The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, April 13, 2009 - 5A From X-Men' to instrospection "Can you imagine what that ass would look like in focus?" Good cop, mall cop Seth Rogen makes a disturbed character oddly hilarious and endearing By BLAKE GOBLE Daily Arts Writer "Observe and Report" challenges its audi- ence to laugh at a mall cop with bipolar disorder who *** brandishes guns, beats the tar out of teens and slaps a Observe Polaroid of a shriveled penis on his forehead in defeat. and Report Understand and accept these At Showcase outrageous truths, and the and Qualityl6 film becomes palatable. Find Warner Bros. them funny, and "Observe and Report" is actually quite brilliant. From Jody Hill, the up-and-coming force behind "The Foot Fist Way" and HBO's underdog series "Eastbound & Down," comes "Observe and Report," an original movie about a security guard and his ridiculous road to redemption. Meet Ronnie Barnhardt (the red-hot Seth Rogen, "Pineapple Express"), Forest Ridge Mall's"head of security." Ronnie's got problems - a lot of problems. The mall's being terror- ized by a returning flasher and a night robber. Ronnie's freaking out because local police are investigating the matters he thinks he should be dealing with. And meanwhile, Ronnie's mom is an alcoholic, his dad's out of the picture, the love of his life won't reciprocate and Ronnie himself harbors a dream to become an actual cop. Ronnie must cope with all of his stresses and move on with his life. He must win. Sounds like prototypical "cuh-razy" comedy stuff. But Ronnie's movie uses itsjokes to sting. It's not easy at first. It's actually rather unnerv- ing. But "Observe and Report" is quite good at what it does: inciting nervous laughter. Heroin in the mall bathroom? Gulp. Racial slurs aimed at the mall's non-white employ- ees? Umm. People getting their arms suddenly, viciously broken as comedy? Only Zack Snyder ("Watchmen") can do that, and even then only unintentionally. A great primer for this film's humor is the psychological profiling Ronnie undergoes during his police entrance exams. He's asked why he wants to join the force by a police analyst. Ronnie, in so many words, describes how he dreams mostnights of a giant, black, cancerous, pus-filled cloud enshrouding the land. And when that cloud arrives, he must do God's work and lay to waste the people who brought the cloud to him. But Ronnie won't accept thanks; he thinks of himself as just a "man with a shotgun." Whoa. Ha ha? Now, if that reeks of Travis Bickle or Emily Dickinson, there's a reason. Besides being a bit- ter comedy, "Observe and Report" is the latest, greatest work of the "Cinema of Isolation," or rather films about the fascinatingly disabled. It's OK to like Ronnie. He's not an inten- tionally warped fella. He's bipolar and often acceptable to laugh at. Rogen wants that. But he is an angry loner, and Rogen's surprising- ly strong performance makes "Observe and Report" a deep work. "Taxi Driver," "My Left Foot" and even "The Miracle Worker" would get along nicely with it. On a final note, there's been some rumblings about "Observe and Report" being "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2." It's being brushed off as just anoth- er kooky mall caper. Take it from someone who actually saw "Blart:" Paul Blart can suck it. Ronnie Barnhadt's our broken man. See him. Watch his movie. Laugh, linger and think about the forgotten folks of the everyday. Mall cops can be hilariously depressing. Just think about that before seeing "Observe and Report." recently read Adrian Tom- ine's graphic novel "Short- comings," a present given to me because I have been reading a great deal of graphic novels lately. Graphic novels have intrigued me as an art form since I was 13, when I picked - up the first book WIUMEY installment of POW "The New X-Men" by Grant Morrison. I suppose I've always loved graphic novels and comics; the former present the narratives in one complete dose, and the latter present it with the suspense of waiting for month-by-month seri- al installments. I've had my share of both - of excitedly buying a comic's issues 1-10 pre-packaged in a glossy, soft-cover book, and of waiting for my "X-Men" comic to come in the mail every month, only to be disappointed in the fact that at its close I'd be waiting, sometimes mid-caption balloon, for what came next month. Looking back, it was like an addictive, sci-fi soap opera. Drama! Intrigue! Murder! I still held on, even while being sorely aware of the plot devices, the somewhat predictable twists and turns and the cliffhangers that were immediately resolved within the first page of the next install- ment. But there was still a child- ish part of me that endured all of the month-by-month suspense because I sympathized with this world. I wanted to have super- powers when I was 14 (and even now, at 21), and I'm sure many others can sympathize with that feeling too. I dropped my subscription of "The Ultimate X-Men" when I was 16, aware of how the series wasn't keeping my interest like it had a year or two before. From there, left without a monthly comic to read, I moved from the comic world into the world of graphic novels. It was there that I became increasingly aware that the word "graphic novel" enveloped much more than the expected fantasy, sci-fi or superhero genres. The graphic novel, which once trans- ported me from one world to another (a world where men