New Releases for the Week of March 30, 2018

READY PLAYER ONE

(Warner Brothers) Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Ralph Ineson, Claire Higgins, Laurence Spellman, Perdita Weeks. Directed by Steven Spielberg

Based on a bestselling book by Ernest Cline, the movie shows a dreary future in which there are few jobs and little hope. When the owner of the OASIS, a virtual reality world which is also the richest corporation in the world, dies suddenly it is revealed that there is a hidden Easter Egg that will give the finder control of the corporation and a virtually unlimited fortune. A young gamer sets out to claim the ultimate prize and his knowledge of the 1980s may be his big advantage

See the trailer, interviews, video featurettes, motion posters and SXSW premiere coverage here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, DBOX, DBOX-3D, Dolby Atmos, IMAX, IMAX 3D, RPX, RPX-3D, XD, XD-3D
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release (opens Thursday)
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, nudity and language)

Baaghi 2

(Fox Star) Disha Patani, Tiger Shroff, Randeep Hooda, Manoj Bajpayee. A detective is hired by an ex-lover to find their daughter, who has been kidnapped. Baaghi 3 has already been approved and will be filming later this year.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: NR  

Birthmarked

(Vertical) Matthew Goode, Toni Collette, Fionnula Flanagan, Michael Smiley. Two scientists quit their jobs to take on the ultimate scientific experiment; to determine once and for all the nature vs. nurture question. To do this, they decide to raise three children contrary to their genetic predispositions. Have fun with that.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: NR

Finding Your Feet

(Roadside Attraction) Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, Timothy Spall, Joanna Lumley. After discovering her husband of 25 years has been cheating on her, an upper class British woman moves in with her Bohemian older sister. The two women agree on virtually nothing but when the elder sibling gets the younger involved in her dance class, there are sea changes ahead for both of them.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for suggestive material, brief drug use and brief strong language)

Flower

(The Orchard) Zoey Deutch Kathryn Hahn, Adam Scott, Joey Morgan. A teenage girl who is beginning to experiment sexually forms an unlikely and unorthodox relationship with her mentally unstable step-brother.

See the trailer and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for crude sexual content and language throughout, graphic nude drawings, some drug content and a brief violent image)

Foxtrot

(Sony Classics) Lior Ashkenazy, Sarah Adler, Yonathan Shiray, Shira Haas. An Israeli family must come to terms with their own dysfunction when things go terribly wrong at their son’s isolated military outpost. This was Israel’s official submission for the 2018 Foreign Language Oscar.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some sexual content including graphic images, and brief drug use)

God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

(Pure Flix) David A.R. White, Tatum O’Neil, Ted McGinley, John Corbett. A pastor must reaffirm his faith after his church burns to the ground.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including some violence and suggestive material)

Goldstone

(Lightyear) Aaron Pederson, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham, David Gulpilil. A young indigenous detective arrives in an Australian frontier town on a missing persons inquiry. His investigation opens up a web of corruption and deceit that he couldn’t have expected. He must work with the local police detective if he is to solve the case – or survive it.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR  

The Last Movie Star

(A24) Burt Reynolds, Chevy Chase, Ellar Coltrane, Clark Duke. An aging movie star must reluctantly face the reality that his best years are behind him. Like all of us, he must adjust to and accept the reality of growing old. This was released initially exclusively for DirecTV subscribers and is now making a brief theatrical run as well as becoming available on VOD.

See the trailer, a clip and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for some sexuality and partial nudity)

Tyler Perry’s Acrimony

(Lionsgate) Taraji P. Henson, Lyriq Bent, Crystle Stewart, Jazmyn Simon. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. When a faithful wife discovers that her husband has been cheating on her, she reaches the boiling point and means to take revenge on his ass – by any means necessary.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong sexuality, graphic nudity, language and a brief disturbing image)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

The Cage Fighter
First Reformed
Outside In
Rangasthalam

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Journey’s End
Rangasthalam

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Caught
Rangasthalam
Status Update

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

None

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Caught
Finding Your Feet
Ready Player One

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Bad Moms

Party girls never die; they just put on mom jeans.

