If Dogs Run Free

Short of fart gags, the “humor” in this trailer for Paul seems as low and crude as a film like this can possibly get. The bird-eating at the end is the only moderately amusing bit in the whole thing. What an apparent comedown for Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), once a cool indie-minded director and now the manager of a dog pound, leading movie culture down the ladder toward an across-the-board mongrelization of comedy.

20 thoughts on “If Dogs Run Free

  1. You know Wells, you sure manage to get bent out of shape over trailers. Are you really going to make a big sweeping statement about Greg Mottola’s career and the direction of his creative output as it pertains to a general debasement of the comedy genre in Hollywood based on less than 2 1/2 minutes of film? And this isn’t the first time…you’ve been doing this a lot lately.

    It’s fine to criticize the trailer itself, or even give some vague impressions of what you think the film might be like based on it. But your extrapolations are starting to become ridiculous. The corners you paint yourself into are apparent in your reviews; so many end up as “I expected to hate this, but it’s actually not too bad…I could roll with it,” etc. Maybe you should try having a more open mind to begin with.

    But then I guess you just wouldn’t be you if that were the case.

  2. Simon Pegg’s a one trick pony sadly. Loved him in Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, have hated him in everything else, he’s almost a parody of himself now. A particular low point was his appearance in Star Trek.

  3. Imagine how little there’d be in the trailer for you, Wells, if someone spoiled the bird-eating joke for you in an introduction.

  4. I liked The Daytrippers and Adventureland. But, kind of a mediocre talent Mottola is. So theres no point in being disappointed, however stupid this looks, and it looks very stupid. The hope is, when bros like Mottola, take these paycheck gigs, they’re able to elevate the humor a bit, or add something interesting, but like i stated, looks stupid. who cares? just another film to ignore.

  5. 1. Does Kristen Wiig have a husband or kids? If so, she must fucking HATE them because she would have to work 24/7/365 on movie sets and SNL to be as annoyingly ubiquitous as she is. Like, hey, lady, maybe when you’re in TWENTY-FIVE MOVIES A FUCKING YEAR and two TV series, give the public a little rest? Especially when your shtick is so damn repetitive and you’re not hot?

    2. Why couldn’t Simon Pegg have just grown his real hair out? THAT IS SUCH AN OBVIOUS WIG. Always funny to me that they can build CGI ALIENS to the tune of 20 mil, but can’t get a convincing wig on a male actor.

  6. Simon Pegg’s a one trick pony sadly. Loved him in Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, have hated him in everything else, he’s almost a parody of himself now. A particular low point was his appearance in Star Trek.

  7. “leading movie culture down the ladder toward an across-the-board mongrelization of comedy.”

    That’s what I would say about people who championed ‘Due Date’ and ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’. Especially if the people consider themselves serious film critics.

  8. What is this shit about Kristin Wiig not being super fuckable? On a superficial level, you need to downgrade when someone can be funny, because there just aren’t many funny motherfuckers out there. So when you have someone like Wiig, with a nice face, great curves and awesome comic timing, she rises up the megahotness wave easy and hangs ten over the Michelle Williamses and Amy Adamses of the world. Then again, maybe Michelle Williams is secretly young Goldie Hawn in a comedy or something, I wouldn’t know.

    Anyway, yeah, Mottola’s got that track record, but this does look like off-product from him. It’s just a trailer, and you can’t pass judgment on that, but everything about this thing, from the plotline involving Comic Con to Seth Rogen providing the voice of an alien to the proooobably in-jokey casting of Sigourney Weaver seems suspect. And Jason Bateman has been involved in so many dubious films since Arrested Development was canceled that I’ve become instantly wary of anything he’s associated with – and apparently his character is named Lorenzo Oil or something? Chuckle?

  9. Gabe – I think it’s because Wiig distorts her own face like JIm Carrey or something when playing these parts. She’s fully capable of being attractive (she’s not Rachel Dratch), but she seems to go out of her way to play it down, possibly because somebody told her to come to comedy on her own terms or something, I’m not sure.

    To be fair, though, ‘Macgruber’ shot her horribly and, based on that alone, I wouldn’t think she was fuckable either (despite the fact that she literally gets fucked in that movie). She looked like a mom dressed up to be in her kids’ movie.

  10. What female would want to see a movie where an ugly alien with a bad personality brings a bird back to life and then unceremoniously devours it?

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