#32 Veronica Mars
It's easy to see why Jason Segel fell in love with Sarah Marshall a few years back. Kristin Bell--the voice of Gossip Girl, the good sister in the billion-dollar avalanche that was Frozen, the world's most famous lover of sloths--has an attitude and spunk unmatched by any other tiny human, unless that tiny human is Prince.
Bell's breakthrough role was as Veronica Mars, the daughter of a private eye (Enrico Colantoni) who launches her own investigative services after her friend Lilly (played by a young Amanda Seyfried) is murdered. It was such a cult hit that close to 100,000 people raised 5.7 million dollars to nearly triple the 2 million dollar goal of the most successful kickstarter campaign in history. How rad is that?
The story picks up almost 10 years after high school graduation, with Veronica living in New York City, taking interviews and living with her boyfriend "Piz" Piznarski (Chris Lowell), who was holding the boyfriend title at the end of the tv show's run. Out of the blue, she gets a call from Logan Echolls (Jason Dohrian), Lilly's original beau who is now accused of murdering his girlfriend Carrie (Andrea Esrella). He's asking her to help him prove his innocence. She agrees, sending her back to Neptune, California, where it all began. And it just so happens-conveniently-that the investigation is coinciding with her 10-year reunion, so all of the old gang (Francis Capra, Percy Daggs III, Tina Majorino, Krysten Ritter, et. al) is thrown back together. As it would happen, a lot of people at this reunion were around Logan and Carrie during the time of the murder, so the questions start flying. The movie eventually solves the case, but it does so in a roundabout, slow-ish fashion that causes the obsessive V to burn many a bridge along the way, including the one back to New York. It's far from perfect, but it kept me entertained, and the hardcore fans will get an enormous kick out of seeing Bell get up to her old sleuthing tricks and reunite with creator/director Rob Thomas and all of her old homies, who appear a little more aged but, thanks to the magic of Hollywood, haven't lost a step in the wittiness and wisecracks game.
#31 Neighbors
Surprise! Seth Rogen's playing a stoner again! This time, he's and wife Kelly (Rose Byrne) are parents to a newborn; when he's not childrearing, he sneaks off to smoke the ganj with his buddy Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz). Soon it becomes apparent that they have just moved in next door to a fraternity, run by Teddy (Zac Efron) and Pete (Dave Franco), who both vow to be respectful of the neighborhood, despite their penchant for alcohol, destruction and being man-candy. At one point Rogen says of Efron "He looks like something a gay guy designed in a laboratory." After Rogen and Byrne break the trust of Delta Psi (also the name of the fraternity in this book-shameless plug!) by calling the cops, they declare all out war on each other, with hilarious, gross-out results. I'm getting awfully wary of Rogen as the same character movie in and movie out, but it doesn't stop him and the rest of the cast (cameos from Hannibal Burress, Jake Johnson, Andy Samberg and the dudes from Workaholics) from amassing laughs throughout.
Congratulations! We're halfway there. Back tomorrow.
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