The Invention of Laziness

I have been incredible lazy when it comes to 'blogging' of late. With a shockingly long gap of about a month since my last post. I blame this on the return to University which has been nothing short of balls tighteningly fantastic. Being either drunk or hungover most of the time has held me back from being able to string together a coherent thought let alone find the power to scribe anything down. Posts will become more frequent as things start to calm down here a bit. Blame Exeter, not me. SO anyway, recently I have been to see Invention of Lying, UP and Zombieland. One of which I loved, one I enjoyed and another I loathed with an angry passion. I think you might be able to guess the order. Having been a massive Gervais fan ever since his comic genius entered our lives with The Office I always felt dubious about his entrance into the cinematic world; suspecting that he may 'sell out' like so many others have done so before him. My doubts were quelled when I saw the incredibly entertaining and surprisingly endearing Ghost Town. The success of this film lead me foolishly to believe that Invention of Lying would be of a similar comedic/artistic calibre. Boy, oh boy was I wrong. The concept it self is mind bogglingly infantile-literally just a world where people cannot lie. As if this wasn't a poor enough concept the film manages to infuriate you more by failing to grasp it's own concept. Just because people cannot lie does not mean they would inappropriately state embarrassing facts for no other reason than mindless comic relief. textbook example: In the opening scene gervais goes on a date with some absolute beard, she answers the door and tells him she was just masturbating. Yes, this is the truth but just an unnecessary thing to say. Thhings of this nature happen throughout the film and it gets increasingly more irritating. The film should have been called 'The Invention of Inappropriately Stating Irrelevant and Embarrassing Facts'. Admittedly I did laugh atleast 3 or 4 times out loud during the film, there are moments which are definitely funny. I think my main issue with the film (besides the aforementioned problems with the narrative) is the fact that I am annoyed to see gervais 'sell out' so, so much. Most notably in scenes which are so clichéd and emotionally dense that it is very hard to take the film seriously. Gervais showed such talent as a script writer on The Office and Extras that I am so surprised that this film had a script which is genuinelly painful to have to think about. What was he thinking? My friend Callum and i were genuinelly tempted to walk out during a painstakingly awful moment where Gervais goes ot his mother's grave and thinks pensively about life and the greater meaning of his existance. It's so bad. I dislike this film so much that I am actually struggling to talk about it intelligently or coherently because it is just that consistently bad. Do not go to see this film. Do go and see this film: UP. I am certain that every Tom, Dick and Harry has heard about UP and is aware of how good it is meant to be. Everything you heard is true. I can't quite begin to describe just how good this film is. Had me laughing out loud, on the edge of my seat with the excitement, had me genuienlly weeping (which looked even more ridiculous than it usually would due to the fact I was wearing two pairs of glasses at the time [one pair wwere 3D glasses, I don;t just casually cruise about with two pairs of glasses on]) and left me feeling completely uplifted. The Animation is so beautiful and the characterisation of each and every character is so well carried out that you become completely swept away into this fictional dreamworld. For the hour and a half I was watching this film I forgot all my troubles and just felt like a little kid again. My 'filmic' brain shut down and I just sat transfixed by the enthralling plot, simultaeneously entertaining and tragic characters, wonderfully paced humour, action and tragedy. Being the first film I have seen in 3D I was dubious about the new technology suspecting it would be very gimmicky and thing would just be flying out of the screen at me. Fortunately this is not the case, by adding another dimension to the cinematic image everything becomes much more enthralling and engaging. You really do get taken in completely and utterly by UP as I said. This is definitely my favourite of the PIXAR films. 9/10. Go and see it, if you are a functioning human being then you will enjoy this. The other film I mentioned earlier was Zombieland. I would thoroughly recommend this film for fans of horror/comedy. It's simply a very entertaining film. Nothing extraordinary, just very competently carried out from beginning to end. With very entertaining performances from Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg, a stellar cameo from Bill Murray, enough gore to shake a stick at and a well written and engaging script Zombieland is the perfect 'lads' film. If you don't want anything too serious or thought provoking I would recommend this potentially even over UP for it's blend of mindless action (and I mean that as a compliment) and easily accesible humour. Simply put - a good film.