TOGETHER TOGETHER

 Patti Harrison, Ed Helms, Rosalind Chao

Timm Sharp     Bianca Lopez     Nora Dunn     Fred Melamed

            The title Together Together is apt in its description of two people who are “linked”, but who are and aren’t together and have to work that out—along with everyone acquainted with them.  Not many of us have thought about a situation in which a single man wants a family, engages someone willing to be a surrogate, and then must fill in the blanks of what happens during the next nine months.  Not only is it unusual in the first place, but how might it be over the long term?  Those are the questions posed by the filmmakers in a humorous, sit-com-like presentation that could easily be the basis for further discussion.  It’s predictable up to a point, but the writing and acting will keep you engaged.

            The story opens with Matt (Helms) interviewing Anna (Harrison).  We get the impression that it’s a match.com situation, but it’s not.  Matt is looking for a surrogate to birth his baby.  After they come to an agreement, we see his neurotic considerations immediately erupt (control issues coupled with health concerns) with her obviously low-key genuine responses.  This will carry on for a while, as they both adjust to their new circumstances.  He regards her solely as the mother of his child, and he wants to make sure that she provides as healthy an “environment” as possible for the developing embryo.  He is overbearing, but Anna usually accedes to him, although with a raised eyebrow at times.  

            What proceeds are edgy and humorous encounters as each one tries to exult in/hide the news from people they know.  Matt is ready to announce to the world that he is to be a father.  Anna has good reasons to keep her pregnancy quiet.  The movie does a good job in showing the vacillations each player goes through in assessing the situation.  Mostly, it’s Anna trying to be realistic, while Matt bounds through all kinds of emotions.  (A good switch on stereotypes).  To his credit, he wants to be as much involved as possible in the development of the child.  But at one point, Anna realizes they need to have more boundaries.

            Although this is a comedy, it pitches us forward to a new world, one in which couples and family have taken on different meanings.  I like its gentleness in introducing situations that may be shocking to the general public to ease the transition into something different ahead of us.

            Acting by the experienced Ed Helms is exemplary, and he is well matched by Patti Harrison, who demonstrates all kinds of subtle expressions and actions that reveal her character.  She is ultra appealing.  Nicole Beckwith as writer/director rewards us with a fresh new look at our society and its contents/discontents.  I will look forward to seeing more from her in the future.

 

Boy meets girl in a way different from what you have possibly imagined.  

 

Grade:  B                              By Donna R. Copeland

TAG

Ed Helms     Jon Hamm     Jeremy Renner     Jake Johnson     Hannibal Buress

Isla Fisher     Annabelle Wallis     Rashida Jones     Leslie Bibb

      Five guys are ultra serious about their game, having played it since 1983 when they were kids, convinced that it will keep them young.  And they do seem like little boys playing their macho games. After they grew up, they did restrict it to the month of May, but during that month any one of them—or group of them—could appear at any time to tag someone.  The one who is “it” gets to tag, and then that one becomes’ “it”, just like in the childhood game.

     This particular May is special (and the reason why changes across time), but Hoagie (Helms) rounds up three of them (having no compunction about interrupting a Wall Street Journal interview or even a therapy session), saying that Jerry (Renner) is getting married and dropping out after this year.  Callahan (Hamm), Randy (Johnson), and Sable need little convincing to hop in the car and head to Jerry’s hometown.  The stakes are soooo high because Jerry is the champion who has never been tagged.

     Jerry is the best part of the story, in that he is ingenious in anticipating every move of the conspirators, preparing for them in comedic ways, and—by the way—being a master in what looks like martial arts; he can foil every attack and then escape without being detected.  Renner actually broke a couple of bones in doing his stunts.  He is impressive to watch, and although this is not nearly the caliber of Hurt Locker—for which he is perhaps best known—the role is similar in the character’s canniness and attraction to risk.  It’s certainly different in the mischievous eye of Jerry.

     Other main characters are in roles familiar to us.  Ed Helms is the ambitious achiever who often misses the mark by just a little bit.  Jon Hamm is the suave CEO of a large, successful company.  Jake Johnson is the slightly manic talker with a talent for saying the wrong things.  Unlike these, Hannibal Buress’ character isn’t like his previous roles; here, he is thoughtful, speaks in convoluted sentences, and is more than a little paranoid—a clever addition to the cast of characters.

