No Hard Feelings

 

Do you remember when comedies used to come out on a regular basis and they were funny?  Somewhere in the last ten years, people seem to have lost their sense of humor. Comedy films got released, ignored and then disappeared, and as a result, there are far fewer of them. Nowadays, the comedy has to be mashed up with horror, action, romance, to get to the big screen. The last straight up comedy that I saw was "Good Boys" from 2019. Don't get me wrong, I love me some "Stuber", or "Sisu", or "Renfield", but they all bring you in on a different vibe. This movie is a throwback to films like "I Love You Man" or "Role Models". The goal is to tickle your funny bone and break your heart, with a little lesson included. The mayhem is of the everyday variety, no hatchets to the head or super heroes. 

"No Hard Feelings" aspires to be "The Hangover" or "Bridesmaids" and it almost succeeds. There is enough here however to recommend it, and you will definitely laugh out load at a couple of sequences. Does it get the mix of raunchy, sentimental and outrageousness perfect, no. It is the best thing this side of the Farrelly Brothers you are likely to see this year, and you have star and producer Jennifer Lawrence to thank for that. 

As is often the case in a comedy, our protagonist is not an entirely sympathetic character.  Maddie Barker is a self centered underachiever, living in the house she inherited from her mother, and struggling to make ends meet in the face of rising property taxes due to the influx of wealthy summer people driving up land values in her Montauk Beach community. Lawrence plays her as a mean girl with a bitter tongue but one who can also sweet talk her way out of some things, but not everything. Maddie drinks too much, is promiscuous, and indifferent to the feelings of some of the people she comes into contact with. The premise of the film is far fetched, but it is supposedly based on a real Craigslist ad. Maddie has lost her car, the main source of her income as an Uber driver. She sees an ad that offers a car in exchange for giving an introverted high school graduate, the "girlfriend" experience. Desperate times call for desperate measures and this early 30s party girl decides to take up the offer to make a man out of a 19 year old college bound innocent.   

In spite of the extreme unlikelihood of the premise, the follow through is very entertaining. Andrew Barth Feldman as Percy Becker, has the right geek quality that confirms him as an outsider, but not necessarily a loser. The idea that exposure to, and a sexual relationship with, the older woman might help bring him out of his shell seems conceivable. The humor comes from the awkwardness of the situation, the inevitable subterfuge from passing Maddie off as a woman attracted to Percy and not as an employee of his helicopter parents, and the fact that Maddie defies conventions that Percy has learned to accept or impose on himself. 

The boldest scene in the movie involves Maddie convincing Percy to go skinny dipping with her in the ocean, and then having some teenagers bully them by taking their clothes. They have no idea what they are in for. Maddie shamelessly comes out of the water and engages them in a fistfight, completely nude, but fearless. Lawrence does not shy away from the demands of the scene and she plays Maddie exactly they way we would expect of this ballsy woman with a lot to lose if things go wrong. Seth Macfarlane will have a lot to add to his actress shaming song if he ever hosts the Academy Awards again. 

Maddie is the butt of a lot of cracks about her age, which at 32 does not seem old to me, but to the college bound kids at the Princeton mixer, it is like she was born in another century...oh wait, she was. The humor in this party scene includes referencing the Gen Z obsession with recoding every little thing, and then using it to create a cancel culture. I about bust a gut when the virtue signaling parents at the party get incensed at a joke they consider inappropriate. The juxtaposition of generations in the scene was way too on the nose for comfort.

Like all real stories, there need to be high points and low points in the relationship between the characters. We can see trouble coming when Percy is more enamored of Maddie than she is comfortable with. He breaks through her hard shell with a sweet musical moment, that she smothers as quickly as she can. Of course there will also be crossed wires, unintended over heard conversations, and personal revelations that make the story more interesting and engaging, even if we see most of it coming.  Director and co screen writer Gene Stupnitsky, who also made "good Boys", has all the ingredients of a great comedy, but somewhere in the process, it just does not jell as well as it should. Maybe it's a timing issue or the tone switches need a little more  percolating, but it just misses working all of the time.

Don't worry though, it works enough to make it worth a visit. I laughed out loud several times and I did understand the sweetness that underlies the raunchy. Jennifer Lawrence is very good and carries off the funny quite well. Matthew Broderick plays Percy's overprotective and indulgent father, and it seems completely appropriate, since forty years ago, he would have been playing Percy himself. There are amusing side characters with strings of plotline that are not particularly important, but they add to the film to make it more rounded. Frankly, the line about "Jaws" would have been enough for me to recommend the film, even if if fall just short of being great. 

Red Sparrow Video Review

Passengers

I saw a headline a couple of weeks ago that declared the movie star dead. That proclamation was based on the disappointing box office opening of this film. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt have had great success in films in the last few years. Lawrence has arguably been the most bankable star, man or woman, since the start of the Hunger Games series, and Pratt starred in the colossus "Jurassic World" and "Guardians of the Galaxy". Their pairing may have been the reason this film finally got a greenlight after years in development hell. The lower than expected returns are supposedly an indicator that star power can"t save a movie. The truth is, a movie succeeds or fails for many reasons, and while the star may be one of those reasons, there are usually others. The weakness of this films performance should not be unjustly laid at the feet of the two leads.

