"Moon" is awesome but Kevin Spacey still sucks ("Moon," 2009, directed by Duncan Jones)

Kevin Spacey sucks. Lets just get that out of the way right off the bat. In my opinion he hasn’t done a good movie since “American Beauty.”

He was my least favourite part of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and he was also my least favourite part of “Moon” starring him and Sam Rockwell, which I watched last night. But I’m happy to say his role was minor enough that he didn’t have too detrimental an effect and the movie was still pretty amazing.

But wait a minute, why am I starting a blog about a movie I loved with the one part I didn’t? Let me start over:

"Moon" stars Sam Rockwell as astronaut Sam Bell, and Kevin Spacey as Gerty, the Hal-like (Think “2001: A Space Odyssey”) computer/robot assistant who keeps him company on the moon.

Sam is nearing the end of his three-year contract running a fuel-mining station on the far side of the moon, and is looking forward to going home to see his wife and young daughter.

The film is set in the future (though it’s not clear how far) and is entirely set on the moon. The inside of the station is mostly cold and industrial. Sam’s messy quarters, a room where he prunes and talks to his plant collection, and a makeshift table where he is carving a miniature town -- though he only remembers making a few of the buildings -- are the main personal touches.

When Sam leaves the station to repair the Helium-3 harvesters when they go offline, the moonscape is silent, eerie and monochromatic, pretty much how you’d expect it to look and feel.

In the scenes where Sam’s little moon-rover is seen trekking across the surface, the moonscape almost looks like it was shot in miniature using a paper mache model and a toy moon-mobile -- and it works. The scenes look fantastic, especially when the Earth is visible hanging over the horizon, a beautiful, far-away world.

It all helps add to the mystery of why Sam is there, what’s really going on with his wife – from whom he receives cryptic, puzzling video messages – and how he’s going to survive until it’s time to go home.

Rockwell is fantastic in this role, changing his stripes like a chameleon several times during the film, convincingly every time. One moment he’s the grungy, worn out astronaut, the next he’s the guilt-plagued absentee father, then the slick clean-cut keener or the suspicious outsider.

And in some cases he’s seamlessly carrying out conversations between those characters, dialogue that is also somehow believable. Nancy, my slightly crazy video store lady, told me today: "You would never think for a SECOND that it was one actor!", even though the evidence is staring you in the face.

My friend Tyrone says this is one of those movies you shouldn’t spend too much time trying to figure out, or you’ll ruin the ending. I mostly disagree. It’s not a big surprise finish, it’s more of a steady burn that builds and builds, the story getting better as the truth is revealed.

The movie was directed by Duncan Zowie Heywood Jones, who now goes by Duncan Jones, and is the son of David Bowie. It’s his directorial debut, and a solid effort.

"Blankets" (2003, Craig Thompson)

Years ago a friend recommended I read “Blankets,” a graphic novel by Craig Thompson. We had both had a very ‘Christian’ upbringing, complete with church camps and Sunday school and a good dose of old-fashioned guilt, and she thought this book would resonate since it deals with a lot of those issues.

I’ve always kept that title in the back of my mind, and whenever I’d end up browsing the graphic novel section of a bookstore, I’d keep an eye out for it.

I’ve never seen it, and had started to doubt it actually existed, when it’s white and blue spine jumped out at me on a shelf a few weeks back. There was just one copy and I snatched it up right away and started reading it that night.

My friend Meghan Sheffield was right when she said that this book is relevant to anyone who grew up the way she and I did. At some points I cringed in embarrassment at the honesty in those pages, other times I laughed, and I even got a little misty at one point.

The writing is powerful and honest, and is a perfect match to the rich black and white drawings that go along with it, illustrating the emotions, feelings and ideas described in the text.

“Blankets” is mostly autobiographical, and traces Thompson’s life, beginning when he is just a young boy growing up in a poor Wisconsin family with his parents and brother, right up to what seems like his present day life.

Along the way he wrestles with faith, fitting in, growing up, falling in love, then struggling as that love falls apart.


I found his experiences at church camp the most relevant to my own experience. The way Thompson describes and draws it, it could almost be one of the camps I went to. The camp he attends is even called 'Sno Camp’ – exactly the same name as one I went to.

