Vacation Friends (2021) ***

 

Marcus (Lil Rel Howery, from “Get Out”) and Emily (Yvonne Orji, from the show “Insecure”) are a fairly straitlaced, upwardly-mobile couple who get engaged on their vacation in Mexico. Ron (John Cena) and Kyla (Meredith Hagner) witness the proposal and offer to help these complete strangers celebrate. The couples could not be more different. Marcus and Emily, who are black, plan everything carefully, considering the consequences of everything they do. Ron and Kyla, who are white, fly by the seat of their pants, assuming everything will work out. With their laid-back attitudes and their cocaine-laced margaritas, they help Marcus and Emily relax and really enjoy their vacation. The couples wind up becoming as close as you can on a one-week vacation.

Then, it's back to the real world and the lead-up to Marcus and Emily's wedding. The affair is fraught with the usual family stresses. In this case, Emily's family disapproves of Marcus, who comes from a poorer, less refined background, even though he has worked hard and built his own construction company. Despite the tensions, the wedding is set to go off without a hitch until, you guessed it, those old vacation friends show up. Hijinks ensue!

A friend once told me he would love to see a movie where a wacky white person invades the world of a bunch of straitlaced black people and teaches them how to be cool. We've seen the flip side of that a million times, often starring someone like Eddie Murphy or Chris Tucker. “Vacation Friends” is the movie that goes there, flipping the racial script on a familiar story that isn't really about race at all.

Does it work? Yeah, actually, despite the usual ludicrous plot points that we expect in a film like this, “Vacation Friends” winds up being a fun time. That's largely on the merits of the excellent cast, especially John Cena. Anyone who is surprised that professional wrestlers make good actors has never seen professional wrestling. Cena is just the latest in a long line of wrestlers to go from acting in the ring to acting in movies, and I have to say, the guy has a lot of personality. His sheer joy at being alive invites us to drop our expectations and just laugh at the ridiculousness of this otherwise hackneyed film.

“Vacation Friends” was filmed in fits and starts during the pandemic. Given the ongoing worldwide shitshow, they just released it straight to streaming this summer, which wound up being perfect! I would have found the movie underwhelming in a cinema, and under a normal release schedule, I probably would have forgotten about it by the time it hit the streaming services. As it was, seeing the trailer online and then getting to watch it immediately in the comfort of my home? Perfection!

I'm always looking for a deeper meaning in movies where none exists, and “Vacation Friends” made me think this: Maybe a vacation shouldn't just be an escape, destined to end in one or two weeks with a return to the same rut you were in before. Maybe getting away from the house and job should be a chance to change and grow. Maybe what happens on vacation shouldn't stay on vacation!

3 stars out of 5

Our Idiot Brother (2011) ****

 

Paul Rudd plays Ned, a laid-back organic farmer with a big heart and a dog named Willie Nelson. Ned goes to jail for selling weed to a uniformed police officer (The cop did say he was having a rough week.), and his simple life falls apart. His hippie girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) won't take him back when he is released, and to add insult to injury, she insists on keeping Willie Nelson. A defeated-by-life Ned turns to his family. As the title suggests, Ned's 3 sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, and Emily Mortimer) think he's an idiot, which he is. We soon learn, though, that each of them is an idiot in her own way.

“Our Idiot Brother” is a delight in the same way that "Wanderlust" is; not a coincidence, considering that it features a couple of the same comic geniuses, namely Paul Rudd and Kathryn Hahn. The comedy is goofy and fun, and the story never tries to take more sentimental liberties than it has earned. The supporting cast includes T.J. Miller and the brilliant Steve Coogan, and no one phones it in. The movie was directed by Jesse Peretz, who wrote the screenplay with his sister, Evgenia. Peretz is not a household name, but he has directed shows like “Girls” and “High Fidelity” (the TV version), as well as the excellent movie, "Juliet, Naked."  This movie may not quite reach the comedic perfection of “Wanderlust,” but it's a ton of fun that holds up to repeat viewings.

