9/5/10

Going the Distance (His Review) A Couple Spoilers

Audrey and I got the special chance of seeing a movie together on a Sunday night. This is a rare treat, because I work on Monday mornings and that limits our time on the last night of the weekend. Thanks to Labor Day we ventured out to see Going the Distance, the new Drew Barrymore/ Justin Long rom com. After the movie, we didn't talk about it, saving our opinions for our first He said/She said reviews. Audrey's review Going the Distance (Her Review) is here.


Going the Distance is the next film in a long line of films that could've been great, but wasn't due to the incessant need to be filthy. I'm not sure why we need all of the endless conversations in movies that revolve around oral sex, male genitalia, female genitalia, performing oral sex on yourself, performing oral sex on your spouse, women talking about oral sex, poop, oral sex. Believe it or not, I'm not a prude, but if I had to hear Jason Sudeikis say "Dick" one more time I think I would've walked out, gone home, and watched The Sound of Music.



Aside from the 7 million F-Bombs, I just found the movie to be crass and too often after scenes were over I was left making this face.


I have friends and we're no angels, but I'm pretty sure we stopped talking about this sort of stuff ten years ago when we were 20 year old, bar hopping morons.

Ok, so with those complaints out of the way, were there things that I actually liked about Going the Distance? Yes, as a matter of fact there was a lot about this movie that I enjoyed.

- I liked Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. They had chemistry. For every scene that were totally there for gross out humor, there were solid scenes that showed them working things out. They saved the movie for me.

-Charlie Day is hilarious. Even though his character was the conduit for a bunch of nasty stuff, he made it redeemable. He plays an endearing guy. I felt like he should've been the only friend to Justin Long while mustache wearing Jason Sudeikis should've been written out in one of the earlier drafts. I like him on SNL, but he isn't making very good choices theatrically (Bounty Hunter anyone?) and I think he could aim a little higher than a Cougar chasing, 15 year old trapped in a 35 year old's body. Clean it up Sudeikis or you'll be stuck doing the awesome hip hop dance on the "What's up with that?" sketch forever.

-The movie was well paced. Besides one huge wall it hit between the first and second act, it kept moving. Audrey and I have a signal we do in movies when they get bogged down in semantics, exposition, crappy dialogue, poop scenes, etc. and that is to raise our index finger and swirl it around in the air...


This is to signal to the movie that we are ready for it to "wrap it up". Move on, folks. We get it. Penises are funny. That sort of thing. I didn't have to raise the finger at all during this movie. Just as I'd had enough with any plot point, they moved along and I would keep my finger with the rest of them in the nachos where it belonged.

-The movie had several laugh out loud moments that don't use junior high terminology. Jim Gaffigan is funny and I like to see him work. Christina Applegate is funny and I also like to see her work. I did however want their marriage to be stronger. Being a married man, I like to see positive married couples working it out. I realize that not every movie is going to have that, but when the only two married men you see are miserable that gets lame and predictable.

Actually, come to think of it, predictable was what best defined this movie. The jokes... predictable. The crassness... predictable. My mood after seeing the movie... predictable. In fact the title of movie should've probably been Going to be Predictable.

-The music was good. I don't tend to comment too often on soundtracks of movies, but after suffering through the truly awful compilation/mish mash of music in the Bounty Hunter I feel it is necessary to give credit where credits is due. This film had a solid selection of music that wasn't too pandering nor too whiny. Much less whiny than me.

All in all, I feel like Going the Distance was an OK film. It really didn't need all of the candidness and vulgarity to survive and at times it relied on those gimmicks to keep it afloat. Most likely the filmmakers used those comedic elements, because they felt the film was extremely predictable and rather than let the performances of their leads actors breathe, they turned to gross out stuff. It is safer to do that, right? Don't commit to letting your story unfold, but hope fart and weiner jokes sell tickets? I wish they'd chosen the high road, because during the few scenes they do this movie is really good.

Oh and one more thing that didn't make any sense. If my supposed best friend took my cell phone out of my hand while I was talking to the love of my life, set it down on the golf tee, and destroyed it with a golf club we wouldn't be friends anymore. In fact, I would punch him in the teeth... twice.

1 comment:

  1. Haha, your face in picture number one! I was trying really hard not to make reactionary faces and not to look at you while we were in the movie.

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