Posts Tagged ‘She’s Out of My League’

IN ISOLATION WITH..: ‘RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE” DIRECTOR JAY BARUCHEL!

Check out episode twenty-six of Richard’s web series, “In Isolation With…” It’s the talk show where we make a connection without actually making contact! Today, broadcasting directly from Isolation Studios (a.k.a. my home office) we meet Jay Baruchel. He’s been acting since the age of twelve and has appeared in everything from “Knocked Up” and “Tropic Thunder” to “The Trotsky” and “She’s Out of My League” to the action-fantasy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “This Is the End.” He’s probably best known as the voice of Hiccup in the wildly successful “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise but he says, despite all the success in front of the camera, what he really wants to do is direct.

“I was really lucky in that my parents would give me a kind of film or music 101,” he says in the interview. “Whenever they would tell me something they would explain why it matters. Why they care about it. What the landscape that it came out in was like and then, of course ,then they would get into sort of inside jokes. They also showed me “Monty Python the Holy Grail” and pause after every punch line and be like, ‘Do you understand why that’s funny?’ This is called dry humor. Literally. Verbatim. This is called dry humour. Then dad bought me “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” on VHS for my ninth birthday. And that started my collection that I’m still crippled by because I still buy physical media. But I’ve never stopped. Somewhere in there I realized that as much as I adore writing stories, I realized that movies were the thing.”

Two years ago he wrote and directed the sports comedy “Goon: Last of the Enforcers.” Now he appears both in front of and behind the camera in “Random Acts of Violence,” a genre film that asks serious questions about how we relate to violence in art.

Based on a 2008 Image Comic, “Random Acts of Violence” begins with comic book writer Todd (Jesse Williams) suffering a case of writer’s block. His series, a grisly and successful adaptation of a real-life serial killer dubbed Slasherman, is coming to an end and he doesn’t know how to wind it down.

On a press tour from Toronto to New York to promote the final issue, Jesse and friends, visit the scene of the Slasherman’s crimes. As the group fall victim to a series of heinous copycat crimes the film asks, “What are the real consequences when life (and death) begin to imitate art?”

I talk about that with Jay in this interview but we started by reminiscing about the “beforetime” when we could go to the movies. I asked him what movie memories stand out for him when he thinks back to the theatre experience…

NOTE: The language in this interview is NOT suitable for all age. NSFW!

Watch the whole thing HERE on YouTube or HERE on ctvnews.ca!

SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE: 2 STARS PLUS ½ STAR BECAUSE HE’S SO NICE AND ½ STAR BECAUSE HE’S SO FUNNY TOTAL: 3 STARS

“She’s Out of My League,” the new romantic comedy starring Jay Baruchel as a 5 dating a 10, exists in a fictional movie universe where men lose the ability to speak in the presence of a beautiful woman and airport security guards are friendly and helpful.

Baruchel, a Canadian actor best known for his roles in “Tropic Thunder” and “Knocked Up,” plays Kirk, a moodle—that’s a man poodle—who lets women walk all over him. Single for two years, he still pines for his ex-girlfriend even though she has long since moved on. When Molly (Alice Eve), a pretty blonde party planner, leaves her i-phone at his security check point she is thoroughly charmed when he goes out of his way to return it and despite their differences they begin seeing one another. He’s not the kind of guy she usually ends up with, but she responds to his sense of humor and honesty, until his insecurities drive a wedge between them.

The structure of “She’s Out of My League” is pure rom com formula. Unlikely couple meets, falls in love, has conflict, cut to happily ever after. It’s Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts or King Kong and Naomi Watts, only without the happily ever after part. The rom com recipe only really cooks, however, when the cast is interesting and luckily “She’s Out of My League” has charm to burn.

Alice Eve is genetically blessed enough to play the traditional blonde knock out Molly, but brings more to the role than curves and flowing hair. She takes a character that could have been smug and makes her likeable; bringing a sweetness that keeps the audience on side even when her relationship with Kirk gets rocky. If Amy Adams, normally a very likeable actress, had half the charm Eve oozes here then maybe her rom com, “Leap Year” from earlier this winter, wouldn’t have been such a disaster.

Most of the heavy lifting, however, is left to unlikely leading man Baruchel. Baruchel, an Ottawa native, has been lurking around the edges of Hollywood success for the last few years. Memorable roles in big films like “Million Dollar Baby” and some frat pack comedies and lead roles in some cool Canadian films (like the upcoming “The Trotsky”) have prepped him for his first lead in a studio picture. His low key charm and deadpan wit carry every scene he’s in—and he’s in almost every frame if the film. He’s believable as slacker Kirk, sweet Kirk and boyfriend Kirk.

Not that “She’s Out of My League” is all sweetness and light though. There are some crude jokes from the Apatow school of bathroom humor, some silly “guy” talk about relationships and a climax that goes on a bit too long, but any movie that uses Branson, Missouri as a metaphor for mediocrity and twists the rom com formula in such sweet ways is worth a look.