The Erratic Surrealism Of American Gods Season 1.

The Good: Good performances, Intriguing set-up, Moments of character, Special effects
The Bad: Some truly dull characters, Deliberately opaque plot, Slow pacing
The Basics: The first season of American Gods works hard to set up something much better than itself.


The fundamental problem with creating great serialized television and fleshing out a world of one's own over the course of several episodes and seasons is that the burden falls upon the creator of such works - writers, executive producers, and directors - to create something that is both instantly compelling and does not rush its own story. Finding the balance is a hard thing, which is probably why so very many writers and executive producers today enjoy playing in already-established universes (Star Trek, Star Wars, the various super hero franchises built upon decades of source material, etc.). So, when a well-established creator of genre works leaves the comfort of one of those safe, already-conceived universes to do their own thing, it is the type of project that gets instant notoriety and comes with a behind-the-scenes intrigue that draws in an audience.

Bryan Fuller brought a look-in audience to the first season of American Gods when the renowned writer and executive producer did the legwork of creating Star Trek: Discovery and then abandoned the project in favor of American Gods. Fuller, who came up in Hollywood as a writer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager (eventually working his way up to be one of the executive producers of that show) quickly departed the familiar to create his own works . . . all of which were obsessed with death or (some form of) the divine. And Fuller quickly achieved the sort of success that a cult hit creator has with Wonderfalls (reviewed here!), Dead Like Me (reviewed here!), and Pushing Daisies (first season reviewed here!). Fuller returned to franchise work with Hannibal and he was set to continue in that vein with Star Trek: Discovery, when he abruptly left that nascent project for American Gods.

American Gods allowed Fuller to play in an already-established world (the show is based upon a novel by Neil Gaiman) with an exceptional amount of freedom. Gaiman's American Gods had not been realized on screen before and Fuller had to create a show that would likely have a breadth and duration that would exceed the confines of the single novel source material. And the fundamental problem with the first season of American Gods is that it is built, almost entirely, on faith that the next component of the show will be better, more clear, more intriguing, than the current component. American Gods does not have an instantly compelling pilot episode . . . so viewers have to have faith that the second episode will be better. The midseason diverges from the protagonist, so viewers have to have faith that the show will refocus; the season builds to a climax that requires faith that the second season will pay-off the massive risk in a satisfying way . . . the entire first season is a series of risks requiring a deferment of true gratification, which is an inherently problematic way to create a serialized television show. That said, it is also one of the best ways to establish a larger narrative that has a real ability to develop and grow as it goes on.

Unfortunately for American Gods Season 1, the show's protagonist is put in the unenviable position of being one of the two least-interesting characters in the show. Season 1 of American Gods is built around Shadow Moon, a character who quite reasonably travels through the modern world without any faith as a low-level scam artist and conman. Paroled from prison early when his wife dies, Shadow Moon finds himself in the company of a mysterious man, who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and the two begin a cross-country journey to a meeting Wednesday plans to attend. While the character of Shadow Moon might sound initially interesting, he is emotionally shut-off and his distance makes him entirely inaccessible. Shadow Moon drifts from prison to learning about the death of his wife to having his mind slowly opened to the presence of divine entities on Earth with no emotional journey. American Gods Season 1 is more the physical journey of Shadow Moon than it is his emotional trip. Indeed, one suspects if American Gods achieves a cult status that leads to merchandising, a t-shirt of "The Many Emotions Of Shadow Moon" will take its place on the racks next to identical t-shirts for Spock and Darth Vader.

And it is hard to criticize Ricky Whittle, who plays Shadow Moon, for the portrayal of the character. Rewatching the season multiple times, the first season of American Gods for Shadow Moon is built around the season's final moment and Shadow Moon's revelatory moment. Unfortunately for Whittle and American Gods Season 1, the moment of supposed epiphany is the most odd combination of understated (in the performance) and over-the-top (for the line). The result is a subtle character who ought to be the embodiment of the doubting, jaded, unimpressed audience within the show, but instead never becomes emotionally real enough to truly connect with the audience.

While Shadow Moon is emotionally inaccessible and impossible to invest emotionally in because of his unrealistic emotional distance from everything he encounters, Laura Moon is flat-out unlikable. Shadow Moon's wife, Laura, has an affair, dies, and is magically resurrected. Laura is a snotty, mean, bored and often-boring character who is the subject of two episodes of the eight-episode first season of American Gods and those episodes do nothing to make her more likable or interesting. What is perhaps most impressive about Laura Moon is that actress Emily Browning plays her - and her ancestor character, Essie MacGowan - with a decent emotional range. Browning's performance in American Gods Season 1 inspired me to give Sucker Punch (reviewed again here!) a second viewing and what struck me most about her growth as an actress between the two works is her ability or willingness to emote with her expressions in American Gods. Laura Moon might be flat-out unlikable, but Browning plays her well.

The first season of American Gods has a remarkably simple plot - so much so that it is almost unsurprising that two episodes have to almost entirely diverge from it in order to get the season up to eight episodes: Shadow Moon is paroled from prison when he meets Mr. Wednesday and enters his employ. Shadow's job is to drive Mr. Wednesday around and protect him from threats, but he soon ends up helping Wednesday with schemes like robbing a bank's night depository and he finds himself the target of divine entities (new gods). While Shadow Moon drives Mr. Wednesday from one meeting to another (Mr. Wednesday's meetings are with classic Russian, Greek/Roman, and African gods now living in the United States), Laura Moon, resurrected by a magical Leprechaun's coin, follows Shadow's journey in the presence of the leprechaun Mad Sweeney and a man who was touched by a djinn (man, I hope that "Touched By A Djinn" is the name of a second season episode now!).

