Her om dagen skulle jeg bytte en dvd på Platekompaniet. Helst i den nyeste BBC-tolkningen av Fornuft & Følelser. Den var utsolgt. Og jeg hadde uansett glemt dvd’en jeg skulle bytte. På vei hjemover gikk jeg forbi en annen filmforretning, og siden klokken var fem på stengetid gikk jeg innom for å se om ikke jeg kunne plukke opp litt britisk perioderomanse der istedet. Akk o ve. Jeg gikk ut derfra med St. Elmo’s Fire. 80-tallet produserte også store periodedramaer. Jane Austen introduserte aldri en antihelt som spiller saksofon.

Let’s say that I am fairly demure when it comes to singing in the car.  Or in the shower.

Okay, let’s not, because that would be a Big. Fat. Lie.  My car/shower turns into quite the stage performance when I turn on the radio/water.  Anyway…

It has been a little over two weeks since the local radio stations started playing the Christmas music.  Every year for as long as I can remember they would start playing it earlier and earlier, but in the past couple of years I think they have settled on November 1.  Can’t get any earlier than the day after Halloween, right?

So, Christmas music.  Christmas music, as in “Fa la la la laaaa…”

…la Bah. Hum. Bug.  It certainly has not made me want to deck the halls.  In fact, I would just about rather deck my head against a wall.

Now, before I get you thinking that I am the lovechild of Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch, I would like to say that I like Christmas.  I do.  I like the lights and the decorated tree and all the presents for me underneath it.  And the food to stuff my face with.  And Santa.  And drooling at the DVD case for “The Christmas Shoes” with Rob Lowe on the front spending time with the family.  Really, it is a magical time of the year.

To be honest, the music isn’t so bad.  I even like the music.  I have since I was a kid.  I enjoy singing along—pretend microphone and all.

But this year, I am just not ready.  Getting in the mood for Bing and Andy and all the rest of those Christmassy Crooners means I have to face the fact that there is shopping to do, angry customers to be dealt with, a bank account to deplete, and everything else that has to be done during the holiday season.  Not to mention the overwhelming things to think about before 2010 gets here.

Like I said, I’m just not ready.  Not just yet.

Anoche Fox acabó de emitir la tercera temporada de esa gran serie llamada “Cinco Hermanos” (Brothers & Sisters). Esta entrega no ha sido tan buena como las anteriores, que no por ello mala, porque ha habido alguna trama de relleno como la de Sarah (Rachel Griffiths) con Greenatopia y hemos tenido que aguantar al pesado de Ryan Lafferty (Luke Grimes), el verdadero hijo secreto de William Walker (Tom Skerritt).

Por lo demás, Kitty (Calista Flockhart) y Robert (Rob Lowe), que tuvo un infarto, han acabado con una gran crisis en su matrimonio y es que el senador se ha distanciado un poco y ella casi se lía con otro después de haber adoptado al pequeño Evan, Justin (Dave Annable) y Rebecca (Emily Vancamp) se casan y Tommy (Balthazar Getty) está en México por hacer fraude en Ojai para intentar echar a Holly (Patricia Wettig) de la empresa familiar. Qué manía con poner a Holly de mala si lo que la mujer quiere es velar por sus intereses.

Y Nora (Sally Field)… intentando que su familia permanezca unida. Aunque también le ha quedado tiempo para el amor ya que se juntó con un atractivo arquitecto que realizó el proyecto de la casa de ayuda para los pacientes de cáncer y sus familiares que ha creado sin ánimo de lucro.

Espero qe no tarden tanto en emitir la cuarta temporada, que casi ha llegado a la mitad en Estados Unidos, como han tardado en dar la tecera, porque a los Walker se les echa de menos.

Sorry for the lack of posts, but the pig flu has completely sidelined me for almost two weeks now. I’ve basically been stuck on the couch watching bad Lifetime movies and MonsterQuest marathons. It was while watching Lifetime’s, “Too Late to Say Goodbye”, featuring Rob Lowe and an overly botoxed Lauren Holly, that I came upon this video gem of a scuba diving cat.

