OSC on his stroke, and why Scott Pilgrim is so brilliant

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2011-01-06.shtml

Over the holidays, we all settled down to watch *Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
*** on DVD. The promos for this movie last summer made the movie seem like
it might be mildly entertaining but missable. It looked like dumb comedy.

In fact, it's sharp satire, a weird-and-wonderful treatment of a
semi-slacker's life as if he were in a comic book or a videogame. It's not
that he has superpowers, but some of his new girlfriend's ex-boyfriends do,
and, just as in a videogame, when he fights them he suddenly has completely
inexplicable martial-arts skills.

Michael Cera, who plays the title role, is completely wonderful -- a lively
personality even when he's dead-panning and a likeability that persists even
when he acts like a jerk. Think of him as the geek version of Romeo and
you'll be right on.

The movie has a strong moral center -- Pilgrim is held to account for his
jerky choices (e.g., taking on a new girlfriend before breaking up with the
old one). But the movie also has a sharp eye for satire, though I don't know
how much of this comes from the original graphic novels (by Bryan Lee
O'Malley).

I loved the Vegan ex-boyfriend whose devastating superpowers come from the
purity of his veganness, so he can only be defeated by tricking him into
eating dairy.

By the end of the movie you're glad that real life isn't like this -- and
also kind of wishing that it were.

Look, I can see why the studio did such a lousy job of promoting this movie
that it flopped at the box office -- there's no way to communicate how
clever and funny and surprising and *smart* is it. You just have to see it.

If your sense of humor begins and ends with Will Ferrell or Jack Black, this
movie would be wasted on you. Likewise, if you only like movies that make
you feel smarter than your friends, forget it -- *Scott Pilgrim* is
accessible to just about anybody under the age of 70 who still has a sense
of contemporary culture.

This movie is not in contention for any Oscars this year. It doesn't even
try to be a "great film." But it's a *good* movie the plows new and fertile
ground, and I hope that people like me who missed it in the theaters will
now make it a hit on DVD, so that the people who made this movie can get the
funding to make more.


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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