Tag: Toni Collette

The last time we got a Guillermo del Toro film is when he directed the one about fucking a fish.

Will someone fuck a different creature in Nightmare Alley? Hard to say based on the title alone. I did not know until a little bit before hand that Nightmare Alley was an older book, and also an older movie from 1947. So we are getting a remake. And honestly, this is the exact reason for remakes in my mind. Often remakes are made for successful film that they just want to try again because people liked the first one. They should do more remakes either based on films that failed, or at least just more unknown work to give them a new fresh light.

Not to insult those of you who know and love the original Nightmare Alley film, but honestly, it isn’t super well known now, regardless of how big it may have been in the past.

This new version promised to be closer to the book. Alright, whatever, I am just hear for the movies. Specifically, Guillermo del Toro movies.

No, this isn’t a screengrab from the next Indiana Jones flick…Who is that mysterious stranger, Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper)? The one with the smooth outfit, the clean face, the twinkle in his eyes, the hat? The one who burned down that house for some reason and is willing to just…drift.

Stan finds himself at a traveling show, a carnival, full of lies and deceit. But he sees a geek show, and agrees to help load up for the night for a small payment. And then he gets offered a job to stay along more, because he looks like someone who just needs to be there.

So he stays, he listens, and he learns. Quickly. He learns the tools of the trade. He has plans and ambitions. He has been kept quiet and hidden for so long, he thinks he can take some of these skills and become famous. A celebrity. But if he becomes a man who deals with deceit, eventually, he will be deceited right in the ass.

Also starring Cate Blanchett, Clifton Collins Jr., David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Rooney Mara, Tim Blake Nelson, Toni Collette, and Willem Dafoe.

I bet his eyes aren’t even closed under there. He is using those eyes and his blindfold eye. He is a phony!

Nightmare Alley is so damn aesthetically pleasing to look at. It is polished (some would even say, polished as fuck). I know it is getting harder and harder to really tell how much of a movie is made in front of green screens, but it feels as if this film was mostly main in real places and scenes, using fine cameras to make everything pop. That is what I truly hope and believe, especially since I know del Toro is a fan of using as many practical effects as possible, generally. But maybe most of it is CGI’d, who knows. It looks wonderful.

The big cast works really together. Some in much smaller roles than expected, but still bringing in their all to tell this strange story. It was good to see Perlman get some work in a non straight to video film. Blanchett is in particular quite a force, basically stealing the movie away from Cooper’s character after she walks into it. She is given a really strong role and one that is hard to top. Cooper also does a wonderful job. It takes awhile before his character starts to talk. I wondered if he would be a silent protagonist for the whole film (like Cage was recently in Wally’s Wonderland) but once he started to actual talk, getting him to stop was the harder part.

The actual story for the film is also a pretty good one, if not slightly familiar in some ways. The ending is the type of thing you can see miles away, because they foreshadow everything really hard. However, it is okay knowing how it ends up, because finding out the lengths someone can fall and also rise is often the most exciting part of a film.

Nightmare Alley, shockingly, has no puppet animals, or strange creatures, or any non humans getting fucked. Is this growth? Nah. That was a one time thing for del Toro. Until it isn’t.

3 out of 4.

I have never been a stowaway before, but I have been a part of a stowaway situation. Kind of.

Once, when I was a young lad, barely in high school, I went on a trip with my older brother and four of his older friends. I was the smallest person, and we had to travel in a small car. I was afraid that they would want me to go into the trunk, being the smallest person, but my brother, the driver, didn’t let it happen. Someone volunteered to go in the trunk and was in there for an entire hour car ride, just to go play some magic cards. And he found a different way home later that night.

So, it was a stowaway situation but we were all aware and knew about it. Most of the time stowaways are secrets from someone. So let’s assume Stowaway the film has some secrets in it as well. 

In space, no one can hear your secrets. 

Three scientists are on their way to Mars for some science yeahhhh! Most astronauts are scientists, but in reality, this is like one astronaut that is a scientist, and two scientists who are now astronauts. Marina Barnett (Toni Collette) is the leader of the crew, this is not her first rodeo, she knows how to get things done. Our other two crew members, David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim) and Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick) put in proposals for research and got accepted, trained and are excited to be there!

And sure, during blast off, more fuel got used than expected. A little weird, but not unheard of in the exact science of space travel.

It doesn’t take long before they find out what went wrong. Turns out there is an extra person on board, and he is hurt. Once they get him healed and talking, Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson) is shocked and freaking out. Just an engineer who worked for the space company, an accident knocked him out and on board, and things are going to get weird.

