For a Good Time, Call...

For a Good Time, Call... - Dir. Jamie Travis (2012)

Are we living in a post-Bridesmaids world? While it wasn't a wholly new concept, Bridesmaids did become a benchmark for female-centric comedies in current cinema. The girls could be just as raunchy as the guys and the plot didn't have to entirely revolve around a woman's search for Mr. Right. For a Good Time, Call… is one of several movies that have been compared unfavorably to Bridesmaids, despite going into production before its release.

Lauren Powell (Lauren Miller) is a young professional woman who hits a sudden rough patch when she loses her job and gets dumped by her boyfriend for being boring. She's asked to move out of their apartment, but cannot afford a place of her own. Her gay best friend, Jesse (Justin Long), points Lauren in the direction of Katie Steel (Ari Graynor), who is behind on rent for her ritzy flat following the death of her grandmother. Lauren and Katie are actually old college acquaintances, except the latter got drunk and poor Lauren ended up with a face full of urine. Needless to say, she is not happy about the situation.

Things get weirder when Lauren discovers Katie makes most of her money as a phone sex operator. Unable to find a decent job, Lauren reluctantly serves as Katie's assistant and routing her calls. After a crash course in dirty talk, Lauren becomes a second operator and finds she actually enjoys the work. Meanwhile, Katie warily drops her guard for a romance with a frequent caller named Sean (Mark Webber).

Lauren Miller not only starred in the film, but also co-wrote the screenplay with Katie Anne Naylon, a former college roommate who really did work as a phone sex operator. Is phone sex still something people pay for, especially with the wealth of pornography on the internet? Or so I have heard. Considering the subject matter, For a Good Time, Call… could have easily been set in the 80's and it does have a retro tone mixed with a filthy mind. All too often, Miller and Naylon go for the easy jokes involving bodily fluids.

However, what really sells For a Good Time isn't the sex or the filth, but the friendship between the female protagonists. If I Love You, Man was all about the bro-mance, this is all about the girl-mance. The two leads have great chemistry together. While Miller is perky enough in her role, it is Ari Graynor who finally gets a chance to shine. She's displayed her comedic talents via smaller roles in films like Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Whip It, and Celeste and Jesse Forever. She gets to run a gamut of emotions here from her unique line readings and physical humor to selling her sweet-natured relationships with Lauren and Sean. Where For a Good Time fails is in its adherence to formula with Lauren as the uptight conservative who has to learn to let her hair down. There's also a second act break-up of their friendship that feels contrived simply to lead into the climatic reconciliation.

The supporting cast is great with Don McManus and Mimi Rogers as Lauren's parents, Nia Vardalos as a prospective employer, and cameos by Ken Marino, Kevin Smith, and Miller's husband, Seth Rogen, as phone sex customers.

For a Good Time, Call… is an R-rated twist on the Odd Couple concept. Most of the humor falls flat and the film never delves too deeply into its characters. However, it's energetic pace and breezy runtime might make it worthy of a rental.

Rating: ** (*****)

Going the Distance

Going the Distance - Dir. Nanette Burstein (2010)

Is there a genre more asinine than the modern romantic comedy? I don't have anything against the rom-com in general; I just have an aversion to the copious amounts of crap churned out by studio execs and filmmakers who seem to construct from a stock set of elements. Going the Distance attempts to change up the staid formula while still incorporating frequent clichés with an Apatow-style sense of lowbrow humor.

Justin Long is Garrett, a low-level talent scout for a rinky dink record label in New York City. He's just been dumped by his girlfriend (Leighton Meester) and decides to go out on the town with his buddies Box (Jason Sudeikis) and Dan (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Charlie Day). He meets Erin (Drew Barrymore), an aspiring journalist, over a game of Centipede. She wants to keep the relationship light because she's only in the city temporarily as a summer intern for the fictional New York Sentinel. However, Garrett doesn’t want to end things so quickly even after Erin has takes a job in San Francisco. The young lovers attempt to make it work long distance via text messages, Skype, and a very awkward session of phone sex. The usual insecurities and frustrations begin creeping in to threaten their relationship.

