Steven Flores reviews Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.” Not to spoil the fun, but I may or may not have my own commentary up my sleeves for a date to be named…
Whiffer takes a look at “Every Little Step,” which I may have to make a concerted effort to see now that he compared it to “Black Swan.”
Sam of “Duke and the Movies” gets me excited for “The Guard,” which finally opens in Houston this weekend!
Sunday Funnies
The New York Latino Film Festival’s ad campaign revolved around movie clichés and implausibilities, and they nail some of the stuff we just accept spot on. (via /Film)
The Inadvertent Activist
On Monday, I noticed a humongous uptick in traffic. Naturally, I got a little skeptical, especially when a lot of the hits were coming from Facebook. Then I started getting a lot of redirects from a site called R-Word.org. I had heard of this site before, but in case you haven’t, here’s a video that succinctly states their mission:
They saw that I had called out the filmmakers of “The Change-Up” in my review for senselessly using these people as the butt of a joke. Some people are calling for radical action, and they have done a good job of making their voices heard. But as offensive as it is, the writers have the right to free speech and can say it if they want. The joke falls flat in the movie, and if you do for some reason decide to see it after my D+ review, use it as a reminder to eradicate the word from your casual vernacular. If you want more information on this campaign, click the picture below.
An R-Rated Renaissance?
In The Los Angeles Times back in July, Steven Zeitchik asked this question, “How deep will the R-rated renaissance run?” He cites the statistic that 2011 is “the first year ever that at least four R-rated comedies have topped [$75 million].
I’d like to respond back with this question: is this what a Renaissance supposed to look like? Because all I see is one comedic gem shining amidst a surplus of lackluster and forgettable others. Just because there has been a great quantity hardly means there has been great quality. Before I jump into my own analysis, I’d like to review my reviews of the seven R-rated comedies of summer 2011.
As far as kid’s movies go, “Gnomeo & Juliet” is about as stomachable of a non-Pixar flick as they come. It takes perhaps the most famous love story, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” and makes all the characters lawn ornaments. It’s an interesting idea, not necessarily an inspired one, but a fun one nonetheless.
The movie doesn’t fully deliver in humor or enjoyment, but it does its best to liven up 80 minutes of your day by presenting an interesting variation on a classic tale. If you’ve ever gone through some form of high school English, you will no doubt appreciate the subtle (or not so subtle) Shakespearean puns that pop up throughout. Or maybe you’ll just enjoy figuring out the voice cast, which is quite the line-up. The titular star-crossed lovers are voiced by Emily Blunt and James McAvoy, both of whom seem to be enjoying themselves rather than just phoning it in.
I could do a cheap cop-out here for search engine optimization and space filling and list the impressive cast, but I’ll just let you have the fun figuring it out for yourself. (Or you can just go look on IMDb, I’ll make it easy by linking here.) I will say, though, that I just loved Michael Caine and Maggie Smith as the parents. Alfred and McGonagall never get old.
For me, the highlight was the slightly random – but still awesome – Elton John music. I don’t know that it was necessary, but it just makes you smile. And any kiddie caper that can give you that expression instead of an enraged frown is pretty much a winner by me. C+ /
I live in Texas, and in case you haven’t looked at a globe in your life, it’s the state situated along the border of Mexico. With America being so great and all (cue up the NSFW national anthem), people have been pouring over that border for safety and prosperity. Many do this legally; many don’t. Those that favor the latter option tend to cause big problems in my great state.
I’ve spoken with the second highest ranking man in the Texas Rangers about this problem; it’s serious. It endangers not only our economy but brings much of the conflict that is ravaging Mexico into our country. I’ve met Governor – and now Presidential candidate – Rick Perry and heard him articulate his plan on how to secure our borders; if his plan doesn’t have you convinced that something needs to be done, I don’t know what will.
Meanwhile, Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” is totally and blissfully on the other side of that debate. (He wouldn’t have made “Shorts” if he couldn’t be.) Playing with the exploitation film style that he and pal Quentin Tarantino are so fascinated by, his film farcically and irreverently takes on border control and immigration like a live-action, full-length “South Park” episode. It’s hardline message is hardly something I agree with, as it – whether seriously or not – promotes an almost Marxist revolutionary uprising of a Mexican proletariat. But if you can get past that, it’s wickedly gory fun.
