Cleanup On Aisle 69

Year: 2016

Director: Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon

Cast: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera

Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I can take or leave Seth Rogen. When he’s doing Neighbors or plying himself in The Comeback, I’m all in. When he’s working with Judd Apatow, I’m 50/50. I’ve never disliked a performance of his, nor have I been utterly enamored of one. But when it comes down to his producing and writing choices, I can’t deny that he’s hit his stride. While I haven’t adored every movie in his recent string of films (This is the End, The Interview, Neighbors 2), he’s unafraid of being conceptually audacious, and I have heaps of respect for that.

Which brings us to the latest entry in his oeuvre: Sausage Party, an R-rated twist on the Pixar ethos. While he comedy’s juvenile at best, the script has no right to be as thematically sharp and satirical as it is. He can put one more notch in his belt because, no paper, this one’s another win.

Butcher paper, that is.

In Sausage Party, the food in the grocery store is sentient, and all they want is to be taken home to the Great Beyond by us, the Gods. They believe we will grant them an eternity of happiness and sensual pleasure. However, when Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) is returned by a customer having become a shuddering wreck, hot dog Frank (Seth Rogen) begins to have doubts about the Great Beyond. His antics cause him and his devout bun girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig) to fall out of their cart, forced to find their home aisle before they lose their freshness.

Brenda wants her journey to lead her home, and Frank wants his journey to lead to the truth. They’re joined by Kareem Abdul Lavash (David Krumholtz) and Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton), two walking stereotypes that act out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for some godforsaken reason. Also there’s Barry (Michael Cera), a stunted hot dog who has seen the truth about the Great Beyond – that kitchens are essentially less-fun Jigsaw traps for groceries – and struggles to return to the store to warn his friend. Oh, and a douchey Douche (Nick Kroll) wants to destroy Frank and Brenda for accidentally bending his nozzle.

I don’t know whether it’s the fault of the middling-at-best, horrifyingly-inelegant-at-worst animation or my blissful ignorance, but I definitely thought he was a toilet brush for like 15 minutes.

Do you think cartoon characters cussing is the funniest thing in the world? Then you should just pre-order your special edition quadruple disc Blu-Ray now, because you are going to love the s**t out of Sausage Party. As expected, the film has one foot firmly plated in the sophomoric at all times, but it’s the other foot that’s going interesting places.

This whole script is a feature-length allegory about the creation of religion, the horrible things it makes people to to one another and themselves, and why we shouldn’t be so quick to cast judgment on people who subscribes to different belief systems than us. Also, the moral is that raging hedonism is our only defense against our inevitable mortality, so it’s pretty much like Toy Story 3. I know, right? You got your subtext all over my R-rated comedy! How did this get in here? It’s an incredibly clever story that has heck-all to do with naughty hijinks, but whatever. I’m there.

It’s to the point that I can actually see somebody’s life philosophy changing to some degree after a screening of Sausage Party. As alarming as that sounds, that honestly might just be a good thing. I’m physically upset by how deeply I respect the intellectual cogs spinning behind the movie’s colorful cartoon façade. And then, of course, the rest of the movie is mostly super racist.

Thanks, everybody. I was getting too deep into liking this movie.

Not only is the humor desperately crude, which I’m fine with, it gives in to its urge to pattern every ethnic food after the most revolting racial stereotypes that can be produced by a screenwriting cabal of white dudes. Shock humor is all well and god, and the film does manage to convert the hideously insensitive Lavash and Bagel arc into something sweet and then appropriately twisted, however most of the racial humor is not only distasteful, but kind of lazy.

It doesn’t take more than a teaspoon of thought to make Grits (Craig Robinson) an angry black stereotype or to name your Native American liquor character (Bill Hader, why) firewater. So it’s pointless as well as disrespectful. This is humor that’s older than anyone reading this, and it’s certainly not funny today, if it ever was to begin with.

I’m terribly sorry to have such bad news to report about that aspect of the humor, because a lot of Sausage Party is really fun. When it goes whole hog depicting violence or sexuality, the film is at its best, and I’m not just saying this as a horror fan. Watching a film so gleefully unafraid to push the envelope of Hollywood sensibilities is a massively liberating experience. It’s certainly not for everyone, but as a cartoon about food, it’s enough degrees separated form human experience that even non-gorehounds should be able to get a kick out of it.

So much of Sausage Party is fun and intelligent and so much of it is crass and low-rent that it’s difficult to synthesize a proper score for the monstrosity. What I’ll say is this: Go see t if you have a high threshold for fratty, tasteless comedy. If you don’t, who cares. Have a nice day.

