Ten Statements About....BAD TEACHER (2011)

One of the women in this picture is going to make out with
a guy in this scene.  Oddly enough, it's not the blonde.

"Sign my yearbook."

"Hold my ball sack."

1) I'll admit it--any film that starts off with the Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds super group Rockpile doing 'Teacher, Teacher' over stock footage of, you know, teachers, gets some points right off the bat.

2) I really hope that one of these days, someone will recognize how extremely talented and charismatic Jason Segal is. He's not just charismatic, he's movie-star charismatic, the kind of guy I'd watch over Seth Rogan any day. His character has all the best lines, and his very presence makes a scene better.

3) Unlike with many films I've seen lately, this movie actually gets better once it hits the halfway mark...but since we've spent the first half of the movie wandering around aimlessly watching Cameron Diaz act hung over, smoke pot and obsess over fake boobs, the audience may already have lost interest.

4) Oddly enough, I sort of appreciate that this film has something of a message about positive body image--although (and this is going to be a recurring statement with regard to this film) the final decision Diaz' Elizabeth comes to about her body could've been developed more gradually and not just seem to come out of left field because she realizes the guy she should be with likes her for who she is.

One of these actors has outstanding chemistry with Cameron
Diaz.  Oddly enough, it's not the guy she lives with...

5) Similarly, I appreciate that the script by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg deals head on with Elizabeth's inability to be a good teacher...so the ending I feared with her deciding she liked being a teacher and excelling is replaced instead with one where she takes on a more appropriate position at the school. That other ending makes a hell of a lot more sense when it comes to her character arc.

6) Justin Timberlake's Scott proves to be a very, very strange character--which wouldn't be so bad if we got more of a sense of how bizarre he really is earlier than the third act. There are things he does during that act's field trip (a scene in particular comes off as contrived, as it comes after a moment where Segal's Russell exposes Scott's peculiar social tick to Elizabeth), and after the film's nemesis gets her comeuppance which only make sense because The Script Wants It To Happen.

7) And speaking of Scott...this is a film that actually works less when it indulges in gross-out humor. I'm sorry, but dwelling on Justin Timberlake's semen-stained jeans isn't funny; it's just...weird and off-putting.

8) While the ultimate resolution of Elizabeth's story arc is 100% the right one (and the script is very courageous for refusing to give her a 'change of heart' moment while also giving us a reason to realize where her true talents lie), I think they needed to spend a little more time showing us her true talent. Yes, the interactions she has with Matthew J. Evans' Garrett shows us she does have something to bring to the table--but maybe if the script showed her inteacting with another student in a similar way, even for a second, her story arc would be stronger.

Leave your best Whitesnake joke in the comments section...

9) Should I be ashamed that I kept thinking Phyllis Smith, who plays Elizabeth's sidekick Lynn, was actually Molly Shannon (who does have a small role as Garrett's mother), and kept wondering when Shannon decided to eat the other members of her Saturday Night Live cast? And should I be more ashamed because Smith is one of a number of character actors (I'd also cite Joseph Michael , Eric Stonestreet and David Paymer) who really are at the top of their game and excel in their roles?

10) There are moments--especially during the field trip sequence--where I wondered of the scriptwriters hadn't watched Billy Madison one too many times. I mean, guys...if you're going to rip off an Adam Sandler film, why not Happy Gilmore, which still ranks as Sandler's best.

Overall...a decent comedy that, quite frankly, is damaged by its very, very slow start...a start so slow that it unbalances the rest of the film and makes its last half hour or so a mad rush to the finish line. Still, good performances manage to make this maaaaaybe Netflix worthy.

Back to the Atlas, who still seem to show an inability to run its show without a hitch--this was the third time that the entirety of the Firstlook was without video (but on the plus side, that meant I didn't have to see the 'special sneak peek' of The Smurfs, so....). The trailers contained some comedies, only one of which (What's Your Number?) I might see solely because I can see the natural charm and charisma of Anna Farris and Chris Evans elevating the otherwise stinky story, and the latest in Jason Statham's attempts to blandify every hardcore action film I remember from my childhood, The Killer Elite...except there's something about the look of the film, and the unlikely presence of Robert deNiro apparently kicking ass with the best of them, might make me see it.

Ten Statements About....DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (2011)

Brandon Routh looks closely for a
film franchise worthy of his talent.

1) Brandon Routh deserves a better career. He is certainly a talented actor with a smooth, laid back charisma. He is definitely someone who could carry an action franchise. It saddens that this, the second attempt to give him said franchise, is in its ways as much a failure as Superman Returns.
 

2) Director Kevin Munroe was very smart in casting Sam Huntington as his sidekick Marcus. Since Huntington played Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns, there's already a familiarity between the two actors that sells you on the relationship between the two characters. And Huntington's got a good sense of timing that almost makes his generally comedic character work. However....

3) The biggest problem with this film? It goes far too much for the comedy and not enough for the horror. The imbalance makes of the film's tone blunts the serious aspects and makes the grossness of the comedy (He's a zombie, so he eats worms! Get it? Get it?) more funny weird than funny ha-ha. Compare the way the humor is handled here to the previous film based on Sclavi's comics, Cemetery Man, and you realize how off it is.

"WOOF!  I Mean, Grrrrrrr...I's a werewolf..."

4) Another problem? We never get the sense that these monsters are different from us. The script by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer humanizes these undead so much that there's no reason for most of them to be undead. The few supernatural characters who seem otherworldly--like Peter Stormare's Gabriel--do so not because of hte script, but because of the actor's choices in portraying them. Take away Taye Diggs' pointy teeth or Kurt Angle's hairpiece...and their characters are virtually unchanged.

5) Maybe it's because Anita Briem is Icelandic and can't hide her accent worth a damn, but we never buy her as what she's supposed to be--which makes the big twist in the third act not work at all.

