Get Him To A Shrink
by MOLLY LAMBERT
Get Him To The Greek
dir. Nicholas Stoller
Nowhere near as offensive or funny as Neel Shah's "How To Date A White Bitch" (coming to CBS this fall starring Arj Barker as Neel Shah and the chick from Gilmore Girls as some white bitch who loves picnics and probably museums and all that other bougie shit), Get Him To The Greek pushes the envelope a few times, mostly in the gay direction. I just assumed "The Greek" was Russell Brand's bookie and/or dealer/lover.
"I want you to fuck me as hard as you can." "What? In the face?" "Surprise me"
Like basically every (Apatow) movie, GHTTG is about an immature not very masculine guy apprenticing to learn how to put on the mantle/drag of masculinity. AKA how to bullshit, intensely. Jonah Hill's Aaron is a "girlfriend guy" like Paul Rudd's character from I Love You Man and basically all the dudes I'm friends with in real life.
What this means is that he respects women more or less, and has no real interest in putting up a front of bro-dog-ness, probably because because he looks like a cute cartoon walrus and knows that he will never do better than Doctor Peggy Olson. His worst quality is that he is passive about everything in his life but his fandom, which is why Diddy hooks him up with Russell Brand's magnetic manic pirate dream bro.
Jonah has grown into a modern day Rodney Dangerfield, flop sweating his way through strenuous situations. He gets no respect, and at the beginning of the movie he doesn't even try. Which is where Aldous Snow (Vince Vaughn/Jason Segel/Will Oldham) comes in to teach him how to act more like an entitled prick (i.e. "A MAN")
What Russell Brand performs is not traditional Don Draper style masculinity, but that other kind of more androgynous but equally insidious form known as Dandyism. Favored by Brits like Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, and Mick Jagger, and cornerstone of the indie rock frontman sensibility, heterosexual dandyism is about reveling in your own male sex appeal and objectifying yourself endlessly while subjugating women.
Carla Gallo: Get Her In A Movie For Longer Than Ten Minutes, Please, C'mon Judd
The best parts of Get Him To The Greek end up being the women and Puff Daddy. Rose Byrne delights and astounds as a Cheryl Tweedy Coleish Brit Brit named Jackie Q, (whose ribald theme song written by The Bird And The Bee's Greg Kurstin and Inara George is one of the more memorable tunes). Carla Gallo is unrecognizable at first and then essentially hijacks the movie for a good ten minutes as a ridiculous drunk slut.
Anna Faris amuses and delights in Jody Hill's Observe & Report from last year
Ridiculous Drunk Sluts starring Anna Faris and Carla Gallo, coming soon to a theater near you in 3-D this fall. (REAL TALK: I will make this 4 SO CHEEP, studios! and spoiler alert all the jokes will involve jizz flying towards the audience and boners swinging around! Molly Lambert, for all your three-dimensional sex comedy pitch idea needs!)
Man how depressing has the press tour for Grown-Ups been? Alternate title for that movie: Menchildren Giving Up with a weird undercurrent of being so depressed about not giving a fuck about ANYTHING. We know Sandler knows better than this because he does other movies that are good on the side, but just doesn't care enough to make his own funny anymore? Like starting with Big Daddy he just stopped caring to try?
Meanwhile I monitor the twitter gender wars between exes M.I.A. and Diplo and Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas. Those are two different couples, but wouldn't it make a hilarious fishes out of water comedy about polyamory, technology, promise rings, gingercide, and truffle fries? He's Just Not That Into YouTube, a modern dubstep take on Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, UStreaming this summer! FUCK USTREAM PAY MESTREAM!
gay porn version title: "Get Him To Go Greek" alternate: "The Cable Guy"
Get Him To The Greek is really a movie about a grown up former fat kid facing down against a younger, fatter, version of himself. There is a lot of father/son weirdness involved as well and the gay sexual tension between the male leads is addressed more directly than in any other bromance thus far (although Pineapple Express and Superbad were both still gayer all in all). Whether or not it actually goes the whole Y Tu Mama Tambien is a matter of discussion for the extended DVD cut commentary track.
"Step up in this mothafucker just a swangin' my hair"
The real question is how will we deal with womankind's newest problem: Do we want to fuck Russell Brand? Womanity is split down the middle. Half of us find him repulsive and the other half want to lick the weird cleft between his eyebrows. He's either Brando or the Splice baby depending who you ask. Straight men think he is repulsive.
Is this a subset of the gentleman-dirtbag complex? WHERE DO YOU FIT INTO THIS MATRIX? I waffled before seeing the movie but now I'm definitely in the camp that believes Russell Brand is hot. Weird but hot. You know, in a tall skinny androgyne British guy way. He has a Jarvisy quality about him that can't be denied.
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording and star of the upcoming film Get Her To The Great Greek. She is on tumblr and twitter.
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photo by erika wall