Horrible Bosses 2

Year 7, Day 248 - 9/5/15 - Movie #2,140

BEFORE: Day 2 of a Jason Bateman 3-part chain, and this just makes sense for Labor Day Weekend, right?  Part of being an American worker is having a boss - see, if I just relax and let movies line up with the calendar, that's what they tend to do.  

THE PLOT:  Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Horrible Bosses" (Movie #1,332)

AFTER: Even though the subject matter was very different, this follows the same sort of pattern as "Let's Be Cops", they're similar in tone in that there's one character who tries to be the voice of reason, and another (OK, two others here) who keep digging the hole deeper and making their situation worse.   And it's just as tedious to hear them constantly bicker about what the next move should be, while they keep messing up like the idiots that they are.

I don't get it - are we supposed to see ourselves in this type of character?  "Hey, these guys keep fucking everything up, and that's exactly what I always do!"  Or, assuming that audience members are relatively intelligent people, are we supposed to just be glad we're smarter than them, and our situations are much better off?  It's in the same genre as "The Hangover" - as events spiral out of control, are we supposed to take delight in them, or feel sorry for the people involved?  It's difficult to tell.  

Our three screw-up heroes have moved on from their previous bad bosses, but after a "Shark Tank"-like business deal goes bad, they concoct a revenge plot (or, rather, one is forced on them) and this leads to all of the secondary characters from the first film getting shoehorned into this one, either because they need the help of those characters, or in the case of Aniston's dentist character, she still wants to sexually pursue her ex-employee.  It seems he's the only man to ever turn her down, and this only makes her want him more.  They mention many times that she's a sex addict, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch.

I think the worst offense may be abandoning the premise from the first film, which was that these guys were smart, hard-working and deserving of a better situation, but the only things that were holding them back were the troubles caused by their employers.  Free from those bosses, that theory is proven wrong in the sequel, as these guys make not just mistakes, but DUMB mistakes.  They're easily duped by one adversary after another, so they're not even in control of their destinies when they're running their own heist plan, and they may even have been manipulated into that.  

The funniest parts were probably the opening sequence, appearing on a morning talk show, and the bloopers during the closing credits.  Much of the rest in-between was a real chore to get through.

Also starring Jason Sudeikis (last heard in "Epic"), Charlie Day (last heard in "The Lego Movie"), Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "We're the Millers"), Chris Pine (last seen in "Into the Woods"), Christoph Waltz (also last heard in "Epic"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "The Great White Hype"), Kevin Spacey (last seen in "The Life of David Gale"), Jonathan Banks (last seen in "The Cheap Detective"), Lindsay Sloane, with cameos from Keegan-Michael Key (last seen in "Let's Be Cops"), Rob Huebel, 

RATING: 3 out of 10 untraceable cell phones

This Is Where I Leave You

Year 7, Day 247 - 9/4/15 - Movie #2,139

BEFORE: I've been playing around with possible orders for movies for next February, and I think I've finally hit on something, so far I've got 18 films about love and romance, and if I can track down just three more specific films, I can create a chain of 21 films, 19 of which will link together - that won't be bad for my 8th consecutive Valentine's chain.  Of course, last year I nailed it, 28 films that all linked together, but I've still got time to improve next year's chain.  I also worked backwards to create a January lead-in chain that's now 13 films long, that's only half of a month, but I can keep working on it.  A new film is still being added every day, so I can treat those chains as frameworks, and see if each new film will fit somewhere inside.  A lot can happen in November and December to change the plans - I don't even have to maintain the actor linking if I don't want to, but I'll probably want to if I can.

But damn, given the title, it's really too bad I couldn't end my blog, or at least end a year, with this one.  I ended last year with "This Is the End", after all.  Now, what will be my last film - maybe "The Long Goodbye"?  

Connie Britton carries over from "The To Do List".

