Plot summary (from the studio): Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is a foulmouthed, ruthless, and inappropriate teacher. She drinks, gets high, and can’t wait to marry a meal ticket to get out of her bogus day job. When she’s dumped by her fiancé, she sets her sights on a rich, handsome substitute (Justin Timberlake) while shrugging off the advances of the school gym teacher (Jason Segel). The consequences of her wild and outrageous schemes give her students, coworkers, and even herself an education like no other!

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought Jason Segel was the best part of the entire movie. He is kind of annoying as Marshall these days on How I Met Your Mother, but he’s usually pretty likable in his film roles. His turn as the funny, competent gym teacher — the only sane one at the school — gets a thumbs up from me.
• I liked that the movie was only 88 minutes long and didn’t have any extraneous scenes. There’s something to be said for films that get right to the point and stay on topic.

Disliked:

• What kind of message were the screenwriters sending here??? I know, I shouldn’t expect a “dark comedy” to have a good message, but why did everything work out for Ms. Halsey? We learned that if you lie, cheat, and steal, you end up with the nice guy at the end. Meanwhile, if you do your job the right way and try to keep others on the straight and narrow (like Ms. Squirrel did), you deserve to be ridiculed and fired. WTF???
• Justin Timberlake’s character was kind of funny at first, but then he just ended up being creepy in a totally unfunny way. The writers could have gone in many different directions with him, but I think they made the wrong choice.
• Why would Mr. Gettis (the Segel character) even want Ms. Halsey after seeing all the stuff she did on the job, to the students, and with Timberlake’s character? That made no sense to me.
• I know Ms. Halsey becoming a guidance counselor at the school was supposed to be funny, but again that simply made no sense. That’s a step up from teaching in terms of authority and pay, and she did absolutely NOTHING to warrant a promotion. I guess it’s too much to ask that a comedy feature plot points that are remotely plausible.

Rating:

I actually hadn’t heard many reviews about Bad Teacher, so I didn’t have any expectations one way or the other before seeing this. Although there are some funny parts, Elizabeth Halsey is so totally unlikable and lacks any kind of redeeming quality that it was hard to watch her get everything she wanted. I give this film 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): Thirty-something Annie (Kristen Wiig) has hit a rough patch but finds her life turned completely upside down when she takes on the Maid of Honor role in her best friend Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph) wedding. In way over her head but determined to succeed, Annie leads a hilarious hodgepodge of bridesmaids (Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper) on a wild ride down the road to the big event.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Megan was by far my favorite character. She just said and did the funniest things throughout the movie, and presented viewers with the most laugh-out-loud moments. For example, when she suggested a Fight Club theme for Lillian’s shower and said, “We’ll all just jump on her and start beating the shit out of her!” or whatever? OMG, I practically died! Also, when she went to Annie’s place, jumped on her, and said, “I’m life and I’m biting you in the ass” — that was another winner! Same thing with her story about the dolphin looking into her soul and talking to her telepathically. Hahaha!
• Annie’s freakout at the shower was funny, too, especially when she attacked the cookie and tried to push the fondue fountain over.
• Nathan Rhoads seemed like a truly nice guy. At first, I thought there would be a love triangle direct from other rom-com screenplays involving Nathan, Annie, and the Jon Hamm character, but I’m glad they didn’t go that route. He and Annie seem like a good fit.
• The bridesmaid who constantly complained about her kids was both funny and a bit disturbing.
• Some of the stuff on the plane was good, like when the guy finally admitted he was an air marshall.

Disliked:

• A four-minute sex scene to begin the movie? Ugh, so boring and unnecessary, even if Jon Hamm was featured.
• I did not enjoy the dress shop scene one bit. Watching other people vomit and/or battle diarrhea is disgusting to me, so I never find this type of “humor” funny.
• I thought the film was far too long (more than 2 hours) and definitely dragged in places. Are you telling me the director couldn’t have told the same story if 20 minutes of excess was trimmed out?
• The competing speeches bit at the engagement party went on forever. It wasn’t funny; just tiresome.
• I’m sorry, but Maya Rudolph has a distractingly weird face. I usually don’t comment on looks, but this is something I truly disliked about the movie.