(2016) Comedy (STX) Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell, Christina Applegate, Jada Pinkett Smith, Annie Mumolo, Oona Laurence, Emjay Anthony, David Walton, Clark Duke, Jay Hernandez, Wendell Pierce, Leah McKendrick, Megan Ferguson, Lyle Brocato, Wanda Sykes, Cade Cooksey, J.J. Watt, Ann Mahoney, Samantha Beaulieu, Kelly Lind. Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

 

Motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be these days. The expectations that are put on the shoulders of moms are simply unrealistic. Not only do they have to keep their kids days filled with various activities, they have to balance a career, the needs of their husband, working out, bake sales and PTA meetings with the needs of their parents and siblings as well. Something has got to give in these cases and it’s usually the women trying to be all things to all people.

Amy Mitchell (Kunis) has about reached her breaking point. First of all, she’s caught her husband Mike (Walton) having an online affair. Her marriage has essentially been an empty shell for years so he doesn’t complain too much when she kicks his ass out. Now, however, she has to go the single mom route which is no easy task for a woman who is perpetually late to everything.

Her daughter Jane (Laurence) is stressing herself out trying to make the soccer team which looks good on the transcripts when applying to the Ivy League schools Jane so desperately wants to attend. The Queen Bee of the PTA and poster child for perfect moms, Gwendolyn (Applegate) gives her askance looks, directing passive aggressive taunts her way. And she can’t get any respect at work.

So Amy has a meltdown. Right in the middle of a PTA meeting, no less. After receiving an extensive list of things not to bring to the upcoming bake sale, Amy just loses it. She is done trying to be a good mom. It’s time to be a bad mom for once. She goes to a bar and is surprised to find a couple of her fellow moms there; single mom Carla (Hahn) who seems to be potentially coming on to anything male, and breathless put-upon Kiki (Bell) who is sweet but overwhelmed with a husband who treats her like a house cleaner. The three ladies bond and begin a campaign of their own.

At first it’s all fun and games; Amy goes out and begins to have a life again. She forces her kids to make their own breakfasts and do their own homework rather than doing it for them. She goes to movies and to brunches with her friends. She starts to see a hunky widower (Hernandez) that all the women in school are lusting after. She quits her job and it isn’t long before her boss (Duke) is begging her to come back.

But Gwendolyn and her Gwendo-lettes (Smith, Mumolo) take this as an affront, a challenge to Gwendolyn’s authority and absolute rule of the PTA. Gwendolyn begins to attack and she targets Amy’s daughter, who is high strung enough as it is. Mama bears don’t take kindly to having their cubs threatened and Amy decides to take on Gwendolyn where it would hurt the most; she runs against her for the PTA presidency.

This is a raunchy comedy from the folks that brought us The Hangover and its sequels. And yes, in some ways it’s a distaff version of that series but rather than male bonding which has been done to death and even female bonding, which has also had its share of movies made about it, this one is about the expectations piled onto the modern mom and there is certainly room for a movie on that subject. I do think we pile unreasonable demands on mothers these days and while this film focuses on upper middle class helicopter moms, similar demands are made on women from less comfortable economic strata.

For this movie to work, it needs to have some chemistry between the leads and to be honest, it isn’t quite as consistent as I would have liked. Hahn is a force of nature and absolutely dominates the movie; Kunis is an excellent actress but in a lot of ways she’s overwhelmed by Hahn’s personality. Bell is almost under the radar, her character too mousy and too innocuous to really make much of an impression.

At times the movie doesn’t really seem to address real life. For example, most of the moms that are in the film are stay at home moms and that just doesn’t jive with current stats; most moms are also in the workforce. It’s freakin’ expensive to raise a family and most families can’t do that on a single salary unless that salary is six figures or more. The helicopter mom phenomenon isn’t one solely limited to the upper classes.

By the same token, I don’t think it’s of particular shock value that women can be just as dirty in their behavior as men. Women, after all, do like and crave sex as well as men. Why this should be a shocking fact in 2016 is beyond me. There are those complaining that the movie doesn’t have to be raunchy, that woman can be funny without it. This is quite true but the same goes for men as well and serves to indicate that there is a double standard on both sides of the gender equation. Men and woman can both be raunchy or not; it makes no difference what the gender is. What matters is if you find the movie funny, or not. In my case, I found it funny enough to recommend as one of the better comedies this summer which frankly isn’t saying much, but hopefully this will also spawn a franchise. Lord knows that the ladies deserve one.

