The Rental

Beware of dark shadows.

(2020) Horror (IFC Midnight) Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, Sheila Vand, Jeremy Allen White, Toby Huss, Anthony Molinari, Connie Wellman. Directed by Dave Franco

 

The Internet Age has given us, among many other ostensibly helpful programs, Air BnB; the ability to rent out our homes as vacation properties. Millions take advantage of the program, which is kind of a crap shoot; when it works out, you’ll find yourself in a much more comfortable environment than a hotel, and generally for a lot less. When it doesn’t, you can end up in an absolute dump – or with an owner who might not be altogether benevolent.

A pair of 30-something couples – start-up entrepreneur Charlie (Stevens), his hot-tempered and less successful little brother Josh (White), Charlie’s wife Michelle (Brie) and Josh’s girlfriend Mina (Vand), who also happens to be Charlie’s business partner. With a big project looming on the horizon, Charlie and Mina figure a weekend of R&R would be just the thing before several months of long hours and stressful deadlines become the norm for both of them. They find what looks like an ideal seaside home.

There are some issues; when Mina tries to rent the property, she’s turned down. When Charlies tries again an hour later, his rental is accepted. Mina, who has a Middle Eastern last name, cries racism and confronts the caretaker Taylor (Huss) with her accusations; he neither confirms nor denies them, but informs her that he isn’t the owner but the brother of the owner who is rarely home to use the property.

Although the property seems absolutely perfect, with a hot tub overlooking the ocean and all the modern amenities, there is a feeling that something is off. For one, Taylor comes off as kind of a racist creep. For another, there’s the locked door with an electronic lock which just smacks of “something to hide.” As the weekend wears on, the underlying tensions between the two couples begin to surface as the bickering and accusations start. When Mina discovers a closed circuit miniature camera in the shower head, she realizes that they are being watched, and that someone is getting their jollies watching the two couples take molly, fool around and bicker. There’s someone watching them and that generally isn’t a good thing.

Franco, who co-wrote the film with mumblecore legend Joe Swanberg, sets the film off as a slow burn, gradually building the tension until the climax, although that climax takes off in an unexpected direction, like an RC airplane with a faulty rudder. What starts off as an amazing psychological horror film and character study ends up during the last 20 minutes as a more traditional visceral horror film which is somewhat disappointing.

Disappointing because the movie shows the vulnerability of renting from a site like Air BnB; we put out trust in homeowners based on a few good ratings. If those owners turn out to be homicidal maniacs, we have no way of knowing or preparing and certainly no way of protecting ourselves. It’s a chilling thought and one the movie exploits early on before turning itself into a standard slasher film, complete with a too-long coda setting the film up as a potential franchise.

As an actor, Franco relates well to his cast and they do good work here. Most surprising was White, who gives Josh a nuanced character; unselfconfident after his violent temperament had landed him in trouble with the law earlier in life especially given his brother’s financial and personal success, he still has a hair-trigger temper which surfaces late in the film. Most of the rest of the way he seems like a genuinely sweet guy with difficulty believing in himself.

Slasher fans will find the movie a little too slow-developing for their tastes (unless they love psychological horror films that build gradually as well) and the frenetic ending will disappoint fans of psychological horror. Nevertheless this is a strong debut from Franco and while it isn’t likely to have the impact that his brother James’ debut did, it makes for some marvelous summertime genre viewing.

REASONS TO SEE: A true slow burn. The cast is terrific, but White is a real find.
REASONS TO AVOID: The plot is just too ludicrous to ignore.
FAMILY VALUES:  There is profanity, drug use, sexuality and graphic violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Alison Brie is married to Dave Franco, who is making his feature directing debut here.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/30/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 73% positive reviews; Metacritic: 63/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Crawlspace
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful

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Disclosure (2020)

The emotional heart of an unwelcome disclosure.

(2020) Drama (Breaking Glass) Geraldine Hakewill, Mark Leonard Winter, Matilda Ridgway, Tom Wren, Greg Stone, Kieran Cochrane, Lucy McMurray. Directed by Michael Bentham

 

When it comes to our children, we are enormously protective. We believe in them, sometimes even against all evidence or logic; we give them the benefit of the doubt. When one child accuses another of a heinous act, the battle lines are drawn immediately and ferociously.

