Sundance ’10: One Too Many Mornings

February 1, 2010Posted in2000s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, Sundance
**½/****starring Stephen Hale, Anthony Deptula, Tina Kapousis, Jonathan Shockleyscreenplay by Anthony Deptula, Michael Mohan, Stephen Haledirected by Michael Mohan by Alex Jackson One Too Many Mornings is yet another semi-autobiographical romantic dramedy about two twentysomething males refusing to enter the adult world. It sounds a lot like the below-reviewed Bass Ackwards and Obselidia, but this one was made completely out-of-pocket and shot on the weekends over the course of two years. Considering the ultra-low budget, I'll admit there's a temptation to lower my standards. The filmmaking itself is stylish and inventive while essentially staying organic to the material--there's a fine…

Sundance ’10: Bass Ackwards

January 29, 2010Posted in2000s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, Film Festivals, Sundance
**½/****starring Linas Phillips, Davie-Blue, Jim Fletcher, Paul Lazarwritten and directed by Linas Phillips by Alex Jackson It took me a while to have any reaction whatsoever to Linas Phillips' Bass Ackwards. I guess I ultimately settled on mild affection, but this is not a film that's going to divide people. Phillips plays a Seattle-area wedding videographer named, yes, Linas. He's living with a young married couple and having an affair with the wife thereof (Davie-Blue). She's not willing to develop the relationship any farther and her husband kicks Linas out of their house. With no home and no girl, Linas…

Shorts (2009) – Blu-ray Disc

January 27, 2010Posted in2000s, 2010, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Family, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound A Extras D
starring Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, Leslie Mann, James Spader
written and directed by Robert Rodriguez

by Walter Chaw George Bernard Shaw posited that one should “make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.” Transposed to film, it seems more often than not that when one refers to a “kid’s movie,” it means that it’s a piece of shit no one in their right mind would watch, so: give it to your little ones. Go farther with it and find that said pieces of shit are also above critique for most, defended with the unassailable notion that if their toddlers enjoyed it, then what’s the harm? Except that the reason children aren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves is because they’d choose to watch stuff like Shorts, Robert Rodriguez joints rolled exclusively for the molly-coddling of his children, who come up with this shit for their rebel-with-a-crew daddy to crank out of his make-hole.

Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

January 14, 2010Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Coming of Age, Disney, Drama, DVD, Family, Music, Romance, Teen

**/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B-
starring Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment, Jason Earles, Billy Ray Cyrus
screenplay by Dan Berendsen
directed by Peter Chelsom

by Bill Chambers Peter Chelsom may have sold his soul when he joined the ranks of Lasse Hallstrom and John Madden to become a house director for Miramax, but going to work at Disney–on a feature-film vehicle for one of the company’s biggest brands, no less–is a mercenary move, pure and simple. So it’s surprising, considering he probably could’ve treated the job as a paid vacation without incurring the wrath of “Hannah Montana” fans (who’ve been weaned on a particularly low-rent sitcom), to say nothing of the suits in charge (Disney favours foremen to filmmakers, after all), that Chelsom seems legitimately inspired by the material more often than not. The ‘Hannah Montana’ concept itself needs only gentle pushes to yield something resembling a story, but Chelsom doesn’t exactly coast on it; anyone who’s involuntarily endured the collected works of Kenny Ortega or Andy Fickman will notice a more idiosyncratic hand at the helm almost immediately. While I can’t say I’ve ever thought much of Chelsom’s films (they’re a bit twinkly for my tastes), he appears to have found his niche. As a work of Hollywood imperialism goes, it’s certainly preferable to his remake of Shall We Dance?.

