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The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Thinking of seeing "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"? Forget it.

By Lara Avery

Greetings! I have just returned from the future of main stream American cinema. If you excuse my pun, I will cut to the chase. Things are looking pretty bleak. Here’s what happens: Tom Cruise wins an Oscar for his directorial debut, “Beautiful Alien,” an autobiographical piece. Hannah Montana, adapting to her rapidly desensitized audience, continues to serve as a role model for young girls in “Slutfest Club,” one out of many in a Brat Pack-esque movie series. A deteriorating Woody Allen moves to Korea with Soon-Yi and her family where he will apply for assisted suicide. The movie playing on the hospital TV while an overdose of morphine enters Woody Allen’s veins? TBS’ Dinner and A Movie presentation of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”Sprinkled with Geico commercials and sad memories of the wit of a dying generation, the horn-rimmed New Yorker’s last moments will go something like this:

Peter Bretter (John Segel) is the composer for a crime show of which his exponentially hotter and more famous girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Kristin Bell), is the star. We know this because at the beginning there is a montage of shots including him going through his daily routine, photos of them together and entertainment news footage about the couple. After the montage she breaks up with him. The scene is funny because one of the characters isn’t wearing clothes!

Woody Allen tries to reach the remote but his arms are tangled in IV tubes.

Peter tries to sleep with other girls and cries a lot. He goes to Hawaii and has a conversation with the girl at the front desk. She is lit differently than everyone else in the scene and is way more attractive. I guess that’s why she becomes his new love interest. In Hawaii he surfs and meets a surf instructor who smokes pot. The surf instructor forgets a lot of things and makes nonsensical observations. This is funny because he smokes pot!

Peter also meets a fat Hawaiian cook who is nice even though he is fat. He meets another fat person, a fat black bartender who is on Peter’s side even though he grew up in South Central. A Christian couple around the bar always asks Peter for sex advice. All of these interactions are funny because how would a sad, normal-looking white dude meet all these crazies? Only in Hawaii, right? Right? Haha.

Here’s another crazy coincidence: Sarah Marshall and her new British rock star boyfriend are staying in Hawaii, too. In the same hotel! Uh oh. Awkward. And a rock star with an accent? How will Peter ever compete with that? Will he stop drowning his sorrows in alcohol and win Sarah back? Will he continue to drown his sorrows in alcohol and win her back? Will he continue to drown his sorrows in alcohol and win over the local hotel clerk girl? Will they all drink alcohol while Sarah grows jealous? Will she later try to give Peter a blowjob because she wants him back?

At this point, the breaths of the acclaimed filmmaker are becoming shallow. His body is starting to lose control, and vomit has encrusted the collar of his hospital gown. Soon-Yi has not noticed because she is engrossed in the blowjob scene. It is pivotal for the course of the plot. Will Peter’s penis get hard so his blonde ex-girlfriend can suck it? Or will he leave the room and get with the hotel girl, who has brown hair?

Woody Allen dies, and the answers to 10 of my rhetorical questions will be revealed when you check the Apatow clan’s version of everything a classic Hollywood film should be, and more! It’s predictable, full of all kinds of funny jokes,and heteronormative (I hope that doesn’t give away the ending). Bonus: tropical fun in the sun. That’s right, I’m talking bikinis!

So what’s the problem? If the picture shows have churned out a hit like this one, the future of movies is a rising sun. True. As they continue down this path and as sure as the sun rises, boy will always get girl, ethnicity and sexuality will be pure spectacle and to disguise the lack of originality, up-to-date characters will be sugarcoated and growing in their alienation, pornography and self-medication.

The best parts of this movie included the relevance of an underlying dissatisfaction in the characters’ lives, as well as Peter’s choice to produce his puppet rock opera about the love life of Dracula. I would say that if you want to see a romantic comedy, keep the eight bucks you would spend to see this movie and buy a VHS of “Annie Hall.”

Ah, but who can forget the refrain of the Boy Scouts, America’s heroes? Be prepared. Just like the last few movies from the makers of “40 Year Old Virgin” and “Superbad” and the next few to come, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” will make you laugh out loud. Buy an extra large popcorn and butter yourself up for the backslide into the colorful dump of recycled material. The flux capacitor is set to 88. I’ll see you in the future.

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