I thought it was fake until I came across the actual story of Hawkeye, The Scuba Diving Cat. My bad. Check out HowStuffWorks for the whole tale of Hawkeye and his companion, Muttley, the scuba diving doggie.

photo courtesy of Gene Alba

Not much to say here except…enjoy!

Rob Lowe:

Gilles Marini:

(Recognise him? You may have seen him in the Sex and The City movie)

In this original film based on a best-selling true crime book by Ann Rule, Jenn [Stephanie Von Pfetten] and Bart Corbin [Lowe] seem to have the perfect marriage. Bart is a successful dentist. One day, Jenn discovers Bart’s affair with a co-worker (it figures!). She seeks solace in the Internet and meets a mysery man. Jenn soon turns up dead and it looks like suicide. Heather, Jenn’s sister refuses to believe that Jenn would kill herself leaving her children without a mother. Too Late to Say Goodbye tackles the questions: Did Jenn really commit suicide? Was she killed by the Internet stranger or was her husband Bart involved?

Dr. Corbin filed for divorce which makes him appear very guilty. [“I wanted to save my marriage.”] The movie backtracks to when Jenn and Bart met and fell in love.

During the investigation, Bart denies having an affair with the woman he works with but Jenn’s internet affair is brought out into the open. Of course she cannot defend herself. One message said something about love though. Seems pretty serious. [Heather: “I don’t like it Jen. You get caught up in things too fast.”] Oh, and guess what? The internet guy, Chris, is actually a woman name Marion! Oh no. Bart finds out that she’s “seeing” a woman and he’s worried about his reputation. So what does he do? He has Jenn’s body cremated.

Rob Lowe plays it stoic and the beginning and gradually turns very creepy and increasingly creepy, sneaky and culpable. He checks his wife’s cells phone messages which is such a breach of privacy even for a married couple. Bart has a huge temper too. I really like Lauren Holly as Jenn’s sister. She’s strong, determined and refuses to admit that her sister would ever commit suicide.

Too Late to Say Goodbye is pretty predictable but entertaining. There are some twists as typical with Lifetime movies that I don’t want to give away! It’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday night.

The movie premieres on Lifetime TV on Saturday, November 7, 2009. Check listings for times.

Grade: C+

review copy provided by Lifetime TV

The Orange Film Adverts really have become part of the cinema experience over the past few years now. Wondering when it is eventually going to change after months and months of the same advert, telling you to switch off your mobile phone. So I thought I would have a little trip down memory lane and pick out my top 10 of the adverts. This could be amusing and annoying, having a look back through the adverts which you do talk about a lot. It is very good to see the actors allowing their movies or parts to be made fun of in jest.

10. Darth Vader

Got to be slightly amused at Darth Vader being told no, haha.

9. Val Kilmer

Trying to get text messages into a Western . . . only in an Orange advert. “Val’s lost that lovin’ feelin”

8. Snoop Dogg

All amusing just for the Orange guys trying to sound cool and rap.

7. Macaulay Culkin

“How old are now, 15?” “I’m 26″ that is just fantastic as everyone still sees him as the “Home Alone” kid.

6. Verne Troyer

 The obvious joke, yep Dr Evil. Fantastic!

5. Patrick Swayze

The late Patrick Swayze, is just brilliant when they all start quoting his movies “no one puts Swayze in the corner” and the use of “ditto”.

4. Steven Seagal

Just having Steven Seagal saying romantic comedy is pure brilliance.

3. Anjelica Huston

The whole Addams Family refrence and “Huston, we have a problem” fantastic.

2. Sean Astin

I always loved this one being a LOTR geek and everything. Its just hilarious at the end making it appear Sean is really Hobbit size.

1. Rob Lowe

I just love the curly haired guy “OMG Rob Lowe just looked right at me” what a classic moment and I am not joking that I laughed at this every time for the probable 6 months it was on for.

