Neighbors Review

Just don't use the back door---Zac Efron as a fraternity leader battling with an older man (Seth Rogen) in Neighbors
                                   Fraternity comedies have always been a hit or miss idea. There are great ones (Old School, National Lampoon's Animal House), there are unbearable ones (Sorority Boys) and then there are ones that are thrown out multiple times every few months for good reason after being bought at the local Dollar Tree and then being endured (Seniors, Fraternity Vacation.) The newest fraternity comedy, Neighbors falls into that first list. This is a comedy that is  low brow humor at its finest and knows it. It gets to the point where even if you don't find anything inherently funny, you feel obliged to start laughing because of how self consciously raunchy and crude it all is. However, this is the type of film that has a surprising amount of character development and smart moments as well. It's not all farts, piss and sex. There is real heart here.

                                    The film stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as Mac and Kelly...a seemingly happy couple who are still getting used to having a newborn baby in the house and enjoy the fact that they moved into a quiet, peaceful neighborhood. However, that all changes when a fraternity led by Teddy and Pete (Zac Efron and Dave Franco)show up and start partying all night. At first, Mac and Kelly are cool about it and Teddy and Pete seem nice enough. However, all hell breaks loose when the fraternity's partying becomes incessant and make Mac and Kelly fear having to be the old people who complain.

                                     As directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek and I hate to say...The Five Year Engagement,) this is the most visually arresting comedy in quite some time. There are an endless amount of very clever and meaningful touches that add a lot to the film. Take the fraternity parties, scenes that in a film with lesser hands at its helm, would have been really bland. The multiple color patterns and borderline epileptic lights add so much to these scenes, giving them an advantage of hilarity right off the bat by being so accurate and thus so easy to relate to. As well, take the scenes inside Mac and Kelly's house. There are a lot of nice little touches that they are in fact getting old but there are also things in the house that show their desire to stay young. This is done subtly and never screams for the audience to see it.

                                  The acting is also really good in this film, which surprises me to say. Although these are talented people at work here, this is not the type of film I go to for excellent acting. Dammit, though, I got it and I have to give credit where credit is due. Rogen is hilarious as the guy with the desire to stay hip and young who also happens to be a lot older in ways both cognitively and physically. Byrne continues to show her range by playing both a sympathetic mother and a wacky woman who's delightfully young at heart in one fell swoop. Efron and Franco both get some surprisingly dramatic scenes that are played out well but also get to be at the top of their comedy game. Also, Ike Barinholtz shows up and steals a lot of scenes as Mac's buddy, Jimmy who is in on getting revenge. Other cast members such as Craig Roberts as fraternity recruit Assjuice and comedian Jerrod Carmichael as fraternity member Garf also get some hysterical moments of their own.

                                  On top of the acting, directing and overall comedic talent in this film, the screenplay delivers incredibly well. Written by first timers Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien, this screenplay is surprisingly mature and deep for a comedy about a fraternity war. For example, Mac and Kelly's relationship is surprisingly fleshed out as the couple who love each other but seem to have trouble finding a spark anymore. As well, Teddy and Pete's relationship is well played to the point where it actually becomes really touching. I especially like how these aren't two fraternity idiots like they might be in another film. The audience feels for Teddy because he's at that point in life we have all been at where we're scared of the future and what is to become of us. Pete is a smart, promising young man who joins the fraternity and has stuck around because he genuinely cares about everyone in it. This is a screenplay that shows these two men are extremely intelligent and have a future in writing feature length films .

                                  There are many raunchy laughs in Neighbors, most of which are surprisingly cleverly executed (there is a Shakespearean-like trick Mac and Kelly pull on Teddy involving his girlfriend and in the same sequence, a clever dance sequence between Mac and Teddy.) However, there is also a lot of character development and heart to the film. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprisingly extremely touched by this film. There's no getting past the fact that this is a very touching and sweet film even with its lowbrow comedy aspects. Neighbors will appeal to all generations of people because its humor goes beyond raunchy fraternity goings-on and it explores all the age groups imaginable. If not one of the top five best films I've seen this year, it's by far the best comedy  this year.
(5 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for pervasive language, strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity and drug use throughout)