The two most consistently-represented divine beings - the leprechaun Mad Sweeney and the god Mr. Wednesday - easily steal the thunder from the two human protagonists. As well, Media's infrequent appearances instantly capture the viewer's attention and when Mr. World (the antagonist who Mr. Wednesday fears) finally makes an appearance, it is powerful. Media is expertly played by Gillian Anderson, who seems to have a great time portraying Lucy Ricardo, David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe, and other incarnations of legendary people who were made through their media presence. Mad Sweeney is caustic and sarcastic and Pablo Schreiber's embodiment of him is impressive in that Mad Sweeney is an asshole, much like Schreiber's Orange Is The New Black Pornstache character, who Schreiber plays in an entirely different way from the last iconic dickbag he played.

Ian McShane plays Mr. Wednesday and he is perfectly cast for the role of a god who is essentially down on his luck and looking to build a new base of worshipers. McShane plays Wednesday well, maintaining a level of intrigue throughout the first season of American Gods that is both consistent and compelling. The ability to do that is impressive considering that Shadow Moon is a particularly inattentive character whose epiphany is hinged on being told explicitly who Mr. Wednesday is in the season finale . . . which is problematic in that the audience is told exactly who Wednesday is a few episodes prior to that. McShane, though, has the bearing, demeanor, and on-screen gravitas to credibly play a character who is wise, commanding, and has a trickster aspect to him. McShane dominates every scene he is in (in the best possible way).

There are more characters in American Gods, but in the first season, they are kept a supporting characters, most of whom are deliberately obscured and/or set up for bigger roles in subsequent seasons. And part of that is because the first season of American Gods deliberately obscures the overall plot arc of the season. The Old Gods who are living now in the United States are struggling for relevance in the face of New Gods - Media, technology, and interconnectedness. The Old Gods are either attempting to reinvent themselves to stay alive (the show features vignettes of various gods, including one whose entire base of worshipers has completely died out, thus killing the god) or are being marshaled to fight the New Gods outright. But most of the big meetings do not happen in the first season and the outright war is not the subject of the first season; American Gods defers its action, character growth, and (for much of the season) true purpose.

The direction in the first season of American Gods is homogeneously wonderful. American Gods Season 1 is a beautiful-looking show and it flows effortlessly between surreal scenes and a cold, literal world.

Ultimately, the first season of American Gods is an essential bedrock season of a serialized show. The characters are established, the purpose is (eventually) made clear, and the concept is solid. Whether Bryan Fuller and the rest of the American Gods team can pull off the larger story in a satisfying way will determine whether the investment viewers place in watching the first season is paid off, but on its own, the first season of American Gods is far more erratic and requires far more faith to invest in than one might want to admit.

For a better understanding of exactly what this season entails, please check out my reviews of the individual episodes at:
"The Bone Orchard"
"The Secret Of Spoons"
"Head Full Of Snow"
"Git Gone"
"Lemon Scented You"
"A Murder Of Gods"
"A Prayer For Mad Sweeney"
"Come To Jesus"

For other works from the 2016 – 2017 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Twin Peaks - Season 3 ("The Return")
Doctor Who - Season 10
Glow - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 5
House Of Cards - Season 5
The Flash - Season 3
Supergirl - Season 2
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 3
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4
Sense8 - Season 2
Dear White People - Season 1
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 2
The Walking Dead - Season 7
Thirteen Reasons Why - Season 1
Grace And Frankie - Season 3
Iron Fist - Season 1
Love - Season 2
Santa Clarita Diet - Season 1
A Series Of Unfortunate Events - Season 1
One Day At A Time - Season 1
Travelers - Season 1
The OA - Season 1
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
"Invasion!" - Arrow
Luke Cage - Season 1
Stranger Things - Season 1

5.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Short Sad Life Of Laura Moon: "Git Gone"

The Good: Good performances, Good direction
The Bad: Dull characters, Dull plot, Erratic pacing (last 15 minutes is better than the first 45!)
The Basics: "Git Gone" fleshes out Laura Moon about as well as one can expect for a boring, bored, character who died in the series premiere.


Someone watched Lost. The climactic opening of the hatch in the first season finale of Lost left the writers and producers at a very difficult position; the mystery of the hatch had driven fan theories and made interest in the show rise at a time when usually a popular show starts to see fall-off in viewers. With the hatch being blown open, the mystery was now gone and the writers and executive producers had to pay off all that emotional investment, lest the second season go down in flames very quickly. To keep the level of intrigue high and delay a full, comprehensible revelation as long as possible, the second season of Lost (reviewed here!) took the primary characters to a point, then replayed with a different character to that point, and then replayed with another character to that point. When American Gods capped "Head Full Of Snow" (reviewed here!) with Shadow walking into his motel room and seeing his dead wife sitting on his bed, but begins "Git Gone" at the (apparent) beginning of Laura Moon's story, it's clear to genre fans that the Starz series is playing the same narrative game.

"Git Gone" is an attempt to make Laura Moon, a character dead almost immediately in the American Gods narrative, into a vital character. Unfortunately, it does not take long into "Git Gone" before it is apparent that Laura is neither a vital character, nor a particularly good or interesting one.