He expects camp to be a haven of escape from his hometown school, where his faith has made him an outcast and the mockery of the ‘popular’ kids. But when he arrives, he quickly discovers he doesn’t fit in there either, and feels surrounded by cliques, hypocrites and fakes.

“Something about being rejected at church camp felt so much more awful than being rejected at school,” he writes, suggesting that it felt like God himself was disappointed that he couldn’t fit in.

But as he grows up and starts to figure out who he is, he learns to spot the other outsiders and band together with them. One of those is Raina, a girl from Michigan who is also trying to figure out her faith and her place in the world.

They fall in love and most of the second half of the book describes their relationship, from smitten bliss, to disappointment and depression – basically all the things you feel when you fall in love as a teenager.

There are two especially poignant moments in the book, in my opinion.

The first is a scene where, overcome by the spirit of guilt and old-fashioned Bible-thumping that he has received at church, Craig decides his love of drawing is a sin or an idol in his life.

Acting on it, he fills a bag with all the artwork he has ever done, and burns it in a barrel behind his parents home.

The second, and this is where I got pretty torn up, is when things hit rock bottom in his relationship, and he severs all ties. Once again, he sets out to burn everything related to that part of his life, including a patchwork quilt Raina spent weeks making for him. It’s a terrible moment and I regretted it for him – but at the same time I respected his passion and the courage to do something so final.

Thompson is an expert at matching pictures with words -- or using pictures to illustrate the feeling that one experiences after reading those words. He’s patient and takes his time when he needs to – sometimes using a nearly blank page to illustrate a feeling of emptiness or loneliness, other times cramming images into a panel to show excitement or exuberance or an overwhelming feeling of joy on the part of the characters.

He does what a good graphic novelist should – uses the combination of pictures and words to creat something bigger than the sum of its parts. I like that.

There were many parts of Thompson’s Christian experience that I didn’t go through in my own personal life and couldn’t fully relate to. But they all hit home either through friends’ experiences, time I spent working as a youth leader, or just as a cautionary tale about the power of organized religion and it’s potential negative effect on sincere faith.

A brave and honest memoir, Blankets is recommended reading for anyone who has struggled to fit in, gone to church camp, fallen in love or questioned their faith. Wait, I think that’s pretty much all of us…

Here's an interesting sidebar from Exclaim! magazine about the fallout from Thompson's decision to be so honest and open in the book.

'Touching the Void' (2003) directed by Kevin Macdonald)

‘Touching the Void” starts out bleak and windswept and stays that way for the duration -- much like the brutal Peruvian mountain where most of the story takes place.

Shot in a pseudo-documentary style, it’s the true story of British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates and their near-fatal attempt to climb Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes.

But it’s more than just a mountain climbing movie – it quickly turns into a story about trust, integrity and the tenuous connection that exists between two people relying on each other for survival.

Here’s the quick version of what happens:

They set up camp at the base of the mountain after days of travelling, and without much delay they start to climb -- Alpine style, carrying their gear with them in an attempt to summit and come down as quickly as possible.

They reach the summit, making a first ascent by following a route that has never before been climbed successfully.

On the way down, the climb takes a near-tragic twist. A storm sets in, visibility drops to near zero, and the two climbers – roped together for safety – get disoriented.

Unable to see more than a few inches in front of them, Simpson falls when a cornice crumbles underneath him. In the process his leg is badly broken – to the point that the shinbone is driven into the femur, splitting it into pieces.

When Yates catches up to his climbing partner, there’s little discussion about the situation, though both realize how grim it is. Darkness is setting in, and they come up with a desperate plan. Yates will lower Simpson down the steep mountainside – with him basically scraping across the ice and snow in a barely-controlled slide -- and eventually they may reach the bottom.

It’s not long before this risky plan falls apart. Simpson drops off a cliff and ends up suspended in mid-air, Yates hunkering down at the other end trying to hang onto a shifting snow bank to keep from being pulled over the edge himself.

This stalemate lasts for some time – Simpson tries to climb up but his hands are too frozen to tie the proper ascending device, and Yates can do little at his end.

Eventually, Yates does the unthinkable (but perhaps, arguably, the unavoidable) – and cuts the rope.

As if the story isn’t crazy enough, this is where it gets insane. Simpson drops smack into a glacial crevice, his life saved only by the fact he lands on a snow bridge that partially broke his fall.

