The Hangover starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis. Also starring Justin Bartha and Heather Graham. Directed by Todd Phillips. Image via abrilosojos.com
I really have to see this movie again. Not too soon, but after I forgot some of the jokes. I don’t know why a friend of mine said this film wasn’t that funny: I was laughing my butt off during the entire movie.
I like Bradley Cooper. I have been watching him act since Alias (2001-2006). The first role I had seen him was of a very nice guy. He played the best friend to Jennifer Garner‘s Sydney. Then I saw him as the ultimate asshole in the Wedding Crashers that gave hell to Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s characters. His roles haven’t exactly been very difficult or diverse but he is believable and fun to watch whether he is a nice guy or the jackass. He has given the performance that his roles required him too. In The Hangover, he is neither a sweetheart like his Alias character Will Tippin nor a psycho. He is a nice guy at school- he is a school teacher. And with friends, he is the ultimate party animal who is never shy of speaking his opinion or making fun of his friends.
The plot gives enough potential for a good time: The groom-to-be Doug (Justin Bartha), Doug’s future wife’s wacky brother Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug’s two oldest best friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms). Phil is married with a kid and there’s no way he is going to miss a bachelor party in Las Vegas. Stu has been with his dominating, bitchy and controlling girlfriend for 3 years and though he is planning to marry her, he is also more than glad to be in Vegas whereas she thinks he is in Napa Valley. Alan is….Alan is a hilarious sight to look at. He is not normal and not very predictable, to say the very least. Doug seems like the most normal man among them. He is ready to commit and is happy to be getting married, despise Phil’s ranting about how awful marriage is. So they get on the car Doug’s father-in-law gives him they head out.
It all starts harmlessly but funnily enough. They get dressed, have drinks and go out. The movie cuts to the morning after. The room has been thrashed, there is a hem walking around, there are women leaving and when Alan goes to the bathroom there is real,life-size tiger waiting for him! In a panic he wakes Phil up. They are all suffering from the worst hangover, and worst of all Doug is nowhere to be seen. There is a baby in a closet and no one can recall anything!
So they put they heads together and try to trace their steps back. Three best-men and no groom!
When the movie finished, my stomach was hurting from laughing too hard. While the concept of a Vegas bachelor party gone awry is not original, what happens to the guys are. Another interesting thing about their story is that we don’t know what happened and they don’t know what happened. Every piece of the puzzle is more entertaining than the one before. Of course it is below the belt, crude and sometimes well…the movie takes it too far but it doesn’t matter in he end ’cause you just had a blast watching it! One of the funniest movies I have ever seen.
END NOTE: The movie was written and directed by Todd Phillips who also co-wrote and directed Old School and Road Trip. Road Trip was OK, and Old School was really funny. However I think I prefer Hangover. See it.
The Hangover: The baby belongs to a woman who....Nah, I am not gonna say it. Just know that his mother is played by the gorgeous actress Heather Graham.
Have you seen “The Girl Next Door” ? It is a fun comedy: a teenager (Emile Hirsch) falls in love with the girl next door (Elisha Cuthbert). The problem is she’s a porn star and her producer Kelly (Timothy Olyphant) doesn’t have any plans of letting her live a cute fantasy with her boyfriend. It’s a funny, harmless little movie and this is the first movie I have ever seen Timothy in. The thing is I just thought Kelly was a nuisance and a morally corrupt character and didn’t think much of him. It wasn’t a difficult role. And I didn’t even find him remotely attractive.
Timothy Olyphant in The Girl Next Door
And I completely forgot about him. Then I saw Catch and Release.
CATCH AND RELEASE (2006)
Timothy Olyphant and Jennifer Garner in Catch and Release
I actually didn’t even recognize him. He didn’t look that different and it wasn’t like he had a wild change with his image. But this role was completely different.