In this Australian drama (not to be confused with the 1994 Demi Moore/Michael Douglas erotic thriller nor the two other films – one a Netflix documentary on transgenders in cinema – with the same title coming out in 2020) we meet Danny (Winter) and Emily (Ridgway) Bowman. He’s a journalist, she’s a documentary filmmaker. When we first meet them, they are having sex and filming it. Flash forward a few years and we are in the home of Joel (Wren) and Bek (Hakewill) Chalmers. Joel is a local politician on the rise; she’s on the phone, obviously busy and harassed when we hear a piercing child’s scream coming from the bedroom. Distracted, she walks over to the room, warns her son Ethan to “leave the little ones alone” and sends him outside to play. She leaves, still on the phone. Ethan doesn’t emerge, but there’s an ominous silence coming from the room.

A few weeks later, Danny and Emily are skinny dipping in their backyard pool when Joel and Bek show up unexpectedly at their door, with Joel’s bodyguard (Stone) in tow. There is tension between the two couples, who have been close friends up to now and we soon find out why. The four-year-old daughter of Danny and Emily has told them that Ethan, the nine-year-old son of Joel and Bek, has done something terrible (and presumably, sexual) to her. Tom and Bek are there to plead with the Bowmans to take Ethan’s name out of the paperwork; Danny and Emily want Ethan to be seen by a therapist. Bek is particularly adamant against it – Ethan has denied the girl’s account. Bek, who suffered serial sexual abuse as a child, is particularly sensitive about the accusation. Emily is horrified that Bek doesn’t believe her daughter.

The discussions go from civilized to strained to frantic to violent as both couples stand their ground in defense of their kids. As things devolve, we get the sense that there is an awful lot of adult baggage being dragged into the argument which is, ostensibly, supposed to be about the welfare of their children.

This is an emotional film which only grows more so. At first, it is the women who react emotionally and, to a certain extent, non-logically. The men seem to be calmer and more conciliatory, wanting to work things out without damaging the friendship the two couples have built. The women are willing to burn the mofo right to the ground.

First time filmmaker Bentham has a good eye, contrasting the rural/suburban idyllic neighborhood, studded with pools and lush greenery with the ugliness of the innuendo cast in both directions by the parents whose civility slowly goes out the window over the course of the film. Hakewill in particular, playing the brittle and shrill Bek, does a marvelous job although all of the other main performers do a crackerjack job as well.

The ending was a little bit of a letdown; Bentham had played things straight pretty much throughout but there’s an almost comedic element to the denouement that doesn’t jive with the rest of the film; I was left wondering if it was meant to be symbolic of something (which I don’t want to get into so as not to spoil it) and in the end, decided that it was, but you may disagree and that’s perfectly legitimate.

This reminded me strongly of Roman Polanski’s 2011 filmed version of the Yasmina Reza stage play, with a sexual element added. That film had a more stage-y quality to it, although there are moments where this feels like it might have been based on a play as well. It is nevertheless an impressive work that has floated under the radar, but deserves far more attention than it has gotten to date (there isn’t even a page on Rotten Tomatoes for the film). For those film buffs still in quarantine looking for something different, this is one to keep in mind. It’s out on VOD now; it can be purchased on Blu-Ray next Tuesday (go to the film’s page to find out where it will be available in the U.S.).

REASONS TO SEE: Covers a wrenching topic from both points of view. Uses thriller tropes to tell a dramatic story.
REASONS TO AVOID: The ending is a bit awkward and unsatisfying.
FAMILY VALUES: There is graphic sex, brief nudity, plenty of profanity and uncomfortable sexual situations.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is Bentham’s debut feature.
BEYOND THE THEATER: AppleTV, Fandango Now, Vimeo, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/2/20: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Carnage
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Denise Ho: Becoming the Song

Lone Star Deception

Smoke gets in my eyes.

