The Lego Movie - 2014

"The Lego Movie" - 2014
Dir. by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller - 1 hr. 40 min.

Official Main Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

First off, I'm still mad that my girlfriend went to see this without me, and that I had to wait until it was on TV to finally see it.  Unaccompanied men over thirty years old can't really go see "children's movies" in a theatre without an escort, lest you get peppered with stares and dirty looks that make baseless criminal accusations.  I LIKE CARTOONS, OKAY?  You worry about your children, and I'll worry about the quality of the animation, and hopefully our two worlds will never meet.  Secondly, the idea of a full movie made out of Legos is something that appeals to me very much, ever since Lego put out a kit that included software and a stop-motion camera so that you could make your own home Lego movies with a minimum of fuss.  Granted, this movie is far more visually sophisticated than anything anyone could have made with their set, but it's just very polished version of the things floating around my head.

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a generic, forgettable construction worker, who strives to be likable and to be part of a team (there's a whole song about this).  When he goes missing because he's found the Piece of Resistance, and ushered into an underground society of master builders by Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Emmet discovers that he's forgettable (via testimony from his co-workers), not a master builder, and generally not good at much.  But he still has to lead the fight against President Business (Will Ferrell), who wants to use the kragle to freeze everyone in place forever.

First, off, the Lego stuff is completely awesome.  For anyone who ever blew afternoon after afternoon building spaceships and cars and weird-ass buildings waiting for their parents to get home from work, delving into a completely Lego world is going to stir up some pleasant memories.  Secondly, the animation is pleasantly blocky and clunky; the whole point of Legos is to build something and let your imagination fill in the rest.  So we get weird lazer blasts that look like chunks of pipe cleaners, and weird dances, and when things blow up, they break down into Lego blocks.  It's all perfect.

Beyond all of that, "The Lego Movie" is peppy, fun, well-paced, and fun for everyone.  One of my all-time favorite video games is "Micro Machines," which takes the basic car-race game and makes it awesome by changing the scale of the course.  "The Lego Movie" has a similar appeal; it's very easy to get lost into the world of these toys, and the barely-detailed faces of the characters make the voice-work resonate more.  And there are tons of characters!  Everyone from Shaquille O'Neal (who was part of a NBA All-Stars Lego set at some point) to Han Solo to the whole pantheon of DC superheroes (which officially makes "The Lego Movie" the greatest Green Lantern movie of all-time), which leads me to Batman (voiced by Will Arnett).  I would watch a nearly endless stream of films that featured this version of Batman; he's like an overgrown emo tween.  And this is also the only funny version of Batman since Adam West that actually works!

So yeah, I totally enjoyed "The Lego Movie."  Maybe not as much as if I'd gotten to see it in a theatre, with a crowd, so that I could have joined in in all the "Everything Is Awesome" jokes for the last few months, but I still enjoyed it.  I generally don't enjoy it when animated films bounce back and forth between animated scenes and live-action ones, and I did think that was a bit of a detriment to "The Lego Movie."  Blah blah father/son bonding blah blah blah.  Whatevs.  I wanted another fifteen minutes in the Lego world, Will Ferrell can puppy dog eye his son some other time.  That's what deleted scenes (or even an inevitable extended version of the film) are for.  But the rest of the movie was pretty awesome.

3.5 / 5 - TV (HD)

This is the End - 2013

"This is the End" - 2013
Dir. by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg - 1 hr. 47 min.

Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

"This is the End" is the movie to see if you want to see Seth Rogen freaking out and saying "oh fuck" over and over again.  This is your jam!  Or, if you'd like to see any number of the Class of 2004 from Hollywood all in one film.  To be sure, there is more to "This is the End" than just that, but those are probably the only two guaranteed things are sure to guarantee your enjoyment.  It's better to look at this film as being a Christmas present that the stars of this film have sent to their fan club members, a sort of thank-you for having been along for the ride.

Jay (Baruchel - this is a movie where everyone is playing "themselves," or at least playing off their image) arrives at the airport in Los Angeles, where he's picked up by his friend, Seth (Rogen).  They indulge in some vintage Rogen relaxation techniques before Seth gets Jay to begrudgingly agree to go to a Big Hollywood Party at James Franco's place.  Seth fits in, but Jay has a chip on his shoulder, which becomes a problem when all Hell breaks loose!!!  I mean that literally; the rapture has come, the pious ascend to Heaven in a beam of blue light, and the Earth opens up to swallow the sinners.  When things calm down a bit, five men are left standing in James Franco's house: James, Jay, Seth, Craig (Robinson), and Jonah (Hill).  After the required freak-out session, they all go to sleep, and wake up to find that Danny (McBride) has shown up, and has cooked all of their supplies into a giant breakfast feast.  Let the squabbling commence!!!

