Calvin Berman contemplates nothing, kind of, after seeing "Due Date"

Warner Bros. released "Due Date" this weekend to a respectable $32.7 million box office performance, according to Deadline. The Los Angeles Times leads me to believe that "The Hangover" director Todd Phillips reunited with "The Hangover" star Zach Galifianakis for the movie, while Robert Downey Jr. third-wheeled his way into it.

This movie is unlike any of the ones that I have examined on this thread; my mind was blank when I walked out of the theater. "Due Date" was not smart enough to include anything worth analyzing, yet not stupid enough to make me want to analyze its stupidity, like "Jackass 3D."

The premise of the movie was that Downey's haughty character is thwarted in his attempts to get home to his pregnant wife (who is due in a few days) by a stranger: Galifianakis' cluelessly idiotic character. Somehow, the two end up driving to Los Angeles from Atlanta so that the husband can witness the birth of his baby. I know, I know; what a bunch of baloney.

Even if you overlook the serious lack in realistic plot and cinematic direction, you can't get past the fact that Galifianakis plays almost the same character that he had portrayed in "The Hangover." He is the token moron that other characters find themselves forced to go on a road trip with. That is, until his odd behavior becomes endearing at the film's focal point.

Have you ever heard of the saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it?" Well, it applies in this case.

Galifianakis' performance was outstanding in "The Hangover," which had me laughing from beginning to end. Because the character was pretty much cloned for "Due Date," Galifianakis' character's ridiculously stupid antics still had me laughing.

(Screenshot of the "Due Date" trailer, taken from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGpJUh9j-jU)

My friends complained that the movie had not lived up to their expectations. "'The Hangover' was way better," they said. I argued that you can't go into any movie looking to compare it to the genius of "The Hangover," the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time, according to Variety.

That's like saying that Kobe Bryant's 30-point game on Jan. 27, 2006, was a failure because he had scored 81 points the prior game. Most NBA players only dream of scoring 30 points in a game.

"Due Date" made me laugh a bunch of times. Based on my experience, I feel it was better than most other comedies I've seen, bottom line. What's wrong with that? Why can't I just accept laughter when it comes to me?

Is it just me, or are we all this way?

If you think you've got an answer, I'd love to read it below!

Calvin Berman reexamines his life after "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell"

(Source: http://www.tuckermax.com/movie/)

Tucker Max's "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" novel made the New York Times Bestseller list in 2006, 2007 and 2008. I remember reading the book in high school and laughing out loud at Max's fearless, arrogant yet self-aware humor.

Naturally, a film adaptation of the novel ensued in 2009, but with much less success. According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed about $1.4 million throughout its one-and-a-half month stay in U.S. theaters. To put this in perspective, "The Hangover" grossed over $277 million domestically during its six month reign at the box office.

With adjectives like "horrible," "painful" and "wasted potential" used to describe the adaptation by IMDB users, it's obvious why it performed so poorly in theaters. However, my roommate and I thought the movie was pretty entertaining. This should not set off red flag indicators about my character; don't judge me, jerks.

To my defense, I thought that some scenes were overly offensive (whether they were racist or sexist) in hopes of utilizing shock humor. On the other hand, my roommate laughed for a few of these scenes. You jerks can judge him.

For pious old me, could the reason I didn't find these scenes funny be that I have matured since reading the book? Or, did they seem more offensive because I was watching them take place as opposed to reading about them?

Furthermore, when my roommate's girlfriend walked in, she told us that she and a friend had watched the movie and thought that it was one of the worst movies that they'd ever seen. After she judged our character for laughing, she walked out, leaving me to wonder if Tucker Max's humor is gender-specific.

What I am most intrigued by, and scared of, is that I saw a lot of myself in Tucker Max. No, I am not a misogynist, nor am I a racist. Shallow belief systems have always disgusted me.

In the film, Max's selfish inclination to live life by the seat of his pants leads him to create disasters out of simple situations, but then somehow find a way to make things right. His ability to make things right after he messes them up is what perpetuates Max's selfishness.

In the movie, Max convinces his best friend to lie to his future wife and hold his bachelor party at a far-off strip club, which he raves about. It turns out that Max had not only lied about previously visiting that club, but also had ditched his belligerent best friend, who ended up with two black eyes and one night in jail, in favor of a stripper. Once the wife-to-be found out, the wedding was put in jeopardy.

After being uninvited to the wedding, Max crashed it anyway and gave a speech, somehow winning back his friend.

