Grown Ups Is For Kids Only

By Siobhan Dixon

Take an all-star cast from Saturday Night Live’s early 90s heyday, throw in the director of box office hits like Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore, and sprinkle in a little Salma Hayek, because really, life is always better with a little Salma Hayek (the woman is hot!), and you’ve got a recipe for comic gold right? Wrong!

Sorry folks, but once again I come bearing bad news––it’s another bad movie: Grown Ups. In fairness, let’s call on the old adage, “Don’t shoot the messenger,” i.e. please don’t blame us for what may seem like a string of scathing or overly critical reviews.

Instead let’s line up all the terrible directors and writers, all the talented actors for giving such poor performances, and all the production companies for funding such recent crap as Dear John, Chloe, Splice, and Sex and the City 2, and take them out execution style.

We find ourselves in such dire straits that we’ve considered changing the name of the site to Two Black Girls at Bad Movies or reviewing old DVDs. However, we are going to stick it out for the love of the art form, the sake of our readers, and an excuse to eat wings and drink cocktails at Dallas BBQs once week!

The premise of Grown Ups is simple: five childhood friends––Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Kevin James––return to their hometown after 30 years for the funeral of their seventh grade basketball coach who led them all to a championship.

While it’s unclear whether or not the men stayed in touch over the years, they immediately revert back to their boy-like banter once they reunite for a weekend with their families at the same lake house where they celebrated their basketball championship decades earlier. Conveniently, the funeral just so happens to fall on the Fourth of July weekend. Right.

Adam Sandler plays a successful Hollywood agent, married to an equally thriving fashion designer, Salma Hayek. Their three spoiled kids are completely dependent on technology and their Asian nanny (too easy, so I’ll just leave that one alone) who the couple tries to pass off as a foreign exchange student to their friends.

David Spade portrays the single, immature bum of the crew whose pastimes still include getting wasted and chasing young tail.

Chris Rock is totally unconvincing as an underappreciated stay-at-home dad of two whose wife, played by SNL’s Maya Rudolph, is the family breadwinner. His life is further perturbed by the presence of his wife’s mother, aka the “big momma” character, (again, just not gona go there this time, but rest assured, I will) who lives with the family and with whom he constantly butts heads.

Kevin James plays a middleclass man who rents a fancy car for the weekend to keep up false appearances. Meanwhile, his wife, played by Maria Bello, inappropriately pulls out her boobs at any given place or time to breast feed their four-year-old son.

Rob Schneider takes the role of a nonviolent spiritualist married to a similarly peace-loving woman at least 20 years his senior. He has a severe short-man’s complex, so he wears a ridiculous six-inch toupee that lifts into the air every time the wind blows.

This film is plagued with flaws, namely, there is no storyline––whatsoever! Once the men and their wives and children arrive at the lake house the plot essentially consists of what I like to call “bad white boy humor,” meaning lots of farts and burps, repeated injuries to the male nether regions, and constant dainty shots of hot young girls in booty shorts and bikinis.

Still, the primary issue with the film is that the characters, not the actors, seem aware that they are in a comedy movie! I suppose the dialogue is intended to simulate how a group of male friends crack jokes on each other, but with lines like, “Oh my god, it’s captain caring of the S.S. melodrama” and “Don’t say that he resembles a midget Filipino Fonzie,” it’s just plain unrealistic.

Had the film been about the reconvening of five childhood friends all turned comedians, then perhaps the nonstop standup comedy conversations might ring true. However, regular people do not incessantly speak in perfectly timed, witty one-liners! To boot, the deliveries are lazy and the characters laugh at each others’ and even worse, their own jokes! That’s never a good sign.

The overarching theme of Grown Ups is a total cliché––present-day adults and kids alike are out of touch with nature and childlike innocence. But I think the real purpose of the film was for the old SNL crew to have their own little reunion where they didn’t have to do much acting, but instead just horse around while the cameras rolled and make a little money while doing it––the movie did make over $40 million it's opening weekend.

Luckily, we got an advanced and more importantly a free screening, so hopefully this review finds you in time.

