Popcorn Kernels: Half Full, Half Empty

Welcome to our newest slate of mini reviews, about a horror-comedy with a plot that contains pretty much everything that exists and a drama that contains almost nothing.

Freaks of Nature 

Year: 2015

Director: Robbie Pickering

Cast: Nicholas Braun, Mackenzie Davis, Josh Fadem 

Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Social tension arises in a town where humans live with monsters when aliens arrive. A vampire, a zombie, and a human from the local high school must team up to save their community.

Right off the bat, Freaks of Nature commits an egregious movie sin. It jams us in medias res into an action-packed scene, then pauses. Whereupon a dopey voiceover asks “How did I get here? To explain that, let’s go back to the beginning.” Now, in the comments of my American Ultra review, friend Hunter argued that several great movies begin this way. I can’t fault him for being right, but since those movies came out, this technique has increasingly been used by lazy filmmakers in cheap movies to get around the fact that their beginning just isn’t very strong.

And boy howdy does Freaks of Nature have a weak beginning. Then again, it has a weak mostly everything. But the intro that dumps a barrel of character actors who have played high schoolers for a dozen years into a pile and halfheartedly develops the world around them while they attempt to untangle themselves isn’t exactly stirring. The worst thing is that Freaks of Nature has a fun, zany concept in fact, the original title was –appropriately – Kitchen Sink), but the lackadaisical treatment it receives from the powers that be is downright discouraging.

If every scene had the subtlety of the moment where zombieism is used as a metaphor for a rebellious teen turning to marijuana, Freaks of Nature would be a post-John Hughes masterpiece. If every scene were as funny as the inexplicable cameo from Werner Herzog, Freaks of Nature would obliterate the competition for AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Horror Comedies list. You can see where I’m going with this. Freaks of Nature rarely rises above the bare minimum requirements to be a film comedy, content to sulk in a low key atmosphere for the bulk of its run time.

Far more frequent than its peaks are its valets. Joan Cusack is wasted in a role that feels like it was written for one of those American Pie spin-offs, the only thread holding up Vanessa Hudgens’ utterly empty performance is the fact that her character is supposed to look high most of the time, and the rules this universe are quickly decimated by a series of deus ex machina throwaway lines. It’s a threadbare slog with an infuriatingly disingenuous ending, supported by character relationships that are held together with scotch tape and chewing gum, in pursuit of a Zootopia-esque moral about tolerance and diversity that completely fails to catch.

It’s all the worse for the fact that this concept with this cast could have really accomplished something great. As it stands, it’s a barely-there trifle that immediately evaporates from your mind upon the closing credits.

Rating: 5/10

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Year: 2011

Director: Sean Durkin

Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy

Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A young woman escapes the cult she has lived in for two years and attempts to live a normal life with her sisters and brother-in-law.

With a title like that, is there any way Martha Marcy May Marlene couldn't be a ponderous indie flick? Hailed as the triumphant debut of the mythical third Olsen sister (the one who could actually act), it made a splash on the festival circuit, much like the similarly dour Jennifer Lawrence showcase Winter’s Bone. If you know my tastes at all, this isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

I did enjoy MMMM, but its glories are fleeting. The film splits its time between a harrowing portrayal of cult life (in flashback) and a harrowing portrayal of reintegration into a society that might be just as flawed, but it’s too distracted by its own seriousness to actually tell a complete, satisfying story. As an exercise in curating atmosphere, it’s excellent, but when they tried to put the narrative gear into drive, they forgot to depress the clutch and stalled the whole thing. 

Anyone else here drive a stick shift? No? Just me?

Let’s focus on the cult half. Here we have a dazzlingly intimate portrayal of how a charismatic charlatan (played to the hilt by a leering John Hawkes) can warp weak minds into serving his sick vision. It’s chilling in its naturalism, living in the subtle interplay between human begins rather than relying on some over-the-top, teeth gnashing villain. MMMM knows that the Manson-esque figures that lurk in the shadows of our world deliver their message with sickly sweet honey, killing you with kindness. It’s even more unbearable for its relatability.

Then there’s the other half. Olsen certainly delivers a suitably broken performance, but her sullen deliveries are no match for Sarah Paulson, as a brittle, selfish woman who strives to help her sister more out of a sense of duty than any actual emotional attachment. Her bind subscription to the tenets of society is just as dangerous as her sister’s brainwashed ideals, and her layered performance reveals things to the audience that even her character doesn’t know.

So these, two cloven segments both work on their own right, but they never synthesize into a coherent whole. The stunted narrative is just a carousel of human misery, content not to be anything more. Elizabeth Olsen is bedraggled before and she is bedraggled after, but it doesn’t seem to making a statement through that. It feels like the first act to a much more interesting story, but as it stands it is still a reliably enthralling mood piece. 

The experience of watching the movie is somewhat akin to cracking open a Kinder egg and discovering that there's no prize inside. It's a disappointing feeling, but you still have the chocolate so it's not like you can complain. It’s even acceptable despite a soundscape that feels like it was edited on Garageband. Don’t run to your Amazon queue to watch it, but it wouldn’t be so bad if it fell into your lap.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1056

Her?

Year: 2015

Director: Ari Sandel

Cast: Mae Whitman, Bella Thorne, Robbie Amell

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

It's been a while since we've had a truly great high school film. 

