Bad Teacher Review

 In Jake Kasdan’s new film “Bad Teacher” Cameron Diaz is one nasty teacher. She does drugs, drinks, shows up for class late, writes “stupid” on her students’ papers, hurls dodge balls at them for getting wrong answers, and flat-out insults them in class.

Diaz plays the role with sassy and sexy perfection. Her character, whose name is Elizabeth Halsey, hates her job but she still puts energy into everything she does, even while she struts down the halls wearing heals and a short black dress. Halsey is similar to the character Billy Bob Thornton played in the 2003 film “Bad Santa” in which he plays a shopping mall Santa who also hates his job.

 When the movie begins, Elizabeth is planning to marry a very rich man, and I guess she takes the teaching gig on the side, but you wonder why she chose teaching because she’s clearly not cut out for it. She’s ready to call it quits after one year to settle down with her loaded fiancé but that goes to hell so she’s back in the school, forced to ‘teach.’

Though this isn’t just the Cameron Diaz show, she is helped out tremendously by an excellent supporting cast made up of an array of different actors with different styles of humor. You’ve got Phyllis Smith as the old, reserved but not afraid to show some fire teacher, who’s pretty much playing her character from the TV series “The Office.” Then there is British TV star Lucy Punch, playing the over achieving and annoying yet feisty teacher Amy Squirrel who ends up becoming Halsey’s rival. Even Justin Timberlake pulls off playing the new charming but superficial substitute teacher, that Halsey falls for, and who inspires her to get a boob job.

So in order to raise the $10,000 for the operation, she does more bad stuff. She takes over the student carwash, and she steals the answer key to the Illinois standardized test, so she can earn a bonus that’s given to the teacher with highest test scores. But of course, Squirrel won’t let that happen.

Most of this stuff makes for a fairly entertaining raunchy comedy, and the fact that it takes place in a school makes it even funnier. The script by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky was at its best when it stuck with school related jokes (like when Halsey shows nothing but school movies during the first half of the year or when they go on a field trip to a children’s historical town where they’re lectured to by a lackluster Abe Lincoln impersonator).  Even the simple non-dirty jokes were fun, like when the gym teacher/other love interest Russell (Jason Segel) gets into an argument with a fellow student over which basketball player is better: Lebron James or Michael Jordan.

However, with all the cursing and children ridiculing, the major problem with “Bad Teacher” is that it doesn’t try to get at anything deeper. I know that it’s a comedy but comedies are still capable of having a heart. Even “Bad Santa”, for all its sex jokes and profanity, did have some heart: the Thornton character ends up befriending an awkward kid. “Bad Teacher” attempts to have those student-adult connections, Halsey does help an awkward kid, and she has a couple amusing moments with a preppy girl in her class, but Kasdan doesn’t go beyond those small moments and instead sells out for cheap drug and sex jokes. We know that Halsey is bad but what else is there to her? She doesn’t even get a comeuppance for all her bad deeds.

In the end the film is mainly just a vehicle for Cameron Diaz to show off her sexy, ferocious power and attitude. It has a clever script with a few good gags but there just wasn’t much else to make the movie worthwhile.

Beautiful Boy Review

Shawn Ku’s film “Beautiful Boy” is one of those films that’s well made, well written and lends some terrific acting but won’t leave you with much more then a sentimental made-for-TV movie feeling. All in all it’s a nice subtle picture about a married couple’s struggle to get through the loss of their son.

           

The married couple is Bill (Michael Sheen) and Kate (Maria Bello), whose marriage takes a turn for the worse when they find out that their son Sam (played by droopy faced, sad eyed youngster Kyle Gallner) has committed a mass shooting at his university before taking his own life. However, their marriage already seems to be on the rocks before the devastating event.

The main reason being that they sleep in separate beds. They go about their day making small talk to each other but you get the sense that they don’t really want to be with each other because they share many awkward scenes. They devote, or at least they try to devote, most of their energy toward Sam and his needs, as any parents would do. Like in the beginning, when Kaye and Bill get in a brief argument because Kate really wants the three of them to go on a family vacation.