TL;DR: Sausage Party is mostly irreverent, weirdly intelligent fun despite its unfortunately prevalent racism.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 962

I Ain't Afraid Of No Girls

Year: 2016

Director: Paul Feig

Cast: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon

Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Man alive, am I glad the remake of Ghostbusters is in theaters so people can finally shut up about it. This needlessly divisive remake has had the one-two punch of taking on the mantle of a virulently nostalgic property and igniting the raging misogyny of certain online cave dwellers, so it has not been a fun time being a member of the horror community. 

As pointless and awful as many remakes are, I’m always willing to give them a chance. Especially when they’re from the team behind Spy, my favorite comedy of last year. Not to mention the fact that Ghostbusters is an iconic franchise with a series of major narrative flaws spiderwebbing across its surface, making it a more or less perfect property to update, if we have to reboot movies at all.

Hollywood certainly seems to enjoy it.

Ghostbusters doesn’t recreate the original plot so much as it sets it back to square one with different characters and sees where they go from there. These characters are Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), a meek doctor of particle physics who has attempted to suppress her belief in the paranormal in a weak stab at getting tenure; Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), her high school best friend and a true believer who has dedicated her life to paranormal research; Jillian Holtzman (Kate McKinnon), a dubiously sane engineer with an anarchistic flair for creating extremely dangerous, untested machinery; and Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), a subway worker who is the Ghostbusters’ first client and quickly becomes a part of the team.

As the Ghostbusters jet around New York City investigating apparitions, spirits, and grim grinning ghosts, they realize that a sinister someone is creating devices the amplify paranormal activity (which might explain why it got five sequels). They must figure out his plan and stop him before it’s too late.

Probably how most people felt when they heard this film was in development.

Is Ghostbusters better than the original? No. If you’re here on a hate odyssey, this is your cue to stop reading.

OK, now that the angries are gone, I’m safe to tell you that the remake is actually pretty good! As it should be. This is Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy, not some anonymous music video director and Tiger Beat’s plastic Teen of the Week. Just like the original four Busters, these ladies weren’t chosen because they were sexy, of-the-now superstars. There’s a reason they didn’t cast Margot Robbie, Gal Gadot, Olivia Munn, and hell, Jennifer Lawrence, why not. They cast genuinely funny women who can sell a joke like it’s a Pokémon Go in-app purchase.

And Ghostbusters really is funny. That’s its greatest strength, which is probably good news considering it’s a comedy film. Obviously, humor is in the gut of the beholder, and the jokes are in a vastly, almost unrecognizably different vein from the original, but there’s a lot of great stuff at work here. Chris Hemsworth is an obvious standout because every line he’s given is a joke, but his ditzy receptionist nabs the best scene in the movie, a job interview-cum-Abbott and Costello routine that is delivered with diamond-sharp comic timing. Kate McKinnon is also a magnetic presence, presenting a spectacularly offbeat, unpredictable set of line readings that are always bizarrely fascinating. 

Probably the best overall performance is Wiig’s, because she effortlessly finds the po-faced wackiness in her straight-woman character while maintaining enough of an emotional throughline that she provides us an easy access point to the more out-there characters and developments.

Everyone else is good too, but I can’t just copy-paste the cast list here and call it a review.

Ghostbusters is very funny from beginning to end, but here’s the thing. At a certain point in the second act, it kind of stops trying to be funny. When the jokes come, they’re mostly just as solid, but during the course of its typically vast Feigian run time it slowly starts to kind of take itself seriously, presenting lots of ghostly action and the series’ traditional deus ex machina climax with hardly a glimmer of irony.

Then it attempts to tie a goopy little bow around everything with a series of character moments that strain to pump raw emotion from a one-dimensional well. These characters are great to watch as they quip and bounce off one another, but only Erin and Abby’s arcs have any meat on their bones. Everyone else is far too weak to support the more dramatic turn the film abruptly shifts into in the middle of the finale. Hell, even Erin and Abby are given a scene so heavy with melodrama and a wailing Schindler’s List score that it topples face-first into the dirt.

But after a bit, Ghostbusters remembers what it is and course corrects. It never fully recovers from that massive hit, but it’s still a sprightly, amusing popcorn picture. Once again, the trailers for this Feig comedy dreadfully undersold what it had to offer, so while it was better than I worried it might be, it wasn’t really as great as I’d hoped. Oh sure, it’s unique and hilarious enough to stand on its own two feet in the Ghostbusters canon and its fun cameos mostly avoid incessant pandering (mostly), but it’s not a resounding success to the tune of a Spy or a Bridesmaids.