Which is your favorite?

This blogging thing has become almost an autonomic nervous system activity – I do it regularly and without thinking about it.   And now it has invaded my dreams.

I had the most interesting dream last night – with which I shall not bore you, as dreams are invariably much less fascinating in the telling than in the dreaming (OK, I’ll share that Rob Lowe was participating in a dance and song routine on a grassy hillside to an audience which included me, having just come from a hog-butchering workshop.  (See, you didn’t want to hear that, did you?)).

HOWEVER, ahem, in my dream, after the song & dance routine was over (and after I shared with others in the audience that Rob & I had attended three summers of archeology field school together, before he left for Hollywood), I walked along the road, chanting in my head “Don’t forget to blog about this!  Don’t forget to blog!”

As if. 

I was lucky enough to pick up April Fool’s Day (1986) in a “2 DVD Set” (the cover lies, it’s actually one double-sided disc) with My Bloody Valentine (1981) for five dollars at a Wal-Mart in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was a great deal. I hadn’t seen either of those movies since I was a kid, and April Fool’s Day hadn’t been the easiest to get a hold of until I found this disc. Apparently, it’s actually the only format in which April Fool’s Day is available right now (obviously you can still get it on eBay or Amazon from second-hand sellers) but I am not complaining due to the insanely low cost, and what I consider to be a pretty good transfer.

The movie stars Deborah Foreman, who I love: she also stars in Valley Girl, which is one of my favorite movies with one of the best movie soundtracks, and 1988’s Waxwork, which isn’t terrible. Looking at her IMDB page though, it looks like she also had a small role in Real Genius, which is another of my favorites. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for her next time I watch it. Also, there is apparently a remake in the works, and I was prepared to get all pissy about how Valley Girl wouldn’t be Valley Girl in the 2000s, until I learned that it is going to be an 80s musical. It now has my blessings/total encouragement, obviously.

Deborah Foreman thinks Nicholas Cage is "like, trippendicular, y'know?"

More importantly, it looks like she was in a movie called Lunatics: A Love Story (1991), co-starring…Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell? Here is the plot summary:

A delusional and paranoid poet hallucinates and almost becomes a serial killer, but saves a beautiful girl from street-gang members and becomes a hero. Written by frankfob2@yahoo.com. (thanks, frankfob2!)

How have I not seen or heard of this movie? That is a bigger mystery than the mystery of who the killer is in this film.

The premise of the film is that Muffy Sinclair is a really rich girl who goes to Vassar, and who just inherited her family’s summer house, which is on an island only accessible by ferry.  The first scene we see is Muffy (Deborah Foreman) organizing her basement before her friends arrive, which is the first hint that she is up to something. She even assures her maid that the party she is throwing for her friends this weekend is going to be “bloody unforgettable.”

While poking around the basement, she finds a jack-in-the-box that she received on her birthday as a child, and has a birthday flashback to her youth. For some reason, only adults were invited to her party even though she was a kid. When she received the jack-in-the-box, which looked totally innocuous and had a cute duck on the side, she spun the handle and out popped this horrifying monster that growled at her:

Evil monster that scared little Muffy.

To add insult to injury, all of the adults at the party laugh at her when she gets scared. This rivals Damien’s birthday in The Omen for Worst Birthday Ever. It actually might beat it, because Muffy wasn’t the Antichrist and so you can’t make any excuses about how she “deserved” it or liked it.

So you know right away that Muffy is going to be at least a little fucked up because she was traumatized as a child and had terrible parents who liked to scare her and invite their friends over to watch their kid get scared.

Then we meet all of her college friends who are coming on the ferry to Muffy’s house. They are (prepare for screencap overload):

Biff from Back to the Future

This bitchy girl.

Hal, who is Southern and wants to bone Muffy (he's in it for the money).

