What Men Want

Touchdown!

(2019) Romantic Comedy (Paramount) Taraji P. Henson, Aldis Hodge, Richard Roundtree, Tracy Morgan, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Josh Brener, Tamala Jones, Phoebe Robinson, Max Greenfield, Jason Jones, Pete Davidson, Brian Bosworth, Chris Witaske, Erykah Badu, Kellan Lutz, Kausar Mohammed, Paul B. Johnson, Auston Moore, Shane Paul McGhie, Lisa Leslie. Directed by Adam Shankman

In 2000, Mel Gibson had a hit rom-com with What Women Want, in which a bathtub electrocution gave him the power to hear the thoughts of women (but not men). In this gender-reversal update (and I use the term loosely), Henson stars as Ali Davis, a brash and ambitious sports agent working basically at a white boy’s club where she hopes to become partner. When she’s passed over, she demands to know why since she has an impressive list of Olympic athletes with an impressive list of endorsements; her smarmy boss replies “You just don’t connect with men.”

Well, that problem is about to be solved by singer-songwriter Erykah Badu who plays Sister, a wacky psychic who is hired by a bachelorette party that Ali is attending. She supplies Ali with a drug-laced tea and then for good measure, Ali gets knocked upside the head by an oversized dildo. When she comes to, voila! She can hear the thoughts of men (but not women). She hopes to use her new superpower to her own advantage rather than trying to stop Thanos in his evil mission…err., wrong film. In any case, she discovers it isn’t so much what men are thinking that’s important (and non-spoiler alert – I think most women have a pretty good clue what men are generally thinking) but what is inside her own head that really matters.

The movie is full of rom-com clichés and never really excites any sort of glee from the audience. Henson is a talented actress who I’ve been a great fan of for more than a decade, and she does do her best here, but she has to contend with Badu’s shameless overacting (although to be fair Badu is pretty much the most consistently funny in the cast), a script that does her no favors and patter that rather than being snappy falls about as flat as a remake of a comedy about misogyny in the era of #MeToo. Timing matters.

REASONS TO SEE: Henson is a little bit over-the-top but still always watchable.
REASONS TO AVOID: Very cliché.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity and sexual content, along with some drug references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first R-rated film to be directed by Shankman.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Epix, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/10/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 49% positive reviews: Metacritic: 42/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: What Women Want
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Relic

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Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween

Trick or treat!!

(2018) Family (Columbia) Wendi McLendon-Covey, Madison Iseman, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Caleel Harris, Ken Jeong, Jack Black, Chris Parnell, Bryce Cass, Peyton Wich, Shari Headley, Christian Finlayson, Matthew Jose Vasquez, Courtney Cummings, Jessi Goel, Drew Scheid, Taylor Siva, Sydney Bullock, Jason Looney, Kendrick Cross, Deja Dee. Directed by Ari Sandel

 

I always look askance at a young adult author whose book series is described as a “phenomenon.” The only audience more fickle than adults are kids. Phenomenons come and go with the regularity of Trump tweets.

In this sequel set in the universe of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, two young would-be entrepreneurs (and middle school students) Sonny (Taylor) and Sam (Harris) unexpectedly find an unfinished Stine manuscript in a creepy old house and free Slappy, the malevolent ventriloquist dummy (voiced by Mick Wingert) is brought to life. At first, all he wants is a family of his own, which makes Sonny’s big sister Sarah (Iseman) suspicious although their single mom Kathy (McLendon-Covey) is blissfully unaware that the dummy is sentient. When Slappy is ultimately refused, he decides to get himself some revenge – by using his magic to bring to life Stine-influenced Halloween decorations and turn the sleepy upstate New York own into perpetual Halloween.

The movie doesn’t compare favorably with the first one; although Black (as author R.L. Stine) is in the film, he doesn’t show up until the very end in what is a glorified cameo, although he does set up a Goosebumps 3 should Columbia elect to make one. A little more Black would have gone a long way, but to be fair he was busy making a competing film and was unable to participate fully in this one.

