Comedy

School for Scoundrels

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: School for Scoundrels
  • IMDb: link

School for ScoundrelsRoger (Jon Heder) is a loser.  By day he is abused by fellow workers and law breakers in his job as a meter-maid.  By night Roger pines for his neighbor, a sweet girl named Amanda (Jacinda Barrett) whose roommate (Sarah Silverman) is as sarcastic as Amanda is nice.

Unable to express his feelings to the woman he loves Roger decides to join a secret confidence building course run by the unscrupulous Dr. P (Billy Bob Thornton).  There he meets other losers like himself (Todd Louiso, Horatio Sanz, Matt Walsh, Jon Glaser, Leonard Earl Howse) and for the first time begins to feel a part of something.

Roger’s success in the class has some dire consequences.  Dr. P decides to challenge Roger and make a move on Amanda, using every dirty trick imaginable.  Roger is forced to either tell the truth or beat his professor at his own game.

The film is full of gags and some increasingly brutal humor.  It doesn’t have the balls to go for the big laughs Thornton got in Bad Santa, but it is consistently funny throughout.

The supporting cast, stolen mostly from former SNL casts, does well.  Silverman plays her typical bitch on wheels and is a little too shrill for me here.  If she’s serious about giving acting a chance I’d like to see her branch out a little more.  There are two cameo roles that stand out, Ben Stiller and David Cross, who are so good you wonder why the script couldn’t fit them into the plot more.

It’s a fine comedy that won’t bore you.  It doesn’t have the huge belly laughs you would expect from this material, but it is consistantly funny throughout.  If guy humor, men getting shot in the crotch with paint guns, and losers trying pitifully to impress women sound like your thing, you should enjoy yourself.  It’s well worth the price of admission.

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Open Season

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Open Season
  • IMDb: link

Open SeasonBoog (Martin Lawrence) is a big domesticated Grizzly Bear who has been raised in captivity by a forest ranger (Debra Messing).  Boog’s life is perfect, all the food he can eat, a mother who loves him, entertaining youngsters with his trained act.  His life is paradise.

Then a dimwitted deer named Elliot (Ashton Kutcher) turns his whole world upside down, and Boog finds himself out in the woods only days before hunting season is to begin.  Boog and Elliot try to make it back to town, avoid the hunters – especially the villainous Shaw (Gary Sinese) who has it in for the pair – and make it home in one piece.  Along the way they cause trouble, meet new friends and explore the woods.

There’s nothing too original here, the plot is pretty straightforward.  The film has a nice joke at the beginning as Shaw compares Beth to a Girl Scout.  Enjoy it; the next laugh will take about an hour to find you.  Many of the children in the screening I attended seemed bored, disinterested and only vaguely aware a film was showing.  Not a great endorsement.

It’s not that the film is bad; it’s just not more interesting than any animated show you’d find playing on your television.  The supporting cast includes Billy Connolly, Jon Favreau, and Patrick Warburton, but even their humor does little to lighten the mood.

On a side-note, for animation buffs, the film breaks a cardinal rule of animation by not only having the characters discuss “taking a crap” (their words), but actually showing it.  The scene is supposed to be funny, but when an animated PG-rated film has to stoop to such low humor to elicit a laugh, then you know you’re in trouble.

There’s been a glut of animation that has hit theaters this year after a relatively poor showing in 2005.  Compared to the likes of Cars (read that review) and Over the Hedge (read that review), and even Barnyard (read that review) and Monster House (read that review), Open Season fails to measure up.  Still, it’s marginally better than The Wild (read that review here); at least that’s something, right?

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Festival of Beer

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  • Title: Beerfest
  • IMDb: link

After the death of their grandfather (Donald Sutherland), two brothers (Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske) travel to Germany with his ashes.  There they discover the secret underground competition known as Beerfest.  Teams of five from countries around the world compete in different events to crowned champions every year.

After being humiliated and thrown out of the competition, the pair decide to put together their own American team and return a year later to kick some ass.  They round-up three old friends (Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar), each with a specific beer related skill, and spend the next twelve months training (and getting really drunk).

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Wait Until You Hear About the Mascot

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  • Title: Accepted
  • IMDB: link

accepted-posterIf you liked movies like Waiting…, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Risky Business, and Van Wilder, then you should give Accepted a shot.  It’s a little of all of those movies, and others, rolled into one.  But what makes it different is the humorous AND seriousness with which it discusses our educational system – and that it has something to say, unlike most teen comedies these days, rather than just show.

Unable to find a college who will accept him, Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) decides to create one instead.  With the help of his friends (Jonah Hill, Columbus Short, Maria Thayer) he creates a web page, leases a rundown mental hospital, hires a former educator to be their dean (Lewis Black), and thus creates the South Harmon Institute of Technology.  His parents seem convinced and he and his friends sit down to party all summer long.

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Duff-defying

/ / Movie Reviews

Save me from teen starlet sisters and their wacky romantic comedies.  While I’m sure young girls (and old perverts) might find something to enjoy in the latest Duff n’ Duff production, I wasn’t amused or angered at what was put in front of me.  All I could muster was an empathic feeling of embarrassment for everyone involved.

Material Girls
1 Star

I usually like nothing better than to rip a film like this to pieces, but this one is so bad that I actually became sorry for all those involved.  Rather than pointing out the films poor acting, writing, production, and directing, I’d just like to offer everyone a great big hug and a shoulder for all involved to cry themselves back to sanity.  Don’t worry; you’ll work again…probably.

The Marchetta sisters, Tanzie (Hilary Duff) and Ava (Haylie Duff), are heirs to a cosmetic fortune held in trust by their father’s best friend (Brent Spiner) after his death.  They’re rich and spoiled, but are good natured, honest, nice and sweet.

Just days before receiving control of their company the girls get an offer to sell out to their competitor, Fabiella (Anjelica Huston).  Shortly afterward news breaks on the troubling side effects of the new cosmetics put out by Marchetta, sending the girls on the run from the paparazzi.

Together with the help of a lawyer (Lukas Haas) and a scientist/valet (Marcus Coloma) the girls find happiness, despite the loss of their millions, and begin investigating the incident in order to recover their wealth and clear their father’s good name.

Where to begin?  The movie feels like a made-for-TV after school special from the eighties.  I didn’t know Brent Spiner and Anjelica Huston were so hard up for roles.  I really hope they get back on their feet and are able to put food on the table with the checks from this film.  I wonder if there’s a celebrity charity hotline I could call and offer them my help?

The film has a loose plot that revolves around the sisters getting into different kinds of trouble (the “humorous” not the dangerous kind), reconnecting with their housekeeper (Maria Conchita Alonso – Where have you been?  It’s been long time since The Running Man).  Nothing remarkable to talk about here; the hijinks of the girls are your usual B-sitcom variety.

This one’s not going on anybody’s resume.  The more I watched the film the sadder I got for the Duff girls.  Really, I wanted to advise them to burn every copy of this film.  More than anything it shows the lack of range of both sisters, who might be at home on a TV screen or in a music video, but are sorely lacking the star power needed to carry a film (at least one that was seemingly written by thirteen year-old girls over lunch one dreary afternoon).  Hopefully the film won’t lose too much money, and they’ll be able to get back their TV commercial jobs selling gum.

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