They/Them/Us

How easily your world is turned upside-down when you’re a teen.

(2021) Romantic Dramedy (Blended Family) Joey Slotnick, Amy Hargreaves, Jack Steiner, Shanna Strong, Abi Van Andel, Lexie Bean, Sarah Eddy, Robert Pavlovich, Trina Gardiner, Esther Cunningham, Johanna McGinley, Abigail Esmena, Shyra Thomas, Richard Hagerman, Heidi Lewandowski, Cheyenne Poz, Graham Caldwell, Dominic McNeal, Tre Ryan, Lisa DeRoberts. Directed by Jon Sherman

 

The idea of blended families is nothing new; Hollywood has been making comedies about them for decades. However, as time goes by and familial relationships become more complicated, so too does blending two families together become all that much more of a challenge.

Charlie Goldman (Slotnick) is a divorced film professor whose ex-wife Deborah (Van Andel) is eager to get back together with him, something he is interested in not at all. He has taken a job at a Christian university, masquerading as a devout Christian when in fact he is a virtual embodiment of a neurotic Jewish man. His son Danny (Steiner) smokes enough weed to make Cheech and Chong go “Whoa, you might wanna slow down a little bit there Homeboy” and daughter Anna (Strong) blames him for the divorce.

He meets Lisa Harper (Hargreaves) on a dating site. As it turns out, they click almost immediately. She’s mainly looking for a sexual partner, though – a series of one-night stands to “play the field,” as she puts it. Her daughters Maddie (Bean) and Courtney (Eddy) miss their Dad, who has moved away to Europe and both have a none-too-cordial relationship with their mom. Not one of the teens is anxious to see their parent find love with another person.

But love is what Charlie and Lisa find, and it isn’t long before Charlie invites Lisa to move in with her kids. The kids take to the idea like a cat taking to having its tail dipped in brown mustard. It’s hard enough to make a relationship work in this day and age without having openly hostile kids who are rooting for it to fail. Can love survive, let alone thrive, in such an environment?

The humor here is broad, what I like to call “Har-de-HAR-har-har” humor. In other words, I get the sense that the writers were going for as broad and as universal a humor as possible and end up coming up with nothing that is particularly funny. The characters are painted in extremely broad strokes; Charlie’s a nebbish, Danny is a stoner who is an absolute dickweed when sober, Lisa has a secret yen for BDSM…but other than Hargreaves who gives her character a great deal of patience and care, most of the actors seem not to have much direction in terms of where they are taking their characters and as a result, we end up not caring for any of them – with the exception, perhaps, of Hargreaves’ Lisa.

The plot is fairly predictable for a movie of this nature and the ending is about as Hollywood as it gets, which is kind of an odd duck for an independent flick. The soundtrack is loud, obnoxious and intrusive, almost cartoony in nature. Yeah, there are a lot of problems with this movie.

But Hargreaves isn’t one of them, and she has a lot of potential to make an impact as an actress. I hope she gets some better parts in better movies after this, because she deserves better. And frankly, so do you.

REASONS TO SEE: Hargreaves is magic in a role that could easily become self-parody.
REASONS TO AVOID: Too many rom-com tropes.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, drug use and plenty of sexual situations and sexual situations, as well as some adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Makes its world premiere tonight (as this is published) at the Dances With Films 2021 film festival in Los Angeles.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/11/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Yours, Mine and Ours
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Language Lessons

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Always Be My Maybe (2019)

A perfect example of Keanu-worship.

(2019) Romantic Comedy (Netflix) Ali Wong, Randall Park, James Saito, Michelle Buteau, Vivian Bang, Keanu Reeves, Daniel Dae Kim, Susan Park, Karan Soni, Charlyne Yi, Lyrics Born, Casey Wilson, Miya Cech, Emerson Min, Ashley Liao, Jackson Geach, Anaiyah Bernier, Raymond Ma, Peggy Lu, Simon Chin, Panta Mosteh, Karen Holness. Directed by Nahnatchka Khan

 

After a glut of romantic comedies in the last two decades, the big screen has taken a break from making them, largely because most of the rom-coms that came out over that time were essentially cookie cutter images of each other with little new to recommend them. In the last year, Netflix has attempted to fill the gap with varying results.

