Pot Secret

Year: 2015

Director: Nima Nourizadeh

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I am far from a sucker for stoner comedy. Cheech and Chong blow right through me. Apatow’s tittering cronies hardly phase this old square. But when I saw the trailer for American Ultra, it tickled me. This looked like a film that wasn’t just content to pander in goofy munchies antics, but actually engage intelligently and – most importantly – ludicrously with them. I was all in.

Sometimes you take a gamble and it doesn’t pay off. Sometimes you hit it big. Sometimes you bet ten dollars and win back eight dollars. American Ultra was a little like that last one. I will take a perfectly strange film over a perfectly adequate film every time, but when it’s the latter (as American Ultra certainly is), it’s pretty hard to complain about that.

Alas, but I will. I mean, what are blogs for?

But first, the pot. Plot. I mean plot. In American Ultra, Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) is an unmotivated stoner living with his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). Unbeknownst to him he is also a sleeper agent. When the government, led by Adrian Yates (Topher Grace), decides to terminate him, his creator Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) rebels. In an effort to save is life, she activates him, but his weed-addled mind doesn’t give him the whole picture. He now has incredible fighting and firearm skills, but no memory of how he acquired them.

You get the picture. Screwup stoner can suddenly pull James Bond moves, but he’s confused and terrified as to why. Really, it’s a great concept. When a cadre of other “assets” arrives to destroy him, he and Phoebe fight back with startling aplomb.

Also Tony Hale is there because he’s awesome.

First off, this film doesn’t earn itself any favors by beginning at the end, a structural gimmick that barely works at the best of times and completely spoils itself at the worst. At the very least, American Ultra finds a middle ground between these two camps with an interesting reversal, but it still has the effect of watching the trailer right before the film. You’re just sitting around waiting for certain shots and situations to appear, not actually focusing on the story or letting it draw you in.

Approaching the film with that bias already in place is far from helpful, considering that American Ultra does everything in its power to prevent you from being drawn in. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a potentially wonderful film being strangled by producers in real time before, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. They engage with the concept like it’s a dead cockroach, buffering the truly buoyant moments with wads of painfully generic action sequences, a mid-film twist that unnecessarily complicates things, and a totally frivolous John Leguizamo cameo. I love the man, but the ham he is asked to sling weighs down the film like an anvil.

I’m sorry, John. I loved you in To Wong Foo.

But beneath that flaky coat of doldrums lies a deeply original, fun action comedy. You can’t pitch a movie as “stoner version of The Bourne Identity” and not have it come out at least a little kooky. Like I said, American Ultra seems oddly restrained in its promise of delivering weed gags atop a genre framework, like an adult hesitating to tell their parents about some mischief they pulled back in high school, but when it clicks it’s intelligent and hilarious. Gags can be simultaneously juvenile and wryly satirical, yet still gut-tickling no matter at which level you choose to receive it.

A lot of these clicking moments can be attributed to the leads, whose chemistry is as perfect as the time that guy accidentally invented matches. I mean, who knew Eisenberg and Stewart were so right for each other? And yeah yeah, Adventureland is a thing, but who actually liked that movie? What makes their casting in American Ultra so brilliant is the routes their careers have taken since that time. Kristen Stewart has stepped onto the reluctantly presented indie pedestal, and Eisenberg has some Oscarbait under his belt.

His progression has allowed them to relax while handling Blockbuster comedy roles, applying newfound skills to their approach. While some might argue that Kristen Stewart playing a stoner is as obvious as Kirk Cameron playing a crazed zealot, she tackles this role with a surprising zeal. A good comedy can be measured by the relative quality of its emotional extremes, and she rides between those tones like she’s in the X Games.

Are those still a thing? I’m not thirteen anymore, so I wouldn’t know.

Jesse Eisenberg matches and exceeds Stewart, completely externalizing the twitchy, anxious frivolity of the script at its best. Most of the film’s funniest moments belong to him, and not just because he plays the protagonist. His portrayal avoids caricature, encapsulating one guy and his tics like a mosquito in amber.

OK, before I bury you under any more similes, let’s wrap this up. American Ultra is a light, pleasant comedy film with action that occasionally rears its head to be clever. It won’t rock your world, but it will cheer you up. What more can you ask for, really? And look at it this way. If you rent this movie, that’s one more excuse not to watch You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. You’re welcome.

