THE LEGO MOVIE (2014): Everything is Awesome.

When we were kids we'd occasionally break out all of our action figures and playsets, set them all up opposite each other, and arrange a battle royale in which they all strategized and fought against one another.  Batman and the Ninja Turtles were on the same side.  Mario and Luigi, of course, were the Turtles' enemies, because the Brothers are plumbers and the Turtles are usually the ones getting plumbed.  The Ghostbusters sided with the Marios, as both were fighting monsters from another dimension.  The gang from The Nightmare Before Christmas sided with Batman, for obvious reasons.  The Care Bears attempted to remain neutral.

That's kind of what The Lego Movie is like.  It's a vast collection of recognizable characters from different mythologies, all living in the same city and interacting with one another.  Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? has there been such a gathering: there's Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Gandalf, Han Solo, both Michelangelos, and many more.  Tons of intercorporate legal haranguing will be necessary before we can get all of the Marvel heroes on the same screen, but here is the entire DC universe joining forces with Shaquille O'Neal, Abraham Lincoln, and William Shakespeare.

I never had the patience for Legos, but I always admired those who did.  They're a unique toy in that they require equal parts creativity and order.  Being able to invent is just as important as being able to follow instructions.  Each piece is tiny but integral.  That's the theme of the movie, too.

The hero, Emmet (Chris Pratt), is your average everyday working man in the town of Bricksburg, though a bit of an outcast and a dunderhead.  When he stumbles upon a strange artifact known as the Piece of Resistance, he becomes a target.  The good guys, led by wizard Vetruvius (a self-spoofing Morgan Freeman) and rebel gal Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), need the piece to defend themselves from the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell), who wants to use the "Kragle" (you'll see) to freeze all of Bricksburg.

The animation, perfectly mimicking stop-motion, is outstanding.  Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, fast becoming the best in their field, fill the screen with constantly dazzling images; each shot is so complex that it may take several viewings to catch every sly gag.  They don't depend heavily on their pop-culture references for laughs; their screenplay is consistently inventive and funny throughout.

The voice cast is spot-on: Pratt is a perfectly dull everyman, and Banks an appropriately standoffish love interest for him.  It's a little jarring at first to hear Ferrell as the bad guy--he doesn't often play heavies--but he does exceptional work here, particularly when his character takes an unexpected turn late in the film.  I won't reveal the actor who provides the voice for "Good Cop/Bad Cop," a policeman whose face literally changes from gentle to severe, but he delivers a performance unlike anything we've ever seen him do.  Will Arnett, as expected, makes for a completely shallow and self-absorbed Batman.

There's an inspiring lesson in the end, championing invention over conformity.  There is, of course, a correct way to assemble Legos, but after a while it's no fun unless you get to create something weird.  That weird thing is The Lego Movie, whose absence in the Best Animated Feature category at this year's Oscars is a travesty.  Few animated films are this creative and clever.  Few will appeal as potently to both kids and adults as it does.

*** 1/2 out of ****

THE INTERVIEW (2014): Beavis and Butt-head Do Pyongyang

"I still haven't watched The Interview yet because of credible threats from reviewers." -Andy Kindler

I imagine that before seeing The Interview became an act of patriotism, it was a better movie.  On its own terms, it's charming and often laugh-out-loud funny.  But it's not the champion for free speech that recent controversy has painted it as, nor is it in a class with the best comedies that have played against real-life political backdrops, like To Be Or Not To Be or The Great Dictator, or even Team America: World Police, the Trey Parker/Matt Stone puppet comedy, also set in North Korea.

It's a smart comedy about two dumb guys who are charged with assassinating a dictator.  It might have been funnier if it were a smart comedy about two smart guys.  It is, thankfully, not a celebration of the Ugly American tourist who lords his American exceptionalism over lesser furr'ners.  It takes a more surprising if less ambitious route and becomes a benign plea for good journalism in the face of unquestioned despotism.