There are two big "ifs" as to whether you're likely to enjoy "This is the End," and that's even before we get to the content of it.  Firstly, at least part of the humor of the film relies upon some knowledge of exactly who the actors are, in the first place.  If you don't care who Michael Cera is, for instance, you might still laugh at his actions, but you're not really getting the joke.  If you're someone who's been watching this loose cabal of actors since "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," you'll get a lot more out of it.  Secondly, there's the issue of whether or not you're willing to engage with something as utterly meta as a bunch of actors trying to play off of their public personae.  Insider Hollywood movies aren't anything new, but it's a genre that requires a lot of useless knowledge, and might be off-putting to some.  So be warned.

But if you're into all of that, there's some good times to be had.  A lot of the movie feels ad-libbed, and as such, there are a lot of great throwaway lines.  Also, considering the cast, it's inevitable that they would reference earlier work (and not just jokes about "Your Highness"), and this film contains a "sequel" to one of this cast's earlier films that had me rolling in laughter.  That was easily the highlight of the film, along with a shouting match between Danny McBride and James Franco.  And, this film is the land of one million cameos, which is fun in it's own right.  On the other hand, if you don't enjoy a film with admittedly funny actors bickering with one other, or aren't as amused by the idea of having an anatomically-correct fifty-foot tall demon as Seth Rogen seemed to be during his talk show appearance for this film, some of the material is going to fall flat.

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't laugh all the way through "This is the End," or that there weren't at least a couple of parts that absolutely killed me.  But "This is the End" simply isn't as sharp as any member of the cast's best work.  There are moments, there are "wouldn't it be funny to see ___" bits all over the place (shout out to Channing Tatum for the king of those), and the cast combined with the premise was enough to make me want to see "This is the End" in the first place, but it didn't prove to be enough to result in a great (or even very good) film.  So, if you're a fan of this batch of actors, enjoy this the way you'd enjoy a b-sides album by one of your favorite bands.  You know there's a reason these ideas weren't included before, but there are still a few nuggets of gold to be found if you search a little bit.

2 / 5 - TV (HD)

The Watch - 2012

"The Watch" - 2012
Dir. by Akiva Schaffer - 1 hr. 42 min.

Official Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

What a disappointment.  When I initially saw the trailer for "The Watch," I was sure it was a movie that I completely wanted to see.  But it came and went from the theatres so quickly that I didn't get the chance to catch it, at which point I started to eagerly await watching it when it hit home video.  Finally, it hit pay-TV, and I recorded it for later viewing.  But I wish I'd put it off a little longer, now that I'm done watching it.

Evan (Ben Stiller) is a go-getter, the kind of guy who starts clubs and gets things done, but doesn't have many friends.  But he does manage a Costco (and it's identified as such), and when one of his security guards is murdered on-duty, Evan decides to create a neighborhood watch to try and keep this sort of thing from happening again (since the police are incompetent and disinterested).  Evan's flyering yields three co-conspirators; Bob (Vince Vaughn), a beleaguered father of a teenage daughter, Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade),  a proper gent with an enormous afro, and Franklin (Jonah Hill), who failed the police exam, possibly due to him being a little insane.  Immediately, a power struggle breaks out between Evan's micromanaging style and Bob's attempts to inject awesomeness into everything.  But when they accidentally kill an alien and stumble upon an invasion scheme, the band of unlikely heroes decides to try to save Earth.

If my intro makes it sound like "The Watch" is a terrible movie, that's not entirely accurate.  I was disappointed, largely because this film had the tools at it's disposal to be really funny, instead of just having it's moments.  Besides, when you put Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn together, there's going to be an instant comparison to "Dodgeball," which was kind of awesome and completely re-watchable.  But the mix was all off here, and there are problems with the writing that could have been fixed, and resulted in a better movie.  What problems, you may ask?  Well, we're going to have to explicitly compare "The Watch" to "Dodgeball" to show what I mean.

