Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

29 January 2008

The Brothers Solomon, dir. Bob Odenkirk (2007)

STEVE says:
This hurt. This hurt bad.

In The Brothers Solomon, two socially inept brothers try to fulfill their father's wish for a grandchild in the hopes of bringing him out of a coma. No, it's not high art. But with Will Arnett starring, Bob Odenkirk directing, and Lee Majors as the comatose dad, it had a shot at being funny. At least until the opening credits, where Odenkirk proves within seconds that he knows how to take a joke too far. And he keeps proving it for the duration of the movie.

Not that I didn't laugh. There was a lot of funny stuff in here - funny, wrong stuff (popcorn and dead bird, I'll say no more) - but it was too idiotic to be any good.

It was only after watching the movie that I noticed the blurb on the DVD packet - "Dumb & Dumber meets Knocked Up..." Whatever recumbent asshole came up with that comparison is absolutely spot on. This movie has all the "charm" of a Farrelly Brothers movie (you know, where they take a fat girl, a schizophrenic or conjoined twins and, through an hour and a half of "hilarious" humiliation, prove that she's/he's/they're just as human as we are), and the "structure" of a Judd Apatow movie (thinly strung-together sketches that pass for scenes, one after another, until we reach the end). All that was missing to round out the Not-As-Funny-As-They-Think-They-Are triumvirate was Kevin Smith. Or maybe Ben Stiller...

Having said that, I will allow that The Brothers Solomon, while shaky, at least hit all the standard plot points - which makes it Citizen Fucking Kane compared to Anchorman, Superbad or Talladega Nights.

1/5

NIKKI says:
I said to Steve when this was over -- how did we get from considering watching this movie to actually watching it? It is so far from anything resembling our interest or taste. I think it had to do with me seeing the box art at work and thinking it might be okay. You cannot resist Will Arnett's dumb face on the cover, I swear. Or maybe, as we movie snobs sometimes do, we just decided to go slumming... We did a similar thing with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. And we ended up laughing our butts off. That didn't really happen here, not as much anyway. We laughed, but we both knew the movie was just lame.

It's the same set-up as Dumb and Dumber and movies like it. Two guys who are untrained in the ways of the modern world go on a quest. Women get involved. They win out in the end because, gosh, stupid people are just so charming and cute. Ugh. Everything that could happen does -- the guys fail in their attempts to woo women, they prove themselves inept dads, they say racist things to a black man. But they're just so cute and we shake our heads and tsk-tsk at the race gags because these guys just don't know any better.

Nor do the writers, who really need some new story lines.

I'm imagining the round-table: "Now, what can we do with stupid people that hasn't already been done...?" Is there anything left, thanks to the Farrellys?

It was stupid humour and dumb story, but it wasn't crude humour, which is good. I laughed at the leads more than I should have. And, seriously, we don't watch enough comedies.

Next up: Pucked! Because if we can get through this, dammit, we can do anything!

1.5/5 (for Will Arnett's face)