Tag: Tyler Labine

Super Troopers came out 17 years ago. 17 years! That is insane.

It was Broken Lizard’s first hit and some people still love it the most to this day. Personally, Beerfest is my favorite (Which also promised a sequel which looks way less fun), but they also had Club Dread and The Slammin’ Salmon (my second favorite). Either way, they have a specific humor and have tackled different subjects, all of which can appeal to different audiences.

The production of this one took a long time though, but internet persistence has pushed on. Hell, they had to make an Indiegogo campaign to get movie funding, and surpassed their goal. They did a neat thing, I believe the first film to do this, offering actually theater tickets when it came out, not just digital copies in the future.

There is an audience for Super Troopers 2, and finally they have delivered it to them, for better or for worse.

Looks like this group has sunk to a new all time Lowe.

The sequel is set a few years after the first film. The first film ended with our heroes (Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Erik Stolhanske, Paul Soter) not as actual police officers, doing things in Vermont. Well, it turns out that time is done. Due to an incident with Fred Savage. They are off the force and doing /other/ jobs.

But not for long! You see, when Canada and USA had their borders lined out, in turns out there was a mistake near Vermont. The official border stones put in were seemingly ignored, and a small town that has been in the Canada side for hundreds of years should actually have been on US soil. With this new land, through a chaotic transition period, they have the need for a temporary police force to help with the transition.

So they are rehired for a couple of weeks, and sure, if they do good enough, they can be full time and work this new area. It just turns out that these Canadians, finding out they are switching countries are not the happiest tools in the shed. Nice Canadian is a myth. They are basically going into a war zone.

We have Rob Lowe as the mayor, Emmanuelle Chriqui is some sort of town leader as well. We also have Brian Cox returning as the captain, and introducing Will Sasso, Tyler Labine, and Hayes MacArthur as Mounties.

Guess they might have to just MOUNT up and take this head on. Hockey puck. Maple Leafs. Sorry.

Honestly, I thought this movie would be a train wreck. Maybe a moose wreck, the Canadian version. Comedy sequel two decades later? They have never really worked, even for a more modern one like this one.

But still, it wasn’t that bad. That is the best praise I am going to say. There were a few scenes that had me laughing really hard. Specifically the scenes involving “sorry” and “reverse French dialogue” were the best. I enjoyed that it did have a lot of Canadian jokes, and not just the standard normal Canadian jokes. Yes, they still had those, but some of them were more obscure, and varied.

The three lads who played the Mounties went really hard for the French-Canadian accent, so most of what they said was amusing on that basic level.

Of course the plot is weak, the acting is weak, and the twists are obvious. They aren’t as important for those who are rushing to see this film though. It has its moments, but it is far away from a great comedy on all levels.

Almost every single introduction joke I could think of for The Boss was incredibly lame. There are way too many Boss-based pop culture references that every single one became cringey at just the thought of them. I don’t think there is a single good joke or reference I can make without the readers closing their browser in anger.

If Kelsey Grammer and Tony Danza were locked in a room all night, even they couldn’t come up with something clever to make a chuckle.

Although they would have made something at least more appealing than this turd.

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) was an orphan kid and no one wanted her. She got returned a lot. Must be too much spunk. But now, as an adult, she is wickedly rich and famous. I can’t actually tell you what she does, but she is famous and sells stuff. She also sells her image, women love her, she is a rock star and she knows how to put on a show.

But then she gets arrested. For insider trading crap, even though everybody does it. But she is rich so she doesn’t have to go to jail for years, just has to post a bond and honestly, I think everyone forgets about it. Claire (Kristen Bell) doesn’t forget though. She was her assistant for years and never got the raises she deserved as a single mom. With the arrest she had to find a new job and quick. And now Michelle is showing up to sleep on her couch.

Long story short, the daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), is in an off shoot girl scouts group. Michelle sees how much they make selling cookies, but dislikes that the girls don’t make anything out of it. So she makes her own alternative off shoot girl scout group, but this time the girls can get commission on their pastry sales and Michelle can also make a lot of money. Hooray money!

Also conflict about other business people, Michelle being not super nice, and girls beating up other girls in the streets. Starring Peter Dinklage, Tyler Labine, Kathy Bates, Cecily Strong, Kristen Schaal, and Eva Peterson as a tall teenage girl.

Because all out brawls make the best scenes in comedies.

I really need to harp on this. In my eyes, a comedy reaches the lowest levels of its potential if it resorts to an all out brawl between parts of the cast. It was the conclusion of Grown Ups 2, and the most advertised portion of The Boss. As you can see, it is hilarious because there are young teenage girls in the fray, along with overly concerned mom, all dressed super funny. Ha ha ha!

Anyways, outside of that scene there is little else I remember about the film. Wait, I remember Melissa McCarthy making fun of Kristen Bell’s boobs for a long time. And I remember never laughing.

A comedy without laughter is like torture without pain. Wait, no, it actually IS torture and very painful. Sorry, messed that up. The Boss offers nothing new to the movie experience, not even the comedy movie experience. It is a complete waste of space. Thank goodness Ghostbusters also came out this year and was at least mediocre, or else McCarthy would have had her worst year since starting this recent trend.

Don’t watch The Boss. After reading this review, don’t remember anything except for the last line. Just a disappointment all around.

I can’t remember which movie it was, but I only know about Best Man Down by watching some other shitty indie movie.

It was a trailer before it (because some times I am too lazy to skip them) and the plot just seemed really intriguing to me. I was even more surprised to find that it wasn’t yet out on DVD and I’d have to wait to see a movie. Those dicks.

Either way, it has been awhile since I have loved a random indie straight to DVD movie, so the odds are not forever in its favor.

