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I loved Swingers the first time I saw it and I have to say that the more I see it the more it grows on me, and I know part of that is because right now I am deep in the envy that Favreau & Limon had on that film.

Swingers swept the festival circuit, gained wide recognition and launched the careers of all the people involved with it. If I could be lucky enough to do that with END (my first feature) I would be estatic. I know that’s a very long shot as my film was made even further fromt eh studio system than Swingers but I gotta hope it can be done.

Until then, I get to enjoy Swingers and think about the wild ride their little film took them on.

Now the entire world is aware of Jon Favreau, he is the director that brought Iron Man to life, but in 2001 he made his directorial debut with Made a story about Bobby (whom he also played), a down on his luck wannabe boxer who struggles day to day with trying to provide for his girlfriend Jessica & her daughter, and helping his best friend Ricky. Bobby turns from his stripper-girlfriends body guard to her boss Max’s tough guy & he heads with Ricky to New York to start his career as a mob henchman.

This shows the mark of a directorial debut; while Made is an good movie it doesn’t quite feel like Favreau’s subsequent films. The biggest difference would probably be the tone of his later films. Beginning with Swingers (Favreau’s debut as writer) all of Favreau’s films have been upbeat, if not lighter in tone than Made.

What made Made the most memorable to me is the end of the film. I spent most of the film wondering what the point of the story was and I was not disappointed; Bobby spends his journey through the film trying to provide for his family unit – Jessica & Chloe – only to finally find out that he’s providing for a woman that doesn’t want to be provided for. However, that’s when Made becomes the film that makes it original. Made is about fatherhood; while Jessica fails at being the “wife” she recognizes that Bobby is a better parent to Chloe than she is and allows Bobby to take her daughter as his own. It was a unexpected poignant moment added into the story, that shows Favreau’s true talent as a filmmaker.

What was strange to me in Made is that I spent most of the movie wanting to slap Vince Vaughn. He spends most of the movie seemingly doing everything possible to grate on your nerves, and to do it at top volume. I can’t decide if his performance was meant that way (because he does serve a point) or if it is one of the marks of Favreau’s first try at directing.

I adore Favreau. As a director myself I cannot figure out how he manages to act and direct in his own films, especially a film like Made where he plays the title character. I am excited to be a Jon Favreau fan because I feel like I can watch every film he makes as he makes it and watch his career as it happens. I am truly excited to see where Favreau’s career goes.

Director & Writer: Jon Favreau
Bobby: Jon Favreau
Ricky: Vince Vaughn
Jessica: Famke Janssen
Chloe: Makenzie Vega
Horace: Faizon Love
Max: Peter Falk
Ruiz: Sean Combs

Ricky Slade: You got an ash tray? How about an ash tray? Can I color me that?

Peter is a girlfriend guy; he doesn’t have many male friends and everyone knows it, he just gets along with females more than the average dude and he never thinks anything of it. When Peter gets engaged to his girlfriend Zooey he overhears she and her friends discussing his lack of male friends and decides to rectify this. Peter takes uses his brother, the internet and any kind of interaction he can to start meeting guys in an effort to find his best man. In the perfect example of opposites attract Peter finally meets Sydney who is a dude’s dude to his very core. However, what Peter doesn’t count on is the fact that by finding a best man he’s added a third person into the relationship he has with his fiancée.

I can’t believe I Love You, Man was as unique and original as it is; I can’t believe it hasn’t been made before. I Love You, Man is the flip side of Swingers - it’s the men a little further along in their lives as they become friends, rather than watching the hijinks of the men who already are each others lives.

What is really unique and fun about I Love You, Man is the sheer representations of “man” that are in the movie; each is unique, complete and you clearly know each of the types. Peter is the man who hasn’t accepted his manhood, Sydney is the man that is too much of a man for his own good, Barry is the man’s man who wants poker nights and a sexy wife, Robbie is the straightest gay man you know, Tevin is the cheesy, too-primped man slut who wants to prove his superiority, and Lou Ferrigno is the Hulk – the types go on. Each of these characters represent a personality and a relationship not just a joke and a punch line which is what makes this comedy original and funny.

The jokes in this movie are just as fun as the trailer promises. Jon Favreau’s Barry is the funniest prick in film and one of the funniest yet most disgusting scenes deals with a drinking game between he and Peter. I also love the jokes that you get in the film because Robbie is gay. I feel like I can’t talk about the best parts of the movie because this is a new release and I don’t want to spoil the comedy for those that are going to see it.

To sum up I Love You, Man I’d have to say that it’s a “chick flick” for men. The standard formula of boy-meets-girl applies, but it’s guy-meets-guy – in a not gay way.

Director: John Hamburg
Writers: John Hamburg & Larry Levin
Peter Klaven: Paul Rudd
Zooey: Rashida Jones
Hailey: Sarah Burns
Denise: Jamie Pressly
Barry: Jon Favreau
Joyce Klaven: Jane Curtin
Oswald Klaven: J.K. Simmons
Robbie Klaven: Andy Samberg

So it’s Valentine’s Day and I managed to get through it without having to watch a romantic movie, instead I watched sat on my day bed with my best friend, we wrapped ourselves in throws and we watched Swingers. I adore this movie and she had never seen it and I have to tell you that it was a really fun movie to watch with someone else for the first time.