The movie stars Danny Trejo as Machete, a stone-cold former Federale turned illegal immigrant who kills and maims with the weapon in his name. After being framed for the attempted murder of a state senator (Robert DeNiro in yet another career-staining role), he joins the underworld of illegal immigrants led by She (Michelle Rodriguez) to rebel against the Americans who view them as parasitic maggots, all while romancing and converting an Immigration officer (Jessica Alba) to their side. Because they didn’t cross the border, THE BORDER CROSSED THEM!
So put your politics aside, your maturity at bay, and your squeamishness to rest for “Machete,” a rip-roaring Mexploitation film that brings a great deal of violently cartoonish laughter your way. It shamelessly is what it is – that is to say, it’s ridiculous. From the message to such profound quotables like “Machete don’t text,” Robert Rodriguez was having a whole lot of fun … and we get to share in quite a bit of it. I don’t know if this is necessarily worth him polluting the world with yet another “Spy Kids” movie, though. B /
I don’t have much to say in regards to “Little Fockers.” It’s a tacked-on sequel that has all the same characters as its two predecessors but little of its humor. The movie will inevitably be dwarfed in comparison to the two titans of the series, but you get a few more laughs out of the Byrne-Focker “circle of trust” and some people at Universal made a lot of money. It’s a bittersweet win-win, right?
In case you hadn’t noticed that Robert DeNiro has fallen far and sold out since his legendary pairing with director Martin Scorsese, “Little Fockers” gives the two-time Oscar winner the chance do a tongue in cheek mockery of himself. 35 years ago, he was the younger version of the Godfather. Now, he’s searching for – the worst pun of the series – the Godfocker! At least DeNiro can let it roll off his back and joke about it as the series that once could have anyone rollicking in laughter – even on TBS reruns – resorts to straight-to-DVD territory.
Unlike “Meet the Parents” (and “Meet the Fockers” to a lesser extent), which tackled relevant and relatable social topics in a funny but truthful way, “Little Fockers” goes for potty humor and adolescent immaturity to hide the changing landscape of the series. With a new director, a new writer, and a total lack of effort, these aren’t the same Fockers. But as Hollywood has yet to learn, you can’t hide a lack of enthusiasm from all corners on a movie set. Even when you throw in a beauty like Jessica Alba or enhance the role of funnyman Owen Wilson, people notice when they aren’t laughing in a comedy movie.
So if you’re willing to dumb yourself down a little or happen to be in the mood for guilty, stupid laughs, “Little Fockers” may lightly graze your funnybone. But the heyday of this series is long in the past, as are the glory days of Robert DeNiro. Wait, I think I see his self-respect in the rearview mirror as well! C+ /
Major props have to go to Dominic Cooper in “The Devil’s Double” for taking the performance to 11. In dual roles as Uday Hussein, the psychotically incorrigible son of Saddam, and his level-headed body double Latif Yahia, Cooper proves himself to be significantly more than just a pretty face for those who know him as little more than the cocky sidekick in “An Education” and the guy who can barely muster the effort to put on a shirt but is still lucky enough to land Amanda Seyfried in “Mamma Mia.” He plays Uday with a balls-to-the-wall lack of restraint, a risky move that can be communicated as a sort of foolish ridiculousness to the audience in the hands of an unskilled actor.
But against all odds (and my own personal expectations), it doesn’t come off that way at all. Cooper’s performance as Uday as a man of excess simply emulates the excess surrounding him in the form of gilded palaces, Rolex-laden closets, and harem garden pools. Anywhere else, this demented sexually devious, trigger-happy scion would be wildly out of place. Yet against this backdrop, Cooper soars and scares with his rabid intensity, neither chewing scenery or fading idly into it.
As Latif, the mild-mannered lookalike forced into servitude for Uday, Cooper offers a simple performance that doesn’t dazzle but feels more spectacular thanks to its juxtaposition in the same movie with the crazed madman. It’s a showcase of range for Cooper; concerns that we won’t be able to distinguish the two practically indistinguishable characters from each other evaporates almost instantly as Cooper establishes a firm foundation for both characters and then layers a colossus on top of it.