Chef Review

Cook it up---Jon Favreau as a cook who decides to work for himself and John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale as his co-workers in Chef
                                               I have always found Jon Favreau to be both a very interesting filmmaker and actor. Elf, Made and Swingers are three films I have a very special place in my heart for. Favreau has also proven to be a good action director with Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Zathura: A Space Adventure. His latest film, Chef is a comedy in which he writes, directs and stars and my personal prediction is that Favreau will be remembered for this film. This is not on par with a film that its director is remembered for like Apocalypse Now or Alien but that can be explained by the fact that Favreau had less tools to work with here. This film is definitely made with the same level of passion and delicacy that those films were made with, however and that's what makes this great.

                                                In the film, Favreau plays Carl Casper, a chef whose passion for food is unmatched and goes unappreciated by the owner of the restaurant (Dustin Hoffman) at which he works as well as a snooty food critic (Oliver Platt) with whom Carl lashes out on. Carl decides to quit the restaurant game and leave in charge Tony (Bobby Cannavale) to start a food truck. He gets a food truck from his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara)'s ex-husband (Robert Downey, JR.) Joining him is his old work buddy, Martin (John Leguizamo) and estranged son Percy (Emjay Anthony.)

                                                 The performances all around are top notch. Favreau, often known for playing the jerk, perfectly balances a man with intense passion for food who also wants to share his passion with his son. Hoffman plays the restaurant owner with a pitch perfect uptight nature. Cannavale, Vergara and Downey, JR provide some really good back up. Platt makes some fantastic moments with little screen time. The two stand outs, however, are Leguizamo and Anthony. Leguizamo, an actor who I have admired for quite some time now, knocks it out of the park with one of the most charming and realistic performances of his career (which says something when it's referring to Leguizamo.) Child actor Anthony proves to be an up and coming talent whose career is just beginning. In fact, upon watching this film I was convinced that Anthony had to have been in some other stuff since he gives such a wonderful performance. Upon doing a bit of research on the Internet Movie Database, I found that he was in the 2007 Meryl Streep-Steve Martin comedy It's Complicated, which is a film I have forgotten everything about. Anthony also appeared on the recently cancelled Greg Kinnear Fox comedy Rake. This comes as no shock since this kid obviously has a great future ahead of him.

                                                   The film is also wonderfully written and directed by Favreau. The dialogue crackles and the film's ultimate message of making sure whatever your career and/or hobby is, you should do it for you and not anyone else is a wonderful and important message. Also, the film is directed with multiple lingering shots of food being prepared and touched up. This would be an annoying technique to use except Favreau does it so well and with such apparent passion for the subject that it won't annoy audiences so much as it will give them a warm feeling.

                                                       In the dry spell of recent releases that seem to have been dug out of a dumpster, Chef is a more than welcome surprise. This is a delightful comedy that takes its time to tell a wonderful and touching story. Favreau has proven himself as an excellent person both in front of and behind the cameras in the past but this confirms him as a filmmaker and actor who is a force to be reckoned with.
(4 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for language, include some suggestive references)

The Other Woman Review

Cheater, cheater, this couldn't be any less neater---Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton as women who find they've all been lied to by the same man in The Other Woman
                                         The only two surprising moments of The Other Woman come at the very beginning and the very end. It is the same moment ,in fact. This moment is when the words "written by Melissa Stack" shows up in the beginning and closing credits. For a film that hates women so passionately that the production of this film alone should be considered a hate crime of misogyny, it is shocking that a female wrote the three main characters as such dumb bimbos. These three main characters are Carly (Cameron Diaz), Kate (Leslie Mann) and Amber (Kate Upton.)

