TAG TEAM REVIEW: I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS

Being told that Ewan McGregor is doing excellent work in this film, as well as his role in The Ghost Writer earlier this year, gives me hope that he is getting bigger and better. He was too good in Shallow Grave and Trainspotting to be doing STAR WARS movies.

I grew up watching Jim Carey on In Living Color and I still dig Dumb and Dumber and parts of Ace Ventura. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a high note of his career after the early nineties. That's just opinion and for me there hasn't been a role of his that I'm as eager to see as this one.

Greatness:

Really great review. It's too bad about America's homophobia, because this really truly could be a big comedic hit.

It has every right to be a hit.

I loved this. Carey was terrific, i was only disappointed in the role McGregor had. After the second act, his role asks nothing of him.

Spot on review. From the way it was handled by the distributors I half expected it to be Shorbus 2. Instead it's just a kind of warm, kind of funny romantic comedy that just happens to be about gay guys. And I say kind of because even though I found both Carrey and McGregor to be great it didn't work out that much for me.

And you should see the cover of the DVD here in Europe. One of the worst covers ever created.

After years of settling for watching stuff on my laptop, I finally bought a Region 2 player just so I could have one for the UK release of this and Ewan's Scarlet and Black. I hate that it won't go more mainstream here in the states. It's funny, sweet, touching, and incredibly entertaining.

And Young Adam and Big Fish and Down With Love and Velvet Goldmine...

Okay I'll stop.

This was a good time. Carrey and McGregor were surprisingly convincing together, not just as a gay couple but as a couple couple. Too often I'm asked by a movie to simply accept that two characters are in-love without the proof, but here there's a lot of time spent developing their relationship. What's even better is there's a lot of time spent on them creating ideas of each other (Carrey seems to think of McGregor as his little pet, McGregor is in awe of Carrey).

 

The tonal shifts were handled pretty swiftly, with only a few jarring moments. The sex scenes weren't jarring for being of the gay variety so much as they were just very realistic in general (still shocked by mainstream actors doing what amounts to soft-core porn, see my comment in the Love & Other Drugs thread). By the time Carrey is diagnosed with AIDS I had invested in these characters so much that I felt both betrayed and grateful when it turned out to be an act.

 

Love, as well, that by the end of the movie (and, I suppose, in reality) he's considered to be a Mr. Miracle-type escape artist, to the point where he's stuck in solitary for the rest of his life.

lol agree with you dear....