REASONS TO GO: The film addresses some real issues.  It’s really funny in a lot of different ways.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie isn’t as revolutionary as the filmmakers think it is. In some ways, it’s not very realistic.
FAMILY VALUES:  There’s a whole lot of profanity and sexuality, some full frontal nudity, as well as drug and alcohol content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The closing credits feature the main actresses having conversations about motherhood with their real life moms. All of those actresses are moms themselves.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/28/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 61% positive reviews. Metacritic: 60/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Daddy Day Care
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Suicide Squad

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

The requisite non-drug user accidental drug ingestion sequence.

(2015) Sci-Fi Comedy (Paramount/MGM) Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Adam Scott, Gillian Jacobs, Chevy Chase, Collette Wolfe, Bianca Haase, Jason Jones, Kumail Nanjiani, Kellee Stewart, Josh Heald, Gretchen Koerner, Lisa Loeb, Jessica Williams, Bruce Buffer, Mariana Paola Vicente, Adam Herschman, Kisha Sierra, Olivia Jordan. Directed by Steve Pink

Second chances don’t come easily or often. We generally have one shot at making the right choice. Being human, we don’t always make the right choice, which is where the need for second chances come in.

After having gone back in time and in the process changing their lives for the better, the three buddies are beginning to get a little, well, bored. Lou (Corddry) is a former metal God and tech mogul who’s search engine “Lougle” has slowly been losing market share and is in danger of going under, although Lou – hopelessly coked out, drunk and hooked on whatever drugs he can get his hands on – stays the blissfully ignorant course.

Nick (Robinson) has become one of the biggest recording artist/producers in the world using songs other people wrote – before they wrote them, such as the Lisa Loeb hit “Stay (I Missed You)” (the bespectacled singer makes a cameo as a cat wrangler who confides to Nick that every time she hears his version of the song she feels oddly violated). However, he continues to be somewhat henpecked by his wife Courtney (Stewart).

Jacob (Duke) is essentially Lou’s butler as well as his son and is headed down a similar road as Lou has taken. The relationship between the two continues to be strained.

Then at a party, a mysterious figure shoots Lou in the crotch. Jacob has somehow managed to secret the hot tub time machine in a hidden room in the house. Figuring out that someone had used the time machine in the future to come back and assassinate Lou, they head to the future to try and discover who – among many suspects – would want to murder Lou.

In 2025 they meet Adam (Scott), the son of their fourth member who has apparently disappeared into a dimension all his own. In an era where the loser of a high school classmate Gary Winkle (Jones) has become wealthy because Lou was a dick to him in 2015, where reality TV game shows include virtual anal rape, where smart cars can be homicidal, and where masturbation has gotten the ultimate high tech aid, the crew bumbles through trying to locate the man who shot Lou and stop him from carrying out the plan, leaving Lou to wink out of existence.

The first Hot Tub Time Machine was an example of a movie in which I had low expectations for and was pleasantly surprised; the sequel is an example of a movie in which I had high expectations for and was sadly disappointed. This is nowhere near as funny as the first movie and definitely suffers for the lack of John Cusack who was essentially the anchor of the first film. Corddry, Robinson and Duke were more or less supporting characters and now have to take center stage. Corddry, who was especially good in the first movie, really doesn’t have anywhere to go with his one-dimensional character other than performing the same kind of actions. It’s not as good the second time around.

There are some laughs to be sure, but the movie needs an anchor. A lead character who the action swirls around. Instead we have hear a selection of supporting characters waiting for a straight man. Having Adam Scott – a very talented comic actor – in the mix is a good move, but he doesn’t really have a story line and in the end is essentially another supporting character. Corddry is the ostensible lead but his character functions better on the outside.

I was hoping this would be hilarious (it was originally slated for a Christmas release) but it simply isn’t funny enough. It’s decently entertaining but little more which I suppose is fine for this time of year but definitely makes me yearn for a few months hence when we’ll start to see a better caliber of movie from the studios. For now, this will have to do.

REASONS TO GO: Some sly time travel movie in-jokes. Funny in places.
REASONS TO STAY: Not funny enough. Doesn’t really build on the first movie. Needed a lead character; more of a collection of supporting characters.
FAMILY VALUES: The humor is fairly crude throughout with plenty of sexual references. There’s also some graphic nudity, drug use and foul language as well.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: John Cusack, who starred in the first film, has said in interviews that he was never approached or received an offer to appear in this film; there are photographs of him that appear in one scene.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/24/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 13% positive reviews. Metacritic: 30/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Click
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Wish Me Away

A Merry Friggin’ Christmas

Not the road trip you want to take on Christmas Eve.

