Movie Box Review

Peter Tolan, who with Denis Leary created Rescue Me, knows something about the comedy that emerges when when men try to assert their masculinity in the most idiotic ways.  So you can understand why FOX developed COUNCIL OF DADS, which was meant to bring that kind of tone to a family sitcom.  Alas, what ended up being produced was like some kind of strange spawn of Rescue Me, a Disney movie and one of those pictures like The Protector where an assassin has to bumblingly take care of children.



The premise of Council was at least a new spin on the family genre.  Catherine (Diane Farr) would have been raising her two kids as a single mom after the death of her husband Michael, but Michael made a back-up plan:  he designated 4 of his friends as a collective of paternity, each supposedly bringing a particular strength to the council.  Marty (Kyle Bornheimer), Michael's oldest friend, is the "fun" dad; trainer Randy (Rick Gomez) the jock; therapist Jerry (Patrick Breen) the one the kids can talk to about their feelings; and business partner Bill (Richard T. Jones) can help with schoolwork.  (They're like a less tuneful seven dwarves.)  Meanwhile, Michael's father Buck (Ken Howard) hovers jealously over the group and intrudes at will. 

Naturally, all of the "dads" are morons who constantly compete over who will be the dominant one of the group, but whether it was the inability to make sex jokes and use dirty words that hindered Tolan in thix context, or if he was just off his game, none of it is funny.  The pilot has Randy and Marty fighting about who can make the best model car for Michael's son to use in a contest, with Buck ridiculing them both, and the big joke is a draw between the guys taking off their shirts to reveal their unathletic bodies and wrestle each other, and Marty dripping blood everywhere from his cut finger.  The actors don't distinguish themselves, although it's always nice to see Farr (who recurred as a Rescue Me firefighter for a season).  The Russo brothers, who are behind the camera for some of the best Community episodes, keep the action going, but can't contribute much else.

Peter Tolan is a real talent, and no doubt after Rescue Me goes to its rest in another couple of episodes, he'll go on to other great work.  Council of Dads suggests that the all-ages-admitted sitcom isn't the genre where he'll do it.

There's not much to add about the weekend grosses that hasn't been said (see Mitch Metcalf's round-up report here), so let's take a look at who, apart from the studios themselves, did and didn't have a fun weekend:

Women of THE HELP:  Emma Stone isn't likely to get Oscar consideration for her performance, being the "White Actress in an African-American Story" (for a particularly egregious example of this criticism, see Patrick Goldstein's column today--as a rule of thumb, if you have to cite Armond White as back-up for your argument, you may want to rethink the debate).  But she's still the biggest name in a smash hit, and her supporting role in the sleeper CRAZY STUPID LOVE doesn't hurt either--assuming that the Spider-Man reboot doesn't go splat next summer, she'll have as much claim as anyone to the currently vacant title of America's Sweetheart.  Meanwhile, Viola Davis has a big decision to make:  campaign for the Oscar as Best Actress (which she might not win, but just being nominated could bring her to a new level in the industry) or Supporting (where she would have a serious chance at victory)?  Her decision will directly impact co-star Octavia Spencer, who has a much better chance of making the cut in Supporting with Davis in the leading category.  (There's also the chance Sissy Spacek could pull a Supporting nomination for her tasty little role as Bryce Dallas Howard's mother, but probably not--see "White Actress in an African-American Story," above.)  Not in the same gender pool but still a Winner is director Tate Taylor, who went from being utterly unknown to the man behind a giant success, without having to direct music videos or make a stop at Sundance.

Expanders:  Several limited releases widened their runs this weekend with generally good results.  SARAH'S KEY made $3900 at each of 201 theatres; THE GUARD did $5200 at 83; THE WHISTLEBLOWER, $3200 at 44; and SENNA, $12K at 14.  (THE FUTURE did less well, with $2K at 32.) 

Andy Serkis:  He probably won't get that Oscar nomination for his motion-capture performance as Caesar the chimp.  But when Fox starts its campaign on his behalf, no one will be laughing.

Avi Lerner:  You may never have heard of him, but he's produced 243 movies for his Nu Image and Millenium studios, most of them proud--and often profitable--pieces of low-budget schlock.  (Righteous Kill?  The Nicolas Cage remake of The Wicker Man?  Those were his.)  He had a breakout hit last year with The Expendables, and this year CONAN THE BARBARIAN was supposed to provide him with his first real franchise, at an expensive-for-him cost of $70-90M.  Now the movie will have to hope for huge overperformance overseas just to break even (although no doubt Lerner's own investment is covered by pre-release guarantees, from distributors who may not be his biggest fans today).

Bob Weinstein:  His Dimension genre brand was supposed to fund brother Harvey's swings for the Oscar fences.  But this week's disastrous reboot of SPY KIDS follows the disastrous reboot of Scream earlier this year; coming soon is another "found footage" horror movie with Apollo 18, and then a second chapter in the Piranha series, which didn't do all that well ($25M) the first time.