Gray (Jennifer Garner) is barely hanging on. Her fiancé has just died, she is broke and his friends are basically are all she’s got. So she moves in with Dennis and Sam. And Fritz is sticking around for some reason, though he seems to be getting on everybody’s nerves. Gray has accidentally witnessed Fritz having sex at the funeral and she has been mad at him ever since. But as time passes, Gray discovers some truths about her dead fiancé and realizes that maybe he wasn’t as great as he thought he was. First she finds out he has a secret account she never knew about and has been regularly sending money to a person- and then she learns that person is the mother of his child. To make matter worse, he has been cheating on her. While Sam is lost in his own depression and Dennis seems way too considerate for a friend, it is Fritz that helps her cope with these new facts and helps her have fun. Fritz may not be perfect, but he is not the jerk she thought he was.
Timothy Olyphant as Fritz
The minute you see Fritz, you just want Gray to get over her fiancé’s death and her hatred for Fritz soon and well, hang out with Fritz so that he will have much screen time. He is good-looking, fun and whatever stupid things he might have done, it is not that easy to judge him since he has lost a close friend and everybody has a different way of coping. And you want her to stop mourning when you realize the guy was a tw0-timing liar and had been with another woman for years without her knowing it. And the more you know Fritz, the more like him. He is fun, sweet and well gorgeous. So it is weird falling for your fiancés friend and him falling for you, but it is a fun,emotional film. It is not original but then I don’t think it ever tried to be. It is also a question of how well we really know the people we think we know really well.
Below is the link to one of my favorite scenes. Gray has just found out that her fiancés kid is much younger than Fritz initially told him,which means he had been cheating on her for years. Fritz was just trying to soften the blow on her. Now, she is very mad at her fiancé- which is good, so she doesn’t really feel guilty about Fritz. The scene also happens to be one of the best kisses in a movie. Impulsive and passionate, and still managing to be gentle:
It’s a western/drama/thriller and Timothy Olyphant is one of the leads. If you have seen Deadwood after Catch and Release, it is a lot more surprising to see Timothy go all wild west on his audience. As Fritz, he was an advertising hotshot with a place in Malibu. Here, he is a much more complicated character as the Sheriff. He is not nearly as composed, and as a modern man for his time, he seems to have a hard time excepting the horrifying level of crime and violence going on in the town. He has 0 tolerance for betrayal and he prefers speaking his mind to acting diplomatically. The show has two seasons and it is highly rated.
The movie also uses a very free language, meaning: brace yourself for some R-rated dialogue. Note that one of the characters’ names is Swearengen and it is not a coincidence.
Live free or Die Hard
Timothy Olyphant as the villain in Live Free or Die Hard
There are two impressive things about Timothy, one about his looks and one about his acting. Now, Timothy is normally a young-looking actor. In Catch and Release, I just couldn’t believe he was 37! However a year later, he plays the villain in the 4th movie of the Die Hard series and he suddenly looks seasoned. He didn’t age overnight,of course. He is just really good at adapting to his role. He had to be a guy who seeked vengeance for what felt like wrong doing on his part and he just takes this revenge thing on everyone. It just wouldn’t look convincing if he looked like a man fresh out of college; his nemesis is Bruce Willis, for god’s sake! However, Tim’s character is one of the coolest, most cold-blooded villains seen on screen- and he brought the role facial expressions I had never seen him do before. I don’t know a lot of actors who can do that. Yes, there are a lot of good actors but their expressions/way of acting don’t really differ that much or cease surprising you at one point. The last time I was pleasantly surprised like this was by Robert De Niro’s performance in Stardust- I have seen his 3 decades of movies and it was the first time a role of his and his portrayal surprised me.
It is not just Tim’s performance though. Live Free or Die Hard is a solid action movie. It sure includes some physically impossible stuff but hey it is John McClane we are talking about, it is expected. The explosions and chasing and plotting are great. The villain is not just muscles, but brains- who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty/bloody when he needs to. His smooth delivery and coolness make an impressive and chilly effect . It is obvious even in the trailer:
Hitman is based on a very popular computer game. Agent 47 has been raised as a kid to be the perfect assassin. No emotions, no complications. Just get the mission, get it done, and get out. An impressive bank balance, no conscience and no emotions. He can get himself out of any danger and you seriously do not want to mess with him. However some people do, and things go awry. After all, the people who “programmed” him have forgotten that no matter how “mechanic” they trained him to be, he is still human. He is also surprised to see he has some feelings he can’t define, which starts after meeting his female target: a Russian hooker (Olga Kurylenko), whose political figure boyfriend might very well involved in the conspiracy.
