Sex Tape: A limp noodle

Sex Tape (2014) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for nudity, strong sexual content, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang

Homemade porn (so I’ve been told) tends to reflect the amateur skills of its makers: jittery camerawork, clumsy editing, terrible performances and — needless to say — no plot.

Ironic, then, that a so-called Hollywood comedy about this phenomenon should mimic all these shortcomings.

Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel) discover that, contrary to her original request,
their rather enthusiastic sex tape remained on his master computer, from where it then
migrated to several other tablets in the possession of various friends and family members.
Worse yet, one of those individuals is threatening to post the film to the Internet...

Sex Tape arises from a premise with plenty of potential, to give scripters Kate Angelo, Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller at least that much credit. Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Segel), during their younger years relentless pursuers of recreational sex, have found that their mutual passion has chilled after 10 years of marriage and two children.

Hoping to re-ignite the flame — and with common sense dulled by too many tequila shots — they park the kids with grandma and film themselves performing every single maneuver in Alex Comfort’s groundbreaking 1972 manual, The Joy of Sex.

In a single three-hour session.

That seems ambitious, given that Comfort’s book is large and rather inventive. But we’ll let that slide.

Mission accomplished, Annie instructs Jay to erase the film (unseen? really?), but of course the amiable lunk forgets. Cue the rumble of ominous drums.

In a rather blatant example of cinematic product placement, Jay — who works in the music biz — traditionally gifts friends with old iPads, when he upgrades to newer models. But the tablets are only part of this generous act; they’re also equipped with copies of the impressive music library he has built over the years.

You know what’s coming: Thanks to Jay’s ill-advised use of an aggressive cloning app, their sex film winds up on every recently donated iPad. The recipients include Annie’s mother, the mailman, best friends Robby and Tess (Rob Corddry and Ellie Kemper), and — most damningly — Hank Rosenbaum (Rob Lowe), CEO of the wholesome multinational toy company Piper Brothers, which has made a lucrative financial offer to sponsor Annie’s “modern mommy” blog.

Assuming she maintains appropriate family values, of course.

(I can’t help wondering if the scripters deliberately riffed on the controversy that erupted back in the early 1970s, when Ivory Snow model Marilyn Chambers — who posed with a baby beneath the tag line “99 & 44/100% pure” — became a porn star with the release of Behind the Green Door. Needless to say, Procter & Gamble dropped her like a hot coal.)

The Counselor: Guilty as charged

The Counselor (2013) • View trailer 
No stars (turkey). Rating: R, for graphic violence, grisly images, profanity and strong sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.25.13

Cormac McCarthy apparently felt that 2009’s big-screen adaptation of his novel The Road wasn’t sufficiently bleak, violent or morally depraved, so he upped his game with the original screenplay for this glossy bit of rubbish.

Despite repeated, protracted and viciously descriptive warnings from Westray (Brad Pitt,
left), our imbecilic title character (Michael Fassbender) stubbornly insists on getting
involved with a massive shipment of illegal drugs. After all, what could go wrong?

Rarely have so many A-list stars been involved in such a lamentable waste of time.

The Counselor isn’t merely set in a world of abominable behavior; McCarthy’s characters are cheerfully pragmatic about it. No act too vile to contemplate? They don’t merely contemplate; they discuss barbarism with the thoughtful ease of two fellows comparing cigar brands in a gentlemen’s club. Then, having laboriously exhausted the subject, director Ridley Scott ensures that we’ll eventually get to watch each degenerate act.

McCarthy has a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, for the aforementioned The Road, and rumor suggests that he’s under consideration for a Nobel Prize for literature. The characters in his novels often struggle with moral ambiguity in an increasingly cynical world, although we’re generally able to sympathize with a well-meaning protagonist, whether John Grady Cole in All the Pretty Horses, or Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in the grimmer No Country for Old Men (adapted into a sensational 2007 film by Joel and Ethan Coen).

But there’s nobody to like in The Counselor; indeed, it’s difficult to even understand most of the characters who populate this deadly dull study of ill-advised acts and their horrible consequences. Everybody is morally compromised at best, or sociopathic, or indifferently brutal. Everybody except the token innocent, that is, who may as well be wearing a sign that reads “Sacrificial Lamb.”

Mind you, a roster of degenerates isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself; Quentin Tarantino has a way of extracting wonderfully dark entertainment from the vicious swine who inhabit, say, Pulp Fiction or Inglourious Basterds. But that’s precisely the point: Tarantino characters are engaging for the way they revel in their bad behavior, whereas the increasingly tiresome players in this drama give new meaning to the word “boring.”

What to Expect When You're Expecting: Engaging delivery

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor, profanity and occasional crude references
By Derrick Bang

Nonfiction “personal lifestyle” books are an odd choice to adapt as a film comedy; the results can be unusual, to say the least.