Long before Ryan Gosling turned bar pick-ups into an art in “Crazy Stupid Love,” Campbell Scott’s Roger Swanson saw everything in the world through the lens of sex. In a brilliant take on evolution in the opening scene, he composedly explains how it is the final utility to left to man – and how in the future, once it’s gone, men will be totally obsolete and unnecessary. Soon after, he’s dumped by his stalwart mistress and boss Joyce (Rossellini) and left in the doldrums to wallow in fear of his irrelevance.
But a surprise comes in the form of his 16-year-old nephew Nick, played by the tense and naive Eisenberg, who has heard that his uncle is quite the libido-driven lothario and wants a sort of real-world sex-ed class. Roger begins by exposing Nick to all the sex around him that he’s totally oblivious too and then dumps him in situations for seduction with some beautiful older women. Despite being with a living, breathing manual for these kinds of moments, Nick can never execute, scaring Roger into thinking that the night will have to end with a prostitute.
It’s a fascinating evening as Nick is forced to confront his sexual limits amidst Roger’s mid-life crisis which is forcing him to confront the implications and consequences of his own sexual behavior. Scott and Eisenberg animate these fascinating self-examinations with a humorous yet probing seriousness. They are undoubtedly helped by writer/director Dylan Kidd, whose script is intelligent and asks some challenging questions to both the characters on screen and the audience watching them. A fan can only hope that Eisenberg keeps getting golden material like this to highlight his exceptional showmanship.
Don’t let the Sundance laurel fool you – “Another Earth” is just as disposable as your average mainstream sci-fi flick nowadays. Mike Cahill’s directorial debut, also written by he and the film’s star Brit Marling, is a disaster from its opening minutes and limps along for another hour and a half barely breathing. To say that it wears out its welcome is quite the understatement because by the time it ends, you’ll feel like you accidentally walked into the multiplex’s sensory deprivation chamber.
Another cliched saying applicable here would be “don’t judge a movie by its trailer” since it must be for another movie, not “Another Earth.” If you were drawn in by the intriguing premise of parallel worlds and science-fiction interplanetary travel, you are in for otherworldly disappointment. The best thing the movie had to offer is little more than a subplot, a plot gimmick occasionally brought up in conversation but never fulfilling its enormous potential. When the film finally cashes in on this underworked aspect in its dying breath, it feels like something we were expecting in the first reel.
The movie’s main plot, on the other hand, abandons originality and settles for a contrived tale of a woman (Marling) coping with grief. After killing John Burroughs’ (William Mapother) wife and child in a drunken driving accident, she feels the need for catharsis by bringing herself closer to the pain that still haunts her. Sound familiar?
I made a list of 10 movies in the past 5 years that have done it better. But even more than that, it’s a carbon copy of last year’s “Rabbit Hole” that lost all its heart, emotion, and power in the transfer. Nicole Kidman and company make their grief truly moving, while Brit Marling’s painfully reserved, borderline masochistic behavior combined with William Mapother’s endless moping makes for a brutal watch. The only thing they succeed in doing is making you wish you could be transported to another earth – one where you didn’t waste your time watching this movie. D /
In a sense, “Final Destination 5” is one of the most effectual movies of the summer because it delivers exactly what it promises. The movie is a sadist’s paradise, delivering ludicrously bloody and disgusting deaths in rapid succession. It’s flagrant disregard for respecting humanity is raging like Charlie Sheen on cocaine, and if you know that and want that going in, chances are you will be very satisfied. (Another word of advice – if you have even the slightest desire to see this movie, pay to see it with a crowd.)
For those people, the movie’s death sequences coupled with some crafty use of 3D for extra gross-out effect makes for some wicked fun. Forget the horror, there’s nothing scary about this movie unless you are really that stupid and can’t pick up on the foreshadowing that’s made about subtle as a shotgun. What I said about the last installment of the series rings even truer now than it did two years ago: “It’s not easy to make death laughable, but [the “Final Destination” series] does it with ease.”