Last month, while I was on my fraternity's bus to Dallas for the Red River Rivalry, I realized that I had left my ticket to the game in my apartment. Luckily (or so I thought), the bus was just outside my building. I ran up to the bus driver and pleaded that he let me get off the bus and run to my room to grab my ticket, which he did. Somewhere in my subconscious, I'm sure I knew that if I somehow missed the bus, I would still find a way to Dallas.

To make a long story short, my date had to ride the 5 hour trip without me. I ended up being lucky enough to be allowed to catch a ride in a rival fraternity's bus (which is unheard of). When my fraternity arrived in Dallas, my roommate, his girlfriend and my date could not check into the hotel because it was under my name. I had officially messed up the weekend before it even started.

By the time I reached Dallas, I had the wherewithal to get flowers for my date and my roommate's girlfriend. The flowers, coupled with a sincere apology, seemed to fix most of our problems, which enabled me find more ways to screw up the weekend.

Both Max and I fail to learn that "winging it" complicates things, despite the obvious correlation. Although I am curious as to why I found this movie so funny, I am sure (or at least hope) that a significant part of this answer lies in my ability to relate to the main character and his blunders.

Calvin Berman's thoughts on success after seeing "Wall Street"

This weekend, the hottest movie at the box office was the horror "Paranormal Activity 2," pulling in $40.7 million according to Deadline. I had a hunch this would happen.

However, I made a conscious decision not to go see the movie; I hate horror movies. It's not like I'm afraid or anything... I just don't like them, OK?!

Instead, I saw Oliver Stone's "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," which has pulled in a respectable $50 million since its Sept. 24 opening, according to Los Angeles Times.

(Source: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/photo.php?fbid=431948922484&set=a.439289157484.241104.277054837484 )

Coupled with its surprising mediocrity (maybe I was just over-excited to see "Wall Street"), this movie suggests a correlation between financial success and corruption: an argument I have fought through out my life. In the film, not one successful character has a clean record; everybody with money either cheats and lies, or works with people who cheat and lie.

For many students, myself included, going to school is simply a stepping stone to reaching our financial goals (as opposed to the idealist, who goes to school to "learn"). I'm not spending all this time so that I can go out into the real world and cheat my way to success.

To believe that nobody cheats in the professional world would be naive. However, I just don't see myself cheating and lying to others in the future to get to where I want to be. I refuse to buy into the notion that I will need to do so to be successful. Can I get an "Amen?"

Regardless of my feelings, the movie kept playing, so I kept watching even though I was ideologically opposed to where the plot was headed.

After making the importance of cheating in success a common theme through out the film, Stone then depicts secret meetings in which the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board meets with the Wall Street bigwigs to discuss a bailout plan after the financial market collapsed in 2008 (which happened in real life). Arbitray numbers, like $700 billion, were tossed around, and the chairman blindly went with what he heard.

I admit that I do kind of agree with this criticism of our society. I am generally a capitalist and an Adam Smith believer, who argued that people are inherently good and that financial markets will regulate themselves accordingly.

The movie shows how the government not only regulated the markets after the 2008 financial crisis, but wagered public funds in hopes that the economy would turn around. If the headstrong government has shown that it will support an ailing economy, what's to stop financially influential people from acting the same way they did before the crisis?

I believe that if everyone acted in their best interest (more for the long term than the short term), we wouldn't be dealing with this financial crisis and I wouldn't have had to sit through a disappointing movie.

Individuals should not have taken on mortgages they would not be able to afford in the future. Banks should not have made it so easy for people to become homeowners, and then increased the interest rates so much that people would not be able to afford their mortgages. The government isn't acting in its best interest by blindly bailing out the economy because there's nothing stopping the financial sector from putting the country in a similar situation in the future.

--

I would really like feedback, so please leave comments below!

Calvin Berman examines the humor of "Jackass 3D"

According to the Los Angeles Times, "Jackass 3D" grossed $50 million at the box office last weekend.

The film logged the highest-grossing weekend of all time for any movie opening in October, according to New York Magazine.

Seriously?

The 10-year-old "Jackass" franchise (which includes three TV seasons and three feature films) banks on the shock-value-inspired humor it delivers to audiences. There is never a plot, nor any logical flow from scene-to-scene.

In "Jackass 3D," there is plenty of unsolicited violence among cast members, including punches to the face and/or groin. There is also plenty of solicited pain and self-deprecation (which is even stranger), by way of jumping a jet-ski from a swimming pool onto a hill of dirt or having a tooth pulled with the force of a speeding Lamborghini.

