Theater Camp: Concept, 8; laughs, 10

Theater Camp (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity and drug references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.28.23

This is one of the most sarcastic — yet affectionate — films I’ve ever seen.

 

Also one of the funniest.

 

Whilte the young cast members stare in nervous astonishment, Amos (Ben Platt) and
Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) interrupt a rehearsal to indulge in another of their
many artistic arguments.

Granted, theater people are an easy target, with all their quirks and ostentatiously sincere eccentricities. Co-directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman clearly know their way backstage, and their script — co-written with Noah Galvin — explores territory that’ll instantly be familiar to any parent whose adolescent child has been bitten by the stage bug (along with all the other adults who’ve politely endured community theater productions).

Gordon and Lieberman’s mockumentary was a smash hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and took home the coveted U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award.

 

So … let the curtain rise!

 

With summer approaching, AdirondACTS founder Joan (Amy Sedaris) and general manager Rita (Caroline Aaron) once again scout local school theater productions, in order to entice kids to attend — and their parents to help fund — their scrappy upstate New York theater camp. Alas, this undertaking proves calamitous; the strobe effects during a production of Bye, Bye Birdie send Joan into a shock coma.

 

(The fact that this crisis is milked for humor, gives a sense of how edgy the script will be.)

 

Responsibility for overseeing the summer’s activities therefore falls to Joan’s oblivious “crypto bro” son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), a clueless failure-to-launch who probably didn’t graduate junior high school. His arrival coincides with busloads of eager young thespians, which horrifies Rita and the rest of the staff, notably drama instructors Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). Their goal: to keep Troy the hell away from day-to-day activities.

 

Alas, Troy is so dense that he can’t take even sledge-hammer hints. His effort to introduce himself to the assembled children, on the first morning, totally fails to quell the eager chatter of reuniting friends and eager newcomers.

 

Then Amos grabs the microphone and croons “Oh, what a beautiful…”

 

…at which point, all the kids snap to attention and sing, in unison, “morning!”

 

Right then, the film becomes can’t-miss captivating.

Life of the Party: Out of control

Life of the Party (2018) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, drug content and blue humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.11.18

This is a mildly amusing, occasionally endearing 30-minute movie.

Unfortunately, it runs 105 minutes.

Deanna (Melissa McCarthy, with paddle) is delighted when her daughter's sorority sisters
enthusiastically accept her as a member.

At its core, this story has a nifty message of empowerment, seizing the day, and making lemonade when life extends only lemons. (Or the other way around, as one of these characters insists.) It’s a solid premise: Unexpectedly divorced, middle-aged woman returns to college in order to earn the degree she was one short year from obtaining. 

That she happens to choose the university where her daughter is beginning her senior year, clearly adds to the comedic potential. Not a bad start.

Unfortunately, star Melissa McCarthy too frequently clutters up the film with her tediously unfunny shtick. Ergo, school’s out.

Just like the aforementioned young woman who mixes up the lemons/lemonade proverb, McCarthy clearly misunderstood one of filmmaking’s golden rules: that less is more. She seems to believe that more is more, when in fact — as becomes blindingly obvious on numerous occasions, as this flick stumbles its way to end of term — more is much, much less.

McCarthy takes a leaden one-liner — or an embarrassing calamity such as flop sweat, or an ancient, been-there-tired-of-that gag such as marijuana-induced giggles — and repeats it until we scream for mercy. Apparently (perceptively) concerned that the bit isn’t that funny to begin with, she beats it into submission, under the misguided assumption that reiteration confers hilarity.

It does not. It confers eye-rolling exasperation.

That’s the frequent reaction to this film. Every time McCarthy and director Ben Falcone bring us to a reasonably happy place — a point where we think, well, maybe this won’t be so awful — she stages another of her seemingly desperate bids for chuckles, thereby bringing everything to a dead stop.

She’s like a little kid: Looka me! Looka me! Looka me!

She and real-life husband Falcone have collaborated on three films now: He directs; she stars; they share scripting credit. Given that their previous partnerships have yielded 2014’s Tammy and 2016’s The Boss — both blindingly gawdawful flops — you’d think Warner Bros. would have thought long and hard, before granting them a third time at bat.

Because while it’s true Life of the Party is somewhat better than those stinkers, that’s damning with awfully faint praise.