And it will still be a while before we get one, because The DUFF never manages to truly escape the colossal shadow of Easy A. But, if you ignore the hyperbolically insistent fat-shaming of a normal-sized human being at its core, The DUFF is a disarmingly sweet and tentatively modern little comedy at least worth a pity watch during a Redbox binge.

I mean, she can't have spent more than $1.29 on those overalls so why pay more than that to watch her in action?

The DUFF tells the story of Bianca (Mae Whitman, who has been playing a high school student for a decade now - Hollywood is a weird place), a horror nerd who has trouble making conversation with people who don't know who Bela Lugosi is. Not that I would know anything about that, I was a super cool jock in high school.

Bianca's two best friends are Jess (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca A. Santos of Ouija), who are, let's say, hot enough to be cast members of Ouija. When Bianca's douchey jock neighbor/reluctant childhood best friend Wes (Robbie Amell) informs her that she is a DUFF, or Designated Ugly Fat Friend (whose purpose is to make her friends look hotter by comparison), she goes into a downward spiral. Her actions are loosely based around the five stages of grief, but this plot structure drifts away into the wind after Robbie Amell shows his abs.

I mean, I'd get distracted too, but I'm not a professional screenwriter. Keep it together, guys.

What ends up happening is that Bianca offers to tutor Wes in chemistry in exchange for him helping her learn how to be pretty and popular. Quid pro status quo, if you will. Or maybe you shouldn't. When Queen Bee Madison (Bella Thorne) gets wind of Bianca spending time with her soon-to-be boyfriend, she flips out, sending one of her flying monkeys to spread embarrassing viral videos of Bianca and destroy her reputation.

She pursues her hottie crush Toby (Nick Eversman) while dealing with the inevitable feelings that come to light concerning one Wesley McPecNeighbor. Oh, and Bianca is assigned to write an article for the school paper about "What Homecoming Means to Me," because the screenwriters took a brief pause in their Easy A marathon to pop in Never Been Kissed.

What ensues is a largely pleasant, intensely forgettable experience. I'm happy that Mae Whitman has finally been given a shot to lead a wide release movie. After her standout performance as Ann Veal on Arrested Development 900 years ago, she certainly deserves it. And I can get behind any Hollywood comedy about female friendship, though the premise of the film is dubiously progressive at best.

Come one, come all! Marvel at how ugly and fat and... designated this human woman is!

Although The DUFF takes most of its story cues (and many visual moments) directly from the hallowed halls of high school film history, at least it had the good sense to choose the best ones. It's a lukewarm mash, for sure, but the tropes it cherry picks were enjoyable once and continue to sparkle, at least enough to keep the film modestly entertaining for 90 or so of its 100 minutes. It will never be held to the same level of idolatry as Mean Girls or Pretty in Pink, but its "who cares what other people think?" message is still an important one to send to the youth of today.

Unfortunately, the youth of today might find that they have very little in common with the bronzed, overaged facsimiles of teenagers that populate this universe. As tends to happen when inveterate adults attempt to write about modern technology, the references to social media are frequent, forced, and bewildering, like a James Franco lecture tour.

There's a couple pristine jokes in there about Twitter and such, but one gets the sense that none of the crew members are old enough to have teen daughters. It's a darn shame, because they could have instantly pointed out that A) There's no notification when somebody unfriends you on Facebook, B) It makes zero sense to ask how many hits a YouTube video has gotten while it's in the process of being filmed, and C) In no rational universe would the exchange "Viral?" "Viral." ever happen outside of the fever-addled nightmares of Rebecca Black.

At this point, The DUFF has more speculative science fiction than Interstellar.

There's some interesting integration of UI and dubstep imagery into the film, so credit where credit is due. But for the most part, the techie side of the script will remind teens of what it's like when grandma calls, asking how to get her Air Supply records out of the iTune.

Also, in all honesty, Bianca is kind of a selfish jerk. The way she holds her end of the bargain is by handing Wes her chemistry notebook and prancing away into the sunset to cry about the friends that she abandoned. After all the work he puts into helping her achieve her goals, it's actually really unfair. And her irritation with anybody who can't list the major landmark zombie films of the 1970's in alphabetical order is not a healthy way to get through life. At least the set designers did their research, filling her room with genuine horror nerd posters (Shock Waves! Nice!) instead of super generic mainstream fodder that she'd almost certainly hate.

"The Walking Dead is for chumps. I don't even own a TV."

But Whitman's performances outshines her character's writing and she brings a comic spirit and humanity to the character that renders her chemistry with the green Amell entirely natural.

Oh, also Ken Jeong and Allison Janney are in the movie, as Bianca's teacher and mother respectively. But Janney is sidelined for the bulk of the run time, and Jeong can't find anything unique to do with a character who isn't a borderline psychotic. 

All in all, The DUFF is exactly what you'd expect from a February release. B-level stars doing an OK job with a decent script, but nothing special. I'm glad it exists, and I'd watch it again at a slumber party or something, but I'd definitely keep my Twitter open while it was playing.

There. That's how you be a teenager. Case closed.

TL;DR: The DUFF is a listless mishmash of high school teen movie tropes, but it's a pleasantly generic experience.

Rating: 6/10

Should I Spend Money On This? No more than $5, but sure, go for it.

Word Count: 1124