Brad's Status

First Hit:  What I loved about this film was Brad’s (Ben Stiller) authentic realistic internal dialogue about comparing.

Although there were comedic moments, they are mostly situationally driven, this film is a strong film about learning to not compare yourself with others.

Brad is living with his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) and their son Troy (Austin Abrams) in Sacramento. Brad created a non-profit and has made a decent living from this and Melanie works for the government. Troy is a musician and has done well in school and is now ready to tour and interview colleges. Brad and Troy head back to Boston to visit Harvard and Tuffs Universities. Tuffs happens to be Brad’s alma mater.

However, this trip brings up Brad’s college friendships and how all of them have become wealthy. He lays awake at night thinking about his friend’s success and how he and Melanie will be able to afford Troy’s education. Brad becomes obsessed with his financial lot in life. Melanie tells him everything will be alright as they will figure it out as they’ve always have done. However, Brad’s obsession won’t stop.

All of this is shared with the audience with voice over as we watch Brad on a trip with Troy to visit these schools.

At Harvard, Troy mistakenly misses his interview day and Brad, after trying to brag to other waiting parents, is now upset at Troy. Being a protective and caring father, he loudly argues with the admissions staff, trying to find a way to make the interview happen and embarrasses Troy and himself.

He and Melanie remember that one of Brad’s famous rich college friends Craig Fisher (Michael Sheen) [as a visiting professor] teaches a government communications course at Harvard, and has some pull, being a well known author and former White House insider. Reluctantly, Brad calls him and discovers that their other two college friends all have been in communication with each other but have left him out. He thinks it is because he lives in Sacramento, has a non-profit, and makes very little money.

This is the theme of the film, looking at the past and comparing oneself with others. Meeting some of Troy’s musician friends, he gets re-reminded of his past idealistic view of the world and starts pushing his position on Troy’s friends. They show him how his comparing mind is his struggle, not the money he makes. The point is driven home when Ananya (Shazi Raja) tells him where she grew up, just having some food and water was a very rewarding thing and that his current lifestyle is the envy of millions in the world. She tries to put it into perspective for him.

The other aspect of the film I really liked is how parents can feel when their child does well in life by making good choices. The sweet and difficult conversations between Troy and Brad are very well done.

Stiller is strong as the self-critical, obsessive, and comparing father who wants to be seen as some of his friends are seen, rich and famous. Abrams was good as the son. He was appropriately embarrassed and concerned by his father’s behavior. I loved the scene of he and his father wrestling on the bed. Sheen was very good as the arrogant old college mate of Brad. Raja was great as the idealist and realistic Harvard College friend of Troy. Fischer was very good as Brad’s wife. Mike White both wrote and directed this film and I thought many of the insights about how the comparing mind can take one away from actually living life as it shows up to you based on your decisions.

Overall:  I think this film presented a fairly realistic view how comparing success in the business world with my one’s longtime friends can hamper accepting life as it is.

I Do... Until I Don't

First Hit:  Although not well crafted, it had some funny sections and the film ended nicely.

Lake Bell as both director and lead actor did a fair job in developing this film. What didn’t work was that some scenes seemed forced while others ended with little reason for being and did not set up another scene. What did work for me was that there were some very out-loud funny moments and I liked how the film came together in the end.

The film follows three types of relationships partially through the eyes of a relationship guru named Vivian (Dolly Wells). She wants to prove her theory that marriage between two people cannot be "until death do you part." She surmises that people live longer these days so that this promise is not in tune with the changes in our aging process. What she thinks and believes is that after seven years of marriage a couple should have the option to renew or not. To prove her theory, she wants to video a couple falling apart to prove her point.

One relationship that Vivian follows is Bell as Alice who is married to Noah (Ed Helms). They own a window blind store that is failing. The reason it is failing is that he holds on to the ways his father and his grandfather ran the business and doesn’t want to change. They need money as they are about to go into Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Alice thinks by working with Vivian she might make some money. Adding to their issues, Alice doesn’t want to have children while Noah does. Alice also thinks that Noah is hot for her sister Fanny (Amber Heard).

Fanny and Zander (Wyatt Cenac) are not married but have been together for six years. They are raising a son and have publicly declared they’re in an open relationship. There is talk about having other partners but in the end, we find out that they're more talk than action (more sizzle than steak). This is another couple Vivian decides to video because she thinks their relationship will fail.

Lastly, she makes a deal to video Cybil and Harvey (Mary Steenburgen and Paul Reiser respectively) who appear to be tired of their long term marriage. Their communication is mostly made up of snide and snippy remarks towards each other. Cybil is intent on serving Harvey with divorce papers for Vivian’s video and has been guaranteed $10,000.