(2019) Suspense (Tri-Coast Worldwide) Eric Roberts, Anthony Ray Parker, Nse Ikpe-Etim, Merlisa Determined, Gary Lee Mahmoud, Eliza Roberts, Johnny Ray Gibbs, John Maciag, Sunday Flint, Karina Pal-Montaño, Brian Thornton, Chris Mayo, Melissa Wilson, Archie Ashcroft, Jeff Brody, Enrique Davila, Binette Dialio, Charles Emmott, Joe Grisaffi, Taylor Nieland, Brandi Barbee. Directed by Robert Peters and Don Okolo

 

There’s the United States and then there’s Texas. Texas is on its own planet and they’re very proud of that down in the Lone Star state. It isn’t like anywhere else and that can be a double edged sword.

Tim Bayh (Parker) is an executive at a big Texas oil firm. His boss, Bill Sagle (Eric Roberts), is masterminding the Republican gubernatorial campaign of his nephew Stuart (Mahmoud). When that is derailed by the presence of a sex tape, Bill decides to run Tim as the first African-American candidate in state GOP history.

That turns out to be not such a good idea for Tim, as he is beset on every side, by racists, members of his own community who think he’s selling out, greedy oilmen who want to keep the status quo and then there are the criminals who took down Stuart who have an idea to get another payday out of Tim. He will have to have eyes in the back of his head (and on both sides) if he’s going to make it to the finish line.

The concept is an intriguing one. Texas politics are an entirely different animal and there is definitely room for a great movie here. Sadly, this isn’t it. The script is botched, coming off as a relatively tame movie-of-the-week quality with the tension – which should have been ratcheted up into the red zone – barely discernible, and a feeling that the directors were in a rush to get from one set piece to the next without giving much thought to character development or plot development, for that matter.

Eric Roberts is an Oscar-nominated actor who has had a long and satisfying career. He’s a consummate pro who gives at the very least an entertaining performance and despite some overacting, does so here. You get the feeling that he’s giving his best, but is hamstrung by script problems and frankly, some issues with direction. While both directors are fairly experienced, they seem to have a love for camera movement and there’s a ton of panning and dolly shots which gets to be noticeable at times. You should never notice what the camera is doing; when the camera is in constant motion it takes focus away from what is going on onscreen. Trust your actors and let them be the center of attention.

Chalk this up as a good idea poorly executed. Texas Republicans tend to be the rock-ribbed sort – after all, they are the state that gave us George W. Bush – and to see what having a black front-runner for governor would do to the party would be extremely interesting, but I don’t think the writers did much in the way of research and if they did, it sure doesn’t show in the final product. It’s a shame but I can’t recommend this one.

REASONS TO SEE: Eric Roberts is always entertaining.
REASONS TO AVOID: An interesting concept lacks execution. Stiff acting and a tired plot doom the film.
FAMILY VALUES: Not for the kids; there’s violence, drug use, sexuality, profanity…everything but the kitchen sink.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Eliza Roberts, who plays Bill Sagle’s wife, is married in real life to Eric Roberts, the actor who plays him.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, FlixFling, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/4/20: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet, Metacritic: No score yet
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Miss Sloane
FINAL RATING: 4/10
NEXT: Robin Hood (2018)

Sex Tape

Beauty and the Beast.

(2014) Romantic Comedy (Columbia) Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper, Rob Lowe, Nat Faxon, Nancy Lenehan, Giselle Eisenberg, Harrison Holzer, Sebastian Hedges Thomas, Timothy Brennen, Krisztina Koltai, Randall Park, Joe Stapleton, James Wilcox, Jack Black, Dave Allen, Melissa Paulo, Erin Brehm, Jolene Blalock. Directed by Jake Kasdan

In America, we really have some very odd reactions to sex. Our attitudes towards it are pretty puritanical compared to the rest of the world, and yet it is such a large part of our culture; we use it to advertise, to promote and to entice. We consume enormous amounts of pornography and send dick pics and boob pics to one another with abandon, yet we keep all that compartmentalized and safely hidden from view. Even discussing sex can bring a flush of embarrassment to our faces.