The only thing I will concede to the haters is that the FallOut Boy cover of the Ghostbusters thing is truly dreadful (they also donated the worst song of 2014 to Big Hero 6), but the filmmakers know what’s up and they give Ray Parker, Jr. more than enough airtime. Anyway, go see it! It’s a dizzy, fun summer movie the likes of which haven’t really been packing multiplexes this year.

TL;DR: Ghostbusters is a wholly decent remake that isn't better than original but offers a unique enough entry to be worth watching.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1003

Reviews In This Series
Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984)
Ghostbusters II (Reitman, 1989)
Ghostbusters (Feig, 2016)

The Gruesome Twosome

Year: 2014

Director: Craig Johnson

Cast: Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

After forcing Sergio to watch the entire Saw franchise pretty much back to back, I owe him a debt of gratitude that I am slowly paying back by watching a couple thousand movies of his choice. So expect the unexpected, dear readers. In between Census Bloodbath reviews and the upcoming [REC] retrospective (my RECrospective, if you will) leading up (or, more likely - following) the release of the fourth and final installment, don't be surprised if some very idiosyncratic pieces begin to show up here and there.

Assuming Sergio doesn't just elect to make me watch House of Cards until I pass out in a flush of sexy political exhaustion. Anyway, this is all just a pointlessly long way to introduce today's topic, a refugee from 2014, the year that was: The Skeleton Twins.

And no, this is not a spinoff of The Simple Life.

The Skeleton Twins is about two estranged siblings who are reunited after a pair of failed suicide attempts. Milo (Bill Hader) comes to live with Maggie (Kristen Wiig) and her uncannily perfect husband Lance (Luke Wilson) in New York state after a failed attempt at making an actor of himself in Los Angeles. While Milo attempts to find his place and reunite with Rich (Ty Burrell), the schoolteacher he had an affair with as a teen, Maggie struggles to overcome her dissatisfaction with what by all accounts should be a perfect marriage and gamely attempts to swallow her attraction for her fine-as-hell Australian scuba teacher (Boyd Holbrook).

Literally his only flaw is that the actor playing him is American, which means he's a liar.

Despite a string of serious indie-type scenarios, The Skeleton Twins is more comedy than drama, though Wiig and Hader are more than up for the task - he filled with bitter verve and sarcastic bite, she slathered in a heaping helping of wan ennui. Second time director Craig Johnson, however, is a little too wet behind the ears to keep the two slippery genres firmly in his grasp. The bigger comic moments and weepy dramatic crescendos appear in too-quick succession and crash into one another like a pilot's Newton ball toy during turbulence. They sometimes work together in harmony, but mostly ping off of each other and clatter wildly in all directions.

The film's tone is low-key enough in its ambitions that this effect is less disastrous than it could be in a more flamboyantly soapy picture (like, say, Blue Jasmine or any film with Meryl Streep on its casting shortlist), but it doesn't lead to a sense of overall cohesion. It's not film-killing, but it certainly makes it more of a challenge to pay rapt attention.

Although the Drag Halloween scene does its best to keep spirits high. Also - don't you think he looks a little bit like Elsa Mars in Freak Show?

The film's biggest strength is the chemistry of its two leads. No matter how hard the warring tones might try and smash together, Hader and Wiig form a strong caramel center for their unostentatious surroundings. Every peak the film reaches is due solely to their dedicated work, striking comedy gold when they're allowed to let their hair down and stray from the self-important faux-indiecool dialogue (because, honestly, does the whole "it's kind of my thing to screw up" self-sabotage thing appeal to anyone outside of teenagers in the late 90's?).

The Skeleton Twins, to be fair, has its share of genuinely funny moments, including a Jefferson Starship sing-along, a delicious dinner table scene with their negligent mother, and surprise cameo-that-I-can't-call-a-cameo-because-she's-not-famous-but-I-like-her-so-screw-it from Kathleen Rose Perkins (who is notable for being a welcome ray of light in the massively unenjoyable timesuck known as the BBC-Showtime co-production Episodes). And let's make it clear that no part of the film is a chore to watch, not even the most structurally inept missteps. 

It's just that, as a whole, The Skeleton Twins is like a Listerine strip. It's a little tricky to get ahold of at first, it has a moment of strength, and it dissolves from the tongue so quickly you almost forget it was ever there.

Although I would get married to Luke Wilson in a bulky sweater any day, so maybe I'm just not on this film's wavelength.

But credit where credit is due. Director/co-writer Craig Johnson's strange fixation on fish throughout the film both begins as a quick-and-dirty symbol for shifting character relationships and matures into a deeper rumination on the film's theme as it goes along. The sheer presence of fish throughout the narrative sparks active audience participation and brings to mind the so-called fishbowl effect, in which everything looks normal from an outside vantage point (like peering into a fishbowl), but appears strange and twisted from the inside.

