Peter finally meets Sydney, a layabout investor with whom he strikes up an immediate friendship. They bond over good food and their love of Rush, and become fast friends, and there’s some hugging and learning amongst the barfing and masturbation jokes. It was very funny, but not for the under 15 set. And even then, you probably wouldn’t want to see it with your parents.
11 Comments
Joan
Though sometimes a little raunchy, I love most movies Paul Rudd & Jason Segal are in. I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall recently. I probably won’t get to the theater but will put I Love You Man in my Netflix queue.
Cherry
In the trailers for Duplicity I had a really hard time seeing Miss Julia Roberts has a sneaky spy even if that is only the backdrop to the film and not the whole plot. Perhaps she is type-casted in my mind.
Now for “I Love You, Man”. The guys at work have all been talking about it and just hearing about who’s in it you know its going to be funny. I’m glad you guys had a good time with it as I’d like to see it when it is out on DVD. Generally if T&J like it, then we’ll like it too…. except for BSG, that’s the only exception (which I’m sure we would have grown to love too had we not already had too many shows going at that time 🙂 )
OmbudsBen
The missus is a big Clive Owen fan, so I’m sure we’ll see this at some point. It’s a minor quibble, but I wonder how many spies are “beautiful people”. OK, so they have to be, for the movies.
I’m curious now, about the ending.
(un)relaxeddad
Oddly enough, supermum has exactly the same concern about me – that I don’t have any male friends, that is. It isn’t quite true (I’m pretty sure I have at least two) though I do seem to have a much longer list of female friends. Her oft repeated complaint (mid-way through suffering another lengthy diatribe about such and such a band or whatever) is “You need more boys to talk to!”
maggie
i want to see I Love You Man…paul rudd is so charming.
angelaineurope
Thanks for the two reviews. I was thinking about going to see the Julia Roberts one but now I think I’ll pass.
Autumn's Mom
We decided to put off our movie watching until next weekend..I wanted to see Knowing..what did Maya think? I’m a big Clive Owen fan (and Julia is not bad either but you know, she’s a girl) I’ll probably wait to rent that one. I’m pretty sure I’d like I love you, man. I have that kind of humor deep deep inside me 😉
Speaking of bargain movies, I saw that the old Brendan in Pittsburg has lowered their every day low prices to $6.75. I’m guessing their days are numbered, but nice to be able to take the family for cheaper prices! Bringing our own candy helps also.
Linda Atkins
Two movies–sounds like a good weekend. That word “bromantic” cracks me up. I have a friend who sometimes says he’s wearing a “mansiere,” otherwise known as a “bro” (instead of bra). “Bromantic” makes me think of that.
Laluna
I didn’t hear good reviews for the three movies that you blogged about. I was all excited about “Knowing” and was going to see it one day this week. I’ll just wait for video.
amuirin
I was pissy for hours after watching ‘Knowing’. I was really excited about it, too. Invested. Into it. The ending left me feeling like someone had just called me stupid and walked off, laughing.
*shrugs*
But you’re the second person to confirm that ‘I Love You Man’ is hilarious. Is it on a par with 40 yr old virgin and White Chicks? Sometimes those stupid/funny movies are just what the doctor ordered.
J
Amuirin, I’m not sure if it’s as good as 40 YO Virgin, and I never saw White Chicks, but it was indeed quite funny.
I remember after Katrina, and the news all day was horrible, and about the atrocities at the sports dome (most of which later turned out to be ugly rumors, not true) had me feeling sick and down and blue blue blue. Laying in bed feeling like ‘what the hell’, you know? We went to see something really dumb and fun, and it may have actually been 40 YO Virgin, and I felt SO MUCH BETTER. It was just what the doctor ordered. That and my husband donated some $$ to the red cross to help the relief efforts there. That helped a lot, too.