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62 out of 85 people found the following review useful: Does exactly what it says on the tin, 27 October 2008 Author: marcusdean118 from United Kingdom
How To Lose Friends And Alienate People looked like it might be different to the average rom-com we get these days, it looked like it was going to be a smart and satirical look at mainstream Hollywood. It isn't and it wasn't. It's in exactly the same vein as Run Fat Boy Run. I'm not saying that it's a bad film because it isn't and neither is Run Fat Boy Run, but I just felt like I'd seen it all before.The start was rushed and lacked that flowing feeling. The middle was the best part, with a couple of laugh out loud moments. The end was a walking cliché which came straight from the school of Cameron Crowe (once again not always a bad thing).Simon Pegg stuck to his normal schtick when he's without Mr. Wright and Mr.Frost, playing the lovable but overall clumsy fish out of water Brit. Jeff Bridges was and still is The Dude so he can do no wrong. Kirsten Dunst stuck to her guns and Megan Fox was thrown in as the so hot at the moment crumpet.An entertaining film. Not bad. Not great either.
50 out of 68 people found the following review useful: Great fun, absorbing and thought provoking. Plenty of fascinating characters., 24 October 2008 Author: geoffgee from Sheffield, England.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was nowhere near as 'gross-out' a comedy as the trailer had led me to expect. I rapidly became absorbed in the unfolding of the narrative and remained engrossed throughout. Pacing of the more visual humorous content was, I thought, spot on. (I mean I got the impression I was witnessing Pegg's attempts at restoring lost control very much 'in real time', so to speak.) At other moments there was time allowed to share the main protagonists' (i.e. Pegg's and Dunst's) reflection on how events were affecting them and what had led them to where they now found themselves. All the characters were well cast, to some extent interesting in and of themselves, and generally quite likable. (Any apparent ruthless ambition displayed tended to be tempered by a corresponding good natured resilience.) An entertaining, intelligently scripted, brilliantly directed and superbly acted film that I would thoroughly recommend.
56 out of 83 people found the following review useful: Hysterical and Entertaining!, 3 October 2008 Author: stiff5 from United States
I had been looking forward to How to Lose Friends & Alienate People for months, particularly due to the fact that Kirsten Dunst and Simon Pegg were starring. Simon Pegg is a comedic genius and Kirsten Dunst has always been a favorite actress of mine. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People hit the spot! Of course not perfect, but very enjoyable and funny. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People follows the life of Sidney Young, a smalltime, bumbling, British celebrity journalist, who is hired by an upscale magazine in New York City. In spectacular fashion Sidney enters high society and burns bridges with bosses, peers and superstars. After disrupting one black-tie event by allowing a wild pig to run rampant, Sidney catches the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of Sharp, and accepts a job with the magazine in New York City. Clayton warns Sidney that he'd better impress and charm everyone he can, if he wants to succeed. Instead, Sidney instantly insults and annoys fellow writer Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst). He dares to target the star clients of power publicist Eleanor Johnson (Gillian Anderson). He also upsets his direct boss Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston). Sidney finds creative ways to annoy nearly everyone. His saving grace, a rising starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) who develops an odd affection for him. In time, Allison's friendship might be the only thing saving Sydney from his downward spiraling career. The storyline is very interesting and the acting was top notch with what the actors were given. Simon Pegg is still hilarious as ever! He makes Sydney bumbling, obnoxious, and annoying as real as it gets, but later in time making Sydney not just likable, but also a real character who you root for in the end. Kirsten Dunst and Jeff Bridges were brilliant! Kirsten had some very wonderful acting and hilarious scenes, and Jeff Bridges is just Jeff f*cking Bridges! How can you not like him?! He makes Clayton a very humorous character with some wit and overall you just love the guy. Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox, and Danny Huston were great as the supporting cast. Each had their own personality that were overall pretty unlikable, but that's what just made the film work. One thing I didn't enjoy was how one dimensional some of the characters were. I understand that most were the supporting cast, but some of the cast was underused and could've given the film some more spice to it. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People will never be on anyone's top 10 films ever, or even top 10 comedies ever, but it has a very high entertainment level and some scenes may even charm you as well. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is definitely one of the better romantic comedies of the year! 8/10
16 out of 22 people found the following review useful: Very Good Comedy, Well Worth Seeing, 7 October 2008 Author: J_Trex from Philadelphia
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I had fun watching this movie, mainly due to Simon Pegg, who has quickly become a solid box office draw for comedy films.He is hired from his dead end London publishing job by big shot NYC media mogul Jeff Bridges, as a writer, for one of his celebrity rags.After paying his dues, he makes it into the higher echelons of celebrity writing hackdom (the "seventh room"), where he gets to be a minor celebrity himself. The storyline is very funny, and Gillian Anderson puts in an impressive supporting role as a cutthroat publicity agent.Along the way to success, he finds the true meaning of love, etc.The formulaic plot aside, the movie was very funny, mainly due to Simon Pegg, Jeff Bridges, and Gillian Anderson. Kirsten Dunst was good as the love interest. The rest of the supporting cast did its job well.This was a good comedy & well worth checking out at the theaters.