4 stars out of 5

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) ****

 

This is another movie that snuck by me back when it came out. Truth is, it took me a while to warm up to Will Ferrell. He always seemed to stretch his jokes out a couple of beats too long. So, back in the 'oughts, I wasn't actively avoiding Will Ferrell movies, but I wasn't actively seeking them out, either. Turns out this is one I should have watched.

Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a strait-laced, regimented, single man who works for the IRS. With a rain-man-like capacity for numbers, Harold quietly counts everything, and he does everything the same way from day to day. He sounds like a character in a book, which is exactly what he is. Harold is the main character in the latest project by author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is suffering writer's block.

What interrupts Harold's quiet existence is that he starts to hear Karen's narration in his head. He, of course, thinks he is going crazy at first, and a psychiatrist agrees, but Harold correctly guesses that his problem is literary, not psychiatric. He seeks help from the most obvious source, a professor of literature (Dustin Hoffman). Meanwhile, the “plot” of Harold's life brings him a love interest in the form of Maggie Gyllenhaal, but also a shock, as his narrator casually mentions his impending death.

Over the years, I have to come to appreciate Will Ferrell's comedy, but “Stranger Than Fiction” proves that he has some serious dramatic chops. It would have been tempting to either tip too far into pathos with Harold or to ham it up and do typical Will Ferrell gags. Instead, he plays Harold with restraint and subtlety, creating a seriously great, everyman character in the midst of an existential crisis. Ferrell gets a hand up, of course, from an outstanding supporting cast. Thompson, Gyllenhaal, and Hoffman would bring class to any project, and Queen Latifah and Tony Hale (from “Arrested Development”) bring the goods as well.

Writer Zach Helm has created here a very Gogol-esque story in that Harold's circumstances seem quite absurd, but actually stand in for everyone's life. Harold discovers that his fate is not his own, and he desperately reaches out to his creator for mercy. Like Harold,we are each the hero of our own story, and every one of those stories is both a comedy and a tragedy.

4 stars out of 5

28 Days Later (2002) ****1/2

 

I think that I may not have seen this film since it came out, almost 20 years ago. It has aged remarkably well, and it remains one of the classic zombie movies.

The story starts with a group of animal-rights activists, who break into a primate research lab. They release a chimp, ignoring a scientist's warning that the animals are infected with “rage.” 28 days later, a coma patient named Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up alone in a locked hospital room. The place is deserted, and he wanders outside to find London similarly empty. Soon enough, he learns that the city is not totally abandoned. Lurking here and there are twisted, infected people full of blind, murderous rage. They cannot talk, but they can run. Jim finds a small group of survivors with whom to try to escape the city and the infected.

The biggest innovation in zombie lore since brain-eating is the advent of zombies that run fast instead of lurching along in the traditional slow-but-relentless manner. “28 Days Later” is known for its fast zombies, and I have always thought of it as the first “fast zombie” movie, but the internet says that isn't right. Apparently, 1985's “Return of the Living Dead” featured running zombies, and before that, there was an Italian movie called “Nightmare City.” There are also those who will point out that “28 Days Later” stretches the definition of zombies, in that the infected are not actually dead, and, to be fair, the word “zombie” is never used in the film. (For that matter, the word is never used in "Night of the Living Dead," either.) Nonetheless, “28 Days Later” revived the zombie movie, and its sprinting infected are among the most memorable in the genre.

The movie is not a classic simply because its zombies can run. Directed by the great Danny Boyle (“Shallow Grave” “Trainspotting”), the film is tautly crafted from beginning to end. We actually do not see all that much of the infected. Instead, the story depends on its main characters (with strong performances from Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris), and on how they and other survivors react to the epidemic. As in all the best horror films, we see that regular people can be just as monstrous as the monsters.

4.5 stars out of 5

Walk of Shame (2014) ***

 

This was a random Netflix offering that I clicked on because it stars Elizabeth Banks, and I was tired of scrolling through looking for something to watch. It turned out to be pretty entertaining!