This is the perfect metaphorical bookend for The Skeleton Twins, which is all about the absurdity and hypocrisy present in the trappings of a "typical" happy life (ie. great husband, great job, plans to add a baby to the whole arrangement...) and how people frequently pretend to be OK when a firestorm of emotion is whirling around inside. This is present in every character and every subplot and is by far the most commendable cinematic element in a film that, for better or for worse, plants its flag in its actors rather than its aesthetics.

All in all, The Skeleton Twins is a decent way to laze away a dull afternoon, especially if you've been missing Kristen Wiig or Bill Hader now that they've told SNL that they were going to the corner store for cigarettes and never returned. It won't stick around in your mind, but not every film has to. It might have its flaws, but it's a low-key good time for the suitably emotionally bereft.

TL;DR: The Skeleton Twins is a decent, low-key comedy that lives and dies on the chemistry of its central performers.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1004

My Boyfriend's Back

I'm looking into encouraging a lot more people to write - it's just such an incredibly fun experience that nobody seems to get anymore. So, inspired by last week's appearance by my friend Shannon on the pages of this blog, I encouraged my wonderful boyfriend Sergio to submit an article. It has been a running theme on this blog that our tastes are very different and I wanted him to argue for his side of things. He asked me to stick in an editorial here and there so everyone can see how much better his taste is than my own. Enjoy!

It was a fine Spring day when I met Brennan Matthew Klein on the banks of the Mississippi River. He was preparing to board a ferry boat that would take him west toward the Appalachian Trail, where he would begin his journey across all fifty states that would make or break his writing career. I’m of course only fooling, I met Brennan when he (rudely and unapologetically) bumped his chair into me at school, on January 29, 2014. I had no idea when I met this spritely young Irish/German/French lad that I would eventually sign on to what has been the best relationship of my young adult life. Sappiness aside, the boy has a thing for talking pictures and has made me watch my fair share of them since our first date.

[EN: For the record I was not rude OR unapologetic and he immediately ran away.]

Unfortunately for Brennan, he has a VERY specific taste for his idea of a good movie. As you may have already noticed, he loves Horror, which has been the bulk of his reviews thus far. Luckily, I have found ways to convince him to watch movies from other genres and, as a result, add diversity to his bland, blood-soaked palette. Under my tutelage and the use of various weights keeping him tethered to the ground, he has seen quite a few of my ‘indie dramas with strong female leads,’ as he affectionately describes them.

Thanks to his dear friend Shannon, who wrote a lovely piece on date nights and horror flicks, he asked me to compile a list of some of my films to showcase on his blog. Because not all of my suggestions fall under his label, I have dubbed this post "Nine Films for Nine Nonconsecutive Dates". 

Enjoy, Brenbots!

Nine Films for Nine Nonconsecutive Dates

#1 Ghost Town (2008, David Koepp)

With a budget of about $20 million I know this is not by any means an independent film, but with a box office of only $27 million, its net revenue qualifies it as such.

[EN: Sergio, your Econ major is showing.]

Ghost Town is a movie that follows the life of a dentist, Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) who suddenly finds himself with the ability to see dead people. Upon his travels with the newly deceased, he runs into the ghost of a schmuck businessman, Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) who wants him to interfere with his wife’s (Tea Loni) new relationship. With a runtime of 102 minutes, the movie is a great way to spend an afternoon laughing at Gervais shtick or the comedic stylings of Kristin Wiig, who shines in her small but laugh-packed role. The movie is a heartwarming comedy that can move even the most bloodthirsty horror fanatics to tears (that’s right, Brennan cried) and for five dollars on Amazon, it is most definitely a great buy.

[EN: The movies I decided to watch on our very first "stay in" date were Ghost Town, [REC], and The Devil Wears Prada so don't say I don't have diversity in my tastes. Ghost Town is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. And I'm not ashamed to admit it made me cry. Very few films can accomplish this, but Ghost Town and The Sixth Sense are two of them. Don't look at me like that. Also, yes that is a young Aaron Tveit in that screencap. Meow.]

#2 Winter’s Bone (2010, Debra Granik)

The film that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career into the stratosphere features her as Ree Dolly, a girl who is responsible for her younger siblings and invalid mother in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The film starts off slowly, painting a picture of an average day in the life of Ree and her family, but picks up running when Ree finds out that her father has skipped town and posted their family home as collateral for his bail. Ree knows the types of unsavory characters that her father (and extended family) associated with and begins her trek to try and find him. Besides the fact that she is eventually joined by  her uncle played by John Hawkes, that is as much as I will give away about this movie. My only criticism of the film is that there are far too many blue tones. I get it, Missouri sucks.