Annie (Diaz) and Jay (Segel) have been a couple since college. At first their attraction was nearly 100% physical – they went at it like proverbial rabbits. Eventually the lust grew into something deeper and the two eventually married and had a set of kids.

Once Annie had given birth and Jay had seen a baby crowning during the process, the magic fled screaming into the night. Exhaustion – both of them working and raising babies into kids – left them no time for themselves or each other. Soon sex came more as an afterthought when it came at all, and even though on the outside this was a happy loving couple, both of them felt that uncomfortable feeling that there was something missing in their relationship, something important.

Frustrated, Annie arranges to have her mother (Lenehan) watch the kids and turn the night into a sex fest. Dressing up as a slutty car hop, she roller skates into Jay’s home office. Naturally, he’s all for the idea but the two of them are woefully out of practice and they grow stressed out the more that their attempts for shagging are unsuccessful. At last Annie comes up with the brilliant idea of taping the proceedings. She even comes up with the idea of the two of them performing every position listed in The Joy of Sex

The idea works and three hours of non-stop exertions later, the two lay satisfied in the arms of the other. Sleepily, Annie asks Jay to erase the tape and Jay agrees. However, he decides not to do it without telling her – he wants a memento of the occasion.

 

That’s all well and good but when you use your iPad to record something, there’s always the danger of it automatically uploading to your cloud and if you have your cloud synched to other iPads you’ve given away – to virtually everybody since your job entails that you regularly get new iPads – suddenly your sex tape has the opportunity to go viral. When Jay gets an instant message thanking him for sharing the video, he realizes he’s in deep doo-doo.

I can see why the studios greenlit this. Prurient interest is a big motivator – who doesn’t want to see a sex tape with Cameron Diaz in it, after all – to audiences in theaters. Certainly the studio was counting on a big young male audience; after all, when you think about it, the business of essentially watching sex tapes on the Internet generates billions and billions of dollars. Which is not how Carl Sagan ever imagined that term would be used.

I have to give Diaz credit where credit is due. For whatever reason, I’ve never been a huge fan. Not that she’s a terrible actress – she’s done some very impressive work in her time. I just haven’t connected with her. However, this is a role that calls for extraordinary bravery on her part. She literally bares herself for the part – from the back – but also emotionally speaking. Americans and American women in particular sometimes have a difficulty talking about sexual issues and of things not going well in the bedroom, but Diaz gives Americans – and American women in particular – a starting point to conversations that are healthy and necessary. There’s a lot to be said for that.

 

She also has been a terrific comedienne for years and this is some of her best work in that department. There’s a scene in which in order to distract her boss (Lowe) in whose house Jay is searching for a wayward iPad for in which she snorts cocaine in order to appease him and give Jay more time to find the iPad (which is interrupted by the appearance of a belligerent dog) and her reaction to the drug is priceless, one of the funnier sequences of any film so far this year.

Segel, who paired with Diaz and director Kasdan in the black comedy Bad Teacher a few years ago, has lost a bunch of pounds and looks fit. His low-key demeanor counterpoints Diaz’ manic behavior very nicely and the two play off of each other well. That they have the great Rob Corddry and Ellie Kemper from The Office supporting them as their best friends (who use their tape to spice up their own married life) is definitely an added bonus. You also get Jack Black making a cameo as the owner of an amateur porn clip host site called YouPorn as he gives relationship advice to Jay and Annie which is normally not a bad thing but I got the sense that even Black thought the platitudes he was vocalizing were beneath him.

There are, sadly, too many shark-jumping moments. When you find out who is blackmailing Jay threatening to release the tape onto the Internet, you may well kick the seat in front of you regardless if its occupied or not. A lot of the jokes are of the immature variety and this never really rises above the level of a sophomoric frat house snigger-fest.

I do think that a truly great sex comedy has yet to be made, one that can be funny and sexy and prurient but smart all at once. Just because we’re talking sex doesn’t mean we have to dumb down the conversation. In short, I’d love to see a sex comedy for adults instead of the usual ones we get for teens, of which this one appears to be. It’s a sad waste of a performance by Cameron Diaz that deserved a better movie for it.

REASONS TO GO: Cameron Diaz.

