Posts tagged Comedy
“The Kids Are All Right” Joy Is in the Journey
Jul 29th
“Joy Is in the Journey”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is a 2010 comedy about an unconventional family and not to be confused with the 1979 documentary about the rock band The Who, which has a different spelling in its title anyway.
This very good and laugh-out-loud film stars Julianne Moore as Jules, Annette Bening as Nic, and Mark Ruffalo as Paul, and their growing relationships with each other get very complicated, to say the least.
You see, Jules and Nic are lesbians who have been happy together for a very long time. In fact, more than 18 years ago they decided to have a family, and they bought sperm from a sperm bank, with which one of them conceived and gave birth to a daughter and the other gave birth to a son, both from the same sperm donor.
Nic is a doctor and is the more–shall we say–“organized” one in the family, and she keeps pressuring the daughter, Joni, who is 18 and recently finished high school, to write her thank-you notes.
Jules is the free spirit in the family, has recently started her own landscape-design business, and as Nic tells her, “If it was up to you, our kids wouldn’t even write thank-you notes.”
Their son, Laser, is 15, and he convinces his sister Joni to contact the sperm bank and track down their biological father, who is Paul, who donated his sperm between 1991 and 1993 when he was 19.
Paul has an organic co-op farm and a restaurant, and he agrees to meet with Joni and Laser. Afterwards, Joni tells Laser that she thinks that Paul is weird, just because he donated sperm, but as Paul later explains, he donated sperm because he thought it would be more fun than donating blood.
The kids tell their moms about meeting Paul, and Nic insists that they aren’t to see him again until she and Jules meet him.
Paul is invited to dinner at their house so that they all can become acquainted, the women recognize their kids’ facial expressions in Paul’s own expressions, but then what was already a complicated relationship becomes even more complicated when Paul hires Jules to landscape the backyard of his house.
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is a wonderful film, and its joy lies more in the journey than in its destination.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Kids Are All Right – Movie Trailer
Jul 27th
The son of a same-sex couple seeks out the sperm donor who made his birth possible in this comedy from writer/director Lisa Cholodenko. The committed parents of two teenage children, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), are about to send their daughter, Joni (Mia Wasikowska), off to college when her younger brother, Laser (Josh Hutcherson), asks for her help in tracking down his biological father. Reluctantly inquiring with the sperm bank, Joni leaves her number so the office can pass it along to Laser’s father. Enthusiastic at the thought of meeting his long lost offspring, Paul (Mark Ruffalo) musters the courage to reach out, and the family tree grows a new branch.
“Grown Ups” One Big Letdown
Jul 7th
One Big Letdown
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
GROWN UPS isn’t just bad, it is embarrassingly bad.
This movie is so lame that it gives lame a bad name.
To modify a line from Robert Benchley, this is one of those movies in which all the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.
This movie reminded me of sex, or in other words the most fun you can have without laughing, except for the part about fun.
I’m not in the habit of forgetting movies, but in this case I will make an exception.
But I digress.
Adam Sandler is responsible for this sorry excuse of a movie, and you get the notion that he just called four or five of his buddies and said in the best Mickey Rooney tradition, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s make a movie!”
The premise is that in 1978 five kids won a championship basketball game on the last shot at the buzzer, it was the only championship team the coach ever had, and Coach “Buzzer” was very special to those boys.
Well, 30 years later, the coach has died, and the kid who made the winning shot, Adam Sandler, arranges for the other four team members to all show up for the coach’s funeral in New England with their families.
The other team members have grown up to be Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider, and they all show up with their wives, children, and other assorted baggage.
They all stay together in a cabin by a lake, and there are lots of jokes about the kids texting instead of just talking, lots of jokes about rude and obnoxious kids, lots of breast-feeding jokes, lots of fart jokes, urinating jokes, more fart jokes, old-age jokes, and jokes about city kids learning how to play outside without video games.
Finally, you just wait for the movie to be over, and you ask yourself what is Salma Hayek doing in this movie, what is Maria Bello doing in this movie, and even what is Steve Buscemi doing in this movie?
And, of course, at the end there is too much talking as all the couples become honest with each other, but even worse than that, there is a Big Game rematch with the grown-up kids from the other team.
GROWN UPS is just equal-opportunity put-downs and one big letdown.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”