Laura is dealing blackjack at a little casino in Indiana, where she resists the automatic shuffling machine (preferring to deal by hand). She leads a simple life, after work eating meagerly and getting high on insecticide spray. One day, after four years of working at the casino, Shadow walks in and attempts to steal at her table by swapping chips subtly. Laura waves him off the attempt and after her shift, she finds Shadow waiting for her. Laura takes Shadow back to her house and the two begin a relationship. Soon, they are married and Laura slips into a numb pattern of work, passionless sex with Shadow and waiting for her life to pop.

Four years into their relationship, Laura sits Shadow down and tells him she wants to rob the casino. Laura's "perfect plan," though, fails and Shadow takes the fall for her, going to prison. While Shadow is in prison, Laura dutifully waits for him taking his calls and doing more inhalants until her cat dies. Laura's friend Audrey has a husband, Robbie, who is handy for Laura while Shadow is in prison and he buries her cat, which starts the two having an affair. As Shadow moves toward his release, Laura and Robbie's affair reaches a peak and the two go out driving when they get into a car accident. Laura finds herself with Anubis and when he challenges her, she is abruptly and shockingly resurrected. Back on Earth, Laura begins to follow a mysterious light, which leads her to Shadow.

Emily Browning is fine as Laura in "Git Gone" - she plays Laura as a bored, dull young woman who is thoroughly unlikable. To her credit, Browning is able to display range and she emotes using more than one facial expression, which is a distinct step up from her performance in Sucker Punch (reviewed here!). Laura Moon is a boring, unlikable character, but Browning plays the bored character well.

The real acting winner in "Git Gone," though, is Dane Cook. Cook plays Robbie and it is one of the more subtle, less manic, characters that he has played. In fact, Robbie is one of the first characters I can recall where Dane Cook fully invests in a character; watching "Git Gone," one does not see "Dane Cook as . . ." Dane Cook plays Robbie without any hint of Dane Cook.

Craig Zobel's direction for "Git Gone" is notable for finding the right balance of what is shown and what is obscured. Zobel illustrates the repetitive quality of Laura's life quite effectively. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Zobel's directing in "Git Gone" is in the inevitable car crash. Zobel does not sensationalize or show excessive detail in the car crash and he makes that work. The lack of gore for the car crash contrasts nicely with the colorful netherworld Laura finds herself in following the crash.

Ultimately, "Git Gone" does about all it can to make Laura interesting, but her character is a bored, lousy schemer. While there are ample hints within the episode that someone else is involved in much of what goes wrong in her life, it is hard to care because just as Laura lopes dully through life, the episode never gets much momentum as it plods from boring new scenes through events viewers already know about.

For other works with Betty Gilpin, please check out my reviews of:
Glow - Season 1
"The Bone Orchard"- American Gods
Fringe - Season 1

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into American Gods - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of the surreal series here!
Thanks!]

3.5/10

For other television season and episode reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Family Stone Recycled And Recast Better With Dan In Real Life!

The Good: Good acting, Good use of tone, Interesting characters
The Bad: Recycled plot, One big conceit
The Basics: A surprisingly smart, funny and touching film, Dan In Real Life suffers from being a movie we've seen before with a tone that is nothing short of oppressive.


It did not take long in watching Dan In Real Life before the movie began to feel remarkably familiar to me. As an avid cinephile and reviewer, I watch a lot of movies. Most films do their best to differentiate themselves, especially from movies that have been in theaters and out on DVD in proximity. So, I was a bit surprised when I sat down to the DVD of Dan In Real Life how closely it resembled The Family Stone (reviewed here!). In terms of the plot, they are essentially the same movie, with the genders of the lead protagonist reversed.

The thing is, despite how similarly the plots resemble one another and how familiar Dan In Real Life seemed, I found myself enjoying it. The tone of the movie, to be sure, is oppressive and very overwhelming and consistent, but it works. With Steve Carell leading an impressive cast of known quantities and new (surprisingly talented) young people, Dan In Real Life works as a very complete and compelling film. Carell continues to impress me, while the female lead of The Family Stone, Sarah Jessica Parker, I find myself more indifferent to.

Dan Burns is raising his three daughters, the oldest of which is learning to drive and the middle girl who has declared she is in love with a boy in her class. Dan and his daughters are headed to his parent's house in the country for a long weekend of family reuniting. Taking a break from his family, Dan goes to a small bookstore where he loads a woman up with books and has a delightful coffee and conversation with her. Returning home, he discovers the woman - Marie - is actually the girlfriend of his brother, Mitch. Dan and Marie tiptoe around one another, very aware of the chemistry they shared.

Things become complicated for Dan when Cara's boyfriend continues to pursue her even to his parent's house, he observes Marie bonding with his youngest daughter, and he realizes that the only thing that truly excites him is Marie. Trying to be respectful of Mitch, Dan struggles to repress his feelings, which leads to humorous and painful incidents that open his eyes back up to love.

Peter Hedges, who directed About A Boy (reviewed here!) directed and co-wrote Dan In Real Life, and more than anything else, this movie proves he is a master of tone. Dan In Real Life is an extraordinarily difficult movie to watch in that it is depressing and steadily, unrelentingly driven by Dan's melancholy. Hedges did a great job with such feelings in About A Boy and here he applies that same sense of being detached from the world to Dan in a way that works, even if it is not the easiest thing to sit through and watch.

That said, Dan In Real Life is surprisingly engaging. It comes with one essential fault, though. Dan Burns and Marie essentially fall in love over one conversation, something Dan denies as a possibility when it applies to his daughter, Cara. Dan's world comes alive and the conversation brings him an energy and enthusiasm that is palpable. Steve Carell's performance in that single scene effectively transforms his character through his mastery of body language and his ability to express emotions with his eyes. Carell is perfectly cast and in that scene, he takes his slouching, drooping-eyelid character and makes him into a gently smiling, cerebral, charming suitor. And it works.