Rating: Kids will love the callow, campy comedy of this film, but anyone over the age of 21 (or 19 for our Canadian readers!) may need a nice glass of wine afterwards. Nothing too strong––this is not as bad as Sex and the City 2.

Friends Don't Let Friends See Sex and the City

By Siobhan Dixon

Let me preface this review with the following cautionary note and rating: COCKTAILS ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR THE VIEWING OF SEX AND THE CITY 2––if possible, before, during, and after!

I was two for three, having had four mango margaritas before the movie and even sneaking a fifth into the theatre in a Styrofoam cup, because I was warned of how horrible this film is. But perhaps that was my mistake––I missed the oh-so-critical post-film cocktail which, may have helped numb or even erase the painful movie-going experience that is Sex and the City 2.

To be clear, the intention of this blog is not to bash every film we see, but it just so happens that there are some seriously bad movies being made, and unfortunately, this is one. I am an avid fan of the Sex and the City television series, which is smart, funny, and edgy; however, the film adaptations have ruined all of that.

I hated the first film, particularly the fact that Carrie settled for a thoughtless proposal and low-budget wedding at city hall after Mr. Big left her at the altar, so when word spread that Carrie’s ex and fan favorite Aiden would appear in the film’s second installment I started to feel a tiny kernel of optimism. In conjunction with the constant commercials and non-stop media hype, I admit I lost touch with reality. I thought maybe, just maybe, the franchise could be redeemed and this film would be good, but I was sadly mistaken.

The film is set two years after the conclusion of the first film. But beyond that it seems the writers had nowhere and no clue where to take the characters’ storylines, so they opted for simplistic, vapid, and unoriginal, complete with 80s flashbacks and a karaoke scene.

Carrie, who apparently no longer writes her newspaper column, has just completed another book based on her two years of marriage to Big. But in truth, she fears they may have already “lost their sparkle,” whatever that means.

Now the mother of two girls, including a terrible two-year-old, Charlotte finds herself exhausted by the demands of motherhood, despite the fact that she doesn’t work and has a nanny!

Miranda's storyline seems the most contrived because any follower of the show knows that as a partner at her law firm, she is a passionate career woman. So why now does she suddenly hate her job and (insert cliché!) feel that her voice isn’t being heard?

And lastly, what chick flick would be complete without the obligatory “I’m going through menopause” shtick? Enter Samantha, the medical miracle who unlike every other menopausal woman experiences loss of sex drive and difficulty reaching orgasm, has still managed to keep up her whoring ways. Hence, cliché, after cliché, after cliché, after cliché.

But wait! There’s yet one more: Carrie’s gay best-friend, Stanford, marries Charlotte’s gay best-friend, Anthony, in what proves to be the most flaming of gay weddings. And I say this in no way to be offensive because the excessive use of stereotypes offended me––and I’m straight!

Case in point: Liza Minnelli’s 64-year-old ass performs Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” in a sequin mini-dress and knee-high boots. Surely this scene is intended to be comical, but I assure you, it isn’t. It’s simply absurd and campy, essentially setting the tone for the rest of the movie. Dana must have had a premonition because it was at this point that she fell asleep! Thus, I was forced to endure the rest of the film solo!

The second half of the 2.5 hour movie moves from West to East as Samantha somehow manages to parlay a public relations gig into an all expenses paid one-week trip to Abu Dhabi for all four women. At this point, the film’s fate is sealed. It takes on an almost Looney Tune-like quality, employing overtly offensive cultural stereotypes, trite plotlines, bad writing, corny music, and unconvincing acting.

Things become so sophomoric, at one point I wasn’t sure if I was watching Sex and the City 2 or Disney’s Aladdin! For instance, there’s a scene where condoms fall out of Samantha’s purse and the girls are chased by a mob of angry Muslim men through an Abu Dhabi marketplace. Isn’t that eerily reminiscent of the scene in Aladdin where he races through the Arabian streets trying to evade authorities because he stole food?

At this point, I was so irritated, offended, and quite frankly, bored that I texted my sister: “This movie is so bad!!! Dana has been snoring her ass off for about 1.5 hours, if not more. I envy her!”

