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Unforgettable

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The Judd Apatow machine strikes again. And you know what? The formula still works.
Take a relatively unknown but insanely gifted comedic actor (most likely a star of Apatow’s nearly-universally adored late-’90s TV series Freaks and Geeks), place him in a common-yet-ridiculous romantic debacle (losing virginity at middle age, fathering a child with a far-better-looking better-half, etc.), provide said character with relentlessly obscene and profane conversations to engage in with a motley crew of dorky (and possibly demented) cohorts and throw in endless references to popular culture in between sight gags and fluid jokes. Does it work? Almost every time.

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Test Spin: Alan Jackson

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The title track of Alan Jackson’s most recent album, Good Time, delivers exactly what it promises. Yes, it’s country music. Shut up. This is upstate New York. Get with it.
“Good Time” blares through the speakers with plenty of mid-tempo honky-tonk sass and a less-than-subtle nod to Brooks and Dunn’s early ’90s line dance classic “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.” And with that, all fears of another slump of a release from the ’90s neo-traditionalist giant disappear. Not since 2002’s Drive has Jackson been this true to form.

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Stand Down, Stop-Loss!

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Stop-loss — the very real practice where American military personnel are involuntarily redeployed after their contracted time of service has expired; fine print in service agreements allows the President to extend soldiers’ deployments by up to an extra full tour.
The film of the same name, directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), attempts to illustrate how such a policy affects the lives of the individuals at which it is aimed, namely one fictional Army infantry platoon whose members have returned home to Texas after a recent, violent tour in Iraq.

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Old School Charm

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Screwball comedies are a dying art. Aside from the Coen Brothers’ occasional modernist foray into the genre (Raising Arizona, O Brother Where Art Thou?), a good modern example of the classic formula is hard to come by. Any stab at the genre had better include zany plot twists, mistaken identities, machinegun dialogue, double entendres and, of course, the romance.

The tried-and-true genre is usually best left in its heyday — the 1930s and ’40s — and if anyone other than cinematic masters even attempt to transplant the glory of films such as It Happened One Night or Some Like It Hot to today’s silver screen, the results will probably go one of two ways, one of which ends with movies like Gigli. Ouch.