Down to the Last One (The Final Girls, 2015)

You can go one of two ways with a horror comedy. Either you can show your disdain for the genre by mocking it…or you can pay a generous homage to it. Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls goes the second route, and it pays off.

The film tells the story of Max (Taissa Farmiga) whose mother Nancy (Malin Ackerman) is a struggling actress whose biggest claim to fame was a slasher film from 20 years ago. Upon losing her mother in a car wreck, Max has quietly moved on as best she can. She is begged by Duncan (Thomas Middleditch, Silicon Valley) to attend a special screening of the first two films in the franchise that made her mother famous.

In a freak accident Max, her friends Gertie (Alia Shawkat, Arrested Development), Vicki (Nina Dobrev, the Vampire Diaries), Chris (Alexander Ludwig, the Hunger Games and oddly enough a completely different film called Final Girl) and Duncan find themselves trapped within the original Camp Bloodbath. As they try to survive the film, Max finds an opportunity to reconnect with her mother through her character Amanda. This is a lot more effective than I expected. Farmiga and Ackerman connect quite well.

The film manages to have fun with the tropes of the genre and earn their laughs. Rather than go for Scary Movie Parody, the jokes are smarter and more fun. Also, while acknowledging the exploitation elements of slasher films, the film itself tends to avoid cheap nudity. There is a gag where a way to attract the killer of the film, Billy, a woman needs to just start stripping. Plenty of directors would have used this as a cheap excuse for gratuitous nudity, yet the nudity is all off-screen.

The Final Girls is a horror comedy worth seeing.

October 12, 2015 3

You Can’t Eat the Teachers, Man! (Cooties, 2015)

Kids are mean. We all know that. Cooties just takes that to the next level. Cooties opens with the most gruesome images possible. Chickens being ground into chicken nuggets. Because tainted chicken nuggets will cause stuff.

Then we meet Clint (Elijah Wood), an aspiring writer making ends meet as a substitute teacher. He has no real heart for it…he uses his class to get notes on his horror novel. In the midst of a reading, the class bully is attacked by by a girl he was teasing, getting a severe bite.

Soon, the teachers find themselves trying to survive in a school of zombie children. They hope to hold out in a room, but this is a horror film. Mayhem cannot be avoided.

And a hilarious massacre it is. The film’s zombie still behave like kids, they run, they jump, they play with grown ups by ripping them to pieces. Just like my nephews. But seriously, the film takes an absurd premise and has a lot of fun with it.

While there is nothing truly original in the setups, the writing makes great use of cliched things like love triangles, absurdly overbearing gym teachers, clueless adults, etc. The film has fun with it’s cliches, rather than hiding behind it to pretend to have a plot.

Along with clever writing, the film is populated with terrific comedic character actors such as Rainn Wilson, Nasim Pedrad and Jack McBrayer. Elijah Wood and Alison Pill are terrific fun as well. And Leigh Wannell (one of the few actor’s known for his straight up horror roles) is entertaining as an oddball science teacher. Oh yeah, and Jorge Garcia from Lost is quite entertaining as a stoner school crossing guard.

Much like Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, the film is quite gory, yet somehow manages to not overpower the comedy. The effects are solid and help sell the horror side of the film. Simply put, I was laughing throughout the film, and was engaged by the characters through the entire film.

October 12, 2015 0

An Easy Mess (Easy A, 2010)

I had high hopes of this being a clever teen comedy in the 10 Things I Hate About You Vein. It starred Emma Stone, who seems to be able to brighten up the lamest of films. It was a fresh take on a dusty classic.

And there are things I found in the film to be praiseworthy. It’s likable cast, for instance. Everyone does well, even though some character roles are terribly thankless(more on that later). There are some solid laughs, and the interaction between Olive (Stone) and her carefree liberal parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) have their moments. I liked the framing structure (Olive is broadcasting her story to the web). I liked how they dealt with the potential fallout of the situation in Olive’s life. Olive is a very likable character. Smart, sarcastic, yet compassionate and supportive of her friends (it is this aspect of the character that creates the situation of the movie).

