Social climbing up a broken ladder..........Reviewed by Neal Damiano, 2010-02-18
Simon Pegg pulls away from the ridiculous humor of zombie killing
& crime fighting. Into the ackward hilarity of social climbing
in "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People." Directed by Rob
Weide & adapted by Peter Straughan from Toby Young's semi
fictional book "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" focuses
on Brit-born Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) & his year long
adventure into the red carpet world of magazine publishing.
Ever since he was a young lad Sidney has dreamed to be amongst the
famous of the movies, to live in the lap of luxury he believed the
actors dwelled in. In first- person voice- over narrative the film
starts present day where Sydney is wearing a fancy tuxedo &
designer watch, attending an awards ceremony with newly inaugurated
starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox). The movie then flashes back to a
year before the sparkle & influence of Sydney's life as
production manager at the highly regarded Sharps Magazine.
When not trying to crash his way into film premieres & after
parties, Sydney runs a counter - culture style of publication
called Post Modern Review. After talking up Thandie Newton &
making an array of flash photography at a party Sydney charms up
Sharps Magazine's founding editor Clayton Harding. He manages to
land a job offer & off to NYC he goes. No more than four months
into the job Sydney manages to overstep his position on the
professional ladder & repeatedly irritates coworker Alison
(Kursten Dunst) the closest thing he has to a friend. A somewhat
misleading title for Sydney doesn't have any friends to lose his
personality & behavior are completely socially inept noticed by
all except himself. But poor Sydney can't help but be himself even
if it's totally offensive & inappropriate. This film will have
you laughing but also feeling empathy for him. Sydney is one of
those who has an underlying innate charm that you can't say no to.
Entertaining quirky little film with some good laughs.
Neal Damiano
Armchair Film Critic
Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate
People"Reviewed by Jerome D. Knudson, 2010-02-08
A cute romantic comedy, could have been better. A Brit in America.
I became a Simon Pegg fan watching 'Hot Fuzz' on the computer. If
you like 'There's Something about Mary' I think you'll like this
movie, it's rather tasteless. For sex appeal it has Megan Fox as a
shallow and flighty actress. Compared to 'The Devil Wears
Prada.'
[...]
REALLY ENTERTAINING FILM WITH SIMON PEGGReviewed by fmwaalex, 2009-10-03
HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE
I am a huge Simon Pegg fan as most people probably are now days;
come on all of his stuff has been great. I remember seeing the
previews for this and thinking "all right here is his forte into
mainstream movies". Now I knew that could go one of two ways, those
of course being bad or good. Thankfully this while not his best
film is really good and that is mainly because of Mr. Pegg himself.
I know what you are saying "of course he is good in it" and I know
that but I felt the need to say it, so get off my back.
The film follows an off the wall writer named Sidney Young [Pegg]
as he goes from wanting to be in the "it" crowd to actually being
there. The thing about it though is that what got him to the dance
just might be the one thing he has to give up in order to be
successful. Writing for a small magazine that trashes the stars [or
at least he does] over in the UK, he is offered a job in the US by
his hero in the biz Clayton Harding [Jeff Bridges]. Once there the
hero he looked up to is looking more and more like a sell out and
after meeting Sophie Maes [Megan Fox] he just might do the same.
The only real person at least in his eyes is Alison Olsen [Kirsten
Dunst], so he tends to hang around her while wanting Sophie.
This film based on a book by Toby Young is well handled under the
direction of Robert Weide. The film is well paced even though it is
a bit long which may be it's only down fall, the only one I guess.
Written for the screen by Peter Straughan and acted out well by the
entire cast this film is really entertaining. The film has laugh
out loud moments but it is much more of a wittier humor or subtle
type if that makes sense. Still I find the film to be very
entertaining and found the cast to be real fun to watch.
Simon Pegg is excellent as the lead in this film and it was cool to
see him in this type of role, in fact he should do more of these.
Kirsten Dunst is great as well in this film and gives one of the
better performances. Jeff Bridges is great as usual and Megan Fox
does a good job as well as does the rest of the cast. Like I said
this is not the best film ever and is not even Pegg's best film,
but it is still a very entertaining flick. I recommend this film to
any one reading this if only a rental that is fine, I bought
it.
Its okReviewed by Khaled Altaher, 2009-08-07
Sydney White, a British journalist, who is extremely clumsy and a
hell of an idiot, tried all his life to enter the celebrity world
because he thought it is great and will make him very happy. He
gets hired by a big firm in NYC called Sharp, which he can't help
but continue acting like a total idiot around its staff and the
celebrities. He then meets Megan Fox and feels very attracted to
her. At the same time he is always annoying his colleague, whom in
the end falls in love with her.
A chick flick movie, with some stupid funny jokes
How to lose fans and alienate buyers with this Region 1 release...Reviewed by dcinsider, 2009-07-13
"Simon Pegg has urged fans not to buy the US DVD release of his
film How To Lose Friends And Alienate People.
Pegg and the comedy's director Robert Weide have both blasted US
distributor MGM/Fox for omitting deleted scenes from the disc's
extra features.
"I was very disappointed when I heard about the lack of extra
features on the US DVD, particularly when Bob and I went to great
lengths to ensure they were available," Pegg said."
[...]
With that said, the film itself is pretty funny and has good
performances from Simon Pegg and Danny Huston, though somehow
Kirsten Dunst didn't work for me. As for Megan Fox, it's tough to
tell how much of her performance was acting...