           

In a way “Beautiful Boy” is similar to the 2010 film “Rabbit Hole” in which Aaron Eckhart and Nichole Kidman play a married couple dealing with the loss of their son. But “Beautiful Boy” is much darker. Mainly because Kate and Bill’s son is college age and takes twenty other innocent people with him, so there is a whole other level of hatred and negativity that they receive from other people and that they inflict on themselves. Plus each scene is tinted in a dim, gritty light, leaving you with a cold, deathly feeling.

           

Ultimately, the main theme in the movie and in other movies like this is that life goes on. Even though this is a tragic event you have to pick yourself back up and keep going. So that’s what Kate and Bill do. They continue with their daily activities, going to work, cleaning the dishes, putting on a happy face when interacting with others.

But moving on with your normal life is a difficult thing to do.  The two can’t help but wonder why this happened.  Why did their perfect son do such a terrible thing? They start off trying to convince themselves that it’s not their fault but eventually cave in because of guilt and the fact that they’re the ones who raised him. And finding a tape of Sam apologizing to his parents before the shooting doesn’t exactly help them get over it. The reason why Sam does the shooting is never explained but as the movie progresses you can probably draw your own conclusions.

Unfortunately, while all this stuff is touching, by the middle the film it begins to get a bit repetitive. There are only so many times one can watch people crying and having violent outbursts. The movie simply runs out of fuel and limps to a somewhat predictable ending.

The main thing that keeps the movie going is the strong performances by Bello and Sheen. They play their roles so convincingly that their intentionally awkward scenes make you feel uncomfortable and feel their pain. And they do share a few sweet moments, like when they decide to stay in a hotel for a while and they fool around, getting drunk and eat vending machine snacks for dinner. It’s a nice change from all the grieving and mourning scenes and gives them some more personality.

Battle:LA Review

Alien movies are usually fun and entertaining up to a certain point. The good ones like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “Signs” do an excellent job of building up suspense and wonder but then at the end they make the mistake of showing the alien too much and it ruins the wonderful buildup. This is especially true in “Signs.” You feel the mystery get sucked right out of the whole thing.

However, I’ll gladly see one of those movies again before I endure Jonathan Liebersman’s “Battle: Los Angeles” a second time, which is a painfully terrible film in the dreaded alien/ action movie genre, that includes movies like “Independence Day” and “War of the Worlds.”

 The movie didn’t know the word “stop.” It needed to breathe once in a while, maybe take time to add another layer onto its paper-thin plot or develop characters, but no time for that. Not when there can be another explosion or another gunfight. The movie was just one CGI battle scene after another. In fact forget “after another” the movie was one long battle scene.

From the very beginning we are thrown into the middle of the action. The Aliens have arrived from...wherever, and now the war is on to save LA from being destroyed.  The film is like “Black Hawk Down” but with aliens.

Except  “Black Hawk Down” had more plot development than this. Plus it was based on a true story, about real people and an event that changed our military forever. It’s very hard to care about a movie where aliens invade the earth. That is unless you have main characters to care about, which “Battle: LA” doesn’t have. And it seemed like Liebersman was aware of this because he took liberty of labeling them when they first appeared, as if we wouldn’t know who they were. But even with the nametags there was still confusion.

            In an interview, Liebersman said he wanted to make a realistic alien/war movie., rawing inspiration from the beautifully photographed combat scenes in “Black Hawk” and “Saving Private Ryan.” But unfortunately that “realism” translated into shaky, sometimes blurry camera shots, where half the time you couldn’t tell what was going on. When people died you didn’t care because you didn’t really know who they were.  Liebersman should have left the nametags on the entire film.

 Now picture that queasy confusion for 116 minutes (way too long). Then throw in a boring script (written by Christopher Bertolini) filled with corny action movie lines, and a couple war movie clichés (in the midst of battle one of the soldiers loses his hearing temporarily and uses that time to stare intensely at the violence) and you should have a good idea of what the movie is like,

The film, well, more like the title is loosely inspired by a supposed enemy air attack that took place over Los Angeles in February1942, known as the Battle of Los Angeles. The event was later called a false alarm but some people considered the attackers to be alien aircrafts and thought that the government was somehow involved.

Why didn’t the producers try to go with this and make the movie a conspiracy suspense/thriller? I guess they thought the general audience would rather watch another action movie and I suppose that’s probably the case, sadly.