TL;DR: American Ultra is a pleasant but unchallenging Hollywood comedy.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 923

I See You Shiva With Anticipation

Year: 2014

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

There are three types of indie movies. 1) Films which showcase a brilliant artist who is given short shrift in Hollywood for no good reason. 2) Films which showcase a dreadful artist who is given short shrift in Hollywood for a very good reason. And 3) Films that attempt to be indie and meaningful because they know that's cool now, but they're directed by the guy who did Real Steel and Cheaper by the Dozen.

Guess which category This Is Where I Leave You falls under. 

Now I'm not saying that director Shawn Levy is a terrible artist. No way no how. I'm just saying that his pedigree (which also includes The Internship and all three Night at the Museum films) in no way prepares him to treat this film's material with the delicacy that its demanding tonal shifts deserve. It would take a lot of skill to finesse the low key dramedy of Jonathan Tropper's source novel into even mildly diverting cinema, and Levy just doesn't have the practice.

Well, I guess Ben Stiller and his museum buddies are KIND of like a dysfunctional Jewish family.

This Is Where I Leave You tells the story of the Altman family, which is brought together by the death of a patriarch. His last wish was his wife and kids to sit shiva, forcing them to remain in proximity with one another for the first time in years. 

The most important member of this family (in terms of screen time, not interest) is Judd Altman (Jason Bateman), a bitter man who just discovered that his wife was cheating on him with his boss. This causes some super indie problems for him, because he has exactly followed his plan for how his life should be, but it isn't bringing him happiness. A chance encounter with Penny (Rose Byrne), an old flame, reminds him that sometimes love can be messy, especially if you're in a movie that premiered at TIFF.

The rest of his family includes Wendy (Tina Fey), who has a kid and is married to a neglectful businessman despite the fact that she's in love with a brain-damaged neighbor inexplicably named Horry (Timothy Olyphant); Paul (Corey Stoll), who is a straight-laced square failing to have a baby with his wife Annie (Kathryn Hahn); Phillip (Adam Driver), who is the baby of the family, a hopeless lothario, and a perennial screwup who somehow convinced a beautiful psychiatrist named Tracy (Connie Britton) to fall in love with him; and their mother Hillary (Jane Fonda), who just got a boob job. 

Yay! Isn't it gross when old people show interest in sex? Judd certainly seems to think so, according to the immense amount of screentime spent on him staring at his mother's chest in revulsion.

Them old broads be crazy, amirite?

It's certainly exciting to see a depiction of the interactions and customs of a Jewish family in the modern, secular world. But it would be more exciting if most of them were actually Jewish or gave half a flying Pop-Tart about the implications of their minority faith on the subtext. 

There's a smattering of funny, charming moments, largely thanks to the abundance of funny, charming actors. And the drama is handily handled (to coin a nifty phrase), especially by Fey and Bateman, who have the heaviest of burdens on their shoulders. But despite the best efforts of the cast (all of whom are genuinely enjoyable save for Driver's perplexing emphasis on shouting his lines and Byrne's hard swallowing of her natural Australian accent), This Is Where I Leave You falls flat as a pancake.

In all fairness to Rose Byrne, who I love, her character is so indie vanilla that I can't imagine what else there would be to do other than babble lines in half-cocked American. You gotta make things enjoyable for yourself.

The biggest problem with the film is that it has no idea what to do with its prodigious cast. The performers are all proven talents with mid-level star power just dripping off of them, but the plot only has the attention span for at most three protagonists. The sprawling number of celebrities in the background steals focus from the characters that we're supposed to care about, and the imbalanced plot threads prevent us from caring about them in the first place. It's a lose-lose situation. 

Basically, this film is what would have happened if, instead of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, The Skeleton Twins had cast the entire line-up of Saturday Night Live. There are so many balls being juggled here that some of them just roll away without anybody noticing.

Characters twirl in and out of existence, vanishing from this dimension until they're needed for the next forced plot point. Several of the siblings' significant others are banished to purgatory early on, only to be trotted out on special occasions. And I'm pretty sure Connie Britton's character died of neglect, locked in an upstairs closet. The only consistent presence is a potty-training toddler, who is incidentally the most compelling of the bunch.

This isn't even a third of the cast of this tiny tiny film.

Overall, This Is Where I Leave You is just too generic to be worth the hassle. There's endless heavy-handed exposition laced conversations, routine characterizations, and nothing new to say about the state of the American family. Been there, done that. There is one great sequence where the siblings repeat a series of cordial platitudes to guests at a funeral that highlights the repetitive dullness and constant lying that these types of polite gatherings require.