REASONS TO STAY: Giggly-naughty in a puritan sort of way.

FAMILY VALUES:  A goodly amount of sexual content and some nudity, brief drug use and a whole lot of foul language, much of it sexually-oriented.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: These are Cameron Diaz’ first official nude scenes.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/11/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 18% positive reviews. Metacritic: 36/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Porky’s

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: Hercules

New Releases for the Week of July 18, 2014

THE PURGE: ANARCHY

(Universal) Frank Grillo, Michael K. Williams, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, Keith Stanfield, Edwin Hodge. Directed by James DeMonaco

Has it been a year already? Oh, right, it’s time for the annual purge, a single night where the New Founding Fathers allow the people of the United States to run wild in the streets, where all crime is legal including murder and sensible people lock themselves in their fortress-like homes in order to survive the night. Not that it will help you if you aren’t wealthy enough to afford the very best protection, or if your car breaks down on the way home…or if you have some purging of your own to do. Happy purging, people.

 

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Horror

Rating: R (for strong disturbing violence, and language)

Aftermath

(Image) Edward Furlong, Monica Keena, William Baldwin, Andre Royo. Nine survivors of a nuclear holocaust as World War III rages gather at a farmhouse in rural Texas to await their fate. Radiation sickness, hunger, desperate refugees and their own bickering threaten to do them all in.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Thriller

Rating: NR

Le Chef

(Cohen Media Group) Jean Reno, Michael Youn, Raphaelle Agogue, Julien Boisselier. A great French chef who has become a brand name in France has found inspiration lacking as of late. The capital partner who essentially owns his restaurants is threatening to install a new chef in his own restaurant. Salvation may come in the form of a mule-headed, opinionated young chef who is brilliant and creative but impossible to get along with. A favorite at this year’s Florida Film Festival, you can read my review of the movie here.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language)

Planes: Fire and Rescue

(Disney) Starring the voices of Dane Cook, Julie Bowen, Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook. After a damaged engine puts Dusty Crophopper’s racing career in jeopardy, he decides to put his talents to good use. He joins the aerial firefighting unit guarding historic Piston Peak National Park. However, he soon finds that it isn’t all that he imagined it would be.

See the trailer, interviews, clips and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D (opens Thursday)

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for action and some peril)

Sex Tape

(Columbia) Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Rob Corddry, Rob Lowe. A couple whose marriage has been in the doldrums for some time decide to liven things up by making a sex tape. It works and they find their relationship clicking on all cylinders for the first time in years. However, the video – which was supposed to have been erased – ends up on their cloud which is connected to a bunch of devices they’ve given out as presents. Getting those devices back will be the easy part – keeping their sanity and their marriage together will be harder.

See the trailer, interviews, clips, premiere footage and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Comedy

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

Wish I Was Here

(Focus) Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad. A 30-something husband and father comes to a point in his life where he realizes that he needs to get serious about his responsibilities and grow up but that’s not an easy proposition in his family.

See the trailer, interviews, a featurette, a clip and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Dramedy

Rating: R (for language and some sexual content)

The Campaign

 

Zach Galifianakis isn’t sure he’s going to get the top billing Will Ferrell promised him.

(2012) Comedy (Warner Brothers) Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Katherine LaNasa, Dylan McDermott, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, Brian Cox, P.J. Byrne, Sarah Baker, Karen Maruyama, Grant Goodman, Kya Haywood, Randall Cunningham. Directed by Jay Roach

 

In an American presidential election year, politics tend to move towards the shameless side. Outrageous lies and half-truths are spoken; candidates are smeared, rumors are mongered and dirty tricks are perpetrated.

In a North Carolina congressional district, Cam Brady (Ferrell) prepares to run unopposed for his fourth term in office. He’s always been more interested in being called “Congressman Brady” rather than in doing anything with the office but his popularity takes a huge hit after accidentally sending a racy voice message on the answering machine of a devout Christian family who didn’t appreciate it so much.