THE PLOT: When their father passes away, four grown siblings are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses and exes.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "August: Osage County" (Movie #1,903)

AFTER: Like "August: Osage County", this film uses a family funeral as a starting point, and over the course of the following few days, family members are brought together, confront each other, and all of their personal matters become topics of discussion.  And similarly, everyone in the family is screwed up in some way.  One brother just found his wife was sleeping with his boss, another brother is trying to get his wife pregnant but is constantly jealous of his own brother who is his wife's ex-boyfriend, a third brother is dating his older therapist, and the sister is in a loveless marriage and pines for her ex-boyfriend.  And then there's Mom...

If I'd known this was going to be so relationship-driven, I might have saved it for February.  Too late now, it's now the first film of a 3-movie Jason Bateman series.  I guess the message here is that no relationship is perfect, everyone always wants what they don't have, and then when they get it, they discover that they don't want it so much any more.  Even though the "It" is different for each character, the pattern is the same.  "Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.  Her early leaf's a flower, but only for an hour."  As Robert Frost told us, nothing gold can stay.  

It's a little clunky that these siblings are brought together to sit shiva, and they're not even Jewish.  Did some screenwriter want to highlight this Jewish ritual, but felt that if the family was defined as Jewish, it would severely limit the audience, that it would only appeal to Jews?  If so, I think that sells the audience a little short, no?  Or did some studio executive want it Jewish, but not too much?  This starts to remind me of the mockumentary "For Your Consideration", where the filmmakers who set out to make "Home for Purim" are forced to change it to "Home for Thanksgiving".  

But it does accurately portray how nobody can get under your skin like your parents or siblings - these are characters who have spent so much time together that they know how to push each others buttons, how to insult each other and stop just short of hurting each other's feelings (most of the time, anyway).  A lot of the dialogue has that feeling of ringing true, but in the end it seemed like there were just too many threads to follow, too many bad relationship situations to keep track of.  And the one they told us the least about (the sister's love, and the nature of his accident) was the one that seemed the most interesting, so that was a shame.  

I would have liked to see more of this sporting goods store the children were always talking about - how it was run by their father, and what they plan to do differently in the future.  Nope, this wasn't explored at all.  Instead we were given shot after shot of a toddler going through potty training, which I don't find to be a source of great humor, though it's subject to personal taste, I guess.  Would a parent with a small child somehow find this charming, or entertaining in some small way?  Seems weird. 

Also starring Jason Bateman (last seen in "Identity Thief"), Tina Fey (last seen in "Admission"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "Barefoot in the Park"), Corey Stoll (last seen in "The Bourne Legacy"), Adam Driver (last seen in "Lincoln"), Rose Byrne (last seen in "Neighbors"),  Kathryn Hahn (last seen in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"), Timothy Olyphant (last seen in "Gone in 60 Seconds"), Dax Shepard (last seen in "Zathura: A Space Adventure"), Ben Schwartz (last seen in "The Interview"), Debra Monk, Abigail Spencer (last seen in "Oz the Great and Powerful"), Aaron Lazar (last seen in "The Notorious Bettie Page").

RATING: 5 out of 10 ice skates

The To Do List

Year 7, Day 246 - 9/3/15 - Movie #2,138

BEFORE:  This one should be a no-brainer, Aubrey Plaza carries over from "Safety Not Guaranteed", because I decided to not follow up with the time-travel angle.  This is Film #3 on the Back to School topic, really it seems to be set in a character's summer between high-school and college, so I think that qualifies.  We're coming up on Labor Day weekend, and I've got another film about the last days of summer vacation scheduled for Monday also.

I started the new part-time job today, so twice a week I'll be humping it from Queens to Brooklyn to help out another animator, someone I've known for a long time, but we haven't worked together since about 2004.  Oddly, I received a lunchbox as a Christmas gift from my niece and nephew, so I started using it today - it was almost like I was going back to school myself.  And now I'll be working for two independent animators who deal with adult themes in their films, so a film that's all about sex seems really on point right now.

