Rock of Ages

Director: Adam Shankman
Starring: Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Malin Akerman, Mary J. Blige, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cranston
Running Time: 123 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★ (out of ★★★★)

In the opening scene of Rock of Ages, "small town girl" Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is traveling on a bus to L.A. with a suitcase full of records with big dreams of becoming a famous singer. It's 1987. And you'll never guess which classic 80's power ballad's piano riff start to play. Yes, it's Night Ranger's "Sister Christian." The song, rescued from relative obscurity by director Paul Thomas Anderson in 1997's Boogie Nights, resulting in one of cinema's most memorable musical moments, and making a previously cheesy song all of the sudden seem exceptionally cool. The exact opposite happens in this painful sequence where an entire busload of passengers and their driver awkwardly join Sherrie in a sing-a-long of it that plays like a poor man's version of the Almost Famous "Tiny Dancer" bus scene. And for a few brief minutes we're reminded again why we all thought "Sister Christian" was so corny to begin with and why it should be illegal for it to accompany any scene not involving a coked-out, gun-toting Alfred Molina and firecrackers. I'll probably need about a dozen viewings of that sequence just to cleanse myself of the song's silly cameo in this.  

Of all the problems with this limp effort, that opening scene symbolizes its biggest. The movie isn't just unfunny, poorly paced and performed, but seems to have genuine disdain for its audience and the musical era it's supposedly celebrating. We'd be kidding ourselves by not admitting that the 80's had some awful music ripe for parody, but it's certainly not THIS bad. Maybe it was unintentional, but because the comedy doesn't work and the tone is off, I came away believing those involved in the making of this musical have very little affection for the music. There's even less respect for the plot and characters, both of which exist only as an excuse to cram in as many tunes as possible into a two hour film. There's medley after medley, as "Sister Christian" leads into "Just Like Paradise" and "Nothin' But a Good Time" as Sherrie meets Bourbon Room barkeep Drew Boley (Diego Boneta), also an aspiring singer, who convinces the club's owner Dennis Dupree (a mulleted Alec Baldwin) to hire her as a waitress. With the club deep in debt and its future uncertain, Dupree along with his assistant and eventual lover Lonny (Russell Brand) find a potential solution to their financial woes by enticing aging, hedonistic Arsenal frontman Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) to play at the Bourbon. It's a gig his manager Paul Gill (Paul Giamatti) hopes will ignite his client's fledgling solo career. He also sees potential in Drew, whose rise up the rock ranks causes a major rift between he and Sherrie.

None of these stories work because director Adam Shankman doesn't seem to care if they do, using them only as vehicles for abominable cover songs that bare little resemblance to what's actually happening on screen. But the most inexplicable sub-plot comes in the form of the Mayor's wife leading a religious crusade against the evils of rock, despite the entire music scene and time period being presented as nothing but squeeky clean and G-rated. And you've never seen anything quite like an angry Catherine Zeta-Jones dancing atrociously in a church singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" while Bryan Cranston's Mayor Whitmore is tied up and spanked by his mistress, confirming that the wait for those final Breaking Bad episodes just might be more excruciating than we thought. Even the one thing everyone seemed to agree works, Cruise's performance as Stacee Jaxx, strangely didn't connect for me all the way because it's just too obviously inauthentic and calculated. He often comes off as Tom Cruise playing Tom Cruise playing a washed-up rock legend in a storyline that seems more designed as career rejuvenation for the actor rather than the fabricated musician. It's essentially a extended celebrity cameo. When he's interviewed by Malin Akerman's mousy Rolling Stone reporter for what's supposed to be 8 minutes, it feels more like 8 hours because the entire sequence goes nowhere with roundabout questions, awkward silences and mumbling.

Sandwiched in between the never ending interview is Cruise covering Bon Jovi and Foreigner and doing surprisingly okay. His voice doesn't have much character and isn't particularly strong, but he gets the job done just fine. The same could be said for everyone else in the cast, with the obvious exception of Mary J. Blige who clearly the pipes to sing the hell out of these songs and does. It's mostly true that Cruise is the best thing in this, but but there isn't a moment where you're unaware he's giving a performance. Julianne Hough, previously so delightful in last year's Footloose remake, has all the air sucked out of her in this, doing what she can to rescue a thankless character whose voice seems too chirpy to be signing 80's hair metal. As the lead, it's to her credit that she somehow comes out of this unscathed, and maybe also to Diego Boneto, who's so bland and lifeless opposite her that I sometimes forgot he was even in the movie at all. But it was great to see a Tower Records store again, even if they never actually sold guitars. I liked that the filmmakers thought they did.