16 out of 25 people found the following review useful: How to Make Occasional Sharp Satire & Drab Romantic Comedy, 3 October 2008 Author: MisterWhiplash from United States
One would think that a director usually makes the difference in distinguishing the material from other, more standard fare. Robert Weide, while working mostly in TV, has over 2 dozen Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes to his credit, and as such one might think he would be prime material to direct some solid satire. Yet perhaps for Wiede it's the writing that makes the difference, ultimately, or just based on some of the actors he works with. Simon Pegg is no Larry David, but on his own Pegg is very funny and with the right material (notably that with collaborator Edgar Wright) has created some exceptional British parodies. He's also got a strange charm to him, an affecting wit, and delivery that is up to snuff with other American actors he's working with here. But he can't completely overcome the screenplay.How to Lose Friends and Alienate people is about a wildman writer/editor at a cultish British magazine, and gets some tabloid buzz about bringing a pig to an awards show and getting totally smashed in the process. He grabs the attention of a once-maverick editor of a prestigious Manhattan magazine (Jeff Bridges), who hires him in part because (according to Pegg) he reminds him of his younger self. But he never gets an article published, at least without some hassle, and he also has some stiff competition with an older rival, and an attractive editor (Kirsten Dunst), not to mention an insatiable, sexy Megan Fox as a typically snooty celebrity gearing up for an awards-worthy part as a nun in a movie.To the credit of the cast and the director, it is a watchable effort, at least for those who may be able to spot references to La Dolce Vita (as if it weren't nailing it a little over the head), and occasionally there are some really big laugh out-loud gags (one I'll remember for a long while involves a prank call for a bunch of call-girls into the office of prickly a-hole Lawrence Maddox played by Danny Huston). But the actual love-interest angle with Pegg and Dunst is at best competent and at worst just weak and predictable with a few drunken melancholy scenes thrown in for good measure, and the likes of Bridges, Gillian Anderson (as Fox's stand-offish but shallow agent) and Fox herself playing on a theme of discontented "hot" talents are usually at the mercy of a screenplay that only intermittently gives them things to latch on to. I wouldn't mind seeing large parts of it on TV again, especially for some of Pegg's stinging barbs of dialog, but it's a partial disappointment.
18 out of 29 people found the following review useful: This movie is better than its audience, 31 March 2009 Author: jhseeker from United Kingdom
Oh dear we don't like it when our super-hero love interest develops a brain do we?Something has happened to people, they have lost the ability to enjoy, a simple feel-good, love story/comedy? Kirsten Dunst is a revelation - funny, sexy and real. I laughed out loud ooh at least five times and I'm not ashamed to say had a tear in my eye a couple of times too. The cast, acting and script is great, I watch a lot of films right across the board and I haven't seen one in this genre that has been as successful. Those who disagree please tell me where I can find some! I'm sure the book is good too but I think you have to judge it on its own merits.
