That’s it — Amy Schumer‘s I Feel Pretty (STX, 4.20) has gotten pasted on Rotten Tomatoes (30%) and Metacritic (44%), and that’s probably all she wrote. Comedy-wise this is Schumer’s second dud since 2015’s Trainwreck. Her last effort was Snatched with Goldie Hawn. Making a good, character-rich comedy is really hard. Hell, making a good movie period. Judd Apatow obviously did pretty well with Trainwreck, but I Feel Pretty‘s co-directors, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein…who knows what went wrong? Sorry.
A 4.18 review by The Stranger‘s Elinor Jones is kinda hilarious:
“I Feel Pretty is about a woman who suffers from a lack of confidence due to, you know, existing. After hitting her head in a spin class, she starts to believe she’s beautiful, which leads first to a positive attitude and then to successes in love and her career in selling makeup. (UGH.) It’s supposed to be funny, because everyone can plainly see that Schumer is disgustingly average! LOL, right?! A silly lady over 30 who weighs more than 120 pounds thinks she’s pretty! HA HA HA! HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA! I laughed until I cried, because I am also over 30 and weigh more than 120 pounds, and my body could serve as a punch line too.”
I’m aware, obviously, that no other award-season spitballers have insisted, as I have, that Amy Schumer‘s emotionally subtle and occasionally tear-inducing performance in Trainwreck is Best Actress-worthy, but I swear it definitely is. Schumer’s work in that brilliant Judd Apatow film is no less of an achievement than that of Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, and just because Schumer is a comedian is not (hello?) a mark against her. She delivers the goods. You can feel exactly where her character is coming from in each and every Trainwreck scene, and she never goes for just one note — she’s always juggling two or three conflicting considerations or impulses at any given moment. I realize I’m going to have to be a realist and drop my Schumer crusade down the road, but shame on the punditry for not even raising the Schumer balloon. It’s September, for God’s sake — time to mix passion and advocacy with the usual tea-leaf readings. Live a little.
I regard all raves of all films shown at South by Southwest as highly suspect. Way too many easy-lay geeks attend this Austin-based festival, and when they see something half-decent they all go “wheee!…we’re totally in love with the film and the filmmakers and distributors who allowed us to see it early because this makes us look necessary and important in the overall scheme!” So when Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer‘s Trainwreck (Universal, 7.17) was cheered in Austin last March, I said to myself, “Oh, yeah?…we’ll see about that.”
Last night I saw about that and all I can say is “holy shit.” Actually that’s not all I can say but it’ll do for starters. I guess I also need to say “fuck me” and “mea culpa” and all the rest of that hash. Then again I didn’t respond to the film last February — I merely shared a somewhat insensitive gut reaction to Schumer as a conceivable object of barroom desire within the prism of a trailer. But that’s all water under the bridge because Trainwreck, no lie, is dryly hilarious and smoothly brilliant and damn near perfect. It’s the finest, funniest, most confident, emotionally open-hearted and skillful film Apatow has ever made, hands down. I was feeling the chills plus a wonderful sense of comfort and assurance less than five minutes in. Wow, this is good…no, it’s better…God, what a relief…no moaning or leaning forward or covering my face with my hands…pleasure cruise.
I went to the Arclight hoping and praying that Trainwreck would at least be good enough so I could write “hey, Schumer’s not bad and the film is relatively decent.” Well, it’s much better than that, and Schumer’s performance is not only a revelation but an instant, locked-in Best Actress contender. I’m dead serious, and if the other know-it-alls don’t wake up to this they’re going to be strenuously argued with. Don’t even start in with the tiresome refrain of “oh, comedic performances never merit award-season attention.” Shut up. Great performances demand respect, applause and serious salutes…period.
I still think Schumer is a 7.5 or an 8 but it doesn’t matter because (and I know how ludicrous this is going to sound given my history) I fell in love in a sense — I saw past or through all that and the crap that’s still floating around even now. For it became more and more clear as I watched that Schumer’s personality and performance constitute a kind of cultural breakthrough — no actress has ever delivered this kind of attitude and energy before in a well-written, emotionally affecting comedy, and I really don’t see how anyone can argue that Schumer isn’t in the derby at this point. (A columnist friend doesn’t agree but said that Schumer’s Trainwreck screenplay is a surefire contender for Best Original Screenplay.)
