GOING IN STYLE Review

There is something to be said for movies that have no particular ambition due to a level of self-awareness. There is something to be said for swallowing your pride, accepting the reality of the situation, and doing what you can with the given factors. It's admirable and with such unabashed pride in the face of acceptance there is charm to be found. A different, slightly quirky, break from the norm type charm and this is what Going in Style relies on to let its audience know it is well aware of what it is and that it has no qualms about it. If you don't have any qualms with the type of entertainment a movie like Going in Style promises to deliver then you likely won't have any issue with the movie either. Going in Style is exactly what one would expect it to be given it comes from screenwriter Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent, Hidden Figures) and by his pen is an updated version of the 1979 film of the same name that starred George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg. That film, which I admittedly haven't seen, came from director Martin Brest who may or may not have the strangest filmography in the history of directors. The man, who made his big studio feature debut with the original Going in Style at the age of twenty-eight, would go on to direct the likes of such films as Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and Meet Joe Black among others until he debuted Gigli in 2003 and hasn't worked since. If you're old enough you may recognize the guy as Dr. Miller from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but all of this is neither here nor there (though someone should really look into how one film was so detrimental to an otherwise prosperous career). The point is, what made Going in Style a movie worth re-making seems to have been absent from the consideration of the studio and filmmakers and more was simply an excuse to round up some of our best aging actors, throw them in a film together, and let the chemistry and credibility do the rest of the work. If one has seen the like-minded Last Vegas then you know this actually turns out fairly well and to no surprise Going in Style yields much the same results. A superfluous and completely unnecessary re-make, no doubt, but a frothy enough excursion you don't take seriously enough to be upset about.

SPY Review

Ladies and gentleman, Melissa McCarthy has brought us her version of Austin Powers and while it more or less diverts the James Bond tropes through a slew of supporting characters this is very much a breaking the mold kind of movie that not only puts a woman in the lead where a man typically reigns supreme, but a woman that looks like McCarthy who, per usual, recognizes where she fits into the Holywood lexicon and more or less takes a big ole dump on those expectations. Being unwilling to yield to anyone's pre-determined set of guidelines for what it takes to be an actress, a comedian or now, an action star, has made McCarthy one of the hottest properties around and with Spy she delivers a kind of definitive comedy that will seemingly launch her into the stratosphere of commanding her own franchise. Much like Mike Myers in 1997 McCarthy has used the same popular and well-known template of the spy thriller to lampoon any and all of the typical beats that Ian Fleming's most famous spy and his many imitators have acted out over the years. Opening with the more dashing version of Bond in Jude Law's Bradley Fine as he infiltrates a high class party to commandeer a nuclear bomb that has somehow managed to end up in the wrong persons hands we are taken through the scenario as expected until Fine comes face to face with Tihomir Boyanov (Raad Rawi) and the first of those many expectations are turned on its head and given a certain freshness that not only makes an audience member excited to see what the film will do with each scenario to come, but keeps us consistently laughing as both the sight gags and the one-liners the film delivers are expertly set-up and executed so as to get the biggest pay off. Needless to say, both McCarthy and frequent collaborator Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, The Heat) know what they're doing at this point and they use their assumed short-hand to create not only a solid, credible comedy in a world of sub-par and sloppily put-together comedies, but they so clearly know how to draw on the strengths of each cast members talent as well as the archetypes of the genre so that it all seems to effortlessly pull together to create a hugely funny and entertaining time.

First Trailer for Paul Feig's SPY

Director Paul Feig may currently be casting an all-female version of Ghostbusters, but before he gets around to promoting women in film to a greater extent with that re-imagining of the classic eighties property he will be pairing with Melissa McCarthy again for a rift on the spy genre that looks like nothing short of another massive hit. I have always enjoyed McCarthy's comedy, even in lackluster films like Identity Thief and the truly awful Tammy. Despite the projects themselves being close to unwatchable at times there is always an empathy McCarthy is able to pull from her characters besides the fact she is exceedingly talented at physical comedy and finding the perfect inflection for the perfect moment. When she teams with Feig we get to meet the likes of Megan in Bridesmaids and see the duo of McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in Heat, both of which worked to their advantage and proved to be breakout hits in the vein of largely female casts in broad comedies. While McCarthy will have a little more support from some heavy-hitting male leads here in the form of Jude Law and Jason Statham it will also be nice to see her back on screen and going head to head with Rose Byrne who she didn't get to share enough screen time with on Bridesmaids. While the overall tone of this trailer implies something similar to that of the Steve Carell Get Smart it is nice to know Feig and McCarthy won't be shying away from their R-ratings as 20th Century Fox has released both a green and red band trailer that you can check out below. SPY also stars Bobby Cannavale, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Peter Serafinowicz, Miranda Hart, Allison Janney, Morena Baccarin and opens on May 22nd.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Review

In the late summer of 2006 a friend and I went unsuspecting into our local dollar theater to see a few movies we'd missed earlier that year. One we had no idea of what we were getting into, but were interested in due to the fact it featured Elizabeth Banks in a starring role was Slither. It was one of those experiences you walk away from as a nineteen year-old kid and wonder what the hell you just watched. At that age everything needs to fit squarely into a category, it has to have some semblance of order for you to think it is acceptable in the adult world and this was an R-rated horror film so that was what we expected, or at least that is what had been advertised. What Slither actually turned out to be was a literal gross-out comedy that played on the several homages it contained to horror films of days past and was more in the vein of Evil Dead than anything else. I say all of this not only to reference my introduction to the work of director James Gunn, but more to put into context the kind of non-expectations I'd set for Guardians of the Galaxy. I didn't want to know what to expect, I didn't want to understand the universe and I certainly didn't want to have any preconceptions about who these characters were given their ridiculous appearance. I'd walked into Gunn's strikingly strange Slither with zero expectation and walked out fully appreciating it for its wackiness and ability to transcend genres while clearly doing whatever it wanted. I hoped for the same thing from Guardians despite the fact Gunn had submitted himself to the powers that be at Marvel. I don't look at Marvel as this monster who assumes creative control and only hires directors willing to do their bidding because it is clear they have a plan for where they want all of this to go and they are looking for those willing to work with them on that ultimate goal, which anyone should be able to appreciate. What I do worry about with each Marvel film is the lack of any original voice coming through in conveying these necessary stories. The stories can be cohesive without the tone or style being the same and while the earth-bound Avengers began to feel more serialized in phase two, Guardians is able to break that mold not only by taking place in the cosmos but by brimming with creativity in every scene of its execution.