Sasha Tran (Wong) is an L.A.-based celebrity chef who is opening up a new restaurant in San Francisco where she grew up. Back then, her best friend was Marcus Kim (R. Park) who she lost her virginity to back in the day – in a Toyota Corolla no less. She employs Marcus’ dad (Saito) to install her HVAC system and as it turns out, Marcus still works for his Dad. As it also turns out, Marcus still plays in the same band he did in high school, still lives with his dad and still drives the same Toyota Corolla (which if I were Sasha might make me a little queasy).

The two drifted apart over the years and are both currently seeing other people, but the sparks are still there. Are the two condemned to each other’s Friendzone or will those sparks ignite the flames that have always been just beneath the surface?

Wong and Park, who both co-starred in the sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, co-wrote the movie with Michel Golamco and there are moments when their natural comic talents shine through but the movie is also riddled with rom-com clichés that sabotage their best intentions. The chemistry between Wong and Park is surprisingly weak and one feels that Sasha and Marcus would be better off as friends, so the rooting interest for a successful romance is out the window. Still, a strange but glorious cameo by Reeves playing a parody of himself, and Park’s strange but funny raps keep the movie from being a total waste. Rom-com fans without high standards will doubtlessly eat this up, particularly if they loved last summer’s Crazy Rich Asians which is a far superior movie but certainly had a hand in getting this greenlit.

REASONS TO SEE: There are some truly hilarious moments.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little bit on the cliché side.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some sexual content, profanity, brief drug use and some violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While in the film Randall Park and Ali Wong are childhood friends who are roughly the same age, in reality Park is eight years older than Wong and he founded the theater troupe at UCLA that she later joined.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/6/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 90% positive reviews: Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Crazy Rich Asians
FINAL RATING; 6/10
NEXT: The Chambermaid

Hereditary

Toni Collette practices her Oscar acceptance speech.

(2018) Horror (A24) Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Christy Summerhays, Morgan Lund, Mallory Bechtel, Jake Brown, Harrison Nell, Briann Rachele, Heidi Mendez, Moises Tovar, Jarrod Phillips, Ann Dowd, Brock McKinney, Zachary Arthur, David Stanley, Bus Riley, Austin Grant, Gabe Eckert, Jason Miyagi, Marilyn Miller, Rachelle Hardy, Georgia Puckett  Directed by Ari Aster

There are critics who shouldn’t be allowed to review some genres. Those who abhor emotional manipulation should not be allowed to review romantic comedies. Those who think movies exist only to illuminate and educate shouldn’t be allowed to review Hong Kong action films or superhero films for that matter. There are some who don’t have the patience for kid flicks. and there are plenty of critics who don’t get horror movies at all who should be kept away from horror movies with physical restraints – and I suspect some of them would be just fine with that. Me, I love horror movies so at least you won’t get genre snobbery below.

\Annie Graham (Collette) is burying her recently deceased mother. She is strangely ambivalent about it; her relationship with her mom was strained to say the least. In fact, the only member of the family who is sorry to see the old lady go is the youngest, daughter Charlie (Shapiro) who is as creepy a child as you’re likely to find on any movie screen, theatrical or home.

Annie has kind of a strange job; she’s an artist who builds miniature rooms with meticulous detail. These rooms are largely from her own past and present. Annie is already kind of a high strung sort much to the chagrin of her stoner teenage son Peter (Wolff) and grounded husband Steve (Byrne). When a second tragedy strikes the family, it threatens to send Annie over the edge.

Reluctantly, she attends a grief-counseling group where she runs into Joan (Dowd), a motherly sort who has lost her husband and son to a car accident. She confides in an increasingly depressed Annie that she has discovered a means of communicating with the dead. Given a straw to cling to, Annie seizes it with both hands but as anyone who knows anything about the horror genre knows, it’s never a good idea to contact the dead.

Now, the synopsis above makes this sound like a pretty run-of-the-mill horror concoction but I assure you that it is not. This is one of the most justifiably acclaimed horror movies of this year or maybe even any other year, both by critics who do get horror films and fans of the genre alike (not to mention film buffs and cinephiles). The movie is ingeniously crafted, a slow burn that builds to an absolutely twisted finale that will leave you terrified of turning out the lights for days.

