Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Suddenly, out of the blue; we went to the movies yesterday night. After complaining about the price of the tickets (I know is cheaper than in the US, but tickets increased almost 40% price in the last year! Bandits!); we sat down to watch “Get Smart”.

At first I was not really sure I wanted to see the movie. I was expecting a lot of stupid humor; but I was really surprised by two things: in comedy (as in many other things, [what a cliché]) timing is everything, and here the fast pace of the jokes makes them really enjoyable, I laughed out loud more several times; the second one was that only two or three jokes were non enjoyable (one of them was REALLY gross!).

I am giving the credit to the “Special Consultants” they had for the movie. They are the original writers of the series: Buck Henry and Mel Brooks (*). I am not really sure if they really participated in any aspect of this movie, but the writers and director really did a great job avoiding the typical error in comedy that is to wait to much for the joke to develop. In one of the sequences, Agent 23 (“The Rock”) is complaining about another agent for jamming the copy machine. After Agent Larabee dismisses this complain; a frustrated Agent 23 takes the stapler and then staple a paper to Larabee’s forehead. I did not see it coming and that is exactly what made it enjoyable.

Most of the jokes will develop and then the unexpected will happen; when I watched “Kung Fu Panda” I was able to tell my daughters what was about to happen prior to happening. Not this time.

Of course a lot had to do with the director going for the straight face joke and the actors running away with it; so special mention to Anne Hathaway (love her), Steve Carell (who is so enjoyable in “The Office”), Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Alan Arkin (at time I was not sure if he was really acting or just playing along) and the four guys that stayed in the office (two nerds and two agents that had to stay; really good interactions).

The only other joke I will mention is the answer to the question appearing as title of the post. Smart (Carell) and his boss (Arkin) are driving though a golf driving range, and then crash with a shack that has a swordfish in one of the walls. They stopped in front of a small airport and then Smart asks his boss: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

(End reading if you do not want to curse me later; of course if you already watched the movie or do not have plans to watch it do not worry about this)

BIG SPOILER HERE

The boss answers: “I do not know, Were you thinking; ‘Holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went though my head’? If so, then yes”.

END OF SPOILER

See you around.

(*) As comedy goes, I always liked Mel Brooks' movies. Particularly "History of the World, Part 1"; I do not why, just loved that movie.

4 comments:

J.A. said...

Well, I though otherwise; however I have to mention I do not like Carell in particular (except for The Office). I have only seen movies where he is part of the secondary cast (Ron Burgundy, Bruce Almighty) and some other more serious stuff (Little Miss Sunshine and Dan in Real Life; which I like them very much both); none of the other movies where he is the lead actor.

Anyway; you have a cool site. Will be visiting.

Anonymous said...

yea, i think i'll wait 'till this one comes out on Netflix. Carell is great, I think, when he goes against his genre. You can tell he's a solid actor. Witness his role in Little Miss Sunshine. I thought he out-acted Arkin, who got the Oscar. Speaking of Arkin, have you seen him in Glengarry Glenross? Dynamic movie with Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, written by DAvid Mamet. Simply brilliant. IMHO.

Anonymous said...

But, but, but...shirley the line "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" is a direct take from the absolutely splendiferous "Pinky and the Brain"?

J.A. said...

Well... I think the line goes: "are you pondering what I'm pondering?".

which for me is enough difference to make it work. OK, they are the same.

I love Pinky and The Brain; remember the episode when they try to take over the world? ups, I think that happened in all of them!