Rating:

I was led by the funny trailers, rave reviews, and $100+ million box office to believe that Bridesmaids would be the best female comedy ever. Maybe they got a great company to do their marketing for them because I really was persuaded by the advertising campaign that this would be an awesome film. But even though there were some truly funny lines and scenes scattered throughout, the positives were almost equally balanced out by the negatives, yielding just a pretty average film overall. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): In “The Hangover Part II,” Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. With the memory of Doug’s nearly disastrous bachelor party in Las Vegas still fresh—or at least well-documented—Stu is taking no chances. He has opted for a safe, subdued, pre-wedding trip brunch, with pancakes, coffee…and no alcohol. However, things don’t always go as planned.

Two nights before the big day, at a fabulous resort in Thailand, Stu relents. One beer each. In sealed bottles. What could go wrong?

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bangkok can’t even be imagined.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The characters were mostly still likable, even if their adventures weren’t half as funny as the first time around. The only one who seemed off was Alan, which was disappointing since he was so great last time.
• There were some funny moments in this movie. I laughed out loud a few times and Mr. Chow’s antics, as well as some of the stuff Stu got himself into. And despite knowing that the tattoo would be there (how could you miss it in every promo poster and trailer), it was still funny as hell when it appeared.

Disliked:

• Alan. In the first film, he came off as a socially inept person trying too hard to get the other guys to like him. In this film, he just comes off as a sociopath. Couldn’t stand him!
• I know this issue has been brought up by practically everyone who has seen the movie, but it resonated with me too: Why didn’t Teddy care more about losing his finger (even though it turned out he did it to himself)? Here was a kid who was not only an accomplished cellist, but also a premed student (with aspirations to be a SURGEON) at Stanford. And yet there was zero remorse about losing the finger? Guess he’ll just have to start looking for Food Service Jobs instead.
• The storyline was repetitive. Yeah, I get that it’s a sequel and there are only so many ways to handle the bachelor party hangover plot, but it still felt stale as hell.
• Not enough Justin Bartha. Why couldn’t he have gone out on the town with those guys? Maybe they thought having 4 main characters in every scene would be a bit too crowded. Oh, well.

Rating:

Granted, The Hangover Part II was nowhere near as funny or entertaining as Part I, but that’s because the original was so, well, original. Nevertheless, this one was still watchable, largely thanks to Stu and Phil. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): It’s off to the exotic desert locale of Abu Dhabi for Carrie and the girls in this riotous comedy sequel. With marriage, kids and career throwing their share of roadblocks at them, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda do the only thing they can do to stop the madness: jet off for an unforgettable week of passion, luxury and unexpected temptation, Arabian-style!

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I enjoyed Miranda and Charlotte’s conversation about the trials of motherhood when they were sitting at the bar in their suite. It was great to see Charlotte finally break down and have a real conversation for once instead of spouting all her Pollyanna platitudes all the time.
• The return of Smith Jerrod. Say what you will about the character or the actor (Jason Lewis), I think he’s great. He was always my favorite of Samantha’s many, many men, and I definitely wanted them to be together. I wish Smith had more screen time in this film.
• Seeing some of the bazaars in Abu Dhabi was fun (at least until Adrian appeared and ruined everything). I wonder if they have guys selling iphone covers in deserted alleyways like in most downtown areas over here!

