Tagged: Hayes MacArthur
Bachelorette (2012)
Yeah, don’t invite you’re real friends to you’re wedding. They’re assholes.
A childhood friend (Rebel Wilson) is getting married, and her three jealous friends (Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan) are nothing but pissed about it. So, what better thing to do than party it up with beer, sex, and drugs? Woo-hoo!
When Bridesmaids came out last year, everybody was going around and hailing it as “The Hangover for gals”. In a way, it was sort of true since they did and said some dirty things that you wouldn’t normally see from a bunch of “ladies”, but at the heart of it all, there was a genuine and heartfelt look at the friendship that’s between two females. That made it a lot softer than people imagined so that’s why this film comes around, slaps them in the face, and gives the boys a little run for their money, and their coke as well.
Writer/director Leslye Headland based this off of her play (who the fuck would want to see a play about this?) and gives this whole premise a big deal of honesty that feels somewhat fresh. Rarely do we ever see in a film about three unlikable bitches, be so honest with itself as to why they hate everything around them and how they still don’t feel the need to change. It sort of gave me that Bad Santa vibe, that was mixed around a bit with Sex and the City, but even comparing these chicks to those prissy beotches would just be terribly wrong. Instead, these girls are the types that were the meanest, cruelest, and most evil girls you would have ever met in high school and still live in high school, and talk as if they were spreading the weekly gossip once again. These types of chicks don’t necessarily sound like the kind I want to spend an hour and 30 minutes with but somehow, Headland finds a way to make it a bit fun.
I don’t want to go far and say that I had an amazingly fun time with this flick but there is something entertaining about the big night before a wedding, going out, getting plastered, getting high, and hopefully by the end of the night, getting a little lucky. This film seems to have a bunch of fun with that aspect that we have seen done so, so many times before but it’s a bit darker and sinister here that seems to relish in the countless acts of debauchery. It makes me look forward to the night I may spend with my buds when they eventually get shipped off into the hell they call marriage, but hopefully it will be with a lot nicer people.
But as fun and entertaining as this film may be, the most surprising aspect that I found here was how little I actually laughed at everything. Watching somebody be messed up on coke and say stupid and uncomfortable things can be funny every once and awhile, but it seems like an old-trick done a thousand times to where it doesn’t even seem funny here. Even half of the mean and terrible shit these people say to each other isn’t as funny as it is just, well, whatever, they’re saying terrible and mean shit to each other so I don’t really care. Sometimes it’s funny, other times, it doesn’t matter. It’s just there and doesn’t do much for you.
Also, before I go any further I just want to point out the cheap trick that this film tried to pull by referencing Fast Times at Ridgemont High, not once, but twice in such a lame way! The first time they do it is almost like a homage to the whole infamous “Moving in Stereo” scene, and then the next one they actually talk about Damone and how much of a dick he was. First of all, it seemed cheap in the first place to have an homage but then to just actually go out there and reference the movie itself seems a little lame to begin with. Sorry if this doesn’t really seem like much of a problem to have with this flick but it came to me and I couldn’t let it go.
Back to these three characters though, because they never show us any reason to have sympathy or love for them but it doesn’t matter, because it seems like these actresses love playing that whole aspect up. Kirsten Dunst is a huge force to be reckoned with as Regan, as she shows that she can play up her bitchiness to her advantage, while also showing us a bit more about her character is in ways that we least expected; Lizzy Caplan can play the cynical bitch like nobody’s business, but there’s more to her character than meets the eye here and I think that’s where the most sympathy out of all of the characters go; and Isla Fisher has some of the best moments just being a total klutz on drugs and drunk, but now it’s sort of a cliche for her to play that type of character so it doesn’t seem like anything really new. Rebel Wilson has a nice screen presence as they’re friend who’s getting married, Becky, and does what she can with the limited screen-time she has, which is enough for me.
The problem with these characters isn’t that they are toothless and terrible to every one around them, it’s more that they are like this the whole way through and then they apparently have a change of heart by the end. All films like this one do the same-exact thing: show these characters doing mean things, showing that they never change, and then woolah, they all of a sudden love everybody by the end. The movie tries to convince us that these girls can all of a sudden end on a clean slate and act like everything they just did over the past hour, wasn’t something that mattered all that much and it comes off as fake and a bit too calculated for how these characters really are. I will say that Headland does show these chicks as being terrible at the start, and at the end, but the whole sympathetic route they take is not something that rang true.