A nice girl, and her boyfriend, Fake Keven Bacon

Fake Rob Lowe in St. Elmo's Fire and a nerdy girl

Also, the Constable, Muffy’s boring distant cousin Skip, the ferryman, and the ferryman’s assistant Buck are on board as well.

The prank, which leads to...

Fake Rob Lowe has a video camera and is telling all of the boys that their flies are down as a joke, but then Biff and boring cousin Skip do a serious prank in which it looks like Skip gets stabbed in the stomach with a knife accidentally. It is pulled off way too realistically (and in a half a second) to have been done without a special effects crew or at least some kind of professional makeup artist, but I guess these kids are mostly rich so they can afford to plan things like that.

...a non-prank.

Unfortunately, Buck dives in the water to save Skip, and gets his face smashed by the ferry. Not good.

They finally get to Muffy’s house, and Muffy plays some funny tricks on them (champagne glasses with holes in them, etc.) Someone is also planting fucked up things in the guests’ rooms, like a recording of a baby crying in the room of one of the girls who had gotten an abortion.

People start to die in interesting ways and it would ruin the movie if I went into too much detail, because it really is a pretty good slasher. Muffy starts to look obviously deranged and we begin to suspect that she is actually Muffy’s insane twin sister Buffy.

"This is not the Muffy we know and love. She would NEVER do her hair like that."

Stop reading here if you don’t want to know the end to the movie.

I like this movie a lot, but I really didn’t like the twist in the end, both because you could see it from a mile away, and because it just didn’t really make much sense.

It turns out…it was all a prank! Well, it was a “dress rehearsal” for Muffy’s plan for the house…she is going to turn it into a murder mystery themed bed and breakfast! Except those guests will know it is fake, so this really wasn’t anything like a dress rehearsal. Also, who did Buck’s makeup when he staged his ferry-related injury? It happened in less than an instant, and I don’t know anyone who can apply makeup that good, that fast, while in the water. I know it is a campy slasher/mystery and I shouldn’t care, but it was actually a really good movie up until the end, and then it sort of ruined it with an improbable twist ending a la Haute Tension.

I think the movie would have been great if Muffy’s evil sister Buffy actually existed and offed everyone.

Plausibility of twist ending: 3/10

Movie up until that point, as far as 80s slashers go: 7/10

Awesomeness of purchasing this and MBV on dvd for 5 dollars: 8/10

Anne rating: 6/10

The Invention of Lying starring, written and directed by Ricky Gervais. Set in an alternate reality in which no one has ever lied, Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) discovers how.

Ricky Gervais has always been a problem for me, when he first started to break out with his writing and stand up I didn’t like him. Nothing personal, I just didn’t find him funny. Then late one night after flicking through the channels I found one of his stand ups on E4. With nothing else to do I watched it and found it hilarious. I still don’t like The Office or Extra’s though, so after seeing that he’d written it I went into this movie in two minds about it. Overall though, it’s a good film.

Gervais’ plays the ‘loser’ remarkably well and as most of the jokes are at his expensive the movie starts off well. It stumbles through some of the ‘rom com’ stuff. Though I couldn’t decide if it was Gervais or Jennifer Garner who was letting the side down during these segments though. When Gervais accidently creates religion the film takes an interesting religious satire plot twist, but it never feels fully thought out.

Really though there is enough comedy in this film to make it worth seeing in my opinion. I enjoyed it.

Before The Invention of Lying, Ricky Gervais’ had kept his Hollywood forays squarely within the acting medium, whether that be in cameo appearances such as in Night At The Museum or more susbtantial efforts such as last year’s Ghost Town – a film which I really enjoyed despite the generic nature of the film.  Now, however, Gervais is back as schlub Mark Bellison and adds writer and co-director to his credits as well as playing the lead.

