Junk Yard Dog Snaps At HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE With Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst And Megan Fox!!

Merrick here...
Junk Yard Dog sent in this look at HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE. In addition to the folks listed in the headline, the movie also stars Jeff Bridges and Gillian Anderson...making for a pretty interesting lot on should think. Or, maybe not. It's important to remember that this film is not scheduled to hit until later this year at the earliest...so the movie may change a bit between now and its release.
Here's Junk Yard Dog...

Junk Yard Dog here - long time reader and admirer. i've never contributed before, but i'll be damned if i haven't found you folks helpful more than once, and thought i'd give you a heads up of my own. i just saw the first ever public screening of "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People," the film adaptation of the novel starring our good friend Simon Pegg alongside Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox. Sad to say there's not much good to report. They've gone very, very Standard Romantic Comedy Plot on this one, with added bonuses like animal moments sure to be touted as "hilarious" and over the top transexual comedy someone somewhere will call "outrageous!!!" with more than the requisite exclamation points. But this is nothing we haven't seen before - fish out of water Pegg lands a gig writing for a wildly popular entertainment rag based in Manhattan, but darn it if his ne'er-do-well man child character can't seem to fit in anywhere. With Dunst as his quirky wannabe- author coworker (she calls herself a "walking cliche" in the film, just in case the audience didn't get it) and Megan Fox as his dim-witted starlet lust interest, all the pieces are in place for another bland, cookie cutter flick that's destined to be ignored by countless couples on dates who say "I think it's based on a book, we should check it out maybe?" To the film's credit, Pegg is charming as always, even if this is a little lower on the bar than what I've come to expect from him (haven't seen Run Fat Boy Run yet, but i have a sneaking one it's a lot better than this picture was), and Jeff Daniels does a hell of a job as the head of the magazine that Pegg finds himself trying to shake up. Kirsten Dunst is remarkably un-hateable, despite the watery character she's been handed, and an unexpected Gillian Anderson shows up in a fun role as a brass-balls agent representing Fox's character. There are some moments of real chemistry between Dunst and Pegg, a couple of cute surprise moments in their dialogue, and one or two genuine hearty laughs to be found scattered throughout the film. But even getting past the choppy moments of a rough cut (complete with my pet peeve of seeing the shadows of the entire camera crew and rigs on the wall behind the actors), the fare here was so bland i found myself forgetting that this was the first time "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" had been screened. It was all just so familiar. All in all, unless there's some massive reshoots, rewrites, and retries, i think this one is destined to be the Pegg film everyone excuses by citing his other work. Keep 'em crossed that it's not indicative of a downward trend for him, and i'd say save this for a rainy day rental at best. Hope you find something useful in this, and thanks for all the work you guys do!