Lindsay Sloane

Film Review: ‘A Good Old Fashioned Orgy’ Can’t Get it Up

PatrickMcD — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:50:43 -0400

CHICAGO – Rarely have so many talented comedians been sucked into a more depressing morass of bad comic timing and worse writing than in the dreadful “A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy,” a movie with a bunch of people I like making a comedy I really, really hate. This movie knows nothing about friendship, sex, or, most importantly, comedy.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

The film opens with a dreadful “introduce the characters” montage in which we see all of them in moments of their daily life – this one’s a desk jockey, this one’s a musician, etc. – before they all scuttle off to the “White Trash Bash,” another theme party hosted by the likable Eric (Jason Sudeikis of “Horrible Bosses”) on the lavish New York estate that belongs to his distant dad (a brief cameo from Don Johnson). At the mullet-centric event, the audience meets Eric’s friends – lifelong buddy McCrudden (Tyler Labine of “Reaper”), uptight Alison (Lake Bell), unrequited love Sue (Michelle Borth), neurotic Adam (Nick Kroll of “The League”), insecure Laura (Lindsay Sloane). musician Duquez (Martin Starr), and his girlfriend Willow (Angela Sarafyan). There will be others on the periphery (Rhys Coiro, Will Forte, Lucy Punch, and a love interest role for Leslie Bibb), but these will be the core eight that will, well, get down and dirty.

After they learn that Eric’s dad wants to sell the property that has been party central for most of their maturity-stunted lives, the gang decides that it calls for one last bash. But what’s the ultimate theme for the ultimate party? How can they top themselves with something that will never be forgotten? After a discussion about the loose sexual morals of the next generation, they decide that what’s been missing from their core group is casual sex. It’s time for an orgy!

“A Good Old Fashioned Orgy” stars Jason Sudeikis, Tyler Labine, Nick Kroll, Lake Bell, Lindsay Sloane, Martin Starr, Leslie Bibb, Angela Sarafyan, Michelle Borth, Rhys Coiro, Will Forte, and Lucy Punch. It was written and directed by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck. It opens in Chicago on September 2nd, 2011.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full review of “A Good Old Fashion Orgy”

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
Photo credit: Samuel Goldwyn

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full review of “A Good Old Fashion Orgy”

Blu-Ray Review: Disappointing Raunch of ‘She’s Out of My League’

BrianTT — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:10:14 -0400

CHICAGO – Proving that what Judd Apatow has brought to the comedy genre in the last decade is much harder than it looks, “She’s Out of My League” has an extremely likable cast but writers and a director who mistake gross-out humor for genuine laughs. It’s one of those disappointing comedies for people who can’t say the word ejaculation without laughing like Beavis.

Blu-Ray Rating: 2.0/5.0

I really wanted to like “She’s Out of My League.” Star Jay Baruchel has been a highlight of everything he does for years with great, underrated work in films like “Tropic Thunder” and “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.” The set-up for “She’s Out of My League” sounds like the perfect vehicle for this talented, genuinely nice young future star. Sadly, it goes nowhere.

She’s Out of My League was released on Blu-ray and DVD on June 22nd, 2010
Photo credit: Paramount Home Video

Baruchel plays Kirk, a sweet kid without many social skills. That can happen when you work as a TSA employee in Pittsburgh. When the film opens, he’s getting over his break-up with the awful Marnie (Lindsay Sloane), a selfish girl still close enough with his unsupportive family that she’s at his home all the time and even goes on their family vacations.

She’s Out of My League was released on Blu-ray and DVD on June 22nd, 2010
Photo credit: Paramount Home Video

Luckily, Kirk has a surrogate family of friends that’s much better to him than his actual blood relatives including the sweet Devon (Nate Torrence), ladies man Jack (Mike Vogel), and obnoxious Stainer (T.J. Miller). Kirk’s life is turned upside down when he meets the stunning Molly McCall (Alice Eve), the kind of girl who only exists in male fantasies. She loves hockey and looks great in lingerie. This “hard 10” falls for Kirk, a self-proclaimed “5.”

Apatow has revolutionized comedy with his pop culture-infused takes on the “hot chick, funny guy” formula in comedies like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.” “She’s Out of My League” attempts to replicate that formula but the script by Sean Anders (who made the similarly lowest common denominator “Sex Drive”) and John Morris and the direction by Jim Field Smith aren’t in the Apatow league. They’re more on the level of an “American Pie” sequel.

The script has an unusually jerky quality like a song that’s a bit off tempo. Every time it develops a rhythm, it loses it, something that could have happened after reshoots to add more gross-out humor like a scene in which Devon actually shaves Kirk’s balls. The film only works at all because of the heart brought to it by Baruchel and when the story devolves into bits about body parts then it really loses its way.