THE PLOT: Feeling pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college, Brandy Klark makes a list of things to accomplish before hitting campus in the fall. 

AFTER: This is one of those nostalgia pieces, sort of like "Adventureland", because it's set back in someone's young adulthood, in 1993.  Or perhaps it calls to mind "Wet Hot American Summer", only with less of a madcap feel.  This was a really clever move, because teens today seem to know so much about sex (which is a good thing in some ways, but maybe not in others) so it wouldn't have made much sense to show a high-school girl in 2014 who wasn't just inexperienced, but also didn't have much knowledge about sex.  Teens today can always look up a term they don't understand on the internet, even if Wikipedia doesn't have it then they could check the urban dictionary of slang.  

Yes, there once was a more innocent time where if you didn't know what a "pearl necklace" was, or a "dirty sanchez" or a "rusty trombone", or even what the difference was between cowgirl and reverse cowgirl, you couldn't just search on it, you had to ASK someone.  But that goes for every bit of helpful information too, like how effective different birth control methods were, or how to put on a condom.  There was probably just as much WRONG information about sex floating around than there was RIGHT information, especially among teens.  

The big positive here is that although there have been many comedies detailing the sexual awakening of teen boys, there really hasn't been much focus on teen girls over the years, except as topless eye candy or love interests for the teen male leads.  Other than "Juno", you probably have to go back to "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" to see female characters asking each other about fellatio, and practicing on carrots in the cafeteria.  OK, there were those "American Pie" movies, but again, those were really about teen boys trying to get laid.  

I get that by focusing on a teen girl with normal human sexual desires, and a wish to have more experiences, we're celebrating the empowerment of women, blah di blah di blah.  But I think that it cuts both ways, and if it would be crass or gross to show a teen boy working his way down a sexual check-list, then it should also be considered crass for a teen girl to do the same.  They'd both be making the same mistake, in looking to have sex without necessarily being in love, they're kind of missing the point.  And if it's wrong for men to seek out meaningless sex, then it should also be wrong for a girl.

And that's where this movie falls short, because we just KNOW she's going to learn that lesson sometime before the end of the film, probably right before the end of the film.  They set it up right from the start, with the clean-cut, good-natured boy friend who wants to be more than friends, but instead she feels the first pangs of lust after seeing Mr. long-hair shirtless bad boy.  Come on, we know she's destined to be with the boy who's also her best friend, but we have to watch her make a lot of mistakes in her quest for more experiences, simply because she's been told that she "needs" to have more of a sexual track record before she goes to college.  

What she really needs to do is relax.  You're not going to really benefit from empty sex, just to check items off of a list.  They sort of touch on this with the swimming metaphor - if you can't swim, you're likely to panic and then you really might drown.  But if you can just relax, your body is naturally buoyant, and you should float.  (My brain understands this, but my body doesn't, so I find it easier just to avoid pools altogether.)  Relationships sort of work the same way - the harder you try to find love or sex, the harder you make the process in the long run.  It took me three years of chasing women in college to learn this, and as soon as I gave up the quest and just relaxed about it, it seemed to happen naturally.  

But (and you knew there'd be a "but", right) I'm not sold on this whole concept of listing sexual experiences, just to check them off.  Which is strange, because I'm usually all about making lists and organizing tasks.  I guess after I started having sex in college, I burned through my own checklist pretty quickly, and settled in to a routine.  Going beyond that would have involved kinky things like costumes or role-playing or threesomes, and everyone has that imaginary purity line that they won't cross.

And it's played for comic effect here, but our heroine seems just a bit too clueless about certain things.  She doesn't know what "fingerbanging" is?  Can't she just figure that out from the name itself?  "Dry humping"?  Come on, that's pretty self-explanatory, too, isn't it?  I can understand it if you don't know what a blumpkin is, but come on, read a Cosmo or something to figure out that you don't really blow when you give a blow-job.  (Admittedly, it's poorly named, it should be re-titled a suck-job, but such decisions are above my pay grade.)  