Disliked:

• Carrie has turned into such an insufferable character that I can barely watch when she’s front and center. From her ridiculous tuxedo and “crown” combination at Stanford’s wedding to her incredibly selfish reaction to Big’s anniversary gift (“A piece of jewelry would have been nice” — really??!!), she was just a drag the entire time.
• Big’s response to the news that Carrie cheated was to buy her a huge diamond??? Wow, talk about feeding the beast. How totally ridiculous.
• The Abu Dhabi setting seemed all wrong. There was absolutely no reason to have the women go there, except of course as a ploy to play up the “fish out of water” aspect. I hated how Samantha acted over there. She didn’t come off as the liberated, sexually confident woman she wanted to appear to be; instead, she came off as a loud, boorish American tourist with absolutely zero respect of foreign customs, culture, and law.
• The “chase” scene near the end where the mob of men is supposedly after the women (for what, exactly? What were the men going to do?) was pretty dumb. Meeting the fashion-obsessed Middle Eastern women and then escaping in burkas was yet another ridiculous scene in a film full of them.
• How did the women manage to retain their first-class seats for the trip home? The hotel owner provided them, didn’t he? And seeing as how he unceremoniously kicked them out of their hotel suite, it didn’t make sense that he would allow them to keep their first-class berths on the plane. Wouldn’t he have banned them altogether or made them buy their own tickets?
• Speaking of airplane tickets, how utterly diva-ish was it of Samantha to whine about the “horror” of possibly having to fly economy class for the trip home. A one-off comment might have been funny and in keeping with the character. But the repeated whining and fretting came off as a bit insulting to the 99% of the population who will NEVER be able to fly first-class on an international trip.

Rating:

I rented Sex and the City 2 looking for some lighthearted entertainment. I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular out of a movie like this, but even so I found the result to be terrible. The women in this movie were barely recognizable as the characters from the groundbreaking television series. Obviously characters change over time; in this case, the change happens to have been for the worse. I give this film 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): Hot Tub Time Machine follows a group of best friends who’ve become bored with their adult lives: Adam (John Cusack) has been dumped by his girlfriend; Lou (Rob Corddry) is a party guy who can’t find the party; Nick’s (Craig Robinson) wife controls his every move; and video game obsessed Jacob (Clark Duke) won’t leave his basement.

After a crazy night of drinking in a ski resort hot tub, the men wake up, heads pounding, in the year 1986. This is their chance to kick some past and change their futures – one will find a new love life, one will learn to stand up for himself with the ladies, one will find his mojo and one will make sure he still exists!

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• There were some genuinely funny moments in this film. I found myself laughing or smiling more often than not, and the plot, despite not passing the logic test, kept me engrossed all the way through.
• I liked all the fakeouts about how Phil the doorman lost his arm. I seriously thought it was going to be ripped off in the elevator, which would have been pretty nasty. But there were still several near-misses to get through before we got to see the real accident (getting severed by a passing snowplow). Ouch!
• I thought the ski patrol douches were funny. Usually the “bullies” in these kinds of movies are so transparently hateful that they end up being too boring and predictable. But Blaine actually had some decent motivation in this film. He thought Adam’s crew were Russians with advanced spy gadgets — fairly believable given the political climate of the ’80s.
• I was pleasantly surprised by how likable all the main cast members were. I went into this thinking that it was John Cusack’s movie, but Rob Corddry played just as big a role and was tolerable in it. I liked all the characters, who were funny for different reasons.
• It was totally predictable, of course, but I loved how Lou used his knowledge of the future to make himself fabulously wealthy. I mean, who wouldn’t do that? There’s not one person out there who would rather be flat broke and in constant need of cash advances than cheat a little and become set for life.

Disliked:

• There were way too many sight gags involving bodily fluids. That’s just nasty, even when I know it’s totally fake.
• I didn’t understand how the squirrel managed to mess up The Drive (when it ran onto the field and caused the football player to drop the ball). Wouldn’t that single discrepancy have changed millions of subsequent events (because of the “butterfly effect”)? Why wasn’t that part explained?
• I didn’t like that Adam and Nick returned home to brand new lives that they knew nothing about and had done nothing to build. So Adam was married to that mystery woman… does he know the first thing about her??? No. Does Nick have any idea what it was like to win an award as producer of the year? Absolutely not. Just having the result without the experience is pretty lame.