The fault, though, comes in the strength of that in the overall narrative. Marie and Mitch have not just started dating and the alluded-to transformation of Mitch from his relationship with Marie undermines the concept of the strength of the Dan/Marie connection. In other words, all of the conflict that ensues as a result of Dan and Marie hitting it off places a great deal of emphasis and importance on a single conversation. That one conversation generates almost all of the character conflict that the film is actually about.

Dan's parents act as a decent moral core and Poppy especially tries to guide Dan toward making his life happier, especially as Dan's column is considered for syndication by a large syndicate. The character of Dan Burns is an intriguing one; a self-help guru who has difficulty keeping his own life in order. This makes perfect sense as people almost always have blind spots and as a result, there is a realism in the establishment of the Dan character.

Similarly, Marie being portrayed as down-to-earth and passionate works well as a dramatic foil to Dan. The connection they have seems very real and scenes like Marie spending time with Lilly adds to their connection. What works at least as well is the torment Dan experiences watching Marie and Mitch playing football together. They play as a very organic couple and Dan's conflict is vivid as a result of his acknowledgment that his infatuation with Marie is not the only consideration.

Sadly, even more than the characters and the essential plot conflict of "Will Marie end up with Mitch or Dan" (which can pretty much be figured by the title of the movie), Dan In Real Life is about establishing a tone. The tone in this film is oppressive, there is no other word for it. Dan is a character who is trapped in the pain of losing his wife, whose existence seems to revolve around memorializing her in raising the daughters they had together. Even after Marie enters his life, he does not transform significantly. Instead, he is left with more conflict and there is something droll about that.

Carell does wonders at establishing that mood, but it is difficult to watch and be entertained by a character who is so unrelentingly miserable. It works for the story and the story is compelling, but it is not entertaining. Enlightenment is not always entertaining, but the way Dan In Real Life is overwhelmingly and completely oppressive in its level to depressed mood, only proves the point.

What makes Carell ideal for the role of Dan Burns is that he has an ability to play the part with hints of the potential of who Burns might be when happy. Yes, he has wit and he has the ability to restrain it, yet let it out in careful doses that allude to who he was before all of his loss. There is, for example, no hint of his performance from Little Miss Sunshine in his portrayal of Dan. While both characters are depressed, Dan has a very different melancholy working for him and Carell makes that clear through his performance.

Carell's costar Juliette Binoche is adequate and she and Carell have great chemistry to make the conflict between Dan and Marie real. Binoche is a great love interest but she does not do anything exceptional with her character that she has not done in some of her other performances in similar roles, like in Chocolat.

On DVD, Dan In Real Life is not exactly packed with extras, but it does have pretty much what is expected from a comedy or dramedy on DVD. There is an insightful commentary track and there are deleted scenes with optional commentary as well. As well, there is a featurette on the making of the movie which allows some of the actors to have a voice in the behind-the-scenes commentary as well. They are interesting and this is real nice for those who want more than just the movie with its depressing tone.

And despite the tone, Dan In Real Life works exceptionally well as a movie and it is worth seeing, though I am on the fence about owning it. Is it good enough to be bought? For sure! But I have a pretty heavy collection of DVDs and this one does what it sets out to do very well, making me wonder how much more depression my collection needs.

For other movies featuring Steve Carell that I've reviewed, please check out:
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Despicable Me
Date Night
Get Smart
Little Miss Sunshine
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy

6/10

Check out how this film stacks up against all the others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where film reviews are organized from best to worst movie!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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When Bad Movies Go Blah; Employee Of The Month

The Good: I suppose the acting is fine
The Bad: Not funny, Utterly predictable, Boring, No real character, "Meh"
The Basics: This is a movie that is not funny or not entertaining, but also not overtly terrible.


There's a tough sell for most reviewers to rate things at the extremes. For a film or product to be one star or five stars, it either has to be unredeemably bad or absolutely perfect in my pantheon of ratings. "Average," in my belief, ought to be . . . well, the average. This occasionally brings me problems when it comes to actually placing a rating number on my experience. Sure, I'll debate between a 10 and a 9, but it's rare I give much time to any sort of struggle between a 1 and a 2. Enter Employee Of The Month, a critically unfunny cinematic endeavor that left me with little debate near the bottom end of the spectrum.

Zack Bradley is a slacker working at the local Super Club (a Sam's Club type discount superstore) who has managed to get by without being noticed for years. Vince Downey, the head cashier, has won Employee of the Month for seventeen straight months and if he wins the eighteenth month, he'll win a new car. When a new cashier, Amy, arrives at Super Club and a rumor floats that she has a history of sleeping with the Employee of the Month, Zack gets the impetus he needs to show some initiative and the race for Employee of the Month begins in earnest.

What follows then are a series of witless attempts by Vince and Zack to outdo one another. Both have dates with Amy, giving her the chance to make the choice between them. And Zack has the obvious plot/character path with his friends wherein his quest to become Employee of the Month trumps his loyalty to his three closest slacker friends and he has to make the difficult decision about what is truly important to him . . .

blah blah blah.

Employee Of The Month is so obvious and cliche it's surprising to me that I've even had to debate how poorly to rate the film. Seriously, a third grade student could have written this movie given how conventional the plot is, utilizing all of the obvious competition plot twists and character threads. Its so formulaic one wonders if the mere use of a different setting was what sold the film and if so why.