Musicals aren't supposed to be boring. Worse yet, the 80's music scene was gritty and over-the-top but the film goes out of its way to be anything but, playing it safe and never straying outside the lines. Shankman's right that this material can only be treated as goofy comedy but at many points I was confused as to what we were supposed to find funny, or whether it was unintentional or not. At other even less successful points, it plays like a depressing drama. This had all the ingredients to be successful, but this seems like another case of the stage production being transposed to the screen without the adjustments to make it seem cinematic in any way other than adding movie stars. It doesn't look or feel like the 80's and the streets don't even look like streets, but sets. In this way it resembles the almost equally unsuccessful adaptation of Rent, which was at least somewhat saved by an engaging (if dated) story to fall back on.

In the best musicals, the music informs and mirrors the script, almost as if it's organically sprung from it. This is just song after song after song with no breathing room for the story or characters. If there's a silver lining it's that it's easy envisioning Rock of Ages evolving into some kind of cult guilty pleasure like Xanadu or Grease 2 with moviegoers at midnight showings dressed in 80's clothes and throwing things at the screen. It has that same fascinatingly awful quality and evokes a "What Did I Just Watch?" reaction that kind of makes you want to experience it again just to confirm the ridiculousness. If only it were more fun. That I could still easily re-watch it may reveal more about my affinity for the era and its music than anything else. But at least that's something. Audiences probably wanted to love this too, but the movie just seems too embarrassed with itself and the music to truly let them in.

Arthur (2011)

Director: Jason Winer
Starring: Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, Jennifer Garner, Luis Guzman, Nick Nolte
Running Time: 110 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

When I first heard they were remaking the 1981 Dudley Moore comedy Arthur, my chief concern was  getting a cover of Christopher Cross' so cheesy it's awesome Oscar winning title song "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" Thankfully, we get it, albeit too briefly over the closing credits (performed by Fitz and The Tantrums). That I considered that a priority should give you an idea how little this remake offends me. Arthur is, at least for its time, a comedy classic and easily the great Dudley Moore's most memorable role but it it's far from a masterpiece and I can't say I reacted with any more than an eye roll at news of a rehash or even that Russell Brand would be starring. More concerning to me was simply that it's a comedy with dramatic undertones and most of those tend to fall flat. Surprisingly, this isn't terrible and of all the criticisms that can be leveled against it, two I refuse to get on board with are any targeted at Brand or co-star Greta Gerwig, both of whom give charming performances that deserved a better film. There are occasions where this is almost that film, hitting the creative bull's eye and giving you a sense what could have been, but it's ultimately sunken by pointless predictability.

Arthur Bach (Brand) is a womanizing party animal stuck in arrested development with an alcohol problem (a detail downplayed somewhat from the original) and a nanny named Mrs. Hobson (Helen Mirren) as his caretaker.  Hitting the town in an '89 Batmobile with his chauffeur Bitterman (Luiz Guzman) in Batman and Robin costumes, Arthur crashes his own party, a dinner thrown by his wealthy mother announcing him as the new chairman of her multi-million dollar corporation, a position he's blackmailed into taking for fear of losing out on his hefty inheritance. It's definitely not a stretch anyone would need to be blackmailed into marrying his mother's assistant, snobby rich debutante Susan Johnson, who plans to take control of the company herself. But that plan's complicated not only by his disdain for Susan but the fact he's falling hard for free-spirited illegal New York City tour guide Naomi Harris (Gerwig) and now risks being with her at the cost of potentially losing all his fortune.