That leaves us with the kids to carry the film and quite frankly that’s not something they’re capable of quite yet. Their performances are inconsistent and frequently wooden. Still, the movie does okay thanks to some fairly nifty special effects and the character of Slappy who makes a delightful villain for the younger set.

REASONS TO SEE: Slappy makes an outstanding kidflick villain.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little bit too much like the first.
FAMILY VALUES: There are mildly scary sequences, rude humor, some light profanity, and images of monsters and creatures.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Jack Black and Madison Iseman were both in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle but unlike here, they didn’t share any screen time together.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere,  Netflix, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/29/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 48% positive reviews: Metacritic: 53/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The House With a Clock In Its Walls
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Afterward

Papi Chulo

The new odd couple.

(2018) Dramedy (Blue Fox/Breaking Glass) Matt Bomer, Alejandro Patiño, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Elena Campbell-Martinez, Michael Shepperd, Ryan Guzman, Tommie Earl Jenkins, Shaun Buchholz, Tom Beyer, Irene White, Caitlin Kimball, Marisa Szczepan, Brandon Kyle Goodman, Blaine Swen, Martin Morales, Nick Bush, Blaine Mizer, Rosemary Dominguez. Directed by John Butler

 

Loneliness does things to people. It preys on them from the inside, chews up their souls and turns them into people they won’t even recognize when they look themselves in the mirror. To be blunt, loneliness sucks.

Sean (Bomer) is an L.A. weatherman who is still reeling, six months later, after the end of his romantic relationship with ex-husband Carlos. Unable to move on, he has a mini-nervous breakdown on the air, unaccountably sobbing while reading the weather. His boss (McLendon-Covey) wisely tells him to take some time off and get himself right. Sean would rather not; taking time off with nothing to do might force him to face his loneliness and he’s clearly not ready to do this.

The last vestige of Carlos is a tree in a planter on the deck of his hillside mansion with a spectacular view; when he has the plant removed, Sean notices a circle on the deck where the plant had been. Not being handy in the least, he determines that he needs to have his deck repainted. Sean decides to hire someone from a group of migrant workers who hang out at his local hardware store, looking for work. He selects Ernesto (Patiño) and soon the two form a bond, even though Ernesto’s English is shaky and Sean’s Spanish even more so.

Sean finds himself paying Ernesto to hang out with him, going on hikes in Runyon Canyon, being his plus one at a party of his friends and even gets Ernesto to row him on a local lake. Ernesto reports all of this to his incredulous wife Linda (Campbell-Martinez), scarcely able to believe it himself but 20 bucks an hour is 20 bucks an hour, so if the gringo wants to pay him to hang out, Ernesto doesn’t mind. Besides, Ernesto is inherently a kind man who recognizes the pain Sean is in.

You can kind of see where this is going, but oddly enough it manages to get there without completely being predictable. The emphasis here is on Bomer, which is a bit of a shame; I found Ernesto to be a far more captivating character and would have liked a little more of his point of view. Still, Bomer is a strong actor and while Sean occasionally does creepy things, he still remains at least to a certain degree to be relatable.

Butler is a good filmmaker with strong shot composition and manages to insert some truly poignant moments. He also resists the temptation to make Ernesto the wise old Mexican whose folk wisdom will solve all of Sean’s problems; in fact, Ernesto doesn’t really understand a good deal of what Sean is telling him. He just half-smiles, nods and lens an ear, which is what Sean really needs.

Some reviewers have criticized the film for being racist, but to be honest I didn’t see it and I’m Hispanic. As I said, I would have appreciated more of Ernesto’s point of view, but Sean never talks down to Ernesto nor does he treat him as an inferior. The only knock that I might see against Sean is that he really doesn’t show much interest in learning Ernesto’s culture or language and doesn’t seem all that curious about Ernesto’s problems. Something tells me it would have been a much better movie if he had.