To be fair, Baruchel makes it out unscathed and the film would have been a lot worse without him. Krysten Ritter also shines in a supporting role as Molly’s abrasive best friend and Torrence has a sweet comic sensibility. They save the film from complete disaster. There are a few moments that work and I liked the overall sweetness of the piece in that it’s about valuing your self-worth over external appearances or what other people tell you to think but good intentions only get you so far in a comedy that’s not producing actual laughs.

Special Features:
o Deleted Scenes
o Extended Ending
o Blooper Reel
o “Devon’s Dating Show” — A hilarious “Do’s & Don’ts” guide to dating for guys
o Commentary by Director Jim Field Smith

‘She’s Out of My League’ is released by Paramount Home Video and stars Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, Krysten Ritter, T.J. Miller, Nate Torrence, Mike Vogel, and Lindsay Sloane. It was written by Sean Anders & John Morris and directed by Jim Field Smith. It was released on June 22nd, 2010 and is rated R.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Jay Baruchel, Nate Torrence on ‘She’s Out of My League’

BrianTT — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:24:30 -0500

CHICAGO – Jay Baruchel and Nate Torrence, two of the leads of the romantic comedy “She’s Out of My League” dropped by Chicago recently to talk about their new film that has been compared to both “The Hangover” and the work of Judd Apatow. Candid, charismatic, and very funny in person, Baruchel and Torrence are the kind of interview subjects that make this job easy.

In “She’s Out of My League,” Baruchel plays an awkward TSA agent who falls head over heels for a beautiful woman named Molly (Alice Eve) and, much to the surprise of his friends and family, she falls back. Torrence (“Get Smart”) plays his sweet friend who is arguably the most supportive voice in telling the poor guy that Molly isn’t out of his league.

As one might imagine, the conversation started by trying to define exactly what makes a girl a ten. Torrence lays it down somewhat seriously, “Even though the movie hints at it, it’s not obviously about good looks. Do you want to know what I personally find a hard ten? I like low maintenance. That’s what I’m all about. No matter how pretty they are.”

She’s Out of My League.
Photo credit: Paramount/DreamWorks

Baruchel agreed but added a few personal qualifiers including “if a chick likes the Montreal Canadians hockey team,” “likes to eat hamburgers,” and that “it doesn’t hurt when they look like Alice [Eve].”

The producers came to Jay Baruchel with the script for “She’s Out of My League” while he was still working on “Tropic Thunder” and clearly impressing htem with his dailies on that great film. While it was great for Jay to get a lead offer, the original script featured even more references to the lead being repulsive.

Baruchel says, “So it was a weird mix of being flattered but also incredibly f**king insulted. I was like, “Is there any way we can get rid of some of the repulsion?” I saw the opportunity to put my stamp on some of the movies that I grew up loving. To me, this owes less to the movies of the past ten years than it does to some of the John Hughes era of films. This is my chance to be Lloyd Dobler in “Say Anything,” and those are the movies that meant so much to me as a kid and more to me as I got older, because I understood them more. And this is my chance to leave behind one of those movies.”

The chemistry among the four male leads is key to the success of “She’s Out of My League” and it’s something that’s hard to fake. Baruchel says, “Honestly, I count this kid as one of my best friends, and I count TJ (Miller) and Mike (Vogel) as my best friends. I didn’t know any of them beforehand, and because we were in a city that none of us lived in, we all hung out together and spent a lot of time and money at Dave & Buster’s and TGI Friday’s. (Laughs.) I love the guys and get along with them. We come from similar backgrounds and have similar views on things. We all have the same sense of humor. And at the end of the day, we all just really enjoy each other’s company. And it could have gone completely the other way and we would have been just going through the motions. But the four of us on camera - those are real moments and us making each other laugh and loving hanging out together.”

She’s Out of My League.
Photo credit: Paramount/DreamWorks

Torrence adds, “The beginning of chemistry is that you do have just the same senses of humor. What makes YOU laugh makes ME laugh, and that can make a funny scene. I’ve worked with people where we had to stop improvising because what they thought was funny didn’t go where I wanted to go. What makes for good improv is when you literally can make each other laugh. It’s cool when you can have those moments and then see the director use those scenes.”

The tone of the movie was key to Baruchel. “We didn’t want to have a frat boy, alpha male, misogynist point of view because that is just none of us. Nate is married and has two kids. Mike is married and has kids and goes to church every Sunday. Me, I live two blocks away from my mother and have a little sister. To me, the two are not mutually exclusive. In movies, guys are either “Kegger! Big tits!” or the guys who get the sh*t kicked out of them. That’s not how it is in real life. In real life, you can be a slobby, crass guy and still have a good heart and respect people.”

How does one romantic comedy distinguish itself from another? “I think it’s a lot,” Baruchel says. “Not to say that other movies have these people involved, but, at the end of the day, we are not douche bags, and I can’t stress enough that we wanted to satisfy what we needed to satisfy, which was to make a certain type of movie. But, also, I won’t say we wanted to put substance in it, but we did not want to alienate people. And I also didn’t want to make anything that didn’t reflect me because I am not a guy who goes out to parties and bar hops and is like, “Dude!””