Going the Distance is the first produced script by Geoff LaTulippe who wrote it after learning of producer Dave Neustadter's own long distance relationship. LaTulippe tries to address the poor economy with Erin and Garrett unable to scrap the funds to fly out to see each other while working in dying industries. The film also marks the first narrative picture from documentarian Nanette Burstein who directed The Kid Stays in the Picture and American Teen. For the most part, Burstein's direction is perfectly pedestrian though it didn't need to be anything more. Some shots during a dating montage do have a documentary feel turning the audience into mere observers.

Some think that real-life couples don't translate well to the screen, but Long and Barrymore have good chemistry together. Both play characters that are merely extensions of themselves and their previous characters, Long as the wise-cracking geek and Barrymore as the free-spirit. Christina Applegate brings the funny as Erin's overprotective sister with the understated and dry wit of Jim Gaffigan as her husband.

At the very least, Going the Distance avoids the usual contrivances that come up as setbacks. One's uptight, one's spontaneous. How will it ever work out? Yet, the movie is still cluttered with the ubiquitous detritus that comes with your average romantic comedy. There's the obligatory airport scene where the man rushes through the terminal to catch his lady love although, this one takes place at the end of the first act rather than the climax. Sudeikis and Day fulfill the roles of the protagonist's wacky best friends. The humor fails to elicit anything as slight as a chuckle or a smirk. There's a labored slapstick sequence involving Long at a tanning salon, a gag that was already done on Friends years ago. The film gets worse with a scene where Applegate picks pubic hair off her dining room table after a late-night session of sex by Erin & Garrett. Just when you think they couldn't sink any lower, here comes the Hitler joke.

Going the Distance is leaps and bounds above god-awful atrocities like The Ugly Truth and Did You Hear About the Morgans? thanks to a pair of likeable leads. But, it fails to place them in anything that is remotely interesting or humorous.

Rating: * ½

After.Life

After.Life - Dir. Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo (2010)


Helmed by a first-time director, After.Life managed to attract a talented cast despite its shortcomings. The picture was directed and co-written by Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo whose only previous experience was an award-winning short made during her time at NYU. It’s an ultimately forgettable film, yet it managed to snag some big-name talent.

Christina Ricci stars as Anna Taylor, a pretty, young schoolteacher in a rocky relationship with successful attorney, Paul Coleman (Justin Long). One dark and stormy night, Anna and Paul get into an argument with Anna stomping away in a huff. She loses control of her car and wakes up on a slab in the basement of a funeral home run by Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson). Even though Anna can still walk and talk, Eliot says she is dead. You see, Eliot has the power to speak to the recently deceased. Anna’s soul is in a transitional state before crossing over to the other side. Eliot is there to help in said transition. Or is he?

Anna has her doubts while Paul is convinced Eliot is hiding something. Of course, the inept police force doesn’t believe him. There’s also a creepy, little boy named Jack (Chandler Canterbury) who may also possess similar abilities to Eliot.

Wojtowicz-Vosloo wisely chooses atmosphere over cheap scares and gore. She has a good command of production design with effective uses of warm and cold colors, such as red and violet. She has a good eye, but the screenplay, which was co-written with Paul Vosloo and Jakub Korolczuk, leaves much to be desired. The dialogue tends to be heavy-handed with corny lines like, ”You’re a corpse. Your opinion doesn’t count anymore.”

After.Life strives for ambiguity, but the results are steeped with obviousness. There’s no real mystery behind the movie even without all the easy to spot clues. In fact, the longer the film plays with the audience, the more frustrating it becomes. Vosloo tries to throw us for a loop with a few creepy dream sequences. However, once the character wakes up, it feels like the rug is pulled out from under us. The filmmakers seem to be showing off rather than advancing the plot.

