How to be an asshole

This review every day thing is going to end soon, with spring break coming to a close and with school starting up, as with my job and and exams and all the crap that life regularly throws at me. Plus, I've been asked to write some tech reviews for The Silver Onion. But before I go back to the life of a student working as a shift manager at a game store, I'd write one last daily review on a film I wish I had seen before because Simon Pegg is one of my favorite actors.

How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) is a film inspired by a memoir of the same name written by Toby Young. The memoir was about a real failure to succeed in magazine, as is the film was about a fictional failure peppered with romance, sex, drugs, and Simon Pegg being a douchebag. It also stars Kirstin Dunst as a love interest, Megan Fox as a sex interest, Jeff Bridges as the boss, Danny Huston as a prick, and Gillian Anderson as a bitch. The film was directed by an American, Robert B. Weide, which actually took me by surprise. The beginning had some really good and entirely stylistically British directing choices, with quick wipes, changing directions, blur, and other things found in other Simon Pegg films (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), and Snatch. After all the effort Weide put in to appear British, he quickly gave it up for a kind of uninspired typical directing job that can be found from turning on your every day sitcom or hospital drama--not that there's much different between them anymore.

The writing by Peter Straughan is a playwrite by trade, and it kind of shows. A lot of the lines were overwritten, too much emphasis on certain twists and they would have translated much better on stage as opposed to the screen. Other things about the writing were really good, but still a bit too over-the-top to make it really agreeable to watch. Simon Pegg is obviously a not nice person, with a title like How to Lose Friends and Alienate People--something I can obviously relate to--the cruelty and complete lack of respect for authority and personal space is still overly done. I consider myself quite the miscreant and find myself surrounded by people who would do the same, and even on our worst days when our filter is at its weakest those things would still not come out of our mouths.

I saw this movie because Simon Pegg is in it. I loved him in both the films he did with Edgar Wright, enjoyed Run Fatboy Run, even as the directorial debut from Ross of Friends, and he kicked ass as The Editor in an episode of Doctor Who. So, obviously I enjoyed his performance. Kirstin Dunst is someone else who I will typically enjoy, despite constantly being casted in the same role of "put-offish girl who wants nothing to do with guy until she realizes he's actually better in every way, etc etc." The rest of the acting was good, but what do you expect with that cast? Those are all very talented actors. Except Megan Fox. She's just good looking.

The soundtrack was maybe my favorite part of it, with The Kinks, the Scissor Sisters, Motorhead, and even a bit of La Dolce Vita. One of the funnier moments in the film involves Simon Pegg, a hermaphrodite, and Ace of Spades. Put it together.

The film to me was a rather large disappointment, as I really like Simon Pegg and it's sad to see him put something out that was so bad. The Sunday Times said How to Lose Friends & Alienate People "had more laughs than any British comedy to appear over the past decade." They're wrong. They're always going to be wrong. In Bruges had more laughs than that did and it wasn't even a comedy. Maybe they weren't around for Pegg's first two big movies, but they were way funnier than this piece of garbage. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg need to team up again, damnit.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

PS - Don't take my opening bit as saying I won't be reviewing anymore. It just won't be at such a high frequency.
EO