What is that situation? Basically, Olive makes up a white lie to satisfy her friend Rhi (Aly Milchaka). She find’s Rhi’s family uncomfortable and does not want to go camping with them, and says she has a date with a college boy. Rhi presses for details, convinced Olive has lost her virginity. So, rather than come clean, she tells Rhi what she wants to hear in the girls bathroom. Which is overheard by Exaggerated Southern Christian Stereot-uh- Marianne (Amanda Bynes). This spreads across the school like wildfire. A friend (Dan Byrd) is facing bullying at school. He’s gay and people suspect it…weary of the abuse he begs Olive to pretend they had sex together. So at a party, they stage an elaborate sequence to convince everyone that the pair hooked up.

From there it snowballs, other guys start trying to get her okay to say they have done various sexual acts with her. It snowballs until she is taking credit for things to protect a teacher and losing her friends.

And it is this area where the film just gets messy… for instance, Olive and Rhi have a falling out- resulting in Rhi disappearing for much of the film. And Marianne…dear God, Marianne. First, I have a hard time buying that someone that conservative and pious would wear outfits that are all that tight. I would expect the character to be more modest. Plus, she has this thick southern accent that nobody else seems to share. It’s as if they think becoming a Christian results in developing a Texas Accent. The character is cut from the cloth of a long line of Conservative Evangelical villains, and is so deathly cliched it is insulting-no matter what you believe.

On the positive side, there is no absurd comeuppance sequence revealing Marianne to be some secret slut in an attempt by the movie to shame her. So, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky.

The end is a terrific mess. I get why they ended it the way they did. Earlier in the film, Olive laments that her life is not more like an 80’s teen romance, set to a montage of John Cusack, Patrick Dempsy and John Hughes flicks. And the film’s final moments touch on that, including the montage of characters having a moment of realization. But much is unresolved in this ending. And not in a what happens next makes you want more, way. But rather that you are watching the filmmakers cheat. What exactly is Marianne’s revelation? We don’t know. But she seems sad. Same with Rhi…and is their friendship salvaged? Who knows…apparently Olive patching things up with her best friend did not strike the film makers as important. It feels as if they had no idea how to resolve all their dangling threads…so they just show us the characters looking pensive and assume that allows them to end the movie. But it just feels like a massive cheat. So, the film is just a mess of good and bad… it’s a slapdash of humorous scenes and thoughtful moments adrift in a storm of bad storytelling.

September 18, 2015 0

Hillbilly Mountain Madness (Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil, 2012)

You know when the opening moments of a film pay homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wrong Turn, it will either be good fun or go terribly awry. As we are introduced to the college kids driving into the Appalachian hills for a weekend of debauchery, it is a little uncertain. These are very cartoonish and seemingly vapid characters.

As they are driving, they almost collide with a beat up old pickup truck. As the truck passes them, the occupants stare at the college kids ominously. foreshadowing of the cruel plans they have for these kids? It turns out… not really. Tucker (played by Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are on their way to Tucker’s newly purchased vacation home for some relaxing and fishing. The kids run into the duo at a gas station, where we discover that Dale is painfully shy. Tucker tries to give him a pep talk (“You are a good looking man, in a way”) to go over and talk to the pretty college girl Ali (30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden). Unfortunately, in his attempts to appear confident (including walking over with a scythe) he comes off scary.

At the vacation home, Tucker and Dale discover all sorts of signs of an ominous past-but look right past them. Tucker assumes the bones dangling from the ceiling show the previous owner to have been an archeologist. Newpaper clippings on the wall about a massacre of college students is met with the assumption that the previous occupant was a news buff.

But it is when Tucker and Dale decide to go doing some night fishing it all goes wrong. When they save Ali from drowning, her friends assume they attacked her and flee. Tucker and Dale decide the best thing to do is tend her wounds and return her to her friends the next morning.