As he always does, Liam Neeson lends some credibility to the role even if his performance won’t stick in your memory. Ricci has incredibly expressive eyes and excels well as the troubled girl in distress. Justin Long is the only weak link in the main cast. He gives an overwrought performance in a role very similar to his turn in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell. Long’s strong suit is comedy and he lays it on too thick when attempting more dramatic roles.

The central concept of a mortician communicating with the corpse he’s preparing would be an interesting premise for a short film. Here, the concept feels padded out with flat characters and little in the way of suspense to hold your attention.

Rating: *

Funny People

Funny People - Dir. Judd Apatow (2009)


Judd Apatow is the reigning king of comedy. He has a knack for portraying modern day relationships from the perspective of the overgrown man-child in desperate need of maturity. There’s also a healthy dose of raunchy, low-brow humor thrown in for good measure. Though Apatow has only written and directed two previous films (The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up), he’s stamped his name on numerous others, some successful (Superbad, Pineapple Express) and some not so much (Drillbit Taylor).

For Apatow’s third film, Funny People, Adam Sandler lampoons his own on and off-screen persona as George Simmons, a former stand-up comic turned A-list movie star. His juvenile movies usually involve him turning into a baby or a merman. George is the Charles Foster Kane of comedians. He lives in his own personal Xanadu surrounded by expensive cars and posters adorned with his face, but he is all alone. George’s life doesn’t improve when he’s diagnosed with leukemia. Along the way, he hires Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), a struggling stand-up, to be his personal assistant and joke writer. Ira becomes George’s de facto confidant and the closest thing he has to a friend. When his leukemia goes into remission, George attempts to reconnect with a former flame, Laura (Leslie Mann), now married to an adulterous Australian (Eric Bana).

Funny People is Apatow’s most polished looking film thanks to bringing on Spielberg’s long-time cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, as DP. It’s also his most ambitious and mature picture to date. Apatow balances the story of Ira’s rising star with George reflecting on his own narcissism and self-pity. He manages to stray from a formulaic plot with a loose narrative that is both the film’s strongest and weakest point.

Funny People isn’t the lighter fare that audiences are used to from Apatow, but those light moments are some of the film’s best. The movie drifts off on humorous asides such as Ira and George riffing on each other or comparing a German doctor to a Die Hard villain. Apatow also gives us a unique, inside look at the world of stand-up comedy. Littered throughout the film are a series of cameos from various comics like Sarah Silverman, Paul Reiser, and Andy Dick. However, Eminem outdoes them all with a profanity-laced rant directed at Ray Romano.

Yet, Apatow is unable to prevent his film from collapsing underneath the weight of its nearly two and a half hour runtime. At 146 minutes, Funny People is about 30 minutes too long. While engaging for the first two acts, the final act sputters towards a contrived and overly sentimental resolution.

Commenting on his past obnoxious and immature characters, Sandler gives a well-rounded performance, one that is less self-conscious than his most publicized dramatic turn in P.T. Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love. Shining in supporting roles are Jason Schwartzman as a smarmy roommate who stars in a cheesy Saved by the Bell-esque sitcom and Aubrey Plaza as a sardonic female comic.

Rating: **

Drag Me To Hell

Drag Me To Hell - Dir. Sam Raimi (2009)

Drag Me To Hell was hyped as a return to true horror. It also marks the return of Sam Raimi to the genre which kicked off his career. Raimi found initial success by rounding up friends and family to film, Evil Dead, a low-budget B-movie which spawned two sequels, comic books, video games, t-shirts, action figures, and made Bruce Campbell into a hero for countless fanboys all over the world. To this day, Raimi and Campbell still get asked at conventions and interviews about the possibilities of Evil Dead 4. Since the conclusion of the Evil Dead trilogy, Raimi has dabbled with various genres such as the Western (The Quick and the Dead) and even sports schmaltz (For the Love of the Game). He found his biggest success with the Spider-Man franchise, but the third film met with a lukewarm response from critics and die-hard fans. Clearly, Raimi was looking for a way to recharge his batteries before launching head first into the currently-in-development Spider-Man 4.