Stiller's character in "Dodgeball" was the villain, and was driven to the point of absurdity, which was shown in embarrassing detail.  That was part of the fun, that Stiller's character was a buffoonish jackass, but still could have plausibly ended up victorious.  Stiller's Evan is also shown to be a driven character, but instead of that being his Achille's Heel, his shameful secret (SPOILER!!!1!) is that he's sterile.  Now, are there any scenes in "The Watch" that are comedic in nature on this topic?  Not really.  Stiller hangs his head a lot, which isn't funny, and when he finally reveals this to his wife, Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt), they make up and promise to be a team, which also isn't funny.  It's also not dramatic, because up until that point, his wife's only role in the story is to figuratively scream "put a baby in me" at Evan, so for the most part, nobody cares about her as a character.  And as such, no one cares (I don't mean that sarcastically, but if you don't build a character up, an audience won't feel anything for that character when things happen to them) when they kiss and make up.  And Abby's joining the neighborhood watch doesn't really have any story-line implications, either.  The result of all of this is that you have a secondary character that isn't established well enough, and the interactions between Abby and Evan don't have any resonance, either.  So you have the motivations of the main character in your movie falling flat.

This problem extends to the other characters, as well.  What made Vince Vaughn's character work in "Dodgeball" was his bizarre ambivalence to everything around him, and almost deliberate resistance to success of any kind.  Seemingly, what he wanted more than anything was to be left alone and to do nothing.  Here, it's not hard to say what his character wants the most: the safety of his teenage daughter.  Bob is seeking solace from his rocky relationship in the neighborhood watch, but it ends up confusing his character's path.  Either he wants his daughter's safety and well-being, or he wants to hang out with the guys.  But Bob choosing one over the other doesn't result in meaningful strife.  Yes, there is an argument between Bob and Evan over it, but it's not explosive enough to really put the end of the film in question.  By that point, they've already discovered the aliens, and you know the group is going to have to reconcile to square off with them.  The entire point of the big argument scene in these kinds of film is to make a viewer wonder how the characters are going to be able to cooperate with each other long enough to achieve what needs to be achieved.  It's also a convenient break so that the main character can patch things up with his romantic interest, and thus attack the goal in question with renewed vigor.  But, since the patching-up part fell flat, and the argument scene didn't accomplish the goal of putting the accomplishment of the end task in question, "The Watch" limps into the third act.

A lot of the truly funny material here made it's way into the trailer, but nearly all of the good stuff that's not in the trailer is in the third act, which is why it's a shame that "The Watch" has lost much of it's momentum by that point.  When you've got a shoot-out against aliens at a Costco, and the only way to defeat the aliens is by shooting them in the dick (really), there's an opportunity to do some funny material.  And there is some funny material.  If only the first hour-plus of the film had set things up better, the showdown would have been tremendous.  As it stands, I was thankful that the last half-hour was better than the rest of the film, but I still had to break up "The Watch" into two viewing sessions to get through it.  That's not a strong compliment, especially for a movie that I was pretty psyched about seeing.  All of the actors do a good job with what they have to work with, but it's a set of strong walls built on a shaky foundation.  "The Watch" isn't a home-run or a strike-out, it's like a bloop single.  But nobody paid to watch Babe Ruth hit bloop singles, and in this case, wasting a good cast and decent concept may as well have been like hitting into a double-play.

2 / 5 - TV

Django Unchained - 2012

"Django Unchained" - 2012
Dir. by Quentin Tarantino - 2 hrs. 45 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

This was certainly worth the wait.  And "Django Unchained" is another on the list of films from 2012 that both played broadly and were excellent movies.  Yeah, I'm biased, I always look forward to any new Quentin Tarantino project, but this film stacks up against the rest of his work, save for "Pulp Fiction."  So let's get down to why this was a really good movie!

About two years before the American Civil War (as a subtitle helpfully explains), Django (Jamie Foxx) and a handful of other slaves are being marched through Texas to wherever they're going to end up.  A German dentist, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), has sought out the slave traders directing this march in order to purchase Django.  It turns out that Dr. Schultz isn't a dentist (at least not currently one), but instead is a bounty hunter, and Django can recognize the Brittle Brothers (who all have sizable bounties on their heads), and Django eventually ends up being drawn into the bounty hunting business.  But Django has a larger goal; he has to track down his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was deliberately sold to another plantation out of spite for Django.  Dr. Schultz agrees to help (there is a famous German myth about a Broomhilda), and they eventually set out for Mississippi and Candieland (I promise it makes sense in the context of the movie).

