Wedding Ringer

Director: Jeremy Garelick
Lead Actors: Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting

                                         Kevin Hart

Producer:
Ben Waisbren

Plot Synopsis
This is about a very successful white man - Doug Harris, played well by Josh Gad, who doesn't have any friends. He manages to convince a beautiful blonde woman from Los Angeles to marry him - not sure how he did that. . .

His bride/dependent to be is played convincingly by Kaley Cuoco Sweeting of "Big Bang Theory fame.

Huh hmm. . .so Harris has a sexy bride to be . . but he still has no friends. We meet him in a plush office making some very awkward, last minute calls to old acquaintances, seeing if they want to be his best man in his wedding.  . . .

There are pauses on the other end of the line when people remind Harris that they really aren't that big of friends in the first place!

Anyway, at the end of these embarrassing phone calls, Gad collapses a glass table and is sitting amongst a million shards of broken glass.



This is the first, but not the last violent hit this protagonist will take in this highly physical comedy that enflames man's most basic senses!

Since Harris is in a fix and needs a best man, his wedding planner recommends someone to him -Jimmy Callahan, played gleefully by Kevin Hart.

Harris has to go to a broke-down miniature golf course and whisper a name to a guy to even get to Callahan's underground office. (All red flags in my book).

The minute Callahan meets Harris, he is in full hustle, sales pitch mode.

Callahan's pitch is well-rehearsed and solid, and slowly he gets his hooks, or teeth, or both into the rich but emotionally vulnerable Harris.

Callahan then convinces him to go for "the golden tux" - the golden tux is the highest and most expensive of Callahan's packages and it's never been done before.

The "golden tux" basically means that Callahan will not only pretend to be Harris' best man with years of history to foil everyone, but he will find 7 or 8 groomsmen to do the same.

They agree on it, and they're excited, but they don't have much time and this is going to be difficult. And away we go . . .

What ensues is a series of predictable situations wherein the two, Gad and Hart, are trying to cover their lies in front of relatives of the bride.

This is the beginning a potentially viable black and white comedy team, potentially.

Hart, who I'm told is 5 foot 5 is like a tireless point guard in this movie, always working his angles, no  matter how badly he messes up and has to back pedal.

Gad's Harris is a punching bag in this movie.

He gets hit from every angle, and at one point nearly gets his testicles ripped off by a dog! I suppose this is all done in the name of comedy, or perhaps it's some sort of Karma he's getting for lying about who his best man is.

The state of Harris' testicles in this movie may not matter, because they sure aren't getting any attention from the beautiful Gretchen Palmer.

She won't even let Harris touch her before the wedding is official-despite the fact that she teases him on a nightly basis.

Overall, in this movie, it's tough to be Gad's Harris, it's great to be Hart's Jimmy Callahan - if he can keep the hustle up (note, after most successful Best Man frauds, Callahan beds the best-looking bridesmaid).

Who Would Like it and Why
The real winning in this movie happens when Hart assembles the groomsmen. 

Callahan distastefully chooses one of the best ever teams of ner-do- wells. It's as if he picked them all from the same San Bernadino unemployment line.

There is a fat guy, a guy who's just out of prison, there is a ripped guy whose only party trick is to rip his shirt off and show his abs, there is another guy whose only party trick is to throw his shoulder out of the socket, then there is the short Japanese guy whose only trick is that he has three balls (a possible shout out to the Fukushima nuclear energy leak brought on by the Japanese tsunami.)

Anyway, this is the crack team Callahan assembles, and they make the whole movie worth while!

While Gad works hard the whole movie at being castrated both literally and figuratively, I was under the impression that Kaley Cuoco Sweeting just needed the money and was calling it in. Hart was calling it in as well, and really wasn't present during the entire movie.

But this crew, this 7 or 8 groomsman, they were quirky, pulled from all over the place, and forced to work together. They were ugly on the outside, but inside they wanted to make this work. 

I dare Garelick or Gad to do a full movie with the groomsman. I think it would be twice as good as the Wedding Ringer!

Who Might not Like it and Why Highlights
I think, honestly, that Hart himself phoned in his performance and that everyone else (aside from Kaley Cuco-Sweeting) was treating it very seriously, or funnily rather.

Hart, though, left a lot to be desired! I can't place exactly what he was doing wrong, he just seemed insincere and there for the pay check. Some of the actors there seemed intent on making something out of this movie.

For some of them, it may be their only movie all year, or their whole lives, while this seemed like just another side hustle for Hart!