It could have been “fine” overall. They had food and supplies and he would pull his weight. But that same accident seems to have damaged a CO2 converter. You know, one that makes Oxygen. And if they can’t make enough Oxygen for the journey for four people, then some really hard decisions are going to have to be made. 

This is a great time for an emergency meeting. 

When I first saw the description, I laughed. What do they mean running out of oxygen? I am pretty sure space stations have so many extra reserves of things and supplies, so they can take five times as long at least to keep things safe. The Martian taught us that. How could one man ruin that? Well, the film goes out of its way to explain all of these things. The reason oxygen is low, why they can’t easily get more, and their attempts at plan B and plan C to make it work.

But the whole point of this movie is like a very expensive trolley problem. Can they kill one or two people to save the rest, or should they risk it to save them all or none of them? (Note, they know the science and know that the risk can’t possibly work out either). 

And who is it to die? The stowaway who technically caused the issue, but is not his fault. Or one of the crew members who signed up knowing the risks that they would face. Could they live knowing they let someone die for them? 

I liked the questions posed in this slow space drama, and it gave me a slight ever tiny cry near the end. The effects are fine, but the acting is stellar. I expect a lot out of Kendrick, Kim, and Collette in a film like this, and barely have seen Anderson in anything else, but they all deliver. They are believable, they are different, and they are smart. This is a no dummy space flight. And it is annoying I have to mention that, given how many space movies send morons out into space apparently. 

Stowaway wanted to ask a hard question, and it gave some hard answers. I appreciate it telling the story it told. 

3 out of 4.

As a critic of film, I try to not let hype over take me, but for a film like Knives Out it has been quite hard to ignore the praise.

Best murder mystery in decades? Stellar cast where everyone brings their best? Laughs and shocks galore?

It was hard to not get swept up in the rush, so much that just getting ready to watch Knives Out made me appreciate the movie I saw before it a bit less due to wondering if I’d even get a good seat.

Also, it’s probably best to even skip my middle section, because generally the less you know about a mystery, the better!

Unless you a detective, in which case, you want to know as much as possible.

Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) was found in his attic with his throat cut, blood everywhere. By all accounts, a suicide.

But now, a week later, it looks like there are still questions. Officially led by two local officers (LaKeith Stanfield, Noah Segan), but the main questions are coming from Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a southern detective of notoriety who is being backed by a mysterious patron to find the truth of the matter.

Harlan’s Nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), is going to be his main go to in order to get the inside scoop on the family, full of people with secrets. So many people, let’s just call them the family (Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Jaeden Martell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Katherine Langford, Michael Shannon, Riki Lindhome, Toni Collette).

But of course, nothing is as it seems, and blah blah blah, til the very end!

Also starring Edi Patterson as the house keeper.

J’Accuse…!

Yes, Knives Out was very creative with its reveals and its pacing. Yes, Craig was magnificent in his role as eccentric detective, with a lot of funny lines. Yes, de Armas carried a lot of weight on her shoulders as well, and was a great leading lady. Yes, a lot of the twist and turns were very much on point and unexpected.

And yet, it still didn’t do everything perfect.

With a large cast, I felt like only three~ people ended up being important. A lot of big names are in there, have a moment or two, but are really wasted. The script does not allow for the large amount of people to shine and it is a bit disappointing in that regard. Hell, I am pretty sure Lindhome didn’t have an actual line of dialogue in this movie, outside of gasps, facial expressions, and argument background noise when everyone is talking at once.

And even if the ending technically works, and the reveals are all laid out, it is so god damn convoluted that it will not only be impossible to guess, it takes a lot of mental work to follow through.

This could be very well be a movie that is best tasted after 2-3 tries, and is still a very enjoyable experience. But if certainly did not dethrone Clue as the best murder mystery movie, in terms of humor, wit, or reveals.

3 out of 4.

Before Velvet Buzzsaw, Dan Gilroy has directed only two movies, and he is the writer of both of those films. The first one was Nightcrawler, a genius film and clearly one of the best of the year. It is haunting, and Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of his best performances of his life.

The second one was Roman J. Israel, Esq., which people like to ignore. I mean, Denzel Washington was nominated for acting from it, but it didn’t have Gyleenhaal so no one cared. It was not was well received as his first film.