As the film wrapped up, I didn’t care who cheated with who, who was forgiven or even if they came back to the U.S. The ending, like the rest of the film, was lame and unimaginative. And as the credits rolled and Dana awoke from her slumber, I was just glad it was over.

Ironically, I’ve been sipping on a mango margarita while writing this review. No I’m not an alcoholic! I just needed some assistance reliving the mockery that has become of one of my favorite television shows. So it seems in the case of Sex and the City 2, cocktails are needed before, during, after, and even while writing a review.

The Losers Was A Loser

By Dana Verde

What can I say about this movie…hmmm?

I guess I would have to start by apologizing to Siobhan for making her sit through it. This week was my turn to choose the film. Having said that, I’ll explain the plot.

The Losers is a tale of double cross and revenge, centered upon the members of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. The team––Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch, and Cougar––find themselves the target of a lethal betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Presumed dead, the group makes plans to even the score when they're joined by the mysterious Aisha, an operative with her own agenda. Working together, they must remain deep undercover while tracking the heavily-guarded Max, a ruthless man bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war. That is the story line…but…and I mean a very BIG BUT, the film I saw was a bad rendition of an episode of Miami Vice with a little A-Team thrown up in the mix.

To all of you out there I have two questions...

1) Why is it that in these pseudo espionage flicks everyone is highly trained by the military but can’t hit a moving target?

2) How can these same people walk around the streets of major cities with bazookas and a small arsenal of weapons and no one calls the cops?

I’ve had friends visit me from Europe and mistakenly drink a beer in the streets of NYC and cops swarmed on them like they were Osama Bin Laden.

Anyway here are some other issues I had with this film:

The camera angles were unoriginal––note: to all the Hollywood filmmakers out there - shooting your films verite does not make you “PAUL GREENGRASS” (he directed Bourne Supremacy). The editing was oblique. The score was comical. And, the dialogue––OMG––the dialogue...it got to a point where Siobhan turned to me and said, “Dana, is it typical for screenwriters to add the characters name at the end of every sentence when there is a dialog scene with another character?” i.e. “Hi Roque,” "What are you doing Rouqe,” "Don’t say that Roque." Ugh! In real life, when you’re talking with someone, it’s very rare that you say their name throughout the conversation––so another note: to all of you aspiring screenplay writers out there, please refrain from doing this––it’s annoying!

I don't want to block up my chi so I'll try to focus on some positive things about this movie. Actually, two words come to mind... IDRIS ELBA !!!!! He’s on the "he can get it" list and all you women out there know exactly why. He is a very sexy man, but his fine-ness isn't enough to save this movie. His character is as bland as dry toast. I kept hoping he would bust out in his “I’m from Hackney Norf Lundon" accent––you know, add some beans on that toast, but no such luck. He was playing a yankee and looked bored as hell doing it.

I have to take a quick pause before I proceed because my "what I liked" moment is over.

Ok back to how I started off.

The "kick-ass girl" in the film was ZOE SALDANA. "SIGH." On a personal note, I’ve been rooting for her career since she did the film Center Stage and portrayed EVA, the cigarette smoking, foul attitude having, diva ballerina…but as an action hero––NO BUENO ––NO MAS. The guns are bigger than she is - I swear I thought she'd fall over. I have been waiting my whole life for a proper black girl action hero and to my disappointment I have to keep waiting. I'm not going to mention the rest of the cast because it really doesn't matter.

To sum up my viewing experience, I felt like a big fat loser for watching the film and couldn’t wait to get out of the theater. Siobhan can attest to it.

Rating: I say drink until you pass out on this one!

The Joneses

By Siobhan Dixon

The website is called Two Black Girls at the Movies––the emphasis for the moment on “Black” and not “the Movies.” That being said, it should come as no surprise that the submission of this blog comes a week late. I am Black; therefore, I am genetically predisposed to operate on “CP Time,” i.e. “Colored People Time” for those who are unfamiliar with the term.

Perhaps my internal clock is aligned with the rising and setting of the sun in West Africa, but yes, I leave my house at 12:30 a.m. for the club and yes, without fail Dana tells me the movie starts 15 minutes before it actually does. (Don’t think I didn’t notice!) Now that I’ve given my disclaimer for what will surely be habitual tardiness with my weekly reviews, let us move on to the latter and more important of the two earlier points––“the Movies!”