[EN: This is the one film that Sergio has suggested to me so far that I just can't get into in any way. It's a lovely-looking piece, but I never connected with Ree's journey. I prefer my characters with more personal agency, but I know I'm in the minority with not being a fan of this film. You can read my review here.]

#3 A Single Man (2009, Tom Ford)

Tom Ford’s only movie to date is a little gem that packs great performances by its all star cast. Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Matthew Goode are featured, and even Lee Pace makes a cameo discussing bomb shelters and setting the mood that is the Cold War era of the early 1960’s.

Ford adapted the film from the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood and follows Firth’s character as he attempts to move past the loss of his partner (Matthew Goode). Though not necessarily somber, A Single Man depicts life as a gay male in the sixties as a less than ideal situation. In one scene, an uncreditided Jon Hamm has just delivered the news that Firth’s partner died in a car wreck, and that Firth would be an unwelcome funeral guest due to his being Goode’s Partner. This movie is anything but subtle and in the era of Mad Men it is a welcome addition, adding more emotion in a single still than January Jones' entire performance of Betty Draper.

[EN: I was mystified by the film's ending, but impressed with its un-self conscious and bold aesthetic. You can read my review here.]

#4 An Education (2009, Lone Scherfig)

Carey Mulligan plays a precocious high school senior (or the British equivalent) who is planning on attending Oxford in the fall. She asks herself the sort of questions that all young adults ask themselves at some point or another. Why am I doing what my parents tell me? What is the end goal of all this intense studying? I’m a female in the sixties (yes another one, I’m sorry), my only job opportunities are becoming a teacher or a secretary, why even bother? Ok, that last one is a question that thankfully today’s female youth does not have to ask themselves, but the theme of being young, foolish, and reckless is one that is any young college kid can relate to.

[EN: I honestly have never seen this one and, as such, can have no opinion. Especially considering the fact that I definitely thought this was a Holocaust movie, which it doesn't seem to be.]

#5 Doubt (2008, John Patrick Shanley)

Never have I ever been more afraid of nuns than when Meryl Streep played Sister Aloyisious, a nun who runs her parish with an iron fist. The movie begins with the suspicion that a priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) has been more than friendly with one of the students at the Catholic school. Streep is a nun, and like all nuns she answers to the priests of the Parish and must find a way to remove the student from the watchful eye of the priest without ‘stepping out of line’. Featuring additional performances by Amy Adams and Viola Davis, the movie leaves you guessing as to who you hate more: Meryl Streep for ruining a man’s career without a shred of proof, Hoffman who is the potential pedophile in question, or Davis for essentially being a mother who is willing to sacrifice her child’s innocence if it means he advances academically. I left Amy Adams out because no one can hate Princess Gisele.

I warn you that this movie is not for everyone. Described as “Streep porn,” if you found yourself in the audience that disliked August: Osage County, then I suggest you go another route and watch The Exorcist. It has nuns and guts, what’s not to like about that?

[EN: Ah, the first time I can chime in seeming like an expert. Unfortunately The Exorcist has neither nuns nor guts, but it does have doubt, a priest, and the unparalleled exorcism scene that you've seen poorly recreated in (insert modern possession movie here), so I highly recommend it. You can expect a review of Doubt coming soon, as Sergio is sending in a high pressure front to convince me to watch it.]

#6 Weekend (2011, Andrew Haigh)

Writer/Director Andrew Haigh hit a homerun when he released this earnest yet gritty gay indie film. What makes this film special in the world of LGBTQIA cinema (I’m sure there are more letters but I’m just not that progressive), is that at its core, the movie is a love story where the main characters happen to be gay. That’s it. There is no gripping coming out process, no ‘woe is me’ attitude, just two men with fantastic facial hair who fall in love in the course of a weekend. I will warn you that the film features graphic sex scenes between newcomers Chris New and Tom Cullen, but if you’ve seen Game of Thrones or Orange is The New Black, then you have been adequately prepared for the beauty that is man-on-man sex.

[EN: Weekend was a great film! I watched it over a year ago with our guest star, so its unfortunately outside the scope of this blog until I watch it again and have it fresh in my mind, but I agree with Sergio and highly recommend it. It's like a gay Once without the music.]

#7 Insidious (2010, James Wan)

Fun fact: This is the first horror film that I showed Brennan. He, of course, had many things to say about everything and I of course adore him for his criticism of James Wan.