Plus, doesn't anyone in this film know how to lock a door when they have sex?  Alone or with someone, a locked door is really your best friend.  The joke about a parent or sibling walking into a room where a sex act is taking place happens way too many times in this film to still be funny by the end.  

I do have a genuine NITPICK POINT, but it's going to involve me getting even more vulgar than I've been already.  The last on-screen checklist item (which, I understand, might differ from her paper list) is "orgasm", but Brandy's been through so many experiences at that point, she never had an orgasm?  I know, the female body is a complicated wonderland and an orgasm isn't always a given, but "masturbation" was WAY earlier on the list, and if she didn't climax while doing that, should that even count?  I mean, if she didn't have an orgasm, she wasn't doing that one right, right?  Plus, the activity depicted when she does have one (again, according to the less-than-reliable on-screen graphic) is one that's not exactly known for allowing a woman to achieve one.  

Also starring Bill Hader (last seen in "22 Jump Street"), Johnny Simmons (last seen in "The Conspirator"), Connie Britton (last seen in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"), Clark Gregg (last seen in "Fat Man and Little Boy"), Rachel Bilson (last seen in "Jumper"), Scott Porter, Alia Shawkat, Sarah Steele, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (last seen in "Neighbors"), Andy Samberg (ditto), Donald Glover (last seen in "The Muppets"), with cameos from Adam Pally, Jack McBrayer (last heard in "Wreck-It Ralph"), Brian Huskey (also last seen in "Neighbors"), 

RATING: 6 out of 10 pool noodles

Safety Not Guaranteed

Year 7, Day 245 - 9/2/15 - Movie #2,137

BEFORE: Self-doubt is creeping into my chain again - I made the decision to put off most of the time-travel related films until next year, but the actor linking clearly indicates that this film should go here.  Jake Johnson carries over from "Let's Be Cops", and this film provides a crucial link back to my Back to School programming.  It all hinges on whether time travel really takes place in this film, because I'm really not sure - I know the concept of time travel is a plot point here, but I'm not sure whether the built device is a success or a failure.  Not that all of the time travel films HAVE to be together, but I feel like if there's real time travel here, then I've failed just a bit in my planning.  But in my defense, I try very hard to not know what's going to happen in a film beforehand, so, really, it's not my fault.

THE PLOT: Three magazine employees head out on an assignment to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Happy Accidents" (Movie #1,649)

AFTER: Well, that's really the whole point of this film - did this guy really build a time machine, or was he just delusional?  And I can't really talk about the answer, simply because that's the whole point of the film.  This duality has played out before, in films like "Happy Accidents", where other people are never sure if someone who claims to be a time-traveler is just off his meds or something.

It's always these people on the spectrum, right?  The ones who give nerds a bad name, just because we're all insular and not very outgoing.  Like none of us know the difference between sci-fi and reality, so naturally we all fantasize about time-travel so much that we can't accept that it's impossible, according to the physical laws of the universe.

Whether our nerd in question here has built a working time machine or not, and I guess it doesn't really matter as long as he believes he has, here it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.  What would someone who expects to be going on a trip across space-time do in preparation?  Here he places a classified ad looking for a companion, someone good with weapons or willing to be trained, because he figures that the journey will be a dangerous one.

But, what's REALLY going on here?  Whether or not actual time-travel takes place (and I'm not saying it does, and I'm not saying it doesn't) are we looking at more of a metaphorical journey, big picture-wise?  What's his real motivation for wanting to go back in time, or believing that he can?  Why does he want to go back in time and not forward?  Is he focused on past events that he wants to change, or is he just generally nostalgic?