"Passengers" is sold to us as a love story in space. The trailers make the film look like an adventure with the star crossed lovers battling to save themselves and the ship they are traveling on. I'm going to avoid spoilers as usual, but I will say that there is a twist in this story that is much darker and deeper than the film clips suggest. Maybe this is not a great movie, but it was better than I expected and the production values are top notch so I think I can recommend it to people who like science fiction and a lot of drama thrown in.

The provocative part of the story occurs for reasons that audiences will understand but may be horrified by. There is an interesting "what would you do? question at the heart of the film. The follow up question of how to handle the choice that is made is less complex because the story takes a very traditional turn into action tension and drama. The second act of the film is where all of the real emotion is and when the story veers back to the usual plot points, there is less that is interesting about it. For the vast majority of the movie, the two leads are the sole human characters on the ship. Michael Sheen, who is great, does have a side part to play, but he essentially is a tool for exposition and philosophy to be engorged in out loud. Lawrence and Pratt have to sell the human elements. I thought their chemistry was solid and that they made a somewhat believable couple under the circumstances.

 The failure of this movie to connect with audiences may have more to do with marketing than anything else. The trailers and ads ignore the real conflict of the film entirely and focus on the romance and adventure. There is a hint of a secret plot but that is a red herring, every shot with Lawrence Fishburne and Andy Garcia in it is misleading to the audience. Garcia must have a fantastic agent to get billing and paid for his contribution to the film. I suspect there may have been more of the story that got trimmed, and in the long run that is probably best.


The appearance of  Fishburne in the film, signals the start of the last section of the movie and a return to standard action adventure activity.  The idea that a solo engineer and a well read but not expert passenger, can handle the issues that crop up is a little hard to swallow, but since the whole idea of the film is hard to swallow to begin with I guess I can live with it. The action beats are not surprising but the special effects work is solid and there is one final twist that does pay off from the earlier section. In essence it helps redeem the film and make it a bit more worthy.  "Passengers" is not an essential film but it is entertaining and it should make for a good date night film for all those future "Netflix and Chill" evenings ahead.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Well it was a sad Saturday this weekend. In addition to the mediocre effort put in by my team against their arch rivals, Katniss and Company played at only a slightly higher level. "Mockingjay Part 1 will not leave a stink in the room the way our coach did on the field, but it will be a good argument to stop splitting up books and turning a series of three into a series of four or more. [Oh, and the same might be said for turning one book into three movies, but we will have to see how that comes out next month.]

Abandoning most of the science fiction elements found in the original story and films, the new "Hunger Games" movie becomes a political science paper aimed at discussing the roots of revolution. The idea of Katniss as the face of a revolt, fomented by the previously unknown forces from District 13, is straight propaganda analysis. The committee evaluation of the video prop piece she completes encapsulates this whole movie.   Why is she an inspiration and why is she not working as one in our film? Jennifer Lawrence has been very good in the previous "Hunger Games" movies, but she is less natural and interesting in this movie than she has been in anything I have seen her in. Most of this is because she has become a pawn, like she was in the original stories, but this time the action is controlled by a group of mundane cave dwellers who's motives seem to be a bit murky. She is not called on to use her wits or overcome an obstacle, she is a piece of agitprop set decoration for a larger conflict. 

Much of the weakness in the film is directly from the weaknesses of the novel on which it is based. "Mockingjay was a limp ending to a young adult trilogy that simply ran out of steam and ended as quickly as it could. The Tributes from the first two stories are put on the sidelines while the revolution plays out between rebelling colonies and the Capital. There were some hints of the problems the rebels had wielding power in the novel. The prep team is abused and the citizens are required to live a regimented lifestyle that would deny them even the most mundane pleasures. The Castro like character of President Coin is hardly suggested in this film. All of the interesting elements of a not very interesting book are taken out when transferring it to the screen. The action in the film is limited to three or four moments when CGI battles are carried out with Katniss as the star of a recruitment commercial.

The strengths of the movie are in some unusual places. Elizabeth Banks as the frivolous Effie Trinket, gets to make a few comic moments zing without having to rely on over the top costuming and make up. Woody Harrelson's  Haymitch character is missing for most of the movie, but every time he shows up, the movie got better. The best piece of casting and the most accurately realized character is Donald Sutherland as President Snow. It is perhaps unfortunate for the movie that the highlight of the film is a skype session between Snow and Katniss at the end of the movie. Their interaction has more sparks in it than anything else that takes place in this two hour place holder.

With a nice dedication at the end of the movie to their co-worker who has passed, the film should be a fond reminder of Philip Seymour Hoffman and his talent. Watching his performance however foreshadows the plight he faced. He looks tired and flaccid in the part and there is no energy or personality in Plutarch Havensbee. His co-star from almost two decades ago in "Magnolia", Boogie Nights" and "The Big Lebowski" Julianne Moore, is a little better. As the calculating leader of District 13, she is impervious and distant in the way called for by the plot. Liam Hemsworth continues to be little more than a plot device to keep Katniss from accepting her devotion to Peeta. Gale gets some action scenes in the movie but he does little except move through the scenery.

