Film

Frat trap

Neighbors

Here’s a shocker: Old School, that funny frat comedy starring Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, a frat comedy that proudly stands alongside Animal House as a genre best, is already 11 years old. Eleven … years … old. So, yes, the world is plenty ripe for a new, high quality frat comedy, and it gets a good, and often great, entry with the new Seth Rogen offering, Neighbors. Mac and Kelly (Rogen and Rose Byrne), are happily adjusting to their new roles as parents to a baby daughter in a quiet suburban neighborhood. While in the midst of adjusting to their new sleep and sex schedules, a fraternity moves in next door. They don’t panic, figuring they are still cool enough to get along with college kids. An initial meeting with frat president Teddy (Zac Efron) goes well, and they even wind up joining the fray, baby monitor in hand, for a drugged-out, booze-drenched party, further establishing them as those possibly cool neighbors who just might be able to handle a party house next door. Mac and Teddy develop a brotherly camaraderie, suggesting that if Mac were just a few years younger, he might’ve been a worthy frat brother. They even talk about getting walkietalkies to communicate between their houses. They bond. The honeymoon doesn’t last for long. When a weeknight party keeps the baby up, Mac and Kelly transform from party happy neighbors into sleep-deprived malcontents, and they call the cops. Teddy takes this as a stab in the back from his new friends, and all out war is waged. There will be no walkie-talkies for Mac and Teddy.

I doubt moviegoers will have much difficulty with the thin plot. The movie concentrates on delivering rapid-fire jokes, and most of them hit the mark, often with shockingly raunchy results. Nobody goes to a movie like this yearning for gravitas. They just want to see what happens when a toddler puts a discarded condom in her mouth. (It’s a jaw by Bob Grimm dropping punch line, for sure. Efron, who took a shot at broad comedy bgrimm@ earlier this year with the awful That Awkward newsreview.com Moment after a string of dramatic misfires, creates a hilariously odd person in Teddy. 4 Teddy has issues underneath his Abercrombie model physique. Teddy is an extreme example of frat boy earnestness, that sometimes tragic need to be accepted that places partying as the number one priority over cracking a book. When Mac turns on him, Teddy goes into annihilation mode, but you can see the hurt of being rejected behind his beautiful eyes. Coming out of nowhere with amazing comic chops would be Byrne, who earns some of the film’s biggest laughs (an uncomfortable joke involving breast feeding not withstanding). Wisely, director Nicholas Stoller finds a way to allow Byrne to use her Australian accent—she was an exchange student who met Mac at college—and she gives a commanding performance. From her inability to deliver the words “Keep it down!” in a cool way, to her scheming “Hos before Bros” technique used to take down the fraternity, Byrne brings some atomic estrogen to this bro-fest. Neighbors isn’t your typical “neighbor” comedy, like Dennis the Menace, where the neighbors are far apart in age and sensibilities. The thing that makes Neighbors unique is that Mac and Kelly are almost envious of the fun going on in the loud house next door. It’s the sort of mayhem they were into just a few years ago. Meanwhile, Teddy seems perhaps slightly aware that he’s just a few years removed from being the annoyed guy next to loud neighbors. It makes for a very strange dynamic. While that strange dynamic might fuel the emotional tensions in the movie, Neighbors is really all about moments like Mac unsuspectingly deploying an airbag rigged into his office chair and funny dildo jokes. Hey, it’s hard to make a funny dildo joke these days. They’ve been done to death. Neighbors is one of those movies that makes done-to-death jokes funny again. Ω

The joint gets bigger every time he tells the story.

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Poor

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Fair

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Good

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Very Good 5

2The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Director Marc Webb mucks it up big time with this, his second go-round featuring Andrew Garfield in spandex, cracking wise and shooting webs. While Webb proves himself adept at drama and romance—Garfield and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey are kind of adorable—he botches the action elements and tries to juggle too many villains. This movie features a goofy villain called Electro (Jamie Foxx), the Green Goblin (Dane Dehaan) and the robotic Rhino (Paul Giamatti). Electro gets the majority of the villain screen time, an unfortunate circumstance given that his baddie is the least interesting of the three. DeHaan, an actor I can safely say I can’t stand, makes one really, really miss James Franco as Harry Osborn. DeHaan always speaks as if he just digs his own voice, even if it sounds like he has a sinus infection. His generally annoying presence isn’t the total blame for this film’s mishandling of the Green Goblin. The blame mostly lies with Webb and his makeup folks, who come up with something tragically bad for Goblin’s looks. He basically has oily hair that looks like he hasn’t showered in a while and a horrific combination skin problem. Too many villains, hackneyed action, and DeHaan make this a pretty bad time for comic book fans.

