Thanks to Sizemore, I got an invite for a bloggers screening of Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night. I had seen the trailers and read early reviews on it, so I went in with the feeling I would like this movie. I didn’t expect though that I’d be laughing so much! It’s by far one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a long time.

Peter Bretter (Jason Segal) is devastated when he gets dumped by girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kirsten Bell), star of a hit TV show. In an attempt to get over her he takes a vacation to Hawaii, only to discover Sarah is there too… with her new boyfriend, rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). While trying to avoid and forget about Sarah, Peter enjoys the companionship of the laid-back resort employee Rachel (Mila Kunis) and a myriad of other characters.

Let me get one thing clear first: the movie seems as if it’s a romantic comedy, a chick flick, a boy-meets-girl story. It isn’t. While Forgetting Sarah Marshall does have a couple of these elements, it is first of all a solid good comedy. Initially I was surprised to see that more than half the attendees of the screening were woman (which for the geek crowd is still quite rare), but I’m guessing most guys are thinking this isn’t a film for them. Trust me when I say it is. There’s a sliver of an emotional message in it, but don’t let that put you off and miss the hilarity that takes up most of the film.

That being said, the movie is funny. Very funny. As I said before, I don’t think I’ve laughed this much during a film in ages. At times the audience was so in stitches that I couldn’t hear some of the next lines. A lot of the jokes are sexually laden, but in a good way. The jokes are more mature than the standard bodily fluids, high schoolish, There’s Something About Mary type of jokes you normally get in comedies from recent years.

Almost all the main actors are fairly unknown in the realm of movies, but they all prove they have the caliber to belong on the big screen. I like Jason Segal in How I Met Your Mother, but I didn’t think he could carry the weight of a movie as a leading actor. This role though is tailor-made for him. Literally. Besides starring in the movie, Segal also wrote the screenplay, weaving his own experiences throughout the story. No big surprise then that he fits so right in the role. One of Segal’s next projects will be to revive the Muppet movies and after seeing this film, I’ve got confidence he’s the perfect person to take that on.

Kirsten Bell (Veronica Mars, Heroes) and Russell Brand are great as the ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. Both characters avoid falling in the predictable stereotype roles and are more nuanced than you would expect. Sarah Marshall isn’t a complete spoiled, pampered Hollywood starlet and Bell manages to make her likable and hatable at the same time. Russell Brand really surprised me. For those of you who don’t know him, he’s an English comedian and I know quite some people who thoroughly dislike him. Here he plays a similar character to how we usually see him and yet, it works. I couldn’t imagine any other person playing Ardous Snow and he delivers some of the best lines of the movie.

Mila Kunis (That 70’s Show) is adorable as the easygoing Rachel and her chemistry with Segal works really well. The supporting characters are also brilliant with a wide range of familiar faces: Bill Hader (Superbad, SNL), Jonah Hill (Superbad, Knocked Up), Paul Rudd (Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin) and Jack McBrayer (30 Rock). Looking at the names you can clearly see it’s a Jude Apatow produced movie and in this case that’s not a bad thing.

I could tell you a lot more about Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but I don’t want to give too much away and spoil the movie for everyone. There are certain scenes that are just unforgettable and outrageous, describing them would never do them justice. This is a movie you have to see and I recommend it to anyone who wants a couple of hours of pure fun. Again: don’t leave your seats when the credits start rolling. There’s a little scene during the credits you’ll also want to see.

[rating: 4.5/5]

First off, there has been a lot of Iron Man news these past weeks: new clips, new photos, even six actual scenes from the movie have been released. If you’re curious, go ahead, take a look. Me? I’m already convinced I’m going to see this movie, so why bother with all this stuff? In the end they’ll only potentially ruin the movie for you.

Anyhow, it’s been a month ago since I did my last Trailerrific post and a lot of trailers have come out since then. I’ve been meaning to do this much more regularly (like every week), but I never get around to doing that (yeah perhaps I’m just lazy). I’m going to split this all into three posts with the second and third parts appearing sometime at the end of this week. I promise though: from now on this will be a weekly post. Any volunteers into kicking me when I don’t?

