JOE WEST

Review: Due Date – Road Trip for Schmucks

17th November 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

The Hangover arrived last year and was such a sleeper hit that it may have been diagnosed with narcolepsy were it a person and not a piece of cinematic entertainment. It made a star of Zach Galifianakis and was a relative breath of fresh air after the slew of Judd Apatow-powered comedies like Funny People which had become a little too wishy-washy and introspective for my liking. It brought some...

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Review: Dinner for Schmucks – Schmuck my life

8th September 2010 | 7 comments | 2 people like this

Sorry for the subtitle to this review, but everyone’s been doing their best to play around with the fact that ‘schmuck’ rhymes with, and is indeed only a few letters away from, the word ‘fuck’, and I’m nothing if not unoriginal.

Dinner for Schmucks is a vehicle for what appears to be Paul Rudd’s new sallow-faced robotic stand-in and America’s perpetual clown Steve Carell. Ten years ago it might have been...

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Review: Youth in Revolt – Michael Cera and Mr Hyde

9th February 2010 | 5 comments | 3 people like this

There are some things about Youth in Revolt that makes it feel like a Cohen brothers’ movie. It’s not just that it has Steve Buscemi in it. The whole atmosphere is surreal, the characters are more accurately described as caricatures and the dark, damaged hearts of seemingly straight-laced Americans are always visible just beneath the surface. If you strip away the plinky plonky acoustic soundtrack and the completely unnecessary animated...

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