In some strange way, Russell Brand seems like the perfect fit for the title role and the idea to cast him was a good one. Having previously excelled at playing immature screw-up battling his inner demons in Get Him To The Greek, he's proven he can be silly one minute but also handle a dramatic load the next. This part isn't as tailor made for him as rocker Aldous Snow was (Arthur's almost too nice and harmless), but the tone is better controlled here than in that film, which could never make up it's mind up as to whether it was a comedy or drama. This is clearly a very light comedy with soft dramatic undercurrents and everyone involved at least seems to know that, which is a plus. Helen Mirren does a nice job filling the shoes of John Gieglund as Hobson in the original, while still adding enough that the change in gender makes sense, giving Arthur a mother figure. She starts out as a strict, humorless authoritarian but undergoes a well-executed (if predictable) character arc that results in Arthur having to take care of her for a change. It also gives Mirren the chance to talk through a Darth Vader helmet, a moment I'm sure she's dreamed of since winning her Oscar.

Though you'd never know it from the film's advertising, the female lead is actually Greta Gerwig, not Jennifer Garner. In a misleading, money-grubbing stunt that didn't work, the studio basically refused to acknowledge Gerwig and promoted Garner as the star.  However much of a fan base they falsely assumed Garner had, much of it will probably be eroded once they see her annoying, nails-on-a-chalkboard performance as Susan Johnson. Granted her character is unwisely written as over-the-top she makes a bad problem worse with her hysteria and theatrics, hammering home just how ineffective the central storyline is in clashing with the more grounded aspects of the script. Eventually, the ridiculous, almost embarrassingly predictable blackmail plot in which the entire movie revolves around overshadows everything else, even lessening the impact of the movie's small successes. And that's too bad since the scenes Brand shares with Gerwig (specifically a memorable sequence in an empty Grand Central Station) contains an appeal the rest of the film lacks. Following her underrated, Oscar worthy supporting turn in 2009's Greenberg, this is Gerwig's first foray into big mainstream studio fare and it's of little surprise she's good in a low-key way in the type of quirky dream girl who rescues the guy part we're so used to seeing played by Zooey Deschanel. Even though you sense they're only together because the script dictates it, the two actors make the most of what they're given and come off as an odd but surprisingly effective on-screen couple.

Arthur marks the feature debut of Jason Winer, a director known for his television work on ABC's Modern Family and it does kind of feel like a TV movie or extended episode of a sitcom in the sense that there's really nothing that feels cinematic about it. What he does excel at is taking advantage of the New York City setting as it does feel like a movie that takes place there, whether it was actually shot on location or not. While the movie doesn't work, it comes a lot closer than I expected and can easily imagine that with a better script and a more interesting choice of director an Arthur remake starring Brand and Gerwig could have really worked under the right creative guidance. But the best news for Brand is that this is his second noble near-miss in a row, and he's proven he at least has the acting talent to potentially carry a great film if necessary. It just hasn't come his way yet. In an era of pointless remakes, Arthur is at least pointless for reasons other than just being a remake, hinting that it wouldn't have hurt to change more and take a few risks. Maybe in a couple of years when they try to remake this remake they'll get another shot.

Get Him to the Greek

 

Director: Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Elizabeth Moss, Sean Combs, Colm Meaney
Running Time: 109 min.
Rating: R

★★ 1/2 (★★★★)

Russell Brand's hedonistic, self-destructive rocker Aldous Snow from 2008's mostly forgettable Forgetting Sarah Marshall probably wouldn't top my list of supporting comic characters I'd like to see spun off into their own film. That he's joined again by Jonah Hill still doesn't do much to raise my excitement level, at least on paper.  On the bright side, neither of them were close to being the most annoying aspect of that film, or even its most unlikable character so thankfully Get Him to the Greek isn't a direct sequel to that. Here again, both actors are far from the problem and do a terrific job fleshing out parts that should have propelled a great comedy. At times it shows glimpses that it could be, but despite being a slightly smarter effort than Sarah Marshall and considerably more ambitious, it suffers from nearly the same exact problem that film had: A tonally awkward mix of comedy and drama. One second this film's a riff on celebrity pop culture, only to turn around the next and actually try to make some kind of serious social commentary on it.  It all comes to a head in a messy third act where you can literally sense two separate movies fighting for onscreen dominance, with neither winning side winning and the audience suffering slightly for having endured the battle. Because of this, and a tired satirical target, it's only sporadically amusing. There are some bright spots but just too much is thrown together in a haphazard way for it to be considered a comedic success.