Raimi proves to have found his A-game from the opening moments of the film, featuring a vintage version of the Universal logo. Drag Me To Hell mines the current economic woes and mortgage crisis for its premise which centers on loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman). Brown is bucking for the promotion to her branch’s assistant manager position, but her boss, Mr. Jacks (David Paymer), is also eyeing a shameless brown-noser named Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee). When an old Gypsy woman, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), begs for an extension on her overdue mortgage, Christine can only eye the empty desk and turns her down. As usual, pissing off a crazy old Gypsy woman turns out to be a bad idea as Mrs. Ganush attacks Christine in the parking garage and places a curse on her. In three days time, a demon called the Lamia will come and drag her to Hell. Christine looks for help from her disbelieving boyfriend, Clay Dalton (Justin Long), and strip mall psychic, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao).

Drag Me To Hell is a welcome breath of fresh air as the horror genre stagnates amidst the rampant glut of torture porn, endless remakes, and the cannibalization of the once trendsetting Asian market. The film is rated PG-13 which seems to be the popular target for studios today. However, Raimi isn’t hampered by the limitations choosing to work within PG-13 standards. He is in rare form using many of his trademark techniques (quick zooms, titled angles) to create a fun and creepy horror film without relying on buckets of blood and gore. It’s a testament to Raimi’s skills that he can make a handkerchief scarier than any dismembered torsos.

Raimi’s penchant for gallows’ humor and over-the-top grotesqueries are in full effect here. Drag features a down and dirty brawl between Christine and Mrs. Ganush. You’d think a fight between a banker and an elderly lady would be rather tame. Instead, this is one nasty scuffle with Ganush even attempting to gum Christine to death. There are other sequences involving a corpse full of formaldehyde and the desecration of a grave that are both wicked and innovative.

If Drag has any weak points, it’s a completely predictable twist in the third act and the film’s fairly nondescript characters that keep it from being a true classic. Still, there’s never a dull moment and this is definitely one of the best horror films to the screens in years.

Rating: ***1/2

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Zack and Miri Make a Porno - Dir. Kevin Smith (2008)


Potty mouthed, but with a heart tends to be an apt description of Kevin Smith’s oeuvre. After the underrated Jersey Girl bombed, Smith returned to the View Askew universe he had attempted to distance himself from with Clerks II. Rather than go back to the well again, he tries once more and hits al the right smutty notes with Zack and Miri. The title is self-explanatory though the reasoning behind the plot is pretty flimsy. With the economy in the toilet, I’m still waiting for the legions of amateur porn movies to hit the interwebs. The unpaid bills are forgotten as the film progresses. Everybody is more preoccupied with getting the money shots and not the actual money. They don't have money for the electricity, but enough for an R2D2 costume with prosthetic testicles?

However, that’s not really the point behind Zack and Miri. Like Chasing Amy, it’s about how sex can complicate a relationship. It’s about best friends finally facing up to the deep seeded feelings they have for each other. And there are plenty of bad words and hilarious one-liners to make sure things don’t get too mushy.

Aside from Jason Mewes, Jeff Anderson, and his wife, Smith forgoes uses his usual players and borrows a few from Judd Apatow’s repertory. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are both great as the title characters, but supporting actor Craig Robinson (Knocked Up, The Office) has all the best scenes as a henpecked husband turned porn producer. The film’s best and funniest scene involves a husky voiced Justin Long and Superman himself, Brandon Routh, as a gay couple.

Zack and Miri isn’t going to be accused of being high art, but it is good entertainment for those who aren’t skittish about scatological humor. Or Jason Mewes’ scrotum.

Rating: ***