Anne Hathaway:  Remember that currently-vacant position of America's Sweetheart?  It wasn't so long ago that the job seemed Hathaway's for the taking, but the past year or so hasn't gone so well.  It's not that Hathaway is giving bad performances, or even choosing terrible movies (Love and Other Drugs was a tonal mess, but still entertaining, and One Day is a respectable failure)--she just seems to be pushing too hard, nowhere more so than during her painful-to-watch Oscar gig.  The Dark Knight Rises isn't likely to do much more for her than previous installments did for Katie Holmes or Maggie Gyllenhaal (odds are that Tom Hardy will be the movie's Heath Ledger and she'll be Aaron Eckhart), but that's OK as long as her Catwoman doesn't actually hurt the picture.

Colin Farrell:  After paying some dues with his fine performances in little films like In Bruges, Crazy Heart and Ondine, Fright Night was supposed to be Farrell's first step back to commercial viability--but even with good reviews, it turned out no one cared.  Up next is the much more expensive remake of Total Recall, whose producers can't be feeling too comfortable now that this week's Conan reboot fell flat on its face.

Openers:  Nothing much was happening in the arthouses this weekend.  John Sayles' AMIGO could only muster $4K per theatre in 10 despite guest appearances from Sayles and the actors, and MOZART'S SISTER wasn't much better with $4700 in each of 7.  The one seeming exception is misleading:  Kevin Smith's RED STATE pulled in $26K in a single LA theatre as part of its Oscar-qualifying week (it seems the picture, despite its massive Sundance hoopla, is going to VOD next month and may never have a conventional theatrical release), but that number was boosted by a Q&A with the motormouth maestro at every show.

The new remake of Tom Holland's 1985 FRIGHT NIGHT has a great set of credentials.  Craig Gillespie, the director, was behind the well-regarded indie Lars and the Real Girl, and has since been house director of United States of Tara for Showtime.  The cast includes Anton Yelchin, about to make a big splash in the wonderful Sundance prize-winner Like Crazy, along with Colin Farrell, the very talented young British actress Imogen Poots, David Tennant, and Gillespie's Tara star Toni Collette.  And most notably, the new script is by Marti Noxon, who cut her--sorry--teeth on the classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has since worked on shows like Angel, Mad Men and Grey's Anatomy.

And with all that, mostly it's just another crappy horror movie with a supposed comic edge. Holland's picture (which grossed only $25M in 1985, so this is hardly a grab for the riches of a lucrative franchise) was an arch, even campy black comedy in which Charley (William Ragsdale), obsessed with horror movies and lore, came to realize that his new next door neighbor Jerry (Chris Sarandon) was actually a vampire, and enlisted the services of Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowell), host of the local low-rent, late-night horror TV show, to bring him down.  

That basic outline is still the plot of the remake, but there are quite a few shifts in detail and emphasis.  Most of the changes seem to stem from the idea of resetting the tale from the midwest to Las Vegas, which was a promising concept--a city that truly never sleeps--but because (for budget reasons, no doubt) the movie was actually shot in New Mexico, Vegas as a physical location plays virtually no part in the picture.  This time, Jerry (Farrell) isn't an old-world Dracula type like Sarandon; he's a contemporary douchebag who supposedly works construction on the strip, wearing tight t-shirts--Charley's mom (Collette) and even his girlfriend (Poots) can't help themselves from leering at him.  Peter Vincent (Tennant) is now the star of a campy, but higher-scale, horror-themed stage show at the Hard Rock Hotel.   Meanwhile, Charley (Yelchin) is now more of a post-nerd guy who, for reasons even the movie doesn't understand, has a hot, compassionate girlfriend, and he spends the first part of the movie not believing the vampire story at all, despite the efforts of his former pal Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to convince him.

You can see how all of this may have pitched well:  in these Jersey Shore days, the idea of a douchebag vampire could have been fun, and Charley, dumping his own friend for the sake of popularity and hovering on the edge of becoming a douche himself, could have been a complex match for Jerry.  In the movie, though, with its imperatives of getting to the 3D bloodshed, very little of this is developed.  Yelchin basically does his best Shia LaBeouf as Charley, and the movie turns into Suburbia with fangs. Farrell has some really good moments as Jerry--he's scary and funny as he preens in front of Collette and Poots, and when he hovers just outside Jerry's doorway, frustrated not to be invited in--but the script betrays him by turning Jerry into a crazy killing machine much too early on.  Tennant livens things up as Peter Vincent (he's basically doing Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek), although even he can't do much with an extraordinarily clumsy chunk of exposition late in the story that's supposed to explain why he's helping Charley.  Poots, who's given very interesting performances in indie movies like Cracks and Solitary Man, is here just "the girl."  And although Collette grounds her mom character nicely, it's hard to see what she's doing in the movie, other than as a favor to Gillepsie.  