There is a broad compliment to be paid to Tarantino and "Django Unchained:" this did not feel like a nearly-three hour film.  There might not be anything worse than a long, mediocre film, and "Django" was definitely not mediocre.  One of Tarantino's signature strengths is the ability to build tension within a scene, usually for way longer than you'd figure possible.  He also usually writes characters who have both a plan and a flair for the dramatic, which means that as soon as you figure out who's going to be butting heads with whom, you know that it's going to play out spectacularly.  And also, something that you'd figure is going to be the main thrust of the film (in this instance, it would have been the first act's arc of Dr. Schultz and Django tracking the Brittle brothers) ends up resolving unexpectedly and quickly, and then the characters are on to bigger and better things.  In practice, this allows for Tarantino to construct a film of mini-movies; "Django" probably could have played out over the course of three films if he had wanted to do things in that manner.

Also, as is standard for a Tarantino movie, he gets exactly what he needs from each of the primary actors.  Waltz is fantastic, playing a calm, clever man who is always one step ahead of the situation (until he gets in a little over his head with Calvin Candie).  Jamie Foxx is also fantastic, hitting the right notes all along.  Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays the biggest villain of the film in Calvin Candie, proprietor of mega-plantation Candieland, makes the intellectual duel between himself and Dr. Schultz interesting.  Candie isn't supposed to be as smart as Dr. Schultz, but he's got the home-field advantage and is vastly more sadistic.  Honestly, the worst thing you could say about any of the actors in this cast is that they did what they were supposed to, and let the stars shine.  Don Johnson and Walton Goggins also have memorable, brief roles.

As per usual, whenever there is a new Tarantino movie, there is inevitable hand-wringing about the racial language used.  And let's be very, very clear, Tarantino uses every possible slur in that vein imaginable.  It's not my place to defend or prosecute here.  Instead, I propose two things.  First, it's clear that Quentin Tarantino is not interested in making palatable "entertainment."  The vast majority of movies produced aim to go down easy, with no aftertaste.  That is not what "Django Unchained" is.  To put it into professional wrestling terms, the scourge of the industry is a "cool heel."  That means a bad guy who gets to do all the things that make someone a bad guy, but does it in such a way that he ends up getting cheered for his bad behavior.  It completely screws up the good guy/bad guy dynamic that morality tales usually are.  But it's way easier to do that than to get an audience that's pretty onto all of the tricks to still boo you.  It's a testament to a given wrestler's talent and skill to be able to genuinely get under the skin of an audience that is in on the secret.  Movies are kind of the same way.  It's way, way easier to just fill up a story with a bunch of stylish baddies than it is to build up just one villain that an audience will genuinely hate, which is necessary if you expect anyone to care about your hero and his story.

The Calvin Candie character manages to pull that off.  You're not supposed to like him, even as he displays his hospitality and seems stuck on 100% charm for much of the story.  If he uses abominable language, treats people poorly (which would be a vast understatement), and tries to pretend he's smarter than he actually is, and then you (as an audience member) react negatively to him, that's the entire point.  Calvin Candie is the bad guy, and when he punishes a runaway slave by letting a pack of dogs rip him apart, you're not supposed to chuckle.  Candie is a bad man, and not in the complimentary manner that term is often used.  You are not supposed to like him.  You might be able to argue that some of the things presented in this movie are overkill, but that's a matter of personal taste.  It's enough, in the context of the film, that Dr. Schultz is playing along with Candie in order to achieve a larger goal, which requires a circuitous approach to the matter at hand.  It's clear that there is some judgment being made by the characters in the story that all of this is distasteful and not okay.

My second point is that if you're going to set a story, any story, in any given setting, then white-washing that setting is worse than lying.  If you want to be edgy and write a story set in a strip-club or something, all of the girls are not going to spend the entire film with their nipples covered.  One of my primary concerns with "Lincoln" was the soft-pedaling of tobacco.  "Django Unchained" is set in the south, before the American Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.  Tarantino is okay with writing this film with frank language, language that would have been used without a second thought in that place and that time.  If you, as a viewer are not okay with that, then don't go see the movie.  Understand that this is going to be an uncomfortable three hours, and it's better for you to stay at home than to ask filmmakers to bowdlerize material so that it's a lumpy, tasteless bowl of oatmeal for you to consume with no pesky flavors or aftertaste to worry about.

"Django Unchained" goes by fast, has memorable and spectacular scenes, and concludes excellently.  I fully understand if this isn't your cup of tea, but you've got to understand that Quentin Tarantino has been making movies for a couple of decades now, and probably doesn't give a flying fuck if you like what he does or not. That's one of the things that makes his films so interesting; he's making movies for himself, primarily.  If he's got a taste for genre trash, he's also got the ability to turn it into something that no one else can.  "Django" is more evidence for that case.