I may have confused his character's intentions with Hart's intentions, but I believe and hope that Hart is capable of being a lot better.

I would love to see Hart focused and at a hundred percent and away from his phone for a prolonged period of time!

Two Mike and Ikes

Black Or White

Director: Mike Binder
Lead Actors: Octavia Spencer, Gilian Jacobs

Producer: Robert Ogden


Plot Synopsis:
WARNING: THIS MOVIE MANAGED TO TALK ABOUT THE FRUSTRATIONS OF RACE IN AMERICA WITHOUT ANYONE BURNING A CAR, THROWING A BRICK THROUGH A WINDOW, THROWING A MOLTAV COCKTAIL, STEALING A TELEVISION OR LOOTING OF ANY KIND. SO IF YOU SEEK SENSATIONALIST, TRASHY JOURNALISM THAT MAKES IT LOOK AS IF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS ERUPTING INTO SALACIOUS, RATINGS HEAVY RACE RIOTS, READ NO FURTHER.

This movie was a delicate look at race relations in Los Angeles. At the center of it was an adorable little 3rd grade girl who was the product of a black father and white mother. The white mother died at child birth due to complications, and the black father struggles with drug addiction and is not present in the child's life.

This has left raising the child to the white grandparents. We meet Kevin Costner's Eliot Anderson in a waiting room. His face is vacant, and we soon learn that his wife, the girl's grandmother, has just died in a car accident.
     Anderson's face tells us that this is life's toughest blow to date for him. He is listless and he turns to the warmth of his favorite drink (southern comfort whiskey from what I could tell). He wakes up in the fetal position in a beautiful bed. This is the first night he's spent in it without his wife.
     Staring at him is the ethereal Eloise - a beautiful child. She is in her school uniform, ready to go, not knowing that her grandmother, who has raised her up to this point, is dead.
     Now Anderson, a hard hitting lawyer by trade, must learn to raise his grandchild - the only remnant he has of his lost daughter and wife.
    Then we learn about Eloise's spirited black heritage when Rowena Jeffers, her other grandmother, shows up at the wake. With her big eyes and determined spirit she approaches Eliot with the hard truth that he may not be able to handle raising a child. She suggests that Eloise should move to South Central Los Angeles with her and be raised by the African American side of her family.
    While this would be a change of pace for Eloise, who has her own room with a fish aquarium, and enjoys a lavish lifestyle provided by Anderson's lawyering, we also learn that Rowena is a successful business woman and has a wonderful, supportive family who all love Rowena.
    Anderson and Rowena don't dislike each other and they are able to have grown-up conversations. In one of my favorite scenes, Anderson asks Eloise's African tutor and drives him to South Central to talk to Rowena in person. 
     This is the first time the African tutor has seen this part of town.
     It also shows that while Eliot is a drunk, he is loved and welcomed by Rowena's very large and loving African American family.
     All of these factors lead to a custody case where a stately family judge played beautifully by Paula Newsome must decide on Eloise's fate.

Who Would Like it and Why
This is an all-star cast. Mpho Koaho plays a delightful example of African intellectual superiority as Duvon Araga, the tutor Eliot hires to teach Eloise and drive him places.

He knows nine languages and has a graduate school grasp of mathematics at age 19. He is an interesting character to throw in, and it demonstrates the drastic difference between Africans and African Americans.

Anthony Mackie, a favorite of mine, from Hurt Locker, the second Captain America, and Eight Mile, plays the high-powered, high achieving lawyer and family member of Rowena who tries the case.

This character shows the range of Mackie who played a thug in Eight Mile who gets out-rapped by Eminem. He also played the thug drug dealer who has his hook into Michael Douglas' daughter in traffic. Here Mackie is all business as driven lawyer who strikes fear in the hearts of Eliot's all white law team. He is articulate and purposeful in this character.

The casting of Jillian Estell was great because you can the power this beautiful mixed-race child has over everyone because of her cuteness and beauty.

Who Might not Like it and Why
The one problem I had with this script by Mike Binder is that Eloise's father, Reggie Davis, Played by Andre Holland, seemed to be a bit stereotypical. 

He was a crack-addicted criminal who referred to himself as a "street (N word)" while courting Anderson's daughter. He impregnated her and moved on, another negative stereotype in the black community.

When he shows up in the movie, he looks awful and wants money so he can get high. 

Everyone in the movie yells at him and slaps him and he messes up the simplest of things. I felt that one this was a very stereotypical character in a script filled with otherwise complex characters. 

I felt that everyone was acting so harshly towards the addict that he had no choice but to turn towards the warm comfort of drugs again. This aspect of the movie could have been handled better.