This brings a bit of unease to the Motch brothers (Lithgow, Aykroyd), a pair of billionaire industrialist siblings who have outsourced millions of jobs to China. However, they’ve come up with a brilliant scheme to save millions on shipping their products back to the U.S. – it’s called “insourcing” and involves having the Chinese buy huge….tracts of land…and putting up factories, then staffing them with Chinese workers who continue to make pennies an hour. To make it happen, they need a Congressman who can insure they get exemptions on the minimum wage and it doesn’t look like Brady, whose district the Motches have designs on, will have enough political capital after this latest escapade, to help them much.

The Motch brothers need a new pliable candidate, one they can control and they think they’ve found one in Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) who is a somewhat simple and somewhat effeminate tour guide operator in the county whose father (Cox) is the oily, rattlesnake-mean former campaign manager for Jesse Helms. Marty, who’s always wanted to run for office, wants to make his daddy proud. Daddy wants Marty not to embarrass him. And Marty’s brother Clay (Goodman) just wants to tickle Marty because Marty’s bowels tend to void when tickled.

Marty’s kind of a shlub but that all changes with the arrival of Tim Wattley (McDermott), a snake oil-slick campaign manager who proceeds to do a life makeover on the new candidate, much to the chagrin of Mitzi (Baker), Marty’s timid BBW of a wife.

Thus the campaign ensues, with each candidate smearing the other through attack ads, debates and innuendo. Things start to get messy; Cam’s hot but ambitious wife (LaNasa) moves out when it looks like Marty might win; Cam accidentally slugs a baby in the jaw with a closed fist.

However, when Marty finds out what the Motch Brothers, in collusion with his father, are up to, he grows himself a pair and stands up to them. This leads to Tim moving over to Cam’s moribund campaign…and resurrecting it. But which one of these two knuckleheads will win out in the end?

This is meant to be political satire which I suppose circa century 21 makes some sense. Still, when I think of political satire I think of classics like, for example, Dr. Strangelove. This doesn’t measure up to that nor should you go in expecting that it would.

This is more or less an Apatow-esque comedy masquerading as political satire. While the identity of the Motch brothers isn’t fooling anyone (Koch brothers anyone?) and Cam Baker shares some DNA with John Edwards, the movie studiously tries to avoid party mudslinging on the surface by making the Democrat (Brady) as objectionable as the Republican (Huggins). The reality though is that they’re both essentially Republicans – and the joke is that there really isn’t much of a difference between them, even to them both finding out they are good-hearted in the end (not that it’s much of a spoiler).

Ferrell has played this character dozens of times, a combination of Ron Burgundy, Ricky Bobby and George Bush. For Galifianakis, this is a character not unlike the one he played in Due Date. It’s not a bad mix, the two of them – but it ends up with a kind of Frank Capra-esque ending that belies the cynical tone most of the rest of the movie takes.

I could have used a bit more laugh-out-loud sequences, although there are a few moments which got me chortling but to me the movie seemed on the bland side and never really had the courage of its own convictions. Trying not to alienate the electorate? Don’t make a political satire then.

REASONS TO GO: Satirizes the current American political process without getting too party-specific.

REASONS TO STAY: Not nearly as funny as it should be. A bit more cynical than some might like.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s plenty of crude sexual content, a bit of nudity, some semi-foul language and a bit of violence.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Aykroyd plays a wealthy brother like the type he bested in Trading Places. Life imitating art?

CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/14/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 67% positive reviews. Metacritic: 49/100. The reviews are mixed but trending towards the positive.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Primary Colors

EASTBOUND AND DOWN LOVERS: Shawn Harwell, one of the co-writers of the movie, also is a writer for the quirky cable series.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: Jack and Jill

Bridesmaids

For losing the bet, Wiig has to give Rudolph a manicure with her teeth.

(2011) Comedy (Universal) Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd, Jill Clayburgh, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, Franklyn Ajaye, Rebel Wilson, Matt Lucas, Jon Hamm, Richard Riehle, Mitch Silpa. Directed by Paul Feig

There’s something in the female hormone that just goes ballistic when it comes to weddings. Smart, capable, logical women turn into absolute emotional maniacs when confronted with the nuptials of a friend. Gather together an entire bridal party and you have enough cattiness and one-upsmanship to fill up thirty seasons of “Project: Runway.”

