Weather Girl

One of these morning show hosts woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

(2009) Romantic Comedy (Secret Identity) Tricia O’Kelley, Patrick J. Adams, Ryan Devlin, Kaitlin Olson, Mark Harmon, Jane Lynch, Jon Cryer, Blair Underwood, Alex Kapp Horner, Marin Hinkle, Brandon Barrera, Brett Butler, David Giuntoli, Enrico Colantoni, Melinda McGraw, Timothy Dvorak, Omar Leyva, Danny Strong, Meredith Roberts Quill, Kit Pongetti. Directed by Blayne Weaver

There is some truth to the thought that in order sometimes to start over one must first hit rock bottom. The truth is that we are often too afraid to lose what we have to take a shot at what we might get, even if that is so much better than what we already have. Loss can be a great motivator.

Sylvia (O’Kelley) does the weather on a morning show in Seattle. Her boyfriend is Dale (Harmon), the handsome if empty-headed anchor. Sylvia is having a very bad day. She’s discovered that Dale is cheating on her with Jane (Hinkle), the likewise empty-headed co-anchor. Sylvia doesn’t handle this well. She has a meltdown on the air. Of course, she loses her job but the footage goes viral. Now she’s famous for all the wrong reasons.

Having to move out of Dale’s apartment with nowhere to go she ends up on the couch in her brother Walt’s (Devlin) smaller apartment. She also ends up meeting Byron (Adams), a hunky computer guy. At first she reacts to him with wariness but as she gets to know him she begins to feel much more comfortable with him than she ever was with Dale.

And that’s essentially it. If it sounds like a sitcom plot, well, it essentially is. The movie has the kind of mindless pleasantness that is inherent with the American network sitcom and many of the actors in it are sitcom vets. Like most sitcoms, the action is terribly contrived and easily predictable. The characters all come from the Sitcom Writers Handbook and while Sylvia is so whiny and unpleasant that you wish that she’d get hit by a meteor through the first half of the movie, she does improve to be nearly likable by the end and I must say that I admit that grudgingly.

O’Kelley, Adams and Devlin all make for nice eye candy depending on your own particular persuasion and Harmon, who tends to be cast in heroic roles, seems to enjoy the change of pace as the shallow douche of an ex and milks it for all its worth.

This is mildly entertaining stuff but in all fairness it isn’t anything different than you can’t already get on broadcast TV for nothing. I can’t in all fairness recommend this unless you’re obsessed with sitcoms and want to spend an hour and a half watching one.

WHY RENT THIS: O’Kelley, Adams and Devlin make an attractive trio. Harmon does well as the smarmy TV host.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Too contrived and predictable. O’Kelley’s character spends the first half of the movie whining and unlikable. Too many cliche characters.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s enough foul language to merit the film an R rating.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Weaver is the voice of Peter Pan in Disney movies, television and in Disney theme parks around the world.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $22,779 on an unreported production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix DVD, Amazon (DVD), iTunes (rent/buy), Amazon (rent/buy)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Begin Again
FINAL RATING: 4/10
NEXT: Tell No One

Advertisement

Skateland

Vogue, Seventies style.

(2010) Drama (Freestyle) Shiloh Fernandez, Ashley Greene, Haley Ramm, James LeGros, Taylor Handley, A.J. Buckley, Heath Freeman, Brett Cullen, Melinda McGraw, Ellen Hollman, Casey LaBow, James Landry Hebert, Ross Francis, Caleb Michaelson, D.W. Moffett, David Sullivan, Joshua Bridgewater, Morgana Shaw, Rachael Lee Magill, Krystal Mayo. Directed by Anthony Burns

 

The summer after we graduate high school is a kind of a cusp between the first stage of our lives and adulthood and yet speaking just for myself I don’t even remember it very well. Different responsibilities and higher expectations are demanded of us as we enter into college, the military, the job market. The world becomes a much different place for us than it was in high school and we struggle to figure out how to adjust.

In a small Texas town in 1983 Ritchie Wheeler (Fernandez) has graduated high school and is managing a roller skating rink called Skateland. His sister Mary (Ramm) and girlfriend Michelle (Greene) are pushing him to submit college applications but Ritchie is in no hurry to go to college. He enjoys hanging out at Skateland with his friends, particularly Brent (Freeman), Michelle’s brother who has just returned to town after a stint as a motorcycle racer. There’s also Kenny (Handley) who is a rich kid who hosts frequent keggers and appears to be going nowhere.

You’d think Ritchie’s parents would be pushing him to start moving forward with his life but his Mom (McGraw) and Dad (Cullen) are having serious marital problems which take up most of their focus, leaving none upon their son who is beginning to drift aimlessly. He’s a talented writer (as most kids in movies like this are) but he’s in danger of having nobody ever find that out. And when Skateland announces that it’s closing its doors, his troubles are really beginning because Michelle, getting ready to attend the University of Texas in Austin in the fall, is beginning to suspect that she’s growing up while her boyfriend isn’t….and that they might just be growing apart.

Skateland is going for a bittersweet nostalgia which isn’t a bad thing. It definitely takes its cues from movies of the era with a kind of John Hughes-like appeal in teens who are reaching a crisis point in their lives. Whereas Hughes made those films funny and poignant, Burns has to settle for poignant.

The young cast is pretty decent here. Greene, who appeared in the Twilight films, is actually a pretty good actress and even though she doesn’t get as much screen time as the hunky Fernandez, when she is on she’s performing so confidently that you can’t help but notice her in a good way.

I do like how Burns captured the era so well – an era that I lived through, so I can attest to the look, the design and especially the attitudes. Whoever chose the soundtrack chose wisely; the songs really brought back the era nicely in my mind. One should never underestimate the importance of music to setting a scene of time and place in a movie.

This reminded me of a lot of different teen angst movies, many made in the era being depicted here. That’s not always a bad thing but sometimes you wind up asking yourself the question whether or not your time would have been better spent watching those films instead of this one. My big complaint is that it really doesn’t add anything to the coming of age genre, but it doesn’t disgrace it either. You could do worse than seeing this movie as an example of the teen rite of passage film. Then again, you could do better, too.

WHY RENT THIS: Captures the era perfectly. Some strong performances.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Has been done better in other movies.

FAMILY VALUES: There is teen drinking, smoking and drug use as well as a little violence and sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film is dedicated to the memory of John Hughes, a director whose work the movie emulates somewhat.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $19,411 on an unknown production budget; it’s unlikely that the movie made any money.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Dazed and Confused

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: Unfinished Song