The movie is badly constructed even as a genre piece.  Apart from the sloppy vampire mythology, which introduces a late gadget into the story just to ensure a happy ending, all the set-piece action sequences go on forever, and at 106 minutes, the picture feels 15 minutes too long.  Gillespie has no particular feel for atmosphere or pace beyond the obvious quiet-quiet-quiet-BANG of horror cliches, and the picture is never at all scary.  There's nothing notable about the picture technically, either:  vampire movies aren't really ideal for 3D, since by definition, they tend to take place in the dark and the dim 3D image makes things even murkier; it's hard to tell whether Javier Aguirresarobe's photography ever had any distinction. 

In an era where we're inundated with vampire stories, a new entry in the genre really has to take some chances to make a mark.  (And if it does, as with last year's Let Me In, the audience may reject it.)  Fright Night sounded like it might be one of those, but it's just another late-summer grab for ticket sales, part of the August/September low-budget horror fest.  Next week's entry:  Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.  

HORRIBLE BOSSES - Watch It At Home:  Doesn't Earn A Raise

A comedy can get away with not being very good as long as it's funny, and HORRIBLE BOSSES delivers some laughs.  Most of those come from the chemistry between stars Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day, and since the funniest bits come in riffs of casual dialogue, it's hard to tell if they originated in the script by Michael Markowitz, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley or with the actors themselves.  (Daley, by the way, is himself better known as an actor, first as the younger brother in Freaks and Geeks and more recently as the unit's shrink on Bones; he has a small role in the film.)  

Horrible Bosses is fairly enjoyable to watch, even though it whiffs at a great opportunity.  If there's one experience virtually every audience member has shared, it's the plight of working for a petty tyrant, and a revenge comedy pitched to that particular woe, particularly in the current economic climate, could have been wonderful.  But that comedy probably would have teetered on the edge of real human pain and desperation, never Hollywood's preferred territory; instead, we get just occasional hints of the movie that could have been.  Mostly that's in the part of the movie that concerns evil boss Harken (Kevin Spacey) and his pathetic subordinate Nick (Bateman).  As fans of Swimming With Sharks know, there's no one better at playing tyrannical than Spacey (Entourage's Ari could never have existed without Spacey's performance), and Bateman is best when he's allowing flickers of fury to show beneath his passive front.  The early scenes with the two of them, as Spacey sadistically tantalizes Bateman with a promotion he'll never get, vibrate with real comic tension.

That's not Bosses' chosen tone for the most part.  The second storyline has Sudeikis as Kurt, protege of a kindly mentor (Donald Sutherland) who is abruptly replaced by his son Pelliltt (Colin Farrell), a coke-snorting moron who wants to loot the company.  Farrell seems to be having a great time under the most make-up anyone's worn since Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, but his character is more a pig than a despot, and not very intimidating.  The last story makes so little sense that the script has to contrive multiple contrivances for it even to exist:  Dale (Day) is a dental assistant sexually harassed by bombshell dentist Julia (Jennifer Aniston)--the writers create one backstory for Dale to justify his not just quitting, another to explain why he'd be so offended and not delighted to have Jennifer Aniston throwing herself at him (he's supposedly too much in love with his fiance, but she's such a wan, occasional presence in the movie that this makes little sense), and they still never come up with a convincing reason why Aniston would be so obsessed with him in the first place. 

In any case, their mutual misery causes the 3 guys to decide, with the minimal help of hit man "consultant" Jamie Foxx, to kill their bosses in a scrambled Stranger On A Train fashion, which of course they botch thoroughly.  It's a set-up that just about screams for ingenious plotting, but the writers can come up with only one legitimate twist--the rest is lazy TV storytelling, dependent on coincidence and on characters acting like idiots.

And yet, Horrible Bosses is fairly consistently funny.  Sudeikis seems far more comfortable trading quips with Bateman and Day than he did with Owen Wilson in Hall Pass; Day, playing the stupidest character, gets a lot of laughs out of his inanity; and Bateman, the definition of a movie team player, is as supportive with the two of them as he is with Spacey.  Other funny people like Ioan Gruffudd and Julie Bowen turn up, and any movie that casts Wendell Pierce as a cop, even briefly, gets a point in my book.  Director Seth Gordon, who's been doing a lot of TV since his fiction feature debut Four Christmases, doesn't even attempt anything stylistically interesting or attractive, but he stays out of the way of his actors, and that's a skill not to be underrated.

Horrible Bosses could have tried to be funny and provocative too, a modern day Billy Wilder comedy; it doesn't.  It opts instead for what's essentially an R-rated mix of 3 Stooges dumbness with Apatow male bonding.  This summer, though, compared to robots ripping each other apart and superheroes delivering vows to magical rings, silly laughs can look relatively smart.  Horrible Bosses may not be the kind of employee that rockets to a promotion, but it holds onto its job.