Rating:
I know some people will automatically hate this movie because of anachronisms, inconsistencies, and illogical happenings, but I was willing to overlook that stuff for the most part. As a result, I ended up enjoying Hot Tub Time Machine more than I thought I would. No, it’s not a great movie, but it does earn 3 stars out of 5.

Synopsis (from the studio): What was Mark Whitacre thinking? A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Whitacre suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company’s multi-national price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion. But before all that can happen, the FBI needs evidence, so Whitacre eagerly agrees to wear a wire and carry a hidden tape recorder in his briefcase, imagining himself as a kind of de facto secret agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, their lead witness hasn’t been quite so forthcoming about helping himself to the corporate coffers. Whitacre’s ever-changing account frustrates the agents and threatens the case against ADM as it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is real and what is the product of Whitacre’s rambling imagination. Based on the true story of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This film had a distinct Coen brothers feel to it. It reminded me a lot of Fargo, where all the characters are completely in earnest, yet the audience can’t help but laugh or groan at their stupidity.
• I kind of liked the fact that we weren’t privy to everything that was going on. I already knew the story of Mark Whitacre, so I knew he ended up in jail for longer than any of the ADM guys he helped put away, so the reveal about his embezzlement activities wasn’t a surprise to me. But I can imagine that some viewers would have a kind of “WTF?” moment as they wonder how this mild-mannered dweeb managed to steal $11 million.
• I enjoyed the random voiceover musings from Damon’s character. Those alone were enough to tell you that he had a screw or three loose.

Disliked:

• Obviously Matt Damon changed his looks for this film because Mark Whitacre wasn’t a good-looking, muscle-bound Jason Bourne type. I understand that. But I still found it extremely distracting to see Damon with 30lbs of flab around his gut, a bad hairpiece on his head, and that ridiculous mustache. And don’t forget about at the end when he got rid of the rug and ended up looking like a prime candidate for hair loss products. Most of the time, I was focused on his looks rather than what his character was doing or saying, which I’m sure wasn’t the filmmakers’ intention.
• For being billed as a comedy (or dark comedy, I guess), this film didn’t have very many laughs. Even with Fargo, I laughed out loud numerous times, but nothing struck me as terribly funny about this movie.
• I wish the script had explored Mark’s bipolar disorder a bit more. It seemed as though they simply wrote off his behavior by saying he was bipolar, but that’s hardly a real explanation, is it? Does being bipolar automatically mean you’re a pathological liar, too? Mark acted remarkably even-keeled for someone with that disorder. Again, I felt that needed to be explored.

Rating:

The Informant! was not quite what I expected in terms of the comedic factor, but it was still very watchable — mostly due to the performances of Damon, Bakula, and Melanie Lynskey (who played Mark’s wife). This is perhaps not a film that you ought to go out of your way to see, but if there’s nothing else available, it’ll do the trick. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Synopsis (from the studio): From The Hangover director Todd Phillips, Due Date throws two unlikely companions together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous. Expectant first-time father Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) looks forward to his new child’s due date five days away. As Peter hurries to catch a flight home from Atlanta to be at his wife’s side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when an encounter with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) forces Peter to hitch a ride with Ethan on a cross-country trip that will ultimately destroy several cars, many friendships and Peter’s last nerve.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This film was laugh-out-loud funny in some places. I thought the characters fit the film, and Downey and Galifianakis played well off each other. I wouldn’t have liked either Peter or Ethan as standalones, but they made a pretty funny duo.
• The premise was a good one. I found it at least somewhat believable that Peter and Ethan would get put on the no-fly list for their antics, and even in this day and age, it’s possible for people to get stranded somewhere without money. Hey, if you don’t have ID, then you can’t access your stuff, right? The stakes (Peter wanting to be there for the birth of his first child) were high enough that he would desperately hitch a ride with Ethan, and the impending birth served as a nice “ticking bomb” to keep Peter moving towards L.A.
• I loved that Ethan actually scored a role on Two and a Half Men at the end. That was a surprise, especially considering how terrible he was during the practice scenarios that Peter gave him.
• I also liked the scene where the Western Union wheelchair vet came out and kicked Peter’s ass. That was completely unexpected, in a good way. I sure hope Peter had some good disability insurance, because between the ass-kicking at Western Union and all the other stuff Ethan subjected him to, he needed it!

