Brooks' Brother

Year: 2018

Director: John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein

Cast: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler 

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It's not groundbreaking to point out that there has been a dearth of imagination when it comes to Hollywood comedies, but seriously. Can we quit it with these titles? Girls Trip. Rough Night. Bridesmaids. Spy. Sisters. Dirty Grandpa. Good or bad, we're not doing these movies any favors with these relentlessly descriptive, boring titles. And let's not forget that on the slate for 2018 are Book Club, Eigth Grade, and Night School. Game Night is saddled with another one of these blah, nothing monikers, and that's no way to treat the best comedy of the first quarter of 2018.

Not that there was much competition for that, but still!

In Game Night, a  group of adult friends have a regular game night every week. So far, so simple. These friends are led by a competitive couple - Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) - who are having trouble conceiving due to Max's high stress levels. Filling out the ranks are high school sweethearts Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury) and empty-headed hunk Ryan (Billy Magnussen). Former game night attendee and monotonously enthusiastic Gary (Jesse Plemons) still lives next door, but he's not invited anymore since his wife left him and he has sunk into a life of solitude, weirdness, and creepy lurking. To complete the pairs, Ryan usually has a rotating coterie of identical bimbos, but this week he brought in a ringer: his intelligent and age-appropriate Irish coworker Sarah (Sharon Horgan).

And oh, what a week to decide to come! It turns out Game Night has a lot in common with that other boringly titled film: The Game. Max's show-off older brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) is in town and has arranged an interactive role-playing game where one of their number will be kidnapped and the others will have to follow the clues to find him. Unfortunately, Brooks is abducted by actual thugs and the line between game and reality swiftly blurs as they rush to rescue him from what may or may not be an elaborate ruse.

They don't take it as seriously as they maybe should, is the point.

Now, I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I did really like Game Night, but it's not quite the balm to save the bloated corpse that is modern comedy. That's a lot to ask of a movie anyway, but it's far from special enough to have any kind of lasting impact on the culture. It's just a funny movie that'll go in one ear and out the other, causing no harm as it passes through.

But, oh is it funny. This is partially thanks to a tight script that's not so reliant on improv and employs judicious use of callbacks to bring everything full circle into a satisfying whole. But it's mostly thanks to the freaking cast, which is a who's who of comic actors we love and comic actors we have done a disservice to by not having loved for many years already. 

Jason Bateman is the de facto lead here, and he does find a way to keep his normal schtick fresh by honing his timing to a stilleto-sharp point, but as the resident straight man he's easily upstaged by a collection of truly tremendous performances. Rachel McAdams (who has always been great, but who I never particularly recognized for comedy) is a particular standout, for her off-kilter line readings that allow even her most flatly written lines to leap off the screen with surprising energy. 

But honestly, it's impossible to look away from the people on the fringes of this cast. The first is Billy Magnussen, who has certainly learned how to use his impossibly sculpted body as a punchline in his previous roles in Into the Woods and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and somehow takes a one-note "dumb hot guy" role and twists it into something knowing and unique. He finds ways to give unexpected outlets to his dumbness, both physically and vocally. 

If someone could slip my number into the next script he reads, I'd appreciate it.

Lamorne Morris also accomplishes the elevation of what should be a grating stock character, giving his repetitive jokes a rhythm so impeccably tight it always catches you off guard. And then - finally! -there's Jesse Plemons, who should be waited on hand and foot by the Hollywood elite for how much talent he's given the world in his young life. The character he has created here is a work of art, an insurmountable force of gravity that sucks you into its awe-inspiring weirdness. It's so unique that it's very difficult to describe. I shan't exert myself, but suffice it to say that his strained monotone is both keenly disturbing and guffaw-inducing.

But enough about that. Any comedy can assemble a great cast, even if this one is especially, unexpectedly strong. Game Night actually shines as a piece of filmmaking, far more often than is common in this day and age. Although its commitment to its stylistic approach wavers toward the second act, this movie has an exciting aesthetic that mimics board games in a variety of satisfying visual ways, using kinetic editing and what I assume are CGI-altered aerial shots to provide an almost dreamlike atmosphere when transitioning from scene to scene.

And the more that's said about Cliff Martinez's darkly synth-fueled score, the better. I wouldn't have pegged the composer of Drive to be the perfect match for this goofy R-rated comedy, but that's why they don't pay me the big bucks. His music really highlights the surreality of the premise, providing the perfect airy counterpoint to this movie's blend of high concept comedy with jarring jolts of reality.