(2014) Holiday Comedy (Phase 4) Joel McHale, Robin Williams, Lauren Graham, Clark Duke, Candice Bergen, Oliver Platt, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Tim Heidecker, Pierce Gagnon, Bebe Wood, Ryan Lee, Amara Miller, Mark Proksch, Jeffrey Tambor (voice), Amir Arison, Steele Gagnon, J.J. Jones, Gene Jones, Matt Jones, Barak Hardley, William Sanderson, Karan Kendrick. Directed by Tristram Shapeero

Christmas is a time for family, no matter who that family is. Sometimes we’re about as happy to spend time as family as we are to be serving a stretch of hard time in San Quentin. Not all families do all that well together.

Boyd Mitchler (McHale) is a successful hedge fund manager in Chicago. He has a loving wife Luann (Graham) and a couple of pretty great kids, daughter Vera (Wood) who is riding into teen hormone-land on a white horse and son Douglas (P. Gagnon) who at seven still believes in Santa Claus despite beginning to suspect he’s fake. Boyd wants him to believe as long as possible as his own father, Mitch (Williams) tore all his fantasies down when Boyd was just five.

Boyd and Mitch don’t get along, so much so that they haven’t been in the same room for seven years. When Boyd’s brother Nelson (Duke) calls and tells him that he’s a dad and wants Boyd to be godfather to his son at the christening, Boyd is honored – but when he discovers that the christening is on the 24th of December, he’s horrified – for that will entail spending Christmas with his family. Luann however prevails on her reluctant husband to go to Wisconsin and be with his family.

His mom Donna (Bergen) is overjoyed to see him, his father not so much. He’s a mean curmudgeon who owns a port-a-potty business and quite frankly isn’t a nice person to be around, particularly when he’s drinking, Even when he’s not, he can be an S.O.B. – while the rest of the family is served chicken for Christmas Eve dinner, Boyd gets squirrel filled with buckshot. Like I said, an S.O.B.

When Boyd discovers that through mis-communication with his wife his son’s presents, from Santa, have been left behind in Chicago, he means to drive back home, pick them up and return before dawn. Car troubles force Boyd to rely on his dad to bail him out and the two must make the long drive to and from. On the way they’ll have to deal with a persistent state trooper, an unexpected stowaway and a drunken Santa (Platt). Either the two will re-connect or kill each other. Neither one is a safe bet.

Williams completed this movie before his untimely passing and it was the first of the three that were in the can to be released. It didn’t get any critical love as you can see by the scores below, but it wasn’t as bad as all that. Williams always dominates the screen whenever he’s in a movie and this is no different. For sure this isn’t one of his better performances but it’s good enough to carry the movie over a pretty impressive cast.

What bugs me about the movie is that it tries way too hard to make the family eccentric. Along for the ride is Heidecker as Boyd’s redneck brother-in-law who has a son (Lee) training to be a competitive eater while his wife (McLendon-Covey) – Boyd’s sister – goes through therapy . Nelson has PTSD despite having been discharged from the military without going into combat. And of course, there’s the dysfunctional Mitch himself.

The writer really tries to force the eccentricities until the family doesn’t feel real. I suppose there’s some irony in rooting for a hedge fund manager who are not renowned as being the nicest people ever, but that’s beside the point. The humor also feels forced at times, a kind of desperation to make the audience laugh that fools nobody that it’s anything other than what it is.

However, I did find some humor here, particularly with Williams, and there were enough of those to make this worth watching. It is a little bit on the dark side, tonally speaking and the Christmas-y happy ending doesn’t quite fit in quite well with the rest of the movie, but you can’t go wrong with Robin Williams – ok, you can but not often and not here – and everything else in the film doesn’t quite measure up to him, it is at least a bit better than you might expect if you read the reviews.

REASONS TO GO: Robin Williams as always does stellar work. There are moments when the comedy works.
REASONS TO STAY: Tries too hard to make the family eccentric. Doesn’t really offer any sort of insight into family dynamics.
FAMILY VALUES: All sorts of foul language and crude humor throughout the film.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The first Christmas film Robin Williams was credited for (he was in Noel but in an uncredited role).
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/25/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 18% positive reviews. Metacritic: 28/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Bad Santa
FINAL RATING: 6/19
NEXT: Fracture

The Croods

Eep reaches for her dreams.