REASONS TO SEE: A bit on the oddball side but definitely warm-hearted.
REASONS TO AVOID: Some of Sean’s actions are a bit creepy.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a fair amount of profanity and a bit of sexual innuendo.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2018.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, HBO Go, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/18/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 74% positive reviews: Metacritic: 42/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Driving Miss Daisy
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Mickey and the Bear

New Releases for the Week of October 12, 2018

FIRST MAN

(Universal) Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Pablo Schreiber, Christopher Abbott, Ethan Embry, Ciarán Hinds, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll. Directed by Damien Chazelle

Neil Armstrong remains an iconic name when it comes to human achievement. This is his story in the days leading up to one small step for a man – one giant leap for mankind.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, video featurettes and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, D-BOX, Dolby, IMAX, XD, RPX
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic content involving peril, and brief strong language)

Bad Times at the El Royale

(20^th Century Fox) Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth. One dark night a group of seven strangers with checkered pasts intersect at the rundown El Royale Hotel on the state line in Lake Tahoe. What they don’t know is that this might be their last chance at redemption before everything goes to hell.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a video featurette and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence, language, some drug content and brief nudity)

Collette

(Bleecker Street) Keira Knightley, Eleanor Tomlinson, Fiona Shaw, Dominic West. Born in rural France, Collette marries a charming literary impresario 14 years her senior who urges her to write. He ends up taking credit for her work, sparking the fiery author to take control of her life and her works. She would become an inspiration to writers, feminists and France in her own right.

See the trailer, clips and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Cobb Daytona Luxury, Old Mill Playhouse
Rating: R (for some sexuality/nudity)

Free Solo

(National Geographic) Alex Honnold, Jimmy Chin, Tommy Caldwell, Sanni McCandless. Alex Honnold became the first man to scale Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes or safety equipment. This documentary shows you what a big deal that really is.

See the trailer and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: NR

Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween

(Columbia) Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ken Jeong, Jack Black, Madison Iseman. Two young boys enter a deserted house where they find a hidden book that brings the monsters of R.L. Stine to life. Does this at all sound familiar?

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, D-BOX
Genre: Family Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for scary creature action and images, some thematic elements, rude humor and language)

Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer

(GVN) Dean Cain, Sarah Jane Morris, Nick Searcy, Earl Billings. The conservative viewpoiint on the actions of a Philadelphia abortion physician.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Regal Ormond Beach, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic content including disturbing images and descriptions)

The Hate U Give

(20^th Century Fox) Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie. An African-American girl with her feet in two worlds witnesses the shooting of her childhood best friend by a white police officer. Pressured on all sides, she must find her own voice and stand up for what is right.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC West Oaks, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic elements, some violent content, drug material and language)

Kinky

(Patriot) Vivica A. Fox, Robert Ri’chard, Obba Babatundé, Jazsmin Lewis. A shy Atlanta surgeon gets set up for a date with a billionaire who urges her to explore her sexuality. Soon she finds herself trying to balance work, faith, desire and submission.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Erotic Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Springs, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Regal Oviedo Mall
Rating: R (for strong sexual content and some language)

Summer ‘03

(Blue Fox) Joey King, Andrea Savage, June Squibb, Paul Scheer. The world of a 16-year-old girl and her extended family is turned topsy turvy when her grandmother on her deathbed reveals some long hidden secrets about the family.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

22 Chaser
Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava
Black 47
Helicopter Eela
The Samuel Project

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

22 July
All About Nina
Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava
Bigger
Helicopter Eela
Look Away
Lost, Found
The Old Man and the Gun
The Samuel Project
School of Life
Theevandi
Trouble
Veera Raghava

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

All About Nina
All Square
Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava
Better Start Running
Bigger
Black 47
Laws of the Universe, Vol. 1
Look Away

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

All About Nina
Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava
Lamboo Rastoo
The Samuel Project

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

22 July
All About Nina
Bad Times at the El Royale
Collette
First Man
Free Solo
The Hate U Give
The Samuel Project

Hello, My Name is Doris

Sally Field has double vision.

