2010: The Year in Film: "Due Date" Review

Well you can call me "motherfucker" for long. I'm back. With yet another review of a movie I saw weeks ago. In my defense, I did spring for one of them spankin' new HD tele-visions so I've been transfixed by shiny sparkly items and unable to content myself with slaving away at the interwebs. Anyway, enough excuses out of me - let's review this bad boy already.

Todd Phillips is one of the princes of American comedy - a godfather of sorts of the "Fratpack" group of flicks, in which grown men act like infantile imbeciles.. and hilarious ones at that. Road Trip, Old School, Starsky and Hutch, School for Scoundrels, and The Hangover are all Todd Phillips joints. This one is the follow-up to possibly the biggest comedic hit of all time, Summer '09's smash hit The Hangover - widely beloved, and largely for the outrageous performance of Zach Galifianakis, perhaps the most infantile of all. Phillips famously cameos as creeps in his movies, whether it's as the creepy bus passenger with a foot fetish in Road Trip, a gangbang participant in Old School, the guy going down on his girlfriend in an elevator in The Hangover, or the robe wearing boyfriend of Ethan Trembley's pot dealer in this one. So you get the vein of what this one is going for from the get-go. So other than being the Galifianakis/Phillips reunion, this one adds one of the truly great actors of our time, who proved he had epic comedic chops in his own right in "Tropic Thunder", namely Tony Stark himself, Robert Downey, Jr.

This is basically "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" in 2010, and is a very funny movie in its own right, I laughed quite a bit, although it is far from perfect. RDJ is a smarmy, upper class asshole architect by the name of Peter Highman who needs to get from Atlanta to LA for the birth of his first child. A chance encounter at the airport with a simpleton, would be actor/Two and a Half Men devotee Evan Tremblay derails a direct first class flight and results in Peter hitching a ride to LA with Evan (and his outrageous dog, Sonny) in Evan's rental car. Don't get me wrong, this story has been told before, but Phillips and Co. bring enough twists and the actors are talented and funny enough to keep you thoroughly entertained. Aside from brief appearances from a very funny Danny McBride and Jamie Foxx, this is basically a two-man show, and unlikely partners Peter and Ethan find their way into hijinks as they meander from Atlanta to LA by car.

There are some ridiculously funny scenes - I won't spoil them for you here, but I laughed a lot. It's just slightly... off. Especially compared to Phillips' hits like Old School and The Hangover. Tremblay and Highman's inevitable bonding seems unrealistic and ill-timed, and a particularly ridiculous scene in Mexico sort of ruined any pretense of reality. Galifianakis and Downey Jr. have great chemistry and are both very, very funny. This is a movie definitely worth watching, although it is in no way a classic.

Enjoyable, solid, funny. Galifianakis is the most dynamic force in comedy today.

6.5/10.

2010: The Year in Film: "Waiting for Superman" Review

I'd be damned shocked if I still had any loyal readers left.. and kids, I can't say I blame you. I've been awful, read: awful at updating this thing, and I'm sorry about that, because lord knows I've got the thoughts and opinions to fill this bad boy up. A lot has happened since we last spoke: the election, the fact that the Gator chomp is ok but this: Devier Posey taught me how to Dougie, isn't, the world banned Four Loko, but right now I'm here to review some GD movies, so let's get to it. I actually saw this flick weeks ago, but for some reason just never got around to blogging it. So here goes nothing.

Now documentaries don't usually find their way to my movie schedule too often, I like to consider myself pretty damn well informed, and usually already know 99% of what's in them (let's be honest: almost every documentary ever made is a dumbed down version of a book, which is a dumbed down version of some research because Americans are damned stupid), but since I'm obsessed with how stupid people are, this one was right in my wheelhouse. Acclaimed documentarian Davis Guggenheim (the director of "An Inconvenient Truth") takes aim at the American education system, once the envy of the world, and now a glaring eyesore.

This documentary does an amazing job at certain things but fails at others, and seems at times to lose sight of its actual mission. It focuses on the failings of public schools, especially in inner cities, where "dropout factories" often fail to graduate 60-70% of their classes. Considering the demographic reality of what a high school drop out can hope to achieve in modern America, the devastating long term impact these failing schools can have on their surrounding communities is evident. Guggenheim chooses to give the subject matter heft by focusing on 5 families, each who have their hopes for their childrens' future pegged on gaining admission to prestigious charter schools that succeed where the public schools in the same communities fail miserably.

Guggenheim sets his sights on two things in particular: teacher's unions (which, like all public employee unions - can be pretty damn evil), who focus on keeping jobs over ensuring quality education and school bureaucracies, which hog resources and shift the focus from educating. The emergence of charter schools over the past 20 years has made it evident that inner city kids can be educated, so it is the school systems themselves that are failing. Of course, there are counter-points to everything, but Guggenheim does a great job in effectively and often powerfully demonstrating the societal costs of shitty teachers, shitty schools, and a shitty education.

This flick's major failing, for me, was in not demonstrating the actual techniques that allow these charter schools to succeed where their traditional brethren fail. That is a major shortcoming in an otherwise powerful message. Guggenheim focuses on those who seek to reform education, and have had success in doing so. There should be no doubt that the American educational system is an embarrassment, one we should all be ashamed of. People are dumb, very dumb, and without outrage, that's never going to change. Actually this flick reminded me a lot of the absolutely essential television series "The Wire", which if you haven't watched, get the fuck off of the internet and go make that happen already, in that the failings aren't due to any bad intentions on anyone's part, just ossification of institutions and a whole lot of CYOA at all levels(that's cover your own ass) without taking any chances.

While it can be manipulative at times, on the whole, the flick does a good job of effectively delivering a much-needed message. If we don't wake up, and sooner rather than later, it will be too late, and our society will lose those advantages that allowed America to become what it is today. Education is the foundation of "democracy", and dumb kids become dumb voters become dumb workers and so on.

7.5/10.