The concept is very simple.  In an alternate world people can only tell the truth and no-one can lie until one man invents the lie.  As high concepts go, this one is pretty steep and would require a comic lightness of touch and barrel of laughs to make work.  Sadly, Gervais and Robinson don’t have it.  The main reason that the film doesn’t work is that the concept isn’t properly followed through.  First of all, having characters who can only tell the truth shouldn’t necessarily mean that characters should have verbal incontinence – unable to have any kind of inner monologue and spouting whatever thought in their head.  Whilst this is supposed to be funny, mostly it is just annoying particularly when random characters appear simply to tell you the thoughts in their head.  The only person who seems not to have this problem is Gervais’ character – funny that.  There are also the staggering inconsistencies such as dishonesty in Gervais’ world – both Ed Norton’s bent traffic cop and Gervais’ own dad (played by Barry from Eastenders)  seem to have no problem scratching out a living from essentially not telling the truth.  The other question on my lips was that once Gervais works out how to lie, how come no-else seems able to follow suit?

The second half of the film revolves around Bellison seemingly inventing religion.  This starts in probably the most touching scene of the film as Bellison attempts to comfort his mother on her deathbed by trying to convince her that there is life after death and inadvertently inventing religion in the process.  It shows Gervais’ previously unseen ability for dramatic acting but what follows is rather more of the self-agrandising that we have come to expect from Gervais’ and it is from there that the film develops to the end.

What is clear from this film is that whilst Gervais is unquestionably a good actor, he shouldn’t write parts for himself.  Whilst writing himself as a romantic lead in both this and Ghost Town are just about on the right level of believable, his ego gets the better of Gervais in this film and all of the inconsistencies and plot points fall Bellison’s way, often to the detriment of the film.  Everyone else is a supporting character to Gervais and some are used better than others.  Jennifer Garner gets a great role but I just don’t like her as an actress and I have never quite been able to put my finger on why.  Of the other female characters, Tina Fey is given very little to do and the role is wasted on her comic talents.  On the male side, Rob Lowe fights his best instincts to play nasty and does so with no littler swagger.  He is clearly having fun but other male characters played by stand-up Louis CK and Jonah Hill are there seemingly only to make Gervais look better.

Overall it is a weak film with a premise which cannot be seen through and is not consistent to begin in and feel snide and a vanity project not helped by the swath of cameos who seem to be there to do little else but boost Gervais’ ego.  Such a shame because I really enjoyed Ghost Town.

3/10

Funny thing….Disney apparently didn’t like this rendition of Snow White, and has contacted the ad agency in question, according to The Register. Funnier still is that Grumpy still looks, well, grumpy.

I suppose one could try to argue that Snow White and the Dwarves aren’t really owned by Disney, as they come from the Kinder- und Hausmärchen. I doubt one would get too far with that, though, especially since these are obviously styled to look like the Disney rendition.

Hat tip to my friend Hayden, without whose Facebook feed this one would’ve gotten by me.

And hey, on the topic of strange Snow White-related entertainment…..I found myself searching out this YouTube clip today, courtesy of snowlowe2:

Gotta love that hat in the finale!

(Season 4, Episode 3)

I spent most of the episode not remember where the hell Sarah has been through all this Kitty drama. It looks like the writers heard my confusion and will fill in all the blanks with next week’s foreign flashback edition.

But before we can get to that, we have to deal with the fact that Kitty has stage 3 lymphoma, which is serious but still treatable. Which treatment is up for debate, and Robert and Nora are up for debating between them. The big thing is telling the family, which Kitty decides to try doing during a Walker family dinner.

Which makes me think Kitty has memory loss, or she’d remember that there hasn’t been a Walker family dinner not end in disaster in the past three years. Why should that change now?

I wasn’t sure if we’d be following Justin to med school, but I’m glad we did. I love his new partner, the new Doogie Howser. With Justin’s war experience and the kid’s book smarts, they just might be able to pull one another through Anatomy. That’d be one class down. This is going to be a lot harder than Justin thinks.

Back to Kitty, and because Justin in med school reminded me of it, Robert made another one of his patented “calls” to secure Kitty a spot in the clinical trial in Boston. In the end, though, Kitty chose to go with the support structure she would have at home, and traditional chemotherapy treatment.

