This is Where I Leave You

Posted on September 18, 2014 at 5:59 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language, sexual content and some drug use
Profanity: Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking, smoking, drugs, references to pharmaceuticals
Violence/ Scariness: Scuffles, sad death
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: September 19, 2014
Date Released to DVD: December 15, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN: B00K2CI008
Copyright 2014 Warner Brothers
Copyright 2014 Warner Brothers

A toddler carries his little potty out in front of the house so he can try out his new-found skill in public. Twice. Plus another time when the contents of the potty are first displayed for the family and then kind of accidentally tossed onto one of the relatives. This is pretty much the theme of “This is Where I Leave You,” one of those estranged relatives gathering under pressure movies that tries to put the “fun” in dysfunctional.” It’s pretty much great actors trying to make sense of characters who are continuously inappropriate, unpleasant, and miserable, with boundary issues that make Russia/Ukraine seem manageable. And they almost succeed.

Jonathan Tropper wrote the screenplay based on his novel about four siblings returning home for their father’s funeral. Their mother Hillary (Jane Fonda) is a family therapist and the author of a best-selling book on child development that (boundary issue alert) revealed many embarrassing details about the siblings and is now celebrating the 25th anniversary of its initial publication with a re-release. She is given to wildly inappropriate revelations about her sex life with their father (another boundary alert), and showing off her newly enhanced breasts.

She tells her four children that their father’s last wish was for them to observe the Jewish tradition of sitting “shiva,” a seven-day period of mourning where the family stays at home together and receives visits from those who wish to pay condolences.  They understand that “it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be uncomfortable, and we’re going to get on each other’s nerves.”  But, Hillary says, they have no choice.  “You’re grounded.”

They try to protest, but reluctantly agree. Paul (Corey Stoll) is the only one who has stayed in their hometown, the responsible brother who took over the family business, and married Annie (Kathryn Hahn), who is struggling with fertility issues. Wendy (Tina Fey) is married to one of those guys who is always on his cell phone talking about some big financial deal. She has two children, the aforesaid toddler and a baby. Judd (Jason Bateman) is in freefall, having just learned that his wife has been having an affair with his skeezy boss (Dax Shepard), the host of a shock jock radio show called “Man Up.” And then there is Philip (Adam Driver), the irresponsible baby of the family, who arrives in a Porsche convertible, with a new girlfriend named Tracy (Connie Britton), who is much older and a therapist.  You don’t need to be a therapist to figure out that there are some mommy issues there.  Everyone but Phillip is aware that Tracy is way out of his league and he does not deserve her.

The three out of town siblings all encounter past loves.  Wendy’s is Horry (Timothy Olyphant), who was brain-damaged in an accident and still lives with his mother Linda (Debra Monk), Hillary’s neighbor and close friend.  Phillip sees Chelsea (Carly Brooke Pearlstein), who looks, as Tracy notes, like a Victoria’s Secret model.  And Judd sees Penny (a terrific Rose Byrne), living back in their home town and teaching figure skating.  Each presents temptations as the siblings struggle to make sense of their choices, and struggle even more to communicate.  “Deflecting emotion with logistics.  Nice.” “It’s what we do.”  Some secrets will be revealed (though not always intentionally) while others are protected.

Tropper’s screenplay is better than the book because we are not limited to Judd’s depressed narration and because it corrects what I thought was a mistake in the final resolution of Judd’s relationship with his wife.  And it is helped a great deal by performances that give the characters more believability and complexity than the book did.  But director Shawn Levy (“The Internship,” “Night at the Museum”) has always been stronger with broad comedy than with narrative, romance, and sentiment, and this storyline plays into his tendency to meander. Are we supposed to laugh at the Altmans because they are so awful or sympathize with them because all families are crazy at times? The bad choices, lack of respect, and wild swings of character keep us distant from the characters, despite the best efforts of the terrific cast.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong and crude language, sexual references (some vulgar) and explicit situations, nudity, adultery, drinking, smoking, marijuana and pharmaceuticals

Family discussion: How are the Altman siblings alike? How are they different? How do you feel about “complicated?”

