The Trip to Italy (2014): written by Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, and Michael Winterbottom; directed by Michael Winterbottom; starring Steve Coogan (Steve Coogan), Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon), Rosie Fellner (Lucy), Claire Keelan (Emma), and Timothy Leach (Joe Coogan) (2014): Sequel to 2011's The Trip sends British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing 'themselves,' on another restaurant-visiting road trip, this time in Italy.
Highlights include more dueling Michael Caine impersonations, a hilarious take on the vocal problems of Tom Hardy and Christian Bale in The Dark Knight Rises, and some ventriloquism in Pompeii. All that and a colourful travelogue of food, scenery, Alanis Morrisette, and middle-age angst. Highly recommended.
The Trip (2010): written by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon; directed by Michael Winterbottom: This hilarious fake-reality movie about British comic actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as they take a restaurant tour of the Lake District is a classic of partially improvised buddy movies.
You'll quote, or at least try to quote, many moments of comic oneupsmanship in which Coogan and Brydon offer duelling versions of Michael Caine. Coogan will be a know-it-all. Brydon will memorize lines of poetry the night before they visit sites associated with Coleridge and Wordsworth. Coogan will bristle at the fact that Brydon is better-known than he is, despite Coogan's critical acclaim for characters that include Alan Partridge.
The movie was boiled down from a 6-episode BBC miniseries, leaving about 20 minutes of further material out there for you to track down. As is, The Trip is one of the funniest dialogue-centered film comedies ever made, a definite Top 100 pick. And such great shots of gourmet food and scenery! You were only supposed to blow the doors off! Highly recommended.
The Trip To Spain (2017): written by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon; directed by Michael Winterbottom: The third Trip movie (after The Trip (2010) and The Trip To Italy (2014)) finds British comedians and reluctant pals Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon touring restaurants in Spain for a week as part of both an article and Coogan's work on a memoir of his youthful sojourns through Spain. And such great scenery!
Things are a bit more melancholy this time around, with Coogan especially feeling the weight of age and Hollywood disappointment despite the critical and commercial success (including an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay) of Philomena, the Judi Dench movie he adapted and co-wrote and co-starred in prior to this film. As Brydon notes to Coogan's manager when she phones him to ask where Coogan has disappeared to at the end of the film, "Oh, he's probably found a nun and is telling her all about Judi Dench."
Despite that melancholy, there are still many moments of improvised comedy, dueling impressions of people that include Roger Moore and Mick Jagger, a reprise of their duelling Michael Caine bit from The Trip, some musings on dinosaurs and the Spanish Civil War, a call-back to Coogan's obsession with crampons, and a lot of shots of gourmet food and scenery. The last two minutes or so pay off as a riff on the biography of Miguel Cervantes, who has come up a lot in the movie because, you know, Spain. Highly recommended.
The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom, starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as themselves (2011): British comedians Coogan and Brydon, playing themselves, tour some haute cuisine restaurants in Northern England for a week in service to a newspaper article Coogan has been contracted to do, comedically one-upping each other all the way. This terrifically funny movie was originally a six-part BBC miniseries, edited down here for tehatrical distribution. Along with Bridesmaids, it's the funniest movie of 2011.
Coogan plays the somewhat aloof, Byronic comedian, mocking Brydon's schtick as the Rich Little of Great Britain. Brydon plays the devoted family man who seems content to entertain through comedic mimickry. Coogan is a bit of a blowhard; Brydon is a bit socially awkward. Together, they make a great comedic duo. There's even a bit of character development, though it's wisely kept muted, without the 'big' moments that would probably occur in an American film.
One of the running competitions between the two involves trying to do the best Michael Caine imitation while also explaining how one does this, and how Caine's voice has changed over the years. Others involve James Bond imitations and various bits of jazzy riffing on assorted pop culture topics.
The food -- elegantly prepared and often hilariously precious -- also supplies moments of wit and counterpoint, especially early on when Brydon gets Coogan to admit that he actually isn't much of a foodie, and that the only critical insight he can offer about a bowl of soup is that it's very tomato-y and very soupy. I wish this were longer. Highly recommended.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, written by Michele and Kieran Mulroney, based on the characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle; directed by Guy Ritchie; starring Robert Downey, Jr. (Holmes), Jude Law (Watson), Stephen Fry (Mycroft), Noomi Rapace (Simza Heron) and Jared Harris (Moriarty) (2011): Guy Ritchie's Holmes is basically a twitchy Victorian James Bond with more brain power than 007. Here, Holmes must foil a massive plot by his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, a respected mathematics professor and political consultant who is secretly "the Napoleon of Crime."