Employee Of The Month is billed as a comedy and it's clear - especially from the soundtrack - that the target audience is a group of tasteless ten to eighteen year olds who have no sense of what is predictable. But for a comedy, it did not take me long to realize that I was not laughing. I waited for jokes to be amusing, it didn't happen. I waited for a surprise. None came. Instead, the flick relies on such standard and juvenile fare as gay jokes and lines mocking the mentally retarded and in Employee Of The Month they all fall flat.

The closest I came to laughing at this movie was a joke that was telegraphed by Andy Dick. Dick, whose supporting role in the movie is as Lon a character whose sole characterization is a pair of bottle-bottom glasses, plays a near-blind employee who wanders through the movie clueless and lost. At one point, he is at his desk when a customer asks him if he is looking at her breasts. His response is "I don't even know," a line that was criminally obvious moments before it was made, but the closest to funny the film gets.

Beyond that, there's nothing redeeming about Employee Of The Month. It's not funny, it's not well written and the characters are so generic it's almost surprising they bothered to give them names. Indeed, characters this generic have not been witnessed by me since Not Another Teen Movie (reviewed here!).

But the acting is fine. For a group of characters that could be anyone, the acting is fine. I've not seen Dane Cook or Dax Shepard in anything before and I've avoided anything with Jessica Simpson "acting," but they were all fine in Employee Of The Month. The DVD has some behind-the-scenes extras as well as movies from MySpace.com that were - apparently - part of a contest centered around the movie. The acting might not light the world on fire, but it's not bad acting. Indeed, the only one whose acting I noted as too familiar or unoriginal was that of Efren Ramirez. Ramirez played Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite (reviewed here!) and a few scenes into Employee Of The Month, I recognized him because he was playing essentially the same character or giving the same performance here.

With low entertainment value for anyone who enjoys movies and has a sense of humor more sophisticated than the dialogue found at the back of your average elementary school school bus, Employee Of The Month isn't terrible. It's just not good.

For other works with Brian George, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Horrible Bosses
Numb
Ghost World
Keeping The Faith
“Dr. Bashir, I Presume” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

3/10

Check out how this film stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst.

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Good Luck Chuck: Generally Bad Sex Farce With A Lot Of Nudity (Yea!).

The Good: Well, there IS a lot of sex in the movie.
The Bad: Not funny, Utterly predictable, Obvious
The Basics: It's a poor day for Jessica Alba, yet again, with Good Luck Chuck, a dumb sex farce without any real heart.


Every time I take note of a comedy about sex, a Beavis & Butthead laugh and voice goes through my head with a mental "Heh, heh. . . sex." I suppose having sexual ethics is boring and passe, but it does make movies based entirely on sexual folly rather dull and pointless. And to nip in the bud: I am not one of those people who thinks there ought to be less sex in movies or on television. In fact, I'm all for more. I just like it to have a reasonable context and to actually be interesting.

This whole idea was driven home to me a few days ago when I was writing an erotic scene for the last book I wrote. It has been years since I wrote such a scene and after all of this time, I was concerned with the writing appearing too technical or mechanical. So, I consulted a friend of mine and had a frank discussion about erotica. His verdict was one that made sense to me: the measure of success for erotic writing is whether or not it effectively satisfies the target audience. Does it titillate in the way it is intended the people it is intended to titillate? I mention this before diving head first into a review of Good Luck Chuck because while there is a lot of sex in the movie, it is not an erotic or even vaguely interesting movie.

Cursed by a Goth chick as a kid while playing spin-the-bottle at a birthday party, Charlie is rumored to be a sexual good-luck charm. He is cursed to be without love for his life, though he will inspire love in those around him. As a result, anyone who has sex with Chuck will meet and fall in love with the man (or woman) of their dreams after the encounter. After yet another marriage of an ex-, Chuck and his best friend Stu buy into the mythos. Stu convinces Chuck to allow himself to be promiscuous and enjoy the noncommittal sex from women throwing themselves at Chuck in order to meet their Mr. Right afterwards.

Soon after he allows himself to go wild, though, Chuck meets Cam, a beautiful biologist who is completely in love with penguins. Initially cold to Chuck, Cam warms up to him right around the time that Chuck realizes he does not want her to move on from him after they consummate their relationship. He tries desperately to break the curse and keep Cam interested, going over-the-top in his attempts to achieve both goals.

I have, largely, made a point of avoiding the sex farce movies. Because of an appreciation of Judd Apatow's early works, I ended up seeing The 40 Year Old Virgin (reviewed here!) and was not impressed. Similarly, it was only because I had free tickets that I went to Sex Drive (reviewed here!) and found myself pleasantly surprised by that. But in generally, I have avoided the formulaic "lose your virginity" movies since well before American Pie hit theaters. It just hasn't so much interested me, probably because that part of my life is so far behind me and because it always seems to juvenile and stupid to waste that first time for just anything or any one. So, I went into Good Luck Chuck with remarkably low expectations.

Good Luck Chuck lived down to my expectations. It is worth noting that while Good Luck Chuck is a pretty lousy movie, it could have been much worse and this did not fall below my best estimate of what the movie could be. It's a dumb premise, executed as well as can be expected given how much of the premise determines the course of the movie. And this is a ridiculously predictable movie.

Charlie is hardly an empathetic character and his sidekick Stu is, of course, even worse. Chuck's main downfall is that he lets Stu convince him to stop caring either about the desperate women he has sex with in order to "help" find their true love or himself for treating himself so cheaply. So when he finally does fall for Cam, after a long line of Hollywood-beautiful women, the viewer's thought is more or less "why her?!" If only Chuck had been so interested in character before her odds are he would have been just as happy with virtually any other woman he, uh, banged.