If you like this, try: “This Christmas” and “Flirting With Disaster”

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Based on a book Comedy Drama Family Issues Movies -- format

Trailer: This Is Where I Leave You

Posted on May 28, 2014 at 10:45 am

I just finished reading Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, the story of adult siblings sitting shiva following the death of their father. So I am really looking forward to the upcoming film starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Corey Stoll, Rose Byrne, and Jane Fonda.

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Based on a book Trailers, Previews, and Clips

Muppets Most Wanted

Posted on March 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: All Ages
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for some mild action
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Some peril and action, no one hurt
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: March 21, 2014
Date Released to DVD: August 11, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN: B00H4RL2H2
Poster courtesy Walt Disney Pictures
Poster courtesy Walt Disney Pictures

The Muppets live up to the title in this adorable follow-up that is even truer to the essence of Muppetry than the Jason Segal predecessor because it puts the Muppets themselves at the heart of the story, not the humans. And that’s very good news. No one is better than the Muppets at creating a giddy mixture of sharp wit, delirious silliness, pop culture references (here they range from Ingmar Bergman’s scythe-bearing Death chess match to a “Producers”-inspired prison gang kick-line) and random guest stars (Lady Gaga! Tony Bennett! Together!), and a self-deprecating but irrepressibly sunny sensibility. There is always grand spectacle, romance, and heart, even a brief but telling lesson in manners. Plus, there’s another tuneful and hilarious collection of songs from Oscar-winner Bret McKenzie. The result is pure joy.

It starts about one minute after the last movie ends.  The human couple is clearly on the road to happily ever after, but what about the Muppets?  Time for a sequel! “While they wait for Tom Hanks to Make ‘Toy Story 4,'” they sing, even though “everybody knows that the sequel’s never quite as good.”  They also blithely explain that we can expect “a family-style adventure during which we should bond and learn heartwarming lessons like sharing and taking your turn and the Number 3.”

The Muppets hire Dominic Badguy (“pronounced Bad-GEE”) (Ricky Gervais) as their new tour manager and go to Europe to perform.  He actually is a bad GUY, however, and the tour is just a cover for an elaborate series of heists, conveniently located next door to the venues selected by Dominic.  Meanwhile, Constantine, the most dangerous frog in the world, escapes from the Siberian gulag where he has been in prison.  And he looks almost exactly like Kermit, except for a distinctive beauty mark on his cheek.  Constantine slaps a fake birthmark onto Kermit’s cheek, covers his own with green make-up, and soon Kermit is captured (vainly trying to explain that he’s an “Amphibian-American”) and sent to the gulag.

And Constantine is running the Muppet Show.  Even though he speaks with a thick accent and has a completely different personality, none of the Muppets notices the switch, especially when he tells them they can do whatever they want.  Miss Piggy does not realize that her beloved frog has been replaced.

Meanwhile, the hard core prisoners in the gulag (including Ray Liotta and a mystery guest star in solitary) figure out immediately that Kermit is not Constantine because he says “thank you.”  Even Nadya (Tina Fey), who runs the prison, knows it is not Constantine.  But her fondest dream is a first-class gulag musical show.  She won’t let Kermit leave because she needs him to direct it.  And she knows every possible trick the prisoners might try to sneak out.  She explains, “I have a Netflix account with the search words ‘prison escape.'”  Also, she likes him.  So, soon Kermit is overseeing a prison kick-line to a song from “A Chorus Line” (the guy in solitary has a great set of pipes).  And Constantine is getting ready for the biggest heist of all: the British royal family’s crown jewels, though — wait for it — “It’s not easy being mean.”

On the path of the master thieves are a pair of non-master detectives, Jean Pierre Napoleon from Interpol (Ty Burell, through no fault of his own the movie’s only weak point) and Sam the Eagle from the FBI.  Their competition over the size of their badges is rather fun, but then their appearances descend into repeated and increasingly flat jokes about Napoleon’s tiny car and constant breaks for meals and vacations.  But then we have the classic shots of newspapers to bring us up to date: “Slow News Week; Muppets Dominate Headlines” and we’re back in Muppet heaven.