Leap Year (2010)

January 8, 2010Posted in2000s, 2010, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Ireland, Romance, Theatrical

½*/****
starring Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow
screenplay by Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont
directed by Anand Tucker

by Walter Chaw A rite of passage for starlets aspiring to graduate from the B-list is this crucible of the romantic comedy where, governed by the suffocating strictures of a time-worn formula, the penitent are asked to prove their box-office appeal. See, the genre represents the only variable, however slight, in what shakes out to be something like the Royal Shakespeare Company’s tradition of cycling Hamlets. Already through the corny gates, I imagine poor Amy Adams (remember when she used to be better than this?) welcomed into the fold by the unholy Moirae of Sandra Bullock, Renée Zellweger, and Julia Roberts as she teams with Limey Matthew Goode in a babysitter’s club-safe series of delightful misunderstandings on the Emerald Isle. Adams, an exceedingly promising American actress as evidenced by turns in Catch Me If You Can, Junebug, and Doubt, demeans herself now in picaresque cash grab Leap Year when her Anna, wanting to be betrothed to douchebag cardiologist Jeremy (Adam Scott), is pushed into the brawny arms of bog-trotting Declan (Goode) in a happy-go-smacky Forces of Nature imbroglio. Seems Anna wants to propose to the reluctant Jeremy in Dublin, where, once every four years, local tradition allows the especially desperate to Sadie Hawkins their cold-footed beaus. But, uh oh, type-A Anna is forced to hire slovenly man of stinky action Declan to ferry her ‘cross the proverbial Mersey and, in the process, learn something about herself while teaching him something about himself. Slapstick, interrupted kisses, awkward sleeping conditions, a dancing-at-the-wedding sequence, a food-prep montage, and provincial bumpkin comedy ensues.

The Lovely Bones (2009) + The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009)

December 25, 2009Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Directors: Terry Gilliam, Drama, Fantasy, France, Mystery, New Zealand, Spielberg, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

THE LOVELY BONES
½*/****
starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci
screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson, based on the novel by Alice Sebold
directed by Peter Jackson

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS
½*/****
starring Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Verne Troyer, Tom Waits
screenplay by Terry Gilliam & Charles McKeown
directed by Terry Gilliam

by Walter Chaw It’s all a little too Puff, the Magic Dragon, isn’t it. The Lovely Bones finds Peter Jackson regressing into his worst instincts and a newfound squeamishness in a film about, ick, a fourteen-year-old girl’s rape and murder, leaving the most unsavoury details of Alice Sebold’s revered source novel to the golden-lit imagination. (Give this to Precious: it’s exploitation with the decency to titillate.) This isn’t to say the book is worth much of a shit, but to say that it at least has the courage to talk about a rape and a murder where the film only has the mustard to romanticize loss and suggest that 1973 was so long ago the freak next door didn’t raise any flags. It’s also to say that what began its existence as a study of the bonds that hold a family together through the caprice of living has been reduced in its film adaptation to a murder mystery without a mystery, and a supernatural thriller that at every turn reminds of how much better Jackson’s The Frighteners is in dealing with almost the exact same set of themes.

Extract (2009) – Blu-ray Disc

December 21, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Crime

½*/**** Image B- Sound B Extras D+
starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck
written and directed by Mike Judge

by Ian Pugh It's fitting that Mike Judge's latest film, a pale imitation of a past success that endeavours to capture its essence with a bare minimum of the same charm and profundity, should be titled Extract. Perhaps it's not entirely fair to say that Judge's Office Space achieved cult status for its portrayal of nine-to-five banality even though it's actually about a wayward asshole who used that banality as an excuse to become a lazy, belligerent thief. Nevertheless, with Extract, Judge essentially confirms he thinks you liked Office Space for its company setting–and now, ten years later, he responds in kind. Work is hell in Judge's world, and hell is other people. Although Judge is at his best when he's telling you what you don't want to hear–that teenagers are capable of some pretty vile things, that the presence of a work ethic might override your distaste for the work itself, that anti-intellectualism is going to be the death of American culture–at the precise moment you don't want to hear it, in Extract he says nothing provocative beyond the occasional attempt at sucker-punching the viewer with politically-incorrect comedy that stopped being subversive around a decade ago. (Coincidence?) It's impossible to say where the shock or amusement is supposed to come from at the sight of Ben Affleck (another remnant of the P.C. '90s and its reactionary counterculture), gussied up to look like Arlo Guthrie as he curses, deals drugs, and smokes out of ridiculous bongs.