One of the reasons to love this movie is Toni Collette. Horror films rarely generate Oscars for actors but this is one that truly deserves to. Collette’s depiction of Anne’s descent into paranoid madness is the stuff of horror rubbernecking – you simply can’t turn away. Collette has been nominated for Oscars before but this may well be her best performance. I can’t imagine anyone topping it. The rest of the performances are strong, particularly the always-reliable Byrne, the up-and-coming star Wolff and veteran character actor Dowd. Shapiro is also particularly strong but she doesn’t get as much screen time as the others.

Steve Newburn is credited with designing the miniatures; they are exquisite and add considerably to the creepy factor So too does the score which doesn’t take cheap shots with ersatz scares. When the really scary stuff starts to unfold, it’s honest and quite frankly, this movie is scary as fcuk. Seriously, if you are easily frightened or overly sensitive this movie may well be too much for you.

This is not the kind of movie that throws jump scares at you to keep you off-balance. This is a slow-building ticking time bomb that immerses you in an atmosphere that is both normal and not-quite-right. As things begin to go off the rails for Annie, we begin to understand she’s not the most reliable of narrators. Is it really happening? I say yes. Whether you’re on the same page as I am, this is certainly one of the most unforgettable horror movies of the past decade and if you didn’t see it during its brief run this past summer, you NEED to see it this Halloween.

REASONS TO GO: Collette delivers a career-defining performance. The ending sequence is terrifying. It’s very likely to become a horror classic. The dysfunctional family dynamic feels authentic.
REASONS TO STAY: This might actually be too scary for some.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of graphic violence and disturbing imagery, some drug use and brief nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  Wolff, Byrne and Shapiro knew each other from previous film work; Collette alone didn’t know any of the actors that played her family, contributing to her sense of isolation which comes out in the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/28/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 89% positive reviews. Metacritic: 87/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Rosemary’s Baby
FINAL RATING: 9.5/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness Day Four

Inherent Vice

Joaquin Phoenix counts the number of people in the theater.

(2014) Mystery (Warner Brothers) Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Jena Malone, Martin Short, Maya Rudolph, Eric Roberts, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jordan Christian Hearn, Jeannie Berlin, Joanna Newsom, Hong Chau, Michelle Sinclair, Elaine Tan, Martin Donovan, Erica Sullivan, Sasha Pieterse. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Those of a certain age will remember the hippie movement of the late 60s and early 70s. The flower children whose innocence combined with rampant drug use and sexual experimentation and some new age noodling ended up making them targets for ridicule in the 80s and beyond. Long haired sorts blissed out on whatever drug of choice was handy, smiling beatifically and mouthing pseudo-philosophical aphorisms of pseudo-depth that were in the end senseless became something of a cultural stereotype, but in truth they did believe in love and peace, which has to be better than believing in money and war.

Larry “Doc” Sportello (Phoenix) is a private eye living in Manhattan Beach – called Gordita Beach here – in 1970. Sporting mutton chops that both Wolverine and a British sailor from the 1820s would envy, he is mainly content to work on such cases that came in to his office that he shares with dentists and the rest of the time, smoke pot and hang out with his latest lady friends who at the moment happens to be Assistant D.A. Penny Kimball (Witherspoon).  Life is pretty sweet.

Into his life comes an ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay Hepworth (Waterston). She happens to be having an affair with big-time L.A. developer Mickey Wolfmann (Roberts) and who has been undergoing some sort of guilt trip, possibly brought on by heroin addiction. He has surrounded himself with neo-Nazi bikers which is interesting since he himself is Jewish. His wife and her boyfriend want to put Mickey away in a sanitarium and throw away the key by which means they’ll gain control over his fortune. Shasta Fay begs Doc to look into it and Doc, being the last of the knights errant, agrees to. Shasta Fay promptly disappears.

I could tell you how the rest of the story goes but it won’t make sense. It is, after all, based on a Thomas Pynchon novel. However, I will say that there is an ambitious cop named Bigfoot (Brolin) who may be a staunch ally of Doc or setting him up for a murder charge – or maybe both, an Indonesian heroin cartel laundering their money through a consortium of dentists called The Golden Fang, a saxophone player (Wilson) and heroin addict who has disappeared, leaving his wife (Malone) frantic, a shady Hispanic lawyer (del Toro) and a sweet but scatter-brained assistant who narrates the movie (Newsom).