Annie (Wiig) and Lillian (Rudolph) have been the best of friends since childhood. Annie’s going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment. Her bakery, co-owned with her then-boyfriend has gone belly-up and her ex walked out out on her, leaving Annie holding the bag. Deeply in debt, she works at a jewelry store owned by a friend of her mom and rooms with a pair of English siblings, Gil (Lucas) and Brynn (Wilson) who would make Ellen DeGeneres homicidal. Annie is the regular booty call of Ted (Hamm), an egotistical jerk who wants no part of Annie other than to get his rocks off and Annie is more or less accepting of this relationship.

Things are looking up for Lillian however. She is engaged to her sweetie Doug and she wants Annie to be her maid of honor. Annie is only too happy to do it, not realizing the expense and frustration that goes hand-in-hand with the job. The bridal party includes Megan (McCarthy), Doug’s big-boned sister who shoots from the hip and has a somewhat skewed view of life; Rita (McLendon-Covey), Lillian’s cousin who is married with three kids and is horny as all get out; Becca (Kemper) who’s a newlywed and blissfully in love and finally Helen (Byrne), the wife of Doug’s boss and one of those rich people who thinks the world not only should revolve around them but in fact does.

Of course, Annie tries to keep costs under control but that’s simply not possible with Helen around. Annie and Helen regard each other with wary distrust, each vying for Lillian’s affection and to be top dog in the pack. As Annie initiates disaster after disaster (a pre-dress fitting meal causes a very nasty case of food poisoning which leads to a scene that isn’t for the squeamish and a drunken incident on a plane to Vegas for the bachelorette party which results in Annie not only making a fool of herself but for the plane not to reach its destination) the strain grows in her relationship with Lillian. Not even reconnecting with her mom (Clayburgh) and connecting with a sympathetic Irish cop named Rhodes (O’Dowd) can help Annie in her downward spiral towards an inevitable rock bottom.

This was produced by Judd Apatow and early indications that this is going to be another big box office hit for him. Like most Apatow movies, there is a good deal of vulgarity and a tendency to not skimp on sex or cussing which is the kind of thing that some folks are going to shy away from.

There are some genuine laughs here, and Da Queen pointed out that any woman who’s ever been involved with a wedding – their own or someone else’s – is going to find a lot of common ground here from the bridal party back biting to the absolute disasters that befall any wedding.

This is Wiig’s first leading role and the SNL veteran shows that she has the ability to be a charming and sympathetic romantic comedy heroine. Not only is she sexy and beautiful, she’s got great comic timing and she gets the audience squarely behind her for the most part, even when she’s sabotaging her own best friend in a fit of self-pity.

McCarthy often steals the show here and could wind up being the Zach Galifianakis of this little posse. Plus-sized women get the shortest of shrifts from Hollywood and it would be a shame for someone this talented and this funny to not turn a performance like this into a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

Byrne plays the tightly wound Helen note-perfect and while I haven’t seen much of her in comedic roles (she’s best known for the cable hit “Damages”) she has a future in comedy as well as drama. O’Dowd has also been receiving raves for his role and could well wind up as a leading man somewhere down the road although he seems better suited to comedy than drama.

The movie overuses the awkward situation as laugh template, leaving me feeling uncomfortable more than anything else. However, thankfully, there’s enough genuine humor here and coupled with the genuine chemistry between Wiig and Rudolph (honed by years of working together on SNL) makes for a movie that hits the right notes most of the time. It’s good to see a movie that primarily focuses on the female point of view that can be enjoyed by both sexes equally – that’s a fairly rare bird in the Hollywood aviary.

REASONS TO GO: Enough laughs to keep things moving along. Good chemistry between Wiig and Rudolph.

REASONS TO STAY: Some of the bits go on too long. A few too many awkward moments masquerading as laughs.

FAMILY VALUES: A whole lot of bad language and tons of sex, not to mention a few disgusting images.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This was Jill Clayburgh’s final film before she passed away from leukemia last November.

HOME OR THEATER: No need for a big screen on this one.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Fish Tank