Martin's Musings

There’s a game I like to play from time to time called “Fun with Facial Hair.”

The rules are simple: Stop shaving around my mouth, grow a goatee, and see how long I can stand it before my appearance is a complete turnoff, either to myself or to others.

Why do I do this? I’m not really sure.

Sometimes it’s because I’m lazy and don’t feel like shaving (though having to “sculpt” the goatee does take some work).

Sometimes it’s because I need a new look for a little while; friends have taken to calling me “Evil Martin” when the goatee is there, and I kinda like that.

But if the folks in Morgan Spurlock’s new movie Mansome are to be believed, there are three main reasons:

1. I do it to assert my masculinity.
2. I grow hair on my face simply because I can.
3. And I do it to show I’m a man, not a boy.

So there you go. Grunt. Continue reading →

Dear Sacha Baron Cohen,

When most of America first met you in the film Borat, your brand of comedy was new and novel.

The way you didn’t just play a character, you became that person — on screen and in every promotional appearance — was a brilliant display of performance art. You drew laughs from our discomfort, and I loved it.

Your next such movie, Brüno, was less successful largely because you basically did the same thing all over again, just with a gay German fashion reporter instead of a clueless Kazakh reporter. Yawn.

Now you’re starring in The Dictator, playing Admiral General Aladeen, a despot from the fictional North African country of Wadiya, who sees himself as a peer and friend of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, etc. The film is a satire of current world politics, a sendup of the Middle Eastern dictator culture, and again, you’ve been out promoting the film in character.

You’ve been at the Oscars, where you dumped Kim Jong-il’s “ashes” on Ryan Seacrest, and on Saturday Night Live with your Hugo director, Martin Scorsese. And you’ve made multiple other appearances as Aladeen, making many of the same jokes we saw in the film’s trailer and that we see in the film itself.

If your intention is to shock and offend us, then why ruin the gags for us before we’ve even paid for a ticket?

I’m sorry to be the one who has to tell you, but at this point, it’s not just “been there, done that” … it’s over. Continue reading →

In the new film The Five-Year Engagement, Jason Segel plays Tom, the kind of nice-guy boyfriend that most women would love to find.

Actually, he’s a bit too nice, and a bit too in love with his fiancée, Violet (Emily Blunt), and that makes him a bit of a pushover, which is why Tom ends up quitting his job as a chef in San Francisco, leaving his brother and family behind, delaying his wedding, and moving with Violet to Michigan, where she’s been accepted into a two-year post-doctorate program.

Awwww … how sweet of him.

But when Violet’s position gets extended, Tom’s life becomes even more of a shred of what it once was, and soon these two lovebirds are struggling to stay together.

They’re not the only ones. Continue reading →