Vacation (2015)

Saying that I was disappointed in Vacation is like saying I was disappointed in the Taco Bell I got at 2 AM on a Saturday. I wasn't expecting much. Even with lowered expectations and a beer before the movie (so, yes, I was in a good mood), I felt that Vacation was still a giant waste of time.

I guess I should start with the cast. I like Ed Helms a lot, but I don't think he was right for the role. He's too sincere when it would have been better to have someone a little darker or with more of a sarcastic edge. It also doesn't help that he looks nothing like an older Anthony Michael Hall. Yes, he's playing the same Rusty Griswold from the original Vacation. In fact, I don't know why they just didn't get Hall to play the role. I'm pretty sure he's available. Leslie Mann was better cast as the older Audrey, but she's only in one part of the movie. I didn't mind Chris Hemsworth's attempt at comedy, but I can't say the same for his attempt at a Texan accent. Lastly, it's a shame they didn't give Christina Applegate more to do as she seemed like the only person that was really into it.

Oh, there is a cameo by Chevy Chase, but it only served to show how little he has left in the tank. He as shaky and unfunny. Beverly D'Angelo still looked good though, but she has like two lines of dialog. Their entire scene felt added on just for nostalgia's sake.

The other big problem with Vacation is that it's just not that funny. There's a few chuckles, but nothing made me laugh out loud. The funniest part of the movie was the opening credits, which was just a montage of awkward, random family vacation photos. This isn't even something out of the script or story. I think most people will get the biggest kick out of the younger brother constantly bullying the older brother, but that's a one-note gag that plays out by about the halfway mark. Most of the other humor comes out of crude bodily humor, or awkward behavior or dialog.

Vacation features two of my biggest pet peeves in comedy, the guy that gets walked all over for most of the film (basically the same role Helms played in The Hangover), and jokes hinging around something that's impossible. Like, there's a scene where they hit a button on their fake car (which already has enough design flaws that there's no way it could possibly exist) that causes all of the windows to explode. Even the characters remark as to why that would happen, but just because you point out that fact in the movie doesn't make it funny. It's still stupid. They try to redo the famous Christie Brinkley scene where the punchline is that she's brutally killed in a head-on collision. Can someone explain to me how that's funny on any level?

There's really nothing more I can say about Vacation. It's definitely not worth seeing in the theater, and I'm having a hard time saying it's worth seeing at all. Just stick to the original and Christmas Vacation and forget that they even attempted another sequel.

1 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Bling Ring (2013)

Kids you don't have any reason to like steal from a bunch of celebrities you don't have any reason to care about.

That might be one of the biggest problems with The Bling Ring.  When I see a bunch of bored, entitled Southern California kids steal from someone like Paris Hilton, I find I have a hard time caring about any of it.  Not that Paris Hilton deserves to be stolen from, but if these kids really broke into her house that often and took that much stuff from her without her noticing, it's hard to argue that any of it had much value to her, or that she doesn't have "too much".

Let's not get into that though.  The Bling Ring is Sofia Coppola's latest film based on a series of real Hollywood buglaries that occurred a few years ago.  Despite watching a lot of movies, I don't follow celebrities all that much or invest myself all that much into their personal lives.  Even then, I was pretty aware of the events depicted in The Bling Ring.  I saw plenty of news reports, and even casual watchers of E!'s The Soup can likely recall clips shown about then.

In fact, I was kind of surprised they bothered to change the names of the characters for the movie.  Maybe they had to do this for legal reasons, but even I knew Pretty Wild's Alexis Neiers and Tess Taylor were two of the people involved in "The Ring".  Pretty Wild chronicled Neiers' arrest and trial during its single season run.  It's not like this knowledge is a secret.  Hell, taking a page from the actual Bling Ring, you can do a quick Google search and find out just about anything you want to know about them if you so desired.

After transferring to a new school, Marc (Israel Broussard) meets Rebecca (Katie Chang), and they become friends.  Looking for something to do, they break into an acquaintance's home while they are away on vacation.  Since their first attempt was successful, they set their sights higher and look for celebrities that they know are out of town making films or doing promotions.  They are able to Google their current whereabouts and addresses, then simply go there, hang out and just take what they want.  It's actually kind of interesting to see how rich celebrities must have felt secure to not really bother with alarm systems or even locking their doors.  Maybe they figured that living in a gated community or an affluent area was security enough.  Lesson learned for them, I guess.  Again, I'm not saying these people deserved it.  Even if you don't like some of these celebs, they are still the victims.

Marc and Rebecca brag to friends, more of them get involved, and that's pretty much it.  It starts out interesting enough and it does manage to be entertaining, but it's pretty one dimensional.  You really don't learn anything about these people or have any reason to like or sympathise with them.  It's basically a series of montages of kids breaking into homes, and then spending the money at clubs and doing drugs.  If there was more going on than that, then it might have been compelling.  There's a message about these kids not having any conscience and being so obsessed with celebrity that they'll do anything to be a part of it, but it's just on the surface.  The Bling Ring isn't much deeper than the actual people involved.