This brings us back to Velvet Buzzsaw, which Gilroy again wrote and directed on his own. And because it is more horror based and has Gyllenhaal in it, people were notably excited and declared it would be just as good as Nightcrawler! Being released on Netflix isn’t an issue, because Netflix movies can be good!

People like to hype, I guess I am saying.

Nothing scarier than hearing I would have to analyze and judge pieces of art.

It is really hard to pick a main character to really talk about in this movie, but they want us to focus on Gyllenhaal with advertising, so I will. Morf Vandewalt (Gyllenhaal), probably a fake name, is an art critic in LA, one of the most famous and prestigious. He does fine work, people like him, he knows how to describe things like any elitist art man.

One of the galleries he tends to review at has a young fledgling art dealer, Josephina (Zawe Ashton), who is having a stressful time in life. To top it all off, some man dies in her apartment, she finds the body, it makes her late for work and she is demoted. After finding out that all of his items are to be destroyed per his wishes, she checks on his cat and finds hundreds to thousands of pieces of art, all originals, all haunting and powerful.

This? This could be her chance. You know, to deceive some people, act like it is her client, sell his art, get big in the community. Everyone is instantly amazed by the art, including her boss (Rene Russo), they want in on the action, want a piece of that huge jackpot of money they are about to create.

But as soon as more research goes into the now deceased artist, they find he had a troubled past, and has a good reason to have wanted all of the artwork to be destroyed.

Also starring Billy Magnussen, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich, Natalia Dyer, and Tom Sturridge.

Everyone uses the same Gyllenhaal staring picture in their reviews,
I WANT A DIFFERENT ONE OKAY?

Velvet Buzzsaw, both the title, and the premise, is one that is able to draw you in slowly. It is set in a world that most of us are not a part of, dealing, making, selling art and making it a focal point of their lives. The rich, the elite. And that makes it a good film to have people die in.

Too many horror films are killing off our teenagers at record numbers. What about these rich people? The snobby elites? Why not watch them die in creative art fueled ways?

The concept is fine, but it definitely lacks the creep factor. It doesn’t seem to fully embrace the thoughts of horrors, and instead we get a strange drama/horror hybrid, where enough people definitely die, but never in ways that really seem exciting to talk about. The final death was a bit wicked, but other than that, it is mostly generic crazy death things.

It would be more memorable if it just went harder in the genre, but this movie plays it safe. We don’t have enough horrors set in museums, which are clearly some of the creepiest places to be. This adds to the list, but doesn’t top that list.

2 out of 4.

Another year, another A24 movie hailed as a masterpiece of horror. And yet, there is doubt.

Sometimes A24 overhypes their films. Understandable. And sometimes they advertise things a bit different and piss off a lot of people. Some people have not forgiven them over this. Other people think these highly acclaimed horror films are shit.

But here is something I think most people can agree with. 2017 was a strong year for Horror films. Probably the best in quite some time for the genre. And for Hereditary? Well, it is sure as hell my favorite horror film in at least the last decade.

As sure as hell that hell is often talked about in horror movies.

The Graham family has had some troubling times. And it all seems to funnel around Annie Graham (Toni Collette). Her mother just died. But like, they weren’t close at all. She was living her last days in their home, but that doesn’t really change their past relationship.

Annie is an artist, in that she designs small dollhouse like arrangements and has a show coming up this summer. She is extremely crafty and can make a lot of things. Her husband (Gabriel Byrne) is trying to keep her life as stress free as possible, but it is hard when there is so much angst in the household.

Angst? Heck yes angst. They have two kids. The oldest, the boy (Alex Wolff) doesn’t get along with the mom and vice versa. They have had an interesting past. The younger, the girl (Milly Shapiro), has an unfortunate look and aura to her. She was the only one close to the deceased. And she has a lot of issues on her own, dark drawings, antisocial, you name it.

But it turns out their family has a lot of secrets. Some that Annie is aware of, and some that are going to come crashing down on them whether she wants them to or not.

Also starring Ann Dowd and Mallory Bechtel.

“Unfortunate looking” is the nice way to talk about it.

Let’s just compare real quick. Get Out. It Comes At Night. It Follows. Stoker. The Babadook. The Witch.

All fine horror films, or thriller films depending on how you want to argue them. And yes, I think Hereditary beats the list, including The Witch, which is my favorite from that list.

It is so hard to describe the feelings that Hereditary brings up. Given the family nature of the film, my mind went several places I thought it might go, and it didn’t really touch them. It went down a relatively unique path that seemed natural, and plenty shocking. It is definitely a slow movie, until it decides to fully embrace the “regular” parts of the genre.

