by BoB Grimm
b g ri m m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m
SHORT TAKES
3
“The m&m’s are coming!”
Food fight
That loophole also allows for a food orgy that would be too much for your average porno, yet, there it is, a bunch of characters openly fornicating in just about every way possible on a big screen playing next door to Finding Dory. There have been a few too many “more of the If you’re a parent out there who doesn’t watch same” type movies at theaters this summer—flat, commercials and takes kids to the movies based big-budget blockbusters and sequels without an on the poster, you are in for the shock of your ounce of creativity or originality puking out of life. However, the first word in this movie is the Hollywood industrial complex, delivering an actually “shit,” so you should know early on that astounding amount of expensive, vapid horseshit. the wrong entertainment has been chosen for the Sausage Party, the animated hellcat from day. Unless, of course, you and your kids are writer-producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, truly twisted, in which case, have at it. is the first big studio film in a long time with Other exquisite touches include a main villain screaming levels of originality. It’s a profanitywho is a total douche. And by total douche, I laden, blasphemous middle finger to the moviereally mean he’s a literal douche voiced by Nick making establishment that thinks it’s OK to turn Kroll. He’s also a leaky douche, so his thing is out sequels and comic book movies that suck to suck the replenishing juices out of his prey, as long as people shell out for them. It couldn’t sometimes in a way that is most provocative. be more fun, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen James Franco is on hand as the voice of a before. druggie experimenting with In a sunny supermarket, a bath salts, while Edward Norton bunch of vegetables, hot dogs and voices Sammy Bagel, Jr., a bagel buns wake up and sing a happy who plays a pivotal, perverted song, convinced that today will be part in that food orgy. Rogen and the day they are chosen by humans Goldberg mainstays like Jonah to enter the great beyond—the Hill, Craig Robinson, Bill Hader, Director: Greg Tiernan, world on the other side of those Michael Cera, David Kurmholtz Conrad Vernon automatic sliding doors. and Danny McBride all have Starring: Seth Rogen, Frank (Seth Rogen), an optiKristen Wiig, Jonah Hill roles, and they all contribute to mistic hot dog with teeth like Seth make this the most outrageously Rogen’s, longs for the moment he insane Hollywood comedy since, can leave his packaging and “fill” his sweetheart, well, their own brilliant This is the End (2013). a bun named Brenda (Kristen Wiig). That moment What makes Sausage Party a cut above your seems to be coming when they are selected and average stoner movie full of food items screwing placed in a cart, but things quickly go awry. Frank and being murdered is that it’s actually a smart and Brenda are left behind on the supermarket swipe at organized religion and politics. I don’t floor, while their friends go to the Great Beyond, want to give much away other than to say this only to find out that things are far from great. movie makes you think a lot more than you On top of being super profane, Sausage Party would expect from a movie that features a taco is one of the more violent films you will witness going down on a hot dog bun. at a cinema this summer, with various foods and I heard Rogen on the Howard Stern Show condiments suffering unthinkable, heinous fates. saying he thinks Sausage Party could be a fran(What happens to heads of lettuce and baby chise ripe for sequels. Just how the hell he thinks carrots is particularly nightmarish.) Rogen and he can top the madness of this movie is beyond Goldberg have found themselves a little loophole, comprehension, but I will certainly be in line to since the main characters aren’t human or animal, find out when he tries. Ω which allows for non-stop carnage within the confines of an R-rating.
Sausage Party
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08.18.16
Don’t Think Twice
An improv group called the Commune faces an uncertain future when their theater is closing and members of their team are faced with life-changing events. Writerdirector-actor Mike Birbiglia plays Miles, an improvisational actor in his mid-30s who feels passed over, while Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) finds himself in line for a role on The Weekend (the film’s less copyright infringed stand-in for Saturday Night Live). Gillian Jacobs—who’s having a nice year with this and her role in the excellent Netflix series Love—plays Jack’s girlfriend, Samantha, who also has a chance to advance her career. They, and other members of the troupe, must decide between real money-paying gigs and doing what they actually love, getting up on stage and making up stuff for free. I personally can’t stand watching comedy improv, so that perhaps knocks the film down a peg for me, because there’s a lot of bad improv in this movie. Balancing things out for the better are the performances from all involved, especially Key and Jacobs, who should do more projects together. Birbiglia does a nice job of portraying the artistic need to do one’s art in the face of all adversity.
1
Jason Bourne
It’s been nine years since the last Bourne movie that mattered. (2012’s The Bourne Legacy, with Jeremy Renner, was a joke.) After saying he wouldn’t play the part again, Matt Damon is back as Jason Bourne, with his director buddy Paul Greengrass in tow. The result: a tedious, desperate and sad extension of the Bourne storyline. Jason Bourne is currently holding hands with Ghostbusters as a film prominently displaying how not to continue a beloved franchise. At the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, Damon’s Bourne woke up after a bridge dive and swam off into an unknown and unpredictable future. It seemed a fitting and perfect end to the character or, perhaps, that particular story arc. Bourne found out his real name, learned why he was an assassin with amnesia, and got himself a little revenge. Case closed, right? Wrong. Money matters, and Universal wanted to keep the Bourne locomotive on track. Greengrass and his writers have come up with a way to further confuse Bourne about his identity. As it turns out, there’s more to his amnesia. He doesn’t know everything after all! He’s also got some daddy issues. Attempts to modernize Bourne with mumbo jumbo involving a tech mogul (Riz Ahmed) and his new social media platform make parts of this movie feel like a jettisoned episode of Silicon Valley.