I actually laughed when some people commented that Timothy’s acting was flat. Did they pay attention to anything going on in the movie? 47 was raised to show and feel no signs of emotion. He is based on a computer character. He is supposed to be flat. But later with the Russian girl, he starts to feel a variety of mixed emotions and he portrays the different levels of reaction perfectly. The movie is fast and it is entertaining as hell. We go to different places in the world, including Russia and Turkey with the characters. There’s lots of action- both with weaponry and fighting. There is also a subtle sense of humor and it is fun to watch Agent 47 begin to change and how he deals with himself. A scene where she’s trying to seduce him and he gives her a sedative shot to get her off him is just plain hilarious. There is also a fun nod at the computer game. I like mindless action. Bring it on!!!
Timothy is featured in the show Damages, but I already wrote about it. So I am gonna end the post with one of his latest movies, a thriller called A Perfect Getaway. I just got my hands on the movie and haven’t seen it yet but am quite looking forward to it. With this, Timothy is back to his familiar gorgeous look- which suits the exotic and dangerous vacation theme of the movie.
The great thing about him is that he is a very versatile actor. I could only feature some of his films here. He has had no problems playing a bisexual character falling for his gay boyfriend’s female best friend (Advice from a Caterpillar), a cold-blooded villain (Live Free or Die Hard), a highly professional killer (Hitman), a misunderstood nice guy (Catch and Release); an annoyingly slick TV reporter with no moral principles (Bill), a sheriff in the old west (Deadwood), a drug dealer (Go)….Well the list speaks for itself. It is great that he is very good-looking, and that he doesn’t show his 41 years- which gives him the opportunity to play more kinds of roles.
It is also impressive that he is married with 3 kids and that he has been married since 1991. He has been around for a while and it seems like the movie-makers seem are smart enough to take advantage of this skilled actor. Hope he gets the credit he deserves.
Timothy Olyphant, 90s. I don't really see much of a difference...
Before 2001, I had no idea who Michael Vartan, Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper were. I had no idea the terrific actor that is Victor Garber existed and that Ron Rifkin made such a great villain. In 2001 – before Lost- there was Alias. The connection between the two shows? The creator/executive producer J.J. Abrams. The two shows could not have been more different. Yes, both include mystery, some unexplained supernatural possibilities (Alias will remember “Rambaldi”) and lots of action. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why Lost became the phenomenon that it still is. Sure it is captivating and all, but Alias had created an addiction in me that Lost didn’t. For those of you who never caught Alias, here’s the plot (although I should mention that the order we are given the story is more complicated & intriguing than my orderly version).
THE BACKGROUND
Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is a promising college student, with a great boyfriend Danny (Edward Atterton) and loving friends (Will and Francie; played by Bradley Cooper and Merrin Dungey). Her estranged father Jack (Victor Garber) is a businessman she barely talks to and her mother died when she was a kid.
What she told Danny and her friends:
Graduation is taking a tad longer, since she is “working at the finance department of a bank called Credit Dauphine”.
REALITY, as Sydney knows it:
It’s not really a bank. It is SD-6, a secret branch of the CIA and Sydney is a secret agent there. She fights well, speaks many languages and knows her hi-tech gadgets, prepared for every mission by the fast -talking and nice geek Marshall
(Kevin Weisman). Every time she tells her friends, she is going on a business trip, she is actually going on a deadly assignments with her partner/trusted friend Dixon (Carl Lumbly). But Danny proposes ans she feels obliged to tell him. So she does..
He gets into shock and leaves a drunken message on her machine. The agency guys has him killed. Why would CIA kill an innocent civillian? They wouldn’t. They also wouldn’t go after her to kill her.
REALITY
She’s rescued by her absent businessman father and is told the truth: SD-6 is not CIA, in fact SD-6 is an enemy of CIA. Also, he is not a businessman; but a senior SD-6 agent. He offeres Sydney an escape route. But Sydney is upset and she wants vengeance. So she proves herself useful to her boss Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin). She further proves her loyalty by undergoing tests/interrogations and is cleared. After all, she is the best agent they have. Then she goes to the real CIA and joins them.