Because by all means, the end is full on horror movie. We don’t have jump scares to get us to that point. We have unsettling events. Some shocking moments of course, but nothing is cheap, it is all earned.

And acting wise, I will talk about Wolff first. This is probably the best he has ever done in a movie. He was seemingly typecasted in my eyes and this movie will hopefully get him out of those teenage romance dramas. But Collette? Holy fuck, Toni Collette. I have definitely never come close to watching all of her movies, but I can’t imagine her ever better. And she has been in a lot of bad things lately.

Bold statement – Collette deserves acting nominations by the end of the year. She helped carry this movie and elevate it to an amazing status. I cannot see this film not being in the top five by the end of the year.

4 out of 4.

John Carney is an amazing director. From Once, to Begin Again, to Sing Street. Great films, great songs, a lot of heart and love.

This movie, Hearts Beat Loud, is not made by John Carney, but it looks like it could have been.

Instead it is directed by Brett Haley, who did The Hero. It is a film I meant to watch and didn’t, that also probably didn’t have music in it so whatever. Basically, I know little of his work, but by golly, with a movie like this, I guess I should go back and check them out.

With smiles and beards like this, you know this film is infectious. In multiple ways.

Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) is a man who has run a record store in New York City for 17 years. He loves music. He loves making music. He wanted to be a star. But he did not reach his fame.

Sam Fisher (Kiersey Clemons) is his daughter, in the summer before college, and she is taking pre-med classes to get ahead. She is going to UCLA, which is far away from NYC. She also enjoys music, but doesn’t have time for it anymore.

And her mother / his wife? Well, she is gone. She has been for some time. It has been hard. Hell, Frank was performing with her. Maybe they would have made it big together. Maybe. They just never got the time to make it fully work. And now they are about to be separated. Things are changing. This is sad. It feels sad. I’m sad.

But in a last hooray, in a jam session between the pair, they make a song finally just work. It is emotional, it is a good mix of pop and soul. And it is about to take off on the internet.

Also starring Ted Danson, Toni Collette, Sasha Lane, and Blythe Danner.

Also some stories of love, those are the ones that really get you.

I already mentioned how this feels like a movie by an acclaimed director. I am so surprised that this director tackled these heartfelt song and jam session scenes so wonderfully. They draw the viewer in, and as long as there are good speakers, you will feel like you are there and just want to jump for joy.

My audience actually had people cheering after they finally finished their first song, and this isn’t some midnight release crowd, so it was odd to see.

Hearts Beat Loud is emotion. It is hope, it is sadness. It is loneliness and anxiety. It is fear of change, and fear of trying something new. It is excitement, joy, and of course, love. Offerman and Clemons just feel so realistic in their roles that it is hard to not go on the roller coaster with them.

I loved the music in this movie. Surprisingly it only made me cry once. I am guessing because my own daughter is a decade and a half before moving out and being an adult, so those scenes didn’t take as much of a hold on me.

Hearts Beat Loud is a feel good movie overall, and just a movie that feels like it needs to exist right now.

4 out of 4.

Bet you never heard of Fun Mom Dinner!

With words like that, it sounds like an absolute blast! It has fun! Mom! And dinner! The exclamation points are provided by me, free of charge!

First things first, it looks like it is trying to be a quick cash grab for those Bad Moms fans, which I am sure there are dozens of them. Or at least enough dozens to make a sequel worthy. There have actually been a lot of girl group films this year, with also Girls Trip and Rough Night both happening this summer. I wonder if this is all a result of Bad Moms, or are women just being catered to in films finally?

If so, I apologize that the movies they are throwing at you seem to be so shitty.

A less famous version of Bad Moms, no way?

Being a mom is hard and usually it lacks fun. So some mom’s like to go out once a month or so and just have fun, drink some booze, and make sure they aren’t surrounded by kids 24/7. Namely it has been Melanie (Bridget Everett), a high intensity mom who volunteers a lot and is rules happy at the school, and Jamie (Molly Shannon) who is divorced, loves Instagram, and also very involved. But they want to invite Emily (Katie Aselton) to their ranks on the next night. She is relatively new to their school, seems involved and seems nice.

Emily seems to think it will be a good idea. After all, she does want a break and she does need new friends. She just asks if they can bring her other mom friend, Kate (Toni Collette), who has been bringing kids to that school longer. They actually know about Kate, as she has been downright rude most of the time and pretty stuck up when it comes to hanging out with moms. But they agree, in honor of the spirit of their night.