6) I give Donnelly and Oppenheimer credit for trying to create a real world in this film, a sense of community amongst the various undead factions in New Orleans. Of course, every time they go for the easy gag (the literal 'body shop'; the zombie support group), it undermines all the mythology they're trying to build.

7) It's time to move away from the bumpy-forehead vampire look. Every time one of these 'TrueBloods' tries to attack Briem's Elizabeth, I keep expecting Buffy and the Scoobies to show up.

8) The whole 'Heart of Belial' thing is so submerged during the first two acts that when it takes over as the main macguffin, it shatters the forward momentum. That this is obviously brought in so that there's a big-ass special effects sequence in Act Three only sours the film all the more. If the film didn't lose faith on the idea of a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque gang war, or on the concept of a conspiracy by monster hunters to get the supernatural factions to destroy each other, it would have been a stronger film. And speaking of that big-ass special effects sequence...

"I'm Brandon Routh...and THIS--THIS IS MY BOOM STICK!"

9) The big monster just doesn't work--partially because the design is so derivative of other designs, and partially because the sequence just keeps adding new crap on (Okay, you don't like the big scary face? How about we add spikes all over? No? How about wing. Wings not working for you? How about we make those wings, like, eighty feet long?).

10) The script does play fair in planting the key to destroying the big monster--but that information is buried in a scene that seems more about an old vampire urging Dylan to get laid, and as such, the resolution of plot comes off as confusing. It doesn't help that our hero does pretty much nothing to hasten this conclusion, and just watches as it all falls apart.

Overall...a mediocre bid at a franchise that wastes Brandon Routh's genuine charm as a movie star. Although, I suspect watching this may give people a better appreciation of Constantine, which is not good, but isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is.

I saw this as the AMC Loew's 19th Street East...and I was surprised that we were only given three trailers--another showing of the original Green Lantern iteration, one for Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, which looks intriguing not the least because it's got Guillermo del Toro's fingers on it, and one for Skateland, which I swore I skipped when it was called Adventureland.

Ten Statements About....YOUR HIGHNESS (2011)

One of these things is not like the other....

1) There is never, ever anything wrong with Zooey Deschanel flouncing around in renfair garb. Never.

2) One of the many flaws with this film lies in the popular belief that humor has to be gross and low. The reason this film is going to disappear into the pop culture aether in a few years while The Princess Bride continues to be remembered is because the former is so filled with severed cocks, masturbation and uses of the word 'fuck' that I wondered if David Mamet wrote the script, whereas the later's humor is so universal everyone can relate to it.

3) It's obvious that this is Danny McBride's vanity production--in addition to starring in it, McBride wrote the script. While he has been funny as a supporting player, he doesn't have the charisma to carry a major release like this.

4) That being said, I give McBride props for actually creating a logical character arc for his Thadeous. Yes, Thadeous is motivated for a long time by selfish desires, he does slowly learn to do things selflessly--and McBride has the confidence in the resolution of Thadeus' arc that he does not give him the center stage when it comes to the final act's resolution.

In this scene, Franco shows McBride and Deschanel where
he got the stuff he was on during the Oscars....

5) There's this weird imbalance in the acting. While you never get the sense that Thadeus is nothing but McBride playing dress-up, the other four main characters--particularly James Franco's Fabious--work hard to give his character veracity and depth. I actually got the sense that Fabious, Natalie Portman's Isabella and Rasmus Hardiker's Courtney had lives before and after the period of time covered by the movie.

6) Some of the other actors--particularly Justin Theroux as the evil wizard Leezer and Toby Jones as Fabius' squire Julie--try real, real hard to breathe life into their characters. But it's so hard to take them seriously when the modern day coarseness comes through. Hell, while Theroux has some of the best lines in the film, his character comes apart everytime he starts burbling on about 'The Fuckening.'

7) And then there are the gags that leave you scratching your head. A number of them are so strange that you have to wonder why no one spoke up and said, 'Having a character be revealed as having no penis is just weird, not funny.'

Be honest...this is the only shot most of you care about from
this film....

8) Natalie Portman, to her credit, really gets into this film (Some of the few bright spots rest in seeing her, Franco, Deschanel and others actively enjoying themselves). It strikes me that maybe her prickly, icy beauty could be very, very effective if she decided to pursue a career as an action heroine.

9) This is unapologetically a comedy...and yet, there is a level of gore that really sort of kills many of the gags. This isn't like an earlier film McBride was in, Tropic Thunder, where the humor was meant to be black and allowed for the sometimes extreme gore. Having all this viscera and (CGI-rific) blood flying around in between jokes about dicks and farts disrupts the film's already iffy flow.

10) Admittedly, McBride sometimes allows for the jokes to be set up with a great deal of subtlety--the final sting at the end of the film in particular is very nicely constructed. But for every one of those moments, there's scenes where McBride and Franco are put into weird homosexual-esque situations, or where a weird Yoda-type insists on getting a handjob as payment for his sage advice that stops the story cold.

In short...a very mediocre movie that was justifiably hidden in the dead zone between Christmas and the summer. I found it very telling that throughout the film's running time, I didn't hear a single laugh.

No, really. Not a one.

Went back to the Atlas for this, more because I was way too tired from my previous night of carousing to go into the city. I continue to be dismayed by the sheer drop in service from the Regal chain, as we got no visual during the pre-show Firstlook (which wouldn't bother me usually if it wasn't for the fact that there was a promo for the next season of Doctor Who between the segments). There were a lot fewer trailers this time...and sadly, the only one I remember clearly was the one for Scream 4, and that only because I got to see The Beautiful One intone 'There's something really scary about a guy with a knife who just...snaps,' which seems to be one of the punchlines for the trailer.