I’ll try not to give too much away, but if you’re worried about spoilers you might want to stop reading here.

Joe is in an impossible position, but he’s confident that Yates, having severed the lifeline, will now hike down and find him, and help him climb out.

But he doesn’t, and this is where the story gets really sketchy.

About half of the film comprises interviews with Simpson and Yates done long after the incident. They look straight into the camera and tell their versions of what happened.

When explaining why he walked by the crevasse without bothering to look in, Yates said he quite simply just didn’t think of it. He assumed Simpson was dead, and thought he had a death sentence too, so he just kept going.

Meanwhile, Simpson was stranded in an ice cave faced with the horrifying decision: wait to die, or descend further down with the faint hope of finding another way out.

We know that they both make it out, because they’re alive to tell the story, but what Simpson goes through from there on, is an incredible story about fighting to survive when all signs point to pending death.

Yates, on the other hand, trots back to camp, admitting later that he tried to figure out along the way what he would tell Joe’s family about what happened.

And when he does finally arrive back, he decides to burn all his climbing partner’s gear – possibly the creepiest thing he did during the whole ordeal.

Meanwhile, Joe has been exposed for four or five days without food and little water, and is dragging his broken body down a rocky glacier.

What’s interesting is that the filmmaker doesn’t pass judgment on the climbers and the decisions they made. He doesn’t need to. The acted portions of the film show what happened in harsh detail, and the interviews with Yates and Simpson describe their different viewpoints.

Simpson never blames Yates and never condemns him for what he did -- he even absurdly dedicated his book about the incident to him. But at the same time, there’s not a scrap of warmth of camaraderie in his description of his climbing partner – he’s simply telling the story.

I thought that spoke volumes.

Yates too, never has a bad word to say about Simpson. He simply explains his thought-process and the rationale behind what he did – acutely aware that the audience is judging every word.

The film was shot on location with actors playing the climbers. But their faces are so bearded, wind-burned and frostbitten, that you barely notice when the shot goes form the interview room to the mountainside – and the people are different. In fact, it took a while before I even figured out that they were actors and this was a re-enactment of what took place, not actual documentary footage. That’s how well it’s done.

There’s a lot to this film. I’ve been thinking about it for a week now and trying to work out how I feel about what Yates did. I’d like to say I would have stuck it out – dragged my friend back up the mountain or died hanging on, refusing to let go. But who knows. Maybe I too would have eventually made the logical decision to cut the rope. I’m just glad I’ve never had to face that choice.

"The Fantastic Mr. Fox," directed by Wes Anderson, starting George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman (2009)

I went to see “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” on Sunday afternoon. That was a mistake. Not the decision to go see the film, which was awesome, but the timing.

The theatre was filled with kids and families, and when I saw all those chattering, excited children ramped up to see the film, I got a little worried that I had made a mistake and I was in for a full-on kids’ movie.

But it wasn’t at all. Though the stop-animation and the family-friendly story line (based on a book by Roald Dahl) make this movie appeal to families, it’s equally a great story for grown ups.

I mean, I pretty much knew that. Director Wes Anderson has a way of making films that give back as much as you put into them. You know what I mean?

“Rushmore,” “The Life Aquatic” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” are perfect examples of this. The first time you watch them they’re funny and entertaining and beautiful to watch – but every time you go back you learn something new, you pick up on a whole other layer of detail and wit that you didn’t notice before.

“Mr. Fox” is Anderson’s first animated film, but it has many of the characteristics of his other movie -- smart writing, clever dialogue, perfect composition in every frame, a vintage-y throwback look -– all of those features are there.

It’s also starring many of the cast-members he likes to work with – Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray – and some other new additions, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Willem Dafoe as the villainous rat. It’s a good cast.

So here’s what happens.

As Mr. Fox, George Clooney partly reprises his Danny Ocean role – but with fatherhood, family and responsibility mixed in.

He’s a fox whose God-given ability to steal birds of all sorts, has been clipped by a promise to his wife (Streep), made after an incident when his cockiness nearly got them killed.

He’s okay with the arrangement for about two years (that’s 12 in fox-years) but then he gets restless and decides to pull off one last big job before settling into retirement (“Ocean’s 11” much??)

Of course it goes brilliantly – and he realizes he’s too good not to steal.