What the film follows is how these couples set up both their failures and successes with each other. In the course of their interactions, there are naturally developed situations and scenes that are laugh-out-loud funny. Two such scenes are when Alice tries to make money by becoming a massage therapist that gives happy endings to clients. Her first time attempt to do this happens to be with Harvey, who gets a happy ending massage coupon from his wife, Cybil. Their interaction is very funny. Another amusing scene is when Alice and Harvey meet, after the massage, Alice’s reaction is priceless.

When the couples learn about how they are being used by Vivian and that they still love each other, they plan to teach Vivian a lesson.

Bell is up and down in her character, there are times I thought her reactions were not congruent with her character. Helms is okay as Bell’s husband and as consistent in his character. Steenburgen was wonderful. I loved her shift through the film. Reiser is very strong as Harvey the quiet, semi-lost, husband looking for a way to share his deep caring for Cybil. Heard is very good as the free flowing and free spirited sister. Cenac was very good as Fanny’s partner and when he shows his true color for someone trying to seduce Fanny, it is perfect. Wells was funny and okay as the videographer who has a strong opinion about marriage based on her own failings. Lake Bell wrote and directed this film along with starring in it. Not many people do all three successfully and as the film and story evolved it got better which gives me hope that future offerings by Bell will continue to be stronger.

Overall:  The ending made up for some of the failings of the beginning scenes.

Ingrid Goes West

First Hit:  A wonderful reflection of the impact of social media on people.

This is an interesting story about how getting caught up in social media, like Instagram, can alter one’s perception of what relationships consist of.

The film begins with Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) getting herself in a tizzy over not being invited to a wedding. She perceives that she is a best friend of the bride. Breaking into the wedding, she squirts pepper spray into the eyes of the bride and escapes. We learn that the bride never met Ingrid before – just through Instagram.

Ingrid’s mom has just died and because Ingrid was her caretaker, this probably contributed to her isolation and use of social media to reach out to the world. After the wedding fiasco, she isolates herself and searching social media, discovers Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) on social media.

Taylor makes her living by being an “influencer” on Instagram. She photographs herself in locations and with products and because of the size of her audience, companies pay her. Taylor lives in Southern California with her artist husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell). Ingrid, armed with money her mother left her, heads to CA to find Taylor and to find a new life.

She rents a studio from Dan Pinto (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) who ends up becoming her friend. Her first step after “following” Taylor on Instagram, is to track her down by going to the places she posts on Instagram. One day she runs into Taylor and stealthily follows her to her home. Noting that Taylor and Ezra have a dog, named Rothko, she creates a plan to steal the dog and return the dog to get in good, close graces with Taylor.

This plan works and they end up becoming pals hanging out together. What Ingrid doesn’t know is that Taylor has no teal intention of making Ingrid a real friend. As long as Taylor gets something from the relationship, she lets Ingrid hang out with her and Ezra.

The film evolves to where it gets pretty twisted because Ingrid will do anything to be close to and hang out with Taylor. As Taylor’s brother Nicky (Billy Magnussen) comes into the picture, he brings new audiences for Taylor and so Ingrid slips out of favor and importance to Taylor.

As we see how far Ingrid goes to stay in good graces with Taylor, I started to cringe. Nicky adds additional leverage against Ingrid by stealing her phone and threatening Ingrid with exposing her phone’s negative and intimate posts of Taylor to Taylor.

Spiraling into oblivion, Ingrid finds out that there are people who care, even if they were only known to her through social media. She also learns that she has the possibility of creating a real human relationship.

What I liked was how well Ingrid showed what it is like to be obsessive about pings on her phone. She made the feeling that her life depended on the pings, perfectly real.

Plaza is wonderful in this role. Her eyes and behavior really reflected the desperateness of her trying to connect the only way she knew how. This was a strong performance. Olsen was very good as the influencer who really didn’t care about the people who followed her. Russell was OK as Taylor’s husband. His abdicating to his wife’s preferences was well done. Jackson Jr. was strong as the landlord, friend, and lover with a Batman obsession. The story how he came to this obsession was wonderful. David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer wrote a fun script that came alive with the actors and direction by Spicer.

Overall: I liked how the social media obsession was portrayed as I am aware of people who’ve been hooked.

Lucky Logan

First Hit:  Funny at times but lacked intrigue and substance.

Director Steven Soderbergh had previously indicated he’d quit making films.  I guess it wasn't true. Here he made a film that could be compared with his other action crime films, Oceans 11 through 13, although dumbed down. You'd think think he had the formula down, but he must not have, this one didn't work.

Maybe the mistake was thinking that making the same kind of robbery/crime film with people that aren’t very bright would be interesting or compelling. Unfortunately, it wasn't as it because the storyline didn't translate out of Las Vegas at all. Although he tried to reduce the complexity of the crime and dumb things down because of the characters, it didn’t work because the actual details to pull off this crime and the reveal at the end, weren’t believable.

Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is a doting and wonderful father to Sadie (Farrah Mckenzie). His former wife, Bobbie Jo Chapman (Katie Holmes), is antagonistic towards him but she does see his love for their daughter. He gets fired from his job, through no real fault of his own, because of a old football injury. He does appear to have some smarts about him.

His brother Clyde (Adam Driver) is slow and not very bright. He lost his arm in the Iraq war and has a prosthetic that is somewhat useless to him as a bartender in a local dive. Jimmy also has a sister Mellie (Riley Keogh) who runs a small town beauty salon and knows a hell of a lot about cars.

The location is significant because it is near the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The Logan clan needs money, so the brothers decide to rob the speedway. Hatching a plan, they decide they need to blow up a safe and decide to hire an incarcerated Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), who is an expert at blowing up safes. Upon hearing the plan, Joe tells Jimmy and Clyde that he'll need his slow hick brothers Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson) to help him. He wants them to get the explosives and to break the raceway’s computer payment system. The brothers quote was priceless: “I knows all about them twitters and such”, this gives the audience an idea of their ilk.

This team does come up with an ingenious plan to get Joe out of prison without the prison knowing, rob the raceway, and take the heat off them after the robbery. However, the ending leaves a question as to whether they will get away with it as Special Agent Sarah Grayson (Hilary Swank), who seems to be the smartest person in the film, bellies up to the bar in the end and starts talking with Clyde.

Tatum was good, but I didn’t buy his perceived dumbness nor his smartness, and maybe that was the point. Driver was OK as a slow dedicated brother. He almost came across at too dumb. Keogh was fantastic as the smart as a whip sister that knew how to control what she needed to control. Mckenzie was excellent as Tatum’s and Holmes’ daughter. She was very engaging to watch. Holmes was OK as mother and former wife. Craig was odd in this role. There was something that didn’t work for me as him being a hick. However, he did create an over the top character. Quaid and Gleeson were very good in their dumb brother roles and it appears they’ve picked up the acting chops of their parents. Rebecca Blunt wrote the screenplay. What didn’t work was not making the characters believable. Their actions and a lack of character depth created too many questions about the story. Soderbergh made some of the comedy work, but the weakness, for me, lay in the believability of the characters and congruency of their actions.

Overall:  This film is funny at times, but fails where it really needs to be strong, pulling plausibility out of characters and their actions.

The Hitman's Bodyguard

First Hit:  This movie was, at times, very funny and the action scenes were very well-choreographed.

Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is considered a “AAA” Bodyguard for high paying clients. He’s at the top of his game, making a lot of money and has his stuff together. He lives with his live-in girlfriend Amelia (Edolie Yung) who is an agent with Interpol security.

The film opens with him finishing a job for Mr. Kurosawa (Tsuwayuki Saotome), a wealthy client. While putting him on a plane, Mr. Kurosawa gets shot through the small window of his private jet. Bryce is dumbfounded, he did everything and now his client is dead. This completely changes his life, his attitude and he wrongfully thinks Amelia inadvertently leaked the news about his client's whereabouts thereby letting someone assassinate  Kurosawa.

Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman) is a ruthless dictator and is on trial in the International Court at The Hague. He's been accused of killing a village full of people in his country. There was a witness to all this and it was a professional hitman named Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson). However, he’s been jailed and must make a deal to get to the court to testify. The deal is that they will let his wife out of prison but he must stay incarcerated. He takes the deal.

As he’s being transferred from his English jail cell to The Hague, Russian operatives under the control of Dukhovich try to assassinate him. Because Amelia help set up the deal and is traveling with Kincaid, she almost dies in the assassination attempt as well. Kincaid gets free after the assassination attempt and Amelia desperately calls Michael to find and protect Darius from the Russians and get him to The Hague.

This is where the two, the hitman and the bodyguard, get together and the audience gets to go on a wild ride of adventure, protection, fun and extremely well-choreographed action scenes, gunfights and car chases.

Reynolds is fantastic as the bodyguard and his interaction with Jackson is wonderful. Jackson is outrageous, intense and exquisitely funny. Together these two are very entertaining and their back and forth dialogue was quite, laugh out-loud, amusing. Oldman is great as the evil Russian leader who despises that he's on trial. Yung is good as Reynolds love interest. Salma Hayek as Sonia Kincaid, Jackson’s wife, was over the top fun. With gusto she chewed up this role. Tom O’Connor wrote a funny and entertaining script. He conceived, and the director delivered on, each chase scene being interesting and wonderfully different. Patrick Hughes did an amazing job of making the scenes come alive.

Overall:  Although not Oscar worthy, this film was well worth the price of admission.