In the end, the family comes together as they always do. This time with an impromptu dinner at Robert and Kitty’s house. And there appears Sarah, apparently oblivious to everything.

Clearly Kitty’s cancer is going to permeate through the entire season, but I’m glad it won’t dominate it. Kitty’s insistence that Justin and Rebecca keep their wedding plans in place just goes to show that life does go on. And Kitty as the matron of honor gives her something to fight for.

If her struggling marriage and son aren’t enough that is. I love the caliber of the acting on this show, and it continues to amaze me week after week. Particularly poignant was the moment when Kevin found out about Kitty’s condition and his subsequent confrontation with her about it.

I’m normally not a family soap kind of guy, and this show has every bit of the trappings of the best of them, but with acting at this level, how can you not appreciate its moments of brilliance. Plus, they can play suspense and mystery better than anyone.

Just what is William Walker’s nemesis up to, sabotaging Ojai’s attempts to get into the cheap wine business. He’s pissed at William so intends to take it out on his company and possibly his family. What is his plan and how far is he willing to go?

Ricky Gervais is a chubby little loser who became semi-famous among a small group of Americans for creating a British TV series called “The Office”. Like most British comedy, the show was very dry, and appealed mostly to those few Americans who appreciate obscure foreign cultural references and being rendered physically uncomfortable. It was eventually adapted by American comics to much greater success, owing largely to its attractive cast and lack of silly accents.

For the record, I adore both versions of “The Office”, and I only refer to Gervais as a “chubby little loser” because he’s quite fond of referring to himself as such. But this is the world of Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson’s The Invention of Lying – a world of brutal and unrepentant honesty. Gervais stars as Mark Bellison, an unsuccessful screenwriter who accidentally discovers that he has the ability to lie. Anna (Jennifer Garner) is Mark’s potential love interest, with the minor hitch that she doesn’t find him attractive (and is happy to tell him so), and Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe) is a thoroughly loathsome rival to Anna’s affections. Jonah Hill and Louis C.K. appear as Mark’s friends, joining a host of comedic cameos, including Martin Starr, Jeffrey Tambor, Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, and an almost unrecognizable Ed Norton.

Unsurprisingly, with so many comedic greats on board, the film excels at the humorous exploration of its reality. In a world with no lies, what are movies? What are advertisements? What is dating? All of these questions (and more) are answered, and the resulting world feels a bit like Liar Liar. Characters are forced to tell the absolute truth, and they do so even when they aren’t asked a direct question, making this not so much a world of honesty as a world of too much information. It would be downright alarming if not for the fact that no one reacts to these startling revelations in any visible way. In this sense, they seem childlike – an image that is reinforced as soon as Mark realizes how easy it is to lie to get what he wants. This kind of behavior could easily come off as predatorial, but Mark doesn’t entirely understand his new power, and is mostly well-meaning.

The people of this world start off with a blank slate, and the first half of the film resembles a Lockean state of nature (minus any notion of God) – which makes it all the more fitting when Mark accidentally invents the concepts of God and Heaven at the top of the film’s second half.

At this point, this film might well be retitled “The Invention of Religion”, and becomes perhaps one of the most overtly antireligious films of the year (which might explain its pervasive Budweiser product placement – gotta pay the bills somehow). For his part, Gervais seems quite at home in the ranks of atheist comics – he even delivers a hilarious “Ten Commandments” scene reminiscent of George Carlin. This act feels more or less like an origin story for morality, and is at least moderately fascinating as such. Unfortunately, Mark is not the most well-conceived moral authority. His morality is tenuous, illogical, and largely inconsistent. It is seems mostly derived from Gervais’ desire to poke fun at religion, and in that sense it may be at least somewhat deliberate. Nonetheless, at this point, Mark ceases to be a real character, and his romance with Anna starts to further strain credulity (despite a worthy effort by Jennifer Garner).