Disliked:

• I thought the minor plotline about Peter’s wife possibly having slept with the best friend was a waste of screen time. What was the point of that? It was completely unnecessary and really took away from the main story.
• Some of the duo’s antics felt recycled from other movies featuring two opposites being thrown together by circumstances, and I didn’t think the jokes had enough steam to carry through the entire film. I kind of lost interest towards the end and didn’t really care what happened to Peter and Ethan after a certain point.

Rating:

Due Date was a decent comedy that had some genuinely funny moments along the way. It wasn’t the “laff riot” I might have expected from the director of The Hangover, but it wasn’t horrible, either. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with spoilers): In the near future, the United States will turn into a post-apocalyptic wasteland thanks to a mutated strain of mad cow. The result is that 99% of the population has either fled or turned into zombies.

Columbus (played by Jesse Eisenberg), who has learned to survive by strictly following a list of rules he has created, is on his way back to Ohio to check on his family when he runs into Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), another survivor. Tallahassee is on a quest, too, but his simply involves finding Twinkies. The two decide to ride together.

They stop at a grocery store so Tallahassee can perform his standard Twinkie check. After dispatching a few zombies, they come across two sisters in the storeroom. Wichita (Emma Stone) is freaking out because Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) has been bitten. Wichita cannot stand to see her sister turn into a zombie, so she asks Columbus to shoot Little Rock. He can’t do it. Just as Tallahassee is about to, the girls manage to grab Columbus and Tallahassee’s guns and make off with their vehicle.

Later the foursome hook up again. The sisters eventually learn to trust the guys, and the destination changes from Columbus to the Pacific Playland amusement park in California. The rest of the film shows the four cruising through a completely desolated United States while having various zombie encounters and other adventures.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I am not a fan of zombie movies at all, but this one was pretty great! It was fresh and funny–a difficult feat the studios to pull off these days.
• When I first learned who starred in this film, I couldn’t help but wonder how such diverse actors and characters would get on with each other. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised at how much chemistry the cast had together. I especially liked the Tallahassee-Little Rock friendship, and loved whenever they interacted on screen.
• I usually can’t stand it when comedies include totally unnecessary cameos because they almost always end up feeling self-indulgent. But I have to say the Bill Murray scenes were pure gold! I couldn’t stop laughing, from the Ghostbusters reenactments to Columbus shooting Murray because he thought he was a zombie. OMG, best part of the film by far!

Disliked:

• Some of the scenes didn’t make much sense, but I guess that’s to be expected in a film like this. For example, why did the girls feel it was necessary to set a second trap for Columbus and Tallahassee? Even if they weren’t targeting those guys specifically, I have to wonder what they were doing at all. They didn’t need more guns or another car, so what was up with that?
• I didn’t like the romance storyline at all. Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg?? Yeah, I get that he was pretty much the last age-appropriate guy around, but still…. Had a VERY hard time swallowing that one, and the romantic chemistry between the two was completely absent. They were fine when bickering and arguing, but trying to force a love story was all kinds of wrong.

Rating:

Overall, Zombieland was a surprisingly funny and entertaining film that actually lived up to the hype. There were plenty of laughs throughout, the characters were likable, and the movie didn’t overstay its welcome by running too long. I give it 4 stars out of 5.