Not really a film review, but more of a meditation on why this film might have happened

Slightly hungover and just wanting to get out of the house, a few of us went to see the new Paul Rudd vehicle "Our Idiot Brother" yesterday. The film, which is as bland and inoffensive as mayonnaise, is interesting in that I can't figure out why it was made. I mean, someone had to champion this film, right? They had to walk the script around LA and have pitch meetings and go home and think "Man!!! I think I'm really close!" And then you get this wallpaper paste of a movie that isn't angry-making like an Adam Sandler movie but isn't interesting or even funny. There are episodes - maybe almost every episode - of "Parks and Recreation" that are funnier than this movie.

I mean, one of the major jokes - SPOILER ALERT, I guess, if you're hell-bent on wasting $10.75 to see this - is that Paul Rudd's dog is named "Willie Nelson." Hilarious, right? The dog is a major part of the movie, and no one passes up and opportunity to say the dog's name. A dog named after a real person! I'm gasping for breath! THAT IS SO FUNNY!!!!

(Plus, this gave the producers a reason to put a bunch of Willie Nelson - the musician (or "musician," I could say), not the dog - on the soundtrack. I fucking hate Willie Nelson. Like nails on a chalkboard. That voice. So I would say the repeated Willie Nelson songs did nothing to enhance my enjoyment.)

The basic plot is that Paul Rudd's character gets out of prison and then ruins the lives of his sisters in one way or another. I got the impression that he's supposed to be one of those Magical Innocent character types who's the only one who can tell people the truth, but whatever, I didn't really care enough to think about it. I just kept going back to Why did this movie get made?

Here's what I hope happened: It was originally a much, much darker comedy called "Our Sociopathic Brother" in which Paul Rudd gets out of jail and then decides to WREAK HAVOC on all those who have wronged him. He returns to his sisters' homes and kills them and their families and burns their houses down before dying in a hail of gunfire. Then this script was progressively watered down by one studio exec after another until we have what's left. Anyway, with all these fine actors and all this money, it's curious that no one thought to make a better movie.

One of the people who went with us took a klonopin and seemed to like it better than me, so if you have to see it, I recommend taking a klonopin first.

I'm still on jury duty. That is all.