Banks Plays Meghan Miles, a local news anchor with national aspirations. When she gets passed over for a nationwide anchor spot, it hits her hard, so she and her friends hit the bar, hard. Meghan winds up going home with the bartender. She wakes in the wee hours and sneaks out of his apartment, only to find that 1) Her car, with her purse inside, has been towed, and 2) She forgot her phone in the guy's apartment, the number of which she can't recall. She does manage to check her voice mail, discovering that the anchorwoman job is back in the mix. In high heels and a slutty dress, she has to make her way across L.A., with no money, phone, or ID. Hijinks ensue!

There's nothing outstanding about “Walk of Shame.” It's just a fun, funny movie that reminds me quite a bit of the 1985 film “After Hours.” Elizabeth Banks is charming and gorgeous, as are Gillian Jacobs and Sarah Wright, who play her friends. Actually, the supporting cast is strong all around, including Willie Garson (from “Sex & the City”) and Da'Vone McDonald (from “Forgetting Sarah Marshal”).

Underneath the comedy, there's a commentary here about how we judge and treat people based on profiling. Meghan is a solid citizen with a good job, but after-hours on the streets of L.A., in a short dress, she looks like a hooker. Without money or her fancy car, she finds herself in need of an act of kindness from a stranger, but citizens and cops alike treat her like they think a hooker deserves to be treated. Meanwhile, the reason Meghan gets another shot at the news job is that the network discovers some racy pictures of her rival. “Walk of Shame” doesn't shove it in your face, but at its core, this is a movie about slut-shaming.

If you wonder why you missed this movie the first time around, it's because it flopped at the box office, and critics hated it. Maybe I'm just swayed by Elizabeth Banks' looks, but I thought it was decently entertaining. I think some critics mistook the satire of sexism for actual sexism. Anyway, “Walk of Shame” is no “Citizen Kane,” but it's a fun time, and nothing to be ashamed of.

3 stars out of 5

Eating Raoul (1982) ****

 

With all the 80's nostalgia today, including the return of mullets and mall-bangs, high-waisted pants, and other perversions, it is easy to forget just how seedy things were in the 80's. The satirical, low-budget, '80s, art film “Eating Raul” paints its time as a period of crime and despair, and at the heart of all this vice...swinging. As the opening narration points out, “It is a known fact that prolonged exposure to just such a psychopathic environment will eventually warp even the most normal and decent among us.”

Speaking of normal and decent, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov play Paul and Mary Bland, a straight-laced couple whose sex life Mary sums up thusly: “I'm not against a little hugging and kissing once in a while.” The Blands long to open a restaurant in the country, but lack the funds for the down payment. Meanwhile, they are very uncomfortable in a city that is being taken over by swingers. One sex-crazed partier gets lost on his way to an orgy and wanders into the Blands' apartment. He tries to rape Mary, and Paul gets home just in time to stop the attack, accidentally killing the swinger. Unsure what to do, they search him, and discover several hundred dollars.

From the seeds of this discovery grows an idea: The Blands will lure swingers to their home and murder them for their cash. The plan works great until a Chicano burglar named Raoul discovers their game, and cuts himself in on the action.

Made on a budget of only $500,000, this absurdist, black comedy delights not because of its amoral, lurid themes, but because of the ultimate innocence of its main characters. Paul and Mary are prissy prudes, but they aren't especially judgmental or hostile to those around them. It is only after repeated harassment and assaults by the depraved sex addicts and criminals in their city that they stumble into the amoral world of murder for profit. Even then, they retain a level of innocence that makes them more sympathetic than the warped orgy-goers and muggers who populate their version of L.A. This same innocence is found in the best character in the movie, Doris the Dominatrix, who cracks a mean whip at parties, but at home is just a sweet, pretty, suburban mom.

If you enjoy kooky, absurd, low-budget films, then this one should definitely go on your list. It's darkly funny and ultimately satisfying. Finally, “Eating Raul” begs the question, “What kind of wine pairs well with Puerto Rican food?”

4 stars out of 5

The Hustler (1961) ***** and The Color of Money (1986) ****

 

Most authors, if they are going to write a sequel to a successful novel, try to get the sequel out pretty quickly, but not Walter Tevis. After the success of his first novel, 1959's The Hustler, Tevis waited 25 years to write The Color of Money. Both novels were quickly optioned for films, and the result is a pair of movies separated by 25 years that make great back-to-back viewing today.