(2013) Animated Feature (DreamWorks Animation) Starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman, Chris Sanders, Randy Thom. Directed by Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco

At the dawn of time, everything was new. Even change was new. Survival was the only motivator for anything and those who were able to change, survived.

Eep (Stone) is a young cave girl whose father Grug (Cage) has lived life by a strict rule; fear everything. Grug has depended on brute strength and caution to keep his family alive, including his wife Ugga (Keener), son Thunk (Duke), feral baby Sandy (Thom) and his mother-in-law Gran (Leachman), the latter of which he wouldn’t mind seeing violate a few of his rules. Eep chafes at the restrictions placed upon her, longing to see the world outside the cave but there are too many dangers in the prehistoric world for her to do that on her own.

Then one night she sees a light outside the cave. What was the sun doing out at this hour? But it wasn’t daylight. She must investigate! She follows the light and runs into Guy (Reynolds), a step up on the evolutionary ladder. He has invented fire and is running around the countryside with it. After some time, she gets that he has a lot of interesting ideas and might be a valuable addition to the family (most of their neighbors have fallen to pestilence and predators). He also has a cute little mammal named Belt (Sanders) who provides quite a few functions, not the least of which is providing appropriately dramatic musical accompaniment.

However, Guy has a warning; the world is changing and tearing itself apart. They’ll need to get to high ground in order to survive. Grug pooh-poohs the idea; they can ride anything out in the safety and security of their cave. However, when the cave is destroyed, Grug has to rethink his position (and believe me, that’s quite an accomplishment for Grug). The family will have to make its way through an increasingly hostile landscape facing all sorts of bizarre and fearsome threats before they reach safety.

I have to admit, my expectations weren’t very high for this one. It seems that of late there’s been a surfeit of mediocre animated features (some very successful I might add) that really seem to be little more than an attempt to create characters that can be marketed as toys, happy meals, TV shows and whatever money-generating idea the studios can think of. And I don’t doubt that there is some of that involved here too

But still this one has plenty of heart. Yes, the message seems to be “try bold new things” which is something most kids have trouble doing. However, the filmmakers borrow liberally from such things as the old Looney Toons Roadrunner cartoons. Some critics have complained about it; either because it’s ripping off a classic or because the classic is so violent and outrageous to begin with. However, as one who grew up on them, I can say that you couldn’t pick a better source to rip off from. And homage is the sincerest form of flattery is it not?

The voice cast is pretty small for one of these things which works out nicely. Cage, normally an actor who can lose it in an instant, plays the dad with comparative restraint. He actually has some very nice scenes with the spunky Stone as their fractured parental bond is repaired in the crisis. Da Queen shed more than a few tears and I have to admit to being misty eyed myself. That was completely unexpected.

It was also nice to hear Leachman, who last year attended the Florida Film Festival and then tended bar at the Eden into the wee hours of the morning, doing her thing. She announces with that tone that tells you she knows how irritated Grug is with the fact that she’s still alive that she is indeed, still alive. It’s Cage however who gets the best line of the film: “Release the baby!!” You had to be there I guess.

Funny and endearing, this is the kind of animated feature that the kids will love and their parents won’t mind. In fact their parents might end up liking it more than the kids, which doesn’t happen often. The Croods relies on slapstick humor, a bit of pathos and a can-do attitude to be successful, tuning out the cheap potty humor which seems to be creeping into kid flicks more and more these days (and how did I start sounding like my Dad?) which is appreciated. The first major animated feature of the year (not counting Escape From Planet Earth which I haven’t seen yet but admittedly it comes fro a mid-major) may turn out to be the most surprising – and one of the best. Who’da Thunk?

REASONS TO GO: Surprisingly moving and well-animated. Fun for the whole family. Road Runner-esque.

REASONS TO STAY: Nothing particularly new or daring.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some of the scenes in the film depict some peril that might be a bit too scary for the really young.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: After a long run with Paramount, this is the first DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/28/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 67% positive reviews. Metacritic: 55/100; the reviews were pretty mediocre trending towards the negative.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Incredibles

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

NEXT: Red Planet

New Releases for the Week of March 22, 2013

THE CROODS

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman, Chris Sanders. Directed by Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMarco

A family of cavemen have their safety ripped away from them when the cave they’ve lived in all their lives is wiped out. They are forced to explore the prehistoric world around them which can be pretty beautiful but pretty dangerous as well. They will come to rely on one another and learn that different isn’t such a bad thing after all.