After some husband convincing, the ladies are off, and of course, their plans are not going to go as expected. Thankfully, I am sure, they will grow with each other on this crazy night of theirs and no one will get hurt.

Also starring some dudes like Paul Rudd, Adam Scott, (both of them were producers) Adam Levine, Paul Rust, David Wain, and Rob Huebel.

I will agree that unicorns and Cheez-Its is my kind of party.

I went in expecting Fun Mom Dinner to be a worse version of Bad Moms. And what I got instead was not something worse than Bad Moms, just something just as as bad as Bad Mom’s.

And that is really all I should have to say. It has a lesser production quality, more people in it, an occasional laugh, but an incredibly forgettable story.

What was it about again? I forgot, especially since this review is coming out many weeks after the fact that I wrote this. I don’t want to read the middle part later again. They have more drugs and alcohol than expected, we have to watch the dads actually be fathers (shocking), and people make mistakes. Thankfully, they come closer through the experience.

I honestly don’t have anything really to say about this one. It wasn’t the worst film of the year, it just wasn’t close to being good.

1 out of 4.

Happy Holidays from the end of March!

I wanted to see Krampus when it came out early in December, but unfortunately there weren’t any prescreenings for the film. Guess they assumed critics would hate it, or not get the point, man.

Either way, I was disappointed, but not disappointed enough to spend money on going to the film. December is busy for awards movies, not comedy horror films!

But the idea of a Krampus movie was very exciting. I haven’t even seen a Christmas horror film since Rare Exports years ago, which was wonderful and you should consider adding it to your Christmas collection.

But this one has scary clowns, so you know it might be more horror than comedy.

It’s Christmas time, yay! We are going to celebrate at the Engel household with their family coming over. Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) have to make sure their house is clean, food cooked and everything decorated for Santa. After all, their kid Max (Emjay Anthony) still believes despite being like 10 or something. Also living in the house is their older daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Omi (Krista Stadler), Tom’s mom. She speaks German!

Anyways, the family eventually comes over. Rednecks. Howard (David Koechner), Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), and Linda (Allison Tolman) with some dick kids (Queenie Samuel, Lolo Owen) and a baby.

Needless to say, the other boy kids tease poor Max for believing in Santa. They find his letter to Santa and read it outloud, making fun of his wishes for things like his parents to love each other more, and so on. He gets mad and rips up his letter throwing it into the wind! And with that, the power in the whole city goes out. And the winter storm gets a little bit more wintry.

Strange things are afoot. But let’s just cut to the chase. People have ruined Christmas. Krampus is here to punish them.

Damn grandma, you are brave enough to take on the Krampus alone?

When you go into a comedy horror film, you can never really expect a whole lot. They rarely have large budgets and are never really too funny or too scary. Krampus seems to fit the bill like the other ones, with a slightly more impressive budget.

I feel bad for Adam Scott, who often is put into these sort of roles (see Piranha) and lower budget comedies (see Hot Tub Time Machine 2). He is a funny guy who keeps getting stuck in bad to mediocre films.

Krampus at times is a little scary. Toys come to life in a very The Nightmare Before Christmas way. The Krampus itself felt downplayed with most of the work being done by creepy helper demon things. But knowing that even the kids weren’t safe was a nice surprise that a lot of films seem to avoid.

As for the comedy, well, there really wasn’t any. The comedy came from strange things happening, like CGI gingerbread men attacking them. No other real jokes outside of the weird factor, which is the most disappointing aspect of the film.

It did an okay job at the scary parts, but failed when it came to making me chuckle.

2 out of 4.

Happiness is a funny word. You know why. If you don’t, just say it slowly. I think there is a reason for that.

So one could say the search for happiness is a metaphor for coming out of the closet. I mean, you might be hard pressed to find anyone to say that, but theoretically someone could say that.

Regardless of how the movie goes, I am going to have that running through my head throughout the film.

Hector and the Search For Happiness. A movie about whatever you want apparently!

He is missing the most important fun accessory. A fanny pack!

Hector (Simon Pegg) isn’t happy and he wants to find it. That isn’t the full story of course. He is actually a psychiatrist and more bored with his life. He is also bored with all of his clients and finding himself unable to relate to any of them. He feels he can’t help because he isn’t personally happy. That doesn’t mean he is sad either. He is kind of blank on all emotions. And because he would like some emotions, he decides happiness is a good one to find.