This time around, instead of playing an obsessive resort employee Hill is Aaron Green, an entry-level talent scout for a major recording company that's rapidly losing money. When his boss, egotistical Segio Roma (a very funny Sean "P. Diddy" Combs) needs a game-changing idea, Aaron comes up with the idea of Aldous Snow (Brand) and his band Infant Sorrow playing a show at L.A.'s famed Greek Theater commemorating the tenth anniversary of their most famous concert. Now Aaron has to travel to the U.K. and find a way to get him there, which is more difficult than necessary considering the hard-partying Snow's 'round-the-clock schedule of sex and drugs. That's only escalated by the depression surrounding his recent break-up with longtime girlfriend, pop star Jackie Q. (Rose Byrne), and his shaky relationship with his estranged father (Colm Meaney). As a longtime fan, Aaron's investment is also personal as he tries to repair the career of a faded rock star who's last single, the politically incorrect and offensive "African Child," was blasted by music critics as the "worst thing to happen to Africa since the apartheid." He also has a relationship problem of his own with a rift growing between him and his overworked live-in girlfriend, Daphne (Mad Men's Elizabeth Moss) who he rarely gets to spend any time with because of her busy schedule.

This entire premise is about as thin as it gets but I was surprised just how much mileage writer/director Nicholas Stoller gets out of it. Maybe too much.  He takes a big risk trying to spoof something that's already a spoof of itself and choosing a starring actor in Brand who's essentially portraying a character indistinguishable from whom we perceive him to be as a celebrity. Try as you might to avoid it, this guy (and many other celebrities like him) are shoved in our faces everyday no matter what channel you flip to or magazine you read and it's puzzling to think why anyone would want to see a comedy revolving around a subject already overexposed to death as it is. This is one of those cases where you have a timely concept but also a stale one since there's no way to possibly approach it from a fresh angle.  And as ridiculous as the Aldous Snow songs and videos are, they're still much less ridiculous than a lot of the pop/rock stuff that's being put out today and probably of higher quality, so what's this spoofing exactly? They're making a joke out of something that's already a big mockery and didn't need much help to begin with.  Far from the most inspired, original idea for a comedy, for a while it at least knows enough not to take itself too seriously, which is when it works best.

The biggest mistake comes when it stops goofing around and actually asks us to feel sorry for Brand's character. This continues the tiresome trend in all these Apatow-produced comedies of trying to teach moral lessons about guys having to grow up and take responsibility. It was much more tolerable in films like Role Models and I Love You, Man which never lost sight of their mission to provide laughs and knew not to take its message seriously. But as he already proved with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Stoller can't juggle tone at at all so every crude joke seems to be followed by semi-serious scene trying to apologize for it. By the last third of the movie everything completely flies off the rails and turns into a misguided mish-mash of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Almost Famous, even going so far as to crib a scene directly from the latter. The shame is whether they're just playing variations on their own personalities or not, Brand and Hill make a great comedy team and do gel really well together on screen, with Brand proving he's capable of going to darker, more interesting places as an actor if he's called on to do it. This shouldn't have been that time and requests for us to feel any kind of sympathy for such a flimsy, one-dimensional character should have been off-limits. As surprisingly good as Brand is here, he can't be expected to work miracles or act in two entirely different movies at once. Rose Byrne is frighteningly dead-on as his pop star girlfriend but she's another character who suffers in the laughs department because she actually seems respectable compared to current talentless music stars making headlines. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth Moss is likable and funny as Aaron's girlfriend but Stoller's script undercuts her efforts with a creative decision in the third act so ill-conceived and tonally out of place I had to check and make sure I was still watching the same movie.

At only 109 minutes the film feels overlong, as if many of the jokes were simply repeated to stretch out the running time (How many times do we really need to see Jonah Hill drunk and puking?) Scarier still, when it was over I discovered I actually viewed the theatrical version, not the EXTENDED Unrated director's cut. What more could possibly added to something like this? Why would you want to add anything? And therein lies the problem. So many of these comedies are just too ambitious, trying to do a million things at once when just providing some laughs is good enough. The script does occasionally cut loose and do that really well  (particularly during a "Today Show" sequence and a bad drug trip in Vegas involving Diddy's character) but Stoller's desire to "say something" is always annoyingly present, ready to intrude. But even as messy and unfocused as Get Him to the Greek is, it's still slightly better than Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I'd rather see a likable comedy fail to work as a drama than a depressing drama posing as a comedy.