In the interests of fairness, there are a lot of people whom I respect that really liked this movie a lot but for me, this is more like The Master than There Will Be Blood, Anderson’s worst and best films to date (although I must admit Boogie Nights comes close to the latter). I can understand why they liked the movie – the visual style, the well-written dialogue (with Pynchon you can’t go wrong in that regard) and the performances but this is one of those movies that depends on excess but sometimes, more is way too much.

Like most Paul Thomas Anderson movies, this meanders all over hell and gone, following one thread until it gets played out or Anderson gets bored with it and then suddenly switching to another. Keeping track of who is allied with who is apt to cause your brain to spontaneously ignite into flames. Don’t bother because it doesn’t really matter much in the end anyway.

The thing is that Anderson (like Pynchon before him) is doing a kind of stoner noir here, a hard-bitten detective story with a soft-chewing hippie detective. You’ll smell the intoxicating mix of patchouli, marijuana smoke and incense blending together at the same time as you feel like you’re in a stoners apartment in which a fine layer of ash coats everything and every container possible has stubbed out cigarette butts and the counter tops faint signs of cocaine lines left behind. Both Da Queen and I felt the squalor permeating our skin and exited the theater into the cool night air, relieved to be breathing in something fresh and unadulterated by intoxicants.

Phoenix and Brolin are fine actors, Oscar nominees both. Phoenix does befuddled about as well as anybody and he plays stoned perhaps better than anybody save Seth Rogen. He captures the part of Doc about as well as anybody’s going to without doing the copious amounts of weed that Doc does during the film – and who knows, maybe he did. Brolin on the other hand plays the flat topped brush cut cop who wants to be the next Jack Webb but is more likely to be the most recent Martin Milner. He’s the best part of the movie, partially comic relief but not always.

We get that people did a lot of drugs in the 70s. We don’t have to see them light up in every fucking scene, take a long drag, and then proceed with the scene. I would estimate that about 20 minutes of the two and a half hour run time is devoted to watching people go through the mechanics of smoking dope and cigarettes and it gets monotonous. So too does the story, which meanders from place to place, becoming maddeningly interesting but just when it’s about to, takes off on another tangent with the previous story elements never to reappear again. Eventually the last 30 minutes the film picks up steam and for that reason the movie isn’t getting the first Zero rating this site has ever given out but it came damn close.

I get the sense that Paul Thomas Anderson’s ego wrote checks that this movie didn’t have the funds to cash and I’m not talking budget here. Pynchon as a writer has a delightful command of language and to Anderson’s credit as the screenwriter adapting his work, he does try to utilize that in the script where he can. Sadly, both Pynchon and Anderson are guilty of the same kinds of excesses – one in literature, the other in cinema – and the two don’t make a good match.

I’ve always admired Anderson for his creativity and for making movies that don’t conform to any standards, but that is a double edged sword and the blade is cutting deep here. Whereas There Will Be Blood is damn near a masterpiece, this is kind of a sordid mess that never really manages to get going and throws so many characters at you that pretty soon you begin confusing one longhair for another. That’s never a good sign. I had hopes that the combination of Pynchon and Anderson might yield up a great movie. Some folks may argue that it did. I would contend that it did not.

REASONS TO GO: You can always walk out.
REASONS TO STAY: Way long. Dwells on minutiae too much. Watching stoners being stoned is about as entertaining as watching mimes at work.
FAMILY VALUES: Near-constant drug use and profanity. Some violence. There’s also a good deal of sexual content and occasional graphic nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first time that Rudolph has appeared in a Paul Thomas Anderson film. The two have been a couple for more than a decade.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/20/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 70% positive reviews. Metacritic: 81/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Forbidden Zone
FINAL RATING: 1/10
NEXT: Listen Up, Philip

The Lie (2011)

Your sins will find you out.

(2011) Drama (Screen Media) Joshua Leonard, Jess Wexler, Mark Webber, Alia Shawkat, Kelli Garner, James Ransone, Jane Adams, Kirk Baltz, Gerry Bednob, Matthew Newton, Holly Woodlawn, Tipper Newton, Kandice Melonakos, Germaine Mozel Sims, Michael McColl, Gwyn Fawcett. Directed by Joshua Leonard

I was once told as a young man by a mentor that being young was easy; everything is simple – black or white, right or wrong, bad or good. There is no middle ground in youth, he told me, no grey areas. Accountability and responsibility are notions that don’t apply to the young. Sooner or later however, we all have to grow up whether we want to or not.