     Females seemed to have been “tacked on” in stereotypical roles:  the aggressive Anna (Fisher) dying to be a part of the guys’ game and being a female version of a guy.  Susan (Bibb) being the beautiful ultra feminine bride wielding her power behind the scenes.  Rebecca (Wallis), the reporter so intrigued by her subject’s life, she abandons her intended story to follow him on a tangent.  The most realistic character is Cheryl (Jones), who expertly fields two suitors from high school, maintaining her equilibrium and sense of self throughout.

     Tag reflects the backgrounds of the director (Jeff Tomsic) and writers (Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilan) being in television, although they based the story on Russell Adams’ account of the original group of men in the Wall Street Journal.  It plays like an extended sitcom with a bigger budget.  The audience I was with in the screening laughed heartily in the expected places, but I doubt this film will appeal to those interested in wanting comedy to push forward in a wave of creative expression that speaks to the contemporary frame of mind.

A light comedy about a group of men extending their childhood game into macho competitions in adulthood.

Grade:  C-                                    By Donna R. Copeland

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS: THE FIRST EPIC MOVIE

Voices of:  Jordan Peele   Kevin Hart   Thomas Middleditch   Nick Kroll   Ed Helmsl   Kristen Schaal

     The setting of this animation of absolutely no value is grade school with a mean principal, Mr. Krupp (Helms) who has it in for two student cartoonists, George (Hart) and Harold (Middleditch), pranksters who constantly thwart Krupp’s efforts.  Of course, he is shown as being just as humorless and bad as the two pranksters are “funny.”  Funny is in quotes because the humor always has a scatological reference.  Let me list the words—you’ll be amazed that they could get this many into an 84-minute production:  Underpants (of course), toilet, toilet plunger, toilet paper, Uranus, peeing, farting, pooping, and diarrhea.  There’s even a Professor Poopypants (Kroll) and a farting symphony.  Not only is the principal disparaged in this film; so are school, science, and good students. 

     The basic premise of the plot is that mean Mr. Krupp threatens to put George and Harold into separate classrooms, which they’re convinced will destroy their friendship forever.  In desperation, they snoop around his office and find some of their things, which Mr. Krupp had confiscated, like a “hypnosis ring.”  With it, they’re able to put him in a trance, which transforms him by removing his clothes and putting him into underpants and a red cape.  An unanticipated side effect is that he thinks he’s a superhero and they start calling him “Captain Underpants.”  In this role he’s seen as partly a dumb fool and partly more heroic than he is in his natural state.  Anytime he starts transforming back into the principal, the two boys simply snap their fingers and sing “Tra-la-la”, and he’s in his underpants and cape again.

     Mixed into the plot is a mad scientist (Kroll) with a German accent and a hairdo that looks like a wild Einstein who gets hired to teach science.  He is Professor Poopypants, with fantasies of revenge for being imprisoned, and one of his efforts is to wipe out all laughter in the world.  This will clearly impede George’s and Harold’s comic book business, so they team up with Captain Underpants to try to destroy Poopypants.

      The ending is predictable.

     This film will appeal to five year-olds who are still in the giggly potty humor phase, but it gets very tiresome for other ages—particularly those who are mature—and it is devoid of any helpful, positive qualities for children.

This is for those who still think potty jokes are funny.

Grade:  F                                   By Donna R. Copeland

LOVE THE COOPERS

Alan Arkin   Diane Keaton   John Goodman   Marisa Tomei   June Squibb

                                        Olivia Wilde   Amanda Seyfried   Anthony Mackie   Ed Helms   Jake Lacy

          And you probably will end up loving the Coopers in a film that many will see as a perfect holiday movie.  Although don’t expect to be immersed in warm fuzzy feelings throughout; this is a family that can throw barbs and “gotchas” with hardly a twitch of an eyebrow.  They all seem to have some gene that eventually and invariably alienates the person they’re talking to.  The script reads a bit like Little Miss Sunshine in its mixture of bittersweet, tender, and outright comedy.  The difference is that in Love the Coopers there’s a lot more bitterness in tone, especially in the beginning when everyone seems to be writhing with unhappiness—or maybe it’s just anxiety about the upcoming get-together.

