You know, a lot of my friends and work peers think I'm too hard on the movies. Too negative. That I don't just sit back, leave my brain at the door and enjoy the movie, because, you must realize, they've never hated a movie or had a bad experience at the cinema, ever. If they ran their own review site, they'd rate every single movie as 5/5 stars and you know what? They would be the studio's best friend and probably appear on more than a dozen movie posters with their stinking thumbs up. Despite all that, perhaps I might agree with them a little; perhaps it's time to lighten up a bit.
So, I watched The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard and I have to say: why start disappointing my fans now? This movie sucked. It had such talent at hand, so many (enormously missed) opportunities for humor and the number one (Jeremy "Ari Gold" Piven) person to pull off the ultimate sale, not just for the poor car-customers in the movie, but to the audience that this movie is worth its ticket price. Not only could he sell an ice cube to a South Park character in hell, he couldn't even get into the top 5 for its opening box office weekend.
We have somewhat smooth talking Don (Piven) leading a sales team from town-to-town to reenergize failing car dealerships, and since you know he never thinks about settling down, you then know exactly where this movie is headed.
He lands in a no-nothing town in California, falls for an already spoken for daughter and works the closeted father into selling all cars on the lot in order to save the family-run business. Yes, that's right; they actually used a 1970s sitcom idea (mostly used in The Brady Bunch) for the entire movie.
In this economy, say for the past 4 years, this should've been the ideal escapism. Again, they had tremendous opportunities for laughs, and went for either the obvious, juvenile humor or just let the moment pass with my mouth agape at the wasted scene. In addition, the fully booked cast, most of the regulars from movies like The Hangover mostly stood around and looked like they were improvising everything since they basically had no script to go by.
I will admit, there were a few small laughs – mostly with Ferrell's cameo, but with what could've been PIven's huge break-through into starring roles – this role was made for him!! – even he looked bored. Or anxious to leave the lot and go back to HBO.
Skip it. I'd almost rather have the used-car dealer lie to me than attempt to make me laugh.
So, I watched The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard and I have to say: why start disappointing my fans now? This movie sucked. It had such talent at hand, so many (enormously missed) opportunities for humor and the number one (Jeremy "Ari Gold" Piven) person to pull off the ultimate sale, not just for the poor car-customers in the movie, but to the audience that this movie is worth its ticket price. Not only could he sell an ice cube to a South Park character in hell, he couldn't even get into the top 5 for its opening box office weekend.
We have somewhat smooth talking Don (Piven) leading a sales team from town-to-town to reenergize failing car dealerships, and since you know he never thinks about settling down, you then know exactly where this movie is headed.
He lands in a no-nothing town in California, falls for an already spoken for daughter and works the closeted father into selling all cars on the lot in order to save the family-run business. Yes, that's right; they actually used a 1970s sitcom idea (mostly used in The Brady Bunch) for the entire movie.
In this economy, say for the past 4 years, this should've been the ideal escapism. Again, they had tremendous opportunities for laughs, and went for either the obvious, juvenile humor or just let the moment pass with my mouth agape at the wasted scene. In addition, the fully booked cast, most of the regulars from movies like The Hangover mostly stood around and looked like they were improvising everything since they basically had no script to go by.
I will admit, there were a few small laughs – mostly with Ferrell's cameo, but with what could've been PIven's huge break-through into starring roles – this role was made for him!! – even he looked bored. Or anxious to leave the lot and go back to HBO.
Skip it. I'd almost rather have the used-car dealer lie to me than attempt to make me laugh.