This is naturally going to get a lot of comparisons to Spring Breakers, and it makes sense.  Both feature a group of sociopaths doing bad things.  I definitely was not a fan of Spring Breakers, and while I don't think The Bling Ring is a great movie, or even a particularly good one, I enjoyed The Bling Ring for several reasons over the former.  Rant mode on:

• It's based off real events that I'm actually aware of.  This isn't someone's Spring Break fantasy.
• I'll take the acting of Emma Watson and cast over Vanessa Hudgens and co. any day.
• The Bling Ring didn't make me feel like an old pervert while watching it.  There's no nudity or half naked girls prancing around.
• It's message isn't as heavy handed.  I get what these movies are trying to say, but thing is, I'm almost 40.  I've seen and been around a good amount of stuff.  I've experienced some of these things first hand and dealt with the consequences of them.  There's not much movies like The Bling Ring or Spring Breakers say about the world that I haven't already seen in other films for years or had my own thoughts regarding.
• There's actually consequences to the actions in The Bling Ring.  These people were sentenced to jail time.  Some have even reformed since then.  Spring Breakers ends with two bikini-clad women shooting up a house and killing people with automatic weapons, without reloading or taking an single hit, and then driving away in a Lamborghini without any care in the world.  At least the kids in The Bling Ring  aren't murderers.
• I didn't think The Bling Ring was nearly as pretentious.  Spring Breakers had more style and a better aesthetic about it, but I was annoyed as shit by its repetitive and non-linear storytelling.  The Bling Ring has style too, but Spring Breakers was more memorable in that regard.

As far as those performances go, there are few good ones.  I though Israel Broussard was nicely nuanced in his role as Marc.  There are times where he does come across as a decent enough kid that's gets caught up in these events in order to fit in.  He admits to being in love with Katie Chang's Rebecca and I liked her as well.  Leslie Mann as a clueless mother that lives her life by The Secret was another bright spot.  Of the cast I enjoyed Emma Watson the most. She really nailed the sound and affected speech pattern of a vapid, Southern California teen.  You forget that she's English.  My only complaint about her is that she's not in the film more.  With her being arguably the biggest name in the film, it seems odd they didn't give her more screen time.

One thing I was a little curious about was the sexual orientation of Marc.  I don't recall if it was implied that he was gay, but if not then I find it really weird that he never tried getting on any of these girls.  He's around them while they are drinking heavily and doing coke.  Plus, they are always changing around him.  Seems like he should have been rolling in it, unless he didn't swing that way.  He did seem to know a little too much about fashion though, so I guess that's my answer.  There's nothing wrong with Marc, but if it were me I would have been taking every opportunity to get somewhere with any of these girls.

Another disappointment for me was that I thought The Bling Ring was going to be more of a dark comedy.  The trailer was very funny, but it's another case of all the funny scenes being spoiled by the trailer.  In the actual film, those scenes fell kind of flat.

The Bling Ring is a fairly entertaining film about a series of real life crimes, but it ultimately doesn't dig deep enough behind them or the people involved to have all that much to say.  Aside from a few good performances, there's not much memorable about it.  It would make for a good rental along with Spring Breakers (and I know I'm not the only person to suggest this) and then you can make your own comparisons between the two.  You may even come away from watching both with an even worse opinion regarding our declining values and celebrity-obsessed culture.  Sounds like a party, right?

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

This is 40 (2012) - Movie Review

Was the working title of this film "This is Misery"?

I say that because if there was ever a movie where I felt the message they were trying to tell me that marriage and having kids is a miserable experience, it would be This is 40.  Billed as the "sort-of sequel to Knocked Up", we catch up with Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) a few years after the events of Knocked Up.  I thought it was odd that there was no cameo from either Katherine Heigl (you do see a picture of her on the wall though) or Seth Rogen, which seemed like a missed opportunity. Granted Heigl is probably on Judd Apatow's shit list after what she said about Knocked Up, but Rogen is still in Apatow's camp.  Also, as the movie centers around the relationship with their families and their 40th birthdays, it seems odd that known family members would have no mention or involvement in the film.

One of the biggest issues with This is 40 is that there's really no plot at all.  It's the Seinfeld of movies in that it's a movie about nothing.  You're just watching a short snapshot of these people dealing with their issues.  The other odd part was that the movie takes place over the course of a single week.  I only know this because the movie begins with Debbie's birthday, and they say Pete's birthday is in the same week (the film ends with Pete's birthday party).  Despite the short time frame of the film, I felt like I watched several months of their lives.  At one point you see their living room and notice there's a Christmas tree and wonder how much time has passed.  Were we in December the whole time?