See the trailer and a music video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for some scary action)

Admission

(Focus) Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Lily Tomlin, Michael Sheen. A prissy admissions officer for an Ivy League school visits the alternative school run by an old college friend who drops the bombshell that the student she’s recruiting might be the son she gave up for adoption back in the day. Now she finds herself bending her own rules for the young man who may well be the cause of her losing everything she’s worked so hard to build or finding the thing she truly wants – or both.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG-13  (for language and some sexual material)

InAPPropriate Comedy

(Freestyle Releasing) Adrien Brody, Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan. A sketch comedy that explores all facets of crude and inappropriate behavior, from the Amazing Racist to a metrosexual cop, from a curmudgeonly porn critic to Lohan’s ultimate revenge on the paparazzi who stalk her. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language and drug use) 

John Dies in the End

(Magnet) Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown. The new designer drug du jour promises an out-of-body like no other but users are coming back…different. It seems that the drug takes them on a trans-dimensional drift and what returns isn’t human. A massive alien invasion is underway and there’s not a ship in the sky. It remains for two college dropout slackers to save the world. The world is pretty much screwed my friends – but whatever you do, don’t give away the ending….oh crap.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror

Rating: R (for bloody violence and gore, nudity, language and drug content) 

Murph: The Protector

(Mactavish) Michael Murphy, John McElhone, Daniel Murphy, Kristin Bishop. Lt. Michael Murphy was a U.S. Navy SEAL who gave up his life for his men during an operation in Afghanistan in 2005. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor two years later. This is his story.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: PG (for thematic material and some language)

Olympus Has Fallen

(FilmDistrict) Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd. When the White House falls, only a disgraced Secret Service agent stands between the terrorists and their agenda. However, soon he discovers that there is a much more monstrous fate in store if he can’t rescue the President and retake the White House.

See the trailer and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Action

Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout) 

Spring Breakers

(A24) James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson. A group of college girls, broke and bored during spring break, decide to rob a fast food joint to finance their trip to sun and fun. However once there, the fun goes a little bit too far and the girls wind up being arrested. Bailed out by an infamous local criminal, they go on a Spring Break trip that is one for the books. However, just how far is too far?

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Crime Drama

Rating: R (for strong sexual content, language, nudity, drug use and violence throughout)

Upside Down

(Millennium) Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall, Holly O’Brien. A man and a woman meet and fall in love. They’re from different social strata which makes it difficult. They also live on twinned planets whose gravitational pulls go in opposite directions which makes it nearly impossible. The despotic society that runs things doesn’t want to see these two together and takes great steps to keep them separate. But love is stronger than gravity…isn’t it?

See the trailer and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (for some violence)

A.C.O.D.

Adam Scott knows that Reading is Fun.

(2013) Comedy (Self-Released) Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Catherine O’Hara, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Amy Poehler, Clark Duke, Jessica Alba, Jane Lynch, Adam Pally, Ken Howard, Valerie Tian, Clare Bronson, Steve Coulter, Leland L. Jones, Liana Loggins. Directed by Stu Zicherman

It is a fact that 50% of all marriages here in America end in divorce. That means when you say your I do’s it’s just as likely to work as not. That’s a relatively recent development; we’re beginning to see what the effect of divorce is on the adult children of those divorces.

Carter (Scott) seems to be a relatively well-adjusted man. He owns a successful restaurant, has a gorgeous girlfriend named Lauren (Winstead) who is incredibly understanding and seems to be pretty together. His little brother Trey (Duke) seems a bit less mature and lives in his garage but has impulsively decided to marry his girlfriend Keiko (Tian) after only going with her for four months. They geek out to all the same things.

While Carter is a little uncertain as to the chances for his brother’s relationships, he nonetheless is supportive. However the issue is their parents. Hugh (Jenkins) and Melissa (O’Hara) divorced when Carter was nine and by divorce I mean went to war as contentiously and as bitterly as is humanly possible for two people to get. They’ve barely spoken to each other in years other than through lawyers and can’t be in the same room with each other. They are both re-married to other people – he to the self-absorbed Sondra (Poehler) whom he calls the Countessa (minus the “O”) and she to the easygoing Gary (Howard). Trey wants Carter to get his parents to attend the wedding, a daunting task.