There she meets her “handler” Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan– the guy who is supposed to tell her about the counter-missions. Oh,that’s right! Now she is only pretending to be loyal to SD-6, while being true to the actual CIA. Now each mission has a counter one, making the timing harder, the missions more dangerous. She also has to pull this off under the unsuspecting nose of her SD-6 partner, who is genuinely a good guy that doesn’t know what SD-6 is really up to…
Then of course her father isn’t really only SD-6. He is also CIA, and he is loyal to them, not Sloan.
It is full of action. Car chases, gadgets ( lipstick with cameras and all that nice stuff), disguises, plane crashes, travelling all over the world- even 3-4 countries in each episode back to her resident location: Los Angeles.
MISSIONS
Of course as smart, gorgeous and dangerous as she is, Sydney is only human and taking all of the below very badly:
Arvin Sloane:
Arvin Sloan played by Ron Rifkin
*Arvin is the man whom she regarded as a father figure until he turned out to be a psychopath and her fiancée killed. He also sent men to kill her. We also know he has lied to her everyday, since her recruitment. Now she has to see him everyday and smile to his face; so that she can bring the whole organization down when the time comes.
Not to mention the fact that she has to live with the fact that she worked for that organization for 7 years, thinking that she was helping the government whereas she had been betraying it.
Jack Bristow
* What is worse than an absent father? Probably a father who lied to you all your life, and seems to be revealing the truth at his own convenience: Oh yes, he has more secrets. He is not just SD-6, he is also CIA-a double agent. He also seems to be deprived of emotion. The guy has a poker face that makes him a great agent and the social bonding skills that make Hugh Laurie’s House seem like a teddy bear. He does love his daughter but he really has to work on the honesty issue. Her mother may not have been a school teacher after all. Telling what happened to her will be a spoiler, sorry…
WILL & FRANCIE
Will and Francie played by Bradley Cooper and Merrin Dungey
*Oh, she has great friends who know nothing about this secret life so she can only talk about trivial stuff with them and hang out. They love her and for the lives of them can not figure out why Sydney doesn’t leave her boring bank job. Pl?us, Will is a journalist and nosy by nature; and he suspects Danny’s murder was no ordinary crime. If he gets close, he too will be killed so she has to protect him from himself. It gets tricky to lead a double life when you live with one of your friends (Francie) and the other is fixed on solving your dead fiancé’s mystery.
DANIEL HECHT
Daniel Hecht played by Edward Atterton
* She has to live with the fact that her fiancée Danny was killed by her boss, and because she told him who she is.
MICHAEL VAUGHN
If her cover is blown, and he is discovered to be of CIA, they are both screwed (as in risking to be murdered by SD-6)…It really doesn’t help matters that they keep getting closer and become increasingly attracted to each other…
Their relationship never lacks adrenaline, friendship, honesty, sexual chemistry, bottled up feelings and not to mention the fact that they both face death almost everyday. It is nerve-wrecking to go on missions and fight together on the field- without being detected by SD-6 and it is worse for Michael to sit and watch as Sydney overtakes one deadly mission after another. So she can tell Michael anything. But she can’t even go out with him. Another thing about her life that drives her mad.
This is as close to a date it gets for Syndey Bristow and her handler Michael Vaughn. She’s being briefed about her missions while pretending to be too strangers streching on the benches.
So this eventually happens: Sydney and Vaughn get together. But how many episodes does it take? You are just going to have to see it for yourselves.
The Guest Stars
Yes, of course each episode has many guest stars but some of them are remarkably famous and it was certainly fun to see them in those kick-ass episodes: Ethan Hawke, Christian Slater and Quentin Tarantino.
Ethan Hawke appears in Alias episode Double Agent (Season 2, Episode 14)Christian Slater appears in two episodes of Alias: Endgame (season 2, episodes 15 & 19)Quentin Tarantino appears as McKenas Cole in 4 episodes of Alias.
TO SUM UP:
Season 1 is brilliant with an incredible season finale.