4.5 / 5 - Theatre

I Heart Huckabees - 2004

"I Heart Huckabees" - 2004
Dir. by David O. Russell - 1 hr. 47 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

"I Heart Huckabees" is a very weird movie.  And that's valuable to know going in - either you have a tolerance for deliberate weirdness or you don't.  If you don't, this film is probably going to be the sort of thing you might want to pass on.  But if you don't mind talky films that take a while to coalesce into something resembling a plot, this is a lot of fun.

Albert (Jason Schwartzman) is the leader of Open Spaces, an activist group that aims to preserve undeveloped land in urban areas.  He goes about that by doing things like planting trees in the middle of mall parking lots and accompanying everything he does with a poem.  Due to a series of coincidences, Albert comes across the services of Vivian (Lily Tomlin) and Bernard (Dustin Hoffman), existential detectives, whom he enlists.  Soon, his work rival, Brad (Jude Law), hires them too.  Another client, firefighter Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), gets paired with Albert, and they soon decide to follow the teachings of Caterine Vauban (Issabelle Huppert), who believes in cruelty and meaninglessness.  There's a lot more that goes on, but honestly, the plot isn't the point in "I Heart Huckabees."

So what's the point?  Part of the point is the sharp, yet elliptical writing.  Part of it is absolutely awesome casting (in that the actors involved are not only perfect for the role, but their personas add to the characters). Jason Schwartzman does what only he can do: be conflicted and confused, sympathetic, but also kind of unlikable at the same time.  Jude Law is a dick, in the way that a confident, good-looking man in a suit can be a dick.  Mark Wahlberg does confused and on the verge of violence better than anyone during ordinary circumstances.  Here, he's the chaos that a bunch of philosophers can't quite explain or contain.  And if this film didn't exist, someone would have to create it so that Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman could do exactly what it is that they do here.  I'm not sure you could pick two better people to embody just what it is that a pair of married "existential detectives" are.

As for the story, it's more or less about pairs, and the relationships between them.  Hoffman and Tomlin exist as a unit, a crazy-ass, impenetrable unit that baffles everyone.  Albert, at different times in the film, is paired off with either his rival, his manipulative guru, or with Tommy, exploring "truth" together.  Ultimately, the real question is what do these relationships mean; it's as if all of the people populating this film have either never understood or have entirely forgotten what relationships mean and are for.  This film is less dry than that might sound; anyone who explores philosophy will come to understand the humor inherent in trying to understand what things really mean.  And this film downright hilarious at times, confusing at times, very awkward at times, but it's never a chore to watch.

"I Heart Huckabees" is a bizarre, weird, unique film.  If you were a fan of 90's indie films, that's a good reference point to start from here.  You can enjoy the round-about way the plot turns in on itself (and it does make sense, if you're paying attention), or you can just enjoy a bunch of committed weirdos trying to find some answers and happiness.  As Mark Wahlberg's character keeps saying, it's important to ask these questions.  You might not find any answers (especially the answers you might hope for), but one's curiosity about what's happening around them is important.

3.5 / 5 - TV

21 Jump Street - 2012

"21 Jump Street" - 2012
Dir. by Phil Lord and Chris Miller - 1 hr. 49 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Going in, I was simply hoping that this would be as good as "Starsky & Hutch."  Of all the TV show remakes, that represents the baseline of entertainment I hope to get out of these kinds of films.  Often times, the only option for resurrecting these franchises is to turn the largely-forgotten situations into a comedy.  There's no good excuse for digging up these corpses (which is the point of Nick Offerman's scene here, playing a police captain), but that doesn't mean that the result is legally required to suck.  Thankfully, "21 Jump Street" understands that, and thankfully does not suck.

First disclaimer: I never watched the original TV show, therefore I do not have any nostalgia for it (nor any awareness of what may or may not have been borrowed for this updated version).  I am aware that Johnny Depp was in the TV show with something called a "Richard Grieco," but that's as far as my knowledge goes.  So let's get into the movie!

The set-up is simple: the two main characters are introduced in high school, where Jenko (Channing Tatum) is a popular jock, and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) is Slim-Shady wannabe, considerably less popular.  Post-graduation, they both end up in Police Academy, and strike up a friendship based on mutual need: Jenko is athletically-inclined but not very smart, and Schmidt is smart, yet not very athletic.  They manage to get each other through, and end up partners as bicycle cops.  When that goes sour, they are enrolled in an undercover program due to their young appearances, and they are placed into a high school where a new drug has popped up.  Goal: infiltrate, and figure out who the supplier is.  Once in the school, they find their roles have reversed since they were students: Jenko's bone-headedness makes him an outcast, and Schmidt's nerdy impulses manage to ingratiate him into the popular crowd.