I think we have to look at the foil characters to gain some insight - we're presented with a magazine writer who has his own agenda, he takes the opportunity to track down an ex-girlfriend who lives in the same area, and attempt to rebuild an old connection.  He's doing his own form of time-traveling, in his own way, trying to relive, or at least reconnect with, his own past.  Which is more possible, although largely symbolic - but you do connect with your past self every time you go back to your home town, or pass that restaurant where you went on a first date with your spouse, even if it's a dang Starbucks now.

There really was a classified ad in 1997 seeking a time-travel companion, which was printed in Backwoods Home Magazine.  However, it was written by an employee of the magazine, as a space filler on the classifieds page.  But with the internet, the ad got shared and piqued people's curiosity, and from that, this screenplay was born.

But still, there's that old bugaboo, one of my constant pet peeves, where a film spends more time talking about it than being about it.  That's great on the festival circuit, and I have a feeling this film did really well there, but out in the marketplace, I expect more action, for things to start happening a lot sooner.  But by delaying the reveal to the end of the film, it cleverly allows for a sidestep around my usual complaints about messing with the time/space continuum - it's a very sneaky way to silence any nitpicking.

Also starring Aubrey Plaza (last heard in "Monsters University"), Mark Duplass (last seen in "Zero Dark Thirty"), Karan Soni, Kristen Bell (last heard in "Frozen"), Mary Lynn Rajskub (last seen in "Julie & Julia"), Jeff Garlin (last seen in "Fun with Dick and Jane")

RATING:  5 out of 10 cans of soup

Let's Be Cops

Year 7, Day 244 - 9/1/15 - Movie #2,136

BEFORE: Back from Atlantic City, I only lost about $57 on the slots and we had some great meals, some drinks, hung out on the boardwalk, the usual stuff.  Our hotel room was really a rented-out apartment, it wasn't terrible but we won't make that mistake again, next time we'll try to get back into our usual hotel.  Anyway, it was a fine four-day weekend, and if I watch a movie this afternoon and another one after midnight tonight, I'll be back in the swing of things.  Rob Riggle carries over from "22 Jump Street".  

THE PLOT:  Two struggling pals dress as police officers for a costume party and become neighborhood sensations. But when these newly-minted "heroes" get tangled in a real life web of mobsters and dirty detectives, they must put their fake badges on the line.

AFTER: This is really the opposite of "22 Jump Street", because that film had 2 cops going undercover as regular college students, and this film has 2 regular guys impersonating cops.  

But it's the SAME conversation they have, about 40 or 50 times in a row, every time the impulsive one wants to take the charade a step further, then the rational one says, "No, that's not a good idea," and the impulsive one presses the point, so they do it, which advances the plot incrementally, but WHY must they have the same talk, stressing the same points, again and again?  

There's just no way, no how, that it's a good idea to impersonate police officers - that much is clear from the start.  Whatever benefits they may reap from the situation - respect, confidence, attention from ladies - it's not worth the prison time.  Even when the rational one learns how strict the prison sentences are for wearing a fake badge, riding in a fake police car, misrepresenting oneself as an officer of the law - and we're talking about YEARS behind bars if convicted - why isn't that enough for him to stand up to his friend, if he knows how much trouble they could get in.  

And the impulsive one's argument (at least before he's so delusional that he starts to think he's a real cop), is always, "Well, come ON, don't be a pussy."  How is this logical?  If he lets his friend badger him into doing something he doesn't want to do, then he's a pussy.  He's actually being LESS of a pussy by standing up to his friend and saying, "Hey, this isn't right."  Which is what any rational, right-thinking person would do.  

But, there is a girl involved (isn't there always?) so one small lie turns into a succession of lies, until it reaches the point where he can't tell the truth, because that would reveal that their whole relationship is based on a lie.  And because this is a simple, mostly moronic movie, it's an incredible coincidence that his potential girlfriend is also being threatened by the gangster that they pissed off earlier in the film.  And that's just the START of the unbelievable coincidences - it gets much, much worse from the improbable, unbelievable starting point.  