“The Hustler” introduces Fast Eddie Felson, a talented pool player for whom pool is just a means to an end, and the end is money. With his partner, Charlie (Myron McCormick), he hustles around from town to town, pool hall to pool hall. They earn a hundred bucks here and there hustling local players, but there is a part of Eddie that wants more. His goal is to play high stakes pool with the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). To beat Fats, Eddie has to defeat his own demons, including a self-destructive, self-sabotaging streak.

The film is in beautiful black-and-white, featuring outstanding performances from George C. Scott as a professional gambler who grooms Eddie, from Piper Laurie as a damaged love interest, and from Newman himself. 

 

 

“The Color of Money” picks up 25 years later, and Eddie has changed his hustle, now making a living as a whiskey salesman. He no longer plays pool, but he spends a lot of time in bars, where a lot of pool gets played. He keeps his hand in the game by backing talented, younger players. This is where he meets Vincent (Tom Cruise), a cocky player who is the biggest pure talent Eddie has seen. Vincent is aces at the game, but he knows nothing about the hustle, about how to lose occasionally to keep the other players betting. Eddie takes him under his wing and teaches him the ropes, until he starts to wonder if he has created a monster.

This isn't quite on the level of “The Hustler,” but it's still an outstanding movie, with great performances from Newman and Cruise, as well as their beautiful co-star, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

If you have ever shot a game of pool in a bar, these movies are required viewing. Both films showcase the game beautifully, and the actors, particularly Gleason and Cruise, do some of their own shots. Both movies ushered in their own resurgence of the sport, with increased sales of tables and cues. They aren't just sports movies, though. These are well-told human stories about excellence and obsession, that can be enjoyed by anyone. I highly recommend watching them in close succession. Together, they make a satisfying tale of redemption spanning decades.

The Hustler - 5 stars out of 5

The Color of Money - 4 stars out of 5

Green Zone (2010) **

 

In 2003 the U.S. was at war in Afghanistan, and we were contemplating war in Iraq. We had already fought Iraq 12 years earlier, driving them out of Kuwait as a stern warning to dictator Saddam Hussein. The narrative in 2003 was that the warning hadn't worked. Saddam continued to threaten the rest of the Middle East, and most importantly, he might be developing weapons of mass destruction, WMDs. Saddam had a history of using chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, so he was considered particularly prone to using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, or even supplying them to terrorists. Despite U.N. monitors, we kept getting intelligence reports that Saddam had a secret WMD program.

And so, in 2003, we invaded, driving Saddam from power. As soon as we captured the capital, Baghdad, our intelligence agencies began the search for WMDs. It was a search that would prove fruitless. Whatever else Saddam was up to, no evidence was found that he was making chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

Why am I rehashing all that history? Because “Green Zone” is a fast-paced, fictionalized war movie about that WMD search, and it may be hard to follow if you don't have some knowledge of those circumstances. Matt Damon plays Chief Miller, head of a WMD team that keeps getting sent on dangerous missions to sites that turn out not to have any WMDs. Frustrated, he tries to discuss this with his superiors, but they tell him to keep quiet. The politicians back home promoted the war based on WMDs, and no one wants to hear that they might not exist.

Miller and his team stumble onto information about some Iraqi generals, and Miller begins to suspect that one of them may be the source of the WMD “intelligence” that led up to the war. Working with a CIA operative (Brendan Gleeson), Miller tries to track down the source one step ahead of rogue, American, political elements.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, “Green Zone” is based on the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, an account of the war by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Matt Damon is a compelling lead, and he pulls us through some pretty dense material. Like I said, you have to really pay attention to keep up with all the spy stuff. Some of the action scenes are poorly lit, and it can be hard to tell who is who. Given that the film had a $100 million budget, I assume this was intentional, meant to help the audience identify with Miller's disorientation in this confusing war.