Highlights/Top Scenes
Costner's overall growl as an aging, grumpy lawyer who loves his grand daughter was great. Every scene between him and Eloise was believable and touching.

Koaho stole the show comedically as the brilliant tutor who had written a paper on every possible subject. A genius.

There was a bit of a show down between Rowena and the family judge, two strong women. It seemed as if by the end of the hearing they had a mutual respect for one another.

Three Mike and Ikes

The Interview

Director: Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen

Lead Actors: Seth Rogen, Jams Franco

Producer: Kyle Hunter

Plot Synopsis: Dave Skylark is a popular talk-show host who is constantly in search of approval. He gets this approval from his millions of fans but not from the East Coast intellectuals who ridicule his show for being, basically, a bit of a fusion between Jerry Springer and Montel Williams.

This doesn't eat at the ever jolly Skylark as much as it does his producer, Aaron Rapaport, played by Seth Rogen.

There is a scene in which Rapaport runs into an old acquaintance from college who is working at 60 Minutes and he ridicules the poppy work that he and Skylark are doing. 

This drives Rappaport to seek out a big fish interview. Hey, it helped Nick Frost get some respect when he landed Nixon, didn't it?

But the big fish Skylark and Rapaport end up getting is arguably a much bigger fish than Nixon after he resigned from the oval office.

Skylark and Rapaport find out that Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, is one of Skylark's biggest fans. Rapaport makes some calls, badda bing, badda boom - suddenly these two clowns are on their way to North Korea to bag the interview of the century.

The only catch is that the CIA wants some of the action, and they 
want Skylark to kill Jim Jong Un. 

This is where we meet the ever beautiful and entertaining Lizzy Caplan, in her role as Agent Lacey. Lacey must have banked her whole career on Skylark and Rapaport being able to assassinate Kim Jong Un, because she sticks to the project with unrealistic conviction

If at one point she doesn't proclaim "You guys are idiots" with her words, she does so even more effectively with her beautiful eyes.

She and her deadpan sidekick go over, and over, and over what's supposed to happen, all the while having to know that the stoner duo from Pineapple Express are going to royally screw things up!

Who Would Like it
Anyone in touch with the news will know the drama that went along with getting this movie to be released on Christmas Day. 

They are familiar with how Sony Studios mishandled terrorist threats. They are also familiar, probably, with some of the extremely juicy bits of insider information spilled from a massive hack on their e-mails, perpetrated, allegedly, by North Korea, in retaliation for this rich satire.

So, if you haven't seen this movie yet, and you know the story, there is the reward of seeing what all the hubbub is about.

But when you finally actually watch the movie pound-for-pound, you realize that it is political satire laced with "the most powerful ecstasy you've ever had" - to borrow a line from Franco's Skylark. 

This being said, it is basically burp, pee, poo poo and fart jokes set amidst the possibility of assassinating the annoying and dangerous Kim Jong Un.

Under capitalism, South Korea has prospered and risen to the number 10 economy of the world, while North Korea struggles with country-wide famine, among other things.

The writers of this movie: Dan Sterling along with Rogen and Goldberg do touch on some of the political drama. They also let the outside world into their frat party. . . in one scene Bill Maher watches the actual interview with disgust and perhaps a bit of envy.


Who Might not Like it and Why

Well, Kim Jong Un of course! But I think the actor they chose did a good job all the same. His name is Randall Park.

I think people who are not a fan of stoner humor might struggle with this as well. The first half of this movie is nothing but crude jokes revolving around nothing more than the human anatomy. But, if you invest in the ride, it pays off. 

There are beautiful women, gun fights, tank chase scenes and the most boring Oscar award ceremony host in the world actually proving he is funny.

Highlights/Top Scenes
There was a montage where Un and Skylark are falling in love and bonding on fathers who don't understand and a public that just doesn't get them. It starts with a game of basketball and ends with an orgy with westernized Korean girls. That was funny and well done.

There is also a sequence wherein Rapaport has to intercept a small package that a drone drops off in North Korea. That too is funny.

Three Mike and Ikes.

Modern Family

Director: Michael Spiller (21 episodes 2010-2012), Jason Winer (20 episodes 2009-2014)

Lead Actors: Ed O'Neil, Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen

Producer: 

Jeffrey Morton

...

co-executive producer / executive producer / producer (130 episodes, 2009-2014)

Plot Synopsis:
In which we meet the Pritchett/Dunphy family - a dysfunctional unit in the Los Angeles area who care very deeply about one another. They have managed to clump their houses together in an upper middle class neighborhood. 