When a married guy is about to become a new father and wants some sage
advice, who's he gonna call? The "Dude Patrol," of course: from left, Gabe
(Rob Huebel), Patel (Amir Talai), Vic (Chris Rock) and Craig (Thomas Lennon).

The most notorious example is Woody Allen’s 1972 handling of David Reuben’s best-selling Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask, but it’s by no means alone. More recent examples include Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long’s 1998 dating manual, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: The Universal Don’ts of Dating, translated into a so-so romantic comedy with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey; and Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 parenting guide, Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence, which became the 2004 Lindsey Lohan vehicle, Mean Girls.

And could anything have been stranger than the 2002 romantic dramedy made from William Powell’s 1970 counter-culture manual for revolution, The Anarchist Cookbook?

This eclectic company now has been augmented by What to Expect When You’re Expecting, a romantic comedy sorta-kinda suggested by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel’s revolutionary 1984 pregnancy manual. The good news is that scripters Shauna Cross and Heather Hach have concocted a reasonably entertaining ensemble comedy in the intertwined-character mode of Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve.

Director Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine, Nanny McPhee) capably rides herd on the large cast — most of the time — granting more or less equal exposure to half a dozen sets of characters and divergent narratives, which eventually intersect to one slight degree or another. The result is enjoyable, occasionally hilarious — Chris Rock, in particular, remains one of the funniest guys on the planet — and even fitfully faithful to its source material.

But not perfect. A sidebar trip to Ethiopia, when one couple adopts an African orphan, is much too grim for a movie this frothy; even fleeting glimpses of poverty are enough to snuff the rest of the film’s larkish vibe, despite Jones’ effort to lend dignity through a ritualized adoption ceremony.

Financial means is an issue of concern to a few of these characters, as well, and we never do get closure on the crisis that results when one loses her job. That’s rather sloppy.

Bad Teacher: Flunks out

Bad Teacher (2011) • View trailer for Bad Teacher
1.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity, nudity, sexual candor and drug use
By Derrick Bang


Lest you’ve wondered recently, let me remove all doubt: America truly is the land of opportunity.

Nowhere else could Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg have been paid — and quite well, by the standards of us ordinary working stiffs — for their script to this dreadful excuse for a movie.

While showing support for the faculty band's performance at a local bar, the
bored Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz, center), present only because she's hot for one
of the musicians, rather cruelly encourages the timid Lynn (Phyllis Smith) to
pick up a guy across the room, as Russell (Jason Segel) expresses silent but
obvious disapproval.

Nowhere else could a major film studio — Columbia, fercryinoutloud! — have believed, even for a moment, that this misbegotten project was worth green-lighting. What are those people smoking down there?

Nowhere else could director Jake Kasdan have drawn an even larger salary for making absolutely no effort to cajole convincing performances from his cast members. Indeed, one gets the impression that Kasdan spent the entire production shoot much like this flick’s title character: eyes closed and totally zonked, having stayed up too late the previous evening, and now paying not the slightest bit of attention to what happens each day in front of the camera.

Really, it doesn’t look like he even tried. The actors here move stiffly and awkwardly from one scene to the next — most of which have no continuity — and deliver their lines flatly and without the slightest trace of emotional connection, while standing uncomfortably about, as if waiting for a school bus.

With few exceptions, their “performances” look and sound like cold line-readings. And since we’ve seen most of these people do much better work elsewhere, the blame falls squarely on Kasdan’s shoulders.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised, since Kasdan most recently brought us the 2007 train wreck, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He’s yet another member of the Judd Apatow repertory company, having served his apprenticeship on television’s Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, followed by a reasonably respectable big-screen debut with 2002’s Orange County. But Kasdan never fulfilled those early suggestions of promise; if his next feature — 2006’s The TV Set — even achieved big-screen release, I never heard about it.

Being part of the Apatow crew, even a lesser part, means larding one’s films with requisite dollops of vulgarity and crude, boorish behavior. And profanity: plenty of profanity. But that style only works — which is to say, only becomes funny — when starting with a competent script that delivers characters whose behavior is somehow shaped or defined by their exaggerated impropriety.

Under no circumstances could Stupnitsky and Eisenberg’s random typing here be called a script, let alone competent.

The Green Hornet: Not much sting

The Green Hornet (2011) • View trailer for The Green Hornet
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violent action, profanity, brief sensuality and fleeting drug content
By Derrick Bang


As also is true of Will Ferrell, a little bit of Seth Rogen goes a long way.

A very long way.

As a result, one’s ability to enjoy – or even tolerate – this crazed, quasi-satirical update of The Green Hornet will depend on a willingness to endure Rogen’s signature role, which never changes from one film to another: the amiable arrested adolescent with delusions of grandeur.