The sound on this clip is too low to hear anything unless you’re plugged in and wearing headphones, but Amy Schumer‘s money line, delivered yesterday, is that she weighs around 160 pounds and can get laid any time she wants. No reason to doubt that. She’s done comic routines about having to lose weight before shooting began on Trainwreck, and now she’s turning around saying her more natural, somewhat heavier self is cool so whatever works. I am Bobby Seale, gagged and bound in the courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman. Schumer has the mike and the pride attitude down pat (“I’m not going to apologize for who I am and I’m going to love the skin that I’m in”) and anybody who says anything and I mean anything different is going to get the living shit kicked out of them on Twitter….fair enough?
There’s been no chatter about my response to Julie Miller’s Vanity Fair conversation with Amy Schumer (posted on 5.4), which included a reference to myself and last February’s Schumergate episode. I’m naturally anticipating more Twitter hate so even though this is a dead-horse issue for regular readers, I’m posting one final clarifying retort. As I noted a few weeks ago, there’s almost no point in responding to these things. The legend or the meme about what I allegedly wrote but did not in fact write has totally taken over. Nobody wants to read or re-examine anything.
At one point during Miller’s chat with Schumer about the “male gaze” factor, Schumer says, “Like the only person who has ever written anything saying that I am not pretty or attractive enough to be on camera was that one guy, Jeff Wells. I did not read [the post], but of course my best friends are like, ‘It was so fucked up!’”
Well, I didn’t say Schumer wasn’t “pretty or attractive enough to be on camera,” which of course mirrors the premise of her 12 Angry Men parody on her Comedy Central show. I wrote that in the context of the first Trainwreck trailer, in which her character was depicted as being the absolute belle of the ball who’s being hit on constantly with this and that guy almost fighting for her attention, she didn’t seem quite as hot as all that. I still think this. Schumer is attractive enough and a spirited barrel of laughs and so on, but in my mind she’s in the realm of 7.5 or 8. Is that really such a terrible thing to think or say?
Another indication that woke terror ain’t what it used to be (i.e., back in ’19, ’20 and ’21) is that genius comic Anthony Jeselnik, whose material uses “ironic misdirection, non sequiturs, biting insults, low-key arrogance along with amoral or psychopathic stances,” is alive and well and un–cancelled.
Nobody pulls off the “icy but casual sociopath with a chuckle” thing better than Jeselnik.
His career started to really happen in his early 30s, or around the beginning of the Obama era. He had a nearly four-year relationship with Amy Schumer. I know the #MeToo brigade hates him, and that at the peak of their “cancelling careers and destroying lives” power in the late teens and early ’20s they would have loved to terminate Jeselnik with extreme prejudice, but somehow he’s still thriving.
Profuse apologies for being too much of a klutz to have correctly posted the pod early last evening.
I’m not a total idiot with this stuff — I did manage to organize and record the Zoom video and then down-convert via Handbrake (with help from Glenn Kenny) and then incorrectly post it on Substack. So I’m getting there. But I’ll never be a whiz kid at this stuff.
Enormous thanks to the great Sasha Stone for helping me correct my errors.
During the pod I mentioned the likelihood that John Cena wore a “sock” during his nude moment at the Oscars. Nobody bit (one or two of my colleagues vaguely shuddered) so the subject fell by the wayside. But The Hollywood Reporter‘s Beatrice Verhoeven has done the reporting.
Just like my having also mentioned the advisability of Lily Gladstone returning to the way she looked three years ago while filming Killers of the Flower Moon. (She looks different today.) Lily will never be Emma Stone, but elemental logic tells us she’d be more suitable for a wider range of parts if she could adopt a somewhat leaner profile. But no — only a “bad” person (and I mean someone deserving of condemnation if not a Julius Caesar-like stabbing) would bring this up in casual conversation.
Does anyone think Amy Schumer could have played the lead in Trainwreck at her current proportions?
Directors, casting agents and casting directors don’t tiptoe around this topic (or dodge it) when they talk turkey with each other. Tom Hanks didn’t dodge it when he mentioned a few years back that some actors have diminished their careers by bulking up. Everyone understands that Brendan Fraser lost his star luminosity when he became the “new” version of himself. Just saying.
Yeah, I know — I should wait until next year (mid July of ’25) to do a “looking back at my beloved decade-old Trainwreck” piece.
Judd Apatow‘s film premiered big-time at South by Southwest on 3.15.15 (just shy of nine years ago) and opened commercially on 7.17.15.
But in my mind Trainwreck is actually ten years old now, as it was in pre-production in the late winter and spring of ’14, and began principal photography on 5.19.14 in New York City. So let’s celebrate the 10-year anniversary today…pull up a chair.
