Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Sounds like Fabfunk’s been busy.

Get a snack. This is a long one.

Hey Harry, Mori, et al,

What a week it’s been. I don’t know how you can live in New York and not love movies. Conversely, I don’t understand what it’s like to love movies and not be in New York. In addition to every other film taking place in the Big Apple, there are a ridiculous amount of screens available in our proud city. On any day, you can do an all-day movie marathon and not see the same thing for at least a couple of weeks straight. And if you keep your ear to the ground, you can always catch a preview screening or two, which is what I spent the entire week doing.

On Monday, I caught a screening of David Schwimmer’s “Run Fatboy Run”. As a director, Schwimmer’s got another film in the can, but as of now, it’s appears to be unreleased. So naturally, I was worried about this oft-postponed film, a screening of which I passed up last fall. After all, it was from the pen of Michael Ian Black, a funny guy who can’t seem to get a hang of this movie thing, as the DTV “Wedding Daze” is an interminable mess in every way. It must be that Schwimmer is somehow the deciding factor- the other “Friends” alum seem to be floating around in the Hollywood biosphere, but Schwimmer may have found his calling. Though often mundane, substance-less and forgettable, “Fatboy” has a series of solid grace notes that bring it into the realm of surprisingly charming.
Simon Pegg , a big reason for the film’s watchability, stars as a screw-up who finds himself running away from every opportunity in his life, a slacker not unlike the kinds we’ve seen Pegg excel at recently. He’s five years removed from a disastrous decision, where he fled from his wedding day out of commitment butterflies. Unfortunately, his inert life gets a shot of woe when he finds out his former fiancée (Thandie Newton, boring as ever) is instead marrying an uptight (but otherwise not-too-evil) American businessman (Hank Azaria, fly by night). The new beau, it turns out, is so pure of heart that he runs marathon for charity, so Pegg realizes that to win back his lady love, he must run a 26 mile marathon. Why he doesn’t just give a lot of money to charity never really enters the equation, but the guy’s broke, so I buy this.

It’s fairly conventional romantic comedy 101 stuff, but what strengthens this forgettable genre piece is the surprising sweetness. Pegg finds an unlikely source of help in his upstairs neighbor, an overweight, elderly Indian character who initially is played for laughs until we learn the depths of his kindness. He also finds solace in the love of his son, who is cottoning to his mom’s new man, though his heart remains glued to Pegg. Schwimmer stacked the deck by casting a really cute kid, but its hard to complain when we’re so deep into formula.

These all sound like backhand compliments, and they are, but it really is charming in exactly the ways you’d expect- and normally I fucking hate these type of films. What won me over, particularly, was the attention paid to detail, as I used to be a runner with a modest belly (like Pegg’s character- not exactly fat, but he’s not your typical marathon runner). There aren’t many movies about runners, and especially none that are as lightweight and sweet- most of them are as grueling as marathons themselves. Also, agreeably, many laughs come from Pegg’s “Shaun of the Dead” costar Dylan Moran, as his supportive but reckless friend- if you liked their antagonism in “Shaun”, you’ll be surprised at how they get along quite well here. And he’s not the only BBC vet showing up here, but I won’t spoil any more.

On Tuesday, I caught Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee and Butt-Numb-A-Thon film “Mongol”, which is prepped for a big June release. It’s a Russian production about the life and times of Genghis Khan, and befitting a big international co-production, it’s the first in a proposed trilogy on the life and times of Genghis Khan. I know there was a big fuss over “Four Months, Three Weeks & Two Days” being ineligible for this Oscar, and while I haven’t seen it, I can’t imagine “Mongol” is any better. What’s worse, what’s the point in “Mongol” being nominated for a Best Foreign Film award when it seems clearly made for American consumption? It’s big, extremely literal, and filled with perfunctory big battle scenes, suggesting that foreign cinema was in hibernation this past year mostly busting its balls doing an American studio film impression.

Still, there are bits to like. The righteous Tadanobu Asano of “Ichi The Killer” fame stars as the warrior, first seen as a small child before becoming a young warrior out for vengeance. The history is streamlined so we see Khan in a most favorable light- as a saint looking to provide a better life for his wife and children amongst the violence and tyranny of the Mongol lifestyle. Asano is good, but the film doesn’t have much to offer him- this is origin story all the way, with all the trappings suggested. What might be worth a look for anyone are the sporadic fight scenes, as Khan racks up a solid body count in bloody warfare. The pacing does the film no favors, however, and what seems like a leisurely pace kills any suspense there might be over Khan’s potential survival. Lots of swordplay and flailing bodies (no beheadings, though- a big wtf to that), but no real thrills. Hack, slash, history, slash, hack. Bonus points for the ridiculous, probably-not-accurate subs, though- “I’m not just going to kill you, I’m going to kill you PIECE BY PIECE!”