shot lasers out of their eyes), could now transport me inward. The graphic novel could also allow for a great deal of introspection into the mundane, delving into the details of a world within our own instead of transporting me out of it. A few years ago I read the "Optic Nerve" comics by Adrian Tomine, an Asian-American graphic novelist whose work has appeared almost everywhere, including the cover of the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and on the cover of Yo La Tengo's live-in-studio covers album "Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics." Tomine is known for his crisp, subtle illustrations that visually map out and emulate the multifaceted anatomy of a scene, a gesture or an emotion. A single, two-by-one inch panel in "Shortcomings," for example, contains a speech bubble reading "Okay" and an Asian man and a Caucasian woman looking at one another intensely, eyes somewhat closed, lips pursed; this panel embodies the complex height of an infinite amount of sexual tension related to infidelity, race relations and sexuality that a thousand words on the matter could never come close to fully expressing. The dreamy, familiar look from one person to another covers enough complex and emo- tionally grounded material, it seems, to occupy an entire Marvel Universe. Tomine's graphic novels made me want to return to fiction writ- ing. His ability to somehow find the oddest, sparkling moment in the mundane has always intrigued me. I've always admired his - and other graphic novel writers' - odd and paradoxical ability to be unsentimental while telling a story with such sentimental undertones, hitting on points such as nostalgia, love or jealousy with- out getting "gushy," "cheesy" or, scarily enough, "emo." It's the art- ist's ability to stretch out, expand and renew the boy-meets-girl or the I-shouldn't-have-cheated-on- you tale that make stories worth- while, because, essentially, we have read their basic, bare-bones plots before at one time or anoth- er, but perhaps not in the particu- lar way Tomine presents. As for those interested in graphic novels that examine life in its confusion and complexity, I Going beyond the Marvel Universe to find a different view. would suggest Allison Bechdel's graphic memoir "Fun Home," which is primarily a personal examination of Bechdel's neglect- ful, homosexual father who com- mitted suicide when she was 20. Also worthwhile is Chris Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth," which, contrary to its title's suggestion of child- like fantasy, follows the adult Corrigan through his profoundly tragic, lonely life and his oddly liberating dreams of peach trees and robots. Finally, there's David B's "Epi- leptic" - a graphic memoir that covers the childhood of David B. and his disabled epileptic brother Jean-Christophe. It tells the story of Jean letting his life fall into the tragic hideaway of his illness, and, consequently, David letting his life fall into the tragic hideaway of his art. For me, the introspective qual- ity of Tomine's graphic novels created a new looking-glass through which to view the world. Simply put, graphic novels have done what literature, film and many other art pieces have done: They have presented the real and the mundane, and then renewed it for us, making it exciting and different. I'm glad to see that this medium has been making a great deal of headway, becoming a legit- imate art form in the eyes of the public, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other areas artists will examine it in the future, from the macrocosm of the Marvel Universe to the microcosm of the moment. Pow needs someone to illustrate her graphic memoirs. E-mail her at poww@umich.edu if you can draw. A Mirab-culous album By RHIANNON HALLER Daily Arts Writer "Soft and understated" is a phrase with negative conno- tations that are often hard to shake. If a poli- Miiah tician's speeches (a)spera were labeled as K such, that per- son's campaign would surely falter. If a boxer's punch was "soft and understated," that fighter wouldn't be landing a whole lot of championship belts anytime soon. In music, however, "soft and understated" can be a very good thing. (a)spera, singer-songwriter Mirah's latest, is a shining exam- ple of such a case with its patient instrumentation and soothing vocals. Mixing a menagerie of musical styles from countless eras and parts of the world, Mirah's new release keeps things interest- ing while holding onto a thread of cool collectedness. The album is rarely fast-paced, maintaining a constant string of calm, subtle songs. On "Edu- cation," gently plucked guitar strings and dawdling drums provide a picturesque pastoral background to Mirah's whispery singing. She "oohs" and "aahs" and "la-las" and "da-das" as vio- lins enter the scene, filling out the sound with eerie, drawn out chords. Subtlety in motion pops up again on "Shells." Like a lul- laby, the track features a harp and Mirah's sugary-sweet voice in a hushed, cherubic tone. Each song flows into the next without difficulty, tightening the already cohesive sound of the relaxing atmosphere that pervades the record. On the rare occasion when (a)spera speeds up into the land of the moderately paced, the accel- erated tempos don't sound out of place. On "Forest," which features distorted guitar riffs and ska-like horns, Mirah's voice remains waif-like and comforting, acting as a uniting factor that drives the song's deviation from the rest of the album. Mirah not only manages to mainta of the instrut also cri from a of the F of her singly musica " cu I soU with a drum ow a m erronec dispro: maraca tinctly snare the Me by the; voice in the intertwining nature keeping a whisper-like intonation album despite changes in while taking on a Middle Eastern mentation and pace, but harmony. Her vocalized Arabian eates variation with sounds rhythms become even more pro- round the world. "Country nounced at the song's culmination Future" is the best example as she begins to chant as though sampling of global flavors, she were leading a call to prayer encompassing several from a minaret. 