(2015) Comedy (Roadside Attractions) Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Beth Behrs, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Stephen Root, Elizabeth Reaser, Isabella Acres, Kyle Mooney, Natasha Lyonne, Kumail Nanjiani, Caroline Aaron, Tyne Daly, Peter Gallagher, Rebecca Wisocky, Amy Okuda, Don Stark, Nnamdi Asomugha, Anna Akana, Rich Sommer, Emilie Germain. Directed by Michael Showalter

There are a lot of reasons that people fall in love. Sometimes it’s a chemistry thing. Sometimes it’s a sexual thing. Sometimes it’s a shared interests thing. And sometimes, it’s a desperation thing.

Doris Miller (Field) has just buried her mother, whom she has spent much of her adult life taking care of. Doris is a bit eccentric; she dresses like a bag lady being played by the love child of Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher and kind of walks her own path. Her brother (Root) and sister-in-law (McLendon-Covey) urge her to sell the house, which they have ulterior motives for, but she’s not inclined to do so. Doris has lived here all her life and sees no reason to find a new place to live, even though her commute from Staten Island to midtown Manhattan is grueling.

At the firm where she works in the accounting department, she gets on an elevator soon after the funeral with the handsome new art director, John Fremont (Greenfield) – not the general who left his mark on California maps. And wouldn’t you know it, she develops a huge crush on the much younger man.

Doris hasn’t exactly had a whole lot of romantic experience, most of her free time revolving around the care of her mother. So she approaches her best friend Roz (Daly) who steers her to her 13-year-old granddaughter (Acres) who helps Doris set up a fake Facebook account so she can keep tabs on her new beau. Of course, she ends up creating havoc in his life, especially when she gets jealous of his new girlfriend Brooklyn (Behrs). But that isn’t all that’s changing; some of John’s hipster friends are discovering that the quirky Doris is the new kind of cool. She even poses for an album cover; but are her new friends driving Doris away from her old friends? And are her new friends more bent on hanging out with the new flavor of the week rather than genuinely interested in her?

There are a few not-so-subtle undertones here, mainly in how we look at the aged. Field is no spring chicken but she carries herself with a great deal of charm and comes off as so likable that even when she’s engaging in creepy stalker behavior you still end up liking her. But in a lot of ways, her character is kind of a cliché eccentric old woman who is so out there that she fits in with the hip millennial crowd. I found that it was a little bit condescending in that Doris has to dress like a mannequin found in a Mad Max movie and literally throw herself at a younger man to get him to be interested in her. There are plenty of young men who are into older women out there; why does an actress the caliber of Sally Field have to debase herself in order to have a relationship between a younger man and an older woman seem viable?

There are plenty of cliches of the indie variety from the New York location (albeit a lot of it takes place outside of hipster heaven Manhattan and hipster other heaven Brooklyn) to the soundtrack to the pretentions of the mainly artistic people portrayed here. There are a few things that kind of break the mold – the dialogue, for example, is clever but not overly so to the point that it doesn’t sound like real people talking, a very major indie sin.

The film also has something positive that’s a mite rare these days – a delightful ending. Yes, the movie actually ends in a way that is both satisfying and organic. I wish a lot more movies gave the kind of thought to their ending the filmmakers here obviously did with theirs. You think for a moment the movie is going one way and then – it doesn’t. Kudos to the writers for that.

There is definitely a good deal of entertainment value here. Field clearly still is at the top of her game and I hope that with some good roles starting to appear for women in her age range that we’ll see more of her on the big screen in the coming years. I only wish the movie hadn’t treated the romance between the older woman and the younger man as something ridiculous; certainly they wouldn’t have if the relationship had been between a 60-something guy and a 20-something woman. As a society, we seem to be okay with one and not with the other. There’s a good documentary in the exploration of that double standard somewhere.

REASONS TO GO: Field is still intensely likable. A very satisfying ending.
REASONS TO STAY: A little bit condescending and cliché. I think the May-December romance should have not been a source of ridicule.
FAMILY VALUES: There is enough profanity to merit an R rating.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Lyonne and Greenfield both appear in the sitcom New Girl.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/18/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 84% positive reviews. Metacritic: 62/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Harold and Maude
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Chasing Mavericks

Blended

These two hate each other so much you know they’re going to wind up together.

