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 Booksmart (2019)
Booksmart (2019)
2019 | Comedy
"Superbad" For A New Generation
Booksmart is a 2019 coming-of-age comedy directed by Olivia Wilde from a screenplay by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman. It was produced by Annapurna Pictures and Gloria Sanchez Productions and distributed by United Artists Releasing. The movie stars Jessica Williams, Will Forte, Lisa Kudrow, and Jason Sudeikis.


Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are high school seniors and best friends. Molly confronts some of her peers when she overhears them making fun of her in the bathroom and tells them how she got into a good school. They, however, reveal that despite partying, they too got into good colleges. Angered, Molly tells Amy that they should have enjoyed their time in high school more and convinces her to go to an end-of-year party. Determined to make up for lost time, they decide to cram four years of fun into one night.


This movie was hilariously funny and full of funny relatable characters. It reminded me a lot of Superbad, but a female version. The main characters had awesome chemistry and you wind up liking them right away and the situations they find themselves in border on the absurd. This film definitely delivers on the laughs but it also makes some solid points about friendship and acceptance. It's full of femininity being that both the main characters, the director, and writers were all women, but I'm sure anyone would think this film is humorous. Olivia Wilde did an amazing job in her directorial debut.
  
The Boss Baby (2017)
The Boss Baby (2017)
2017 | Animation, Comedy, Family
Tim (voiced by Tobey Maguire) is a very imaginative child. He is an only child. very loved by his Mom (voiced by Lisa Kudrow) and Dad (voiced by Jimmy Kimmel). They put him to bed with as many stories as he wants and even sing his special song. Tim lives a life of bliss as the apple of their eyes. His idyllic life falls apart overnight.

Mom and Dad no longer have time for Tim’s bedtime rituals. No more books, story time and most of all…no Tim’s special song! At least, not for him. The Boss Baby (Voiced by Alec Baldwin) has taken over the house and everyone’s lives. This baby is getting all of the attention. When it seems that Mom and Dad have a moment, they are asleep.

As Mom and Dad snooze, Tim discovers that the baby can talk. This is not an ordinary baby, his brother is The Boss Baby, a secret agent sent to infiltrate Puppy Co to find out how to stop the top secret project. At first Tim and Boss Baby are at odds.

They realize, in order to get what they want (Tim, to be an only child again and The Boss Baby wants the promotion to the top spot), they need to work together. The competitive nature of the sibling dynamic is hilarious and the development of their relationship as they learn to like each other has some sweet moments.

Dreamworks based this film on the 2010 children’s book from Marla Frazee of the same title. The adaptation fleshes out the story, introducing us to the family dynamic. We also learn that the Boss Baby is there to stop the nefarious Francis Francis (voiced by Steve Buscemi) and his evil plot. Boss Baby, with his baby crew and Tim, plan to save the day.

The Actors voice the characters so well, I was immersed in the story and characters. There were more than a few laughs and one snort laugh. It is an animated feature I would definitely recommend as a go see.
  
Table 19 (2017)
Table 19 (2017)
2017 | Comedy
Mean spirited and atrocious.
I really hated this film. There. BOOM. Got it off my chest.

It all starts so promisingly, with a scene of Anna Kendrick (“The Accountant“, who can be a very good actress) rejecting a wedding invitation; then accepting it; then burning it; then blowing it out; then posting it. I laughed. This was a rarity. There are about five more smile-worthy moments in the movie, most of which are delivered by Stephen Merchant.

Anna plays Eloise who was SUPPOSED to be maid-of-honour at her best friend’s wedding, but then broke up – messily – with her brother (the best man). She stubbornly attends the wedding in a posh hotel and finds herself on “Table 19” – a socially unfavourable location, full of a bunch of misfits that everyone expected to say “no” but didn’t; a molly-coddled and awkward teen (Tony Revolori, “Spider-man: Homecoming“) with the single goal of getting laid; “The Kepps” – a bickering married couple (Lisa Kudrow (“The Girl on the Train“, “Friends”) and Craig Robinson (“Hot Tub Time Machine”)); a convicted fraudster serving his sentence in an open prison ( Stephen Merchant, “Logan“) and a druggie former nanny of the bride (June Squibb, “In and Out”).

The fundamental problem with the movie is that Jeffrey Blitz’s script (he also directs) is not only not very funny, but it is so fundamentally focused on the greedy and needy nature of the table’s American reprobates that at every turn it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Their motives are all utterly selfish and there’s an “if we get away with it, then that’s fine” attitude that pervades the plot.
The nadir for me happens when – after trashing (albeit accidently) a key part of the wedding they are attending, they cover their selfish backsides by (deliberately) trashing the same key part of another wedding going on in the same hotel.

This is kind of positioned as a “revenge” sort of thing, but (in analysis) no wrong seems to have actually been done: its just another misunderstanding of the self-obsessed Eloise.
The Kepp’s story is also sad and selfish rather than comedic, and the resolution of this (and in fact all of the other sub-stories) for a nicely gift-wrapped ending is just saccharine and vomit-inducing.

This is a wedding present that should have come with a label in big red writing: “DO NOT OPEN“.
  
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JT (287 KP) rated Easy A (2010) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
Easy A (2010)
Easy A (2010)
2010 | Comedy, Romance
Flat, dull and lacking in any laughs. Harsh this verdict might be, but I’m afraid it is about the long and the short of it. As Indie films go this does little to highlight those credentials bestowed on other greats such as Clueless or Sixteen Candles. The lovely Emma Stone whose turn in Superbad put her on the road to stardom is short of her best, and at times is cringe worthily bad.

Olive (Stone) is a well liked pupil at high school, but when a little white lie about losing her virginity gets the rumour mill going she is singled out as, well, quite simply a slut.

Drawing on comparisons to The Scarlet Letter, which happens to be one of the books she is studying she takes it upon herself to brandish her attire with the letter A, for adulterer, as well as using her new found status to milk a little money from desperate males keen to move a level or two up the social ladder.

As Indie films go this does little to highlight those credentials bestowed on other greats such as Clueless or Sixteen Candles

Some have compared this to the best teen comedy since Clueless, well forget it, Director Will Gluck does little to inject this film with any laughs whatsoever, and any dramatic interludes seem bland. If anything the characters are somewhat annoying, ranging from Amanda Bynes’s devout Christian who is not really a good advert for all things religious to Olive’s best bud Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) by far and away one of the worst acting performances I have seen for some time.

Even the inclusion of Friends star (yes she’ll always have that tag) Lisa Kudrow as the school councillor or Thomas Haden Church as her teacher husband do little to offer the overall outcome of the plot. Perhaps one of the few shinning lights are Olive’s parents Dill and Rosemary (aptly named), Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson respectively, whose care free guide to parenting should be noted for today’s modern age.

If Gluck thinks he can walk in the same footsteps of a John Hughes master class he is going to have to come up with something better than this. Hughes himself was the Godfather of the teenage comedy for the likes of The Breakfast Club and not forgetting for a second Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Easy A tries to hard to follow in the footsteps of the above and even Olive herself references them during the film, with an ending that hardly screams of originality, unless they are paying homage to 80s teen comedies.

Openly, its not good, confused and lost for long periods Stone does her utmost to pull anything back but it ain’t working for her or Gluck here.