1 styles. The song begins - The title of "Country of the Future" could not fit the song's global amalgamation any better. "Soft" and The track's m6lange of sounds echoes growing globalization and Lnderstated" multiculturalism taking place around the world. It is a vision of have never a nation where drastically diverse colors and creeds stand together .nded so cool. in tightly knit solidarity. (a)spera as a whole is a strik- ing example of aesthetic unity. The album concocts a mellow few short rolls on a steel tranquility with lilting vocals that mistakenly foreshad- and relaxing instrumentation, ellow reggae number. The maintaining a perfect balance of ous prediction is quickly similitude and fluctuation. It's a ven as Spanish guitars and mature and graceful effort, quite as kick in, spawning a dis- happy to occupy the backseat Latin sound. Militaristic with its soft, understated per- drums enter, contrasting sonality. But (a)spera's dexterous diterranean calm provided fusion of solidarity and alteration Spanish elements. Mirah's begs a more prominent place rid- straddles globalization, ing shotgun. Rogen, Hill and Faris discuss 'Observe and Report' By ANDREW LAPIN Daily Film Editor Anyone who sees the ads for "Observe and Report," with a silly-looking Seth Rogen in a mall cop uniform, might mistake the film for either another laid-back "Pineapple Express"-type comedy or, worse, a raunchy "Paul Blart" rip-off. But thanks to the efforts of writer-director Jody Hill ("The Foot Fist Way," TV's "Eastbown and Down") and the go-for-broke performances of leads Rogen as a mall cop hero and Anna Faris ("The House Bunny") as a trampy cosmetics employee, "Observe" occupies a deeper, filthier place in the R-rated comedy echelon. In three separate phone interviews, Hill, Rogen and Faris discussed the challenges and thrills of making such an out-of-the- box film, which follows a bipolar mall cop with delusions of grandeur as he attempts to track down a flasher. "(It felt) like we'd stolen abunch ofmovie cameras and film, and somehow they let us make this movie in this mall," Rogen said, summing up the experience of being able to mount such a bizarre production under the big studio eye of Warner Brothers. The actor, who admitted to doing almost no mall-cop research for his part, noted that making "Observe" felt more like an independent movie to him than anything he's ever done. For Hill, who funded his previous film "Foot Fist" out of his own pocket, this was his first experience making a movie on a budget. He likened landing Rogen and Faris to "an insurance policy" for getting the film made. Rogen is grateful for the touch that indie directors like Hill bring to mainstream comedies. "We're looking for people who are smarter than us, basically," Rogen said. Referencing films he co-wrote with writing partner Evan Goldberg, he added, Why Seth Rogen and Anna Faris are like a good insurance policy. "You know, there's a reason we don't direct the movies ourselves." "Observe and Report" has many unique influences for a comedy. Hill talked about his desire to write a movie that pushes its main character to the edge of sanity, but that would also work around the symbol of a mall - "because I really hate malls," he added with a laugh. His influences were '70s films by direc- tors like Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scors- ese. "Those movies deal with a lot of themes of isolation and loneliness and characters trying to come up with a code and feeling out a place in their time," he explained. Yet "Observe" has unique touches that make the film all its own, such as a drunken sex scene between Rogen and Faris that's played for squirm-inducing laughs. "I gave my parents a glass of wine and I showed them that scene and I was like, OK, brace yourself," laughed Faris, who notes that both her and Rogen were convinced the bit would never make it into the final cut. With all the blue humor going on, "Observe" is a far cry from the lovable ston- er fare Rogen's fans are used to seeing him. Even though this is a new type ofrole for the comedian, he admits that he doesn't have any grandiose career plans for himself. "I've never ended up playing the roles we've written for myself in the movies any- ways," Rogen explained. "So that just fur- ther adds a monkey wrench into our 'grand plan,' of which we don't have much of in the first place." Regardless of Rogen's ambitions, if there is a grand plan for "Observe," it seems to be to make the audience laugh out of pure discomfort as much as possible. With every boundary of taste the film pushed in a pre- view screening on Apr. 1, the packed house howled louder in disbelief. Now that the film is playing in theaters everywhere, it is sure to shock, offend and entertain.