There are a couple of things that make this movie work pretty well, aside from being pretty funny (if "The Sitter" was possibly the worst thing that Jonah Hill has done, this movie rests in the top half of his work).  First, the role-reversal sub-plot is a solid one.  By the end of the second act, Jenko gets a good taste of what high school must've been like for Schmidt, and Schmidt's sudden, unexpected popularity feeds his need for approval, to the point where he's willing to throw Jenko under the bus at the slightest provocation.  It's a pretty honest look at that comedic dynamic: everything exists solely to feed popularity, and it feels a lot better than alienation.  The other aspect that I really enjoyed was a sort of meta-awareness of the film: it's not oblivious to the absurdity of humping the corpse of an old TV show (the aforementioned Nick Offerman scene goes a long way in that service), nor the absurdity of the standard action tropes (Ice Cube plays Captain Dickson, an Angry Black Man, putting his famous scowl to great use, and there's great running gag about explosions, as well), but it doesn't let that self-awareness get in the way of a good comedy.

And that's the key point, this is a good comedy.  Moreso if you're a Jonah Hill fan - there's a feast of his usual motor-mouthing and dick jokes, which I don't have any problem with.  Channing Tatum is a lot of fun to watch as his character struggles with his movie-star good looks not getting the results that you'd expect.  But he does learn a healthy respect for science, so not all is lost.  The two characters work well off of one another, and this movie doesn't take much seriously other than zipping along and being funny.  Those are pretty important things to focus on, and I was pleasantly surprised that "21 Jump Street" ended up being a lot of fun.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre

The Sitter - 2011

"The Sitter" - 2011
Dir. by David Gordon Green - 1 hr. 21 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Well, I've definitely seen worse movies.  If that sounds like faint praise for "The Sitter," then I have nailed the tone that I had set out to nail.  There are indeed a million movies less funny than "The Sitter," but there are also many, many films that are better as well.

If I had to explain it, I'd say that "The Sitter" is like the neutered cousin of "Cyrus."  It's the same set-up, sort of.  Jonah Hill plays Noah Griffith, a guy who has failed his way out of school and back onto his single mother's couch.  His mother (Jessica Hecht) even has a slight resemblance to Marissa Tomei, who played his mom in "Cyrus."  But instead of getting territorial about his mom, Noah gets pressured into babysitting a trio of kids so that his mom can try to hit it off with a doctor.  Everyone seems to know that this is a bad idea from the beginning, but they all let this happen anyways.  Despite the fact that the kids are comprised of a celebutante-wannabe (Landry Bender), a pyromaniac foster child (Kevin Hernandez) and a pilled-up bundle of nerves (Max Records), things probably would go smoothly if everyone just stays home and minds their own business.  Of course, that doesn't happen.  Noah's "girlfriend" (I put that in quotes, and it's apparent why from the opening scene of the movie) lures him out to buy her cocaine with the promise of finally having sex with him.  So Noah hits the town, kids in tow.

The main thing that handicaps this film is that while you're supposed to dread the idea of Noah babysitting your children, he's fairly likable.  Over the course of the one night, he basically fixes each of the children's behavioral problems.  This presents a problem: the usual story in this situation is that the kids eventually break through the toughie's facade.  But at no point did I feel like they went far enough to make Noah truly awful enough to make his eventual redemption worthwhile.  And he's not portrayed as being any kind of threat to the children, they all almost immediately get the better of him.  Even when Noah is doing genuinely bad things (like robbing a bat mizvah, for instance), the negative aspect of it is tampered by him re-connecting with a girl that he went to school with.  When he does bad things, it ends up well for him, which might make viewers jealous or envious, but it doesn't do much to establish that he's supposed to be the problem that needs solving over the course of the movie.

I just feel like this movie was afraid to take things to a place with genuine menace, which is bizarre, considering it pulled an R-rating anyways.  "The Sitter" earned that rating, but if you're already in that territory, why not really go for the jugular?  The one thing that was both awesome and oddly disturbing was Noah's initial meeting with Karl (Sam Rockwell), the coke dealer.  Between the roller-skating door-man and the bizarre collection of body-builders seemingly filling every corner of the building, it's a truly disturbing scene (and not for any specific reason - the whole thing is just bizarre, and really good comedy as well).  That's the one scene in the film that suggests that "The Sitter" could have been a much funnier movie.