The Gary Cooper Collection: Along Came Jones; Man of the West; The Pride of the Yankees; The Westerner – DVD

December 16, 2009Posted in****/****, 1940s, 1950s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Biopic, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, Sports, Western

ALONG CAME JONES (1945)
**½/**** Image B+ Sound C+
starring Gary Cooper, Loretta Young, William Demarest, Dan Duryea
screenplay by Nunnally Johnson
directed by Stuart Heisler

MAN OF THE WEST (1958)
****/**** Image A- Sound B-
starring Gary Cooper, Julie London, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur O'Connell
screenplay by Reginald Rose
directed by Anthony Mann

THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942)
**/**** Image B Sound C+ Extras C
starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Walter Brennan, Dan Duryea
screenplay by Jo Swerling and Herman J. Mankiewicz
directed by Sam Wood

THE WESTERNER (1940)
**½/**** Image B Sound C+
starring Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Doris Davenport, Fred Stone
screenplay by Jo Swerling and Niven Busch
directed by William Wyler

by Jefferson Robbins I thought Gary Cooper was broader. The way he carried Hollywood on his shoulders from the silents through the talkies to the threshold of the New Wave, you'd expect him to be broader. Instead, he was the definition of lanky. Where his centre of gravity lay was in his Rushmore of a face: in close-up, he's an impossible granite monument, like that ever-unfinished Crazy Horse memorial in South Dakota; in full shot, in his prime years, he's a broomstick supporting a boulder.

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

December 11, 2009Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Disney, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance, Theatrical

*½/****
screenplay by Ron Clements & John Musker & Rob Edwards
directed by Ron Clements & John Musker

Princessfrogby Ian Pugh Disney has resurrected its traditional (i.e., 2-D) animation department only to plunder plots and themes from its own vault, but because we're all familiar with what Disney represents in this day and age, we're meant to accept it with a wink and a nod. This is the same old Cinderella trope located firmly within the "Family Guy" generation, the film's hip acknowledgment of genre conventions (the absurdity of talking animals, the modern irrelevance of royalty) nevertheless failing to capitalize on that newfound consciousness in any meaningful way. So while it offers the reasonable assertion that the importance of love and family shouldn't be lost in the pursuit of a dream, it still ends with a message of no-happiness-without-marriage straight outta the 16th century. And whatever PR folderol you've read about The Princess and the Frog representing the company's "first black princess," be aware that Bold Leaps Forward are hardly the priority here, the common but wholly-valid criticism being that the characters spend more screentime as frogs than as people.

Julie & Julia (2009) – Blu-ray Disc

December 7, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Romance

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina
screenplay by Nora Ephron, based on the books Julie and Julia by Julie Powell and My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
directed by Nora Ephron

Juliejuliacap

by Bryant Frazer It can hardly be disputed that Meryl Streep is among the finest, or at least the most finely proficient, of actors currently working. It's a drag, then, to see her resort to caricature and impersonation, even when she's sending some voltage through a limp premise. Riffing on demon-editor Anna Wintour, she ended up adding pathos to a cartoonish character, swallowing whole not just the working-girl melodrama that was The Devil Wears Prada, but also her poor co-star, Anne Hathaway, who appeared to be hanging on for dear life to a carnival ride. That speaks well to Streep's enduring star power, but I've always felt the effect was a little ostentatious–like one of the Rockefellers showing up to work at a soup kitchen over the holidays. It raises the question: Can a mediocre film really be redeemed by the presence of a terrific performance?

The Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans (2009); Planet 51 (2009); Me and Orson Welles (2009)

November 26, 2009Posted in****/****, 2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Crime, Directors: Richard Linklater, Directors: Werner Herzog, Drama, Family, Nicolas Cage, Sci-Fi, Theatrical

THE BAD LIEUTENANT – PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS
****/****
starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner
screenplay by William Finkelstein, based on the film by Abel Ferrara
directed by Werner Herzog

PLANET 51
*/****
screenplay by Joe Stillman
directed by Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad & Marcos Martinez