But one of the college kids, Chad, becomes obsessed with the idea that they must fight the evil hillbillies and rescue Ali. While the other kids suggest getting the cops, he is certain that is a terrible idea. Chad sees himself as special and unique-better than everyone else. This mentality has him certain that he and the attractive Ali should be hooking up (in spite of her resistance). He also has a history with Hillbillies that drives his relentless desire to destroy Tucker and Dale.

This all leads to a series of events where the kids attack the two-and die in the process. This leads them to conclude the kids are part of a suicide cult. And from the there the misunderstandings continue. Ali attempts to resolve the conflict, but through a comedy of errors, the now formed trio cannot convince her friends that Tucker and Dale are quite kind guys.

The film sends up the idea of the final dual with a solid twist. The film has a lot of fun with it’s reversal of the Mutant Cannibal Hillbilly premise. There are plenty of clever jokes and visual references to other films (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Fargo, Deliverance, etc). As the leads, Tudyk and Labine are well cast, and tremendously likable characters. Bowden does a nice job as the only sympathetic member of the college entourage. Director Eli Craig shows promise, as this is a pretty strong debut (so far, Craig has directed a short and an episode of the TV show Brothers & Sisters).

I found the film to be enjoyable, with many laughs. It understands the weaknesses and absurdities of the genre and has fun with them. And again, there is no understating how important the casting of Tudyk and Labine were to the film, as they are the ones who bring the heart of the film. In a world with films like Epic Movie and Vampires Suck, it is nice to discover a film that understands the need for characters-even in parody.

September 17, 2015 0

Dwight Dons Spandex (Super, 2011)

You remember that movie Kick Ass? You know, the one where the loser kid wonders why nobody ever fights crime in a costume-so he decides to do it? And teams up with a precocious ten year old girl who kills people and swears a lot? And how it was all seen as good something sane people would do?

James Gunn (writer director of Slither and Guardians of the Galaxy) thought that film was full of $#!^ (to use comic book talk). In the world of Super, in which Dwight from the Office has a mental breakdown and decides to fight the evil Kevin Bacon to save his elvish wife with the help of Juno, you have to be a little off to want to put on a costume and fight crime.

The story centers on Frank (Rainn Wilson, Dwight on the Office). Frank has lived a life of humiliation after humiliation. His only two good moments were marrying his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) and the time he helped catch a criminal. His wife falls in with a bad crowd, hooked on drugs and eventually, she leaves him.

Frank sees a cheesy Christian Super-Hero called The Holy Avenger (played by Nathan Fillion) on TV (think Bibleman). Later, after pouring his heart out in a prayer, Frank has a vision. This vision convinces him he has a special calling. And so he vows to fight crime in a costume with a night stick.

Beating up criminals makes him a public phenomenon at first, until Frank overreacts to a guy who makes a slight social faux pas. He meets Libby (Ellen Page), who discovers his identity and becomes obsessed with being his “kid” sidekick. What soon becomes apparent is that she is not interested in doing what is right so much as the action and rush involved.

That the film can be very dark was not truly a surprise to me. It really does present the idea of super-hero work as requiring that you be a bit disturbed. While not a new idea in comics (Garth Ennis makes quite a living off of the notion) after several years of stable heroes in film…this rather cynical take works pretty well. Of course, it came out the same year as the film Defendor-and even covers similar ground. But still, Wilson makes a pretty compelling mental case, who can be endearing and yet a bit scary. Kevin Bacon is good as a low level drug kingpin wanna be, while Page goes from a fun exuberance to a really uncomfortable and tragic place. Gunn really makes the story work, and finding a way to inject satire in with sincerity that is usually very hard to get right.

There is a brutal honesty when Frank is on his knees, in tears begging God for an answer as to why his life seems so stacked against him. He pours out every bit of self resentment and begs God for an answer…why do I have to look like this? Why couldn’t I have been smarter? Cooler? More lovable.