Nevertheless, I found myself laughing, along with everyone else in the theater, at the sheer stupidity being carried out by the "Jackass 3D" cast. While laughing, I kept asking myself: "Why the hell is this idiotic shit so funny?"

A part of me believes that people find "Jackass" funny because it's incredibly brain-less, yet it's being played in an actual movie theater as an actual feature film. However, there must be something else, besides this irony, that contributes to the "humor" found in the franchise.

Would our parents find "Jackass" funny? There is no way I could see my mom and dad laughing at any point through out that film. Yet, I do recall countless occasions in which my dad has referenced "Jackass"-type scenes from one of his favorite childhood TV shows, "The Three Stooges."

Perhaps watching the inflicting of pain on unsuspecting victims is funny only to people who lack a certain level of maturity possessed by those who have grown older and wiser. I don't think my dad would find "The Three Stooges" funny if it had been released in the modern day. If this is the case, then a short glance at some Facebook status updates from my friends should show what some of us immature people are thinking about the new movie.

(Screenshot taken after "Jackass" was searched for in my Facebook friends' status updates)

It is just as I suspected: my friends are loving "Jackass 3D." Assuming that this love signifies the prevalence of sadism in my age group, I wonder if my classmates would find humor in a video of me belly-flopping onto concrete off of a flight of stairs.

For those who don't know me, I could see how this image might be funny. However, I'd hope that the 1 percent (give or take 1 percent) of my classmates who do know me would be concerned with my well-being.

Perhaps the key to the sadistic humor of "Jackass" is that the audience does not personally know the cast-members. Since we don't know Johnny Knoxville, why should we be concerned if he can't breathe after getting hit in the neck by a golf ball that he hit against a wall?

I have practically pulled out all of my hair trying to figure out why I find "Jackass 3D" funny, but I can't come up with an answer. Maybe the film just left me an all-around dumber person, unable to use logic and reason.

Please give me any feedback you may have, so that I can stop being a jackass and come up with some type of conclusion. Thanks.

Calvin Berman's thoughts on Facebook after seeing "The Social Network"

Like many other great films, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" left me feeling conflicted. Was the creation of Facebook, the movie's central focus, something to be treasured or scorned?

According to its fan page, Facebook was built to "help people stay connected." Staying connected has proven to be a hot commodity; in just under six-and-a-half years, over 500 million users have signed up for the free service.

I would agree that Facebook is an irreplaceable tool in helping me keep in touch with geographically distant, but affectionately close, friends and family. The social networking site enables me to interact with people I went to camp with and haven't seen for four or five years. I can also browse pictures of my little brother, who looks like he's taller than me now. Great.

For my generation, a written letter oozes formality. A call may be too forward. A text can come across as awkward and random. With people I haven't spoken too in a while, or those who I don't know as well, a Facebook wall-post or instant message is unassuming and well-received.

Facebook has proven a useful tool in helping people promote causes that they deem valuable. I have hosted seven successful political campaigns (shhhh, nobody needs to know that these campaigns were for high school student government positions) on Facebook "Group" Web pages, and I doubt I would have won those elections if Facebook hadn't made it easy for me to promote myself and encourage others to vote. I have also helped promote various charities, like Falling Whistles, a fledgling charity aimed at stopping the forced participation of Congolese children in war.

For all of the good that this social networking site provides, there are major qualms I have about its impact on me.

Too often, I will spend hours surfing the Facebook pages of my friends to the detriment of my responsibilities or, what's scarier, my desires. I can understand the appeal of interacting with friends on Facebook over writing a paper. The scary part is that I've found myself in front of a Facebook-illuminated screen instead of doing more enjoyable and socially rewarding things, like exercising or getting ready for a party.

Another serious concern I have with Facebook is that it gives users the courage and ability to act differently from how they portray themselves in non-virtual reality (anyone seen "Catfish?").

For example, I once had a classmate who I became friends with after seeing him almost every day in class. However, when the 2008 Gaza War broke out, he posted a Facebook status likening Israel's actions to those of the Nazi's. This infuriated me, not only because he never hinted at feeling this way despite my obvious support for Israel, but because he was too much of a coward to address me in person.

It's interesting to note that nothing any of us think or say about Facebook really matters. As my old pal Machiavelli once said, "It is not without good reason that the voice of the people is compared to the voice of God." OVER 500 MILLION people have spoken; Facebook is here to stay.

Nevertheless, I'm curious to learn what other people think. Let me know!