But that's the movie's secondary ambition.  It's primarily a series of teenage boy jokes at the expense of the manhood (and heterosexuality) of its two lead characters, played by James Franco and Seth Rogen.  The gags are funny, if more juvenile than they need to be.  The elevation that the film received from its alleged targeting by North Korea unfortunately raised expectations that the film didn't meet.

Dave Skylark (Franco) is the host of a vapid talk show that specializes in encouraging celebrities to reveal their deepest secrets.  The opening scene, probably the funniest in the movie, has Skylark unwittingly prompting Eminem to come out of the closet (Mr. Mathers, it should be said, delivers an excellent deadpan performance).  When producer Aaron Rapaport (Rogen) demands that the show be taken in a more relevant direction, Skylark seizes upon a newspaper article which claims that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un is a fan of his show.  The two secure an interview with the dictator, leading a CIA agent (Lizzy Caplan) to knock on their door and charge them with "taking him out."

Rogen and his directing partner Evan Goldberg set such a high bar with their debut film, This is the End, that it wasn't unreasonable to expect a thoughtful, complex, honest comedy about North Korea and the concept of assassination in general.  This is the End started out as a simple bro comedy and expanded far beyond that; The Interview goes the other way.  Early scenes promise a clever satire, but the rest of the movie is more concerned with the emasculation of its heroes and of its villain.  Not that the two are mutually exclusive--This is the End had plenty of bodily humor inside of its spiritual context--but by the end of The Interview, it seems that nothing has really been said, other than (1) hey, y'all, world leaders shouldn't be worshiped as gods, and (2) despite what you may have heard, Kim Jong-un has an anus.

As the enigmatic leader, Randall Park gives the most complex, interesting performance in the film, probably better than Mr. Kim deserves.  If anything, his regime has more to gain from this film than to lose; though his character has many embarrassing revelations--not the least of which is his closet affinity for Katy Perry--his character here is far more intelligent, tenacious, and crafty than the timid, oddball daddy's boy that much of the world sees.

Unfortunately he's not well met by Franco and Rogen, who give two of their lazier performances.  Franco plays Dave Skylark as what Ben Stiller might have described as "full r-word," when his character might have been more interesting as a clever but shallow opportunist.  Rogen doesn't have much of a character at all, other than as the harried straight-man to Franco's hysterics.  Women also don't have much of a role in the film, though Diana Bang is a promising talent as Kim's straight-arrow press secretary.  Lizzy Caplan is unfortunately wasted, disappearing for most of the film's second half, but very few actresses are better at playing the straight woman, and it's largely her doing that early "training" sequences for Dave and Aaron are sometimes uproarious.

Because Rogen and Goldberg are expert comedians, much of the lowbrow humor works.  I found myself laughing more than I expected at a scene in which Aaron, threatened by Kim's guards and a Siberian tiger, has to hide an important package in a very uncomfortable place.  Kim's casual seduction of Dave (likely paralleling the real-life Dennis Rodman visit) is a hoot.  The deadpan performances from James Yi and Paul Bae as stiffshirted North Korean guards lead to some of the film's best uncomfortable laughs.

But Rogen and Goldberg, probably unaware that their film would be elevated to national icon, are content to be merely funny without being provocative.  The controversy surrounding the film only reminds us how much better it could have been.  It flirts enough with the complexities of the place of North Korea in world politics for us to know that it has a brain in its head; it just doesn't use it.

** 1/2 out of ****

T.O.K.'s Top 20 Songs of 2014, or: Ariana Not So Grande, or: Iffy Azalea

We at T.O.K. confess that we have no idea how to write about music.  But we know what we don't like.  And 2014 had a lot of it.

Maybe it's just that '13 had a ton of amazing music, mainly from old timers who've still got it, like Bowie, McCartney, Marr, and They Might Be Giants.  There seems to have been little left.