So, Good Luck Chuck is a dumb romantic comedy broken up by Chuck having a lot of sex with women who treat him pretty poorly. Those who read my other reviews know I'm a sucker for pointing out subtext. Good Luck Chuck paints itself as a movie where the protagonist has a woeful ability and he is used by women who are desperate for love. On the surface, it may seem like Chuck is a nice guy doing a nice thing for otherwise nice women. But then, Chuck starts having sex with women who read books, smack him around and yell at him while involved in acts of coitus. The surface suggests that this is a misandric movie where women are finally getting their due on their male oppressors and sexual liberation is alive and well. But it's not. This is another movie where women are treated as objects (especially the rotund woman used to "prove" to Chuck that the curse is not real) and their treatment of a guy who is ostensibly doing a favor they ask for illustrates a ridiculously low opinion of women. In other words, if Chuck were truly doing something nice for all of the demure, loveless women in the world by fucking their brains out, one thinks they'd be grateful. No, Good Luck Chuck paints Chuck as a strange victim of the usual harpy cliche of women. At least movies like The Story Of O (reviewed here!) are pretty straightforward in their view of women and even make a pass at making the sexual domination of them an act of feminine empowerment. Good Luck Chuck is not even smart enough to put up the pretense.

It's when reviewing the movie that I realize how little I truly enjoyed it. This is not to say I didn't laugh at all, because there were moments I did, especially early on. But from the moment Chuck's personal assistant throws herself at Chuck in an attempt to land a man and the movie becomes largely about making fun of fat women, lesbians, and getting Jessica Alba in her underwear (yes, kids, there is some sideboob), Good Luck Chuck fails to be either funny or even entertaining.

Jessica Alba, who sells a ton of magazines, is at this point forcing us to ask the question "what do you want out of your career?!" Between this and The Love Guru, Alba seems to be determined not to put herself in any roles where she can play a character who is substantive or even interesting. Instead, one suspects that Alba was offered a dump truck of cash to get this movie made and released and she just . . . I don't know, got hit with an IRS audit or something, so she said "sure."

I have no standard by which to judge the acting of Dane Cook in this. Cook plays Chuck and he seems to be banking a lot on his smile and the movie's nudity to cover the fact that his character is lacking in character and the movie is utterly predictable.

On DVD, there are deleted scenes which add nothing substantive to the movie. This is largely because it is not a substantive movie to begin with, so there's nothing that changes with the deleted scenes. The worthwhile bonus feature (hey kids, this is what you're truly looking for!) is a feature that is a simple montage of all of the movie's sex scenes and all of the nudity in the movie. Yes, you can skip the film, watch the sex and save yourself a lot of time.

For other works with Crystal Lowe, visit my reviews of:
Hot Tub Time Machine
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Scary Movie 4

2.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Mystery Of How So Many Talented Individuals Could Fail To Create Something Funny

The Good: Excellent cast, Decent concept, One or two moments of humor
The Bad: Terrible use of cast (poor acting), Simple and disappointing plot, Largely not funny!
The Basics: In a complete waste of time and talent, wonderful comic actors end up mired in a superhero dramedy fails to be funny or even entertaining.


Every now and then, there comes a film that has an awesome concept, a great cast, and a convincing trailer and it turns into such a miserable viewing experience for the viewer that it is almost enough to make one swear off movies (especially those featuring the performers in such an abomination) altogether. Mystery Men is one of those types of movies and whatever your hopes for the film are, odds are if you are a fan of any of the principle actors involved - like William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Janeane Garofalo, Eddie Izzard, and Ben Stiller - you will be woefully disappointed.

Champion City, a generic city in the United States, is a place populated by heroes, none greater than Captain Amazing. Captain Amazing has fallen on hard times and to make some money, he releases the villainous Casanova Frankenstein from prison. His plan soon goes awry and he ends up captured by the enemy. It then falls to a group of lesser, unimpressive superheroes to rise to the occasion to save Captain Amazing and Champion City. The fate of both is in the hands of the perpetually upset (though never usefully angry) Mr. Furious, the fork-throwing Blue Raja, the digging ace known as The Shoveller, the sardonic Bowler, the gassy Spleen, the (not really) Invisible Boy, and the inscrutable Sphynx.

The thing about Mystery Men is that in reading what I just wrote, the movie lived up to its entire potential. What I mean by that is that the only gag of substance in Mystery Men is the revelation of what the less than super powers of the characters are. So, for example, the first time the Blue Raja throws a fork, it's mildly amusing. When he does it repeatedly . . . well, it's stale by the second throw. Invisible Boy is a clever commentary; he reasons that because he is black and everyone ignores him he must be invisible. But that's the joke, it's done and in the movie it's a joke that is completely belabored.

And the less said about The Spleen the better. Yes, it's all fart jokes with him.

This is one of those terrible movies where all of the best material appears in the preview. If you've seen the trailer and enjoyed it, you've seen the cream of this movie. In fact, if you see the Smashmouth video for "All Star," you've seen the best footage from this movie - maybe it's even better without any of the dialogue.

