Silver Linings Playbook

Oh, good God.  An hour and a half spent with people who yell at one another as a form of communication.  If I wanted that, I’d go home for Christmas.

Guardians of the Galaxy

After a brief prologue, Guardians of the Galaxy kicks off with likable star Chris Pratt basically re-creating the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark while boogieing to '70s soft rock. So far, so good. Then, Michael Rooker shows up as a blue-faced alien scoundrel. This you must know: while the presence of Michael Rooker is not a guarantee of quality, it is a guarantee of awesomeness. Boom. I'm in.

Soon enough, here comes Zoe Saldana, reigning queen of the big-budget science fiction adventure, put into immediate conflict with Doctor Who's Karen Gillan. We are cooking.

Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't squander its early goodwill. It takes its simple MacGuffin chase of a plot and layers it with yet more endearing characters; clever homages to films as diverse as Pulp Fiction, Slither, Footloose, and Howard the Duck; and loads and loads of well-played banter. All of this adds up to a light, fun, and exciting space opera that had my whole family laughing out loud and rocking along for a solid two hours.

As I write about it, however, I find that I'm having trouble sinking my teeth into it.  It's bouncy.  It's fun.  I'll enjoy seeing it again when it hits Netflix.  But it doesn't give me much to think about.  It's the cotton candy of movies.

That said, I like cotton candy.  Guardians of the Galaxy worked for me.

The Hangover: Part II

The Hangover: Part II is a misnomer.  The Hangover told a crass, yet funny, story about a bunch of guys who had a big night in Vegas that went horribly wrong.  It was a self-contained narrative that set up its situation, developed its protagonist, faced its villain, took its bow, and went home.  It wasn’t a Part I of anything.  The Hangover: Part II tells the same basic story, but in Bangkok.  The situation’s nearly identical, the protagonist is identical, the villain is extraordinarily similar to the villain in the last picture, and even the bow is the same.  They should have entitled the film, The Hangover: Let’s Make Some More Money.

Ok.  But is it funny?  Actually, yes.  I didn’t laugh as much as I did for the first film, but I did laugh out loud once or twice and chuckled often.  I liked the characters, I enjoyed the setting, I thought about 25% of the jokes worked, and I generally had a pleasant time.

Would I see The Hangover III: Salt Lake City?  I doubt it, not unless they can find somewhere else (dramatically) for these people to go.  Even a reasonably funny retread is still a retread.

He's Just Not That Into You

Look , I get that HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU was not made with me in mind. I didn’t expect to see any stuff get blown up real good, nor did I expect to see anyone kick anyone else in the face. But I sat down for it anyway: a friend recommended it, and I like to tell myself that I don’t believe in guy movies and chick movies, but only good movies and bad movies.

This movie begins with a “girl talk” voiceover about the nature of relationships that effectively announced that not only was it not made with me in mind, but it was made with a mind to specifically exclude members of my gender and orientation. This movie was just not that into me.

And that’s ok. I’ve been out with my wife and sat drinking my coffee while she talks with her female friends or relatives. I get that things don’t need to cater to my tastes to have value. But while HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU is professionally written, photographed, and acted, it’s an intellectually dishonest film that spends 7/8 of its running time advocating for a world view that it abandons when it’s time to put smiles on faces before the closing credits.

I can forgive a film many flaws, but that kind of dishonesty is not among them. HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU is a liar. Don’t get into it.

The Hangover

THE HANGOVER is thin, but I laughed all the way through it. It isn't the best comedy I've seen so far this year, but it meets its goals.

Here's the setup: it's the day of the wedding. The best man; rumpled, bleeding, and standing in the middle of the desert; calls the bride and tells her, "We screwed up. We can't find Doug. I don't think the wedding's going to happen." We rewind to the beginning of the road trip, with four guys in a car on their way to Vegas for Doug's bachelor party, and away we go.

It's a fine setup for a movie, but so much depends on how far the filmmakers are willing to go to get the laugh. Fortunately, they're willing to go as far as necessary, piling the ridiculous on to the disgusting on to the witty on to the sweet. Here's a movie with legitimate comic surprises, well-delivered dialogue, and sight gags that work in themselves and as part of the larger narrative.

So I laughed, laughed, and laughed some more. But I already feel the movie slipping away. Unlike ROLE MODELS, the funniest thing I've seen in recent memory, it didn't have anything in it to hook me, to hang on to my imagination as I left the theater. The film is the cinematic equivalent of ice cream: fun while it lasts, but quickly forgotten.

Still, I can live with that. As long as you're in the theater, THE HANGOVER is a good time. That's good enough for me.

Wedding Crashers

WEDDING CRASHERS has its moments, but it's ultimately unsuccessful for two reasons: the comedy runs out in the third act and the villain is just too evil.

We've all been to comedies in which story overtakes the humour in the last act, so I won't belabor the point. I'm more interested in the concept of the comedy villain and how WEDDING CRASHERS goes wrong in this regard.

WC's villain is one Sack Lodge, played by Bradley Cooper. Lodge is evil and vicious. Not funny, not idiosyncratic, not an otherwise interesting Baxter. He's just plain evil and vicious. Evil and vicious is not funny. Consequently, the character is a comedy black hole whenever he appears on screen. Not only does he not radiate funny, he sucks the funny out of all surrounding scenes.

In contrast, consider Ben Stiller's White Goodman in DODGEBALL. Goodman's the villain, but he's ridiculous enough to be nonthreatening and, consequently, funny. In Dodgeball, the Goodman character's just villainous enough, just over the top enough, to both keep the story moving and keep the laughter flowing. I with WC's producers had brought Rawson Thurber, DODGEBALL's writer, aboard for a scrub before this production began. He would've known what to do with his villain. He could've taken WEDDING CRASHERS from merely ok to very good.

Unfortunately, they didn't and WEDDING CRASHERS is the worse for it. Too bad.