Pathology
Remember the previous two trailers? This trailer is a Red Band version of that first one, meaning more blood and more sex (a lot more sex). Strange enough though by adding the Red Band stuff to it, they’ve cut away more of the parts that would spoil the movie. It still gives a tad too much away and in my opinion they could easily make an interesting trailer without revealing so much. Then again I guess the movie’s pretty predictable anyway and nobody’s going to see it because of the brilliant intricate plot. [Trailer]

The Life Before Her Eyes
The teaser trailer came out in January and I already said then that this will be a 2009 Oscar contender. And after seeing the full length trailer I stand by that. Evan Rachel Wood plays Diana, a teenage girl who experiences a high school shooting. Years later the grown-up Diana, now played by Uma Thurman, is still traumatized by the event. [Trailer]

Mamma Mia!
I’m not an Abba fan, never was, never will be. But I have a feeling I will see this movie (not in the cinema), just because of Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan. The film is based on the Broadway musical about a bride-to-be trying to figure out who her father is. If you like cheerful musicals, this is the film for you. [Trailer]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
What do you get when you mix vampires, Hamlet and the Holy Grail? Apparently, this movie. I’m not kidding. This movie seems to mix the those three subjects in a weird and unique way. Definitely going on my Must-See list. [Trailer]

The Strangers
I want to say this film seems interesting, but looking at the horror movies Hollywood has lately produced, it all seems to be repeats and rehashes of older films. The Strangers looks like it might have a slight original angle, but tell me how many masked faces did you count in the trailer? I’m just getting a feeling of “been there, done that, next movie please”. Although it does have Liv Tyler (without pointy ears), so that should get the geeks going. [Trailer]

Tropic Thunder
This film could be the dark horse of 2008. In short: it’s Galaxy Quest in the jungle. Three big actors working together on a big-budget war movie are dumped in the middle of the jungle, thinking everything that happens to them is part of the movie. You’ve got the action star (Ben Stiller), the comedy star (Jack Black), the method actor (Robert Downey Jr.), the crazy director (Steve Coogan) and the war hero (Nick Nolte). If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you should. This will definitely be a must-see this summer. [Trailer]

Stone’s War
The premise of this movie is Nazi Zombies fighting in World War II. That alone would make see this movie, which made be think there would at least be an interesting trailer, right? Now I know it’s not an official trailer yet (it hasn’t even got a release date yet), but couldn’t they come up with anything better? Something without the standard ‘Requiem for a Dream’ tune? Something that actually shows ‘Nazi Zombies’? I’m not asking too much, am I? [Trailer]

Deception
Any film with both Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor in it, gets my stamp of approval. Deception is about an accountant (McGregor) who gets introduced to a secret sex club called The List by new lawyer friend Jackman, but of course not all is as it seems. Again a potentially great movie and a trailer that reveals too much. Given the (what I believe will be) intricate plot, maybe it doesn’t actually spoil anything, but do we really all those “surprises” and “reveals” in the trailer? My tip: watch half of the trailer. If you’re convinced, stop watching. If you remain unconvinced, watch it all. [Trailer]

Special
I’m not sure about the release dates of this movie. It was made in 2006 and has been released in some countries, but from what I’ve heard there might be a wide release of it this summer (please contact me, if you have some more info). The film is being described as a superhero spoof, but don’t think this means it falls in with the silly parody movies like Scary Movie, Epic Movie, etc. Michael Rapaport plays Les, a metermaid that has a psychotic reaction to his medication and starts believing he’s a superhero. [Trailer]

Episode 51: “Isn’t it time to give back?”

I’ll be going to a screening of Forgetting Sarah Marshall tonight, so to celebrate that here’s a bit of Kirsten Bell funniness for you all:

Interesting links for April 12th through April 15th:

• Today In Catalogs: Searching For The Worst Outfit In ‘International Male’ – How could these clothes even be designed? And they’re all from a 2008 brochure! Guys, if you want tips on what NOT to wear, this is it.
• Lace Your Shoes – Wired How-To Wiki – I never stopped to realize there where different methods in how to lace your shoes. Tie your shoes, yes, but different ways to lace it?
• Steampunk Star Wars – I slowly getting into this whole steampunk style and these Star Wars figures are just gorgeous. I like the explanations of the artist’s design choices; you can really see he put time and effort in to it all.

If you thought the Beverly Hills series couldn’t get any worse, guess again. Here’s the poster for the upcoming movie:

I wish I could tell you this was all a joke, but from what I can gather it’s a real movie coming out next year. The plot outline of Beverly Hills Chihuahua on IMDB is:

While on vacation in Mexico, Chloe, a ritzy Beverly Hills chihuahua, finds herself lost and in need of assistance in order to get back home.

