Sam Rockwell has the Bill Murray in “Meatballs” role in “The Way Way Back,” a pretty good summer coming of age comedy about a boy who learns about family, his potential and women at the elbow of a wise-cracking water park Lothario.
Rockwell is hilarious, wise, wicked, and he hits this one right out of the park — as he usually does.
Got questions for the “Seven Psychopaths/Way Way Back” star? Comment below.
It’s been eight years since “Wedding Crashers,” and years since either Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn have been in top-performing comedy blockbusters.
Will “The Internship” reverse their fortunes?
Critics appear to be over the two of them –and they’re not keen on the image polish that Google gets as an employer and force for good in the movie (the latter isn’t there. So “The Internship” won’t get help from them. But word of mouth is good, they had paid sneaks of this one last weekend and they sold well. But $18 million seems to be the consensus on expectations for this one’s opening.
Both Box Office Guru ($19 million) and Box Office Mojo ($24) are thinking “The Purge” will win the weekend — a no-budget non-supernatural horror satire turns blockbuster?
It did over $3 million at midnight Thursday, so yeah — it’s opening big. And yeah, it is about Social Darwinism and takes on talking points in right wing politics of today (with a decidedly leftist POV), So we’ll see.
Loved the first season of this series, and so did millions of others.
So Acura came on as a sponsor of Jerry Seinfeld’s quirky, classic-car centered “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” and here comes to the second season. Chris Rock in a Lambo, Sarah Silverman in a Jag, Don Rickles in an ancient Caddy. All of them biffing and bopping and riffing and getting coffee.
She’s Latin. She’s in a hoodie. So, what, she’s a car-jacker?
That’s a jaw-dropping bit of casting in “Getaway,” Ethan Hawke’s gotta-drive-fast-to-rescue-my-kidnapped-wife thriller, due out this fall.
But chipmunk-cheeked Gomez as a car jacker? I guess “Spring Break” gave her a yen to play bad girls.
The essence of a great car chase is editing, that combination of shots — points of view, inside and outside the car — that make the viewer share the sense of speed, danger and G-forces that the drivers must feel.
Scanning several reviews of the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn comedy “The Internship,” I see a running thread — nobody likes Google, which gets a big ol’ wet kiss in the movie. It’s about two 40something salesmen who have to start their careers over because nobody wears watches anymore. So they land internships at Google — too old, too out of touch to matter, out-of-place with all the bright young minds there. Hilarity ensues.
I love seeing these two together so much that I held my nose about the Google stuff. Nobody hates Google more than me, believe me — they’ve murdered newspapers and any number of other traditional businesses, Gmail is a mess and don’t get me started on their Blogger ripoff. And if you watch it closely, the movie hints at the wrappings of a culture that is impersonal, heedless of the harm it does and devouring everything in sight.
It’s a PG-13 rated “feel good” comedy, and I took it as such.
“The Purge” is a satire. And what did George S. Kaufman say about satire? It’s what opens Friday and “closes Saturday night.” This horror thriller sends up — in a grim and humorless way — a paranoid nation of haves vs. have-nots, embodied by a one night “purge” when those so -armed can go out and cull the population of those who “don’t contribute” to society, the economy, etc. Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey star as a couple who try to save themselves, their kids and their home from the rampaging preppies and rich neighbors who have designs on their fortress McMansion,
It’s preachy and heavy handed, and I’ve caught some wingnut abuse for pointing out its connection to the politics of the day (the whole NRA/Tea Party wet dream of America thing is there, front and center, and in most reviews). Some reviews are embracing the message more than the movie.
“Rapture Palooza” stars Craig Robinson and mocks the New Testament accounts of “The End of Times.” And it’s grossly inferior to “This is The End,” which opens next week, also stars Craig Robinson and is also about “The End Times.