It's also a huge disservice to real policemen everywhere to show two people with minimal knowledge and training performing the duties of cops, even if they're appallingly bad at it.  The very fact that other policemen characters wouldn't recognize right away that these guys are posers is, in itself, a huge insult.  

The only redeeming thing, and the only reason I don't rate this film as a "2", is that they do (eventually) come to realize that police work is serious, and best left to the professionals.  The climactic action scenes were suspenseful enough, and featured enough dangerous situations for them to realize that they were out of their league, and that was an important message.  I wish it hadn't taken nearly the whole film to get to it, but at least it was there.

But such a HUGE fail of the Bechdel test - there are really only two female characters in the film, they never meet each other, they're only there to be love interests, in fact all of the women characters only exist to be horny for cops, or guys in cop uniforms.  You know, there are female cops too - and women do other things besides sit around and wait for cops to come to their apartment so they can fawn all over them.  But you wouldn't know that from watching this film. 

Also starring Jake Johnson (last seen in "Neighbors"), Damon Wayans, Jr. (last seen in "The Other Guys"), Nina Dobrev (last seen in "Chloe"), James D'Arcy (last seen in "Cloud Atlas"), Keegan-Michael Key (last heard in "The Lego Movie"), Andy Garcia (last seen in "When a Man Loves a Woman"), Natasha Leggero (also last seen in "Neighbors"), Tom Mardirosian, 

RATING: 4 out of 10 surveillance photos

22 Jump Street

Year 7, Day 241 - 8/29/15 - Movie #2,135

BEFORE: I was at the doctor's yesterday, got my last hepatitis vaccine shot and a flu shot as well (something I usually try to avoid, because the possible side effects include flu-like symptoms, plus you never know if they've correctly predicted which strain of flu will be going around this coming winter...) and I was able to prove to my doctor that I can lose weight.  I've lost 18 pounds in four months, according to the doctor's scale - but I only made a small dent in my cholesterol level, so I'll have to maintain a diet of falafel and broccoli for a while.  Still, I allowed myself a trip to a real NYC deli to celebrate the weight loss, though I realize that was probably counter-productive.  

It's Part 2 of the Back to School chain today, and Seth Rogen has a cameo in here somewhere, so he carries over from "Neighbors", and at least two other actors do, too.

THE PLOT:  After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "21 Jump Street" (Movie #1,379)

AFTER: There are a lot of knowing winks at the audience in this one, with characters admonishing each other not to "do the exact same thing we did last time" or making sure to shout "Something Cool" (literally) during important slo-mo action scenes.  The police unit headquartered at its new address on Jump Street is symbolic of the film itself, having been given a bigger budget and a larger "cast" of agents.  And right across the street, a new development is being built at 23 Jump Street, complete with a  "Coming Soon" banner, hinting at the next sequel.  

But first our undercover officers have to track down drug dealers at the fictional MC State (College? University?) and they realize that they have different strengths, and need to separate to properly investigate a student's death. Their partnership is jeopardized when one has a romance with a girl, and the other forms a bromance with the football quarterback - and it's a bit of a twist, because if you had to pick which actor would do better with the ladies...

Meanwhile, most of the students peg them as narcs right away, or comment on how old they look.  It's nearly a NITPICK POINT to have a man in his late twenties go back and play college football again, because you'd think there would be strict rules about players having to prove their ages to qualify for NCAA games.  But I admit I know very little about college football rules. 

More fraternity hazing tonight, plus (unlike "Neighbors") we get to see students going to classes!  OK, so they're not really there to take classes, but that feels like a step forward.  Plus we get football games and then before you know it, Spring Break rolls around - but it's too bad they have to spend their break finally tracking down the drug-dealing masterminds, and then figuring out if they can work together as mature adults going forward.  