21 out of 35 people found the following review useful: Should have been better but is still a reasonable enough comedy, 18 November 2008 Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK
Sidney Young runs a small alternative culture magazine in London dedicated to popping the bubble of celebrity. He hits the big time when he gets a call from Clayton Harding, the editor of Sharps magazine – a glossy celebrity magazine based in New York City. Sidney goes into the job thinking he can be different from the puff pieces the magazine is famous for and somehow has been employed as part of Harding's darker streak and longer for more. Sadly this instinct is dead wrong and Sidney finds himself a joke within the office and a failure within the world of celebrity and movie stars that he needs to work.HTLF&AP (it's easier) is in the mould of The Devil Wears Prada as it is written as an insider's exposé of celebrity culture from someone who discovered it firsthand. Like that film, this one also struggles to tell this tale within a narrative structure that engages. It is helped though by having the central character be a major part of his own discovery, ie not only do we see the world of superficiality that is the celebrity scene but Sidney is more than a pair of eyes as he fails so impressively to assimilate himself into it. The problem is though that it is not savage enough on the celebrity culture and instead tries to draw a lot more humour from Sidney's various pratfalls and failures. This produces some moments of amusement but at the same time it robs the material of the teeth it really should have had. What is left is a reasonably funny comedy that goes where you expect it to, right down to the pat ending that was always going to be there.Pegg has enough about his performance to be funny even though this is far below the films he has made with Wright. He makes it work better than it should at times but then he cannot bring out an edge that isn't there in the script. The starry supporting cast may be part of the reason that it doesn't tear at the hand that feeds it and indeed there are some solid turns here. Bridges, Anderson, Fox, Huston and others all do reasonably good work around Pegg. Dunst is at her best when in the "hate" part of her "love/hate" relationship with Pegg and I liked her until the film gradually started to use her character to turn the way we all knew it would go.Not a brilliant film by any means then but still one that is amusing as it treads familiar paths to a weak ending. Should have been better but is still just about good enough to distract as a comedy.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Getting Into The 7th Room, 28 May 2009 Author: Senyales from Fraggle Rock
Straughan's adaptation of 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People' is a charming and funny albeit familiar film. Yes, the story itself isn't anything new to the screen. The film also had potential of being an engaging satire but it remains rather a feel good romantic comedy. I liked the mixture of American and British humour. It is a well executed film that is rushed in the beginning and clichéd in the end. I enjoyed the mid-sections the most. Pegg, yet again, dominates the movie with his comic power. He's simply hysterical even though he isn't very different from his other films. Jeff Bridges is fantastic. A smoking Gillian Anderson is cast against type as the neurotic, stuck-up and arrogant publicist. Kirsten Dunst looks quite cute here and delivers a charming performance. Megan Fox pretty much plays herself. 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People' has got some hilarious dialogues brilliantly delivered by the actors. It is the comedic sequences that stand out while the romantic scenes and the more dramatic ones feel rather deja-vu. Pegg proves that he can carry a film on his own and 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People' remains, at the least, highly entertaining.
19 out of 32 people found the following review useful: Simon Pegg..... You've finally made it!!!!, 17 December 2008 Author: danielholdsworth33 from United Kingdom
Amazing performance from Simon Pegg who just gets better and better with every role. As usual he plays the part of a very cringy character who makes you want to hide behind your cushion in embarrassment for him sometimes, but thats what Pegg is all about.The laughs were regular and eye watering and everyone of them aimed at Penn. The movie was very cleverly put together where every character plays a very sophisticated and serious part with Penn being the only humour involved which is a huge credit to the Director Robert Weide.And I cant let this one go without a quick round of applause to Gilliam Anderson who shone throughout. Highly recommended to all.
23 out of 41 people found the following review useful: Pegg List Grows As This Movie Does Not Fail To Deliver The Laughs, 27 October 2008 Author: dobbin-4 from Australia
Pegg has had a few hits in the past few years, starting with "Shaun Of The Dead" in 2004, movie on to "Hot Fuzz 2007", early 2008 he came out with "Run Fat Boy Run" and now comes this, "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" which is in many ways one of my favourite comedy's of the year.The film is about Sidney Yound, a man who writes a failing magazine who makes fun of celebrity's mostly because he is not one of them. Anyway, one of the most successful magazine owners (Played By Jeff Bridges) invites him (Out of nostalgia) to work at his magazine. Sidney is of course excited and moves to America, there he meets a girl currently writing a book, and hilarity ensues.This film is great and I hope more come out like it in the near future. Pegg has once again given people everywhere another good film and I cant wait to the see the third part of the blood and ice cream trilogy "Paul". I Rate this film 81%.
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