I have a hard time getting mad about a film like this.  It's a missed opportunity, to be sure, but there are a few laughs here, and it really wasn't aiming to a very high bar to begin with.  It would have been better for everyone involved if it had been better, but what "The Sitter" is is a mildly-funny comedy.  If you like watching Jonah Hill, you'll get through it quickly and largely painlessly, and also with the awareness that he's done better work.  If you don't like Hill, what are you doing reading a review of one of his movies?  It's not like there's much else to draw people in, here.

2 / 5 - Theatre

Moneyball - 2011

"Moneyball" - 2011
Dir. by Bennett Miller - 2 hrs. 13 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I had to go back and check (because I wouldn't want to lie about something like this), but "Moneyball" is easily the best film I've seen from this year.  And it's not even very close, at this point.  There are a couple of ways to encapsulate this movie that would make it sounds either dull (how advanced statistical analysis gained a foothold in professional baseball) or a paint-by-numbers genre exercise (an under-achieving former major-leaguer assembles a rag-tag batch of misfit players to make a run at a championship), but that doesn't accurately portray what's here.

This film is based on a book of the same name, authored by Michael Lewis, which focuses on the 2002 Oakland A's season.  Lest you think this is just a baseball movie, most of the film occurs off-field and behind the scenes.  In professional sports (all of them, not just baseball), there's a sort of class warfare between the big-market teams (think the Yankees or the Lakers) who can afford to pay whatever they feel like paying for talent, and small-market teams, who have to make do with significantly lower amounts of revenue (based partly on the discrepancy in revenues for things like television deals and merchandise sales).  As a result, teams like the Yankees are constant contenders, able to avoid the pitfalls of "rebuilding" (a dirty word to any team's fans) by simply buying top talent at top dollar.

In 2001, the A's overachieved, making the playoffs, and paid for it by having their top free agents wooed away by big market teams in the off-season.  General Manager Billy Beane (the aforementioned under-achieving former pro, played by Brad Pitt) is faced with the task of having to replace top-tier talent, but not having the resources to do so.  The A's owner will not budge on the payroll issue, and that's that.  During a routine bargaining session with another team, Beane has a deal thwarted by a whisper.  It turns out that the whisperer is Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who is an economics graduate from Yale.  Brand (a pseudonym - it's based on a real person who didn't want to be involved in the movie), in a secretive meeting with Beane in a parking garage, explains his view that many baseball players are valued incorrectly due to things like star power or physical presence, and mired in an ineffective means of scouting.  Instead, using a system pioneered by Bill James called Sabermetrics (a form of advanced statistical analysis, abhorred by pretty much all of baseball, which is hammered home in the form of snippets of sports talk radio dialogue that runs as a form of commentary through the film), it's possible to do the impossible: to assemble a team of "misfit toys," undervalued (for whatever reason, including walking funny) and lowly paid players that could do certain things well enough to compete with the big market teams.

Having explained all of that, it's not entirely what "Moneyball" is about.  In the largest sense, this is a film about what it's like to convince a tradition-bound business to try to approach things from a new angle.  Most are completely unwilling to even listen, and virtually everyone is hostile (from the scouts that Beane is usurping, to the constant chatter of talk radio dj's who can't figure out what Beane is trying to do, even down to the A's manager Art Howe (played here by Philip Seymour Hoffman)).  Perhaps the hostility is best summed up by a scene between Howe and Beane, where Howe refuses to play a couple of the players that Beane has designed the players around.  Howe tells Beane that he has to run the team in a manner that he can explain when he's interviewing for a new job next season.  Even if that meant failure, Howe was not willing to stick his neck out to try Beane's method.

I can't think of one thing about this movie that didn't click for me.  Pitt and Jonah Hill work together very, very well, their sort of uneasy friendship leads to a number of laugh-out-loud scenes.  The character of Billy Beane is humanized deeply - the failed marriage, his love for his daughter is clear, and the piece-by-piece explanation of how his own playing career feels like weights being added to his burden as the movie plays out.  It reaches a climax during the "Streak" portion of the film: even Beane's successes can feel like failures to him. The direction was also fantastic - there are a number of baseball scenes where the sound drops out into absolute silence, a familiar feeling for those who are in absolute focus.  And for baseball fans, it helps that they got the details right: actual jerseys, real stadiums, etc.  Everything just works.

Obviously, something important happened during the season, otherwise no one would have bothered writing a book (or made a movie about it), but it's something that's best experienced on your own ride.  This is a tight movie, and the run-time flew by.  It just works, every little bit.  It's got the right amount of levity, it's dramatic, it's got enough sports for the guys and enough relationship stuff (and Brad Pitt) for the ladies.  There's not much more to say than that.  "Moneyball" is a damned fine film.