Anna is a fascinating case study in this world. She likes Mark, maybe even loves him. But she can’t be with him because Brad Kessler is more attractive, successful, and a better match for her genetically. In a world of no lies, the purpose of dating is getting married to make babies. Anna does not have Mark’s ability to lie, but she would have to go against her biological imperative in order to be with him (resulting in “little fat kids with snub noses”). With Anna, the film comes very close to classifying love as a form of self-deception, and this may ultimately be its most provocative theme.

Since “Extras”, Ricky Gervais has shown his aptitude for exploring the ideas of fame and undeserved notoriety, and this film definitely continues in that grain. But it just feels like a bland entry, dabbling in many complex ideas, but spending too much time undermining them. The resulting political allegory may well be enjoyed by some, but is mostly forgettable.

FilmWonk rating: 5 out of 10

I saw this move last Friday and well, it was bad meets horrible. You can basically guess the whole plot of the movie with out even seeing it.

Chris Boyd, comedian and provocateur, steps back into the studio to join Tom and Sam for a talk about The Invention of Lying, the good bits of Eddie Murphy’s career, National Lampoons, small documentaries about oil, Bette Davis’ face, Toy Story’s third dimension and why people lie about seeing films. They conclude with five high concept movie pitches apiece.

Download The Movie Overdose Episode 37

Show notes will follow in a later post.

Ricky Jervais is not an attractive human being. Look at any picture or watch absolutely anything he is in and you won’t be able to refute the claim.

Ricky Jervais is a funny guy.  An episode of the original “Office” will erase any thoughts that he isn’t, both as an actor and writer.

Combined, these two defining characteristics create a hilariously unattractive movie: “The Invention of Lying.”

“The Invention of Lying” see Jervais playing Mark Bellison in a world that has not discovered how to lie.  Bellison is a script writer for a large movie company.  However, since no one can lie movies are simply scripts written about historical events.  And to make things worse, the scripts a merely read by a person sitting on a chair.  It’s basically like watching a textbook being read.

Jervais is a loser, he knows it, his mom knows it, his coworkers (Tina Fey and Rob Lowe) know it and his love interest (Jennifer Garner) definitely knows it. But this doesn’t stop Jervais from wanting a happy life, or at least making fun of his life.

He is subsequently fired from his job because he can’t make the 13th century interesting.  He is also rejected by Garner on their first date because he is genetically inferior.  On top of this his landlord tells him he is evicted.

And then the big moment happens.  Jervais walks up to a bank clerk to remove all of his money and somehow figures out how to lie about the amount of money he has in his account.  And it works!

Now, we have no idea how he figured out the art of lying, but really it doesn’t matter, because no one else figures out how to lie.  So Jervais has free rein to make up anything he wants at anytime.

Appearances by Edward Norton, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K. and Jeffrey Tambor add to the almost non-stop comedy of this movie.

The idea for this movie is pretty original and you never seem to feel bored even though the film does not follow a traditional movie time-line. We aren’t treated to an “exposition-conflict-climax-resolution-outro” movie.  This movie takes a different route that treats us to a movie in which you learn about the characters, and you learn about how Jervais’ messages from “the Man in the Sky” change the world.

All of this compacted into one movie creates a memorable experience, filled with laughs, and love and more laughs.

*Shakes head over and over* What happened, Ricky? Did you actually watch the finished product? Don’t you realize how incredibly clever and funny an individual you are? I feel almost ashamed that The Invention of Lying was so awful. I’ve been talking up this movie for months in advance and much more in the past few weeks, trying to get people to see it. I wanted people who didn’t know who Ricky Gervais was to see his comic genius. Well, perhaps for the first time, Gervais let me down…in a big, big way. This film was close to unwatchable. It was boring, it was a one-tricky pony, it was a broken record, and it surely wasn’t clever. Ricky, you’ve made me laugh so hard on so many occasions. So I’m going to let this slide eventually, but I have to ask again: What happened???