ME AND ORSON WELLES
**/****
starring Claire Danes, Zac Efron, Christian McKay, Zoë Kazan
screenplay by Holly Gent Palmo & Vincent Palmo, based on the book by Robert Kaplow
directed by Richard Linklater

by Ian Pugh Playing against his sadistic instincts, police sergeant Terrence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) saves a man from drowning in a flooded prison during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, earning him not only a promotion to lieutenant but also a debilitating spinal injury. A subsequent addiction to prescription painkillers inevitably leads McDonagh to harder drugs and casual abuses of his newfound power as he attempts to solve the murder of a Senegalese drug dealer and his family. Trading Abel Ferrara’s sulphuric New York for a no-less-hellish Louisiana noir, Werner Herzog’s in-name-only remake of Bad Lieutenant is a work of delirious madness. That should come as no surprise from the man who’s spent the last forty years cataloguing human obsession, but I don’t think I’d ever really understood the method behind it until The Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans (hereafter Bad Lieutenant 2). Madness is about possibility, and what better complement to that philosophy than Nicolas Cage, an actor who–at his best, like Herzog–apparently regards the conventions and boundaries of his craft as simple suggestions that must be defied? A quick look at what they’re capable of accomplishing together and you’re a little surprised they haven’t teamed up before. As McDonagh, Cage projects the dangerous unpredictability of Kinski* and the sympathetic brutality of Bruno S.: you don’t fear him, exactly, but you’re afraid of what he might become; you don’t feel sorry for him, but you lament what he could have been. (“I’ll kill ‘im,” he says at one point, the frightening indifference in his voice leaving uncertain if–or how–he plans to act on that idle threat.) Halfway through the film, after the stakes in play are thoroughly established, Cage/McDonagh suddenly adopts a muted, cotton-mouthed accent. Why?

Snatch (2000) [Special Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

November 23, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Crime, DVD, UK

***½/****
DVD – Image A Sound A Extras A
BD – Image C Sound A Extras A
starring Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Brad Pitt, Rade Sherbedgia
written and directed by Guy Ritchie

by Walter Chaw Guy Ritchie's sophomore effort Snatch opens with a hyperkinetic homage to the first violent robbery of Ringo Lam's City on Fire and continues by aping the slick mod-cool of the British gangster films of the late-'60s and early-'70s. It is a bizarre beast that borrows, steals, re-invents, and winks knowingly when its hand is caught in the imagistic cookie jar. Guy Ritchie laughs at your erudition. He's in it for the money shots–a new champion of the gangster drama as pornography: ultimately empty but undeniably efficient.

Up (2009) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

November 19, 2009Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Pixar

***/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras N/A
screenplay by Bob Peterson
directed by Pete Docter

by Walter Chaw There's still something breathless about Up, but I wonder if the Pixar formula isn't starting to show its seams now in its second decade of producing masterpieces–if there's a lack of freshness here in its familiarly exhilarated, cozily excited spaces. None of that fatigue is in evidence in the film's miraculous, wordless prologue, however: destined to compete with the opening-credits sequence of Watchmen as the single best stretch in any film this year, it establishes character, motivation, story of place, and sense of time without leaving a dry eye in the house. Shame the picture also peaks in these first ten minutes. It reminds of the wordless bit describing Jessie's abandonment in Toy Story 2, or the entire first half of WALL·E, and it suggests that Pixar is unparalleled in exploiting the possibilities for visual storytelling in its cavernous digital medium. The comparison of WALL·E to Chaplin is on point: When Pixar trusts the expressiveness of its mainframe and the beautiful, liquid clarity of its animation techniques, I don't know that there's ever been a better "silent" filmmaking collective. In their roster, it's arguable that they've only really faltered twice: once with the tedious Seven Samurai redux A Bug's Life, and again with the noxious redneck-baiting Cars. And while Up is nowhere near that bottom, it finds itself somewhere in the middle thanks to the peculiar ceiling to its invention (an entire Lost World and all you got is a giant bird and a talking dog?) and sentimentality that edges from sweet to mawkish. There are one too many cutaways to a dead wife's portrait and one too many winsome sighs as a plan made in childhood looms tantalizingly near.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) + The Road (2009)

November 13, 2009Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Directors: Wes Anderson, Drama, Theatrical, Thriller

FANTASTIC MR. FOX
**/****
animated; screenplay by Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach, based on the book by Roald Dahl
directed by Wes Anderson