The plot itself isn't new to Holmes pastiches and homages: Moriarty is trying to foment a World War in 1891. Oh, and Watson is getting married. Downey and Law keep it all fairly light; Stephen Fry plays Holmes's older, smarter brother Mycroft as a more politically committed Oscar Wilde; Noomi Rapace (Lisabeth Salender in the Swedish adaptation of the Millennium trilogy) doesn't have a lot to do as the only Romany fortune-teller in history with a Swedish accent, though she does look great in a variety of hats. Weightless, escapist fun with some nice set-pieces. Recommended.
The Adjustment Bureau, written and directed by George Nolfi, based on the story "Adjustment Team" by Philip K. Dick; starring Matt Damon (David Norris), Emily Blunt (Elise Sellas), Anthony Mackie (Harry Mitchell), John Slattery (Richardson) and Terence Stamp (Thompson) (2011): Hollywood tends to like Philip K. Dick for the bare bones of a plot and not much else. Dick's novels and short stories don't exactly teem with people as good-looking as Matt Damon and Emily Blunt playing characters with sexy, exotic and/or world-shaking jobs. With The Adjustment Bureau, it's as if the makers of Blade Runner had changed Rick Deckard's character from a private detective to the Man Who Would Be King of All the Popes.
So the movie-makers of this extremely loose adaptation of a ten-page Dick short story called "Adjustment Team" (loose in the sense that it makes Minority Report look like a staged reading of the Dick short story it was based on) take a basic idea that isn't entirely peculiar to Dick (vaguely magical, behind-the-scenes bureaucratic types actually decide everybody's fates down to the most minor of details if necessary -- this is the Adjustment Team, whom the movie renames the Adjustment Bureau probably simply because Hollywood screenwriters will rename or rewrite anything given half a chance, and generally fuck it up while loudly declaiming how they improved the original narrative. Stephen Zaillian, I'm looking at you and about half your adaptations).
Then they add a mushy spiritual element that is decidedly not in the original story, and have Matt Damon be a US Presidential hopeful and Emily Blunt the most important modern dance person in, like, ever. But only if The Plan is followed, shepherded by the behatted army of Adjustment fellas.
None of this works at all well with Dick's recurring focus on ordinary people in extraordinary situations, often just trying to get along. Because it's Matt Damon! The powers that be want him to be President! The Chairman, ie. God, wants him to be President!!! Who needs ordinary people in a baffling world of shifting realities when Jason Bourne is available to run like crazy at the climax?
Oh, and the various members of the Adjustment Bureau wear hats. Because hats allow them to teleport from location to location. Despite the fact that the members of the Adjustment Bureau are supernatural beings of some sort. They still have to have those hats! And their precognitive powers don't work in rain or near water. Basically, they're a really incompetent Green Lantern Corps. At least a ring can't blow off your head in a stiff breeze! At least the colour yellow doesn't cover 2/3's of the Earth's surface!
Matt Damon's fate gets screwed up because the guy micro-managing that fate, Anthony Mackie (in the unfortunate role of The Saintly, Super-powered Negro), falls asleep on the job. History will apparently fall apart if Matt Damon doesn't become President of the USA. The Adjustment Bureau apparently doesn't have back-up plans. It's all one plan, baby! Much pointless running around and stuff later, everything works out fine. The End. Not recommended.
The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom, starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as themselves (2011): British comedians Coogan and Brydon, playing themselves, tour some haute cuisine restaurants in Northern England for a week in service to a newspaper article Coogan has been contracted to do, comedically one-upping each other all the way. This terrifically funny movie was originally a six-part BBC miniseries, edited down here for tehatrical distribution. Along with Bridesmaids, it's the funniest movie of 2011.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, written by Michele and Kieran Mulroney, based on the characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle; directed by Guy Ritchie; starring Robert Downey, Jr. (Holmes), Jude Law (Watson), Stephen Fry (Mycroft), Noomi Rapace (Simza Heron) and Jared Harris (Moriarty) (2011): Guy Ritchie's Holmes is basically a twitchy Victorian James Bond with more brain power than 007. Here, Holmes must foil a massive plot by his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, a respected mathematics professor and political consultant who is secretly "the Napoleon of Crime." 
The Adjustment Bureau, written and directed by George Nolfi, based on the story "Adjustment Team" by Philip K. Dick; starring Matt Damon (David Norris), Emily Blunt (Elise Sellas), Anthony Mackie (Harry Mitchell), John Slattery (Richardson) and Terence Stamp (Thompson) (2011): Hollywood tends to like Philip K. Dick for the bare bones of a plot and not much else. Dick's novels and short stories don't exactly teem with people as good-looking as Matt Damon and Emily Blunt playing characters with sexy, exotic and/or world-shaking jobs. With The Adjustment Bureau, it's as if the makers of Blade Runner had changed Rick Deckard's character from a private detective to the Man Who Would Be King of All the Popes.
