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Austin Film Festival Day 2

Harold Ramis brought his latest film to the festival and The Ice Harvest is quite a departure. Somewhere between crime noir and Cohen-esque black comedy, it never quite commits to either of them and therein finds a primary fault. Covering that fault, the cast plays perfectly. John Cusack, Billy Bob Thorton, Oliver Platt and Randy Quaid are a real attraction, defining and seperating their roles. The other fault of the film is a fast paced first act followed by two medium paced acts. It’s hard to switch gears like that. Ramis does a good job getting his plot across and having his cast deliver but he just doesn’t have a good sense of pacing. Now that I think about it, that’s historically true for him with the possible exception of Groundhog Day. (Which he seemed really uncomfortable accepting applause for. Somehow I think he doesn’t love that film the way I do.) If you like crime noir, or the kind of dark comedy films that Cusack seems to like doing, ala Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil or Grosse Point Blank you might enjoy this film.

The highlight of the day was a segment called “Judd Apatow Presents…” that consisted mainly of Apatow showing outtakes from The 40 Year Old Virgin and a pilot that was never picked up. (Oh, and James Franco and Harold Ramis in the audience with the rest of us pleebs.) Without a doubt T4YOV is the funniest movie out this year, and it would be hard to beat. The DVD will surpass it. The number of things Apatow cut that are side-splittingly funny are almost as lengthy as the original film. It will all be innappropriate and leave the disc “unrated” but, oh, so funny. (Read below the fold for my favorite thing that I shouldn’t repeat in mixed company.) Apatow prefers to let his actors improvise and shoots scenes repeatedly with different punchlines. Seth Rogan was responsible for creating lengthy cue card lists for Carell’s filthy outburts during the hair removal scene and for the sexual position nicknames scene. He must be multi-talented. The pilot was funny but unnoticeable except for a hilarious role where Judge Reinhold playing himself as an out-of-work actor. (ah, and a dog-humping scene that would have only been funnier with farts and monkeys.)

My favorite T4YOV excised clip is from the masturbation sequence where Steve Carell imagines a porn star removing her clothes and explaining, “don’t be nervous, Andy, a vagina is just another body part” and then she points and indcates as she says “vagina, elbow, vagina, elbow”.

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