Frank is messed up, but you can understand and sympathize as to why. He really wants life to be more simple than it is. Underpinning the film is a rather grim and unpleasant portrayal of violence that challenges the cool action hero of something like Kick Ass. It is disturbing and lacks the “cool one liners and puns” prevalent to other violent action heroes.

And yet, in spite of the grimness, the film finds a way to end on an upbeat and even inspirational note, without feeling false or tacked on. It never justifies what went on before, instead suggesting some healing for Frank.

Super really caught me off guard, in spite of having heard positive raves about it, I think I anticipated a more gritty take on Kick Ass, but I got something much better out of it. Yes, it was violent, but it was also thoughtful, touching and inspirational.

September 16, 2015 0

It Gets Old (3 Geezers, 2013)

3 Geezers has the following synopsis:

Follow actor J Kimball as he researches what it’s like to be old for a role in an upcoming movie. When he meets the residents at The Coconuts convalescent home, he quickly discovers that his perceptions of the elderly may be off from today’s reality. After being on the wrong end of some pranks, J enlists the help of his Hollywood friends to turn the tides. Mayhem ensues.

This was from the IMDB. This is not the movie I sat through.

J.K. Simmons is a great actor, but he seems to be casually moving through this mockumentary. His performance is so low key and disinterested it does not bode well for the film. J Kimball tells us how the movie he agreed to be in is terrible, but he had no choice, because the screenplay was written by his brother-in-law.

It should be noted, the film is directed by Simmon’s real life wife and written by his brother-in-law. One can only hope this is conscious self-deprecation. It is not highly effective.

There is, by the way, no obvious turning point where Kimball seeks revenge. He takes the old guys to Laser Tag. But really, J.K. Simmons disappears for great lengths of the film, as it really focuses on raunchy old people jokes. And some of the jokes are genuinely funny, though I cannot say anyone was ever asking for a recreation of the Judge Reinhold/Phoebe Cates pool sequence from Fast Times At Ridgemont High with elderly actors.

The real stars of the film are Victor (Basil Hoffman), Bernard (Lou Beatty Jr, who gets the best jokes), Rex (Will Bonaiuto) and Ruth (Beverly Polcyn). They are who the film really follows. If you look at the poster, of course, they do not appear. Instead you have Tim Allen, Kevin Pollak, Randy Couture, Breckin Meyer and Fernanda Romero. All appear for about three minutes or less.

The film wanders aimlessly and never seems to find it’s actual plot. It feels as if the writers and director decided “lets try something we have not done before” and sucked a bunch of family and friends in for the experiment. Sadly, it is just not successful.

September 6, 2015 0

Coasting to the End(Playing It Cool, 2014)

There is a lot about Playing Cool that makes me want to like it. The cast (both lead and supporting) is comprised almost entirely of actors I like a lot. The film has some nice ideas it is playing with. It has some clever visual moments.

But the pacing and the storytelling? That is where it falls flat. And it keeps it from being a movie I truly enjoyed.

That it is a cliched tale of a screenwriter (Chris Evans) who does not believe in love, but then meets that one amazing woman (Michelle Monaghan)…but she has a boyfriend (Ioan Gruffudd). He seeks the advice of his friends and family (well, his grandad, played by Phillip Baker Hall). These characters are fairly well designed. There is the gay best friend Scott (Topher Grace), obligatory art performer girl secretly in love with the lead (Aubrey Plaza), disillusioned married buddy (Luke Wilson) and Oddball Played by Martin Starr.

The film tries to attack these cliches, but rather ineffectively. And there are numerous attempts at big emotional beats. Yet, the film never really earns these. I did not get the draw between the leads, everything was a rough sketch.