But beyond that, the film doesn't attempt to do anything more than exist as a piece of disposable cinema. Miss this film, and don't bother calling it on its birthday.

TL;DR: This Is Where I Leave You is dull and generic, but has a decently sized slate of charming actors.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 1005

Stocking Stuffers

With Christmas and New Years approaching with their promises of Yuletide slasher mayhem and 2013 roundup lists, it's getting hard to focus on the other reviewing responsibilities I have. Especially the films I didn't have any particular love for.

You see, 2013 was a year filled with mildly promising female-led indie comedies, two of which I watched recently and found mildly enjoyable. That doesn't quite earn them a thousand word review of their very own so I'm gonna slam these two together in one post.

Check them out in between mad dashes to stores for Christmas shopping! You have 14 days, if you need to order something online, do it now!

Year: 2013

Director: Maggie Carey

Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Johnny Simmons, Bill Hader

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

What could be funnier than a high school sex comedy set in Boise, Idaho in 1993 and cast with TV actors who are by all appearances a decade out of high school? A lot of things, but against all odds The To Do List is actually pretty good.

Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) is a virginal valedictorian who, in the summer after graduation, decides to  learn as much as she can about sex before she heads off to college. With the help of her friends Fiona (Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) and Wendy (Sarah Steele), she puts together a list of sex acts that she intends to complete during the ensuing months.

As she navigates boys, men, her summer job as a lifeguard at the community pool, and pursuing her studly coworker Rusty (Scott Porter) while avoiding the affections of her nerdy friend Cameron (Johnny Simmons), Brandy learns about love and sex and whatever. It's all very teen movie but at least the love triangle goes somewhere unexpected.

Sex is pretty much always funny no matter how terrible the joke is, so the film has that going for it as well as some stellar 90's gags about skorts, Beaches, and grunge bands (featuring a spot on cameo by Andy Samberg). There are several truly hilarious moments and a great honest message about the nature of teen sexuality by the time we reach the end.

However, a lot of the film's time is spent on the alarmingly numerous side characters in an attempt to squeeze in cameos by Clark Gregg (SHIELD's Agent Phil Coulson) as the obligatory sex-hating father stock character, the lovely Connie Britton (of American Horror Story Season One and Nashville) as Brandy's sex positive nurse mother, Bill Hader (SNL) as a slacker lifeguard, Jack McBrayer (30 Rock's Kenneth Parcel) as a rival pool owner, Rachel Bilson (The OC) as Brandy's older sister, Adam Pally (Happy Endings) as her triflin' fiancé, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Kick-Ass and Pitch Perfect) as Cameron's best friend, and Donald Glover (Community) as the world's least essential character. He just sort of exists sometimes.

That paragraph is just as bloated as the film, but the pleasant comedy manages to overcome the cameo overdose through sheer amusingness and 90's nostalgia. It's nothing to write home about, but it's a good way to kill 90 minutes while on a plane or avoiding studying for finals.

Rating: 7/10

Girl Most Likely

Year: 2013

Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Cast: Kristen Wiig, Darren Criss, Annette Bening

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The two directors would probably explain the abrupt tonal shifts Girl Most Likely suffers through, but that doesn't alter the fact that they're there.

Imogene (Kristen Wiig) is a struggling playwright who fakes a suicide to get her ex-boyfriend to come visit her. He does not and Imogene is forced by the hospital to live with her gambling-addicted mother (Annette Bening) with whom she has been estranged for some time. 

Also living with them are her developmentally stunted brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald in a role very probably written for Zach Galifianakis) who owns a crab stand on the boardwalk, her mother's new boyfriend George Bousch (Matt Dillon), a sketchy man who claims to both be a CIA agent and a samurai, and Lee (Darren Criss), a handsome boarder who is renting her old room.

She is living in a blanket fort in the living room and if that doesn't spell "indie comedy" to you, I suggest you watch a couple more of the things. It's all very lowest common denominator indie fare and it's peppered with Wiig's usual schtick, but luckily Wiig's schtick is one of the best around so it livens up what could have been a terminally bland affair.

Unfortunately she has to work extra hard to keep up the audience goodwill with a character who is selfish and makes a shocking variety of terrible decisions (an especially notable is one near the end where she seemingly contemplates abandoning her entire family and leaving them to die).

Although the film doesn't cover any ground that Bridesmaids hadn't already - and better - standout scenes like Imogene stealing a book from the library and the totally out of left field final ten minutes are funny enough to justify the film's existence, but not much more than that.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 858