What was really fun in watching Swingers with someone who has never seen it is watching them react to the vocabulary in the movie: “money”, “babies”, metaphors about bunnies & bears, etc. I am so used to hearing Trent call Mike “money” that I don’t even think about it any more, but I remembered it does take some adjusting to…I still think the adjusting is worth it. The characters are just far too fun.

The thing is that I watched Swingers because I didn’t want to watch a cute romantic movie and in watching Swingers I realized that Mike (Jon Favreau) is absolutely adorable in Swingers. While Trent & Sue are boozing and trying to pick up anything with a skirt Mike is actually managing to deal with his emotional baggage and find a girl that wants to do a little more than deal with his baggage for one night. So in avoiding romanticism I found an adorable guy – and he’s fictional – go figure.

Mike: Look, we're gonna spend half the night driving around the Hills looking for this one party and you're going to say it sucks and we're all gonna leave and then we're gonna go look for this other party. But all the parties and all the bars, they all suck. I spend half the night talking to some girl who's looking around the room to see if there's somebody else who's more important she should be talking to. And it's like I'm supposed to be all happy 'cause she's wearing a backpack, you know? And half of them are just nasty skanks who wouldn't be nothing except they're surrounded by a bunch of drunken horny assholes. And I'm gonna tell you something T. Are you listening?
Trent: Yeah, I'm listening.
Mike: I'm not gonna be one of those assholes. Alright? It just makes me sick. It's like, some nasty skank who isn't half the woman my girlfriend is, is gonna front me? It makes me want to fuckin' puke!

The holiday movie season has begun. This means two things – 1: it’s Oscar season so we’ll get Oscar-bait, 2: we are going to be bombarded with holiday themed movies. Four Christmases is not Oscar-bait but one of the standard Christmas fare that comes out between Thanksgiving and New Years; movies that are typically cheapish to make, star cute actors and are designed to capitalize on the few brief weeks of holiday cheer. Most holiday movies are not really that good like Surviving Christmas (which I dare you to remember who stars in that one without using IMDB) or Jingle All the Way there are always exceptions to that rule – movies like Elf, Christmas Vacation and Scrooged are among a few of my most enjoyed comedies and they are Christmas films. Four Christmases is not a great Christmas movie, but it is a lot better than you would expect it to be.

If you’ve seen the trailer for Four Christmases you can guess every plot point in the film – Brad & Kate can’t stand their families and would rather be anywhere else for the holidays. As a result they make an elaborate lie every holiday season that gets them out of going while they sneak off to an exotic destination and relax in peace, the hitch is that their flight gets canceled and they get caught at the airport by a live TV broadcast which all t heir relatives see so they are roped into seeing everyone they were trying to avoid.

Four Christmases suffers because the plot hinges on fog – literally; fog grounds their plane and though it obviously burns off they couple continues to make the rounds with their relatives. If you think too hard about the monologues delivered by both Brad and Kate at the beginning of the film you will realize that actually sticking with their copout and visiting their families once the fog lifts seems really out of character; they are painted as two people that wouldn’t care enough to keep up the charade with as miserable a time as they are having.

However, the reason that the film overcomes this fault is the unexpected chemistry between Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. As Brad and Kate they are an adorable couple and stand so far apart from their families that you do see them as aliens in a foreign land when they are forced to interact. To the tribute of the screenwriter the situations they are put in are believable enough that you can empathize with them – not because Brad’s brother is a UFC fighter who wants to beat him up but because we all have that embarrassing relation that we love but cannot understand no matter how hard we try.

While most of you will just shrug this off to my obsession with Iron Man, my absolute favorite character was Brad’s brother Denver played by Jon Favreau. I have been a fan of Favreau’s since I first saw Swingers and I have to say that seeing him muscled, tattooed and with a mohawk was a memorable experience. Knowing that he and Vaughn have a great friendship (hence the supporting role in Vaughn’s picture) also makes the relationship between Denver and Brad funnier to me.

Four Christmases is not one of the best holiday movies I have ever seen, but it is funny, fresh and genuine. All things considered it’ll probably be one of the better Christmas movies this season.

Director: Seth Gordon
Writers: Matt Allen, Caleb Wilson, John Lucas & Scott Moore
Brad: Vince Vaughn
Kate: Reese Witherspoon
Howard: Robert Duvall
Paula: Sissy Spacek
Creighton: Jon Voight
Denver: Jon Favreau
Marilyn: Mary Steenburgen
Pastor Phil: Dwight Yoakam
Dallas: Tim McGraw
Courtney: Kristin Chenoweth

Swingers is a film very few people would think of making. The title would scare a lot of people off because they assume it’s about overly promiscuous couples; when in fact Swingers is about a group single guys who idolize the Rat Pack and are trying to make it in Hollywood.