A good comedy is just as story-savvy, character-rich and well-motivated as a good drama. Good comedies and dramas both need strong third-act payoffs. Take away the jokes, the broad business and the giggly schtick, and a successful comedy will still hold water in dramatic terms.
And yet most comedic writers, it seems, start with an amusing premise, then add the laugh material, and then, almost as an afterthought, weave in a semblance of a story along with some motivation and a third-act crescendo that feels a little half-assed.
Remember Amy Schumer‘s eulogy at her dad’s funeral in Trainwreck? That was a great scene, and it was part of an excellent comedy.
Posted on 6.30.15: Trainwreck is dryly hilarious and smoothly brilliant and damn near perfect. It’s the finest, funniest, most confident, emotionally open-hearted and skillful film Apatow has ever made, hands down. I was feeling the chills plus a wonderful sense of comfort and assurance less than five minutes in. Wow, this is good…no, it’s better…God, what a relief…no moaning or leaning forward or covering my face with my hands…pleasure cruise.
I went to the Arclight hoping and praying that Trainwreck would at least be good enough so I could write “hey, Schumer’s not bad and the film is relatively decent.” Well, it’s much better than that, and Schumer’s performance is not only a revelation but an instant, locked-in Best Actress contender. I’m dead serious, and if the other know-it-alls don’t wake up to this they’re going to be strenuously argued with. Don’t even start in with the tiresome refrain of “oh, comedic performances never merit award-season attention.” Shut up. Great performances demand respect, applause and serious salutes…period.
I still think Schumer is a 7.5 or an 8 but it doesn’t matter because (and I know how ludicrous this is going to sound given my history) I fell in love in a sense — I saw past or through all that and the crap that’s still floating around even now. For it became more and more clear as I watched that Schumer’s personality and performance constitute a kind of cultural breakthrough — no actress has ever delivered this kind of attitude and energy before in a well-written, emotionally affecting comedy, and I really don’t see how anyone can argue that Schumer isn’t in the derby at this point. (A columnist friend doesn’t agree but said that Schumer’s Trainwreck screenplay is a surefire contender for Best Original Screenplay.)
It was reported two days ago that Chris Rock will finally open fire about Will Smith and the Oscar slap in Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, a Netflix livestream broadcast that will “air” on Saturday, 3.4. The show, which will also feature Amy Schumer, Jerry Seinfeld and Leslie Jones, will be performed at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre.
An “insider:” to Page Six: “People need to [stay with Rock’s set until] the last joke…they will not be disappointed.”
Lurie started me off with a taste of 20 performances, and right away I was saying to myself “these are too familiar, too boilerplate…where’s that special-passion choice that defies conventional thinking?”
What is a greatest-ever performance anyway? My theory is that picks in this realm have less to do with skill or technique or even, really, the actor, and a lot more to do with the viewer and what they choose to see. The choices that people make tend to reflect their intimate personal histories on some level. Because they’re choosing performances or more precisely characters who closely mirror and express their deepest longings, fondest hopes and saddest dreams.
My late younger brother was tremendously moved by Mark Ruffalo‘s portrayal of a loser in You Can Count On Me, in large part because my brother was that character. I know a lady who’s always felt close to Vivien Leigh‘s Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind for the same reason. Bill Clinton once said on a High Noon DVD documentary that Gary Cooper‘s performance in High Noon is his all-time favorite because Will Kane‘s situation (everyone chickening out when things get tough and leaving him to stand alone) reminded him of what it’s often like for a sitting U.S. President.
When I began to assemble my pantheon the first nominees that came to mind were Gandolfini, Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, Monica Vitti in L’Avventura, Amy Schumer in Trainwreck (I’m dead serious), George Clooney in Michael Clayton, Gary Cooper in High Noon, Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose, Lee Marvin in Point Blank, Alan Ladd in Shane, Brad Pitt in Moneyball, Marilyn Monroe in Some like It Hot and Jean Arthur in Only Angels Have Wings. This is without thinking anything through or second-guessing myself.
HE is down with Nicholas Stoller, Billy Eichner and Judd Apatow‘s Bros, which I saw Thursday evening. I admired the witty writing, the expert acting, the character-building and professional construction, and it also touched me in a somewhat old-fashioned way. It struck me as generally gutsy and first-rate schmaltz, and at times more than that.
Is it like a typical Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks romcom from the ’90s? Yeah, but a good one! And with boners and beards!