Wednesday brought the opportunity of several screenings, so I needed to make a decision and I went with “The Signal”. This is something of an anthology movie about a technology-related viral outbreak that turns people into confused, angry killers. Because this signal just makes people into maniacs but doesn’t distinguish them any other way, it’s pretty hard to tell who’s lost it and who’s still sane, and even the viewer struggles with this. Most of the time, these are pretty normal people until suddenly they erupt in violence, cutting throats and stomping people. Other times, they start to slip into a conversation with someone who’s not there, completely fucking with their emotions. It’s kinda like when you get drunk and show up at the end of the bar and, after ten minutes, you turn to someone and realize, “Wait, you’re not my best friend Godfrey, you’re just some stranger I’ve been chatting up for the last ten minutes! Oh my god, please don’t repeat a single thing I’ve said, either about animals or about the girl sitting over there.”

The film is broken up into three segments. The first one follows our heroine, who’s trying to escape from her apartment complex as it’s going to shit. The second finds a guy who may or may not be her husband arriving at a random suburban house and trying to decide the next course of action. The third segment brings everything together, and I can’t really describe it because that would be telling you who lived, I suppose. And the fun bit about the film is that anyone can die at any moment. This is helped by the no-name cast- I’ve never seen these people anywhere, and I’m usually good with that stuff. It’s especially surprising once you’ve grown close to these people only to have one of them bludgeoned senselessly by a household item, and then you kinda get to know their brain matter instead. Yay!

Structurally, the one issue with the movie is the middle portion, which seems to be played for laughs. This is a dangerous gamble, methinks- the first and third segments are dead serious, so it’s hard to put any emotional weight into the film when a huge portion of it is farce. The second segment is so broad that it really is difficult to jump back in, especially with a third act that relies more on emotional impact instead of blunt force violence. At about the time someone suggested celebrating New Years by peeing in the nearest girl’s butthole, well, that’s where I start negatively comparing your film to “The Crazies”, guys. It’s not an unamusing segment, but if you’re going to make a comedy, make a comedy, and I’d see that- the idea of half of everyone going violently insane and the other half being virtually indistinguishable has strong comic potential.

On Thursday, I wrapped up the week with an early screening of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. I am an Apatow acolyte, so I’ve liked everything he’s been associated with, but I am no homer- while I may have rented “Celtic Pride”, I will concede that it seems from his screenplays that Seth Rogen has none of the storytelling structure acumen that Apatow has (though he’s a master at the gags and the unfiltered emotional honesty), and I think he’s better off having other directors helm his scripts. So I was notably expecting the Apatow reign to end here- if it didn’t end with “Drillbit Taylor”, which feels like more of a one-off kids flick, and from an early screening, was pretty okayish.

Jason Segel, an Apatow regular from his “Freaks and Geeks” days, writes and stars as Peter, a barely-working composer, setting tones for the hit primetime show “Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime”. While bumming around his apartment in very Brendan Fraser-ish sweatpants, he also occasionally dates the show’s lead, the gorgeous Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell- very good). Sarah is frustrated with his Apatowian inert lifestyle, so she leaves him, forcing him to cope with his own uselessness before taking a vacation in Hawaii. While there, he becomes friends with the locals and meets the cute hotel attendant Rachel (Mila Kunis, looking very Nikita Denise). Unfortunately, Sarah’s there too, with her rock star cartoon boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

Like Rogen, Segel’s story structure issues remain throughout the first half. Stuff kinda, well, happens. It’s amusing in fits and starts- ringers like Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and Jack McBrayer show up to liven the mood but it’s all for shits and giggles, as the main plot thrust seems to deal with the very real jealousy between couples trying to move on after a painful breakup. The second half fares much better, and comes across as surprisingly real, and very angry- Segel supposedly wrote this about his breakup with Linda Cardellini, and if this film is anything to go by, then that was one nasty breakup. As the film moves on and it’s clear that some of the slapstick and the supporting characters are commercial concessions, it becomes apparent that Segel has some demons to exorcise. This becomes one bleak, fascinating movie. Maybe most of the audience wants to see the movie with the dick and fart jokes this film has the potential to be, but I was really digging on the lugubrious second half, where Peter and Rachel get closer while Sarah and Aldous break apart. The dinner scene with all four of them, peeked in the trailer, is a really interesting tug of war between the couples, and you really get the idea that the most powerful moments happen when something obvious goes unsaid.

Segel is an odd leading man- not conventionally attractive, and often almost coked-out, so it’s good that he makes the most of his opportunity here. He’s kind of slouchy and sad-sack, and not entirely likeable when he’s behaving badly, but he wrote a script where he shows his dick about eight times, so good for him. Bell is great, especially in those later scenes, and Brand has some laughs as well- again, however, it’s a tonal consistency issue with his character. Initially, he’s something of a silly fool, doing music videos where he humps nuns for peace and understanding. However, later he’s a sensitive type who can’t help contradicting his own libidinous urges, before reverting to full-on horndog, then best buddy to Peter, then again to clown. When the emotional conflicts become real, he becomes a character that changes to suit whatever situation he is in, and it does stick out a bit. I think Judd Apatow has nailed the idea of movies about funny people that are still funny while being organic- this movie instead fluctuates between the comedy and the reality a bit too willy-nilly, and the end result are a final ten minutes that undo the surprising clarity and honesty of what should be the film’s emotional climax. But hey, funny’s funny- it’s still a pretty enjoyable movie.

Fabfunk out.