The movie looks good and the characters are given a chance to continue their story. The problem is that the story is losing steam as it becomes less about our heroic Tribute and more about the political intrigues of Panem. The hallucinatory gas attacks and the city destroying matrix that were parts of the book are no longer present. Faceless citizens revolt in the lumber and energy districts and a jingle is all we have to show their commitment. This movie will be a box office smash, but it will not be a treasured volume in the "Hunger Games" canon.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

 Click the Poster for a link to the KAMAD Vlog Review

American Hustle

You know that disclaimer at the end of the movie which says that the preceding was a work of fiction and that " "The events depicted in this movie are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental."  Well here is a film where you should take that to heart. The movie is a brilliant re-creation of the time and place of the ABSCAM  story, but it is mixed with generous amounts of fictionalized romantic entanglements, sympathetic characterizations of the perps and a sense of humor that I know is not FBI approved.

This is basically an update of "The Sting", with Christian Bale and Amy Adams cast in the roles originated by Redford and Newman. Bradley Cooper is slotted into the Robert Shaw part, and the con artists are complicated good guys who may or may not be getting the drop on an FBI that is out of control. The clever way in which the film distracts us from the illusion right in front of us includes a showoff piece of supporting work from Jennifer Lawrence and a starring role for Amy Adams breasts, which certainly deserve an award for how well they are displayed here without giving away the whole trick. The craft in the story telling is very evident by the way that things ultimately make sense despite the fact that the film makers start their movie in the middle and have to work backwards. By the time the denouncement arrives, you will have been entertained and fooled for a couple of hours and you will barely notice the way the film tries to re-frame events so that the bad guy are turned into misunderstood good guys. 

It would be unfair to say too much about the plot, except that it does roughly follow the investigation into corruption by the FBI, using a phony sheik and a con man who helped plan the operation. Bale is the dumpy looking but charismatic con artist who pulls in an ambitious woman from nowhere and begins the process of fleecing a variety of marks. When Cooper shows up as a potential mark, Bale's radar starts sending out warning signals and the rest of the story begins in earnest. Everyone in the story has delusions that motivate them, Cooper sees a career and a life elevated, Adams sees herself as a completely invented new woman, Lawrence imagines a stable love life when she is incapable of real love and Bale sees "real" as something that is ultimately achievable for him after long playing at being someone. All of this takes place in the late 1970s, an era noted for it's lack of reality. Self help gurus cater to willing customers who are self deluded.  The clothes and the music and the dance steps of the times were all designed to be costumes that anyone could wear and make themselves into something they were not. The whole operation was largely defined by the use of a fake middle eastern sheik who fit right in to the glamorous perspective that the characters have of themselves.

The best example of the perspective taking that the characters (and the makers of this film ) engage in is the characterization of the Mayor of Camden, N.J.. Jeremy Renner plays the guy like a sane version of the Joe Pesci character from "Goodfellas". He is lovable, sincere, unpredictable but not a killer and he is actually motivated only by his interest in serving the people of his town. He becomes the emotional center of the movie. The "real" romance in the story is the relationship between Bale and Renner, not Lawrence or Adams at all. We hate the idea that he becomes collateral damage in the investigation. All the steam and fireworks between Adams, Cooper, Bale and Lawrence is a sideshow to the true victimization of Renner's character. The most dramatic moment in the film centers on the sudden shift in the friendship between these two men.  Like another film with an ABSCAM reference, "Donnie Brasco", we see the betrayal of one man by another who considered him a friend as the most unethical act in the story.

The music in the film highlights the moods of the era. Sometimes the events of the day are dark, calling for an even more somber version of "White Rabbit" than the Jefferson Airplane could come up with. Romantic failings are perfectly encapsulated by "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart". Exuberance and optimism are displayed in a karaoke version of "Delilah " or Jack Jones singing live in a nightclub. Duke Ellington represents the sophistication that the two leads both identify with but seem least likely to be identified by. Sexual lust is explored with a repetitive disco tune complete with moaning lyrics and everywhere in the film, the music of Jeff Lynne and ELO are used to both recall and mock the excesses of the 1970s. "Boogie Nights", "Savages", "Donnie Brasco" all use Lynne tunes to evoke a feeling from the past. Even more than the disco tunes of the day, Lynne's music recalls those turbulent days of the late seventies, and so it is ubiquitous in this film.

The rapid cross cutting climax of the film is an echo of "Goodfellas" again and the payoff will satisfy just as the results did back in 1973 for Paul and Robert. The movie is adventurous and complex and titillating without being grotesque. Everyone does stellar work in their performances and director David O. Russel along with his co-writer Eric Singer, have crafted an entertaining fiction out of a weird historical incident. Just don't be conned by the words of Irving Rosenfeld about the little guys who got caught. The Senator who was approached and reported the contact to the FBI would be a real role model. The guys who got stung, well maybe not the worst people in the world, did in fact betray our trust in them as public servants. Let's not get carried away by a great film and reinvent history.