THE ROAD
*½/****
starring Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron
screenplay by Joe Penhall, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy
directed by John Hillcoat

by Walter Chaw There's nothing much going on in Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox–which is a terrible shock, because there's generally so much going on in Anderson's and Dahl's respective canons. With Anderson's every attempt to infuse this piffle with his brand of Salinger-esque autumnal, familial melancholy registering as ever-so-slightly desperate, it strikes particularly pale in such close proximity to Spike Jonze's magnificent Where the Wild Things Are. Missing is the vein of emotionality that runs rich in Anderson's best films, the idiosyncrasies of his misfit family groups somehow rendered ordinary transplanted into foxes and opossums. I wonder if it isn't something to do with the idea that "cute" animation as a genre and not a medium has "quirk" as its bread and butter. More to the point, it probably has something to do with the fact that for all those charges of "pretentious" Anderson has collected over the course of a career, when you pile all of his pathos into a film that seems mainly interested in being adorable, they're actually deserved.

I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009) – DVD

November 10, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Canada, Comedy, Coming of Age, DVD, Romance, Teen

*½/**** Image N/A Sound N/A Extras C
starring Hayden Panettiere, Paul Rust, Jack T. Carpenter, Lauren London
screenplay by Larry Doyle, based on his novel
directed by Chris Columbus

by Jefferson Robbins I believe this is what it looks like when a veteran director throws in the towel. Morosely paced, edited with no ear for slapstick, perfectly mediocre in its staging, timing, scripting, and performances, I Love You, Beth Cooper (hereafter Beth Cooper) betrays benign neglect on the part of producer-director Chris Columbus. It's as if he tossed together all the ingredients for a thoughtful but teen-friendly confection–a recipe inherited from his late mentor John Hughes–and took it on faith that the cake would bake itself. There's even a weird invocation of the dead god of teen comedies: Columbus casts Alan Ruck, a.k.a. Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as the hero's dad and supplies the sidekick with Cameron's absent, oppressive shadow of a father. That's not homage–that's the desperate rubbing of a talisman, a prayer to recapture lightning that leaked out of the bottle long ago.

Night of the Creeps (1986) [Director’s Cut] – Blu-ray Disc

October 30, 2009Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Zombie

*/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B
starring Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, Tom Atkins
written and directed by Fred Dekker

by Walter Chaw A childhood favourite, Fred Dekker's Night of the Creeps generally underscores the danger of revisiting childhood favourites with a jaundiced eye; this and his sophomore feature, The Monster Squad, show that Dekker was rejected from the USC and UCLA film schools for a reason. I realize it's all supposed to be a cozy, funny-scary homage to the terribleness of low-budget B-movies as a genre unto themselves, but the picture is terribly edited and disastrously paced–the very things that effectively kill both comedy and horror. Unconvinced? The first misstep might be its choice to leave a charming, 1950s-set black-and-white prologue in favour of a faux-Hughesian '80s fandango that, like most of the era's mainstream teen dramas not made by John Hughes, lacks an ear for how we actually talked, and insight into how we actually felt. In any case, it's hopelessly incongruous to go from Ozzie & Harriet to leg-warmers and Wall of Voodoo, resulting in something that isn't a spoof of bad filmmaking so much as an example of it. Night of the Creeps joins The Goonies for me as one of those cult classics I just can't wrap my head around. I remember sort of loving it when I was twelve, meaning only that twelve-year-olds are idiots.

Trick ‘r Treat (2009) [Digital Copy Special Edition] – Blu-ray Disc

October 28, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Horror

*½/**** Image A- Sound B Extras B-
starring Dylan Baker, Rochelle Aytes, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox
written and directed by Michael Dougherty

by Walter Chaw Less a portmanteau than a Tarantino time-shift/overlap, Trick 'r Treat is a handsomely-mounted bit of fluff that dribbles out like the Cat's Eye redux for which no one was clamouring, with more than a few images borrowed from other Stephen King errata such as Creepshow and Pet Sematary. Michael Dougherty's hyphenate debut, it, a lot like co-writer-on-X2 Dan Harris's own first feature, Imaginary Heroes, has a pedigree and the benefit of the doubt in its corner but washes out as something that needed to marinate longer to reach the full flower of any potential. The buzz surrounding Trick 'r Treat, though, in particular the Internet outrage over the studio's alleged mishandling of it, is peculiarly deafening and–as with most buzz around most projects falsely promised theatrical distribution–in large part hysterical and unjustified.

