Walk Of Shame (2014)

Steven Brill isn't exactly a writer-director you may want to rely on for your comedy movie needs. He does, after all, have a filmography that includes Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Drillbit Taylor, and even a segment in Movie 43. I'm not saying that I dislike all of those films. I'm just saying that many other people dislike them. Despite how you feel about those films, Walk Of Shame still ends up being worth a watch thanks to the fact that it stars Elizabeth Banks.

Banks stars as Meghan Miles, a news reporter poised to get her dream job as an anchor. When it looks like she's lost the job, Meghan takes up an offer from her friends (Gillian Jacobs and Sarah Wright) to go out and drink lots, and LOTS, of alcohol. She ends up heading off with the cute barman (James Marsden) and they enjoy a magical night of shared booze, pizza and frolics. Waking up the next morning with a sore head, hazy memory of the events from the previous night, and a voicemail message informing her that she is now back in with a chance for the anchor job, Meghan has to get home and prepare to impress her potential new employers. Unfortunately, an incident with an aggressive cat leaves her outside with no phone, no car (it's been towed), and no knowledge of what button to buzz to wake up her new maybe-boyfriend. Things quickly go from bad to worse.

You may or may not already know that Walk Of Shame didn't do well, to put it mildly. Not well at all. It flopped hard. Which I think is a great shame. I am willing to concede that, once again, I may be the lone voice of dissent here, but this is a fun romp that wrings most of the comedy from putting the lovely Miss Banks into increasingly dire circumstances. Whether she's avoiding police who think that she's a prostitute, stuck in a crackhouse or trying to get a ride on a bus despite having no money for the fare, Banks is always a lot of fun. Jacobs, Wright and Marsden all do well as the people who end up trying to track our leading lady down, while Bill Burr and Ethan Suplee provide laughs as the police officers doing the same thing for very different reasons. Lawrence Gilliard Jr, Da'vone McDonald and Alphonso McAuley are enjoyable enough as Scrilla, Hulk and Pookie, the three main men in the crackhouse that Banks ends up in, and Kevin Nealon is a lot of fun in his small role, the traffic reporter who looks down on the action from a helicopter.

Brill doesn't do anything to set your world on fire. He keeps everything moving along, and peppers the whole thing with a selection of amusing characters and lines of dialogue. In short, he does what's required. I'm not going to spend a lot of time and energy extolling this as some kind of misunderstood modern classic. It's not. I'm just surprised that it fared quite as badly as it did. There were quite a few movies released in 2014 far more deserving of your ire than this one. Although I admit that maybe my love of Elizabeth Banks makes me slightly biased.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Shame-Blu-ray-DIGITAL-UltraViolet/dp/B00JQF7ZTE/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420911341&sr=8-1&keywords=walk+of+shame

The House Bunny (2008)

Anna Faris stars in this light comedy, one that you may already be predisposed to love or hate, depending on how you feel when you see the Happy Madison logo pop up at the start. Faris is as good as ever, but it's a shame that the movie isn't better, despite a pretty great cast supporting her.

Faris is Shelley Darlingson, a Playboy bunny who ends up having to leave the Playboy mansion. She has nowhere to live, and no skills that seem relevant to any other aspect of modern life, but that doesn't matter when she chances upon a sorority house in need of a house mother. Well, they need a lot more than that. The girls are down in the dumps, they're unpopular, and can't see any way to turn things around They will lose their house if they don't get at least 30 pledges and also improve their standing in a few other ways. Shelley may not know much, but she does know how to give the girls a makeover, and may be able to help them achieve their goals.

Director Fred Wolf goes through the motions here. There's a montage or two, some lively pop tunes, and everything is light and colourful. The script by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith is predictable, not that funny, and often requires more suspension of disbelief than I could muster. I don't mind the ridiculous premise, but I did get irritated when a main character who wasn't supposed to have two cents to her name suddenly had enough for shopping trips, makeovers and an extravagant theme party.