The thing is, the characters in this film are not genuinely characters. Instead, they are jokes and once the joke is revealed (about a minute out of the movie), we're left with two hours of watching a series of jokes try to reinvent themselves over and over again. The best way to describe this movie is like seeing a high school student with a t-shirt with a phrase on it. The shirt says something like "I kiss better than your boyfriend," you read the shirt, evaluate the wearer, laugh or don't, and move on. When the person keeps coming by with that same t-shirt on, most people don't keep reading it over and over again. We got it the first time. Mystery Men is the type of one-trick pony that asks the viewer to continually reread the t-shirt, expecting that our reaction will be the same each time. And they're banking on that reaction being laughter.

Writers Bob Burden, Neil Cuthbert and Director Kinka Usher are lucky when they get the first laugh.

This is a startlingly un-funny movie for a film that has such comic talents as Paul Rubens (best known as Pee Wee Herman), Hank Azaria, Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. These are people well known for making this reviewer laugh. I like their work. Yet here they are operating where the lines are not funny, the situation is not treated as funny and the jokes are mostly simple and stupid.

Unfortunately, there's not enough in the script even to allow the genuine acting talents to break out and impress the viewer with what they can do as far as presentation. William H. Macy is a favorite of mine and he was robbed of any awards for his masterful performance in Magnolia (reviewed here!). In Mystery Men, Macy plays The Shoveller and there is not enough written for him to do anything other than deliver the few lines he has, as best he can and let the performance die its quick death. Similarly, the truly great actress Lena Olin appears briefly in Mystery Men and is not given enough to work with to actually perform.

Adding to the poor writing, terrible characters and the generally low-quality of the acting, director Kinka Usher fails to create any visual sense with this movie that the film is progressing. The pace is belabored and weighed down with continual attempts to replay the same joke and Usher fails to make the film look good while slowly killing the audience with the same stale routines.

All in all, this is a movie that is an utter disappointment that fails to produce anything worthwhile despite having the potential in much of the talent to create something unique and entertaining. Save yourself two hours of life; find something else to watch this weekend!

For other superhero films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Super
Kick-Ass
My Super Ex-Girlfriend

2/10

For other film reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Sighs Of The Viewers For Farce Of The Penguins

The Good: Moments of humor
The Bad: Humor is repetitive, Juvenile, Concept gets old very quickly, DVD Extras are more of same.
The Basics: Yeah, I laughed once or twice. But that's about all one might expect from Farce Of The Penguins.


A few years back, I went to the theaters to see the documentary The March Of The Penguins (reviewed here!) because it was supposed to be an astonishingly good documentary. I remember enjoying it, even if it was basically a PBS NOVA special on the big screen. When I heard that Bob Saget was doing a spoof of the film, I was mildly interested. I think I was more surprised when I found Farce Of The Penguins on DVD as I don't recall it actually coming to the theaters.

The story is simple: Samuel L. Jackson provides voice-over for the story of penguins traveling the seventy miles from food to their mates and their women then making the trek back and forth as well. Instead of telling anything remotely scholarly, Farce Of The Penguins becomes a buddy comedy between Carl and Jimmy, who are best friends. They wander back to their "bitches" (the movie's term, not mine) where they both score with the same penguin.

This is the type of movie that Farce Of The Penguins is. Various actors provide a line or two for various penguins and the film has an "assembled" quality to it that is less cohesive as it is filled with catch-phrases. The humor is pretty juvenile and banal, ranging from genital-size and fart jokes to breaking the fourth wall with penguins talking to the narrator. The average bit includes Gilbert Gottfried providing the line "I'm freezing my nuts off!" to the image of a shaking penguin and Norm MacDonald asking about joining in to a clip of a lone penguin walking around where two groups of penguins are mating. Yes, it's that outrageous and funny a movie.

The truth is, I did laugh once or twice during Farce Of The Penguins, but most of it was at the beginning when the idea of the movie was still fresh and almost all of the lines that I laughed at were delivered by Samuel L. Jackson. So much of the humor seemed forced, though, because the clips barely match a concept of what might be talked about by the penguins. So, for example, most of the women are relegated to generic jokes about parties, sanitary napkins and the club scene because the female penguins shown in the beginning are not truly doing anything.

This is like Mystery Science Theater 3000, save that the people participating have nothing terribly funny to say about the content. Most of the voice-over performers literally come in for one line (they are credited more by the lines they deliver than by character names because most of them don't even have character names). For example, John Stamos's cameo is as "What's Global Warming Penguin," can you guess what his line is?

I am surprised Farce Of The Penguins was given an "R" rating, though. Most of the content is sexually themed (but it's penguins and other animals having sex) and language elements; there is a fair amount of swearing and talk that sounds more like a lockerroom than anything else. The thing is, none of it is terribly clever . . . or genuinely funny. Instead, it just seems like a bunch of comedians walking in on a movie, making a comment and leaving. The few actors who provide voice-overs throughout (Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Saget, and Lewis Black) wear out their welcome because they basically start with a schtick and they get mired in it for the hour and a half that is this movie.

The bonus features on the DVD are equally uninspired. Bob Sagat provides a commentary track that explains why he bothered to make a parody of March Of The Penguins. Otherwise, there are previews for equally uninspired cinematic outings from Lionsgate and five deleted/extended scenes. The deleted scenes add nothing substantive to the film.

I enjoy documentaries and I loved the mocumentary Best In Show (reviewed here!). What that film had that Farce Of The Penguins lacked was a sense of timing and levels to it that it worked on. It told a story, mocked dog shows and Fred Willard provided a completely different experience as the crazy announced. Farce Of The Penguins just makes jokes over the stock footage of penguins doing their thing.

It is interesting to note that this spoof might have more relevance to those outside the United States of America. In other countries, in March Of The Penguins, the penguins were given personalities and lines, in the U.S. only Morgan Freeman had a voice.