“I think it’s all of us being committed to making a movie that we wanted to see first of all. That other stuff we are describing - those are not movies that any of us would watch. We all wanted to make something that we would pay money to see, otherwise what is the point of doing it? I also think that [Director] Jim’s [Field Smith] sensibility is beautifully moving and weirdly hilarious at the same time. You can make people laugh but you can also make them give a sh*t. And those laughs mean so much more if there is a connection, if people identify with the characters and feel like they are in there. To me, that is the cardinal rule of any movie in any genre. If the audience is not in there experiencing with the characters, then nothing makes sense.”

She’s Out of My League.
Photo credit: Paramount/DreamWorks

Baruchel and Torrence ended the conversation comparing embarassing in-law moments, a major recurring theme of the film. Torrence started with a decent one which was then hilariously topped by Jay.

“The first time I ever tried to take my in-laws out for dinner, my credit card got declined,” revealed Torrence. “And it wasn’t even a credit issue—that’s what sucked. At the time it was a debit card, and there was some kind of mix-up. And then (my wife) didn’t have her purse, and I didn’t have any money in my wallet. It was the first time we were ever going out…”

Baruchel one-ups with this tale - “I don’t have any awkward in-law stories but I have plenty of stories of my dad embarrassing the sh*t out of me. I’ve been acting since I was twelve and was on a TV show when I was fifteen. There was a producer that my mother did not get along with. My parents were divorced at the time. This was the night my dad rode his bicycle to the set drunk and picked a fight with the producer! It was the most f**king awkward… He was like, “So you, you’re the one!”

“My dad nearly beat the sh*t out of the umpire at a softball game. He was the first base coach and he went to high-five me for sliding in, and I was to embarrassed to high-five my dad, so I didn’t. And then the umpire was like, “No contact with the player!” All of my stories are of my dad beating the sh*t out of other people. He had no social graces. And they they are antiquers. So at an antique show, in the nicest part of Montreal, my dad beat the f*ck out of a guy. ”

Don’t beat yourself up. See “She’s Out of My League” in theaters now.

‘She’s Out of My League’ stars Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, Krysten Ritter, T.J. Miller, Nate Torrence, Mike Vogel, and Lindsay Sloane. It was written by Sean Anders and John Morris and directed by Jim Field Smith. It opens on March 12th, 2010. It is rated R.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Hookup: HollywoodChicago.com Cordially Invites You to ‘The Bachelor’ Wedding With 25 ‘She’s Out of My League’ Tickets

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:24:58 -0500

CHICAGO – This HollywoodChicago.com Hookup is like none other. We have 25 admit-two passes to the advance screening of the new film “She’s Out of My League,” but we’re also throwing a red-carpet party with a 1.5-hour open bar for a viewing of “The Bachelor” wedding with former cast members!

“She’s Out of My League” stars Jay Baruchel (“Knocked Up,” “Tropic Thunder”), Alice Eve, Krysten Ritter, Mike Vogel, Lindsay Sloane, Geoff Stults, Kim Shaw, Debra Jo Rupp, T.J. Miller, Jasika Nicole and Nate Torrence from director Jim Field Smith and writers Sean Anders and John Morris.

The red-carpet event is brought to you by HollywoodChicago.com, Best Foot Forward (a new, full-service dating concierge in Chicago) and Reality TV Social (which hosts reality TV-themed viewing parties). The celebration includes a complimentary champagne toast, hors d’oeuvres, Absolut and Maker’s Mark cocktails for the first hour and a half and more!

Tickets are $20 per person at the door with net proceeds to benefit one-on-one cancer support from Imerman Angels. A makeup artist from Christian Dior will be doing complimentary touch-ups.

Chicago Social will provide gift baskets and will photograph and cover the festivities. We plan to have former cast members of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” at the event as well as other celebrities, so make sure to keep a sharp eye for some very eligible and familiar faces!

The event takes place on Monday, March 8, 2010 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Vertigo Sky Lounge at the Dana Hotel & Spa at 660 N. State St. in downtown Chicago. To attend our red-carpet event and for your chance to win our “She’s Out of My League” tickets, just RSVP at our Facebook page! Good luck and enjoy!

RSVP now for our red-carpet event!

The movie poster for “She’s Out of My League” with Jay Baruchel.
Image credit: Paramount Pictures

Here is the “She’s Out of My League” plot description:

In the comedy “She’s Out of My League,” Kirk (Jay Baruchel of “Knocked Up” and “Tropic Thunder”) is an average Joe who can’t believe his luck. Though he’s stuck in a seemingly dead-end job as an airport security agent, against all odds Molly (Alice Eve) – a successful and outrageously gorgeous babe – falls for him.

Kirk is stunned. So are his friends, his family and even his ex-girlfriend. Now he has to figure out how to make the relationship work even though he’d be the first to admit she’s totally out of his league.

The “She’s Out of My League” trailer can be watched now below.

RSVP now for our red-carpet event!

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com