I felt a genuine kinship and a comfort level with the characters and even, to a significant extent, with the sexuality.
The alone-ness, defensiveness and brusque “I don’t trust you” personality of Eichner’s “Bobby Lieber”, an openly gay museum curator and musician, are very clearly and movingly conveyed, and I really liked LukeMacFarlane‘s “Aaron”, a muscular wills attorney and fledgling chocolatier whom Bobby falls for early on, only to stumble through the usual commitment-or-not issues.
I got as much of a relaxed upfront gay feeling from this as I did from Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name, which is much tamer and less sexually provocative than Bros.
Coming from a straight guy like myself, this kind of approval means something. Or it might mean something, I should say. I caught a 5pm showing of Bros with a friend in Westport, and we were the only ones in the house.
I don’t know what Apatow’s writing input was, but aside from the pointed, confessional, signature-level writing from Eichner, whose story this primarily is, I could feel the Apatow-ness all the way through. It had a King of Staten Island-like feeling of assurance and carefully measured control…a professional sense of timing and pacing and all-around wholeness that I bought into. (Eichner and Stoller are credited as cowriters.)
Speaking of my straightness, Bros struck me (and I know what this is going to sound like) as a little too pronounced in terms of the gay consciousness factor. Just a wee little bit.
Did everything in this movie have to be about sexuality and sexual identity and frank, take-it-or leave-it, this-is-what-gay-life-is-like revelation? How many lines in this film dealt with the occasional banality or neutrality of things? How many lines in this didn’t address or comment upon gay behaviors or culture or history? Damn few. As Sigmund Freud might have said, occasionally a gay man will enter a tobacco shop for a couple of good cigars, and he’ll just say “gimme a couple of good cigars” without mentioning or alluding to his orientation.
Bros has been described as a somewhat predictable, straight-laced gay romcom, but there’s nothing restrained about the sexual scenes, which at times almost reminded me of Frank Ripploh‘s Taxi Zum Klo. Forgive me but I somehow don’t recall a scene in Sleepless in Seattle in which Meg Ryan talked to a girlfriend about peeing on Tom Hanks, or told Hanks during a vulnerable moment that she wants him to fuck her, or that the last time his big fat banana slid into her she went “oh wow.”
There are two great scenes (okay, one and a half) with Debra Messing. The Abraham Lincoln-was-gay thing is simultaneously acknowledged as bullshit but also pushed a little too far. But Amy Schumer’s Eleanor Roosevelt and Kenan Thompson‘s James Baldwin are just right. Ditto Bowen Yang, Kristin Chenoweth, Harvey Fierstein, a Ben Stiller cameo, etc.
Forgive me but there’s so much in our daily lives that falls under the headings of “banal” or “middle class whatevs”, and this movie just won’t ease up with the avoidance of that banality and the persistence of the gay experience and corresponding sensibilities.
There’s a dinner scene with Aaron’s parents that drives this aspect home. Along with Aaron, I was silently begging Bobby to ease up and tone it down. In this scene Bobby voices his support for educating second-graders about gay views and lifestyles. I don’t care what this sounds like coming from me, but kids 10-and-under should be left the fuck alone. That part REALLY didn’t work for me.
But otherwise Bros is refreshingly smart and engaging and well-structured, and I really liked the romcom squareness of it all. I can’t think of a kicker line so this’ll have to do.
7:27 pm: What was funny about Regina King holding up a screener of The Last Duel while saying that no one has seen it? Or Wanda Sykes holding up a shredded Texas ballot — good point but not funny.
7:19 pm: What am I mostly feeling while watching the Oscars? What is the one thought that keeps repeating in my head? “I can’t wait to attend the 2022 Cannes Film Festival…that God for that forthcoming adventure.”
7:04 pm: Congrats to Belfast‘s Kenneth Branagh for winning the Best Original Screenplay. And to CODA‘s Sean Heder for winning Best Adapted Screenplay. Heder is thanking the phone book, but that’s what winners sometimes do. Friendo: “The two best speeches both belonged to CODA. Because they had emotion. Branagh’s speech was classy and succinct and gracious.”
6:55 pm: This is basically a folks-of-color Oscar telecast…a rainbow inclusion pageant…a vigorous and passionate representation factor for Latinos, African Americans, Asian, LGBTQs. In this sense it’s fairly similar to the Union Station atmosphere in that the industry’s mostly (am I allowed to say this?) European-descended majority is…uhm, subordinate? Not all that vigorously represented. But that’s okay. Academy sentiments are Academy sentiments. We’re living through a time of progressive change. Incidentally: The Latin dance number is pretty terrific.