Season 2 does not dissapoint. Moreover it features guest stars that I love; such as Ethan Hawke and Christian Slater.
The whole season is amazing and the finale is arguably even more shocking than the first season’s. In season, 3 the show is still good- you hardly get upset with the script but with some actions of some characters (major actions of major characters, to be exact) but after season 3…The show is no longer addictive. It lose its vibe. The characters and their actions aren’t interesting anymore. The story twists are sort of desperate and you say “Come on,what the…?” a lot. Don’t even get me started on the 5th season. Of course they are worth watching in the sense that you want to know what eventually will happen to characters you have come to care about but still, if you quit with the 3rd, I am not gonna blame you.
My guess is J.J Abrams found a new show idea that he liked (Lost) and fell out of love with Alias. Writers wrote with the philosophy of “anything goes” and since this is not a soap opera, they failed.
However I watch the first 3 (and especially 1st &2nd) seasons over and over. After all, real life is never going to get that interesting and exciting. It is fun to be in a world of lies, deceit, passion, fights and chases and espionage for about 40 minutes each episode.
Forget about the societal expectations (such as: keeping promises, marrying into the right class…etc) in period pieces; and the misunderstandings in romantic comedies. It makes much more an exciting watch when the boy and the girl can not be together because both their lives are at stake. It also doesn’t help the fact that the girl’s mother killed the boy’s father. What the hell am I talking about? Sydney (Jennifer Garner) and Vaughn (Michael Vartan). The show’s name is Alias.
Syd has problems. Big ones.
Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow in Alias
** Sydney is a double agent for the CIA and SD-6. SD-6 has been posing as a secret branch of CIA and unfortunately Sydney Bristow has been fooled for 7 years. SD-6 are the bad guys, her father has been misleading her about his own identity for years and her fiance is dead because of SD-6.
* So she goes to the real CIA, and joined their quest in bringing SD-6 down. And She starts to have feelings for her CIA handler: Michael Vaughn. (Michael Vartan)- The feelings are mutual and growing stronger everyday but there is no way Vaughn and Syd can be seen together. If they were, SD-6 will kill them both. Oh and CIA will not be so pleased either…
* Oh, and Syd learns that her mother wasn’t a primary school teacher who died in a car-crash as she was led to believe. Her mother-played by Lena Olin- was KGB. She was sent to USA to seduce and marry a CIA operative. But before they learned teh truth, the evidence kind of pointed towards her dad.
*Michael has to sit in the office while Sydney risks her life on every mission. He sometimes has to risk his career and/or his life to get her out of trouble. Although she is great at her job, sometimes she has to undergo unauthorized operations to satisfy her own curiousity or save her dad…
* Michael knows everything about her, yet their conversations usually take place in CIA storage rooms. They can not go out. They do help out each other with risk operations that are dangerous and personal. They have complete faith in each other. But their most romantic lines can only be: “Yeah, I’ll break into the Vatican with you.” They can not go see a movie but they do get to diffuse a bomb together. How romantic and safe.
* At the end of season 1, Michael drowns. Or so Syd thinks. She has to go through a painful period-and so do we- when she thinks all is lost, while trying to make CIA thinks there is nothing going on between her and Michael. While they are not acting on their feelings, they both want to be like two normal people, having a chance to date.
* Season 2 finally gives them a chance to get together. For a little while.
Michael Vartan and Jennifer Garner. Yeah, they dated in real life too. First official date for Vaughn and Sydney.
* Second season finale makes Michael Vaughn think Sydney died. So season 3 puts Sydney through a hard time, trying to deal with the new woman in Mike’s life: His wife. Of course they are not over each other. And being Alias, the wife will not turn out to be an angel…
Michael Vartan and Jennifer Garner in AliasMichael Vartan and Jennifer Garner in Alias. Season 3.
So to sum up:
Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Boy can not date girl on many matters of life and death. Boy gets the girl. Loses the girl. Boy’s new girl turns out to be psycho and tries to kill boy and girl. Boy and girl save each other…And we get two more seasons with other twists. What a story to tell the kids…
Michael and Sydney go gothic rock on us in the season 1 finale.
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