“If what I think is happening, is happening… it better not be,” says Mrs. Fox when she starts to get suspicious

It doesn’t take long before Mr. Fox upsets the wrong group of farmers, and they launch a revenge mission against him and the rest of the local animal kingdom.

While the farmer and his neighbors try to destroy the animals, they rally and try to steal as much as they possibly can from the farmers.

It’s a pretty simple story, but cleverly told and with the kind of depth that Anderson fans will be searching for. And it has such a beautiful look too. The puppets are a perfect blend of human and animal characteristics, with a unique texture that makes them look so real. You can actually see the fur move where it was touched by the animators.

The animal/human connection is clear in a couple of other places too. At one point Mr. Fox is arguing with his lawyer – Bill Murray’s badger – about purchasing property, and their discussion quickly turns into a vicious but brief animal scrap, after which they go back to their civilized discussion.

Owen Wilson has a small role – and his character looks nothing like his voice sounds. But don’t get too excited because he’s only in a scene or two.

Willem Dafoe is a nice surprise as the alcoholic rat that guards the farmer’s cider supply.

Almost all of the actors in the film voice their characters in a subtle and understated way, which is really refreshing.

Clooney is the only character that is sort of in-your-face and unmistakable – maybe a little over-acted. And there’s a little too much of him. It seems like he’s in almost every scene of the film. I could have done with a little less, but it was no big deal.

This is a great movie! If you have kids, use them as an excuse to go see it. If not, be brave and go see it on your own, but go late or early to avoid the kids, if you possible can.

"Stand By Me" (1986) Directed by Rob Reiner, based on the novella by Stephen King

“Stand By Me.”

Those words alone, for a lot of people, are enough to evoke a warm sense of nostalgia. In part, I think that’s because many of us 20-somethings watched the film when we were kids, and it reminds us of that time and place in our lives.

But also, I think that title has the effect of conjuring up warm memories of the adventures, friendships and scrapes of our own childhood, which helped shape us into the people we are today.

Like the narrator of the film, we look back on those times as some of the best in our lives, and we can connect to the kids in the story and what they go through over the course of two days, walking down the train tracks, searching for a dead body.

I bought the DVD a while back and watched the film this afternoon for the first time in a long time.

It’s such a simple but brilliant story.

Four friends, Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman) and Vern (Jerry O’Connell) overhear one of their older brothers talking about seeing the body of a boy their age, who has been missing for most of the summer.

The older brother, a member of the local Cobra Snakes gang – led by bad-ass Ace (Kiefer Sutherland) -- wants to keep the discovery a secret because he was in a stolen car when he spotted the body outside of town, near the railway tracks.

As a result, the younger boys set out on-foot to find it, believing they will be hailed as local heroes for making the discovery.

They’re the perfect band of small-town misfits – thrown together more by the fact they live in the same place and are roughly the same age, than anything else – a reality of small town or rural life.

Gordie is a sensitive, deep thinker, Chris is the tough leader, Teddy is the fun, crazy and a little bit dangerous member of the group, and Vern is the self-described “fat kid” who tends to get picked on but is still a lot of fun to have around.

They’re about 12 years old, the summer is winding down, and they do a lifetime of growing up on that two-day trek, from facing down their own demons and fears, to battling leach-infested waters and the infamous train-racing incident.

The story is told by Richard Dreyfuss, a writer and the grown-up version of one of the kids, who decides to put the story down on paper after reading that one of his childhood companions had been killed.

In the opening scene he’s pulled over on the side of a country road in a truck, holding the newspaper in his hand, stunned by the news of his friend’s death.

Then he begins to recall the adventure and disappears only to show up periodically to help tell the story.

Reiner somehow manages to shoot the film in that patina of memory. You know some
elements of the tale are being exaggerated slightly, and others played down – and some elements have probably developed into mythic proportions in the years between the story happening and him telling it. Simpy put, we’re seeing the story as it is being remembered.

It works. We all tell stories that way, or remember key moments in our lives that way.
Somehow they take on a little bit of a life of their own, and Reiner manages to suggest that that’s happening here, but the story still comes across as authentic and real.

The dialogue, for instance, is perfect. At times, the boys act much older than they are, adopting lines they have probably heard form adults. For instance: “That’s when a cigarette tastes best, after dinner.”

But at other times it’s clear that they’re just kids – like when Gordie confesses to Chris that he thinks his dad hates him.