This would be an example of Best Man Up.

Hooray weddings!

We are gathered here today to celebrate the matrimony of Scott (Justin Long) and Kristin (Jess Weixler). About time, amirite?

Lumpy (Tyler Labine), good friend of Scott, is his best man and very very excited about the whole thing. He goes crazy all night, drinking booze, living it up, being a bit annoying. Well, next morning, he dies. What the fuck? Didn’t see that coming I bet.

See, now Scott and Kristin have a huge problem. (Technically, Lumpy has the biggest problem). Now their happy day will forever be remembered as also the day Lumpy died. They will have to cancel their honeymoon, and put on a funeral. They aren’t selfish people, these are just facts. But it turns out that Scott might not have been keeping up to date with what exactly Lumpy had been up to. He lost his job, and dropped out of school, but no one is actually sure why.

He also has a strange relationship with a high school student, Ramsey (Addison Timlin) up north, who no one knew about. She has her own problems, with a whore-ish mother (Frances O’Connor) who is dating a junkie.

Ohhh, secrets, what fun!

Well shit, now the Best Man is neither up nor down, he’s just fucking missing.

Yeah, so, strangely enough, I really liked this movie. I had a bigger emotional attachment to it than I would have expected. Shit. Having someone die at your wedding? That is all sorts of fucked up.

The movie felt pretty real too, both in Lumpy’s side story, learning about the last year of his life, and the newly married couple’s reaction to the events. A lot of powerful lines when I think back to them, I was going to type some quotes but A) out of direct context, they lose their power and B) no one probably gives a shit.

It wasn’t a long look into the lives of the main characters, but it was enough to really know how they valued friendships and how their lives would change from the event.

It had some humerous moments too, but it is definitely far more on the drama sides of things. I will say the funeral uppercutted me emotionally as well, if you know what I mean, where a nice speech was given by Addison Timlin’s character, and I really like how it wrapped up everything at the end.

So yeah, surprisingly nice indie movie. Yay.

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy not only sounds like a great name for a movie, but a band, a novel, a weekly comic strip, and a video game. I am surprise we aren’t eating a cereal with that name yet either. The first time hearing that title, I felt like the guy who just invented the word “Shazam!”

I am sure he felt Marvel-ous.

Jason Sudeikis is middle aged and likes to party. Like all middle aged people I know. He lives in his dad’s summer house, pretty much, and throws crazy bashes that frequently get the police called on them. We get to see their “White Trash Bash” at the start. He meets a girl, Leslie Bibb! Who he wants, but later turns out to be his real estate agent.

Real estate agent?! Oh yeah. His dad is selling his house. Well shit. All the memories! He needs to find an epic, end of summer hootenanny to end all other hootenannies. With the help of his best friend Tyler Labine, he realizes that his generation is lame. They need to kick start their generation back on the right track, and have a good old fashioned orgy. (Oh shit, title drop again!)

Who is involved though? Well just their close friends. Lake Bell (recently single), Michelle Borth (secretly likes Jason), Lindsay Sloane (insecure about her looks), Nick Kroll (insecure about everything), and Angela Sarafyan and Martin Starr (Dating couple). But who isn’t invited? Lucy Punch and Will Forte, because they just got married and have a baby, and that would be weird.

And the last thing you need in an orgy is for things to be weird.

The obvious plot comes from the fact that Jason finally likes a girl, but she probably wouldn’t be too keen on hearing about a planned Orgy, that he is the lead alpha in. Also there is a lot of sex talk and sex in the movie. You know, people trying to figure out if they want to, how they would do it, getting tips from people, etc. Normal stuff.

There isn’t as much nakedness as one would expect from a movie called this though. Or sex. The “orgy” party did last longer than I thought, but still seemed like it could have been better. More realistic, probably no. Because people are too awkward. The humor of the movie, pretty witty at times, and other times fell short a lot. This is Jason’s first role as “100% lead actor” role, but wasn’t even the funniest person (that would be Tyler Labine). It was decent, but not the laugh riot I was hoping for.

Sometimes you look at a movie or title and think that it can only be ridiculous. This, more often than not, is probably true. Thankfully for Tucker & Dale vs Evil, this is the good kind of ridiculous.

Bloody ridiculous.

This movie is about misunderstandings. It also is about playing on a lot of horror tropes. Movie begins with a group of college students going to the woods for camping or something. But they realize they forgot the beer! OH NOES! So they go to a “Creepy” looking gas station to stock up. They also meet Alan Tudyk (Tucker) and Tyler Labine (Dale), where Dale finds the college girls attractive and just wants to talk to them. But his nervousness is creepy.

And oh noes! Katrina Bowden, still from 30 Rock, gets injured so they take her into the cabin to help her out, because for “some reason”, her friends all run away from the hillbillies. I am doing a horrible plot description.

From the young college kids point of view, they thing Tucker & Dale are dangerous hillbillies trying to kill them all, and want to save Katrina Bowden! Tucker & Dale have no idea that these kids are just being judgmental, and think they are running around killing themselves like a suicide cult.

Hilarious!

So this is a parody on horror movies more or less, and it does a fantastic job. I thought it was going to go a lot further, given the location of their vacation home and the opening scene, but maybe they are leaving that stuff up to future. The evil, in this movie, is of course Xebophobia.

And Xenophobia can lead to horrible consequences.

Overall, I thought it was a very clever film. Tudyk and Labine have great chemistry together, and the only thing I wish is that they had more even screen time. Labine was the star of the movie, and got more of it about him as a result. The ending had some cheese factor that was maybe a bit too much, but hey, the whole movie is ridiculous. Here is hoping another one happens in the future!