Two great comedians that produced just about zero laughs the entire time. What a waste of talent. (Warner Bros/aceshowbiz.com)

First let me set the stage for The Invention of Lying. It sounded like a pretty funny premise: nobody can tell lies except Gervais. Solid, I can go with it. Then there’s his past work. Ghost Town, which was as hilarious as it was touching, a truly completely lovable movie. It was one of the hidden gems of 2008. There’s his stand-up material too, which is a reason alone to get HBO, but I’m sure you can rent it by now. There’s also Extras; a hilarious show that was also on HBO about movie extras. Oh yeah, he created The Office too. Credentials good enough? I thought so. And get this cast – Gervais, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K. (!!), Jeffrey Tambor, Tina Fey, and John Hodgman. That’s enough funny people for five movies. Add in great talent like Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe and well, shouldn’t you have a masterpiece? But, like so, so much junk being pumped out of Hollywood these days, the trend of lumping too many A-list stars in one movie failed miserably.

So, why did it fail? For one, the actors that I just mentioned, Gervais included, could do nothing with this paltry script. The lines seemed so forced, often choppy and awkward, and it flowed terribly. The plot details turned out to be just weird and bizarre, not in a good way. We as an audience were presented with a joke in the first few minutes from one of those A-list actors, I can’t remember who – or I don’t want to. Then they tried the joke again with someone else. And again. And again. And over again until I couldn’t remember what the point was, and it was so dry and pathetic, it was hard to stomach. I honestly couldn’t believe I was watching something so painful that was written, directed, and starred in by a great comic mind.

I know, I was equally as shocked that the movie was THAT bad. (Warner Bros/aceshowbiz.com)

Another thing about The Invention of Lying that added injury to insult was the romance that was tied in between Garner, Lowe, and Gervais. It wasn’t believable, it added nothing, and quite honestly, it was cheesy. Yikes. The last thing I’ll lash out on this film about is what some people are calling “clever”. Now, yes, it is true that it tries to poke fun at religion. Trust me, I get that. But hasn’t that been done before? In far funnier settings? I understand what was happening in those scenes, but like every other ploy and joke in the far too long 1:40 running time (felt like an eternity), it was dry and like a broken record.

This was a bad movie. There’s just no getting around that. I find it strange that two of the absolute worst movies this year, and in a while, have been from two great comedians in Gervais (Invention of Lying) and Seth Rogen (Observe and Report). I guess you can’t always bat .1000, can’t always slam dunk every venture. I’m not giving up on the brilliance of Gervais, he’s too funny to do so. But I’d like to forget about this movie all together.

THE INVENTION OF LYING: (out of 4)

Even at the best joke ever.

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Sam and his prostitute friend.”

But, thank god for Ellen DeGeneres. Seriously, she must have gotten the amazingly funny gene to make up for her future in hell for being one of teh gheys. Watch this clip, and suddenly, you will totally heart gay marriage too.

A big thank you to Margaret Kathryn Nelson of Orange County California for getting me into the habit of reading people.com everyday, which is where I found this clip. Hello there Madge.

Starring: Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Jonah Hill, Dreama Walker, Rob Lowe, Patrick Stewart

Director: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson

Release Date: October 2nd, 2009
Release Date: 2nd October, 2009

Studio: Warner Bros.

Synopsis: The Invention of Lying takes place in an alternate reality in which lying, even the concept of a lie, does not even exist. Everyone, from politicians to advertisers, to the man and woman on the street speaks the truth, and nothing but the truth, with no thought of the consequences. But when a down-on-his-luck loser named Mark suddenly develops the ability to lie, he finds that dishonesty has its rewards. In a world where every word is assumed to be the absolute truth, Mark easily lies his way to fame and fortune. But lies have a way of spreading, and Mark begins to realise that things are getting a little out of control when some of his tallest tales are being taken as gospel. With the entire world now hanging on his every word, there is only one thing Mark has not been able to lie his way into: the heart of the woman he loves.

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