Note: Be sure to get to the theater in time.  There’s an adorable “Monsters University” short before the feature starts.

Parents should know that there is some bad behavior, a very brief scary skeleton and mild peril.  Scenes in the gulag play dire prison conditions and treatment for comedy.

Family discussion: How could Nadya, Fozzie, and Walter tell the difference between Kermit and Constantine? Why didn’t anyone else figure out what was going on?  Why did Constantine let the Muppets do whatever they wanted?

If you like this, try: The Muppet Show and their feature films

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Based on a television show Comedy DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Fantasy For the Whole Family Musical Scene After the Credits Series/Sequel

Admission

Posted on March 21, 2013 at 6:01 pm

Tina Fey and Paul Rudd seem perfect for each other. The characters they play in this movie are not as persuasive.  Fey is so much better than the adorkable rom-com role assigned to her here and Rudd is capable of so much more than the earnest do-gooder relegated to him.  But what really hurts this film is the senseless complications the characters have to try to navigate and the uncertain hold on developments that are are disorientingly off-key.  You can see the studio’s lack of confidence in the movie in the bait-and-switch ad campaign.  The commercials make it look like a standard romantic comedy (and it may have been re-edited to try to fit those rhythms), but the plot line about reuniting with a child put up for adoption feels awkward, cluttered, and intrusive.

Fey is Portia, a tightly-wrapped admissions officer at Princeton, always buried in orange file folders brimming with the hopes and dreams of 17-year-olds and their parents.  They all have excellent grades, community service credentials, positions in student government, athletic achievements, and some sort of artistic streak.  Portia knows how to maintain her composure even when confronted with prospects who are certain that asking just the right penetrating question of the student tour guide will somehow cause the (for the purposes of this film) toughest school in the country to get into to see them as the shining star of perfection their parents always told them they were.  She is less composed when it comes to her own ambitions.  The head of the office (Wallace Shawn) is retiring and Portia is competing with a colleague (“Lincoln’s” Gloria Reuben) who is much smoother at ingratiating herself at Portia’s expense.

Portia is constantly under assault from applicants, parents, and high school college counselors.  Despite the avalanche of applications Princeton receives every year, she has to go out to high schools to encourage seniors to apply.  Princeton is competitive, too.  It wants to make sure that it gets to choose from the the most promising applicants.  And it wants to keep its rejection ratio high so it will top the annual US News rankings.  She gets a call from John Pressman (Rudd) the head of an alternative school.  Like all the other high school administrators, he has a student he wants her to accept.  Like many of them, he wants to make the case that the kid’s file does not reflect his true potential.  But there is one more thing.  John is sure, on the flimsiest of evidence, that an autodidactic polymath named Jeremiah (a likable Nat Wolff of “The Naked Brothers”) is the son Portia gave up for adoption.  The one she never told anyone about.  Jeremiah wants to go to Princeton and Portia’s vestigial maternal instinct jumps to life.  All of a sudden, she finds herself on the other side of the admissions process.

And there’s a lot of other stuff happening with Portia’s professor boyfriend (Michael Sheen), her free-spirited mother (a mis-used Lily Tomlin), and John’s adopted son (Travaris Spears), and John’s parents.  And most of these people at some point in the last third of the film do something so inexplicably inconsistent with what we know about them and what we want for them that it almost seems that we’ve wandered into a different movie.

It would be impossible for Fey and Rudd to be anything other than entertaining and highly watchable.  But I hope their next time on screen does not test that proposition so insistently.

Parents should know that this movie includes references to infidelity and putting an out-of-wedlock infant up for adoption, drinking, and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: How did Portia’s mother influence her ideas about parenting? How would you decide who to admit?

If you like this, try: “Clueless” and “Date Night”

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Based on a book Comedy Date movie Romance School
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