Lonnie (Leonard) is reaching a crossroads in his life. He and his wife Clover (Wexler) have just had a baby and their life of activism and living by their own rules has been turned on its ear as their idealism collides with the realities of raising a baby – particularly in regards to the expense. Clover is considering a job at a pharmaceutical company that as far as Lonnie is concerned is the anti-Christ but whose benefits will make the job of raising their new addition feasible.

But Lonnie, stuck in a job he hates, isn’t on board with this. He’s a hippie in an age of consumerism and in a different age would have found a commune to hang out in with his family. Lonnie is in a crisis and he needs a day off to clear his head, so he just tells his overbearing boss (Bednob) that his baby is sick. Lonnie, now free of any responsibility, gets hammered with his best friend Tank (Webber), smokes a lot of weed and records some really bad rock and roll in Tank’s trailer.

It turns out so well that Lonnie takes another day and another day and another – until he can’t use that fib anymore so in a fit of panic he blurts out that the baby died. Suddenly the little white lie isn’t so white and isn’t so little anymore. This is one he can’t walk away from and one that sooner or later he’ll have to face the consequences for.

Based on a short story by T.C. Boyle, the movie ostensibly debates the question of whether it is okay to compromise one’s principles in order to survive, although that really isn’t it at all. It’s a question of whether one’s responsibility to family outweighs a lifestyle choice.

Leonard, whom most will remember from The Blair Witch Project, is generally a fairly charming onscreen personality and there are elements of that here too, but one wonders about the underlying story going on with the character. Lonnie talks a good game about discovering who he is, but from his actions he appears to be a stoner and a slacker who just wants to get wasted and do whatever makes him feel good. In other words, a selfish prick.

Wexler, who was so delightful in Free Samples, is the polar opposite. She has a baby to consider and the realities of life in Southern California staring her in the face. She realizes that it is time to grow up and make sacrifices, which is why she considers a job at the Big Pharma company. Her moments to shine come towards the end of the movie when the truth inevitably comes out, but sadly, her character (who may go down in cinematic history as the most understanding woman ever) reacts in a way that is counterintuitive to who she seems to be all along.

Webber, as the stoner best friend, provides a lot of the comic relief but also a lot of the film’s center strangely enough. “Dude,” he tells Lonnie in a kind of ironic coda, “You’ve got to stop running away from shit.” Which is, of course, precisely what Lonnie does and the filmmakers seem to embrace that as a viable alternative to, you know, life.

I was once the age that Lonnie is and I will grant him that things are different now than they were then but FFS you’re a dad, you’ve got to man up and grow a pair. One of the things that disturbs me about what I see in the current generation is that there seems to be an unwillingness to sacrifice for the greater good – that self-gratification is the be all and end all of existence. Now I am willing to concede that much of that is simply the flaw of youth and that it’s possible that experience and wisdom will counteract it but I don’t recall ever seeing this self-centeredness to this degree in any generation before. Wow, I sound like my own Dad, don’t I?

The point is that the movie seems to take the point of view that it is more important to be true to one’s own needs whether they are selfish or not than to be responsible for the life that one brings into this world and I simply can’t agree with that point of view – which is why I hate the ending so much because it hints that is precisely what the filmmakers think. Perhaps it is old-fashioned of me but I can’t recommend a movie that condones self-interest over responsibility. If you’re comfortable with that, you are more than welcome to seek this movie out and draw your own conclusions.

WHY RENT THIS: Examines the age old question of freedom vs. responsibility. Wexler and Webber are magnificent.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Can’t get behind a film that preaches accountability and celebrates that its lead character has none. The ending is absolutely mind-numbing.

FAMILY VALUES: A fair amount of foul language and some drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film’s official website gives visitors an opportunity to confess about a lie they’ve told which has been taken up by a number of people including at least one cast member.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $3,000 on an unreported production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Be Good

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: The Good Heart

Tomorrow, When the War Began

Red Dawn? Red Schmawn!

