The DUFF

Posted on February 19, 2015 at 5:43 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual material throughout, some language and teen partying
Profanity:	Some strong and crude language, one and a half f-words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Bullying
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	February 20, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	June 8, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00WAEEG7M

A haiku has 17 syllables. A limerick has five lines. An omelet is made from eggs. And a teen romantic comedy will have our characters visit the mall, a locker room, a classroom, and the school bathroom. There will be a trying-on-clothes montage, a makeover, a house party, and a big school dress-up dance. Nothing wrong with that. We’d be disappointed if they skipped any of these essentials. But because we see those same elements over and over, it can be tough to get it right. For every “Mean Girls” or “10 Things I Hate About You” there are dozens of duds like “Drive Me Crazy” or “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.”

“The DUFF,” based on the book by Kody Keplinger, mostly gets it right, thanks to witty performances and great chemistry from the wonderful Mae Whitman and Robbie Amell (“The Flash”), though they are both too old to play teenagers.

Bianca Piper (Whitman) has two best friends , fashionista Jess (Skyler Samuels), and hacker/jock Casey (Bianca A. Santos), both gorgeous and talented and loyal. She does not mind too much that she is socially awkward, except when it comes to her inability to say more than two words (literally) to her soulful, acoustic guitar-playing crush, Toby (Nick Eversman). And then Wes, the handsome boy next door, who happens to be the star of the school football team (Amell), tells her that she is the DUFF (designated ugly fat friend), the accessible gateway between her hot friends and the rest of the world. She is hurt. She is humiliated. She is furious. She un-friends Jess and Casey in a funny encounter that involves almost a dozen different kinds of social media entanglements. With no one else to rely on, she decides to ask Wes for advice, in exchange for helping him with his chemistry test. Cue the trip to the mall with the makeover/trying on clothes montage.

Wes has a “strobe light” (off and on) relationship with the school’s uber-mean girl, named, of course, Madison (Bella Thorne, an actual teenager). Madison’s greatest goal in life is to become a reality TV star and she has her own DUFF/acolyte, constantly following her around to film her for her YouTube channel.

Seeing Wes with Bianca makes Madison determined to get him back in time for (of course) the big homecoming dance, where the homecoming king and queen will be announced. Her friend spots Bianca and Wes at the mall, and secretly films Bianca joking about her crush on Toby. Madison edits and uploads the humiliating video, which quickly spreads throughout the school.

Bianca is crushed.

But with the support of Wes, she decides to own it, deciding that the experience is like the acid bath that created Batman villain, The Joker. In a nice touch, even though they are hurt by Bianca’s accusations, Jess and Casey decide to help out behind the scenes by taking the video down. They really are her friends. But Bianca is so colossally embarrassed that what had seemed insurmountable humiliations like saying three or more words to Toby seem trivial. Soon, they have a date for dinner. And she has a beautiful new LBD to wear, courtesy of Wes.

The adults in the story are played by underused top talent (Allison Janney, Ken Jeong, Romany Malco), but the focus here is on the kids and they deliver their lines with a nice confidence and snap. It is not as endlessly quotable as “Mean Girls” but it feels fresh and resilient. There is even a suggestion that a makeover may not be right for Bianca, or, at least, that any makeover should leave her more like herself, in the world of high school movies, positively revolutionary. Whitman makes Bianca so thoroughly herself throughout that anyone would be glad to have her for a BFF.

Parents should know that this movie includes crude sexual references and some strong language, including one and a half f-words. There is a party with some teen drinking.

Family discussion: How does this compare to your school experience? Why did Bianca believe she was a DUFF, even though her friends really loved her?

If you like this, try: “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” “Sydney White,” and “Mean Girls.”

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Posted on February 12, 2015 at 5:55 pm

“James Bond? Jason Bourne?” Our hero is being asked for the inspiration for naming his dog JB. “No,” he explains, “Jack Bauer.”

This is a cheeky, nasty, meta, po-mo update of the spy genre, self-aware enough to name-check not just Bond, Bourne, and “24,” but also “Nikita,” “Trading Places,” “Pretty Woman,” and “My Fair Lady.” I also caught a reference to the 60’s television show “The Man from UNCLE,” about to get its own big-screen reboot later this year.

Some of the core elements of the sophisticated spy story are here, from the elegant suits to the very specific cocktail order, as well as the super-cool weapons and gadgets we will have the fun of seeing deployed later on. And the villain has an assassin/sidekick who goes one, or maybe two better than iconic characters like Oddjob and Jaws. Spanish dancer Sofia Boutella plays the acrobatic Gazelle, who runs on Oscar Pistorius-style blades as sharp as scalpels. She can slice a man in half lengthwise with one slash of her leg. And does.

Other aspects of the usual spy story are tweaked or outright upended. That old favorite, the talking villain, who has such a profound need to explain the genius of his nefarious plan that it gives Our Hero time to thwart him, is explicitly disposed of. The look of the film is as sleek and sophisticated as the score from Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson.