NITPICK POINT: The drug in the film is called WHYPHY (Work Hard Yes, Play Hard Yes) because it allows people to have intense focus for a few hours, then have an intense psychedelic trip - which sounds ideal for college life, cramming for exams and then going out to party.  But why would kids be taking this drug on spring break, where there are no exams - wouldn't they probably just want to take a simple party drug like ecstasy?

As evidenced by all of the (fake) end trailers, they have the ability to keep on making more films in this franchise for many, many years. 

That's going to wrap up August for me, I'm taking a few days off to go on another road trip to Atlantic City, which is probably also counter-productive to me losing more weight, since we love the buffets there.  I don't mind missing a few days, I'll still have plenty of time to finish out the year, and this will even make my chain line up better with Labor Day.  

Also starring Channing Tatum (last heard in "The Lego Movie"), Jonah Hill (ditto), Nick Offerman (ditto), Ice Cube (last seen in "21 Jump Street"), Peter Stormare (last seen in "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters"), Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens West, The Lucas Brothers, Jimmy Tatro, Jillian Bell (last seen in "The Master"), H. Jon Benjamin, Rob Riggle (last seen in "The Internship"), Dave Franco (also carrying over from "Neighbors"), Craig Roberts (ditto), with cameos from Richard Grieco, Bill Hader (last heard in "Her"), Patton Oswalt (last heard in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"), Queen Latifah (last heard in "Ice Age: Continental Drift"), Anna Faris (last seen in "The Dictator").

RATING: 5 out of 10 hidden cameras

Neighbors (2014)

Year 7, Day 240 - 8/28/15 - Movie #2,134

BEFORE: Seth Rogen carries over again, and two other actors also carry over from "The Interview".  It's funny, my list of movies to watch in 2015 got flipped around several times, messed around with every few months, but still, all of the films relating to school ended up in late August + early September.  I try not to think too hard about things like that, but it just sort of happens, perhaps on a subconscious level.  So today, it's Part 1 of a 5-part Back to School series, although they won't all be in a row, much like there were gaps in my "final" boxing chain a couple of months ago.  Sometimes mortar is needed to connect the bricks.  (last year's chain was just 4 films - "Monsters University", "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion", "Clueless" and "Admission")

So far, I've been able to resist all urges to make further changes to my final 2015 film list, because I've gotten used to that plan now.  The Watchlist is still stuck at 140 films, so right now that's 77 films that are set aside for 2016, but since I knew that February was a little short, I've managed to add a few films to the romance category in the last week, taking it up to 19 films.  That's almost a full February, but I have to remember it's a leap year coming up, so I'll try to find 10 more applicable films, or if not, I'll live with the chain as is. 

THE PLOT:  After they are forced to live next to a fraternity house, a couple with a newborn baby do whatever they can to take them down. 

AFTER: This seems like it came straight from a "World's Worst" improv session - like a couple of writers were tossing story ideas around, and tried to think of what the world's worst neighbors would be like, and when they hit on a frat house, they figured the story would just sort of write itself.  I agree that the premise here is quite strong, but that doesn't allow a screenwriter to rest on that - the plot still needs to advance and have turning points, and it needs to come to some kind of logical conclusion.

There is a conclusion here, but I'm forced to question how the film got from the premise to the conclusion, and that path isn't necessarily supposed to be straight, but it's got to make sense at every turn.  This one doesn't always do that - sometimes the residents of the two houses are adversaries, and sometimes they act like friends, so it's sort of like a room where the floor is always shifting, which makes it very difficult to walk across.  Example - after there is contention between the two houses due to some loud parties, the frat boys still allow the neighbors to come to the next party.  Why would they?  I mean, they have to for the plot to advance, because that's where our heroes put their next plan in motion, but from a tactical standpoint, you don't let enemy spies into your territory.  Not if you know they're spies, and if you want to win the war.  

But the foundation of the plot is just as shaky as the floor here - why is a frat house located in a residential neighborhood, instead of on campus?  There's a half-hearted explanation, something about the frat's last house burning down, but I still find the situation to be quite unlikely.  The area's probably zoned for residential use only, and a frat house would probably not qualify, and would need to be located on school property.  

