How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Written by: Peter Straughan (screenplay), Toby Young (book)
Directed by: Robert B. Weide

Apparently there is no shortage of books to be optioned into movies. How To Lose Friends is the “based on a true” story tale of a guys transition from small time journalist to hob knobbing with the A-listers in Hollywood.

Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) runs a small celebrity magazine in the UK. Not so much glorifying them like say, People, but exposing them as the people they are. Word of his magazine travels to America where big time editor Clayton Hardig (the Dude himself, Jeff Bridges) wants Sidney to come in and write for his swanky celeb rag Sharps Magazine. Clayton is an idol to Sidney who always loved his no holds barred approach to celebrity news.

Sidney has a series of misfortunate events when he gets to town, one of which includes ruining several pages of Alisen Olsen’s (Kirsten Dunst) handwritten manuscript at a bar. The next day he finds out that he will be working right next to Alisen in room one (the bottom rung of the ladder) at Sharps. Sidney’s lack of charm sends him into the shit more than once while he tries to learn the ropes from Alisen. He just has the hardest time getting his shit together. Then he’s at a party where he meets Sophie Maes (Megan Fox), a hot young starlet who is destined to be the next big thing. Her manager Eleanor (Gillian Anderson) has an unspoken deal with Sharps magazine to get her clients out there. Sidney has to figure out how to play the game right if he ever wants to have a chance at Sophie Maes or to move up to the next level and impress his boss.

After the movie I felt kinda meh about it. I love Simon Pegg but this wasn’t a Simon Pegg movie (see: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) so it was just ok. Yeah there were some laughs here and there but after a while youre like “oh come on nobody can screw up THAT much”. But then I got home and IMDB’d it and sure enough Robert B. Weide is a producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm so that’s why every thing seem so familiar to me.

Mediocre movie. But I did love that Jeff Bridges has that long silver hair. I mean he looked pretty good bald in the best movie of the summer (if you don’t know what I’m talking about then you haven’t been reading my movie reviews) but it was good to see good ol Dudemeister with long hair again, even if it was salt and pepper colored. That was about my highlight of the film. Seriously. Meh.