Colin Firth is sleekly perfect as Harry, also known as Galahad, part of an elegant, upper-class cadre of international gentleman spies operating in total secrecy and using pseudonyms based on King Arthur and his knights. Their made to order suits are both exquisitely tailored and bulletproof.

He points to a wall of framed newspaper headlines about triviality — political squabbles and celebrity scandals — explaining that while these things were going on, he and his fellow Kingsmen were repeatedly saving the world. The person he is explaining it to is Eggsy (Taron Egerton), a possible new recruit. Eggsy is a smart, tough, brash kid who grew up in what the British call council houses and we call the projects, the son of a widow whose second husband is an abusive thug. Eggsy’s late father sacrificed himself to save Harry and other members of the team, so Harry feels a sense of responsibility — and a suspicion that Eggsy might have inherited his father’s courage and sense of honor.

While they had previously limited themselves to the wealthy upper class, Harry persuades the Kingsman’s leader (Michael Caine as Arthur) to allow Eggsy to compete for a spot on the team. The competition is tough and the tasks are tougher, the most imaginative and entertaining section of the movie. Then of course comes our supervillain, Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine, a lisping technology billionaire whose frustration with the failure of the world to reckon with global warming has led him to devise some drastic plans. Once he gets involved, the self-aware air quotes get less interesting and so does the storyline. “Bond films are only as good as the villain,” he says. True, and he is no Goldfinger.

In the last half hour, things really go off the rails. The carnage is balletic and portrayed as darkly comic but it is still disturbing, particularly the involvement of a specific real-life world leader. The humor is not just dark; it is crude for the sake of being crude and seems rather desperate. A film that began with a confident sense of sophistication, wit, and edge knows what it is not (“This is not that kind of movie”) but not what it is.

Parents should know that this movie is extremely violent, with hundreds of characters injured and killed and many exploding heads. Characters use very strong language and drink alcohol. There are explicit and crude sexual references and brief nudity.

Family discussion: Which of the tests would have been the hardest for you? What did they prove about the candidates?

If you like this, try: the James Bond films

Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara Reunite in a New TV Sitcom

Posted on February 11, 2015 at 2:37 pm

Comedy stars Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, who have worked together for decades in SCTV and the Christopher Guest films “Waiting for Guffman,” “For Your Consideration,” and “A Mighty Wind,” are back together again in a new series for the Pop Channel (formerly the TV Guide Channel). The name of the show is “Schitt’s Creek” and it is the story of a vastly wealthy family suddenly vastly poor. Kind of “Beverly Hillbillies” in reverse.

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Comedy Television

Trailer: “Spy” from “Bridesmaid’s” Paul Feig, Melissa McCarthy, and Rose Byrne

Posted on February 7, 2015 at 7:50 am

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Posted on February 5, 2015 at 5:55 pm

Our friends from Bikini Bottom are back in another deliriously silly story, so tender-hearted and cheery that there is no way to resist it. Plus, it has superheroes, a pirate played by Antonio Banderas, existential metaphysics, the guitarist from Guns ‘n’ Roses, and a time-traveling space dolphin with the stentorian tones of a classically trained Shakespearean actor. It will amuse newcomers and delight fans.

Banderas plays Burger-Beard, first seen on a desert island in search of hidden treasure. An Indiana Jones-style booby-trap is no match for his wiliness, and soon he is back on his one-man pirate ship (it operates on “automatic pirate”) with his precious booty: an old storybook. It was a popular book. The library check-out card in the pocket on the inside back cover shows that it has been checked out by piratical luminaries like Captain Kidd and Jolly Roger. The book has a story about SpongeBob and his friends as well as some surprising powers which we will find out about later.

The pirate’s book takes us to familiar territory. SpongeBob Squarepants (Tom Kenny) loves his job as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, making wildly popular Krabby patties. His boss is the money-mad Mr. Krabs, who keeps the secret recipe in his safe. Bikini Bottom’s other eatery is the struggling Chum Bucket, owned by the envious, one-eyed Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), who is far more inventive in coming up with ways to steal the recipe than he is in cooking. Burger-Beard wants the recipe, too, so he can achieve his dream of opening up a food truck made from his pirate boat. When the recipe is stolen, the whole gang, including SpongeBob’s best friend Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), a dim-witted starfish, and Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence) a scuba-suit-wearing squirrel, have to go on land to get it back.

There are some sweet lessons about teamwork (Plankton literally does not know the meaning of the term) and loyalty, but the best lesson of all is the good cheer and gentle laughter that has made SpongeBob the best-loved animated series on television.

Parents should know that this film has some potty humor, schoolyard language, and mild cartoon-style peril and violence, including a cannon.

Family discussion: Which characters are loyal and why? Why is money so important to Mr. Krabs? If you could write your own story, what would it say?

If you like this, try: the SpongeBob television series and Penguins of Madagascar