At The Movies With Peter Travers: I Love You Man and Duplicity
It’s March Madness time once again, and since you got all the guys together to watch some basketball anyway, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers recommends the whole gang schedules a “man date” to see one of the first great comedies of 2009, I Love You Man. Starring Apatow regulars Jason Segel and Paul Rudd, the bromance comedy is about “a dude with no dude friends needs a dude to be best man at his wedding.” Segel and Rudd form an odd couple, but as their partnership proved in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, they can carry any comedy.
Also worth checking out–on an actual date as opposed to a man date–is the clever suspense thriller Duplicity. Starring Hollywood thoroughbreds Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, the film suffers from being too smart, bouncing around cities and through time in a dizzying whirl.
Still, it’s the performances, including great supporting turns by John Adams co-stars Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, that ultimately makes the film worthwhile.
And we have a Scum Bucket first this week: Without seeing the movie and based on trailer alone, the Nicolas Cage disaster film Knowing joins past inductees Last House on the Left and Beverly Hills Chihuahua in Travers’ cinematic Hades. Based on the commercials, Knowing looks like a bad regurgitation of The Mothman Prophecies, Final Destination and the Jim Carrey stinker The Number 23 all wrapped into one. Plus, the film wasn’t screened for critics, which means even the studio knows how sub-par it is. Will Cage’s performance be as unintentionally funny as his turn in the Wicker Man remake? We don’t have the guts to find out, but if you do, email Travers at asktravers@rollingstone.com and let him know what you think.