Also, they swear all the time in the way that kids do when they’re just figuring out how to do it.

Though there are many childish moments along the way, the climax of the film is a very grown up one, where Chris and Gordie learn what it means to stand together and stand up for what’s right – facing down the Cobra Snakes.

In that moment, they become men in a small way, and I think that’s why this film resonates with so many of us. Looking back we see those milestone moments too, where years of growing up seemed to be crammed into a few brief moments and decisions.

Still relevant, timeless and beautiful. If you haven’t seen this movie, well, you just have to.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the movie:

Gordie: Shut up.
Teddy, Vern, Chris: I don't shut up. I grow up. And when I look at you, I throw up. Aghhh!
Gordie: And then your mom goes around the corner and she licks it up.

Teddy: This is my age! I'm in the prime of my youth, and I'll only be young once!
Chris: Yeah, but you're gonna be stupid for the rest of your life.

Vern: Nothing like a smoke after a meal.
Teddy: Yeah... I cherish these moments.
[group chuckles]
Teddy: What? What did I say?

Vern: Ha-ha! You flinched! Two for flinching! Two for flinching!

Vern: Come on you guys. Let's get moving.
Teddy: Yeah, by the time we get there, the kid won't even be dead anymore.
I think this film – based on a book by Stephen King and directed by Rob Reiner --

"Where The Wild Things Are" (Directed by Spike Jonze, 2009)

I didn't read "Where the Wild Things Are" when I was a kid, so I didn't go into the movie with any preconceived ideas or deep attachment to the seven-sentence illustrated children's book.

I didn't really know what to expect, beyond a few words from my friend Tyrone and the knowledge that my friend Mary was a massive fan of the book -- and she's one whose opinion I respect.

I was really surprised by the film, which basically tells the story of a highly imaginative and emotional boy, his struggle to be understood and the world he creates in his imagination as a place of escape when things in his life -- as he sees them -- get really rocky.

Max, played by Max Records (The Brothers Bloom), is brilliant as the imaginative youngster. In the film, he explodes during an argument with his mother who is struggling to control him, while her boyfriend is over for dinner.

Cute and adorable at times, precocious, frustrating and maddening at others, Records is believable and real in a role that many child-actors would have made cutesy and annoying.

Instead of that, Records' Max is the kid whose potential is huge -- but who is also on the verge of being out of control, all the time. Basically, he's the kid who stands a 50/50 chance of ending up in either the gifted kids'classroom, or in detention, for the duration of his school career.

The film provides this background briefly and adequately and we learn quickly what kind of a boy we're dealing with here.

That understanding deepens broadly when Max and his mom square off, and he bolts out of the house, screaming 'it's not my fault!' -- and disappears into a nearby forest at dusk.

Then the line between the real and imaginary blurs as Max climbs into a small boat and sails away.

Where he ends up, is in an island dreamscape of his own creation -- the place "where the wild things are."

Here he meets a disharmonious band of misfit monsters in the midst of a massive domestic dispute.

Carol, the strong but emotionally volatile leader of the group (voiced by James Gandolfini -- sound familiar to his role in "The Sopranos"??) is on a rampage, destroying the huts they have built (and which keep them sleeping in separate spaces, rather than in a big pile as was the case in the past.)

In short, this is a dysfunctional family in need of a counsellor -- and that becomes Max, who is crowned as their new king in hopes he can make things right.

At first, he does, restoring joy and and comradeship and using his "magic shield" to keep out the loneliness that has plagued the "things" recently. All logic here is childlike and simple as the monsters and Max smash things and wrestle and create their own fun world.

But there's a dark side just under the surface too, and Max starts to see that solving the "things'" problems isn't going to be easy -- and as they start to doubt his royal pedigree and exhibit their dangerous side.'

These monstrous creatures are rendered convincingly through a mix of actors in costumes and computer generated graphics -- it's impossible tell where the real ends and the fake begins -- kind of like the way Max sees the world. They are mostly lovable, without being cute, and protective and safe while still being dangerous -- kind of like C.S. Lewis described "Aslan" in the Narnia series.

The narrative presents a fascinating insight into the imagination of a little boy, but it doesn't provide an obvious moral. Mostly, Max is just trying to figure out how to do the right thing. He asks two wise old owls "How do I make everything OK?"