But what everyone really wants to see is a YouTube-style montage of nauseating deaths; technology keeps pushing us more and more towards an instant gratification society, and we really don’t want to trifle with anything unnecessary. Turns out in “Final Destination 5,” death comes often but never quickly enough for our desire. We have to watch D-list actors try to act and play characters, which is just painful. I hope this movie serves as their audition to never act again. We have to sit through someone trying to weave together the deaths with a plot, a thankless and pointless job if ever there were one. We also have to watch whoever directed this movie work step-by-step through a “My First Horror Movie” kit. If only it wasn’t so graphic, this would be a great way to introduce first graders to conventions of storytelling because it’s so basic and watered-down.
Thankfully, what we really want from the movie comes before the end credits in the form of a 3D rendition of all the nasty deaths in the series so far. But in the hour and a half before that, bring your barf bag if you’re easily nauseated and check your standards and dignity at the door so you can enjoy people dying by Acupuncture and lasik eye surgery with as few inhibitions as possible. Perhaps by the time we get to “Final Destination 10,” the people involved in the series will find a way to make life’s other inevitability, taxes, equally as entertaining. C /
Comparison sucks, especially when you invite yourself to be judged against a fantastically entertaining comedic marvel like “Zombieland.” While Ruben Fleischer’s directorial debut was a fun, creative comedy, his second go-round,”30 Minutes or Less,” is exactly the opposite. It feels like something Adam Sandler didn’t have time to squeeze in his schedule between “The Waterboy” and “Big Daddy.”
It’s full of stupid, expected gags that produce some mild laughs, but we’re long past the point of diminishing returns with these worn-out premises. Not to mention it’s disappointing to watch two emerging comedic stars and one very funny serious actor fail to breathe any sort of energy into this limp vehicle for cheap humor. The movie is hardly bad by anyone’s standards, and summer 2011 has seen a lot worse in this genre (cough, “The Change-Up“). But as I often add on middling movies, there have been a lot better (case in point, “Bridesmaids“), and if you just HAVE to watch something funny, this may provide a little more than the minimum satisfaction level you need to make your time and money worthwhile.
The movie serves up double the buddy comedy as moronic pals Dwayne and Travis (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) strap a homemade bomb to unsuspecting pizza boy Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) in order to make him rob a bank so they can pay a crazed assassin (Michael Peña) to put the hit on Dwayne’s dad. Reeling, Nick hits up his friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) – while he is teaching middle schoolers no less – to help him commit a multitude of criminal acts. As their day spirals out of control and into the realm of the farcical, the wild ride of both pair of companions manages to garner a few decent (albeit cheap) laughs.
Cynics would say a movie like “The Help” is just a slightly high-brow appeal to white paternalism and guilt, an ex post facto vindication of prevalent attitudes thanks to some mettlesome few (an appeal that “To Kill A Mockingbird” may or may not have ridden to classic status). But I challenge the cynics to sit through the movie and not be moved. Because whether it’s set in the past, present, or future, a movie about courage that is well-written, pristinely directed, and impressively acted can be nothing but moving and inspiring.
The movie is being released in a time frame in the cinematic calendar year usually reserved for light chick lit, and while “The Help” will definitely appeal to women, it’s hardly flippant or breezy. The movie tackles prejudice, both beyond and within the realm of race, and other issues that still affect women to this day. Director Tate Taylor, a childhood friend of author Kathryn Stockett, gives them the treatment they deserve while also retaining that page-turner bliss that comes only from reading a great novel, a rarity in adaptations nowadays. He captures not just a moment in time but larger, universal truths about human reactions to injustice, be they from the side of they oppressed or the oppressors.
Had he not appreciated how each self-contained storyline affected the work as a whole, “The Help” would be a bloated, convoluted haul of a film. Taylor flows seamlessly between the stories of Aibileen (Viola Davis) and her nearly surrogate mothering of young Mae Mobley while her real parents neglect her, Minnie (Octavia Spencer) and her new job cleaning and practically nannying the air-headed but goodhearted Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), Skeeter (Emma Stone) and her rebellious challenging of social and cultural norms for young white women, and Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), the scared white woman pushing “separate but equal” nearly a decade after it was ruled unconstitutional. With some help from a fabulous ensemble of dedicated actresses, all the stories feel complete by the end, and none shines excessively brighter than the others.
