The Hangover

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Three friends and a soon-to-be brother-in-law head to Vegas for the bachelor’s party of a lifetime. The only problem is when Phil, Stu & Alan wake up in their thrashed hotel suite they can’t remember what happened the previous night – or where Doug is. The men proceed to try and follow the clues in their hotel room back to their origins in an effort to find Doug before his fiancée panics and the wedding is off.

If I try to describe The Hangover to you it won’t be funny, but trust me, the film is beyond funny. It’s gross, inappropriate, slapstick, verbally witty, and unexpected and beyond all else an incredibly fresh comedy populated with incredibly charismatic and talented cast. Even the baby was funny.

The Hangover had what it take to make a truly funny comedy – good writing. The film chose to set up it’s jokes without immediately playing them out, something that was shown in the beginning wouldn’t get played into a joke until another act in the film, or they’d be referenced at several other points in the film so that the joke kept getting funnier. There is at least one line in the film that had me laughing so hard that it took me a few minutes to recover.

This is a film that suffers from great comedic timing, and will undoubtedly end up continuing to make great amounts of money at the box office and prove that movies rated above PG-13 can still work in a modern day market.

Director: Todd Phillips
Writers: Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
Phil: Bradley Cooper
Stu: Ed Helms
Alan: Zach Galifianakis
Doug: Justin Bartha
Jade: Heather Graham

Alan Garner: Who's baby is that?
Phil Wenneck: We'll deal with the baby later.
Stu Price: We're not gonna leave a baby in the room. There's a tiger in the bathroom!

Two Girls and a Guy

I haven’t made up my mind about James Toback. I’ve seen some of his movies and while none of them seem to leave me cold, none of them excite me in a way that makes me want to run out and partake in the James Toback film catalog.

In Two Girls and a Guy James Toback explores a twisted love triangle, one that was entered into with out either girl knowing they were a part of a triangle. At the open we have extroverted Lou and rational Carla, pretty girls in their mid-twenties waiting on the front stoop of their boyfriend’s apartment building. As the girls start to talk they quickly make an alarming realization – both of their boyfriend is the same man, Blake Allen. Together Lou & Carla break into Blake’s apartment and wait for him to return. Once Blake arrives they confront him and the three get down and dirty emotionally as the girls try to uncover what is the truth about Blake and what is a lie, all the while Blake does everything in his power to avoid any kind of direct moment with the girls that will make him look like the bad guy, and he worries about the fragile state of his mother.

What is amazing about Two Girls and a Guy is watching Robert Downey Jr. in the midst of his dark, drug induced days. This film came out in 1997, before Downey’s jail time, and while he was slowly drowning in his self-inflicted flaws. The crazy thing is that watching this movie you can visible see the difference between Downey then and now, somehow now having been broken and reached rock bottom he is clearer and his focus and understanding of life come through his eyes and his performance. It makes me wonder where Downey would be now if he hadn’t gotten cleaned up; would he have gone the way of River Phoenix or would he have ended up more along the lines of Charlie Sheen? It makes me incredibly glad that Downey did hit rock bottom and manage to bounce back again, a talent like his is one that needs to be shared.

After watching Two Guys and a Girl I am sure that with a refresher on my basic psych principles or even if forced to dig deeper in a film class, that there are a lot of textual layers to that film. Carla, Lou and Blake are such distinct, flawed characters that the film could only get deeper with further analysis. Blake is also a character that needs study; man or woman you have to admit that what Blake does to these girls is hideous but somehow all of his arguments start to make sense along the way and occasionally you actually feel bad for the man.

While I still don’t have an opinion on James Toback I do think that his films might require further viewing. I am just not going to rush out to see them all immediately.

Director & Writer: James Toback
Lou Johnson: Natasha Gregson Wagner
Carla Bennett: Heather Graham
Blake Allen: Robert Downey Jr.

Blake Allen: I may have been hiding parts of my life from both of you to avoid causing pain. But I didn't say anything to either one of you that I didn't whole-heartedly mean.
Carla: If you believe what you just said it's worse than if you don't.

Scream 2

Adjusting to life post-Woodsboro Sidney Prescott is safe and happy as a theatre major at Windsor College; her life has now escaped feeling like a horror movie and is about to be committed to the horror movie genre literally. Gale Weathers wrote a follow up book to her torrid tale about Maureen Prescott’s murder telling the tale of the Woodsboro murders and it is being turned into the latest and greatest slasher movie – Stab. Sidney prepares for the release of the film and the worst time of her life to be rehashed in a melodramatic teen horror movie until the killer returns and it becomes apparent that the killer too is obsessed with sequels and he wants to recreate the Woodsboro murders.