Even the bad music was terrible.  The de facto artist of the year, Iggy Azalea, is as irritating and cloying as she is probably racist.  Her ubiquitous "Fancy" was catchy and earwormy enough to warrant my listening to her entire album, which is painful enough to be fodder for Guantanamo inmates.  The internet keeps insisting that I like Charli XCX, which I have faithfully tried to do.  The other song that was everywhere this year, Magic!'s "Rude," is unlistenable! but I'll cede the rest of that argument to Studio 360's Sideshow podcast, which this summer aired a very precise thesis on why the song is a crime against humanity.  Ariana Grande, another pop idol that seems to have gained popularity for no good reason, seems to have risen from the Disney ashes that respawn late-teen stars every few years or so.

I suppose Grande is just this generation's Britney Spears, but I seem to recall even Britney's music being better than hers.  I don't know if it's just that I'm an old man, but we in the '90s had much better bad music.  We had the rivaling boy bands of 'N Sync and Backstreet Boys, rivaling divas of Britney and Christina, and Limp Bizkit.  What do the kids have now to compete? (Taylor Swift, I suppose, who's growing more adept a businesswoman and less adept a songwriter with each release.)

There were a few bright spots.  Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, for the second year in a row, released a killer album ("Playland").  There were solid, though not exceptional, albums from Sharon Van Etten and Allo Darlin'.  Stars, whose "The North" was my favorite album of 2012, unfortunately underwhelmed this year, except for one song.  Copeland, one of my favorite emo bands, did not disappoint with their comeback record, "Ixora."  Veruca Salt's reunion, though short, was delightful.  U2, despite the botched publicity stunt around their album's release, came out with some of their best work in years on "Songs of Innocence." "Weird Al" Yankovic might have had the best overall album of the year with his first #1 on the Billboard charts, "Mandatory Fun."

Here are our 20 favorite songs of the year, in descending order.  Let these be an incantation against the rest of 2014.

Our Ten Favorite Podcasts of 2014

I've hedged with the descriptor of "favorite" rather than "best" because there are just way too many podcasts out there that I couldn't hope to get to by the year's end.  Podcasting is bigger than it's ever been: so huge that there are now even podcasts about podcasts: Slate's Serial Spoiler Special and The AV Club's Serial Serial both offered analysis and opinions on NPR's podcasting bombshell Serial (which, while an interesting listen, didn't crack the top 10).

So here are the ten that I most enjoyed this year.  They range from the enlightening to the uncomfortable to the just plain silly, but all are worth your time.

Note: I'm not including the podcasts to which I was personally connected this year, but they may also be worth a listen.  I was featured on The Blockbuster Brunch and chimed in on an honest and frank discussion of one of the greatest modern films ever made, Face/Off.  There's also Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor podcast, which features a couple of episodes from two very funny comedian friends of mine, "Dead Kevin" co-creator Ahmed Bharoocha and "Goatman" creator Tim Vargulish.

10. "Smell the Episode," Jonah Raydio

Jonah Raydio is one of the most casual podcasts I've ever heard.  There appears to be very little editing, the episodes can run upwards of 2 hours, and it pretty much consists of Nerdist and "Meltdown" co-host Jonah Ray sitting around with his friends and listening to new music.  Some of the music is pretty good, and Jonah and crew are fun to listen to.

But while the general atmosphere of the show is fairly loose, "Smell the Episode" is an absolute mess.  It was recorded at LA Podfest, and Jonah and crew make it bitterly clear that there are very few people in the crowd.  They power on through the episode almost grudgingly.  There's an air of desperation in the room: at the halfway mark, Ray is aghast that he has 45 minutes left to fill.  As is usually the case, sound man Neil Mahoney (co-director of Freak Dance) punctuates the podcast with purposefully irritating and poorly timed sound cues.  A guest band, Upset, performs songs that are borderline unlistenable (though that is really the fault of the recording rather than the band).

And yet it's one of the most entertaining podcasts of the year.  It has a raw chaotic intensity.  Few professional podcasts are less produced than this one.  It seems they really did make it up as they went along.  It succeeds based solely on the personality of Ray and his co-hosts, who are charismatic and likable.