Summer always brings some nice surprises, and better to get it in August than not at all! If you had told me at the beginning of the summer that “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” would be second to only “Harry Potter” in terms of quality blockbusters, I would have scoffed and laughed. But now, I couldn’t be happier to say that a beautiful marriage of intelligence and entertainment has occurred in Rupert Wyatt’s film, and combined with the groundbreaking motion-capture that wows and dazzles, the whole experience knocks you unexpectedly off your feet.
This “Apes” starts from the beginning, wisely stepping away from Tim Burton’s remake and distancing itself from the original series so as to make a name for itself, and provides the summer’s first (and perhaps only) satisfying origins story. It shows us Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco), desperate for a cure for Alzheimer’s that might cure his ailing father (John Lithgow). After a tragic accident shuts down his funding and research, Rodman throws ethics out the window and takes home the infant Caesar (performed by Andy Serkis), an ape who had been passed the experimental drug through his mother.
Caesar becomes quite the specimen of evolution and progress, learning at a frighteningly quick pace and never showing signs of slowing. With all signs pointing towards a medicinal triumph over nature, Rodman administers the drug to his father and a cure looks locked down. Yet with Caesar’s growing mental capabilities come what humans have long feared – an added emotional capacity that could lead our greatest creation to turn on us.
“I felt kind of trapped in that material. I felt, This is not my boat. I’m just a passenger, but I’m going down and there’s no way out.”
– James Franco on hosting the 2011 Oscars
“Here’s my guess: Critics will be out to kill [‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’] and blame me for it just because they are out to kill me. Last year people were pretty nice. This is the year when people are going to have fun going after me. I don’t feel the same way about ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ as I do about ‘127 Hours’ or ‘Milk.’ It was a different kind of acting.”
This week, I went to a promotional screening for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” I decided to show up an hour and a half early because I knew the line would be ridiculously long. However, I didn’t anticipate that the theater would already be full by the time I got there!
Reeling, desperate, dying to see the movie, I resorted to a card I had yet to play. I went up to the rep and said, “You may not believe me but I’m a member of the press.” I wasn’t lying. And no, I’m not a member of the press just because I write a blog.
I guess it’s time for me to make a big announcement, one that I should have made several months ago. My work now appears on The Christian Science Monitor‘s webpage. That’s right, selected posts from “Marshall and the Movies” now appear on a section of the Monitor‘s site called the “Culture Café,” which pools a handful of bloggers for their opinions on the culture at large. Since May, 8 posts from my blog have appeared on their webpage, ranging from reviews of new releases to Classics Corner posts and even, most recently, a “F.I.L.M.”
Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself by clicking on the link below! I’ll do a better job from now on including links to the posts they syndicate on “Weekend Update,” but know that you can always read it here first!
In case you missed it…
Not much went on at “Marshall and the Movies” this week. Running frantically behind, I resorted to publishing a lot of reviews I’d been holding back for a long time, “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest” and “Burlesque.” I did, however, strategically publish my review of “Howl” as James Franco had a big movie opening this week.
Yesterday, I reviewed “The Change-Up.” What a disaster that was. In case you don’t want to read the whole review, let me sum it up for you in one fragment: AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
The F.I.L.M. of the Week was Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight,” a documentary about the American occupation of Iraq. It’s still a fascinating watch even though the end is in sight … hindsight, as a matter of fact.
And because I didn’t get a chance to point it out in last week’s post, the July edition of “Classics Corner” took a look at Mel Brooks’ timeless comedy “Blazing Saddles.” Thank goodness people like it enough to put clips on YouTube so I can embed them here.
Recommended Reading
And here’s what I read this week. You should read it too, unless you are illiterate. Then find someone to read it for you.
James at “Central Florida Film Critic” examines the perhaps misplaced righteousness of critics who tear down the “Twilight” series. Don’t think it inspires me to check them out, but it sure would make me review them differently if I was bound, gagged, and forced to watch them.
Kai of “Man I Love Films” counts down the 5 best movies with primates – props on remembering Jack from “Pirates.” I had forgotten how much I loved Geoffrey Rush in that movie spouting off, “Not you, we named the monkey Jack.”
Alex of “And So It Begins” reviews “The Devil’s Double,” which I saw earlier this week. His take is somewhat more extreme than mine, but I agree with very many of his points. In case you want a preview of what my review will somewhat sound like.
