'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People' review

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Outspoken British journalist Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) lands a job at a snazzy New York magazine and, after calling out lots of pretentious phonies, does whatever it takes to climb the corporate ladder, sleep with a gorgeous actress (Megan Fox) and impress his boss (Jeff Bridges) -- while gradually developing a friendship (or more?) with a co-worker (Kirsten Dunst).

Big question: Can this comedy, based on Toby Young’s memoir about working at Vanity Fair, delve into the flashy fun and integrity-compromising traps of hobnobbing with celebrities?

Skip it: Lose friends? Sidney barely has any friends. This is a story about how the ins-and-outs of the entertainment world change people for the worse, but “People” has no unique insight on that world or thoughts on that change.

Catch it: If you delight in seeing someone as clueless about Hollywood as Sidney’s dad, who thinks Brad Pitt is a cave in Yorkshire. Yeah, but let’s see him avoid celebrity news while living in America!

Bottom line: Pegg excels at playing the one guy in this fake, flashy world willing to cry B.S., a brazenness that results in some of the film’s biggest laughs. (He professes his love for “Con Air” and is especially disappointed that his workplace doesn’t feature any drunken loudmouths like the journalists he’s seen on TV.) But the movie presents unethical journalism as the norm without considering that celebrity coverage could ever be worthwhile. You want an inside look at Hollywood? Watch old episodes of “Entourage.”

Bonus: When someone claims that all you have to do these days to become a celebrity is flash your breasts, Sidney points out a crucial detail: It depends on the breasts. Discuss. 

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