What makes this painful is the film has terrific imagery. Whenever Evan’s screenwriter starts getting philosophical, the film gets interesting to watch. There is a terrific scene where the Screenwriter (Evan’s and Monaghan’s characters are simply credited as “Me” and “her”) starts mocking the notion of there being “someone for everyone”. He talks about how there are those people who are such social misfits, there is no way they could find someone…but he is surprised by how many of them do. The picture becomes more colorful and vibrant, except for Evans, who is now black and white. There is an animated sequence where Grandad tells the tale of how he pursued the woman he loved (an outlandish tale of swimming an ocean, riding wild horses and so on). Evans talks about how his heart has let him, and stands in the background chain smoking. And we see Evans off to the side, smoke billowing from every pore, like Humphrey Bogart. The movie is wonderfully expressive at times.

As a said, I like the cast. In a fun bit of casting, Anthony Mackie is Evan’s agent (kind of a business wing-man). The cast is well chosen for their roles…

But the movie takes so any shortcuts, it never earns the big emotional beats and revelations. “Me” realizing who he would spend the rest of his life on a boat with after reading his friend’s (Grace) favorite book? It feels empty…it should be this hopeful and uplifting moment, but the film skips so much it feels rushed…except it somehow manages to slow down to a crawl, especially when focused on Evans and Monaghan. The film is full of ideas, and some pretty lofty intentions. But it jumps past what it needs to invest in. There is no sense of a real life for these characters.

The writers have only two movies (both Chris Evans films) to their writing credit and this is Director Justin Reardon’s first full length feature. I see some genuine potential in all three, but this film is not a ideal final product.

The creative style and cast make me want to like this movie. The cliches and lack of depth make me disappointed that it does not live up to those things.

August 17, 2015 0

The Humor of Suffering (Tig, 2015)

Tig Notaro tends to be what I think of as a comedian’s comedian. One of those people that seems to fly under the radar with the public, but comedian’s love. They often are hard working comics who get opportunities on late night talk shows because the host thinks you should hear them. Notaro’s career was on the rise until 2012 when it skyrocketed. Because, uh, she got breast cancer.

Tig had a series of heartbreaking events occur in her life, and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A couple days later, she took to the stage, unsure what she was going to do…and she launched into an awkward, funny, and unique routine. The other comics there started tweeting about what they were seeing.

The documentary Tig chronicles the lead up to this event and the fallout from it. Following her trying to reassess her career, relationships and hopes for her future, the documentary is funny, inspiring, soul crushing.

Notero notes when she was told she should use this for her act, she had wondered how she could mine humor from such tragedy. And yet, listening to her album Live (pronounced “liv”) she was able to riff hysterically about death, life, disappointment, cancer and uncertainty.

Tig is a terrific, thoughtful and fun documentary. Mixing in her standup and interviews with her friends and family, you get a pretty full picture of Notaro. Along with her album Live, I recommend a viewing of Tig.

August 7, 2015 0

We Got It All On… (UHF, 1989)

Back in 1989, Weird Al Yankovic tried to conquer the movies. He did not quite succeed, as this was Al’s only starring role. UHF was low on plot, mainly a vehicle for film and television parody. The film has maintained a cult following, and not without reason.

Yankovic’s UHF is goofy and fun. The basic set up is daydreamer George (Weird Al Yankovic) is just getting by, working minimum wage jobs, unsuccessfully. He is big on imagination, but no idea how to put it into use. His Uncle wins a rundown television station and his wife convinces him to let George run it.

Against all odds, the network succeeds, as George hires local oddballs to have shows. His own attempt at a kids show fails, but when the janitor Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards) steps in? Ratings skyrocket. This attracts the ire of R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy), owner of the largest station in the city, who does not want to lose the number one spot. And so hi-jinks ensue.