Orlando gets “Love is All You Need,” a sad-faced romance from Denmark that isn’t as romantic as one might have hoped. Grabber moments involving a woman surviving cancer only to catch her husband cheating, and then find love with the grumpy father of the groom (Pierce Brosnan) at her daughter’s wedding. It needed a lighter touch, something dramatic director and Oscar winner Susanne Bier seems to lack. Decent reviews, overall, for this one.
It’s “Open Mike” Friday here at Movie Nation, the morning when I chat about movies with Mike “The Bulldog” Bianchi on his morning sports talk show.
We’ll talk up “The Internship,” which I liked more than most critics.
And “The Purge,” which I didn’t like as much as some.
And “Love is All You Need,” a Danish romance starring Pierce Brosnan which works as well as that concept suggests.
And “The Searchers,” the John Wayne/John Ford classic showing at the Enzian this weekend.
That’s at 745 AM on 740 AM The Game.
Justin Timberlake stars as the online poker victim who tries to get even with “The House,” The House being Ben Affleck, an offshore entrepreneur and cheat. Anthony Mackie is the Fed on their case. Look for “Runner Runner” this fall.
“A Hijacking” is every bit as straightforward as its title. This Danish drama depicts the seizure of a cargo ship by Somali pirates and the months-long negotiations for the release of ship and crew, and tells this story partly through the eyes of the crew that experiences it, and partly in the corporate offices where a CEO takes charge by playing hardball, capturing the pressures on both fronts to secure the release of the Rozen and the seven sailors on board her.
There’s an unadulterated joy in the re-teaming of those fast-talking “Wedding Crashers” Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, a wholesome novelty in their playing laid-off salesmen forced to do what millions of Americans have had to do in the past six years — re-invent themselves.
We’ve missed the patter, the Red Bull-fueled banter that was Vaughn’s bread and butter before Jennifer Aniston and “Fred Claus” sucked away his soul. He came up with this zeitgeist tale of pals Billy (Vaughn) and Nicky (Wilson) told they’re over and done with when the watch company they worked for for folds.
“Face it,” the boss (John Goodman) mutters, “Where you’re going you’ve already been.”
They’re starting over in their 40s.
That means finding a job — any job — with “a future.” No, taking a job with Nicky’s sister’s boorish boyfriend (Will Ferrell, hilarious) at his mattress store isn’t it. To Billy means landing internships at global tech monolith Google, which has its raping/pillaging corporate image polished in this summer feel good comedy.
Because feeling good is what results when fast-talking Billy and charming-womanizing Nicky land as “diversity hires” in Google’s best-and-brightest-and-youngest internship program. The boss (amusingly droll Assif Mandvi) is skeptical. The pretty 30something workaholic exec (Rose Byrne) is resistant to their charms.
Their skills, they’re told, “aren’t relevant in this millennium.”
On a campus where “Star Wars” and Harry Potter are the appropriate cultural touchstones, Billy’s inclined to give old school pep talks about “that little steel-town girl, Ally” (“Flashdance”) and reassure a troubled colleague, “I’m your Bill Holden in ‘Stalag 17.”
“I don’t get that reference.”
“Google it.”
“The Internship” is entirely too long. The misfits that the lads team up with are a “United Colors of Nerd.” The well worn story arc has contests (computer code de-bugging and app-inventing, and Quidditch) to see whose team will be offered jobs at the end of the internship and team-building exercises that include a strip-club jaunt and assorted young-on-old practical jokes.
But Max Minghella makes a fine, arrogant Brit intern-nemesis, Tiya Sircar and Josh Brener stand out as fellow “outliers” in the Googleverse.
And interns Wilson and Vaughn swap lines like veteran jazz musicians who still have a sense of play about them — an endless supply of nicknames, high-and-low fives, dated slang and goodwill — theirs for each other, and ours for them.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexuality, some crude humor, partying and language
Cast: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rose Byrne, Tiya Sircar, Josh Brener, John Goodman
Credits: Directed by Shawn Levy, written by Vince Vaughn and Jared Stern. A Twentieth Century Fox release.
Running time: 1:58