Having unwisely allowed their villainous adversary to trap them, the Green
Hornet (Seth Rogen, right) and Kato (Jay Chou) scramble to avoid being
crushed by several cement mixers, in one of this film's chaotic and often
unusual action scenes.

Suffice it to say, Rogen’s shadow looms quite large over this project. No surprise there, since he co-wrote the script (with Evan Goldberg) and took an executive producer credit, aside from making sure director Michel Gondry employed plenty of tight close-ups on his grinning, college-frat-boy mug.

Gondry’s involvement also raised numerous eyebrows, when this project was announced awhile back. The eclectic French director who brought us Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep has a surrealistic, dream-state approach to storytelling that seems at odds with the goofy atmosphere Rogen maintains during most of this film’s overlong (119 minutes) running time. Indeed, Gondry’s presence seems wasted: a “name” director brought in merely for his cult-film cred, rather than compatibility with the sort of mood Rogen clearly desired.

That said, Gondry gets to display his bizarre side a few times, during reality-heightened flashbacks when Rogen’s character struggles to employ the brain cells with which God endowed him at birth. (This effort at deep thinking generally is played for laughs, since an original idea would perish of loneliness in this man-child’s head.)

This poke at The Green Hornet joins last year’s Kick Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in what could be termed the nerd wish-fulfillment response to conventional superhero roles: the rise of the geek action star. Despite a lack of physical stature, dietary habits that blend alcohol with processed snack foods, and a pathological aversion to working out, somehow these habitually picked-upon social misfits can don a costume (of sorts) and effortlessly deck muscle-bound goons while collecting little more than bruises in return.

Nice thought.

Knight and Day: Stormy

Knight and Day (2010) • View trailer for Knight and Day
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and a hiccup of profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.10
Buy DVD: Knight and Day (Single-Disc Edition) • Buy Blu-Ray: Knight and Day (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) (+ Digital Copy)


Movies like Knight and Day make me tired.

They also make me long for the days of quality romantic espionage thrillers such as The 39 Steps, North by Northwest, Three Days of the Condor, Enigma and my all-time favorite, Charade: films written by people who understood the value of well-crafted characters and tightly plotted narratives.

Roy (Tom Cruise) and June (Cameron Diaz) prepare for another ludicrous
escape, as they elect to flee assassins and charging bulls on the streets of
Seville, Spain, while burning rubber on what this flick's press notes describe
as a "hot-red, super-nimble Ducati Hypermotard S." Beware of films that spend
more time on upscale product placement than plot logic...

As opposed to the big-screen debut of so-called writer Patrick O'Neill, whose screenplay for Knight and Day is no more than a disconnected string of meet-cute one-liners separated by lots of flying bullets and the destruction of considerable personal property. I'm frankly surprised that Tom Cruise would have been lured into such a numb-nuts project; his taste generally is better.

Granted, the second and third Mission: Impossible entries have their cartoonish qualities, but at least they make sense within their own stylistic exaggerations. Knight and Day is little more than a big-budget "idiot story": so named because each and every character behaves like a total idiot at all times.

Heck, I can't even explain the title. The "knight" has dual references, most notably the little toy figure that Cruise's Roy Miller uses to conceal the super-secret scientific prize that everybody wants in this deranged mess of a movie. But "Day" doesn't relate to anything beyond the apparent attempt to concoct a cute play on words.

And yes, this perfectly typifies the sort of thought - or absence thereof - that went into writing the entire film.

Consider: The high-tech gizmo that fuels an endless series of chases and confrontations is a new-fangled battery that never runs down ... not ever. Only one prototype exists, and Roy keeps it close. Capturing or killing Roy therefore might be reasonable options for his various pursuers, but how are we to explain several attempts to blow him up?

Hey, gang: Blow up Roy, blow up the battery. Game over.

Yep, as a writer, O'Neill is quite the deep thinker.

Shrek Forever After: Serene green

Shrek Forever After (2010) • View trailer for Shrek Forever After
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.21.10
Buy DVD: Shrek Forever After (Single-Disc Edition) • Buy Blu-Ray: Shrek Forever After (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)


DreamWorks insists that Shrek Forever After will be the final installment of a saga that dates back to the first film's development plans in 1995, and that's probably a good thing.

The law of diminishing returns has infected this franchise. While our jolly green ogre's fourth adventure certainly isn't a bad film, the formula has grown tired, and — more crucially — the characters no longer feel fresh. The snarky banter has become obligatory, rather than inspired by circumstance; the riffs on familiar fairy tales have lost their spontaneity.

Fiona, far left, couldn't be happier with the domestic turn her life has taken.
Shrek, alas, isn't as certain; although he loves his wife and adores his three
children, he misses the "good ol' days" when he could be his rude ogre self.
He's about the learn the perils of that old warning: Be careful what you wish
for ... because you might get it!