Even with no plot and only a week elapses, I felt like there was too much going on and too many side characters.  How many issues do these people have?  You're watching Pete deal with the lack of success of his independent record label, and how that's causing financial strain he hasn't shared with Debbie.  Debbie owns small boutique store that seemed to have huge sales numbers, and they are alerted to a missing twelve thousand dollars, but didn't have any urgency over finding where it went.  This leads to a side plot involving an unnecessary Megan Fox and Charlyne Yi. Their oldest daughter Sadie (Maude Apatow) for some reason has a fascination with Lost even though that's been off the air for a few years, and never stops yelling.  There's a side plot involving the mother of a boy (Melissa McCarthy) after the boy and Sadie have a Facebook fight.  Debbie is dealing with the resentment she feels towards her absent father (John Lithgow), and Pete's father (Albert Brooks) has been guilting them into lending him money constantly.

In typical Judd Apatow fashion, the film is way too long and really needed to be cut down.  I don't understand why a movie with no plot needed to be over two hours.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a long movie, and I normally love Judd Apatow's style, but this is the first of his films where I really felt the meandering length of the film.  It just kind of ends without any resolution to any of their issues, and it doesn't cover enough time in their lives to show any growth of the characters.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad.  There are many hilarious moments, but the movie was arranged where all the laughs came in blocks or montages of funny scenes.  When there aren't laughs though, everyone is fighting and yelling and nobody seems happy.  Katherine Heigl had a complaint about Knocked Up where she said, "It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys,"  After watching This is 40, I have to say I understand what she was saying.  I couldn't help but think that Debbie was always bitching and shrill, where Pete was always made to look like a nice guy.  I find it odd that Judd Apatow would make a movie about marriage and family life that paints it in such a negative light and cast his own wife and children in the movie.  I hope he's not making a commentary about his own personal life.

For the most part the performances are all fine, even if I didn't necessarily love the characters. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are good as the leads and do the type of work you normally expect out of them.  I actually got more out of a lot of the supporting characters, even though there were too many of them.  I thought Albert Brooks was funny every time he was on screen.  Melissa McCarthy had the funniest moment of the film (stay for her scene during the credits).  Jason Segel has a good sequence involving Chris O'Dowd and Megan Fox, but again, many of these characters just seemed unnecessary or underdeveloped.

This is 40 is an uneven and overlong film.  It's a mixed bag of funny or insightful scenes, but then times that make you never want to get married or have kids.  If you're a Judd Apatow fan, I think it's worth a watch at some point, but save it for rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

ParaNorman (2012) - Movie Review

On the surface, Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) seems like a pretty normal kid.  However, he has odd ability: he can see and communicate with the dead.  This has made him an outcast. He's bullied at school, and even his own family gives him a hard time and wishes he would be 'normal'. His only friend, Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), is just as much of an outsider as he is.

Norman continues to have visions that something terrible is coming, and when the small town you live in has a witch theme and history of witch executions, you know that can't be good.  He's warned by his uncle (John Goodman) that he must perform a ritual by sundown or the dead will rise.  Norman is joined by his sister, Courtney (Anna Kendrick), Neil's older brother, Mitch (Casey Affleck), and Alvin the bully (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to stop the threat before it's too late.

The first thing you'll notice about this movie is its unique design. Everything from the houses, the cars, and even the character's faces, are a little off-center and asymmetrical.  It's simply a gorgeous movie, and the best stop-motion animation I can recall. I was initially concerned about seeing it as sometimes my eyes have difficulty focusing when the animation stutters, and it didn't help that the theater's projector was way too dim.  Replace your projector bulbs!  My initial concerns about it went away quickly once my eyes adjusted though.  One of the things I really loved about the use of this type of animation was that it gave the film a tangible quality.  The characters and sets had more weight and depth compared to how a CG-animated movie sometimes feels.

I was also surprised at how funny the movie was.  There's lots of referential humor to other horror films and sight gags that made me laugh.  Some of the humor felt directed at older audiences though.  While this is a movie that all ages can enjoy, some parts might be a little too scary for really young kids.  I saw a lot of kids sitting in their parents laps during some tense moments.  It's not bloody and there aren't any jump scares, but use your own discretion as to whether you think your kids can handle it.  Most of the kids in the audience seem to have adapted to the movie about halfway through.

The voice acting by the cast is great.  Outside of a voice or two, one of the things I love about an animated film is when they use recognizable actors, but you still can't quite place who the voice belongs to.  The voices all fit the characters well and you aren't distracted by them.

Sometimes I don't notice the score of a film, but the music of the movie was another aspect of ParaNorman that really stood out to me.  It fit the movie perfectly.  Plus, any movie that manages to squeeze in Dizzee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp", scores points with me.

It has a very powerful ending. At it's heart there are some poignant messages about acceptance, bullying and being an outcast. The movie doesn't hit you over the head with its message though. The basic story is one that's been told a ton of times, where the oddball/misfit/outcast is the one that has the power to save us, but with ParaNorman it felt fresh and it builds to a satisfying payoff. You have to credit writer and co-director Chris Butler with his work here.

I liked ParaNorman a lot more than I was expecting to. It's a funny and great looking film that everyone can enjoy. The voice acting is top notch and the film gives you a nice message that's important, especially for kids.  This is worth a matinee.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars