Babes (2024)

I totally understand when opinions seem to vary wildly when we see the many "greatest films/films you must see"lists covering specific years that have just gone by, but I was very surprised to see so many people seem to miss, or completely overlook, Babes. Not only is this one of the best comedies of 2024, it's one of the best comedies I have seen in years. I hope this small corner of the internet can allow me to praise it highly enough that others get to discover just how wonderful it is.

Ilana Glazer is Eden, a good friend to Dawn (Michelle Buteau). The pair have been friends for many years, and the film starts with them having to rush to the hospital as Dawn goes into labour with her next child. Eden is happy enough without her own children, but that situation is about to change in a major way, all thanks to a handsome man named Claude (Stephan James). It's not too long until Eden is considering how to cope with her situation, but she starts to discover that Dawn cannot always give her the time and energy that she needs from those she considers more family member than friend.

Co-written by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, both doing excellent work, and directed by Pamela Adlon, smoothly transitioning from helming some TV work to her first feature, Babes is a perfect balance of big laughs and nicely-crafted emotional moments. It has a central message that can be found in many other movies, one about the joys and importance of motherhood and family, but it sets itself apart from the crowd by also delivering the equally important message that family doesn't necessarily mean people you are related to by blood. You can make your own family. Your friends can be family. And the family that you make of your own choosing can be much better for you than the options that you are simply given from birth.

As well as being such a talented writer, Glazer delivers a brilliant comedic turn in her lead role. She's matched by Buteau, who shares a lot of the runtime until division keeps our main characters apart for a while. Not only are both leads great with the material, whether delivering laughs or being serious, but they both feel like they really have been friends since they were children (not surprising as they have apparently been friends for 20 years). It's the kind of onscreen chemistry that elevates everything. James makes a strong impression with his relatively small amount of screentime, Hasan Minhaj is very good as Marty, the husband of Dawn, and there are very enjoyable cameos from John Carroll Lynch (as a doctor as concerned with his own balding as he is concerned with his patient) and Oliver Platt (playing a dad very much aware of his own shortcomings). 

The 104-minute runtime allows for perfect pacing as things move between the jokes and the more heartfelt moments of authentic emotion, there are one or two good needle drops on the soundtrack, and you'll spend the end credits hoping that there's a future where we get to spend even more time with these characters. Babes isn't perfect, but I'll be damned if I can think of one specific imperfection worth mentioning right now. You should all see it. You can thank Glazer and co. for delivering something so fantastic (no pun intended). Then you can thank me for recommending it to you.

9/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Cleanse (2016)

Johnny Galecki stars as Paul, a young man who hasn't had a very good time of things lately. He lost a partner, his job, and his way of being able to feel anything close to happiness. That's why he ends up at a strange spiritual retreat, a potential solution in which he will be guided to a better future via the power of "the cleanse". As viewers are made aware very early on, this retreat might have something strange going on beneath the surface. Doesn't every movie retreat have a dark secret at the heart of it?

Written and directed by Bobby Miller, this is a slight film, the runtime is approximately 80 minutes, and a lesser cast would have made this unwatchable, by which I mean that I think the names attached to this were necessary to get the thing funded and actually made. It has one half-decent idea, but even that isn't as well utilised as it could be.

Tonally, Miller seems to be aiming mainly for comedy, but it misses the mark when that comedy is mixed with elements from other genres. The opening scenes work well, showing how sad and desperate Galecki's character feels, but things quickly start to go downhill once everyone arrives at the retreat for the start of their cleanse. Thankfully, some more familiar faces pop up here, but even their introductions aren't enough to make up for the major lull that happens between the beginning and the end of this.

Alongside Galecki, who does a good job of portraying that nervy guy who lacks confidence in his own abilities (not really a stretch for him, considering his popular TV work), you get enjoyable performances from Anna Friel, Kyle Gallner, and, although given a lesser amount of screentime, Diana Bang. These are the people who have put themselves forward for treatment, and they approach the program with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Kevin J. O'Connor is a staff member at the centre, and is as steadfastly Kevin J O'Connor as he usually is, but the real fun is watching performances from Anjelica Huston, as a zealous senior figure guiding individuals through their treatment, and the equally ever-welcome Oliver Platt, playing the head of the organisation looking to help people in what may be a very strange and unusual way.

There are a number of good comedies about people being shown unusual ways to improve their lives, and there are a number of effective thrillers and horror movies about facilities that seem to be helping people while hiding something dark and dangerous beneath their shiny exterior. The Cleanse certainly sits alongside the former selection, but it's worth bearing in mind that it may not belong to the latter category, despite the marketing. I don't want to spoil things for anyone, viewers can watch the film themselves and decide whether the treatment is being offered in good faith with characters just being a bit too paranoid, or whether there is something to be very wary of, but whatever you think The Cleanse is trying to do . . . plenty of films have done it a bit better. Even if they haven't had such a great cast.

5/10

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Lake Placid (1999)

Steve Miner has quite the varied filmography, but he's arguably best known for being the man who served up the second and third (3D) instalment of the Friday The 13th movie series. Having also given us Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and House, he's quite the horror franchise guy. Lake Placid is a different beast from those films, but the mix of humour and thrills is not entirely removed from the playfulness that Miner has often had in his best work. And I would put this up there as some of his best work.

The story is quite simple. There seems to be a big beast that has made home in a large lake in Maine. This becomes obvious when the beast attacks someone scuba diving in the lake, biting them in half. Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), Fish & Game Officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), and a paleontologist sent along from the big city, Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), all get to work trying to figure out what is hiding in the lake. Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), an expert on mythology and crocodiles, thinks that he already knows.

A creature feature that decides to focus on the interaction between the characters, as well as plenty of humour, Lake Placid might be a bit tame for some (there's only one truly memorable death scene, and it's in the first few minutes of the film), but it's a lot of fun, doesn't outstay its welcome, and features some superb special effects work. The big croc looks fantastic throughout, and feels like a very real, physical, threat to anyone nearby.

Writer David E. Kelly goes for quirkiness, and is helped by the casting. Profanity always sounds better coming from Betty White, and she gets to deliver a couple of truly memorable lines here. While we get the standard meet-cute moments between Pullman and Fonda, the better relationship is the one between Gleeson and Platt, two men who immediately start off butting heads before starting to grudgingly admire one another.

When it comes to Gleeson and Platt, two men I enjoy seeing in anything, this gives them some great dialogue to spout, making it an easy film to recommend if you're fans of their work. Pullman is doing his fairly bland, but likeable, schtick, and that's fine for this, and Fonda gives yet another very enjoyable performance that makes me remember how disappointed I was when she seemed to suddenly disappear from movies. White, playing an old woman who lives lakeside, and who may know a bit more than she's letting on about any possible nearby crocodile, is a joy every time she's onscreen.

It may not be as good as the amazing Alligator, but Lake Placid can easily make a claim to be the best killer crocodile movie. And with a runtime of only 82 minutes, it's almost impossible for you to feel as if you've wasted your time on it, even if you somehow end up not enjoying it as much as I do.

8/10

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Prime Time: Flatliners (1990)

Intense lighting in every shot, hidden wind machines blowing about the hair of the lead actors, Kiefer Sutherland floating through tree branches, Flatliners may have been released in 1990 but it is so ‘80s that it’s almost hilarious at times.

Sutherland plays a med student who comes up with a bizarre plan. He thinks that science can be advanced if you can spend some time exploring the world of death and then return to the world of the living. He enlists the help of others (Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt) in his quest to play god. People take their turn on the table, being killed and then brought back to life. But they don’t come back alone. Sins from their past cling to them like a rain-sodden jacket.

Director Joel Schumacher takes a decent idea and makes it a fun star vehicle for some hot properties. That’s absolutely fine, and there are also some light scares dotted throughout, but it’s not a film anyone should seek out if they’re after proper tension and scares. This is a gateway flick, I guess, a teen horror with very little bloodshed and only one character ever feeling in proper danger. And for those of a certain age, it has that glow of nostalgia. 

Peter Filardi doesn’t do a bad job with his first feature screenplay, despite the obvious relative restrictions of having some big star power involved. Everyone has a quick and easy “hook” (be it Baldwin’s character videotaping his sexual trysts, or the others carrying around deep-rooted guilt for actions, or inaction), and the main morality lesson at the heart of it, aside from the dangers of playing god, is a solid one.

Baldwin aside, because he is arguably the blandest of the Baldwins, the central cast here are fine company. Sutherland happily goes over the top, far too cocky from the very beginning and very shaken up by the most dangerous of the “visions” that the main characters have. Bacon and Roberts are wavering needles on a moral compass, and work well, although there’s no chemistry in the scenes between them that are supposed to show them growing a bit closer together. And then there is Oliver Platt, an actor who elevates everything that he works on. He is his usual excellent self here, commenting on the situation as a witness who hasn’t been on the same journey as the other characters. Joshua Rudoy is an entertainingly vicious spirit, dressed in a red coat that inevitably brings to mind an older horror movie many consider a masterpiece, and Kimberly Scott has a nice moment, playing an older version of a young girl who was horribly bullied by one of our leads.

None of the sets look like anything other than cool movie sets, the score by James Newton Howard seems designed to underline every scare and attempts at emotion, and Schumacher moves his stars through the story like, well, stars being moved through a story, as opposed to fleshed out fictional characters, but none of these things really matter. If anything, they make Flatliners as enjoyable as it is. The sense of every main scene being so obviously staged, the feeling of stars being selected to turn up and be stars, the stranger highs and lows of the journey, it’s all a strangely cosy way to put together a slick chiller. And it guarantees that the film itself never actually flatlines.

7/10

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A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014)

At this moment in time, I have no idea of how many movies featuring Robin Williams are still due to be released after his untimely death. All I can say is that I hope some of the others are a damn sight better than this one, which I worry will be received positively by people who simply don't want to speak ill of the dead.

And let me clarify something before I go on. Williams is pretty great in this. He's one of three main highlights. So this isn't a review aiming to have a go at him. It's just a review critical of a movie that he happened to be involved with.

Joel McHale plays Boyd Mitchler, a man who has to return to his family home, with his wife (Lauren Graham) and kids, in order to attend the christening of his nephew on December 24th. It doesn't take long until the greetings give way to animosity and resentment. The main friction comes from Boyd and his father (Williams). Boyd's younger brother, Nelson (Clark Duke), reacts to the more volatile moments by running off to hide, while his sister, Shauna (Wendi McLendon-Covey), is fairly nonplussed by the whole situation. She's busy keeping her kids from causing too much damage and telling her father off whenever he accuses her husband (Tim Heidecker) of being a pervert (for reasons that become clear as the movie plays out). To top everything off, Boyd realises that he forgot the main presents for his youngest son. This is probably the last year that he'll believe in Santa Claus and Boyd wants it to be special, unlike his own childhood Christmas experiences. Can he make the trip back to Chicago, and THEN back to Wisconsin, in time? He's certainly going to try his hardest.

Looking at the credit listings for the main talent behind the camera on this movie, it quickly becomes clear just where the problems stem from. Director Tristram Shapeero has a fine body of work to his name, but most, if not all, of it is TV work (including one of the best TV episodes ever for Brass Eye, and many episodes of Community). This would explain why the film never really feels very cinematic. It is, to all intents and purposes, either a TV movie or a couple of episodes serving as the finale/opener of some show. Unfortunately, that means that viewers are taken along for a ride with characters you have no time, or inclination, to get to know better. Oh, they could have been memorable, they could have been people that were worth watching, if the script had been better. That's where first-timer Michael Brown comes in. Seemingly content to line up the hurdles that McHale needs to overcome in order to enjoy Christmas, Brown forgets to create characters that are interesting enough to invest in. He also forgets to create a fluid narrative that leads to a deserved finale, one ripe with the potential for redemption and change. Whatever happens to these characters before the end credits roll, it just seems unearned.

I already mentioned Williams as a highlight. The other main highlights would be Duke and Oliver Platt (as a down and out Santa). Graham, Mclendon-Covey and Candice Bergen (as the mother of the household) also do solid work, but they're given a lot less to do. Heidecker's character really didn't need to be there, which leaves him with very little to do, although all of the child actors do enough to earn their places onscreen. McHale, as much as I like him on TV, can't overcome the script. His character feels more like an irritant than the lead, most of his behaviour is either stupid or simply stubborn (aka stupid), and part of me kept hoping that yet another obstacle would come along to knock him flat on his ass. That surely wasn't the intention.

I would recommend a number of Hallmark/ABC movies over this one, and I'm not joking or exaggerating when I say that. This was really poor, and a waste of some considerable talent. Skip it, unless you're a real Robin Williams completist (and I know there are a few out there).

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Merry-Friggin-Christmas-Blu-ray/dp/B00NGAJAOS/ref=sr_1_2_twi_2_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418319820&sr=8-2&keywords=a+merry+friggin%27+christmas

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Bonus Review: Chef (2014)

It's hard to think of anything that's really wrong with Chef. I tried, I really did, but I just ended up realising that it was almost a perfect little gem of a film. Okay, there's maybe an ending that feels both too tidy and also a bit rushed, but that's about it.

Jon Favreau, who wrote and directed the film, stars as Carl Casper, a chef who has a major meltdown when he locks horns with a food critic/blogger (Oliver Platt). This leads to him reassessing his values, which in turn leads to him getting a van and making the kind of simple, tasty food that he thinks other people will enjoy as much as he does. He takes his son (Emjay Anthony) along with him, and also benefits from the help of his colleague, Martin (John Leguizamo). Perhaps this simpler set-up can help the chef to remember what he loved about cooking in the first place.

Alright, I guess predictability is another flaw I could mention. If I wanted to. Yet I'm not going to. Chef is comfort food, much like the creations made by Carl when he gets his van rolling. The whole movie feels like a perfect blend of form and content, in the same way as The Wolf Of Wall Street, despite the two movies being worlds apart in many other ways. Favreau has spent some time delivering huge, glossy, blockbusters, and with no small amount of success, so it's hard not to see his move back to a smaller, more intimate, movie as an obvious parallel between the man he is behind the camera and the character he portrays onscreen.

The cast are all pretty perfect, and seem to be enjoying the whole experience from start to finish. Favreau is believable and earnest, without ever being far too innocent and wholesome, while Leguizao has one of his best roles in a long, long time. Young Emjay Anthony is a likable kid, and if you can tell me a single occasion when Platt hasn't been worth watching then I will call you a liar and blow raspberries at you. It's just a shame that he doesn't get more screentime here. Sofia Vergara is yet another delight, in a movie full of them, as Casper's ex-wife, and the mother of his son. She still has his best interests at heart because when he does well then it makes life better for their son. But she also just wants him to recapture what used to make him so happy. Bobby Cannavale does well playing a character who could have been all too easy to dislike, and there are small roles for Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr, with the latter on fine form during the entirety of his cameo appearance.

There's a wonderful soundtrack accompanying many scenes, a solid script, so many shots of tasty food that you'll be hungry by the time the credits roll, and lots of sunshine ensuring that this is a light film, in almost every sense of the word. It has a little something for everyone, and I highly recommend it. And chefs, it goes without saying, will probably LOVE it.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Chef-Blu-ray-DVD-DIGITAL-UltraViolet/dp/B00KQTHKQC/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1408896023&sr=1-1&keywords=chef

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Executive Decision (1996)

Part action movie, part intelligent thriller, Executive Decision remains Steven Seagals most interesting film for a number of reasons. For starters, it’s one of the few films he has starred in that ISN’T “a Steven Seagal film” (he pretty much plays second fiddle to Kurt Russell in their few scenes together). Secondly, it’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . well, to say any more would potentially spoil an enjoyable thriller for those yet to see it.

There are some damn nasty terrorists (led by David Suchet) doing nasty, terrorising things yet again and this time they’ve taken over a large airplane and are negotiating the release of a prize prisoner. But that may be a cover for something much more dangerous, at least that’s what intelligence analyst Dr. David Grant (Kurt Russell) thinks. A plan is proposed that involves a dangerous mid-air transfer, led by Seagal, and the retrieval of the plane from the terrorists. Dr. Grant will have to go along to advise on the situation but if anything goes wrong he may have to do more than just think on his feet.

Written by brothers Jim and John Thomas, Executive Decision is not a film to watch just for quick action thrills and no-brainer fun. It has some smarts and takes time to build up the situation and show every stage of the big rescue attempt. That’s why I hated the movie when I first saw it many years ago. Having recently rewatched the thing, I like quite a bit more than I did back then but it still drags in places.

Director Stuart Baird does okay. He may not have made an all-out action classic but this is a prime “Tom Clancy” type of movie from someone who deserved to go on to more than just U.S. Marshals and Star Trek: Nemesis.

The big bonus points come from the cast. Seagal is pretty good, though fans will be disappointed by his limited screentime, Russell is a favourite of mine, Halle Berry puts in one of her more enjoyable performances as an air stewardess who could prove invaluable, David Suchet makes a great baddie and then we have some wonderful moments from people like John Leguizamo, Joe Morton, Oliver Platt, J.T. Walsh and a teeny tiny part for Mary Ellen Trainor (arguably best remembered nowadays as the psychiatrist exasperated by Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon series).

 

It’s a bit too slow for action junkies and a bit too dumb, occasionally, for those wanting a smart thriller but Executive Decision certainly tried hard to get the mix of brainpower and firepower just right and there will be plenty of people who enjoy it more than I did. 

6/10.

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