Arthur (2011)

Movies like this make me look crazy because It turns out that despite all the signs saying I should hate it, it seduces me and i really like it. I'll tell people and they'll give me the 'you're so full of shit' look and swot me away. But really despite the damning facts- it's a remake, it's been relatively sanitized and it features Jennifer Garner, think people are forgetting 2 things. One - Russell Brand. I will concede that the dude is a bit played out and marriage to Katy Perry is not great for your street-cred and he's gone a bit Hollywood but i think, lots are quick to remember that he has certainly paid his dues- he did a lot of tv and radio for a long time and he did stand up for even longer. I saw him in 2005 and he's the funniest stand up i've ever seen. He's no overnight success but he's no hack either. He's actually funny and he's the only guy in recent times to make stand up sexy since Eddie Murphy.
Two- Peter Baynham. Now I'll concede Brand has never been consistent in all his endeavours but Peter Baynham is like a comedy King Midas. Alan Partridge, The Day Today, Brass Eye, Borat. He's like a Welsh dynamo, integral in revitalising British comedy and now he's spreading his magic to Hollywood for Sacha Baron Cohen and now Brand. I'll say if Arthur had turned out shit, i would have blamed anyone but Baynham but this is not the angry comedy you might expect from him, this is all quite light and airy. Now since this is an American studio comedy, it's extremely unlikely that he wrote every line- it's directed by Jason Winer, behind the successful tv comedy 'Modern Family' (never seen it) and Brand will probably adlib but my boy must have wrote some of it right? I actually think Winer must be responsible for a lot what works with the tone of the film. There must have been a lot of pressure to make a dirtier comedy because they're in vogue but this is didn't feel like this was sanitized; more that the original was unnecessarily salubrious- I mean, Liza Minelli as a hooker? Who wants that?
To my detractors - I will give you that Helen Mirren is no John Gielgud and no amount of dry spiteful barbs will redress the lack of that great Sir but as my much as that part was about a very subtle English way of care and affection via scalding irony, i wouldn't discount the comic effect of a old Shakespearean-don talking about winkies and pricks but Mirren is very good at the straight-faced warmth and affection.
I just don't think this movie is guilty of that many missteps. I think Brand does an unnecessary impression of Dud at certain points but I found his romance of Greta Gerwig actually heartwarming and not forced or false, that they felt like people who had genuine respect for each other built on a basis of trying to support the other person not simply a sexual attraction. But what do I know...

I watched Arthur (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Le Dolce Vita (2011)...