Venues
Events
MediaFilm
An Extra Terrestrial Comedy, With Space Balls
Paul, A Movie review
Paul – The Movie
From Greg Mottola, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, a dream team of sorts who collectively have produced such genre mash-ups as Superbad, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, comes Paul a sophomoric, slapstick, road comedy about two nerdy Englishmen whose vacation at Comic-Con (San Diego’s annual gathering of comic book, science fiction and acne medicine enthusiasts) and RV tour of UFO landing sites is interrupted by a Close Encounter with a foul mouthed, hard partying space alien on the run from a government agency determined to scoop whatever knowledge it can from his oversized head.
What ensues is a lewd, crude, guffaw fest with occasional ham fisted tugging at the ol’ heart strings and a heaping serving of homage to Steven Spielberg, though interestingly enough, no mention is made of Jerry Stahl’s Alf, the 1980s’ wisecracking alien life form, who bears a much closer resemblance, in terms of attitude rather than this E.T. wannabe.
Also along for the ride are an all star lineup of quirky TV notables, including Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor of Arrested Development and Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader of Saturday Night Live. Actual movie stars Sigourney Weaver and Seth Rogen round out the cast and do what they can to launch a loosely strung series of profanity fuelled, bodily function based bits into feature length orbit. Alas you can’t make a silk purse out of a cyber-sow’s ear no matter how much those involved adore Mr. Spielberg, whose Duel is featured on a movie marquee even though the original movie was made for TV in 1973.
Still, for all Paul’s shortcomings, and there are a hangar full, it could have been worse. Being a closet “Trekkie” myself, who proudly wore a Capt. Kirk shirt to last year’s franchise re-boot, I appreciated the sci-fi satire and hey, who doesn’t like a little guy sticking it to “the man” even if the guy is three feet tall and from another galaxy?