That said, Eddie Murphy's Donkey still brings down the house, and Antonio Banderas — his Puss in Boots having undergone something of a physical change — isn't far behind. Murphy's one-liners are a hoot, as are Donkey's various attempts to carry a tune, and viewers — particularly viewers with cats — will laugh every time Puss in Boots appears.

I only wish writers Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke had worked as hard with the other characters. The irony is reflected in this screenplay's basic premise: Just as Shrek chafes at how domesticity and family responsibilities have sapped the "ogre-ness" (read: bachelor frivolity) that made him such an endearing rascal in 2001's first outing, this film's emphasis on marital harmony and baby ogre diaper duty dictates standard-issue plot points that work against the free-spirited unpredictability we enjoyed so much a decade ago.

It's the eternal dilemma: We want the rogue hero (or heroine) to become responsible, surmount all manner of obstacles and save/impress the object of affection, but — having done so — we're immediately less engaged by the new dynamic. There's a good reason so many romantic comedies and thrillers conclude with the embrace and kiss we've waited to see for two hours: That's invariably the end of the interesting part of the story.

The rest is afterthought ... which is why most films shouldn't beget sequels.

Shrek Forever After — a deliberate riff on the Frank Capra/James Stewart classic, It's a Wonderful Life — begins as Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) gradually succumbs to the lifestyle changes faced by any new parent. At first delighted to be the proud father of bouncing, puke-green triplets, his pleasure wanes as various daddy duties encroach on his few remaining pleasures: quality time in the family outhouse and his beloved mud bath.

Matters aren't helped by the fact that his home has become a popular tourist stop, or that the citizens of Far Far Away now assume that family life has 'tamed' him completely. How can an ogre be an ogre, if he can't annoy or scare people?

This deftly assembled early montage, of Shrek's increasingly claustrophobic family life, is director Mike Mitchell's finest moment ... which is unfortunate, since it arrives so early. Nothing else lives up to it.

Shrek hits full boil and finally erupts during a well-intentioned but wholly chaotic first birthday party for his children. He stalks off and unwisely allows himself to be picked up by the scheming Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn, wonderfully malevolent), a nasty, duplicitous little gnome who has worn out his welcome with everybody else in Far Far Away.

Apparently, Shrek didn't get that memo.

My Sister's Keeper: Stacked deck

My Sister's Keeper (2009) • View trailer for My Sister's Keeper
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity and teen sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.26.09
Buy DVD: My Sister's Keeper• Buy Blu-Ray: My Sister's Keeper [Blu-ray]


Although My Sister's Keeper is laced with intriguing little mysteries and fueled by a thought-provoking legal issue, the big question is whether Cameron Diaz's Sara Fitzgerald is a sympathetic character ... or a monomaniacal monster.

It's a crucial issue, since it likely will determine the degree to which audiences will embrace this film.

Having done the unthinkable, by rebelling against her parents and refusing to
participate in any more medical procedures that might prolong her older
sister's life, Anna (Abigail Breslin) finally finds herself in court with her
compassionate attorney, Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin). What follows
will be a most unusual trial ... even more so than Anna anticipates.

There's very little to admire about Diaz's portrait of Sara, even though considerable latitude must be granted a mother determined to do anything to save the life of a critically ill daughter.

Just what "anything" might encompass, of course, is the heart of the best-selling book by Jodi Picoult, on which this film is based.

Director/co-scripter Nick Cassavetes — working with Jeremy Leven, who adapted The Notebook — has made a contemplative, obviously heartfelt adaptation of Picoult's book, and the film is highlighted by numerous strong, sensitive and impeccably shaded performances.

Diaz's, alas, is not one of them ... which reveals my take on the question posed in the first paragraph.

Diaz simply doesn't have the acting chops for what should be a delicately balanced role. The benefit of getting to know such a character in a book is the time invested: Picoult has ample room to grant Sara Fitzgerald an opportunity to transition from well-balanced woman to a frenzied she-bear.

But we meet Sara only as the latter in this film, and — despite the numerous flashbacks Cassavetes employs — Diaz is a shrill, one-note shrike throughout. She's unpleasant, dictatorial, callous and thoroughly unpleasant, and we therefore can't sympathize with the family catastrophe that may have brought a once kinder woman to this moment. Not at all.

Even the occasional act of nobility — as when Sara shaves her head, in order to show solidarity with her bald elder daughter — emerges more as a gesture of angry spite (absolutely the wrong reading!) than compassion.

I was reminded of Jack Nicholson's equally one-sided interpretation of Jack Torrance, in Stanley Kubrick's ill-advised 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining. If Nicholson plays the part as a deranged lunatic from the get-go — which he does — then we have no sense of a good man being converted to evil by the inhabitants of a haunted hotel.

Similarly, Diaz grants us no glimpse of what must have been, at one time, a gentler woman.