6:45 pm: Costume design Oscar for Cruella — Jenny Beavan! A brilliant designer, hugely respected, great smile.
6:38 pm: So far the show is playing a little better than last April’s Soderbergh disaster, but not that much better. Friendo text: “Arianna DeBose has made history as the first openly queer woman to win an Oscar. Fine and good and obviously approvable, but I’m not really feeling the current. The whole community i/s supportive…queer artists are not the underdogs.”
6:20 pm: Time to hand CODA‘s Troy Kotsur his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Troy’s signed acceptance speech is very moving – the first poignant moment of the show. Congrats to Troy — a very fine delivery of evolved humanity. Especially his tribute to his dad. Quote: “Don’t forget to eat this spinach.” He’s going on a little long, but it’s a heart moment…fully earned and felt.
6:17 pm: Wanda Sykes (fresh outfit) introducing a promo for the Academy Museum — i.e., “Woke House.”
6:13 pm: The Best Animated Short Oscar goes to Windshield Wiper.
6:07 pm: Best Animated Feature goes to Encanto. Great, congrats, whatever.
Apology to HE readership: I’m firing Siteground, my Eastern European ISP, for that infuriating 500 internal server error. I’ve been pleading with them to fix or offer a solution I would have to implement. They’re history — incompetent bastards. Again, I apolgize.
5:55 pm: The 60th anniversary of the James Bond franchise? Dr. No opened in England on 10.5.62, but not until May 1963 in the States. So even by British exhibition standards the Bond franchise is 59 and 1/3 years old. Friendo: How is this playing at home?” HE to friendo: “Blah, meh, woke, flat. Something needs to happen.”
5:52 pm: Another Dune Oscar, this time to Best Visual Effects. Terrific. When is this show going to come alive?
5:44 pm: The Oscar telecast is 45 minutes old, and I’m not feeling anything. At all. Nothing. Friendo: “Is this as bad as I think it is? So far woke. Are you watching?” HE to friendo: “I’m watching and waiting.”
5:40 pm: A minor tribute to the White Men Can’t Jump guys (Woody, Rosie, Snipes)? And the Best Cinematography Oscar goes to Dune and Greig Fraser.
5:35 pm: Regina’s random Covid-testing routine is…why? People are laughing and cheering but it’s not funny. Really. I’m sorry.
5:25: West Side Story‘s Arianna de Bose wins Best Supporting Actress Oscar — locked in from the beginning, unanimous consensus, totally predicted, good work. She celebrates her history, her luck, her job, her queerness…going on too long. Like they all did during last year’s Soderbergh show.
5:22 pm: “Take away the lame opening number and unfunny opening monologues, and they could’ve given out all the awards they are eliminating from the live broadcast” — regional friendo.
5:10 pm: Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina King sharing the monologue duties. “Toxic masculinity.” Snippy insult joke aimed at J.K. Simmons. Sykes: “I’ve watched The Power of the Dog three times, and I’m halfway through it” — a Jimmy Kimmel joke. And now they’re introducing the cavalcade of Oscar presenters. And now Schumer has taken over solo. “Home is the best” joke…?…nope. “We finally got a movie about the Williams sisters’ dad”…nope. A Leonardo DiCaprio young girlfriends joke…nope. A Being The Ricardos put-down joke.
5 pm: Venus and Serena Williams kicking things off with a Beyonce music video? I’m not getting a movie-madness feeling from this. Getting a lime chiffon vibe. Key lime pie and whipped cream. This could be an opener for the Grammys. What is this? Righteous Brothers: “You’ve lost that Oscar feelin’…”
…starts at 5 pm Pacific. Or maybe before. I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is that for the last several weeks I’ve been hearing nothing but variations of “the Oscars are over, they peaked a couple of decades ago, nobody cares, how low will the ratings be?, everything sucks,” etc. And now we’re all on the red carpet and everyone is jubilant, jazzed, giggling, tickled pink!, caaaan’t wait!, etc.
It’s like the Invasion of the Happy Mysterians…who are you people? What do you really think? Do you have brains? Why is no one talking about what’s really and truly going on in this town? And where’s Penelope Cruz?
David Edelstein‘s CBS commentary is a nice way to start things off. Then again he doesn’t even mention Penelope Cruz as a possible Best Actress victor.