The Change-Up is right there with Bad Teacher and Bridesmaids for over-the-top R-rated comedy and jaw-dropping laughs this summer.
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I'm here to pleasantly report that Rise of the Planet of the Apes delivers rock-solid and engaging summer entertainment. Yes, the trailers do give just about all of it away and you can see just about everything coming, but the watching the performance of it all play out is outstanding.
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Crazy, Stupid, Love. is not divorce drama like Kramer Vs. Kramer. You're not watching courtroom proceedings and messy custody battles. Crazy, Stupid, Love. is bigger than that and so much more. It's about personal reinvention, mentoring, courtship, fighting for love, and the idea of soulmates. It's incredibly fresh, funny, emotional, daring, and, for a romantic "dramedy," has more jaw-dropping twists than big budget thrillers.
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Horrible Bosses follows the trend of "2011: Summer of the R-Rated Comedy," meaning that their bumbling schemes and actions cross as many lines of censorship as they do laws. While the premise, of course, has no merit and is intentionally unbelievable, the movie still triggers more eye rolls than big laughs.
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Besides the obvious cardinal importance of chemistry, every great romantic comedy film has to have one other element that rises it above the usual formulaic and terrible contenders that try all call themselves romantic comedies. That #2 element is "layers." If your romantic comedy main characters are caricatures or one-dimensional archetypes, then your audience won't identify with them, fall for them, or root for them. You've got to have something more than chemistry and two pretty faces. That's where the layers come in.
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The Captain America character stirs your patriotism in the audience as a guy you really root for to save the day and get the girl. For all that, Captain America: The First Avenger is, far and away, the best comic book movie this summer and acts as an outstanding final springboard piece to Marvel's mega-event Avengers team-up next May.
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Beyond all that, the real progress that made the movie series tick is the dual-growth of Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the three actors that played them. The classic aspects of teenage coming-of-age storytelling have always been present in the Harry Potter series, but on two distinct fronts. As the characters, they have grown to find their skill, importance, and desires as to what really matters in the grand scheme of all that has transpired around them. As actors, Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint have gone from unknown cute-faced children playing borderline stereotypes to mature and capable performers we genuinely care about and root for through this decade within their characters' shoes and robes.
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While I missed making a "Best of 2010" list in my blog's first year, I'd like to change that and start here with a first-half "Best of 2011" list from "Every Movie Has a Lesson." In keeping with the blog's theme, each member of the list will be backed up by its best life lesson of the typical three from each review.
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As was explained before, the "cool" factor normally outweighs the Michael Bay implausible and incoherent ingredients in most of his other movies. There's plenty of cool for sure here, but, as sorry yet unsurprising as it is to say, the cool in Transformers: Dark of the Moon is not enough to outweigh the other two. The implausible behaviors and plot, coupled with the incoherent violence and eye-rolling moments, are too much.
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In honor of the third Transformers movie coming out this weekend, there's been a lot of chatter about the best movie robots and where Optimus Prime and Bumblebee rank all-time. I figured, much like my recent editorials on movie fathers, father-figures, and teachers, that I might as well take my shot and put my two cents on the topic. The criteria that I rank my robots is by their coolness and impact in the movie(s) they're in.
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The comparisons to Bad Santa are quite fair. Any attempt to be like other teacher movies and make memorable students roles to go with the lead teacher takes a backseat to focusing on an evil Cameron Diaz and her rocking bod. Diaz runs with the chance to play a bitch of a character instead of the usual bubbly-and-ditzy routine that has made her a star.
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The fictional story of Larry Crowne is not unlike millions of other and more real American stories. People are downsized, budget-cut, and let go at alarming rates in our present day. People are taking extra and odd jobs just to make ends meet and the housing foreclosure crisis is unprecedented in our country's history. The story and lesson here is how to bounce back and roll with the punches. How do we best downsize our life when we ourselves are downsized?
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