The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
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‘Bridesmaids’ delivers wit and belly laughs “Bridesmaids” is being touted as a girly version of “The Hangover,” another raunchy comedy about a group of misfits getting wild and crazy before a friend’s wedding. But “Bridesmaids,” co- written by and starring Kristen Wiig of “Saturday Night Live,” is more nu- anced, more sophisticated and just as funny. Wiig and a cast that includes Book looks to ‘fix’ friendships Most people hope and expect to find soulmates ro- mantically, but they’re often willing to hang out with a group of confidantes who are no more compatible with them than a bad toenail fungus. Raise your expecta- tions, advises psychologist Andrea Bonior in her new book, “The Friendship Fix: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Losing, and Keeping Up With Your Friends.” Bonior provides a road map for improving your social life — and that sometimes means the dreaded friend breakup. Here are her five hints that it’s time to reex- amine a relationship. Contributed former “SNL” colleague Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy manage to elicit empathy along with the laughs. Wiig is ringleader Annie, a gloomy 30-ish Milwaukeean whose bakery just went out of business. Her love life consists of sex-only sessions with a cad played by Jon Hamm, and she turns off customers at the jewelry store where she works with a running doomsday commentary. When her best friend Lillian (Rudolph) asks her to be the maid of honor at her wedding, things go from bad to disastrous. Annie and the bridesmaids, including frosty rival Helen (Byrne) and corpulent hell-raiser Megan (McCa- rthy), embark on an adventure that includes a sickening visit to a Brazilian restaurant, a side-splitting airplane ride and a garish bridal shower with a mini-Eiffel Tower and a giant fountain spewing chocolate syrup. The film is ably directed by Paul Feig, the creator of TV’s cult classic “Freaks and Geeks,” and features standout work by Chris O’Dowd, as a gentle Irish cop who fancies Annie, and the late Jill Clayburgh as her eccentric mom. Ferrell gives gutsy dramatic performance, but can’t save film When funnymen turn serious, the results are “Bridesmaids,” from Universal Pictures, opened Friday across the U.S. _ The Washington Post sometimes laughable. Remember Woody Al- len vainly trying to channel Ingmar Bergman in “Interiors”? Will Ferrell attempts the tricky transition in “Everything Must Go,” where he plays a down-and-out salesman whose wife leaves him right after he loses his job and dumps all his possessions on the front lawn, which becomes his temporary home. Contributed Ferrell ditches the goofy shtick that made him a huge comedy star in films like “Old School,” “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights.” He gives a solemn, gutsy perfor- mance as a beer-guzzling Everyman trying to make the best of a desperate situation by pay- ing a local latchkey kid (Christopher Jordan Wallace, son of the late rapper Notorious B.I.G.) to help him sell all his junk, including his fishing rod, blender and reclining chair. Wallace and Rebecca Hall, who plays a pregnant neighbor, are fine in sup- porting roles. But the movie — an expansion of a Raymond Carver short story by first-time filmmaker Dan Rush — is a one-note affair that stutters and drags toward its wistful ending. “Everything Must Go,” from Roadside Attractions, opened Friday across the U.S. _ The Washington Post 1. You do not like the person you become when you’re around that friend. Maybe you feel passive-aggressive or even downright ag- gressive, or you notice that you have a sharper edge to you. Perhaps you feel petty or jealous, or must admit that you don’t really seem to want the best for your friend. This may manifest itself not just in regular flickers of jealousy but in an overarching feeling that you don’t want her to suc- ceed. 2. Your friend does not seem to appreciate the person you are. You find yourself constantly embarrassed by how late you sleep or how big your feet are or the fact that you couldn’t tell anise from arsenic. You feel underappreciated for your real self and have a nagging urge to cover up what you perceive to be your “flaws.” (Or maybe you want to flaunt them aggressively in your friend’s face, just to get some pleasure from getting on her nerves.) You’re embarrassed when you say the wrong thing, or “screw up” something (which seems to happen a lot), or you have the nagging feeling that your friend seems to appreciate you only conditionally. 3. The words you would use to describe that friend are not flattering. You find yourself dwelling on unfavorable characteristics or making fun of the person in your head. You feel condescension or resentment toward her, not just from one particular event, but in general. You’re not laughing with her — you’re laughing at her. Let’s be honest: You just don’t seem to like her anywhere. 4. The friendship feels totally unbalanced. You feel that reciprocity in your relationship has gradually been lost or was never there to begin with. This could be because you feel that you are pulling all the weight in the relationship. Other times, it’s that someone is always trying to do so much for you, and you don’t feel as interested in returning the favor; her kindness feels more like a burden than a gift. 5. Your friend is bringing out bad behaviors in you. When you’re around her, you drink a lot more, feel your creativity stifled, try too hard to conform, or perhaps become more cruel and dishonest. Maybe there are more tangible markers, like your job or grades are more in jeopardy the more time you spend with this person. Either way, this reeks of “bad influence.” (From “The Friendship Fix,” by Andrea Bonior, Ph.D. Copyright (c) 2011 by the author and reprinted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.) May 19, 2011 O-Town Scene 21