Once in a blue moon, phenomenally rare occurrences leave us speechless, like a solar eclipse or the blind man whose sight returned after having a tooth implanted in his eye. (Look it up people. That really happened.) In Hollywood, these anomalies come in only a few forms, the rarest being when a starlet allows herself to age gracefully, and even more astounding, naturally!

When it’s semi-normal that a 23-year-old woman undergoes 10 plastic surgery procedures in one day, veteran actress, Demi Moore proves she’s still got the aesthetic beauty and acting chops to hang with whose left of young Hollywood.

Although it feels like we haven’t seen Moore in a leading role since the 90s, she picks up right where she left off in The Joneses. Reminiscent of memorable characters she played in films such as Disclosure and Striptease, Moore plays Kate Jones, a sexy, business-minded, and emotionally-detached sales agent of sorts.

The Joneses are a carefully constructed family employed by a marketing company to create a seemingly utopian lifestyle. Placed in a posh suburban gated community, the primary objective of the employees is to persuade those around them to purchase specific high-end products.

The film’s storyline is smart and thought-provoking, albeit slightly out of context and unrealistic during a recession. But as Oscar Wilde wrote, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” And as Dana and I watched the film, we found ourselves admiring the home décor, drooling over the sports cars, and literally asking, “Damn! Who is the wardrobe stylist for this film?” The image of Moore in a leopard print three-quarter length dress is still emblazoned in my mind and has me determined to find out where I can get it! Or at least a cheap knockoff from Forever21.

It’s only in retrospect that I realize the rest of the family is essentially composed of stock characters. David Duchovny takes a break from his usual womanizing self (both fictional and factual), to play the husband, Steve Jones, the newbie to the business who struggles to separate work from reality. Of course, he also finds himself in awe of Moore.

The characters become even more simplified with––surprise, surprise––the whorish teenage daughter with Daddy issues who sleeps with different middle-aged men on every assignment and the older teenage son who fronts as the handsome jock, but is secretly gay.

Overall, The Joneses is a humorous and engaging hyperbole of Western consumerism––A White version of the Bling Bling epidemic. However, unlike poor Black people who are experts at profiling and living beyond our means, the film shows us that White people can’t handle the pressures of trying to keep up with the Joneses.

In the end, the film unravels in the most clichéd ways. (Spoiler Alert!) One neighbor bankrupts his family in order to buy an expensive car in hopes of impressing Steve and then commits suicide. Then we have the classic fourth act scene where the entire neighborhood gathers in the street while Duchovny over-dramatically confesses that he and his fake family are employees of marketing organization. Perhaps most corny is that Man-eating Moore decides to abandon her shady (and successful) career, for real love with Duchovny.

While there’s no sunset, but instead dusk, the film closes with the two love birds driving off into the distance. Considering both characters are now unemployed and get some street cred for their experience in underhanded occupations, they might want to head over to the other side of town so we can show them how keeping up with the Joneses is really done.

Rating: No cocktails needed

Greenberg

By Dana Verde

Okay, so me and Siobhan are living up to the stereotype of our race and submitting our review in CP time––like five days late––lol.

Last week was her choice and we watched Greenberg. OMG! Though the film is set in LA, I felt like I was watching a pathetic documentary on an aging hipster in my hood––I live in Bed-Stuy.

The film took me back to those old school "me, myself, and I" films that were big in the New York Indie Film Scene in the 90s. It's hard to have sympathy for a privileged suburban urbanite. (You know those kids that move to NYC for college from east bumble who knows where and become so very "URBAN"?)

The protagonist, played by Ben Stiller, is a coke head alkie with a Peter Pan complex and from what I saw on the big screen was a very bad lay. His leading lady sobs after he tries to put it down. I felt annoyed from beginning to end and to make matters worse someone sitting near us let out the nastiest fart I've ever smelled and I couldn't run for cover because I was stuck in the middle of the row.

Anyways, not a fun time, except for afterwards when I went to BBQ's and got a pina colada with an extra shot! WOO-HOO!

Rating: You definitely need a drink after––maybe two actually.