Funeral Day

Not exactly what the doctor ordered.

(2017) Comedy (Random Media) Jon Weinberg, Tyler Labine, Suzy Nakamura, Tygh Runyan, Dominic Rains, Jed Rees, Kristin Carey, Sarah Adina, Jeremy Radin, Ron Butler, Rahnuma Panthaky, Robert Bela, Joe Fidler, Mat Kohler, Nakia Secrest, Luca Secrest, Ralph Cole Jr., Jared Adams, Noam Emerson-Fleming, Shauna Bloom. Directed by Jon Weinberg

 

Funerals are a drag. Nobody ever really wants to go to one; while we couch them in terms of “it’s a celebration of his/her life,” it is also very much a reminder that a funeral of our own awaits us down the road.

Scott (Weinberg) wakes up on the morning of a close friend’s funeral (who passed away at a young age from cancer) and discovers a lump on his own scrotum. A bit of a hypochondriac to begin with, he is completely freaked out and decides not to go. When his pal Chris (Runyan) arrives to take him to the event, Scott refuses to go. We discover that Scott never visited Ryan the entire time he was in the hospital; “I don’t do cancer” is Scott’s lame explanation.

But Scott has it figured out. Instead of going to a depressing ritual of saying farewell amid tears and tea sandwiches he decides that the better thing to do is turn his own life around “in honor of Ken.” He determines to make amends to those he has wronged, and to trim his scruffy beard and get a haircut, among other things. As much as he wants to change though, it becomes apparent that he doesn’t really want to change his life; he just wants to change his circumstances. The very embodiment of a self-centered hipster, Scott has a lot of growing up to do if he is to affect serious change and maybe a group of characters including a sexually aware waitress he’s sweet on, a married couple who have some pretty bizarre ideas of health and a self-absorbed real estate license who is focused on selling Scott a property he can’t afford particularly after quitting his job as part of his “remake Scott” project.

There are also endless shots of Scott running throughout L.A. without ever breaking a sweat. Didn’t he get the memo that nobody walks in L.A.? In any case while I think it was meant for comic effect, it really isn’t all that funny and to be honest there isn’t a lot to laugh about here. Some of the stuff that pokes fun at shallow Los Angeles culture works pretty well but those moments tend to get repetitive also. Besides, it’s too much like shooting fish in a barrel.

This is meant to be a comedy that involves taking stock of one’s life and finding the motivation to getting out of one’s rut. The problem with this movie (and it’s a big problem) is that Scott is so thoroughly selfish, so incredibly unlikable that even though the film is a short one you feel like you’re being forced to hang out with that guy nobody likes. I’m not sure Weinberg intentionally made Scott so unlikable so that when he achieves some sort of redemption at the film’s conclusion it will be a cathartic moment, but no such catharsis occurs. You’re not motivated enough to care at all whether Scott gets his redemption and makes the changes he yearns to. It just feels like an exercise in self-absorption.

Although the supporting cast (with the exception of Labine and Nakamura, both in very brief roles) is largely less well known, their performances are actually pretty strong particularly Runyon and Adler. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough to make this film, which actually has something to say, worth much more than a mild “check it out if you have nothing better to do.” I think if they had written Scott as more deserving of redemption maybe it would be possible to get more invested in the film but that just doesn’t happen.

REASONS TO GO: There are some decent performances, particularly from Runyan and Adler.
REASONS TO STAY: Scott may be the most annoying protagonist ever.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity including sexual references, further sexual content and some brief drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film took Best Comedy Feature honors at both the Twister Alley Film Festival and the Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/12/18: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Lie
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: King Cohen

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New Releases for the Week of December 1, 2017

DAISY WINTERS

(Hannover House) Brooke Shields, Iwan Rheon, Paul Blackthorne, Carrie Preston, Sterling Jerins, Poorna Jagannathan, Clayton Rohner, Suzy Nakamura. Directed by Beth LaMure

An 11-year-old girl sees her close but unconventional bond with her mother broken. Somewhat cast adrift, she sets out to find her father and take on all comers as she approaches life with an eagerness for adventure and an unshakable belief in herself.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando
Rating: PG=13 (for mature thematic content including some drug material, brief strong language and some suggestive images)

Aida’s Secrets

(Music Box) Aida Zasadsinska, Shep Shell, Izak Sagi. This highly emotional documentary is about two brothers, one born in a concentration camp, both separated at birth. The search to find each other takes many years but this reunion carries with it an additional wallop as well.