Still, Carter knows it will make his brother happy so he gives it a try. At first his parents are predictably hostile towards the idea, refusing to attend if the other is there. All of the vitriol brings back unpleasant memories so he decides to see Dr. Judith (Lynch) to whom he spent hours talking about his feelings an issues as a child. To his shock, he discovers that she wasn’t really a psychiatrist but a researcher writing a book on the effects of divorce on children. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for 48 weeks as a matter of fact. When he reads the book he is horrified to see all his pain and suffering laid out for public viewing, even though she’d changed his name to Ricky. In fact, the visit has inspired Dr. Judith to write a follow-up book on how these children of divorce are faring as adults. Carter, secure in the knowledge that he has gotten past all of this stuff to lead a happy, successful life, agrees to take part.

That’s when his whole life becomes unglued. As you might guess, Carter’s attempts to get his parents to co-exist take a strange left turn. Not only that, Carter soon discovers he’s not all as together as he seems to be and it doesn’t take much for his world to crash down around him.

Yes it’s a comedy and a very funny one at that. First time director Zicherman (who has an extensive writing background in movies and TV) has a good sense of the rhythms of comedy and moves at a pace guaranteed to maximize laughs. This is more of a character-driven comedy rather than a situational one; while certainly the relationship between Hugh and Melissa is a driving force, the comedy is mostly generated by the characters and not the physical.

The cast is obviously impressive. Scott, best known to American audiences as Poehler’s love interest on the Parks and Recreation sitcom has been doing some pretty impressive work on the big screen as well. Here he shows that he has the charisma in him to carry movies in the same vein as Ben Stiller and Paul Rudd, whose easygoing charm and handsome looks he shares. Carter here isn’t perfect – he makes some pretty awful mistakes – but his heart is in the right place.

Winstead is one of those actresses that Hollywood doesn’t seem to know how to utilize properly. This is really the first time I can remember really appreciating that the role she’s in fits her talents properly. She is strong, supportive, sexy and a good woman patiently waiting for her good man to get on the right page. In that sense she’s like a lot of women who have to sometimes show patience ad understanding for men who have commitment issues – which is to say most men.

Jenkins and O’Hara pretty much steal the show, particularly O’Hara who might be better than anyone at doing neurotic. Poehler is her ever-wacky self with a brief but memorable role. It was nice seeing Ken Howard in a role that wasn’t a corrupt politician; he’s one of my unsung favorite actors. Alba is also strong in a brief role and Duke continues his fine work from Hot Tub Time Machine. Lynch is also strong as usual. In fact, the whole cast is.

I was fortunate to see this at the Sundance USA program at the Enzian, the second straight year the Enzian has been part of it. This has been one of the more acclaimed movies to come out of Sundance this year. It doesn’t have a distribution deal in place yet but it surely will. Personally I think this is as good or better than any comedy you’re going to see this year – the major studios would do well to put this out in wide release. I think it would be a big hit.

It will probably be awhile before it gets any sort of release but keep an eye out for it. A.C.O.D. is clearly one of the funniest movies of the year and one of the best you’re likely to see period. It will strike a deep chord among those who have been through a divorce – but even if you haven’t it’s still a movie worth going out of your way to see.

REASONS TO GO: Hysterically funny. Will hit chords in anyone who has ever been divorced or had parents who have.

REASONS TO STAY: A little too earnest in places.

FAMILY VALUES:  There is some sexuality, some foul language and some brief nudity.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Alba got temporary tattoos on her left bicep and on her lower back for the role.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/2/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 63% positive reviews. Metacritic: N/A. As this has only been screened at Sundance it’s too early to really give a critical consensus.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Parenthood

FINAL RATING: 9/10

NEXT: Parker

A Thousand Words

Eddie Murphy takes out his frustration after Cliff Curtis reads him some of the reviews of his latest film.