While I cannot definitively say which of the first two Scream films is my favorite I do have to say that for just a pure, fun watch I adore Scream 2. In Scream 2 the movie about a movie factor is heightened, the sequel cliché’s are played to a T and the college campus setting is a way to inject yet more youthful arrogance into the mix and allow for a much larger body count with very little effort.

Perhaps my favorite joke in all of the Scream series is Stab the movie. Stab is not only pulls directly from the characters conversations in Scream but the name Stab is a direct reference to the name of the movie. My favorite joke about Stab is that in Scream Sidney worries that if her life were made into a movie she would be played by Tori Spelling, and in Stab Spelling is the actress that lands the role of young Sidney. The irony and tongue-in-cheek humor is readily apparent and fabulous.

All of the Scream films were made while Courtney Cox was on Friends and Scream 2 decides to use the popularity of Friends (and Cox’s good standing with the cast) to throw in a few subtle references to her Friends co-stars. At one point we find out that Dewey was played in Stab by David Schwimmer and Gale tells of naked photos of her on the internet were her head on Jennifer Anniston’s body. The jokes work on their own, but if you are aware of Cox’s connection to Friends they play even better.

As someone who went to film school, the fact that Randy is a film student is absolutely fabulous to me. Randy and Mickey the rival film students are my kind of geeks and their opinions make me laugh.

In the end I cannot separate my love for Scream from my love for Scream 2. Both movies are fabulous thrillers in their own right and Scream 2 is a great sequel that lives up to its predecessor while managing to feel like its own film with its own set of rules.

Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Sidney Prescott: Neve Campbell
Gale Weathers: Courtney Cox
Dewey Riley: David Arquette
Randy Meeks: Jamie Kennedy
Derek: Jerry O’Connell
Mickey: Timothy Olyphant
Cotton Weary: Liev Schreiber
Debbie Salt: Laurie Metcalf
Hallie: Elise Neal
CiCi: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Maureen: Jada Pinkett Smith
Sorority Sister Murphy: Portia de Rossi
Stab Casey: Heather Graham
Stab Sidney: Tori Spelling
Stab Billy: Luke Wilson

Mickey: Oh come on Randy, with all due respect, the killer obvious patterned himself after two serial killers who were immortalized on film.
Guy #2: Thank you!
Film Teacher: So, you're saying that someone is trying to make a real life sequel?
Randy: Stab 2? Why would anyone want to do that? Sequels suck!

Swingers

Swingers is a film very few people would think of making. The title would scare a lot of people off because they assume it’s about overly promiscuous couples; when in fact Swingers is about a group single guys who idolize the Rat Pack and are trying to make it in Hollywood.

In essence Swingers is a period piece even though it was filmed during the era that it takes place in. Swingers is set in a very specific portion of the 1990’s, the few years where the club culture went retro and swing music and dancing exploded into the mainstream; this was the 1990’s, but it is a very specific set of people and culture. When this film came out it was one of the original indy bombs that exploded onto the market and made people take notice of a different kind of filmmaking from the main stream. This film gave us Jon Favreau, Ron Livingston, Vince Vaughn, Heather Graham and Doug Liman.

At its core Swingers is the simple story of Mike, who has moved from Hollywood to take his comedy career to the next level and can’t get over the girl he left behind. This girl infects his whole life and for six months his friends have been trying to pull him out of it. His best friends are trying to make it in the business to; Trent is the ladies man who does not appreciate the moderate success he is having, Sue is another struggling actor who backs up Trent and his rules on women, and Rob is new to Hollywood from the east coast, and is pissed that he went from playing Shakespeare off Broadway to getting auditions for children’s entertainment. Mike is being pushed by his friends to forget the girl he left behind, and find a new “baby” or two to change his outlook.

This film is a delightful romp into the single male psyche. It sizzles with wit, humor and heart. These characters a people that are utterly real, and if you didn’t know they were fictional you would expect to run into them on the city streets of Hollywood.

Swingers is a testament to what a passion for filmmaking, and a specific project can do to all those involved.

Director: Doug Liman
Writer: Jon Favreau
Mike: Jon Favreau
Trent: Vince Vaughn
Rob: Ron Livingston
Sue: Patrick Van Horn
Lorraine: Heather Graham

Trent: I don't want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone's really hoping makes it happen. I want you to be like the guy in the rated R movie, you know, the guy you're not sure whether or not you like yet. You're not sure where he's coming from. Okay? You're a bad man. You're a bad man, Mikey. You're a bad man, bad man.