I'd dismiss this as unwatchable nonsense if it wasn't for the cast, all trying to do their best with the material. Faris has been elevating weak comedies for over a decade now, but it's good to see her working with a cast all trying equally hard. Christopher McDonald and Beverly D'Angelo are the two veterans making things hard for the sorority house, Hugh Hefner has an amusing cameo, and Sarah Wright and Rachel Specter are the popular girls in a nearby sorority house who look down their noses at the main characters. Colin Hanks is fine, if a bit bland, as Oliver, a man who Shelley ends up taking a shine to, and Tyson Ritter is given the thankless role of a shallow, potential love interest for Emma Stone's character.

Oh, did I just mention Emma Stone? Yes I did. She's another big bonus here. Her comedic talent is well utilised, especially in the first half that allows her to go "full dork". Kat Dennings is another one of the main ladies, and she's also good fun, while Katharine McPhee, Rumer Willis, and Dana Goodman also stand out, for a variety of reasons.

I can't, despite the game cast, class this as a good movie. It's not. But it does just enough to make it worth a watch, especially if you're in the mood for something simple, light, and full of pretty women.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/The-House-Bunny-Anna-Faris/dp/B0018CNNV2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402725342&sr=8-2&keywords=the+house+bunny

One day I hope to be a bunny. Or buy one (the pet kind). Or just pretend to be Hugh Hefner in a very nice dressing gown. So please feel free to remember me whenever you're visiting Amazon and see my book there.

The UK version can be bought here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395945647&sr=1-3&keywords=movie+guide

And American folks can buy it here - http://www.amazon.com/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395945752&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=TJs+ramshackle+mov

As much as I love the rest of the world, I can't keep up with all of the different links in different territories, but trust me when I say that it should be there on your local Amazon.

Touchback (2011)

Despite one or two titles that I couldn't get a hold of, this is the last stop on the big tour of Kurt Russell's filmography, those checking over his IMDb listing and wondering why I haven't covered Cutlass should know that it's a short film so I didn't include it here.
I did, however, INCLUDE it here (as it's available on YouTube) so enjoy.

Touchback is a typical, sentimental sports drama. Mix a bit of Field Of Dreams with It's A Wonderful Life with any number of American Football movies and you'll get this.

Brian Presley plays Scott Murphy, a broken man thanks to a sports injury from his youth. He has a lot to be thankful for in life, including his wife (Macy, played by Melanie Lynskey), but it's hard to see those through the haze of regret and frustration. It's especially hard for him when he sees former team-mate Hall (Marc Blucas) doing so well and in a relationship with Jenny (Sarah Wright), who used to be Scott's girlfriend in high school. After a particularly bad day, Scott sits in his truck and considers just what he has left to live for. He thinks back to high school and the most important game of his life, but is it just a dream or is something very strange allowing history to be changed, if Scott chooses to change it.

Ticking every single box that you expect to be ticked, and with no surprises whatsoever, Touchback shouldn't really be as enjoyable and moving as it is. Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age. Or maybe it's just so easy to identify with. It's not really all about football, it's about those choices that we all make to set us on different paths. Consciously or not, we make numerous decisions every day that lead us to exactly where we are in the here and now. I often tell my wife, and I apologise for anyone feeling nauseous after reading this, that I don't mind all of the mistakes I made in my life because they piled up and led, ultimately, to our meeting and developing a relationship. How can I want to change anything that could then undo such a good result?

Writer-director Don Handfield does everything exactly as you'd expect. There's some humour here and there, but the focus is more on the prospect of seriously changing a whole life than any Back To The Future style shenanigans. There's plenty of manipulation, most of which I admit I fell for. Hey, it's effective and affecting by the time it all builds towards the big finale.

The cast all do a decent job, though nobody excels (except, perhaps, Kurt Russell in a wonderful supporting role - maybe he should play every team coach ever). Brian Presley is strangely absent in the lead role, but Melanie Lynskey puts in a much better performance. Marc Blucas and Sarah Wright are perfectly fine in standard jock and cheerleader roles, respectively, and Kevin Covais joins in with some of the more fun moments as Todd White, a young, non-sporty man once bullied by Scott who now finds himself being befriended by the guy. And Christine Lahti also does well with her limited screentime, playing a mother who may not get along to watch her son in action on the football field, but who is always very proud of him.

The pacing, the dialogue, the shot choices, it's all by-the-numbers stuff. But that doesn't mean that it's bad, it's just never great.

6/10

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