As I said, this is mostly a vehicle for film and TV parody, and that is when the film is the most fun. The film has two modes…most of the film parodies occur as daydreams where George views himself in iconic roles such as Indiana Jones and Rambo. Then there are the TV clips… ads for TV Movies (Such as Conan the Librarian and Gandhi II), commercials for stores (Spatula City) and then the shows themselves (Wheel a Fish & Rual’s Wild Kingdom). These bits are often both goofy and clever and the jokes are Gatling gun fast.

There is a romantic subplot where George is trying to avoid losing the love of his life, Teri (Victoria Jackson), by proving he is responsible. But, along with the other subplots, this is the least creative aspect of the film.

The film is solidly cast with character actors like Kevin McCarthy (who could chew scenery like few others),Stanley Brock as George’s gambling addicted Uncle Harvey and Billy Barty as Noodles MacIntosh. It also features plenty of folks who made it big in the 90s, such as Michael Richards & Fran Drescher. The talent involved elevates a lot of this, especially considering the slightness of story.

The one uncomfortable area is the racism surrounding the character Kuni, an Asian martial arts instructor. Played by Gedde Watanabe (who has long faced harsh criticism for his role as Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles) the character speaks stilted and awkward english. He pronounces his “R’s” as “L’s” and barks out responses. I admit, there are aspects of the character that work okay…he is needlessly tough on the contestants on his game show “Wheel a Fish”. When someone ends up losing, instead of being comforting, he starts yelling at them deriding them for being so stupid.

For the most part, though the humor is not cruel, simply having fun with wordplay, slapstick and visual gags.

The 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray from the Shout Factory has a great new painted cover by James Hance. The HD picture is, for the large part excellent. There are a couple random moments where the quality dips. A few instances will just never get better because the picture is imitating a bad UHF signal.

The bonus features are a decent collection. While the three minute behind the scenes is not too exciting, there is nearly an hour of a 2014 career retrospective from Comic Con International that is funny and enjoyable. In case you think I am being to rough on Al for the simple plot, he himself states they just needed a story that let them string along the gags. He suggests that if he were to go back to it, he would have put more effort into the actual story. The deleted scenes are from the previous DVD…but it is a creative take. Weird Al hosts explaining that the scenes were deleted because the scenes sucked. He then pops in between sequences to deride the deleted scenes. The disc also contains the UHF music video and various promotional materials such as trailers and still photos. It is, overall a nice and inclusive package. It would have been neat if they could have pulled off a even a short retrospective of the film, both it’s creation and the later cult following. But the overall package is worth it for fans of the film and Weird Al Yankovic.

August 3, 2015 0

Diverting The Train

There seems to be a lot of surprise over the fact that the new vehicle from Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow, Trainwreck, totally favors monogamy.

But is this that shocking? Should conservative and liberal critics be shocked that a Hollywood film favors monogamy over commitment to one night stands? The liberal contingency has given more of a tired sigh over yet another Apatow film favoring “conservative mores” while Conservatives seem pleased.

Honestly, I have not issue with Apatow films favoring the idea that monogamy is good. I will go as far as to say…I think it is silly to complain about it. As film critic Peter Chattaway noted, at this point, should anyone be surprised that an Apatow makes a film that favors monogamy and marriage?

One might note that Amy Schumer is the screenwriter, so that surprises them. But has there been proof that Schumer would normally oppose the message of the film (I confess, I have only seen bits of Amy’s standup and clips from her show which have been “uncomfortably” hilarious)? And really, based on the previews? Did people really think the film was going to favor the lead *not* falling in love?

I would actually suggest that Hollywood has rarely gone against monogamy. Most films about relationships end with the relationship succeeding. The main set of films in the American Pie franchise all tend to favor committed relationships, mining more casual sexual encounters for laughs.

Trainwreck sets it up in the previews…Amy’s drunken dad (Colin Quinn) teaches her that monogamy is a sham, them she meets a guy (Bill Hader) who challenges her notions of relationships…where do we really think that is going?

I have not seen the film yet, but I think being shocked that it favors relationships and monogamy over sleeping around is…naive.

July 30, 2015 0