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Cast: Kristen Bell, Odette Yustman, Sigourney Weaver, Betty White, Kristin Chenoweth, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christine Lakin, Cloris Leachman, Victor Garber, James Wolf, Patrick Duffy
When a young woman realizes her brother is about to marry the girl who bullied her in high school, she sets out to expose the fiancée's true colors. Look at the comediennes lined up here, aside from Kristen Bell: Sigourney Weaver will play Odette Yustman's aunt; Jamie Lee Curtis and Betty White will play Bell's mother and grandmother, respectively; Kristen Chenoweth will be the wedding planner. We imagine the comedic sum total will be greater than Ms. Bell's last 5 movies combined. Release Date: 24 September 2010 Take a look at what's new today! REVIEW: YOU AGAIN is the bizarro male driven comedy film. All they did was switch the roles Ben Stiller (played by Kristen Bell), Owen Wilson (played by Odette Yustman), Robert DeNiro (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Christopher Walken (played by Sigourney Weaver) would play. And I think this was a great idea because women can be just as funny as men can if they get the chance contrary to many opinions in the inside offices in Hollywood.
BUT.... if you did take this script and switch the genders and turn it into a Stiller/Wilson/DeNiro/Walken combo comedy that audiences seem to love, this film would probably be a gigantic hit and perhaps start off a whole new franchise. I can see Stiller now playing the nerd in high school turned successful executive going back and finding out his sister is marrying his high school bully, played by the cocky and charming Owen Wilson. Then his dad, Robert Deniro, a successful family breadwinner and happily married man must confront his own high school nemesis in the millionaire Christopher Walken. Can't you just see this movie? Audiences would eat it up. But why aren't they eating up the female version of your typical Hollywood comedy? YOU AGAIN isn't executed badly at all. It's a little clunky at times, but almost all comedies have clunky moments because it's hard to maintain a streamline plot while there are those needed laughs every 15 seconds. But for some reason the clunky moments jump out to the screen more than say the Fockers movies. Why is this?
It's because it's we're used to seeing men in comedies. Look at all the popular shows on TV today (in 2010). Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory and The Office are the top 5 comedies on television. Four out of the five shows have prodominent male leads and 30 Rock does have a female lead but the most popular character is played by Alec Baldwin. And the only reason that 30 Rock has a female lead is because she is also the creator and head writer. So I guess that's what you have to do if you're a women in comedy these days: create your own character and show. And in the movies. Think about the last time you had a female main character in a comedy movie? Or much less a female character in a comedy who didn't play the worried wife or the bitchy under-sexed boss of the male lead! There is a troubling problem here. Women are getting the shaft and most of them don't seem to care. Why don't women seem to care? Of course there are exceptions in Tina Fey, Ellen DeGeneres and the new flavor of the month. But, there are NOT in the movies. And if they are, they aren't playing the lead role. It's the Jennifer Aniston factor. Here is a women who continues to play the second fiddle roles in comedy movies. The non-funny roles that women play for the sole purpose for the male comedy lead to have a romantic interest and external "I need to have her" conflict. She is only in the movie to make sure the male lead can have sex with and/or pawn after her so the audience members hold interest. And of course it's usually played by a guy who would be way out of her league in the real world. A actress like Jennifer Aniston never does anything funny in any of her movies and could never carry a movie herself. But they keep casting her because she's harmless and would never upstage the funny guy. She's like the yes-man in the corporate offices who are only there to tell their boss how great he is. We need to do something about this? The reason why Hollywood doesn't make films like YOU AGAIN is because no one sees these films. And that's the bottom line. If people started to go see female driven comedy movies in droves, it would make them in droves. It's all about supply and demand. But how come all you women out there aren't going to these movies? Because you need to or else films like YOU AGAIN will come once every 4-5 years instead of once every 1-2 years. Pretty soon all the young boys growing up will only see women playing roles where they giggle at everything and always where super short skirts. And then they'll expect to marry those women who don't exist in the real world. And if they do, there aren't the type of person you want to build a life with. YOU AGAIN is a flawed film. There's no question about it. But it has a set of REAL WOMEN who play characters with REAL EMOTIONS. What a great concept! Now all we need to get it people in the seats.
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