Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, Knocked Up) only produced rather than directed, but it has the same core formula: smart potty-mouthed script, hilarious gross-out set pieces piling joke on over-the-top-joke, and a likeable loser protagonist whose pride, fall and emotional growth provide the film’s pathos. The main differences this time are the female leads (compared with the usual male leads) – including a fearless star turn from SNL comedienne Kirsten Wiig – and the classically ‘chick flick’ subjects of weddings, bridal parties, BFFs and a budding romance. Certainly entertaining enough, watchable by women and men alike, though not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as its sibling films.
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Bridesmaids (2011, dir. Paul Feig): proving gross-out comedies and chick flicks can mix
X-Men: First-Class (2011, dir. Matthew Vaughn): by-the-numbers revival of a flagging franchise
Best of the 2011 comic book movies so far (though that’s not a huge endorsement), this prequel revives the flagging X-Men franchise with by-the-numbers competence. While not as exhilirating or quirky as Vaughn’s last superhero flick Kick-Ass (2010), the action keeps moving, interspersed with the contrasting back-stories and philosophies of the upper-class idealist Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy) and the concentration camp survivor-realist Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Goes beyond standard superhero scripts by dealing with themes of prejudice and xenophobia, and repeating the ‘smart action’ of the first flick (2000), where the mutant’s abilities are used in interesting and sometimes surprising ways.
Ten things to fix for iOS 5: don’t try to lock me in with a cloud music storage service, just get the basics of a great UI right!
So Steve Jobs will be making another bunch of announcements about iOS 5 and the revamped iCloud tomorrow (Monday, 6 June, 2011) at Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developers’ Conference). The buzz is they’ll re-announce a cloud-based iTunes service that will try to lock Apple-philes into the iOS platform even further by holding captive their personal content and app libraries. I’d rather Apple’s “stickiness” was a great user interface and brilliant functionality that continually improves faster than the competition. So they can achieve that, I’d first like to see Apple make some really basic fixes to iOS:
WetWareGames 
What to do with the British Royal Family?–Privatize them!
Male ConcubineConsort Philip kept their mouths shut!There’s no end of controversy surrounding this family.
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Posted by Jokersmiley on June 12, 2011 in Social Commentary
Tags: Australia, constitution, King's Speech, privatization, Royal Family, user pays