Next problem - how do a bunch of frat brothers get the money to buy a house?  Especially in a neighborhood where a (presumably) hard-working couple spent their whole life savings to buy one?  If they're college students, one could posit that they don't have full-time jobs, maybe they've got part-time gigs at the college bookstore or something, but working around a class schedule and maintaining a partying lifestyle doesn't leave much time.  So unless they've got outside funding, I can't see them scraping together enough for a down payment and a monthly mortgage - they do come up with a money-raising scheme later in the film, but it wasn't early enough to help them purchase the property. (Anyway, we're shown that they've spent all their available funds on beer, weed and fireworks - after buying a house they probably wouldn't HAVE any excess money for party supplies.)

But, let me be generous, and do the screenwriter's job for him, and assume that the frat is renting the house, not buying it.  Thus the neighbors mistake the rental agent seen early in the film for a sales agent.  This works if their previous frat house burned down, and they need to live somewhere while it's being rebuilt.  But this leads to security deposits, damage waivers, and an increased fear of throwing a wild party because then they'd waive their rights to get their deposit back, or risk being out on the street again.  Once again, the premise falls apart after reason is applied. 

Then we come to the logistical nature of a noise complaint - if you call the cops on your loud neighbors, that's a lodged complaint, no matter what.  The fact that the police showed up at all means there's a record of the complaint, even if it's made anonymously (which, as correctly depicted in the film, is not usually as anonymous as one might think).  But someone just can't say, "Oops, I rescind my noise complaint."  Too late, the cop's already there and the complaint is on the police blotter, so it's a matter of public record.  

The movie later screws up with its own premise, after the dean quotes the "three strikes" rule - if you assume that the old frat house burning down is strike one against the frat, then the party that gets out of hand is strike two, and the neighbors celebrate as if that were strike three, which it's not.  Yes, it means that possibly the frat boys will be on their best behavior in the future to avoid strike three, but that's not exactly the same thing as definitively getting rid of the frat, now, is it? 

Then we have the larger question, as to whether it's OK to become worse than your enemy in order to defeat him.  The couple depicted here has to resort to some pretty big deceptions to get the frat closed, and I'm wondering if I'm the only person who thinks they crossed the line.  I mean, they had plenty of legitimate complaints that SHOULD have been enough to get the frat closed down, it seems like a shortcoming of their characters that they had to resort to underhanded behavior themselves.  

NITPICK POINT: Shortly after entering college, I found myself on academic probation - it's a long story that I don't care to get into, but things did get crazy one night and some empty soda cans fell from our window.  The college interviewed me and all of my roommates, and once we were on probation, they told us exactly how long the probation would last, and we knew how long we had to watch ourselves carefully.  It does not just "happen" at a random time.      

There's a similar problem to "The Interview" here, as the writers/directors just can't resist comedy that appeals to the lowest common denominator - so it's physical humor about people having sex, guys making molds of their dicks, and even a mother being "milked" by her husband.  While I admit these things seem a little more fitting here in a teen comedy than they would in a political satire, I still think the standards could have been a bit higher.  

Also starring Rose Byrne (last seen in "The Internship"), Zac Efron (last seen in "Me and Orson Welles"), Dave Franco (last heard in "The Lego Movie"), Carla Gallo (last seen in "We Bought a Zoo"), Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "Shrink"), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (last seen in "This Is the End"), Lisa Kudrow (last seen in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion"), Jerrod Carmichael, Hannibal Buress, Halston Sage, Craig Roberts, Brian Huskey, with cameos from Andy Samberg (last seen in "Grown Ups 2"), Adam Devine, Blake Anderson, Anders Holm (also carrying over from "The Interview), Randall Park (ditto), Jake Johnson (also last heard in "The Lego Movie").

RATING: 4 out of 10 De Niro costumes