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

Gangster Land

(Cinedigm) Sean Faris, Milo Gibson, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Jason Patric. The rise of Al Capone is seen through the eyes of his right hand man “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn. The tale follows McGurn as he rises from prize fighter to hired muscle to hit man, culminating in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

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

Jane

(Abramorama) Jane Goodall. This is the story of Jane Goodall, a naturalist who began working in an era where very little was known or understood about chimpanzees. She went out into the field into some dangerous parts of Africa to study her beloved chimps and became not only a tireless activist for the preservation of the species but a role model for women everywhere.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater (Saturday only)
Rating: NR

The Square

(Magnolia) Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West, Claes Bang, Terry Notary. A satirical drama about the role of egocentrism in our society particularly among the affluent, and the eroding role of community and moral courage in an increasingly uncertain world.

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 language, some strong sexual content and brief violence)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Firangi
Punyalan Private Limited
Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

The Divine Order
Firangi
God’s Own Country
I Remember You
Oro
Punyalan Private Limited
Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas
Ten Days Without Mom
Thelma

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

A Bad Idea Gone Wrong
Alien Invasion: S.U.M. 1
Firangi
Inoperable
Jawaan
Love Beats Rhymes
Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Firangi
Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Aida’s Secrets
Gangster Land
Jane

Horrible Bosses 2

The cast of Horrible Bosses 2, sneakin’ around,

(2014) Comedy (New Line) Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Chris Pine, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey, Christoph Waltz, Jonathan Banks, Lindsay Sloane, Keegan-Michael Key, Kelly Stables, Jerry Lambert, Sam Richardson, Brianne Howey, Lidia Porto, Jaye Razor, Lennon Parham, Alyssa Preston, Suzy Nakamura, Keeley Hazell. Directed by Sean Anders

I have to admit that I have a fondness for movies set in the workplace. We can all relate to those – the tedious drudgery, the office politics and of course the horrible bosses.

The makers of this film brought that to sharp focus with Horrible Bosses, a 2011 movie that I found seriously funny as three Joe Schmoes with psychotic employers plot to get out of the situation the only way they know how – by killing their bosses. Of course, they know nothing about how to do this so they ask an expert.

Two years later they are going into business for themselves. Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dale (Day) have come up with a new product that is sure to be a big hit – the Shower Buddy, a kind of car wash for people that automatically sprays shampoo and conditioner into your hair and then rinses. I know there are people out there thinking right now “Say, that’s a good idea…” It plays to the laziness of the American consumer which is never a bad idea.

They bring it to Rex Hanson (Pine), the son of billionaire marketer Bert Hanson (Waltz). What they don’t realize that they are a trio of guppies swimming among sharks. It doesn’t take them long to take their best-laid plans and see them ground into the dust. With bankruptcy and scandal looming, they come up with another loony tunes idea – to kidnap Rex and use the ransom to save their company. Their old buddy Mofo Jones (Foxx) thinks it’s a sweet deal.

That’s all well and good but they haven’t taken a few things into account; one, Rex is basically psychotic. Second, they’re still swimming around in a pool full of sharks. Lastly, they’re essentially morons. Predictably they end up going from the frying pan into the proverbial fire.

And predictable is the word of the moment here. Many of the jokes are rehashes of things that went on in the first movie. That’s never a good sign, especially when the first movie was more successful when it was edgy while this one seems more geared to play it safe. I’ve read elsewhere that the original intent for the sequel was to have Nick, Kurt and Dale finally move into managerial positions and all three of them have employees who get fed up with their antics and plot to off them. The studio chickened out on that concept but I think it would have made for a much better movie.

The chemistry between Sudeikis, Bateman and Day isn’t marvelous but it’s workable. While a lot of critics are enamored of Day and his style, I find his voice to be whiny and irritating. Sometimes people just get on your nerves for no particular reason. Looking as objectively as I can, I can’t fault his performance and I wouldn’t be surprised if he pushed through to bigger and better things. Bateman, the master of comic exasperation, plays to his strengths and Sudeikis, who co-starred with Aniston last year in We’re the Millers, continues to build up to being one of the leading comic actors in Hollywood.

The support crew is pretty good, and Pine comes in like a bull in a china shop which in this case is a good thing. Pine, who has primarily done more action-oriented roles, has decent comic timing and I think that roles like this will mark him as a more versatile actor, opening up more doors for him than were previously available. Sadly, Waltz – one of my favorite actors over the past five years or so – is completely wasted in a part that he really looks uncomfortable in. Pity, that.

The movie isn’t nearly as manic or as well-paced as its predecessor. It just feels more leaden, less like the actors are having a good time and more that they’re punching a clock. It’s not that Horrible Bosses 2 is that bad – it really isn’t – it’s just that it’s not that good either. I don’t really advise you to go see it. If you do, chances are it will be forgotten ten minutes after you leave the theater and if that’s what you’re going for, then get yourself a ticket. If you want something a little more memorable, move along.

REASONS TO GO: Some decent individual performances. A few really funny bits.
REASONS TO STAY: Lacks the energy of the first film. Recycles too many jokes from Horrible Bosses.
FAMILY VALUES: Lots of overt and suggestive sexual material, a whole lot of profanity and a couple of scenes of violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In a scene in the Nick & Kurt & Dale office, one can see a schematic of the Shower Buddy which is shaped like the U.S.S. Enterprise; that was done to honor Chris Pine who plays Captain Kirk in the reboot of Star Trek.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/16/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 34% positive reviews. Metacritic: 40/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Bad Teacher
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Babadook

Free Samples

I think Jess Wexler looks like Winona Ryder but she just doesn’t agree.

(2012) Drama (Anchor Bay) Jess Wexler, Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Ritter, Tippi Hedren, Halley Feiffer, Keir O’Donnell, Jocelin Donahue, Whitney Able, Eben Kostbar, Jordan Davis, James Duval, Matt Walsh, Craig Gellis, Suzy Nakamura, Cory Knauf, Joseph McKelheer, Montre Burton, Madison Leisle, Joe Nunez, Angel Parker. Directed by Jay Gammill

 

We all go through periods where we just seem to be treading water. Inertia deserts us and life is happening to everyone around us but not to us. We flounder in the current, not really moving anywhere and praying to God we don’t drown before we figure out which direction we need to move in.

Jillian is in just such a phase. She’s dropped out from Stanford Law School and is taking a break from her fiancée. She is adrift in Los Angeles, trying somewhat diffidently to become an artist (which is a lot harder when you aren’t particularly talented at anything) and engaging in a series of all-night binges and one night stands, the latest ending up with a cowboy hat-wearing dude that Jillian knows only as Tex (Eisenberg) in her bed. Well, it’s not really her bed – it’s her best friend Nancy’s (Feiffer) bed and she’s just sleeping in it, apparently with Tex’s hat. Tex isn’t in it at the time.

Jillian is experiencing the mother of all hangovers but since she slept in Nancy’s bed and mutual friend Wally (Ritter) – who’s in a band along with the half of L.A. that isn’t in the movies – has urinated on her couch in his alcohol-induced blissful slumber, Jillian owes her a favor; she needs to cover for Nancy at work. Jillian is oh-so-reluctant to do this, but is eventually coerced into it.

Work happens to be standing all day in an ice cream truck handing out free samples of the most godawful excuse for artificial ice cream that you’ve ever had the sorrow to try – you might well get a cup full of chilled sour cream instead – to the freeloaders and nutjobs of a neighborhood not far from hers. It’s excruciatingly boring, like having bamboo shoved up your fingernails while your genitals are sprinkled liberally with napalm, except I would assume those pursuits would probably not be strictly classified as boring. Not by me, anyway.

As she stands in the cramped confines of the truck, handing out samples to all who request one – vanilla, or chocolate (one to a customer, no exceptions) the things that are driving her life – the motivations that persuaded her to drop out of college and her relationship – are brought into focus and not in a vague, diffuse allegorical way but by the serendipity of bad luck and crushing coincidence.

Not all of it is bad. She meets Betty (Hedren), an actor of some fame who is retired, living alone in a small apartment with TCM blaring old movies (“It’s like a reunion,” Betty asserts when a heartbroken Jillian comes to visit her) whose daily highlight is a walk to the truck for a bit of free ice cream. It’s not the ice cream she craves (“it’s really awful” she confides to Jillian) but the company.

As the day ends and Nancy shows up at long last, Jillian has had an epiphany and maybe her life is about to change for the better. You know, you can gather a lot of good karma by handing out free samples.

This is mainly Wexler’s movie and for a young actress with limited experience, it can be a daunting task to carry a movie on one’s slender shoulders but Wexler – who cut her cinematic teeth in Teeth, to date the best movie about vagina dentata ever made – is up for the task and she really has two strikes against her from the onset. Jillian is something of a bitch who whines constantly, complains repeatedly and always seems to be flipping life a mental bird. She has been compared facially to Uma Thurman and I suppose I can see what they’re saying, but I think she looks and sounds more like Wynona Ryder and carries some of that actress’ spunky attitude in her demeanor.

One of the things I love most about this movie is the synergy between Jillian and Betty. Movies rarely show mentor relationships between older women and younger women that aren’t related which I’ve always found to be quite odd – older women can be friends with younger women just like older men can be friends with younger men although Hollywood doesn’t seem to have a problem with those sorts of relationships among men. Women seem to only be allowed those relationships when it’s the younger woman’s grandmother or great-aunt or some such.

The soundtrack, provided by Indie Rock wunderkinder Say Hi is one of the best I’ve heard thus far this year, one which might give the slackers who dug Juno a run for its money. At least from my admittedly non-slackeroonie perspective.

There are some flaws here, some inherent. For example, nearly all of the film takes place with the lead in the claustrophobic ice cream truck. There really are only so many ways you can shoot that, so we get a lot of standard two shots and it does get a trifle repetitious. And Wexler does such a good job as Jillian that there are times you want to give the girl a major foot in the behind with an admonition to stop complaining and start living. Of course by the end of the film she pretty much does that without the need for a boot to the ass.

It was lovely to see Hedren, the star of Hitchcock’s The Birds in the film and I was astonished at how good she looks for a 83-year-old dame. She hasn’t gotten any work that I could detect; she’s just blessed with good genes. How often do you see an 83-year-old woman that you’d seriously think of doing? Not that I actually would sweetie (ducking from the inevitable bonk on the head from Da Queen’s scepter). But if I were single…(sigh). And it was thrilling to see Ms. Hedren at the Florida Film Festival screening we attended. Such beautiful diction. (sigh)

Anyway, that aside this is a terrific indie film that takes some of the indie clichés that we’re so bloody used to and turns them on their head. At the end of the day this is about relationships and redemption, with the object lesson that rehabilitation truly comes from within. Surviving being lost in the current is one thing but swimming for shore and rescuing ourselves is quite another. Me, I’d pay for this free sample – not for the ice cream though.

REASONS TO GO: Wexler gives a terrific performance. Shows a relationship between an older woman and a younger woman who aren’t related – a rarity in Hollywood.  Terrific soundtrack.

REASONS TO STAY: A bit claustrophobic. Occasionally you want to give Jillian a shake.

FAMILY VALUES:  Plenty of bad language and anti-social behavior.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The music composer is credited as Eric Elbogen, which is the real name of the person who is the one-man indie rock band Say Hi. Some of that band’s music is also on the soundtrack.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/23/13: Rotten Tomatoes: no score yet. Metacritic: no score yet; this is making the rounds on the festival circuit.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Future

FINAL RATING: 8/10

NEXT: Evil Dead (2013)