With a budget of only 1.5 million dollars, the movie manages to pull off scary while avoiding cheesy… mostly. The film follows the ruggedly handsome family guy Patrick Wilson and his beautiful wife Rose Byrne as they settle into their new home with their average looking kids when things start to go awry. According to Mr. Klein, P.I. (Paranormal Investigator) the film follows in the footsteps of Poltergeist and The Exorcist, but I find it delightful just the same. Whatever your take on his filmmaking, Wan provides you with a cheaply made movie that will sustain your interest far more than the Michael Bay’s Robots Do Things.

[EN: I'm so lucky Sergio liked horror films before I met him. He's obviously more low key than Yours Truly, but I'm grateful for his contributions. And he's right. Insidious is an immensely derivative haunted house film - much like Wan's 2013 effort The Conjuring - but like The Conjuring, is a terrific example of the classic form utilizing its influences to elevate the material. And it's one of the scariest horror films rated PG-13 you'll find this side of 1960. You can read my review here.]

#8 In a World... (2013, Lake Bell)

A film that Brennan begged and pleaded to go see last year, this is a gem of a film featuring the crowd-pleasing Lake Bell who starred, wrote, and directed the entire production. In a World... follows Bell as she attempts to break into the voice-over world, which is primarily dominated by men. It’s a quirky feminist comedy that delivers a breath of fresh air into a room of old man dank. There are multiple definitions for the word ‘dank’ and this one encompasses them all, that’s just how smelly that room is. It might be too late to catch this movie on RedBox but you always find it On Demand or borrow it from Brennan. He will be only too happy to spend hours discussing it with you and what a fool (with your pants on the ground) you are for having waited so long to see it. You have been warned.

[EN: For the record, you are not a fool, but you do need to see this movie. It's my number 3 film of 2013 and a delightful comedy that I can rewatch endlessly. You can read my glowing review here.]

#9 Paranormal Activity (2007, Oren Peli)

This one is purely for Brennan. I hated it, but it is an independent film where the main actress kills everyone and if that doesn’t qualify it as an ‘indie film with a strong female lead’ than I don’t know what does.

[EN: I'm a big fan of the franchise despite my immense (and supported) hatred for PA4 and my intense (and divisive) dislike for PA3. I'll have to do a retrospective of the original trilogy soon. Let me know if that sounds like something you'd be into.]

That's it. I'm done. I hope that you found I have convinced you better than I have convinced Brennan to try out new movies. This has been a blog post by me, Shawn Ashmore. Hah, Brennan wishes.

[EN: What? Shawn Ashmore? Wherever would anybody get that idea? Clap clap for Sergio. Thank you for your contribution! So everyone? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you think I'm a fool for ignoring Meryl Streep's expanded filmography? Please let us know in the comments!]
Word Count: 2346

No Man Is An Island

Year: 2008

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Cast: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis

Run Time: 1 hour 51 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Judd Apatow is the Joss Whedon of rom coms. He has a massive pool of recurring cast members to pull from at a moments notice (generally stars of the short-lived TV series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared), a rabidly supportive fanbase, and a time-tested storytelling formula. For Joss it's witty genre sendups. For Judd it's overlong but pristinely funny raunchy comedies.

Needless to say I'm in the Whedon camp, but I've slowly been catching up on the Apatow repertoire. This Is 40 was a non-starter, but that one came late in the game. The 40-Year-Old Viirgin was pretty dang funny. And I absolutely adored the obscenely brief run of Undeclared. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, riding high on the success of Knocked Up and Superbad, is another success although perhaps in a slightly more low-key register than its predecessors.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall tells the story of composer Peter Bretter (Jason Segel). He works on the trashy TV show Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime and is dating its star, one Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). Well, not for long. After she breaks up with him he decides to get away from it all and visit a Hawaii resort. Little does he know that Sarah and her new boyfriend (Russell Brand) are staying at the same hotel.

If you shaved both of their heads, you could have enough hair to provide wigs for the entire cast of Kinky Boots.

He befriends a gorgeous hotel clerk named Rachel (Mila Kunis) and can you guess what happens? It's basically an island sex farce with celebrity cameos so, in essence, it's pretty dang good. Kristen Wiig has a fabulous cameo as a condescending yoga instructor, 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer has a hilarious turn as a religious newlywed, and Paul Rudd steals the show as Koonu, a forgetful island dweller.

There are several scenes that are laugh-out-loud hilarious (if you're ever feeling down, check out any scene from Sarah Marshall's television show), but for the most part the film is lambently funny in that uniquely Apatowian way. It's like watching a movie while waiting for the doctor to call you in; you're aware that you're laughing consistently but you're not really focused on the film itself. 

The Hawaiian setting has a similar effect, drawing the eye behind the actors except for the dazzling moments where the beautiful landscapes draw out Kunis' natural color into sparkling relief.

It's really just unfair how pretty she is.