(2012) Fantasy Comedy (DreamWorks) Eddie Murphy, Cliff Curtis, Kerry Washington, Clark Duke, Allison Janney, Ruby Dee, Jack McBrayer, Alain Chabat, Lennie Loftin, David Burke, Emmanuel Ragsdale, Eshaya Draper, Sarah Scott Davis, Brian Gallivan, Steven M. Gagnon. Directed by Brian Robbins

 

Words are paramount. We communicate everything with them; civilization would be impossible without them and yet we use them to obfuscate, to twist the truth, to spin lies. Some of us use words as tools; others as weapons. However, words are meaningless without the underlying concepts and emotions behind them. Without truth, words are as empty as the space they fill.

Jack McGill (Murphy) knows all about words. He is a literary agent, one who makes a living selling words. The irony is that Jack isn’t much of a reader. A good book, he tells his youthful assistant Aaron Wiseburger (Duke), is good in the first five pages and the last five pages – everything else in between is just filler.

Jack has his sights set on Dr. Sinja (Curtis), a new age slash kinda Buddhist philosopher who has been gaining an amazing worldwide following. Rumor has it he’s written a book and Jack can see dollar signs all over the puppy. He goes to Sinja’s temple, posing as a follower and wrangles his way into a personal audience with the good Doctor.

Jack makes his pitch and manages to convince Sinja that he has his best interests at heart, that he believes in his message and wants to spread it. The only message that Jack believes in however is the message that money delivers. And that message often gets in the way of his life.

His wife  (or is it girlfriend? this isn’t made clear) Caroline (Washington) wants to live in a house that is more suitable for a family; they are living in what is essentially Jack’s old bachelor pad and Jack who loves the amenities and the view is loathe to give it up for a suburban split-level. Caroline wants Jack to spend more time with their son Tyler (Ragsdale) but Jack’s manic career precludes that. However, he makes time to visit his Alzheimer’s-stricken mom (Dee) in the home on her birthday; she confuses him with his father, who passed away when Jack was a little boy and for that Jack has been unable to forgive him.

One night a Bodhi tree appears in their yard, fully formed with a thousand leaves on it. Jack is puzzled at first but he quickly figures out that for each word that he speaks or writes, a leaf falls. Dr. Sinja explains that once the Bodhi tree loses all its leaves, the tree will die and since Jack is somehow linked to the tree, he will die as well.

The rest of the movie is about Jack’s attempts to communicate non-verbally in a world where he is expected to speak. There is some hilarity because whatever happens to the tree happens to Jack as well; if it’s watered Jack gets wet; if fungicide is sprayed on it, Jack coughs. If squirrels run around its trunk playfully, Jack is tickled. You get my drift.

It also gives Eddie Murphy the opportunity to mug outrageously with twisted lips, eyes as wide as saucers and arched eyebrows. This gives him the look of a black constipated  Don Ameche from Cocoon doing an impression of Bette Davis while auditioning for “Project: Runway.” It’s unsettling to say the least.

This was actually filmed in 2008 (pre-Tower Heist) and is one in a long line of Murphy mis-fires (i.e. Meet Dave, Imagine That, The Adventures of Pluto Nash ad nauseam). This isn’t strictly a family movie but it isn’t very funny either. The sad part is most of the best humor comes from Duke, who made an indelible impression in Hot Tub Time Machine. Murphy has always been one of the better verbal comics and robbing him of his most effective weapon is a ballsy move but one that ultimately doesn’t pay off here.

Hopefully his work on Heist will have generated some better scripts for Murphy, although clearly his Oscar-winning turn in Dreamgirls didn’t. There is plenty of concept here, but the execution is tired and lame. Nothing unexpected happens, there are no laugh-out-loud moments and the comedy is pretty low-brow generally speaking. Movies like this one, which are mediocre at best, make me wonder how long it will be before Murphy’s films start going direct-to-home-video.

REASONS TO GO: There are a few mildly amusing moments. Duke gets most of the laughs.

REASONS TO STAY: Another family-oriented Murphy comedy that isn’t laugh-out-loud funny. All concept and no execution.

FAMILY VALUES: There are a few bad words here and there, some sexual dialogue and a bit of drug humor.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the third movie that Murphy has been directed by Robbins in, the first two being Norbit and Meet Dave. It is also the first one of the three not to have the lead character’s name in the title.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/20/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 0% positive reviews. Metacritic: 26/100. The reviews are bad, bad, bad!

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Liar, Liar

TREE LOVERS: While the Bodhi tree is a real tree (remarkable for its heart-shaped leaves) the one in the film is not.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: The Maiden Heist