But in the end, when he's done all he can -- won a couple of battles but lost a few others -- he realizes it's time to go home. After all, he's still a kid, still needs a warm bed at the end of the day, and still needs his mom to hug him and tell him everything is going to be alright.

"All the Real Girls," (2003, Directed by David Gordon Greene)

I was just in China, and while there my girlfriend and I were staying at a hostel in Beijing that had a big TV and movie collection in the common room. One afternoon we watched "Lars and the Real Girl" with Ryan Gosling.

It was pretty good, and while we were watching I told Katie that the title reminded me of this other movie I had seen a few years ago, called "All the Real Girls," which I really liked.

That's about as far as the conversation went. A few days later we arrived back in Toronto on a Saturday night, pretty jet-lagged due to the 12-hour time difference.
I couldn't sleep and and ended up staying up most of the night. Well, at something like 2 a.m., I turned on the TV and "All The Real Girls" was playing on TVO.

Such a strange coincidence to see this little indie flick that almost no one has seen, just a couple of days after talking about it probably for the first time since I watched it back in 2004. AND, making things even more spooky, the lead character in ATRG is Paul Schneider, who ALSO played Lars' brother in LATRG. Oh man.

But anyway, the point in, the movie is pretty brilliant and I thought I'd write a few words about it.

As mentioned, "All the Real Girls" stars Paul Schneider as Paul, a young man, maybe in his early twenties, with a reputation as a womanizer in the small North Carolina mountain town that he grew up in and has never really left.

The lovely Zooey Deschanel ('The Go-Getter,''Yes Man') is Noel, the sister of Paul's best friend who is from the same town but has spent most of her life attending boarding school.

The short version is that she comes home, meets Paul and they quickly fall in love in one of those unexpected, implausible romances that sweeps both participants off their feet and leaves them gasping for air. Just before, of course, it all comes crashing down.

While Schneider may not be all that believable as a womanizer (picture frumpy hair and plaid insulated work shirts), the story and the film's portrayal of small-town, rural life as well as the crushing impact of a first true love, are right on.

When Paul meets Noel he is completely smitten and decides he wants to try and do things differently this time. He knows his other relationships with women were shallow and meaningless and based entirely on sex, so he decides his best chance of making things work with Noel is to avoid sex altogether.

There's an honest integrity in this attempt, and you sense that Noel represents the kind of rare opportunity that Paul might not see very often in his dead-end, economically depressed town.

It seems to work, and the chemistry and connection build between them in a way that is really tangible and real for any viewer who has experienced something like that.

Paul is convincing as the tough small-towner who dreams of something bigger and better, but is honest enough to acknowledge that his friends, family his life and living are all rooted in that town, and so is he.

Noel, beautiful and alive and different from anything he knows, is the light that shines through into his sheltered life and gives him hope that his dreams might not be unreasonable.

But just as their love is powerful, quick and unexpected, it is also fleeting and fragile, and the film's portrayal of the fast collapse of their bond is also accurate and honest, and even a little painful to watch at times.

In one scene, after Paul realizes things are breaking down, completely beyond his control, he simply pounds his fist into the ground in pain and frustration, unable to express his heartbreak in any other way. The scene, which could have easily been cheesy and forgettable, is handled in a way that makes it searing and real -- one of the moments I remembered vividly from the first time I watched it.

Woven through the film are small snapshots of conversations between the characters, each of them struggling with their own set of issues. One has gotten his girlfriend pregnant, another wrestles with his relationship with his longtime girlfriend and questions what to do. These vignettes form a sort of photo album of a small town, and if you grew up in one, like I did, these snapshots resonate.

The film's tagline, according to IMDB, is "Love is a puzzle. These are the pieces." And I think that fits pretty well. Everyone in the film is working out, in some form and some fashion, what love looks like for them, and the end result is the beautiful telling of a real love story that many people know first hand and can connect with.

ATRG is slow and a little sleepy, like the town where the film is set, and it doesn't break a ton of new ground, but it works really well and I recommend it -- unless that's just the jet lag talking...

(Oddly, it also stars Danny McBride, who plays the 2nd pot dealer in "Pineapple Express," and a crewmember in "Tropic Thunder," the ballplayer in "Eastbound and Down" and is also in "Superbad," "Hotrod" and a ton of other recent films.)