4Captain America: The Winter Soldier Like Thor 2 and Iron Man 3, this movie shows us how an Avenger deals with life after saving New York City from an alien attack. Cap (an endearing Chris Evans) is just trying to catch up on modern culture now. His list of things to do includes watching Star Wars and Star Trek, trying Thai food and listening to Nirvana. He’s attempting to settle into a world after being frozen for 50 years. Of course, he’s not going to be able to just kick back and relax because evil still exists below America’s shimmering surface, and governmental wrongdoings are going to challenge Cap’s ability to remain loyal to the country he’s named after. After an attempt on the life of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson just Samuel L. Jacksoning it as only Samuel L. Jackson can!), attention is called to the likes of somebody called the Winter Soldier, a fighting machine with powers similar to Cap and identity that won’t be revealed in this review. Cap’s mission eventually leads him to the discovery of HYDRA, an evil movement controlling members of the government, started back in the Nazi days. With Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Falcon (a well cast Anthony Mackie) at this side, Cap looks to take down HYDRA, kick the Winter Soldier’s ass, and possibly work in a date somewhere during the whole mess. The film packs a solid action punch, and some decent dramatics to boot.

1Devil’s Knot Atom Egoyan, an inconsistent but sometimes brilliant director (The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica), delivers his very worst film with the misguided botch job that is Devil’s Knot. The film is a dramatic representation of the child murders that were the subject of four documentaries (the Paradise Lost films and the Peter Jackson produced West of Memphis). Egoyan casts Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth in major roles, and everybody just seems lost in a film that feels truncated with no sense of direction. The story of the three little boys murdered in Arkansas, and the witch-hunt that followed and resulted in the wrongful incarceration of three men for nearly two decades, is a powerful one. Even though the story has been told in the documentaries, it could’ve made for the subject of an amazing film. What Egoyan delivers is a standard courtroom drama and a stilted, confused performance from Witherspoon as Pam Hobbs, mother of one of the murdered boys. Witherspoon’s approach to Hobbs is muted and dull. She captures none of Hobbs’s personality. The casting of the actual West Memphis Three (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr.) is uninspired, and the characters barely factor in the film. Instead, the movie spends most of its time with Firth as Ron Lax, a private investigator who doesn’t do much in this film other than act mildly appalled. This story is a crazy, sad, tragic mess. The movie feels like a madefor-TV effort that the producers decided to make R-rated at the last minute. Echols himself has publicly decried the movie. He couldn’t be more right. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and VOD during a limited theatrical run.)

3Draft Day In a film that feels more befitting a TV series than a theatrical release, Kevin Costner plays Sonny, general manager of the Cleveland Browns. It’s draft day, and Sonny has some big decisions to make after he trades away his future for the number one pick, much to the dismay of his head coach (Denis Leary). This is all happening after finding out he’s having a baby with a member of his staff (Jennifer Garner) and shortly after the death of his dad. Directed by Ivan Reitman, who usually helms straight comedies, this is a more dramatic offering from the guy who gave us Ghostbusters. If there’s a big problem here, it is that we watch Sonny go through all of this stuff on draft day, and never get to see the fruits of his labors. The film ends after the draft day is finished, and we never get to see the team play. I’m doubting there will be a Draft Day 2, so I’m thinking this would’ve worked better as an HBO series or something like that. Still, Costner is good in the role, and Reitman has constructed something that is entertaining, while not altogether groundbreaking.

5The Grand Budapest Hotel Writer-director Wes Anderson does it again with another wholly unique, beautiful, quirky movie that could’ve only been made by him. In a performance that must be remembered come awards time, Ralph Fiennes is magically hilarious as M. Gustave, the concierge at the infamous fictional hotel named in the film’s title. Gustave has a penchant for older woman, much older woman, and his life takes a drastic turn when he is suspected in the murder of an elderly lover (Tilda Swinton in super heavy makeup). Stolen art, scary train rides and a high speed chase on skis ensue, with Anderson even employing stop motion animation at times, as he did with Fantastic Mr. Fox. Supporting performances by Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Jude Law, F. Murray Abraham, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Saoirse Ronan and many more make this a can’t miss film. There’s something so joyous and fun about the way Anderson makes movies. This is a remarkable, tremendously enjoyable achievement.

3Hateship Loveship Hateship Loveship is a strange movie. Due to its crazy subject matter, it’s just a hair away from being a terrible film during its entire running time, and yet, thanks to some great performances and solid direction by Liza Johnson, the people behind this one pull off an impressive high wire act. In one of her best performances to date, Kristen Wiig plays Johanna Perry, a lonely caregiver who winds up working for Mr. McCauley (Nick Nolte), an older gentleman taking care of his granddaughter Sabitha (Hailee Stetnfeld) after her mother has died. Sabitha doesn’t like having Johanna around, so she and a friend (Sami Gayle) tease her in a very peculiar way. They pretend to be Sabitha’s addict father, Ken (Guy Pearce) and write love letters to a completely convinced Johanna. In fact, Johanna is so convinced that Ken loves her, she moves into his abandoned hotel without him even knowing. How this incredibly awkward situation is handled is what makes this a very good, heartwarming movie instead of an ugly, unbearably uncomfortable one. Much credit goes to Johnson and screenwriter Mark Poirier (who also wrote Goats and Smart People) for finding sweetness in what could’ve been a very sour affair. Wiig, who has taken some great risks since leaving Saturday Night Live, is showing that she’s an actress willing to gamble rather than follow the typical post-SNL route. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and VOD during a limited theatrical run.)