The Adjustment Bureau Review

Writer-director George Nolfi’s “The Adjustment Bureau” presents an intriguing concept: What if everything you did was all part of a pre-written plan and if you went off that path an unknown force would step in and make small changes or “adjustments” to get you back on that path? 

I imagine that must be a difficult job, having to spend your whole life tracking someone else’s. Chasing them through the streets to make sure they do something that will ultimately affect everything else they do.

But hey, at least you get a cool Fedora hat out of it. A hat that allows you to speed travel from one location to the next using regular doors and make small adjustments with the flick of your hand. I want to get one of those. I wonder if the Bureau is hiring.

Much like “Inception,” the concept of the film is sure to make you think about it long after you have left the theater and that’s a sign that the film has strength. And like “Inception,” “The Adjustment Bureau” is a bit of a head scratcher. It requires you to pay close attention to it the whole way through so that you can figure out how everything happens.

The film, based on a 1954 short story “The Adjustment Team” by Phillip K Dick (who also wrote “Blade Runner” and “Minority Report”) has a solid sci fi premise that brings back similar Big Brotheresque themes (someone is always watching you) and puts them in a modern looking New York city setting.

It revolves around David Norris (played by Matt Damon), a candidate for Congress who one day sees something he shouldn’t have seen. The Bureau at work. Now they’re on his case and don’t want him to fall in love with a dancer he just met named Elise (Emily Blunt) because it’s not in his plan.  But he’s not going to give up so quickly, so he decides to break the rules and be with her at all costs. Which means plenty of running scenes and cheesy remarks such as “all I have are the decisions I make.”

 Even though the agency is a major part of the film they don’t get very developed.  Nolfi needed to explore their backstory in more depth.  At one point a member of the agency named Thompson (creepily played by Terrence Stamp) tells Norris that the Bureau is here because they don’t trust humanity to make good decisions on their own, and when left on their own they do bad things like World War 2. This is an interesting bit of information but you want to know more about the Bureau. Like when did they first come about? Or where do their members come from? and more importantly, what they are exactly?

Toward the beginning of the film, another agent named Richards (Tom Slattery) says that they can’t control every single person in the world but then how do they decide who to control? And could it affect someone else’s plan?  And where did they get those awesome hats? At 105 minutes there isn’t enough time to go into any of that.

The biggest surprise of the film was how funny and screwball it was. Usually these kinds of movies are overly intense and serious, but Nolfi incorporates a lot humor into the script. Like when David enters his office building (right before he discovers the Bureau) and doesn’t notice that everyone is frozen. It’s like Nolfi acknowledges the silliness of the film and goes with it and in that regard the film is enjoyable.

But considering the fact that we don’t find out much about the mysterious agency or their awesome hats, that’s not saying much.

Win Win Review

Tom McCarthy’s “Win Win” is the kind of movie that I have been waiting for this year. It’s a movie that doesn’t need car chases or violence to convey its point. The most action it has is the occasional wrestling match. Through his script McCarthy blends the perfect amount of comedy and drama, creates natural, sometimes funny dialogue and overall an optimistic and feel good story.

None of the above would be possible with out a strong lead at the core of this bittersweet tale of bonding. Paul Giamatti gives a wonderful, heartfelt performance as Mike Flaherty, a small time attorney who’s down on his luck. He volunteers as the local high school wresting coach because he’s a kind hearted person who wants to do well by people. That’s also why he takes on the guardianship of an elderly man Leo (Burt Young).

This is when he meets with Kyle (Alex Shaffer) the grandson of Leo and whose mother is in rehab. Mike agrees to take in Kyle, who turns out to be an excellent addition to the wrestling team.

For a newcomer Shaffer gives a surprisingly convincing performance as a troubled but good spirited teen, and paired with Giamatti the two are a pleasure to watch. The circumstances give them a new motivation to keep living their mediocre lives.

However, things change when Kyle’s mom comes back into the picture, wanting to take back Kyle, her dad and the guardian money. The movie becomes more serious and conflicts between the characters ensue. 

Luckily it never becomes too depressing, thanks to a terrific supporting cast consisting of Jeffery Tambor as the wrestling team assistant coach, Bobby Cannavale as Mike’s smug friend and Amy Ryan as Mike’s tough but caring wife. “Win Win” is an example of a movie where all the key components work well together