The Sitter / Cyrus Double Pack DVD

The SitterThe Sitter may be the last movie featuring the "heavy" version of Jonah Hill. With the many pounds he's since lost, many movie-industry minds are wondering if the Jonah Hill-ness of his screen persona, flaunted so prodigiously in the likes of Knocked Up, Get Him to the Greek, and Superbad, has disappeared from the scales too. But until Jonah 2.0 gets his chance, The Sitter couldn't capture his trash-talking, man-child, king-of-comeback essence more boldly, more lovingly, or with such blatant vulgarity. Hill plays Noah, a jobless twentysomething layabout still... living with his divorced mum along with the delusion that he has a hot girlfriend (she only keeps him around for oral talents that are unrelated to speech). As a favour that might help Mum with her own sad love life, he agrees to a one-night babysitting stand for the neighbours and their three wildly dissimilar but equally messed-up children. The night progresses through slapstick, farce, adventure, romance, danger, pathos, and eventual catharsis for everyone. (Unfortunately there's a touch of maudlin, sentimental corn in the mix too.) The children are as important to the escapades as Noah and are the primary source of his stupid/smooth shtick that mixes clever put-downs, terrified jabbering, and hilariously relentless patter of urban slang vernacular. Noah's spoiled charges are two boys--an anxiety-wracked 13-year-old and a 10-year-old Nicaraguan adoptee with severe anger and pyromania issues--and a precocious 8-year-old-girl who's heavily into make-up, hip-hop, and a score of other age-inappropriate behaviours. As the four of them hurtle deeper into the night, the situations become more antically treacherous with drug dealers, gangster thugs, police officers, and upper-crust snobs as part of the mix, along with their knives, cocaine, diamonds, alcohol, and guns. Director David Gordon Green, whose unusual career has gone from art house (George Washington, All the Real Girls) to raunchy bromance (Pineapple Express, Your Highness), supplants formal technique with the off-kilter and oft-unseemly style of Jonah Hill vs. the world. Green sometimes evokes the flow of surreality that Martin Scorsese took to unnatural ends in After Hours, only with more dirty bits and a lot more full-on crude laughs. Nearly everyone in the large supporting cast makes an excellent foil for the star's constant streetwise riffing, especially Sam Rockwell, who digs in to his role as a psychotic but emotionally conflicted drug dealer always on the lookout for new best friends. But it is Jonah Hill who sits firmly, even heavily in the driver's seat. It's a great place to flash his better-honed actorly chops along with his beloved version 1.0 comedic gift. --Ted Fry CyrusMumblecore auteurs the Duplass brothers (Baghead, The Puffy Chair) dip their toes in the precarious waters of Hollywood by casting well-known actors in Cyrus. But their devotion to clumsy, uncomfortable people remains: John (John C. Reilly, Step Brothers) has barely left his apartment in the seven years since Jamie (Catherine Keener, Lovely & Amazing) divorced him, so Jamie demands he come to a party--where, miraculously, he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler), who seems like the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, Molly comes with some baggage: her 22-year-old son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill, Superbad). To say Molly and Cyrus are close is an understatement, and John finds himself in a battle of wills with Molly as the prize. The Duplass brothers seek a kind of cinematic simplicity--to call it purity would be too highbrow for these aggressively pedestrian filmmakers--and when it works, it brings the viewer in intimate contact with life in its ordinary, essential glory. When it doesn't work, it's just dull. Despite its flatfooted plot, Cyrus works pretty well. The higher calibre of the cast helps--Reilly, Tomei, Hill, and Keener are all excellent, and much of the movie is genuinely funny. Don't expect elegance, but sometimes, something plain can please. --Bret Fetzer [show more]

Read More