But, ultimately, this is not a funny movie. Or the humor in it is repeated so often as to become droll and insipid.

For other animated films, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Bolt
The Lord Of The Rings
Perfect Blue

2/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Amusing, But Not Enduring, Harmful If Swallowed By Dane Cook Is Worth The Listen, Not The Buy.

The Good: Funny, Some good callbacks, A few universal topics
The Bad: A lot of repetition within the recording, so it holds up poorly over multiple listens.
The Basics: Funny, but not particularly enduring, Harmful If Swallowed establishes Dane Cook as a decent standup whose comedy can be listened to and enjoyed, if not frequently repeated.


"Back when Dane Cook was funny. . " seems to be an appropriate way to begin this review. After all, I have had very limited encounters with the standup comic Dane Cook, but everyone who has told me they have something by him that I "have to listen to!" tend to universally preface or amend that request with "it's from when Dane Cook was funny." It seems I am hitting the late train out of Cookville, as most of his loyal audience appears to have abandoned him by this point. In fact, outside a single joke on Family Guy and my recent viewing of his film Good Luck Chuck, I had not even heard of Dane Cook until six months ago.

So when my fiance and I were driving and Harmful If Swallowed was suddenly popped into the c.d. player in the car, I was not at all biased against the work, I was more indifferent to it. But I gave it a fair listen and . . . it was funny. I laughed. In fact, I laughed quite a bit. Then came my long drive home from Michigan to New York during an ice storm through Canada's invisible roads and one of the discs I used to keep myself awake was Dane Cook's Harmful If Swallowed, which had been left for me to enjoy. Having listened to the album now five times, virtually all humor has been sucked from it. The initial surprise and amusement that had been there are gone now.

Dane Cook's Harmful If Swallowed is an hour long standup performance where Dane Cook presents humorous observations on pavement, car accidents, growing up with five sisters, classic '80's toys, public bathrooms and popular children's drinks. Cook's unique material was recorded live (as one might gather from the many breaks for laughter) and it sounds like he was having a good night in Buffalo, New York (as I gather from the reference to the Galleria Mall).

And Cook is funny. His humor tends to be observational, like asking of parking structures on the roofs of malls "what is that paved with?!" and relating stories that are generally universal. He, for example, jokes about the social nature of car accidents and fires and how people congregate and try to "help" law enforcement by telling their stories ("I was inside, I heard the crash, I came out."). The most universal bit is actually the final one on the album, when Cook details the plague of waking up late. This bonus track is actually some of his funniest work as he describes how horrible it is to wake up for a crappy job and how he once woke up late for work by five and a half hours!

His humor tends to be best described as "quietly manic." Cook does not yell frequently, but he does not have a dry delivery like a Steven Wright or a Rita Rudner. Instead, he is conversationally energetic and his style is more like an enthusiastic storyteller who is on stage keeping himself busy. There is a great sense of movement and energy to his voice throughout Harmful If Swallowed and that energy adds to the initial humor of the album.

Cook uses minimal sound effects on this recording, most notably in his early tracks on parking structures (he does a terrible grating screech), crash noises and his impersonation of a drive-thru window's speakerbox. His ability to do sound effects is decent and his accents, on the few occasions he does them, are funny. In the driving section and in his monologue on being unborn, he affects ethnic accents and they are funny.

This seems like a good time to mention the language on the album. This is an album intended for adult audiences, at least as far as the language goes. Cook is remarkably safe when he talks about women, dating and masturbation, but he does swear quite a bit. This should not be a surprise to anyone checking out the track listing as it clearly states that one of his bits is on the f-word and the middle finger. And the monologue is actually funny and he talks about the power of swearing and how there is nothing that trumps "fuck you!"

The rest of his language is pretty tame, he swears, using "shit" as a synonym for "stuff" at times and he throws the f-word out as simple slang for the act of sex ("Is your name 'monkey fucking a coconut?!"). Generally the language is inoffensive for adults, who have heard it all before. Cook uses mildly homophobic slurs as well, but the context of them is hardly offensive (I'm someone quite sensitive to that type thing, so this is a good barometer). In fact, one of the funniest bits Cook does on Harmful If Swallowed is on dreams and the dream interpretations all seem to be "you're gay!" Cook makes no judgment or slur on that in that bit and the analysis is pretty funny, especially for Freudians.

The real problem with Harmful If Swallowed seems to be with repeatability. Cook is funny, but he repeats his jokes on the album, sometimes - like with the "parking structure" one - restarting it to make sure it is funny. The repetitive nature of jokes like "I heard the sound, I came out" wears thin over multiple listens to the album. In fact, several of the jokes he just seems to repeat until he gets the laugh he is looking for.

Moreover, there is a somewhat juvenile or dated quality to this performance that makes it hold up less well over multiple listens. Unlike something like Eddie Izzard's Dress To Kill where the comedy pokes fun at universal experiences and some bits of history (Nazis are a great target for comic poking!) Cook's humor seems very much for the twenty to thirtysomething crowd of the late '90s, early 2000s audience. Between that and the repetition, the album holds up less well over the many listens one would hope to get out of it.

Conversely, Cook does seem able to do callbacks to his most successful jokes and when he jokes about the slip and slide and makes a callback to trying to fit in with his sisters, it works quite well.

Still, this is a comedy album that works and is worth listening to, but is hard to recommend for the buy. It is good, but the humor wears thin fast.

For other comedic albums, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Family Guy: Live In Vegas

5/10

For other album reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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