The Proposal (2009) – Blu-ray Disc

October 20, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Romance

*½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B-
starring Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Malin Akerman, Betty White
screenplay by Peter Chiarelli
directed by Anne Fletcher

Proposalcap

by Bryant Frazer Reviewing a romantic comedy can feel a bit like criticizing a kitten. So what if the feline puked in your slippers? What cat lovers generally want is something that will curl up in their lap, purr like nobody's business, and maybe give off a little heat on a cold winter's night. Complaining that the hungry little fuzzball won't fetch your slippers, can't guard your house, and bears no singular distinguishing marks or characteristics comes across as a tad churlish.

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) + About Last Night… (1986) – Blu-ray Discs

October 13, 2009Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Romance, ZERO STARS

ST. ELMO’S FIRE
ZERO STARS/**** Image A- Sound C+ Extras C
starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore
screenplay by Joel Schumacher & Carl Kurlander
directed by Joel Schumacher

ABOUT LAST NIGHT…
½*/**** Image C- Sound C Extras C
starring Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, James Belushi, Elizabeth Perkins
screenplay by Tim Kazurinsky & Dennis DeClue, based on the play Sexual Perversity in Chicago by David Mamet
directed by Edward Zwick

by Walter Chaw The Brat Pack as a phenomenon is something that largely, blissfully escaped this child of the Eighties–just a touch too young, just a tad too disinterested. When Sixteen Candles came out, I was embarrassed by the Asian caricature enough to avoid talking about it (ditto The Goonies and Temple of Doom–though not, oddly enough, The Karate Kid); when St. Elmo’s Fire came out, I was busy sneaking into consecutive showings of Back to the Future. I remember a party where The Breakfast Club was playing in the background, and a girl I had a crush on exclaiming how much she loved it. Later, they played A Nightmare on Elm Street, and whoever’s mother it was at whoever’s house it was broke up the festivities not long after the bodybag in the hall. (I don’t know that I ever saw either movie in its entirety until I was well into my twenties.) Ferris Bueller was my connection to John Hughes, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Marty McFly were my thing–not a Molly Ringwald in sight. The closest I came to assimilation was Red Dawn, which, while awful, is also awesome in a deadening, testosterone-sick way. Looking back, the moment the ’80s matured for me was Near Dark, The Evil Dead, Predator, and David Cronenberg’s The Fly and not, as it was for many people in my peer group, Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. I remember hosting a sweltering screening of Broadcast News in my bedroom with a couple of dozen pals, a considerably less well-attended showing of Angel Heart a few weeks later, and a private viewing of Pump Up the Volume with a girl I really liked and to whom I crystallized my theory of how it was always better to watch a movie in the theatre…but not tonight. It was a hot evening. All my memories of movies in the ’80s are accompanied by suffocating heat. The decade in my memory is one long summer.

Couples Retreat (2009)

October 9, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Romance, Theatrical

½*/****
starring Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love
screenplay by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn & Dana Fox
directed by Peter Billingsley

Couplesretreatby Ian Pugh Peter Serafinowicz–a creepy, irony-free Christopher Walken prototype who appears to have strolled in from a different movie entirely–keeps Couples Retreat out of the running for Worst Film of 2009. What is it with these romantic comedies, exactly, that the characters left in orbit are always crafted with more care and love than the ones with whom you're forced to spend the most time? I look at this latest trainwreck of clichés and I can only see it as director and former child star Peter Billingsley's payback for being trapped in the amber of A Christmas Story and Hershey's Syrup commercials in the decades since. A few ill-placed dick jokes are there to force the medicine down–call it the equivalent of Bob Saget's stand-up career. To be fair, early trailers featuring adulterous parking-lot trysts seem to indicate that test screenings may have taken some substantial bite out of the filmmakers' original intentions. But even with that in mind, this is still the kind of film that saves a few moments for the lead character's precocious toddler (Colin Baiocchi), who, like an ersatz Olsen twin, regurgitates whatever elementary dialogue is fed to him. This is also the kind of film that saves the same little urchin for the last image before the credits, as he takes a shit in a display toilet. Coo and scream with laughter where appropriate–and realize that whatever the movie's original intentions might have been, it's doubtful that a few backseat hump sessions would have tied them together.