Other cool things I read this week from non-blogger types:
Kris Tapley at In Contention, my favorite awards season blog, makes the case that Serkis deserves a Special Achievement Oscar (since the Academy clearly isn’t progressive enough yet to nominate a motion capture performance in a competitive acting category.)
James Franco and the Rise of the New Celebrity
You’re always hearing something about James Franco. Whether it’s him pursuing yet another degree, opening yet another movie, publishing a book, announcing a directorial venture, or appearing on a soap opera, the man seems to keep reinventing his own celebrity as he goes. But at the same time, we can’t help but ask, “Who is James Franco?” A Renaissance Man or a jack-of-all-trades spreading himself too thin? An entertainer or an artist? And I think that’s the question he wants us to be mulling over constantly.
The one thing that is certain about James Franco, however, is that he is brutally and blatantly honest. The man will say what’s on his mind and act his feelings; he won’t take pull any punches or hide behind any veneers. Case in point: the Oscars this year. You may or may not have read the quote at the top of the post, but he hated the material and was very vocal about it. In that same interview with Playboy, he said that he told the producer of the telecast that “I just don’t think this stuff’s going to be good.”
So how did he react? With boredom and a complete lack of enthusiasm while Anne Hathaway tried to exude enough enthusiasm for both hosts. But for those of us who know James Franco beyond the obvious filmography, this isn’t really a surprise or something we haven’t seen before. Have you seen 2008’s “Camille,” a little indie he starred in alongside Sienna Miller? If you haven’t, don’t because it’s awful.
Here’s the thing about “Camille” – Franco knows it’s terrible and acts accordingly: bored and brutalized, much like how those of us stupid enough to watch the movie feel. Or if you saw “Eat Pray Love,” you’ll see a similar display. The guy caught in the thankless A-hole ex-boyfriend role isn’t an exciting place to be, and Franco doesn’t act thrilled at all. But honestly, should he be? If you see “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” you’ll see a similar side of Franco: bored and acting like he’s above the material the whole time.
My question to you, the reader, is this: is James Franco justified in showing his feelings toward the movie on screen? Is he allowed to say “Yes, this is a paycheck movie, but that still doesn’t mean I have to like it” through an inferred glance? Or does he need to swallow his pride and just act? Because in the end, do we pay to see James Franco or the person that James Franco is acting as? Do we need to be able to separate the actor from the character? Or can we accept a post-modern blurring of the two?
Now allow me to shift gears while you mull over the tremendous amount of questions posed in the last paragraph. Back in March, when the Charlie Sheen phenomenon was raging out of control, the brilliant author Bret Easton Ellis (“American Psycho”) wrote a fascinating editorial for Newsweek cleverly titled “Charlie Sheen IS Winning.” In it, he broke down how Sheen epitomizes the modern (or post-Empire, as he calls it) celebrity. While acknowledging that there may be some mental or substance issues present with Sheen, he lays out a convincing case for Sheen as the smartest celebrity in Hollywood because he understands what the public wants. Try arguing with this:
“To Empire gatekeepers, Sheen seems dangerous and in need of help because he’s destroying (and confirming) illusions about the nature of celebrity … What Sheen has exemplified and has clarified is the moment in the culture when not caring what the public thinks about you or your personal life is what matters most—and what makes the public love you even more (if not exactly CBS or the creator of the show that has made you so wealthy)…
… Do we really want manners? Civility? Empire courtesy? Hell, no. We want reality, no matter how crazy. And this is what drives the Empire to distraction: Sheen doesn’t care what you think of him anymore, and he scoffs at the idea of PR.”
So, is James Franco the bellwether of a new kind of celebrity entering the mainstream consciousness without having a drug-fueled implosion? Or is he something else entirely? Weigh in!
It’s a stretch to call “The Change-Up” a comedy. The movie feels like a two-hour gag reel of failed jokes axed from an offensive stand-up comedian’s routine. It puts you on edge, too, because you are always scared that it’s going to go one step too far and really offend someone like Michael Richards or Tracy Morgan.
Sophomoric and immature humor can be funny at times, but when anything relies solely on it, the act gets old really quickly. The movie tastelessly hurls pot-shots at mentally challenged people, Down syndrome patients, Japanese people, and Catholics, just to name a few, trying to get a laugh at their expense. This kind of shock jock technique treads a thin line between making a statement or commentary and exploiting stereotypes for personal gain; “The Change-Up” is so far on the wrong side of that line it really isn’t funny.
Not only that, the movie as a whole just doesn’t produce the laughs that it should. The writers of “The Hangover,” who penned the stale reimagining of “Freaky Friday” that can barely be called a script, took the wrong lesson from their smash success. We didn’t respond so overwhelmingly positively to “The Hangover” because of its raunchiness and vulgarity; that’s standard order in Hollywood R-rated comedies nowadays. We responded because it was outrageously original and a fun ride because we never knew what to expect.
“The Change-Up” represents that lazy and misplaced mentality that doubling the crudeness and gutting the inventiveness down to next to nothing will still produce a good comedy. As evinced by all the jokes that fall terribly flat and the ability to see the wheels of the movie turning the whole time, it doesn’t produce anything except a rollickingly predictable and forgettable time at a movie that should have you rolling on the floor. And alas, there are probably more body changing movies out there than decent laughs in this movie.
I decided to hold using Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight” for my pick as “F.I.L.M. of the Week” (contrived acronym meaning First-Class, Independent Little-Known Movie) as I didn’t think it would be proper to publicize a movie critical of the government when Washington was in the midst of a debt ceiling deadlock. But now that the debacle has put postponed the doomsday clock until 2013, I figure now it’s no longer kicking a man while he’s down.
Much like he did in his Academy Award-winning documentary “Inside Job,” Ferguson sees a blunder and ruthlessly investigates and holds everyone responsible. While he has a pointed emphasis on the cabinet of George W. Bush, no one goes unexamined in this tale an operation gone tragically wrong in the face of simple, avoidable mistakes that were the result of clarity-blinding egos. Ferguson is simply the best documentarian out there at taking complex things like the War in Iraq and breaking them down into simple, understandable components without dumbing down the entire movie.
He shows how the Persian Gulf War fought under the first President Bush led to mistaken assumptions that the Shi’ites would welcome a United States invasion, just as Donald Rumsfeld mistakenly believed that we could invade them with half the troops. By giving us this tragic set-up, Ferguson makes the botched administration of the occupation magnify in disastrous impact. While some might argue that Ferguson only presents one side of the story, his interviewees are highly competent and he, along with narrator Campbell Scott, matches their level-headed retrospect. It’s less a call for heads as it is a call for reason and logic. If Libya were to go south, I guarantee Ferguson would make “No End in Sight 2” and point the same finger at President Obama.
For this to be nominated for Best Picture at the Golden Globes, you KNOW there had to be some sort of bribery going on. For all the glitz and glamour, “Burlesque” is one heck of a dud. And just because that dud is coated in more glitter than a Ke$ha concert doesn’t make it entertaining or even watchable. At a bloated nearly two hour runtime, this melodramatic musical makes “Mamma Mia!” look like a classic.
Adding together two musical superstars from different generations like Cher and Christina Aguilera seems like a combination that would produce some fireworks – or at least some cross-generational appeal. However, it’s just dreadful to watch as their diva attitudes aren’t left behind in the trailer and a contempt beyond something written in the script for their characters. Cher exudes an unlikable uptightness that’s about as rigid as her plastic face, and Christina Aguilera in her acting debut really can’t act unless she’s emanating a disdainful superiority. For a novice actress, she really has a lot of guts acting like she’s better than her humble-roots character.
The rest of the movie is better than them, but that’s not saying much. Cam Gigandet’s ambiguously sexual character is just plain annoying, and Kristen Bell’s entitled prima donna just makes a case for why she should stay in romantic comedies (that’s nt a compliment). Meanwhile, Julianne Hough’s role is hardly impressive and doesn’t give the country star the big mainstream break she deserves. Stanley Tucci is alright though, but he’s always good so that doesn’t really count. Diane Warren’s musical numbers are pretty colorless, and with the exception of the titular final number, there’s nothing worth listening to again. So skip this strip unless you need to be convinced that the New Wave of American Musical on screen is in its death throes. C- /
In a sense, “
It’s a stretch to call “
Marshall and the Movies 
Recent Comments