I'm aware of many people who sing their praises of this film's comedy to the heavens, but the overlong scenes didn't tickle me as much as my peers. Perhaps this is because I have been inoculated against the type of bro humor Forgetting Sarah Marshall employs. Jason Segel is naked in the opening scene? So what? It's a penis. I know you might be shocked and scandalized, but I have been naked before. 

It's funny to a point, but I suppose I'm just too crotchety and jaded to be receptive to some of the more non-character-related humor. Because that stuff is all great! The screenplay by Jason Segel is laden with hoary romantic comedy tropes, but there are enough clever twists on the genre to keep it feeling fresh, a personal favorite of which is that neither character is the bad guy. Peter and Sarah are equally at fault in their split, even if neither of them feel that way.

Better yet, the film is only a little bit misogynistic, which technically shouldn't be a compliment but I'll take what I can get in this barren genre.

Go Uncle Marshall!

The island's scenic vistas are beautiful, if uncreatively shot, and the film's visual vocabulary relies less on the Orange and Teal Disease that would plague later Apatow efforts until it reached terminal velocity in This Is 40.

And against all odds, I enjoyed Russell Brand in a movie. This was one of his breakout roles, so it's only fitting that it should be his best, but I was remarkably surprised when his performance allowed me to overlook what a massively unpleasant person he seems to be.

All in all, I really did have a good time watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall although I'm not sure I'll be champing at the bit to grab the DVD for my collection. But I shall certainly be thanking Sergio for turning me on to this clever and colorful comedy.

TL;DR: Forgetting Sarah Marshall puts a couple twists on a worn-out genre and is an unremittingly pleasant exercise in Apatow-style comedy.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 776

Every Ship Needs An Anchor

Year: 2013

Director: Adam McKay

Cast: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd

Run Time: 1 hour 59 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Although I know in my heart that I've seen 2004's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, I can't for the life of me remember a single thing about it. So that leaves me in a bittersweet spot approaching its nearly a decade later sequel. On one hand, I can come at it with a pair of fresh eyes, but on the other, I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Perhaps it's for the best, because I seemed to enjoy it markedly more than fans of the original.

Heathens just don't know how to appreciate a good cowboy hat.

The plot picks up in real time in 1980 - about nine years after the events of the original. When Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is passed over for a big New York promotion in favor of his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), he loses control of his life. He abandons Veronica and their son Walter (Judah Nelson) and moves back to San Diego.

After hitting rock bottom, he is approached by producer Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker) to be an anchor for a brand new station in New York - the Global News Network, the world's first 24-hour news station. Seeing that this would put him in direct competition with his estranged wife, he takes the position and reassembles his old news team.

Once he gathers Champ Kind (David Koechner) the racist cowboy sportscaster, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) the sleazy field reporter, and Brick (Steve Carell) the eccentric weatherman, they head off to New York and start brainstorming ways to make their 2AM - 5AM slot a ratings bonanza.

Singlehandedly inventing fluff news, Ron Burgundy quickly shoots to superstardom at the expense of his friends and family, at which point the plot structure adheres to that of every other movie of this type. You know how it goes. Right down to the idea that he can't miss his son's piano recital. Let's not get into that.

Why discuss that when we can discuss how Paul Rudd rocks that perm?

You can't go in expecting sophistication, although I don't know why you would. But Anchorman 2 is surprisingly slim on the lowbrow humor and high on absurdity. You still have to sit back and shut off your brain's filter and let it all wash over you unadulterated. And even though your face may look like this:

 more often than not, gosh darn it you're gonna laugh.

There are quite a few belly laughs to be had in Anchorman 2 (and quite a few angry stares from other theater patrons who need to remove the sticks from their butts) and most of my notes are rendered completely useless because I spent most of the time just writing down my favorite jokes.

Perhaps it would be better at a taut 90 minutes, but no individual part felt particularly saggy or dragged out. And there are several scenes (not to give them away, but look for a shark, a park, and interracial sex) that are all laugh out loud funny and patently absurd. This film is essentially a live action cartoon and the veritable avalanche of celebrity cameos and escalation that occurs makes me pray they'll never make an Anchorman 3 because it's impossible to top.

It's all good natured and totally weird in a way that safe studio comedies haven't allowed themselves to be in quite a while and I really respect that.

Although I wish they had released promotional still that had ANY other character in them.

The film's biggest sin is being a little too on the nose about why things are funny. Most of Will Ferrell's lines pointedly explain the punchlines of other jokes in a way that's incredibly insulting to the intelligence of the audience.