         The drama mainly centers around couples—not necessarily the expected pairings.  The paterfamilias (Arkin) is alone in his old age, but has made a solid friendship with a young waitress at the local diner (Seyfried).  His daughter Charlotte (Keaton) has been married to Sam (Goodman) for 40 years, but it looks like the parting of the ways for them.  Their current issue is whether or not to announce their separation at the family celebration.  Son Hank (Helms) is going through a divorce, and he is not in good shape at all.  His other daughter Emma (Tomei) is alone not by choice, except maybe it has something to do with her not being able to form a bond with anyone and tending to feel sorry for herself in being alone.  We’re introduced to Charlotte’s and Sam’s daughter Eleanor (Wilde) in the airport where she has bumped into Joe (Lacy) who is headed out to report to duty.  Present at the Christmas celebration are also a number of grandchildren who are as quick-witted and verbal as their elders.

          Certain interchanges between characters in the drama really entertained and sparked my interest.  One was Eleanor and Joe doing a complex, often contradictory, mating dance that epitomizes budding relationships today.  Liberal meets conservative, but somehow, after many fits and starts, they find more common ground than conflict.  Another was that between Emma and the policeman (Anthony Mackie) who arrests her for shoplifting.  Being a life coach, she starts out asking him about himself, but when it ends up, he is giving her valuable advice.  They end up helping each other, and he is to be admired for insisting on appropriate boundaries. 

        The depiction of Sam’s and Charlotte’s relationship is not terribly interesting—it’s rather hackneyed—and although these are fine actors, I found myself yawning and fidgeting during their interchanges.  The best ones (Eleanor and Joe; Emma and Officer Williams) entertain us and make us think, and therein lies the best of this movie.

A soulful family Christmas with meaningful observations on mating.

Grade:  B                                                            By Donna R. Copeland

VACATION

Ed Helms     Christina Applegate     Chris Hemsworth     Leslie Mann     Chevy Chase

Vacation did not seem like a vacation to me at all.  The writers/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein must have used some kind of formula in which each joke or episode has to be done at least twice and every so many minutes there will be a joke about sex, bodily functions, or physical or verbal bumbling.  At least partly, the formula is based on numerous versions of the original National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), which makes it outdated, but even so, additional sequels are planned.  Clearly, many people enjoy this kind of humor, but to do each joke and incident twice and not come up with anything close to creative makes me tired.

           Rusty (Helms) is a pilot for a small airline, and the story begins with his older co-pilot thanking him for sticking up for him in keeping his job.  Of course, the old man immediately begins showing he is too old by repeating himself three times (funny the first time, but overkill for the second and third) and doing such a bad job piloting when Rusty is away from the cockpit, the plane starts bouncing around throwing Rusty right into the boobs of an attractive passenger (this happens at least three times).  And this is only in the first five minutes of the film.

           Briefly, Rusty overhears that his wife is tired of going to the same place for vacation year after year, so he plans a trip to a theme park (Walley World) dear to his heart without consulting his family.  He rents a foreign car, which he doesn’t know how to operate, and which sets the scene for repeated jokes of the car being out of control and Rusty’s repeated bumbling in trying to operate it.  Of course, they have horrendous accidents, but they all come out unscathed.  Ah, how funny.  They’re going on a 2,000 plus mile journey, so there will be plenty of time for shenanigans, usually with Rusty being the butt of the jokes because of his ineptness.

           Aside from simply not being funny, Vacation is obnoxious in giving a high five to a young kid mouthing off, swearing, and being cruel; glorifying/making light of over-drinking; and solving problems by physical violence.  The adolescent son who has some appreciation for cultural and educational aspirations and nonviolence is poked fun at; whereas his cheeky younger brother is held up as a model.  When his older brother finally takes him down, this is presented as heroic because he did it by (mildly) beating him up. 

There is one scene in Vacation that I did find truly funny, despite its slapstick tinges.  I won’t give anything away, but it takes place at Four Corners, where four states meet and involves officers from each state quarreling, each trying to maintain his/her control of territory. 

Save your money; just rent the original National Lampoon’s Vacation, and you will have seen a better version of this.  Go only if bodily functions, stupidity, and sex make you roll over with laughter.

Grade:  F                                           By Donna R. Copeland