Chloe will be voiced by Drew Barrymore and her owner will be played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Other voice talents will include Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos and Andy Garcia.

Right…so judging by the poster somehow this dainty little chihuahua ends up in a Aztec tribe of chihuahuas? And they’ve got temples with chihuahua figures on them? And the tagline is The chihuahuas will rise? The worst thing on this poster though? The chee’ WOW wa under the title.

Seriously?

[Via /Film]

Update: There’s also a trailer out on Apple.com.

From Wikipedia:

Shipping

Derived from the word “relationship”, shipping is a general term for fans’ emotional and/or intellectual involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction.

I have to admit I am a bit of a shipper: I always have some preference to who has to end up with who. I hate all those Brangelina like type of names though and I refuse to use such monstrosities on my beloved TV and book and video games friends (Brangelina is allowed though, those are celebrities, not real people). So who have I shipped for in the past? Veronica and Logan, Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike, Sarah and Grissom, Delenn and Sheridan, Ivanova and Marcus, and many more.

One of my favourite “they’ve always been hinting, but never actually went there” couples were Samantha Carter and Jack O’Neill in Stargate: SG-1. Throughout the entire series they never actually even kiss (right? tell me if I’m wrong, I might be forgetting something here), but there was always the feeling there was more between the two. The writers of the show seem to agree with me: in a blog post Stargate writer Joseph Mallozzi shows a scene that was cut from an episode of Stargate Atlantis (episode 4×16 Trio to be exact):

Carter: So…you seeing anyone?

Keller: What?

Carter: Around the base, you seeing anyone?

Keller: I dunno…I had a moment with – with this…guy. He’s not exactly easy to read so…I guess the short answer is “no”. You?

Carter: Well, I’m the boss, so I can’t really…

Keller: Right Anyone back home?

Carter: Uhm…

Keller: Un-huh, I thought so. Give it up.

Carter: Well, it’s complicated.

Keller: Show me a relationship that isn’t.

Carter: He’s in Washington…I’m here.

Keller: Ouch. Long distance relationship.

Carter: He’s going to retire soon, so maybe –

Keller: Really! Retire? So…an older man, huh?

Carter: Not that much older.

Keller: Washington, older man…is he like a Senator or something? Someone famous? Would I know him?

Carter: Probably not.

Too bad the scene was cut from the episode. It also gives a good explanation to why Keller almost kisses Ronan the one week, then suddenly asks Rodney out the next week.

Episode 50: “Ken Leeee”

Most probably you’ve seen this video already (I hadn’t, but then somtimes I can be a tad slow): a woman auditioning on Bulgarian Idol sings “Without You” from Mariah Carey, but claims it’s called “Ken Lee”:

To be honest though, I’m sure we’ve all done similar things, just maybe not that dramatic. If I look back at some of the lyrics I wrote down from songs…(you know, before you had ze internetz and could look everything up), some of them made no sense whatsoever.

With Cristiano off to the Netherlands to get his wisdom tooth removed (which I am glad to report went way smoother than mine), I thought I’d be bored out of my mind. The two past days though have just been one constant stream of geek activities. I should address each event in a separate post, but I know if I attempt to do that, I’ll end up only blogging about half the stuff. Instead I’m going to try to summarize all the stuff I’ve done here.

London Girl Geek Coffee 2

I only announced it two days beforehand on the Geek Dinners and the Girl Geek Dinners site, so I kind of knew that not many people would show up. However, I didn’t expect to find myself completely alone at the chosen time. It gave me time to check out the venue (Smiths of Smithfield), but I soon discovered it wasn’t really what we were looking for. Half an hour later, Patricia Hanrahan (Gondul) showed up, with Rachel Clarke following quickly thereafter. We spoke about a whole bunch of things, including Rachel and I explaining to Patricia what we’ve experienced so far in We Tell Stories. Here’s where this event kind of flowed into the next event:

We Tell Stories Meet-up

For the past 4 weeks I’ve been following the We Tell Stories project. As I’ve mentioned before, besides the six public stories, there’s a hidden seventh story in the form of an ARG. I’m not going to explain everything here, but a couple of days ago we (all the ARG players on the forum) found out one of the characters would be in a bar…in real life! Jacques the French bookstore clerk, depressed because his girlfriend Bella dumped him. The idea was to bring him gifts and tips on how to woo Bella back, which somehow would lead to more clues.

I completely forgot to bring something, but during the GGC Rachel convinced me to write down a song and sing it for him. Weirdly enough I agreed to do this and even stranger I chose a Dutch nursery rhyme (I have no recollection whatsoever in what prompted me to choose this particular song). Anyhow, Daisy, one of the other girls on the forum, also came to the GGC, hauling along freshly baked muffins and printed out poems.

Abandoning Trish (who would wait for the other GGCers) we went to the bar where Jacques was and there we met up with 2 others from the forum. At 17:30 we entered the bar and there he was…Jacques, looking depressed as ever and drinking red wine. We all gave our gifts and each of us received an item in return. Some of them were clearly “only” prizes for showing up (a Terry Pratchett book, for instance), but others were actual clues. I got a blue Wedgwood tray with snippets of rules of a card game. If you want to find more, check out the We Tell Stories website and the Unforum.

SEO Party

After the cool weird meet-up with a fictional character, I made my way back to the GGC (now expanded with Emma Persky and Weefz), only to discover that the SoS was packed. There was no way we could talk in there. I suggested to move to the Starbucks down the street where the ARGers had gone to sort out all the clues. Patricia, though, deserted us to meet up with Judith ‘deCabbit’ Lewis at an SEO party, but invited us to join her later. After a short half an hour in the Starbucks, we went in search of the SEO party.

We arrived a bit before 8 and the bar was crowded with SEOers. I was surprised to discover at least one person I had met before: Chris Hambly, whom I had met at MediaCampBucks last year. I had a short talk with him about some upcoming events, including a second MediaCampBucks and a MediaCampLondon.

Despite having no actual experience in search engine optimization, I had some interesting conversations with a couple of the SEOers there and was amazed when I realized I had been there for more than 2 hours. Around the same time, Patricia and the others decided to leave too and I slowly made my way back to home. Of course, even though arriving home at a fairly early time, I managed to only get to bed at about 3.

Social Media Cafe

Naturally, I slept through my alarm and I arrived quite late at the Social Media Cafe. I had met Lloyd Davis (the organizer of SMC) back in October in Berlin and had been meaning to come to a SMC for some time now (wisdom tooth removals and sleeping the cause of missing previous ones). I’m glad I finally made it, cause I got to meet a lot of new people (I’m not even going to try and list everyone). What I found interesting was that (if I’m not mistaken that is) this was a completely different set than the usual Geek Dinners and BarCamp crowd; most people there hadn’t even heard of those two events before!

Just when I wanted to leave, it started pouring outside (even lightning!), so I decided to stay a little longer. I talked some more with LJ Rich and after the rain cleared up, she suggested having lunch at a Vegetarian Thai Buffet close by. Great food and great conversation with both of us geeking out about TV shows, books and other stuff. Having already spent most of the day procrastinating networking, I realized I wouldn’t get any real work done today, so it wouldn’t hurt to go to:

Rickmob

Three words: real life rickrolling. By now there should be enough reports and videos documenting this event.

So those were my two action packed geeky days and all I want to do now is sleep. I’ve announced the next Girl Geek Coffee on both Geek Dinners sites and a new idea for another event (Geek Meet). Let me know if you’re interested in either of them by leaving a comment on one of those blogs.

Interesting links for April 6th through April 8th:

• Battlestar Galactica Girls Go Barbarella – The three main actresses in BSG (Starbuck, Number 6, Boomer/Athena) posing in a big-hair Barbarella style photo. I find it a bit of weird advertising. BSG is exactly not that type of show.
• Celebrity D&D Characters – What if certain celebrities were D&D characters? What kind of stats would they have? A couple of these are pretty funny.
• Documentary Fetishism in Battlestar Galactica – Cool graph of the number of people within the Battlestar Fleet from the past 3 seasons. (No spoilers for season 4)

It’s a bit last minute, but the next Girl Geek Coffee will go on next Thursday. We’re going to try out a new venue and I’m hoping it’s suitable. It’s the Smiths of Smithfield near Farringdon tube (also a potential Geek Dinner venue). I haven’t tried it out yet (so fingers crossed), but I’ve heard a lot of positive things about it.

When: Thursday, April 10, 2008, 3:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Where: Smiths of Smithfield near Farringdon
Cost: attending is free, cost for coffee and food will be on a “buy your own” basis
Upcoming: 465894

If you have trouble finding the place or are running late, you can phone me (07521 294 391) or Twitter me directly (mseckington). Please use the upcoming link or comment below to indicate your interest.