Who Would Like it and Why
One thing is for sure - it's impossible to watch more than two episodes and not fall in love with this family.

Who Might not Like it and Why 
It would make me nervous to be around them because they are constantly lying to one another and scrambling to cover up their lies.  They are also constantly insulting one another.

Highlights/Top Scenes
The never-ending one-upmanship and the long-lasting insultathon is like watching a Shakespeare comedy. 

Sofia Vergara oozes sex appeal while still maintaining her ability to be funny and mix in with this nutty family experiment. 

Also, the overall acting is amazing. I now know why they have won so many accolades over the last few years. 

Three Mike and Ikes. 

Law and Order: Criminal Intent

Director: Frank Prinzi (among others, including many guest stints)

Lead Actors: Kathryne Erbe, Vincent D'Onofrio, Courtney B. Vance, Eric Bogosian, Jeff Goldblum, Julia Ormond, Tony Goldwyn, Kahan James

Producer: Dick Wolf

Plot Synopsis: This show centers on the NYPD's Major Case Squad (and the offbeat, Sherlock Holmes-like Detective Robert Goren) in its efforts to stop the worst criminal offenders in New York. 

It also puts a new twist to the "Law & Order" formula: now, in each episode, we see the crimes as they are planned and committed.               

Who Would Like it and Why

These particular Law and Orders with Vincent D'Onofrio put an intellectual spin on the law and cop genre that I found engaging. Upon watching more than a few episodes, one realizes that Vincent D'Onofrio pushes people to their confessions by taunting them, making them angry and sniffing around in their trash. '

Sometimes the audience wonders whether or not D'Onofrio's character, Detective Robert Green, has the mind of a criminal himself and that's what makes him so good. 

For all of the future B-list beefcakes we have seen in the endless horde of cop and lawyer dramas that have paraded by on USA over the years and put me to sleep, D'Onofrio stands out in a few ways. 

One, most detectives in New York have to really dress up by wearing a nice suit and tie, but they're still cops with guns and they have to be ready to get dirty. Well, Goren just sort of shows up to work a little dirty. He seemingly never shaves, seems to sweat a lot and doesn't seem to be always preening for the camera the way some other light weights do. 

One gets the impression that Goren sleeps on the subway or in an open cell at the police station sometimes instead of going home. 

Forget about money, if there's donuts on the ta able, Goren's gonna take one. 

He also has a somewhat bizarre speech pattern which makes the viewer want to pay attention to him more. 

Goren also believes no one and effortlessly sheds away away fake alibis and excuses. He seems like the guy who eventually will refuse to believe someone who's actually telling the truth, kind of a reverse person who cried wolf. 

I know from my limited viewings of this series that Gorren eventually gets himself in a lot of trouble, as one episode with him picking a dead rat out of his desk, likely put there by his fellow cops.

But the few full episodes I watched show how he picks apart the cases and always manages to get to the bottom of them, playing a great "bad cop" with Kathryne Erbe's nice cop. They are both after the same results, it's just that Gorren, being a somewhat large and slovenly man himself is able to be much bolder than Erbe's Detective Alexandra Earnes. Erbe, by the way, I think is much older but manages to be very lovely on the show and a sort of welcome break to D'Onofrio's reminder that not all men are created equal. 

Some of this team's methods for uncovering people seem a little aggressive, almost to the point of them finding evidence that is inadmissible in court because they lied or pretended to be someone they weren't in order to get it. For example, in one episode Erbe pretends to be a graduate student while interrogating a professor.


Who Might not Like it and Why
I had always had an aversion to Law and Order, not sure why, it all seemed so mundane. Just the Law & Order sound would put me to sleep. I didn't have the time or the interest to wait for another crime to unfold. 

But, I found D'Onoffrio intriguing enough and the crimes interesting enough to stop by and watch a few episodes during Christmas break, and I was not disappointed.

Gorren shares a few similarities and characteristics with the most famous fictional detective of all time: Sherlock Homes. He is a genius forever sort of stuck in his head. He is undaunted by people from any class of society and he also doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. 

Highlights/Top Scenes
I enjoy how they go all over New York to solve one case at a time. They must have some allowance and they seem to have all the time in the world. Aso, D'Onofrio mocking the criminals in never old. 

Gorren knows his place in life as a detective, and is never, ever intimidated by Wall Street Investors, or television producers, or anyone else. Also for someone who is merely a detective, he seems to have a great knowledge of the law.

Three Mike and Ikes.