It's actually a pretty gripping thriller, and all the confusion would be worth it if it were not for one thing: most of it never happened. If the movie were completely fictional, then there would be no problem. If it were a documentary, that would be cool, too. This mixing of fiction and fact, however, is problematic for me, because it has the potential to hijack the historical narrative. “Green Zone” isn't just a war story with the Iraq War serving as a background, like "The Hurt Locker,"  it's a fantasy about very specific events that led to America invading Iraq. Watching this film, a person could come away thinking they know things about the war that aren't true. It's a problem I have with many “based on true events” movies, where you can't see the line between fact and fiction. A good movie is so much more compelling than a dry news report that it's easy for the film's narrative to become what people believe. In the end, “Green Zone” is a decent action thriller, but not good enough to justify the creation of a false narrative about real events.

2 stars out of 5

Boogie Nights (1997) *****

 

17-year-old Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) dreams of something better than washing dishes and making extra money showing his large penis to random men. When adult-film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) offers him the chance to act in a porno, Eddie never looks back. Handsome, well-endowed, and un-self-conscious, Eddie was made for the job. Changing his name to Dirk Diggler, he rises to the top of the industry. Along the way, the once-wholesome young man gets well acquainted with the porn industry's considerable dark side.

The story draws heavily from the real-life story of porn-star John Holmes and his director, Bob Chinn. Like Holmes and Chinn, the fictional Diggler and Horner create a series of porno-detective-action movies. In “Boogie Nights,” Dirk is also featured in a documentary about his life and career that is extremely similar to the real-life documentary “Exhausted: John C. Holmes, The Real Story.” Nonetheless, “Boogie Nights” is not a biopic; it's a fictional story that happens to draw a lot of inspiration from real life.

“Boogie Nights” was not director Paul Thomas Anderson's first film, but it was the movie that made him a household name among certain households, and I think it may still be his best picture ever. Often hilarious, sometimes serious, occasionally sexy, the movie is gripping throughout its 2 ½ hour run time. The depth of acting talent is amazing, including Reynolds, Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Don Cheadle, and the list goes on. There's a saying that there are no small roles, only small actors, and in “Boogie Nights” there are no small actors. Anderson takes all this talent and weaves it into a makeshift family, whose members are completely unaware of how ridiculous they are. We get to laugh at their silliness and still view their humanity.

A distinction needs to be made between a movie ABOUT porn and a movie that IS porn. “Boogie Nights” has some nudity and sex, but it is NOT pornography, and it isn't even all that erotic. Nonetheless, Anderson had to do some careful editing to get an R rating instead of an NC-17. The film's two biggest stars, Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg, have also expressed some regrets about making “Boogie Nights,” despite the fact that it launched Wahlberg's career as a serious actor and revitalized Reynolds's fading career. I find it sad that people who are offended by the film are probably more offended by the sex scenes than by the scenes of violence or homophobia. I guess that's just the world we live in. The movie isn't for everyone, but for those who aren't bothered by the subject matter, it's an absolute classic tale about the rise of a star and the decline of an industry.

5 stars out of 5

Shiva Baby ***1/2

 

For those who aren't aware (or pretend not to be), there are websites where young women can offer their companionship to older men in a quasi-legal manner. In these Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby arrangements, there is no direct exchange of sex for money, which presumably keeps everyone on the right side of the law. Instead, the Sugar Daddy does things like make car or rent payments or pay college tuition for his young partner. It's just the same phenomenon that has been going on for eons, made wholesale by the internet.

When college student Danielle (Rachel Sennott) attends a shiva (a jewish funeral/wake) with her parents, she expects a boring time with a bunch of older relatives and neighbors, and maybe to run into her ex-girlfriend, Maya (Molly Gordon). What she doesn't expect is to run into one of her Sugar Daddies, with his wife and baby in tow. This tense situation comes to a boil over a couple of hours in a small house, as Danielle deals with family expectations, her ex, and coming to terms with her romantic/economic relationship.

“Shiva Baby” is writer/director Emma Seligman's first feature film, and it displays a genuine talent for storytelling. This is one of those movies that is basically a play, just a series of conversations taking place in a few rooms. It's fun, funny, and well-played, with a surprisingly strong cast on a budget of only $250,000.

3.5 stars out of 5