In fact, throughout the entire film Ferrell's performance is of a particularly grating and pedantic vein that could have derailed the entire film if it weren't for a stellar supporting cast. Steve Carell is great as the non sequitur-spouting Brick and has great chemistry with Kristen Wiig. Wiig plays a love interest of equal dopiness and I'd say she's underutilized but perhaps any more of those characters would have been a little too much.

Aside from Ferrell, the only other weak link is Judah Nelson. Although it's perhaps not fair to bemoan a child actor's terrible performance, the kid might as well have been wearing a carrot costume on an elementary school stage for all the wide-eyed and wildly unmodulated line readings he gave.

All in all, Anchorman 2 is a fun film that has natural laughs and a less questionable use of female characters than other films in its vein (although there's still progress to be made). As a sequel, it uses callback and character humor well while still standing largely on its own as a separate entity. It's not perfect, but it's lively and fun entertainment.

TL;DR: Anchorman 2 isn't going to be a cult classic like its predecessor, but it's a good natured and absurdly fun comedy.

Rating: 7/10

Should I Spend Money On This? Why not catch a matinee? Don't overpay but it's an enjoyable way to pass the time.

Word Count: 883

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

Min(ion)ority Report

Year: 2013
Director: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Cast: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt
Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG

We're not even pretending that people care about things that aren't minions anymore.

Now let's make this very clear - this movie is definitely for kids. Forgive me for laughing like a lunatic during Gru's scene in the wig shop. Or awww-ing with the rest of them at anything the minions did - which was a lot this time around, Illumination Entertainment knows what's up.

Despicable Me 2 picks up within a year of its 2010 predecessor and Gru (Carell) has turned from the Dark Side of supervillainy to father the three adorable little girls who have stolen his heart. Aside from a subplot involving Gru being overprotective of the oldest, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), these girls are shunted aside for most of the movie so we can watch minion antics.

Honestly, this is great. You go, minions. Do your minion thing.

Gru is contacted by the Anti-Villain League because, as an ex-villain himself, he is the perfect man to go undercover and discover who stole a secret transformative serum that turns adorable little animals into ruthless killers. It's basically a G-rated version of the Hannibal Lecter/FBI thing. What follows is a stock spy narrative in which red herrings are tossed halfheartedly about and Gru grows closer with his partner, Lucy (Wiig).

Really the plot doesn't matter except as a framework for us to watch the lovable Gru and his incompetent minions interact with the world in ways that sometimes veer in the too-childish fart jokes direction but frequently shine with more wit than is necessary for a kid's movie. Now, it's no Billy Wilder screenplay, but it's harmless and doesn't actually feel like a sequel. This movie, aside for a few character details could absolutely work as a standalone and that is one of its greatest strengths. It just doesn't feel like a followup to the beloved Despicable Me, and thus isn't beholden to comparison, which would only do it harm.

Watching the film is like blowing a soap bubble. It'll pop soon enough and you'll never think about it again, but you can't help but gaze in wonder at its ascent into the sky. The tangible joy behind the creation of this film is even enough to justify the creation of a character that could only be a ploy to sell more plushies.

Sergio wants me to mention that they're Laker colors.

Unfortunately, plumbing the depths of this film does not yield pleasant discoveries. The film's villain is a grotesque Mexican stereotype that isn't necessarily offensive but is so knife edge close to crossing the line that it can be rather distracting at times. Also featured is a somewhat less contentious (if only because he's in less of the movie) Asian stereotype played by Ken Jeong, who is one role away from being cast as a poorly driving, violin playing mathematician.

But by far the single worst element in the film is one that is only featured prominently in two scenes, but both flies in the face of the original movie (the only time I'll directly compare the two) and is just small-minded. The youngest daughter, Agnes (Elsie Fisher) is rehearsing for her school's Mother's Day pageant and laments the fact that she doesn't have a mother.

Never mind the fact that her real mother abandoned her, and she adores Gru as her father, a fact which is explicitly stated later in the movie. She is not complete without a female influence in her life and, as a gay man, it is heartbreaking to see this idea make its way onto the big screen and into kids' minds. The scene is meant to be a setup for Gru's eventual romance (Spoilers? No.) but the film veers from peddling mildly un-PC racial sterotypes to straight up pointing at single fathers or gay dads and saying "You're inadequate."

Despite its two major flaws, Despicable Me 2 is too earnest and well-meaning to be truly malicious and is still a completely watchable and, at times, quite funny film. I would rate it 7/10, but I do have to dock a point out of fairness to my people.

Also there's two Pitbull songs in it. Minus 1,000,000 points.

TL;DR: Although it walks a tightrope in terms of being politically correct, Despicable Me 2 is solid and clever children's entertainment.
Rating: 6/10
Should I Spend Money on This? Yes because minions.
Word Count: 756