3
Lights Out
Three years ago, director David F. Sandberg made a great short about a woman home alone at night, noticing a dark figure when she switched the light off. The payoff was both hilarious and scary as shit. So, of course, producer James Wan got a hold of Sandberg and now there’s a full length feature film based on that light-switch premise. Writer Eric Heisserer takes the idea, fleshes it out, and comes up with a pretty good story to go with Sandberg’s strong horror directing abilities. Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) is an angry woman with mommy and commitment issues. Her mom, Sophie (Maria Bello), recently lost her husband and has fallen into a depression where she is talking to herself. Her son, and Sophie’s brother, Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is seeing a strange dark figure when the lights go out. It all leads up to a finale where flashlights are very valuable and potential victims behave like idiots. Sandberg repeats the same jolt scare over and over but makes it all work nicely.
3
The Little Prince
After sitting on the shelf for quite some time, Mark Osborne’s unorthodox, animated adaptation of Antoine de SaintExupery’s classic story finally gets a release, albeit a release streaming on Netflix. It’s a good enough movie, but it’s by no means a straight retelling of The Little Prince. There’s a modern story about a young girl (Mackenzie Foy) who befriends an old aviator (Jeff Bridges), and the aviator is the one from The Little Prince.
He recounts part of that story to the little girl, which we see in stop-motion animation. The modern story is mostly CGI. So there’s an interesting mix of animation techniques to go with some twists to the story, and while it feels a little uneven and perhaps slow at times, it’s an enjoyable film. Other voice performers include Rachel McAdams, Paul Rudd, Marion Cotillard, James Franco, Benicio del Toro and Albert Brooks, and its fun hearing all of their great voices in one place.
3
The Secret Life of Pets
A bunch of comedians lend their voices to some cartoon characters, and the results are moderately entertaining. Louis C.K. voices Max, a Jack Russell terrier who loves his master, Katie (Ellie Kemper of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), with that undying loyalty that makes dogs so damn cool. Katie brings home a new brother for Max, a big brown shaggy dog named Duke (Eric Stonestreet), and it creates some turmoil in the household. Max and Duke eventually wind up in the hands of Animal Control, and eventually fend for themselves in the sewers of Manhattan. There they become enemies of the Flushed Pets, a group consisting of alligators, lizards, snakes and furry critters led by Snowball the Rabbit (Kevin Hart on a sound booth tear). The advertised premise for the film suggests the movie might be about what our pets do in the house when we leave home. That part of the film is out of the way early in the movie’s opening minutes. The rest of the movie is the band of pets in Max’s neighborhood trying to find him and Duke when they get lost. Some of the sequences are borderline deranged. This doesn’t feel like the stuff of kids’ movies.
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Suicide Squad|
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a skunk blast to the face for most of us trying to have a good time with a superhero movie earlier this year. Suicide Squad looked like a chance to get DC movies back on the good foot. With David Ayer (Fury, End of Watch) at the helm, and a cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, it looked like summer was due to get a fun blast of movie mischief. Suicide Squad does nothing to improve the summer blockbuster season. It actually sends a big, stinking torpedo of shit into its side, and sends the thing barreling toward the bottom of the bowl. That’s being kind. After a first half build-up/tease that does a decent job of introducing bad guy characters like Deadshot (Smith), Harley Quinn (Robbie) and the Joker (Leto), the movie becomes what can only be described as a spastic colon, resulting in that big turd referred to above. While Smith and Robbie deliver relatively fun performances, the movie is a scattershot mess with no sense of direction. The tone is all over the place, as if the studio meddled and turned the movie into a hackneyed heap of nothing.
3
Star Trek Beyond
While the latest Star Trek film lacks a little bit in soul and story cohesiveness, it scores high on the zip factor and introduces a creepy new villain. The third film in the franchise’s reboot might be the weakest chapter featuring the newish cast, but it’s still a lot of fun. J.J. Abrams stepped down from the conn to direct his revamped Star Wars, relegating himself to a producer’s role. In stepped Justin Lin, best known for making cars jump between skyscrapers in the Fast & Furious franchise. It’s also not a surprise that some of the action scenes motor along with the efficiency of a Dodge Challenger Hellcat. The film picks up with James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew in the midst of their five-year mission. Kirk, as he did in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, is starting to get a little bored. He’s up for an admiral’s position, and might soon find himself grounded to a desk job. The movie has barely started when the U.S.S. Enterprise is attacked by thousands of marauding spaceships, and the crew finds themselves shipwrecked on a sparsely inhabited planet. Unfortunately, one of those few is Krall (Idris Elba), a nasty looking alien with evil intentions involving an ancient weapon.