4.5 / 5 - Theatre

Grandma's Boy - 2006

"Grandma's Boy" - 2006
Dir. by Nicholaus Goossen - 1 hr. 34 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Is this a good movie?  Well, that's a complicated question.  A movie can be good without being good, in the sense that a candy bar is sometimes exactly what you need to eat.  Would a carrot be better for you?  Perhaps, but you may not always be in the mood to eat a carrot.  "Grandma's Boy" is that kind of good - it's a candy bar when you need it.

One thing I appreciated very much about "Grandma's Boy" was that, in spite of numerous opportunities to turn itself into a paint-by-numbers "save the house" movie, it never really turns in that direction.  Early on, Alex (Allan Covert) is evicted from his house because his roomie has been spending both of their rent money on exotic massages, but instead of rallying to save that situation, it leads to a couple of dicey guest stints (a memorable one involving Nick Swardson's character, a co-worker who still lives at home and sleeps in a race-car bed).  Eventually, Alex lands with his grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two similarly-aged roommates (Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight).

With that settled, the story settles into two-pronged approach - a love story involving a consultant called in to help keep production deadlines (Alex works at a video game publisher), and the professional story about keeping those deadlines.  Since this is a light comedy, you probably already know where these storylines are going to end up, but since this is a light comedy, it's all about the ride.  And the ride is pretty damned funny.  Two of the main actors (Allan Covert and Peter Dante) show up in pretty much everything that Adam Sandler has ever done, and are clearly used to working with one another.  In smaller roles, Nick Swardson and Jonah Hill get the chance to chip in asides and one-liners, which works pretty well for them.  Kevin Nealon plays a suitably odd, new-agey boss, and the sort of villain (J.P, played by Joel David Moore) is so bizarre and socially awkward that it feels like someone like that could really exist.

Probably the best thing I can say is that, while this isn't a great movie, it's infinitely re-watchable.  I've seen this one around half a dozen times, and I still laugh all the way through it.  "Grandma's Boy" doesn't set huge goals, but it does stay entertaining all the way through, and if it's on TV, I'm definitely not changing the channel.

3 / 5 - DVD

Cyrus - 2010

"Cyrus" - 2010
Dir. by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass - 1 hr. 31 min.

Official Trailer

"Cyrus" is a study in discomfort and awkwardness.  It's also a comedy, but I think that's largely due to the skill of the cast.  In lesser hands, the material here would be nothing more than watching a trainwreck, and it would likely be more uncomfortable for the viewing audience than anyone else.

John C. Reilly's character, John (I promise all the actors aren't just using their real first names as character names here), finds himself in a hole - he was on a skid before getting divorced seven years ago, and his ex-wife's news that she's remarrying digs him in a little deeper.  She (played by Catherine Keener) insists that he clean himself up and go to a party with her and her fiance.  Reluctantly, he does, and strikes out embarrassingly over and over again.  In a delightfully perverse twist on the "meet cute" trope, John meets Molly (Marisa Tomei), and they take it from there.

The real friction of the movie is provided by the titular character, played by Jonah Hill.  He's in his early twenties, living at home, and is a little too close to his mother.  And he absolutely is not interested in having another man in his mother's life, which is bad news for John and Molly's relationship.  As I mentioned earlier, part of the fun of this movie is having a batch of really good actors who are let loose to do what they do best. John C. Reilly kinds of bumbles a bit, but with good motives.  Marisa Tomei plays not-exactly-dumb, but someone who wears their emotions on her sleeve, and isn't that clued in to the games that people play.  Catherine Keener is Catherine Keener, which is to say awesome, and the fact that she's playing Reilly's ex-wife here leads one to believe that he probably really was a lot better at one point, and that he could probably bounce out of his downward spiral in the right circumstances.

Probably the biggest surprise was that Jonah Hill can act a bit.  It's not that he's not really funny (because he is), but usually he just plays a misguided, motormouth asshole in a batch of them (although usually the best of them).  Here, given the rein to veer far into creepy, manipulative territory, and given enough basis for it to make sense, Hill nails the role.  The third-act panic and desperation of Cyrus isn't something I expected to work as well as it did.

You're as likely to leave this movie thinking that it was totally messed up as thinking that it was pretty funny.  It hit notes of both for me.  It works both in a creepy way and in a funny way, which is a bit of an accomplishment.

4 / 5 - DVD