                                         The set up: Carly has a seemingly happy life with New York businessman Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau,) who goes on constant "business trips" to various places. When Mark has to travel to Connecticut for a business trip, Carly gets upset with his constantly not being around and briefly scolds him. Carly then feels bad and goes to his "vacation home" to apologize and provide intercourse when he meets Kate. Kate is Mark's wife and they hatch a plan to get back at him. Let me pause right here before I even explain the role of Amber. Carly and Kate's plan is not the first sign of how much this film hates woman. It's not even the first immediate sign, which is shown through the first scene of Kate in which she's nagging at Mark for absolutely no reason. In this scene, it's as if screenwriter Stack and director Nick Cassavetes are telling the audience that Mark is justified in cheating on his wife. However, I digress...back to the point I was trying to make. The plot involves Carly and Kate ruining Mark's life by doing such things as putting laxatives in his drink, putting hair remover in his shampoo and giving him male growth hormones in the form of smoothies. In this way, the film portrays these women as people who are in need of checking in at a mental hospital. The fact that they don't just both leave Mark as any normal woman would do is not funny...it's just soul crushing. Moving on...Carly and Kate find out, through a series of events too convoluted to even explain, that Mark is cheating on both of them with Amber. This leads the film to the typical ditsy blonde, this time played as such an obvious gimmick that it's unbearable to watch Upton embarrass herself so much.

                                      The film sets up another problem as well. Kate's brother, Phil (Taylor Kinney) tells Kate about 20 minutes into the film to just divorce Mark and get it over with. The audience was already thinking the same thing so when her brother tells her it directly, any logic as to why any of these three women would proceed to ruin Mark's life in ways a five year old would use to get back at his mother for not buying him a new video game console is gone. This is not to say that there was any to begin with. This is just to say that up until then, it could at least be justified a minimal amount in the context of the film.

                                       This is a comedy in which there are no laughs. However, if you like your comedies depressing, deadly dull and overall horrible then The Other Woman will prove to be right up your alley. Even the final sequence of comeuppance is depressing because it makes Mark the ultimate sympathetic victim by giving him way more pain than he deserves. I can honestly say that it will be hard to find a worse film to come out in 2014 and it's very early in the year.
(0 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual references and language)

For No Good Reason Review

A man and his art---world renowned artist Ralph Steadman reunites with Johnny Depp in the documentary For No Good Reason
                                              Ralph Steadman, long time best friend of Hunter S Thompson is an incredible artist and a genuinely fascinating guy. By that first sentence, it may not come as a surprise that I was extremely excited to see the documentary For No Good Reason, in which actor Johnny Depp reunites with Steadman in order to tell this fantastic artist's story. However, this is one of the most disappointing films that I have seen in quite some time. The problem with the film is that director Charlie Paul is so wrapped up in how interesting this story is that he allows Steadman and Depp to take over the production and essentially just make a film about how awesome they are. It's not that Steadman and Depp are not fascinating, cool guys. In actuality, they seem to be. The problem with this approach is that they too often make sure that the audience knows just how aware they are of that. This is not what an ideal documentary should present. The often pivotal keys to a documentary succeeding are engaging audiences even if they aren't interested in the story and not sugar coating every second of the film. By taking the "look how great the subjects are" approach, this documentary fails at both of those.

                                               The film follows Steadman and Depp's exciting reunion since they hadn't seen each other since Thompson's memorial signing and *attempts* to explore the thoughts and reasons behind Steadman's art and why it's so personal to him. This film fails also because it doesn't let the audience in to the thinking of Steadman. In other words, this entire film is one huge intimate story about an artist and his art that only the artist has any likelihood of understanding.

                                                As well, the constant shots of Depp wearing expensive clothing and talking about how art defines the artist among other things suggests that Depp only agreed to be documented to show how fascinating he is. I can't confirm that Depp honestly just wanted to show how great he is but there are too many points in the film that point to that to not believe it.

                                                The documentations of Steadman's wacky adventures with Thompson are somewhat interesting but never rise above what has been written and talked about for decades now. In fact, Paul makes it a big reveal that Steadman was even wackier than Thompson as if that fact isn't already well established. This shows a lack of actual knowledge by the filmmaker.

                                                Despite this harsh review I have written, I can't say that For No Good Reason is that awful. There are some fascinating ideas presented throughout the film. However, it's too self congratulatory and is too often like an ideal example of documentary filmmaking 101. It's not particularly dreadful...it's just dull textbook material at hand here.
(1 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for language, some drug content and brief sexual images)