So he leaves his girlfriend (Rosamund Pike) behind (rude) to go on a research journey.

He travels to China, Africa, and LA, meeting a variety of people and incidents, all while writing notes and drawing cartoons in his journal. He takes this research game seriously. And yeah, now that is the full story. Monks, nightclubs, refugee camps, researchers.

Featuring a lot of people! Like, Christopher Plummer, Barry Atsma, Jean Reno, Ming Zhao, Stellan Skarsgard, Togo Igawa, Toni Collette, Tracy Ann Oberman, and Veronica Ferres.

Hector discovers unique and exciting fetishes along his journey.

I am happy to announce that my way of watching the movie totally worked. It added a whole new level to it, especially during the moments when he skyped back home to his girlfriend and fought over his journey. He just needed to be true to himself, you know?

Unfortunately, that is an add on bonus for me but not something the movie itself could deliver. So technically Hector only goes three places from London. I think what I want most out of this movie is just more. His journey seemed so much more epic in scale, only going to 3 (okay, kind of 4) places is disappointing. I wanted him to experience all sorts of cultures and lifestyles. But he really only got 2 maybe 3.

The ending itself is also super cheesy. Which fits because with the animations and writing on the screen, it is a kind of cheesy movie. It is a sort of strange dramedy, that is not as good at the drama portions as one would like.

Overall, it is just another average movie. It could have been a lot more entertaining, and didn’t suffer from bad acting at all. Just a weaker plot that makes the film hard to fully embrace.

2 out of 4.

There was not a lot of build up to Tammy compared to other recent McCarthy based films such as The Heat and Identity Thief. Those films got their trailers played over and over again, to increasingly annoying levels. Tammy? Nah. It had a strange teaser trailer a few months ago, decently funny, and then a regular trailer like, a month ago and that was it.

Good. It really sucks hating a movie before it comes out due to bad trailers or overplaying those trailers.

In fact, the teaser trailer of Tammy robbing the store? Pretty amusing. So there were definite hopes for this film. Especially when I found out that Melissa McCarthy co-wrote the movie with her husband / director Ben Falcone. So presumably they will flesh stuff out and not just give us the same roles she has now been type casted to.

See? She looks calm in this picture. She is never calm in any other movie.

This is a movie about a lady named Tammy (McCarthy). Tammy just lost her job for being late constantly, even if she had a good reason this time. Her car breaks down while going back home. Because she still gets back home early, she is able to see her husband (Nat Faxon) and neighbor (Toni Collette) having a fancy dinner and surprised to see her. Wooo.

So Tammy decides to leave. She wants to run away but her car is dead. Her mom (Allison Janney) says no, but her grandmother (Susan Sarandon) says yes! Pearl has over $6,000 in cash and a car, just needs someone to drive her, so why not run away with her grand daughter for awhile?

Which is also I guess your basic plot. They go on a mini adventure, where things go badly and problems occur. They get to see Pearl’s cousin, Lenore (Kathy Bates), the founder of a big pet store chain and her lesbian lover (Sandra Oh). They also meet a gentlemen interested in Pearl (Gary Cole) and his son (Mark Duplass) who Tammy awkwardly flirts with.

Outside of mentioning that her dad is played by Dan Aykroyd, I don’t think I could describe the movie anymore than I already have.

Talking about this scene is unnecessary thanks to the trailer!

When I said that was the basic plot, I guess I tried to sound sarcastic, but that is really hard to do through words on a screen. It is hard to really say how much of a plot this movie had outside of a girl and her grandmother having problems and driving. Those tiny plot points could be turned into a good film, sure, but this film might not have been in the best hands.

For the most part, McCarthy does play the exact same role. She has some nicer character moments that a lot of her other roles lack, which is nice. But as the main lead, her character doesn’t have enough for me to care. Was I supposed to feel sorry about her getting fired? No way. Even if this time it was okay, it still implied she was late a lot and probably deserved it. Same with most of the other things that happened to her.

Let’s go back to the awesome teaser trailer. You know how I didn’t bring it up? That is because that scene doesn’t happen until about two thirds of the way in the movie. Seriously. And not much is different about it from the teaser. All the lines are the same, barely any longer. A funny part so much later ruined for that reason. Looking at the trailers, this scene seems to be something early on which would make it okay. Hey, the problems start because she robs a store. Cool. Nah. That late in the movie, I kind of wonder what the point was.

Overall, the movie did have some amusing scenes, but they were few and far between for me. Pretty forgettable soon after watching it.

1 out of 4.