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Spoof films show no sign of slowing down, and Meet the Spartans clearly shows the genre needs a reboot. Actually Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the writer-directors of this movie can be blamed for pushing out mediocre and outright crappy spoof films in the past few years. When done properly, spoof movies offer guilty pleasures such as Airplane! that cleverly satirized the disaster movies.

Meet the Spartans is a take on the ultra-violent (and stylish) movie 300. As the heroic king Leonidas must battle the invading Persians, he is joined by his most elite 13 (instead of 300) Spartans and the Persians bring along Ghost Rider, Rocky, Transformers and even Paris Hilton. Clearly no material was left behind, as an early battle is straight out of You Got Served (and the other dancing-gang movies).

Jokes fall flat almost all the time, and you’ll be glad the movie is only 80 minutes long, as more runtime would be cinematic torture. Still the movie finds time for 2 musical numbers set to I Will Survive, playing on the whole homoerotic vibe of 300 and the Spartans in the original source material.

It looks like their next target is the disaster genre: here’s to hoping that they find better materials and better writers.

Rating: 10%

In celebration of 420 and the upcoming release of its sequel, I re-watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, a movie that some critics have called new stoner classic. It is a classic buddy comedy, starring John Cho as Harold, a 2nd gen Korean nerdy investment banker, and Kal Penn as Kumar, a 2nd gen Indian who really doesn’t want to go to med school despite his family’s insistence.

After toking up, they decide what they want is those slider burgers from White Castle and they go searching for the famed and rare burger joints. In the process of getting the burgers, they come across a 2nd gen Korean students meeting/party at Princeton, they wind up meeting Neil Patrick Harris and Harold even goes to jail.

Directed by Danny Leiner, who gave us Dude, Where’s my Car?, he redeems himself as this movie is miles ahead of his previous efforts. Granted there are gross-out humor (such as a painful toilet sequence), cheap humors and wild inconsistencies, but you don’t watch this movie searching for a cinematic masterpiece. The movie is best enjoyed, perhaps, when you’re high as well, but even when you’re not, it is a very enjoyable team-comedy. If it doesn’t teach you any other lesson, you will at least learn that Korean and Indian descent Americans are just like everyone else: sex-crazed, looking for a good high and a good munch.

Rating: 75%

Judd Apatow has been on a blockbuster bender and Knocked Up (which I declared the Best Comedy Movie of 2007) further cements the director as the person who has the most insight in real men. This movie portrays childish men at their best: the main character played by Seth Rogen and his friends are as childish as they come, watching movies all the time counting all the nude scenes in them, either drunk and/or high, and no jobs. If they are not the epitome of slacking, I don’t know what is.

On the other hand, Alison Scott (played by Katherine Heigl) is a career-driven woman who knows what she wants. When one night at the club goes horribly wrong, and they have fairly graphic & unprotected sex, Alison discovers she’s pregnant. Defying all expectations, she decides to keep the baby (maybe she’s Catholic?), and Ben must deal with the entire 9 months of pregnancy and the resulting baby. Of course the word "abortion" isn’t uttered even once in this movie, which would be the most realistic conclusion that both of these characters could reach. After all, would you really want your baby’s father to be this unemployed guy who is probably unfit to be a father in the first place?

Anyways, once you get over this absurd choice by the characters, the comedic genius of Judd Apatow shines through. Dialogs are sharply written, and most characters feel realistic and their problems can be found in countless married and unmarried couples in the world. Dealing with pregnancy is an emotional rollercoaster for both mother and father, and the movie portrays it in the accurate way. Unfortunately women characters aren’t fully fleshed out as the guy characters, but nonetheless this vulgar and sometimes graphic comedy has tender moments where Ben and Alison come to terms with their situations, and Ben and his future brother-in-law reveal each other’s emotional troubles while high on mushrooms.

This is clearly the best romantic comedy of the year, and surprisingly, it is not a traditional chick flick. Take that as how you will: what remains is the movie can be enjoyed by almost anyone regardless of gender and age as it chronicles something that most of us has gone through, or will go through (unless you opt for contraceptives and abortions).

Rating: 85%

Knocked Up

Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year-old Virgin was a success that not too many people could have predicted. Proving to everyone that he is not an one-hit wonder, he returned this year with Knocked Up. Starring Seth Rogan and Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl, this romantic comedy proved the odd-couple shtick can work in a smart movie without resorting to gross-out gags. Not that the movie is light on dirty scenes…

Up next: Best Musical Movie of 2007

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