(2010) Action (Freestyle) Caitlin Stasey, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Lincoln Lewis, Deniz Akdeniz, Phoebe Tonkin , Chris Pang, Ashleigh Cummings, Andrew Ryan, Colin Friels, Don Halpert, Olivia Pigeot, Stephen Bourke, Kelly Butler, Julia Yon, Dane Carson, Matthew Dale, Gary Quay, Michael Camilleri, Masa Yamaguchi, Andy Trieu, Yolandi Franken. Directed by Stuart Beattie

I have to admit that not that long ago Australia was producing some of the best action and adventure movies in the world. Of late they seem to be better at horror films but that doesn’t mean they’re not putting out some entries in the former category.

Ellie (Stasey) is a teenage girl living in a rural Australian community. She’s pretty much an ordinary girl, maybe a little bit precocious. She wants to go on a camping trip to a nearby isolated valley locally known as Hell but her parents won’t let her go unless it’s in a group, so she wrangles her bestie Corrie (Hurd-Wood), Corrie’s boyfriend Kevin (Lewis), Ellie’s next-door neighbor Homer (Akdeniz), the son of the owners of the local Thai restaurant (and a guy Ellie’s been crushing on) Lee (Pang), and her friends Robyn (Cummings) and Fiona (Tonkin).

They take off in the Land Rover of Ellie’s parents and spend an idyllic day in Hell. That night though, Ellie notices the sky filled with military planes. This is a little disconcerting to Ellie but she doesn’t put two and two together right away. It is only after they go home to find their town deserted and all power shut off that they begin to get worried. From a hilltop later that evening they notice the only places with lights on are the hospital and the local stadium. When they investigate the stadium they find that all the townspeople are being held there by a military group of a foreign nation, the insignias unrecognizable to Ellie although most of the soldiers look Asian.

Unfortunately, one of them is detected and now the army is after them. They hide out in the home of local stoner Chris (Ryan) who is so baked that he isn’t aware that anything is wrong. However they do discover that the invading force is moving in their supplies and personnel over a single bridge. And Ellie knows that bridge has got to go – and the only people who have a shot at getting it done are her and her friends. But can a bunch of party-hearty teens stand up to a highly trained military force?

This is based loosely on the first of John Marsden’s young adult series Tomorrow. A big hit over in Oz and to a lesser extent over here, it seemed like a natural fit for the Aussie film market and indeed it was. However, it never really connected with the global market and plans to film the second book in the series have stalled, at least for the time being.

Director Beattie made his mark initially as a screenwriter for such films as Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, Derailed and 30 Days of Night (he’s also writing and directing the upcoming I, Frankenstein). This is his first time in the director’s chair and he actually doesn’t do too bad a job. This is an action-heavy film with sequences that include helicopter and fighter jet battles, dune buggy chases and of course gun fights. There isn’t anything that is going to rewrite the action movie manual here but there is certainly nothing that disgraces the filmmakers either.

The young cast has a lot of pressure on their hands and the results are fairly mixed. Partially because their characters aren’t given a lot of development time other than for the very basics, they don’t come off as fully formed personalities in most cases. Methinks that they were hoping to do more of that in the sequels that were planned from the get-go.

Still, the movie moves at a very heady clip and you aren’t really allowed to catch your breath for very long which is crucial for a good action movie. While the plot borrows perhaps too liberally from Red Dawn, this is certainly a different take on that type of film, being a little bit more specific to a single event and less about the arc of the characters over the course of the war although the full series of books is more in that vein. It’s not a bad movie although it got virtually no play over on this side of the Pacific but that is perhaps due to the distributors not quite knowing what to do with an Aussie movie that feels more like a Hollywood film, but when compared to Hollywood action movies might come off as a bit rougher around the edges than what cognoscenti here are used to.

WHY RENT THIS: Well-paced. Some fine action sequences.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Déjà vu plot. Not terribly well-acted.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some violence as well as more than a few situations involving peril to teens, not to mention some implied drug use and sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This was the highest grossing Australian film of 2010.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $16.5M on a $26M production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Red Dawn

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Brake

Extract

Kristen Wiig finds out Dustin Milligan has all the right moves.