(2014) Comedy (Warner Brothers) Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Joel McHale, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Terry Crews, Kevin Nealon, Emma Fuhrmann, Bella Thorne, Braxton Beckham, Alyvla Alyn Lind, Abdoulaye NGom, Kyle Red Silverstein, Zak Henri, Jessica Lowe, Shaquille O’Neal, Dan Patrick, Jackie Sandler, Alexis Arquette, Josette Eales. Directed by Frank Coraci

As a young boy, the maxim “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” was hammered into me by my parents, my teachers and whichever adults happened to be handy. Personally, I wonder if they would have been quite as fervent about it if they had seen this movie.

Despite my upbringing, I am a film critic and sometimes it becomes necessary to discuss a movie that you literally can’t say anything nice about. I had some decent expectations about this movie to begin with – after all, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore have had great chemistry in  the past (particularly in The Wedding Singer) and the director from that film is on board for this one. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, everything. The plot is a mish-mash of unlikely coincidences and rom-com cliches guaranteed to knock your IQ points down a couple after you’ve seen the movie. The jokes take an interminable amount of time to set up and when they arrive, they simply aren’t funny.

The story, briefly put, is this; Jim (Sandler), a widower and Lauren (Barrymore) go out on a blind date and like most blind dates it’s a complete train wreck. They each arrange to get fake emergency phone calls just to get out of the Hooters that they are dining in. Note to single men – never take a first date to Hooters. There won’t be a second.

Anywho, through a convoluted set of circumstances, the two wind up together on an African safari vacation along with her two sons and his three daughters. At first the families fight like cats and dogs (or more to the African theme, like hyenas and jackals). But as they discover that they are all made for each other, the attraction begins to grow and…oh, I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Sandler has been on a cold streak as of late, appearing in several movies that have been absolutely horrible. It’s not because Sandler himself is horrible – given the right script, he can absolutely kill. However, he’s been choosing to go the PG-13 route trying to appeal to a family crowd who appreciate a little bit of an edge. The problem is, in my opinion, that he has mined that territory so thoroughly that everything he does is essentially déjà vu for the audience.

And Barrymore’s personality seems to have been diluted someone by her recent motherhood. She was always so free-spirited and spunky in all of her movies, not just the ones with Sandler, but here there’s a blandness to her that I’ve never seen in one of her performances before. I sincerely hope this is a one-time aberration.

And the kids…Oy, the kids! I have another maxim for you; spending time with your own kids is a joy; spending time with someone else’s is a chore. The kids here are all written one-dimensionally as a cluster of neuroses; one is a hyperactive terror who strikes out every time he comes to bat in Little League. One of the girls talks to her dead mother which isn’t a bad thing, but she insists that Mom be set a place at the table. There’s nothing funny about a kid who is in desperate need of therapy. One of the kids is an oversexed perv who tapes the face of his babysitter to centerfolds and…eww. See what I mean about there isn’t anything funny?

Even the bit with the best potential for actual laughter, a kind of African Greek chorus led by Terry Crews that seem to show up at every crucial moment, gets old quickly and dies a horrible death by over-repetition. I mean, did anybody actually watch this movie before they released it?

That the movie is flopping big time at the box office is somewhat comforting in that audiences are at least recognizing that these are not the type of movies they want to see. Hopefully Sandler will take heed and start doing comedies with a little more intelligence and a little less pandering. He’s too big a talent to waste on crap like this.

REASONS TO GO: Nice African images.

REASONS TO STAY: Not funny. Too many kids, all of them obnoxious. Appeals to nobody.

FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of rude and sexual humor and a smattering of foul language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Alexis Arquette makes a cameo reprising his role as Georgina from The Wedding Singer which was the first time Sandler and Barrymore teamed up.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/10/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 14% positive reviews. Metacritic: 31/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Grown-Ups 2

FINAL RATING: 3/10

NEXT: To the Wonder