Consensus: Bachelorette features a cast playing each of their roles perfectly and a fun atmosphere full of sex, drugs, and booze, but plays it too safe by the end with it’s sympathetic ending that seems a bit out of the norm after who and what we’ve been watching for the past hour.
5.5/10=Rental!!
The Babymakers (2012)
Men, save the juice for the women, stop beatin’ off. Problem solved.
Paul Schneider and Olivia Munn play a married couple hitting the three-year itch of whether or not to have children. The Mister is having some problems in the “lazy sperm” department, but thankfully he donated quite a bit of it years ago to help pay for the engagement ring. This means it’s only a matter of time until he goes after it, but the problem is, everything in this movie has to be stupid.
For all of you dudes out there who thought that Super Troopers and Beerfest was the end-all, be-all of comedy, then this one will be just the right token for you. And trust me, there are people out there who think so and will probably go miles and miles just to see this flick, which is a total shame because it’s probably one of the worst movies of the year and doesn’t deserved to be seen from a distance any longer than your bedroom, to your living room.
I do have to give credit to director Jay Chandrasekhar for at least trying to break-out of that Broken Lizard mold of movie-making and actually go for something different, but I can’t give too much since his effort seems terribly wasted on material that seemed like it had no life in the first place. The problem with this flick is pretty damn simple: it’s just not funny. Make no means about it, this film had me laugh once and that was at the most random part that I least expected it to get me at, but other than that, nothing else really worked. Now of course I could just end the review by saying that “this film was not funny” and be done with it all and never look back (trust me, my life wouldn’t change) but you good people out there are probably reading this, wondering just what is to be said about this highly-anticipated flick. Well, thanks for allowing me to go over the misery once again.
Lizard‘s type of humor is all about being dumb, embracing the idea of dumbness, and trying to make every situation, no matter how interesting or non-interesting it may be, dumb. That’s all there is to this flick, really. It’s just dumb for the sake of being dumb and there’s nothing else really going on here other than that and to top it all off, fart and sex jokes are also showing up as well. This film seems like it’s trying very hard to make me laugh but every single piece of comedy is totally predictable and even when it isn’t, it doesn’t matter because you could really care less about the comedy itself. It’s almost non-existent, really, and I couldn’t help but doze off a couple of well, say, 15 times. However, that wasn’t as bad compared to the other peeps I was at the screening with because believe it or not, somebody actually just walked out in the middle of it. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that when I was there. Oh wait, that’s right! I was freakin’ asleep because this movie bored me to utter death!
One of the most striking and unusual elements about this flick is how Paul Schneider actually left Parks and Recreation, to focus on his film-career instead, and by doing so, we get this piece of garbage. Great move, dude! Schneider has good comedic timing when he’s playing these restrained, awkward character types like he does everywhere he appears in but he seems to be really out of hi element here with the comedy he’s handed. He’s supposed to curse up a storm like a truck-driver, he’s supposed to do plenty of physical acts of comedy, and he’s supposed to be a likable guy that still wants to settle down with his wifey and have a couple of kiddies. Not for once did I believe this dude with anything that he does here in this film and it’s a little obvious that Schneider seems to be going for the Paul Rudd-type of a character, but fails in doing so. Schneider should just go back to Parks and if not, at least choose way better roles in way better films than this hunk of crap.
Even if I’m not quite yet sold on whatever it is everybody seems to have a problem with, Olivia Munn actually seems to really try her hardest with this material even though there isn’t much given to her in the first place, after all. Also, how many freakin’ times did this gal just have to smile in order for it to make it seem like she was one, big peach of a wife to have around!?! God, the things that annoy me! Since this is, essentially, a buddy movie, most of the film’s scenes are dedicated to Schneider’s interaction with dumb-asses, Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan. In past outings with these guys, I’ve actually came to find them very funny with their great sense of comedic-timing, always still in-play, but here, they’re just annoying and made me want to leave even more than I did in the first 15 minutes. Honestly, if this film made me want to do anything, anything at all, it was make me want to watch more Parks, Super Troopers, and actually check out more sexy-pics of Munn. Thankfully, I did all three right after this movie was over and if there is anything really positive about this movie at all, it’s just that.
Consensus: The Babymakers fails in almost every single which way imaginable: not funny as hard as it tries, features dumb characters that annoy every viewer, performances that don’t do much to elevate this already shit material, and a bunch of predictable pieces of comedy, that never worked, except for that one, rare moment. Goddamn!
1/10=Crapola With Sperm!!