(Miramax) Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, Mila Kunis, J.K. Simmons, David Koechner, Clifton Collins Jr., T.J. Miller, Beth Grant, Dustin Milligan, Gene Simmons. Directed by Mike Judge

In the classic 1999 film Office Space, writer/director Mike Judge looked at the life of a cubicle drone in a fairly sympathetic manner. Not only was it one of the most hilarious comedies of the ‘90s, it’s one of the funniest films ever. Despite a lackluster box office performance, it found cult status on home video afterwards.

Now a decade later, Judge is revisiting the work environment in Extract. Here, however, his sights are set on management, in the person of Joel (Bateman), the owner of an extract business (extracts are the flavor essences of various spices, fruits and vegetables used in cooking). His life could use some spice; his workers are mostly a dissatisfied, unmotivated lot. The one who had any enthusiasm at all, Step (Collins), had one of his testicles shorn off in a freak accident caused by one of the shrewish entitlement harpies who decided that she shouldn’t have to work as hard as the temporary worker they recently hired.

Now, Step has been enticed into suing the company by Cindy (Kunis), a self-serving con artist recently hired on as a temp and looking to make some easy money at the company’s expense. She’s convinced the slightly moronic Step that she has the hots for him. Yeah, right…as if. Now, the pending lawsuit is being pursued by rabid dog lawyer Joe Adler (Gene Simmons) just when General Mills is showing interest in buying the company, which would essentially set up Joel and his partner Brian (J.K. Simmons) up for life. Instead, the lawsuit would effectively shut the company down for good.

Things aren’t much better for Joel at home. His wife Suzie (Wiig) has essentially lost interest in sex; if he arrives home after 8pm (which he almost always does), the sweatpants will be cinched tightly around her waist ; once that occurs  any chance he might have at sex that evening gets vaporized. Sometimes, the dreaded sweatpants of abstinence might be on before 8pm. Joel complains about the situations to his good friend Dean (Affleck), a bartender by trade and pothead by avocation who can usually offer bad advice on any subject. This time, his stoner friend advises him to cheat on Suzie but Joel is unable to do it. So Dean recommends that he get Suzie to cheat instead; once she does, he won’t feel as bad about getting sex outside the marriage.

To do this, Joel hires a dimwitted mono-browed gigolo named Brad (Milligan) to seduce his wife, but the plan works too well; Brad falls in love with Suzie and starts to make regular visits. So too does Nathan (Koechner), quite possibly the most annoying neighbor in the history of neighborhoods. Joel’s world is crumbling around him and it isn’t really fair; after all, he’s just a nice guy who only wants to sell cooking extracts – and he’s really, really good at making them.

First of all, this isn’t Office Space. While there’s a similar style to both movies, they’re two completely different kettles of fish; comparing them is kind of a waste of time. Oh, certainly you’ll form an opinion and chances are that if you liked the first movie, you’ll probably like this one too. However, Office Space is far more satirical that this puppy and goes for a much broader kind of humor. Extract makes a lot more hay based on feeling and environment.

Of course, there’s Jason Bateman who is emerging as the kind of likable Everyman sort of guy that used to be the sole province of Greg Kinnear. Bateman’s so completely nice as Joel that you can’t help but root for him. The rest of the cast does pretty good as well, particularly Affleck sporting an al Quaeda beard as the well-intentioned friend. Affleck has really emerged as a reliable supporting actor; I’m curious to see how he does in a lead role again in The Town when it opens later this fall.

Kunis, who has recently been cast in action roles that don’t seem to suit her nearly as much (see Max Payne and The Book of Eli) seems way more comfortable in this comedic Jezebel role. J.K. Simmons and Clifton Collins are both reliable character actors who don’t disappoint here, and Wiig does her best MILF impression as you can see in the photo above.

Extract was overshadowed by comedies like The Hangover and Funny People when it was released last year, and like Office Space didn’t do gangbusters box office. It’s available now on DVD and cable, so do yourself a favor and check it out. Hopefully it’ll get a similar kind of cult following Office Space did on the home video market.

WHY RENT THIS: A return to form by Judge after his godawful Idiocracy. Bateman is becoming adept at the everyman role.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Humor can be pretty scattershot in places.

FAMILY VALUES: The language is a bit foul in places, there are some sexual and adult situations and a little bit of drug use; this probably isn’t for sensitive souls.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Gary Cole, who played Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, makes a cameo in the bar scene standing between Dean and Joel.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Get Low