Game Night does exactly what it needs to do, and it does it with some sense of panache. That's all we really need, isn't it? It won't melt your face off with pure comedy, but it sure is an irresistibly affable film to spend 100 minutes with, and you won't catch me complaining about that for one second.

TL;DR: Game Night is a strong comedy, supported by excellent filmmaking.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1041

Pahk The Cah In The Hahvahd Graveyahd

Year: 2016
Director:  Kenneth Lonergan
Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler
Run Time: 2 hours 17 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

By far the best thing about Manchester by the Sea is Casey Affleck’s SNL monologue describing it: “It’s an incredibly depressing picture. It’s really a downer. I mean, it’s great… It’s a beautiful testament to what we’ll do for our family, to how everyone deserves a second chance, and also to how unbearably sad movies can be. But it’s also great! But sad. And funny! But just, crushingly sad.”

Has there been a movie more obviously teed up for Oscar buzz? I was nervous about sitting down to another film about a deadbeat white dude feeling sorry for himself, but I underestimated Manchester by the Sea by about the same degree pretty much everybody in the world massively overestimated it.

Got some Oscarbait on your hands? Come on down to Popcorn Culture and we’ll trash it for ya, free of charge.

In Manchester by the Sea, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a deadbeat Bostonian working as a handyman. When his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies, he must move back to the seaside town of Manchester to make the funeral arrangements and see if he’s prepared to be a guardian for his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Being in town forces him to confront his past, especially his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams). Can he overcome his drunken depression and find it in his heart to take care of a teen in need?

We’ll just have to see, but the odds are against him. This IS an Oscar frontrunner after all.

Manchester by the Sea is not a fun movie, as if I needed to tell you that. But it’s also not fun in the way that giving yourself over to a harrowing movie can be cathartic. Despite its reputation for ravaging melodrama, Manchester by the Sea is a rather intimate and small portrait of a character who’s closed off from the world. And watching someone who’s dead inside going through the motions is dull, far removed from the sharp, searing pain of most cinematic tragedies. While many fans felt that the dullness is applied with such pressure it creates a kind of blunt force trauma, I slipped off the slick surface of this one, finding it hard to get a foothold in any remotely engaging character element.

That doesn’t mean you won’t like it. By all accounts, most film viewers differ from Yours Truly (if they didn’t, The Boy Next Door would’ve had a much higher box office take), But for this reviewer, the emotional core of Manchester was too distant to feel any true connection.

Fortunately, that almost doesn’t matter, because what people don’t tell you is that the film is also quite funny. Manchester by the Sea has a similar sense of humor to The Fighter, chucking a handful of aggressive Bostonians into a room together and seeing what sparks fly. Hedges and Affleck have a prickly yet easy chemistry that feels as lived-in as if they’re genuine relatives, but strained by their circumstances and clashing personalities.

Probably like when Ben comes over for dinner.

And yeah sure, there are plenty of Oscar reel showcase moments. Michelle Williams gives a hauntingly broken performance is what is more like a glorified cameo, Hedges shines with his brassy rebellion until a standout breakdown scene of his own, and Gretchen Mol shines in a brief appearance, cementing in the film’s themes of guilt and addiction. Affleck doesn’t really stand out from the pack because his character is purposefully underplayed, but he is the glue that holds the film together nevertheless.

Manchester by the Sea has a lot of strengths, but a strong hook is not one of them. It’s not quite misery porn, not quite comedy, and not quite realism. And it’s certainly not quite great. It has its share of small, memorable moments crafted through subtle physical performances and dialogue, but other times it drowns out its own characters with endlessly repetitive driving scenes and a swooning score, bizarre tangents that make it clock in at two and a half hours long, and a certain lack of grace in the bigger dramatic moments (including a bar fight that elicits a gasp from a crowd of apparently invisible women at a pub filled with men – the sound designer must have had a hot date that night, because that rushed slip-up is punishing.)

Sure, I liked Manchester by the Sea. Its run time flew by and the humor was engaging. But the drama elements are so quiet they’re nearly inaudible. If you respond to movies about loss and broken people, by all means go see it. But otherwise, unless you’re like me and aiming to see all the Best Picture nominees, you could much better spend that time somewhere else.

TL;DR: Manchester by the Sea is overpraised, but it's an engaging, strangely funny, intimate tale of loss and addiction.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 829