9. "The Eight Crazy Guests of Chanukah," Doug Loves Movies

Doug Benson usually caps each year of his movie quiz show with a "12 Guests of Christmas" episode featuring appearances from such regulars as Kevin Pollak and Jon Hamm.  This year he tried something different, featuring 8 "guests" such as "Mark Wahlberg," "Werner Herzog," and "Jesse Ventura."

The 8 "guests" are performed by Paul F. Tompkins, James Adomian, and Dan Van Kirk, who've made regular appearances as these real-life celebrities on Benson's podcast and others.  Particularly hilarious is Van Kirk's embodiment of Wahlberg as an egomaniac fitness nut who insists there are two types of movies: those he was in and those he should've been in.

8. "Mr. Nanny," How Did This Get Made?


Mr. Nanny, a stupid but pleasant vehicle for Hulk Hogan that was meant to cash in on the Home Alone trend of clever kids doing bodily harm to doofus adults, was a massive critical and box office failure. Among this episode's many joys is the utter bafflement of hosts Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas (along with guest Rob Corddry) as to what the movie's intended appeal exactly was, particularly concerning the considerably psychopathic children who repeatedly try to kill Hogan for no real reason ("He is nothing but nice to them"). Also of note is the incident of animal abuse that the team finds in the background of a shot early in the film.

7. "Experts," The Worst Idea of All Time

Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery, the two New Zealanders who nobly vowed earlier this year to watch Grown Ups 2 once a week for 52 weeks, have been going steadily mad since they started. This episode, heralding their 31st viewing, represents the peak of their insanity: after this episode, they seem to find their footing and the show takes a more conventional shape.  But "Experts" portrays Tim and Guy at the height of their Sandler-driven madness.  Though the guys seem to have enjoyed the movie more than usual this time around, that may not be a good sign: much of their discussion is borderline incomprehensible amid fits of cackling.  It honestly shows what a truly bad film like Grown Ups 2 can do to a person.  Tim and Guy have since regained their sanity; you may not.

6. "The Exorcism of Cake Boss," Comedy Bang Bang

"The Exorcism of Cake Boss" gives us the best improv-centered podcast of the year. Host Scott Aukerman welcomes Cake Boss (Paul F. Tompkins) to the show, who is promptly possessed by the soul of deceased designer H.R. Giger (Matt Gourley). Scott swiftly calls Cake Boss's exorcist friend, Rev. Robert Parsimony (also Tompkins), to dispense with the demon. 

Tompkins and Gourley, who collaborate on the very funny sketch podcast Superego, are great together, and the show culminates in a profoundly silly game of "Riddle Me This," plus a retelling of a Bazooka Joe comic strip that is side-splitting.

5. "Easy Rider: The Ride Back," The Flop House

It was in the spring that Dissolve critic Nathan Rabin blasted a recommendation to every bad movie enthusiast he knew: Easy Rider: The Ride Back, the sequel that everyone was no doubt crying out for.  Hosts Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington, and Elliott Kalan are quick to find the greatness in it.  Unlike their counterparts at How Did This Get Made? (who also delivered an entertaining episode on the same film this year), McCoy and crew are less baffled and more appreciative of the kind of egomaniacal awfulness that produces movies like this.  Much like The Room, it's not obligatory or cynical; this is something somebody really wanted to make.

The brainchild of a wealthy Hollywood lawyer named Phil Pitzer, The Ride Back tells of Morgan Williams, brother of Wyatt Williams, the Peter Fonda character from the original film.  His sister Shane (Sheree J. Wilson) begs him to come home to see their father (Newell Alexander) on his birthday.  The movie switches back and forth between Morgan's modern storyline and flashbacks of his childhood.  Jeff Fahey, who's truly entertaining in the film, appears as notorious motorcyclist "Wes Coast."

The film is an absolute treasure trove for McCoy and crew, whose delight in its awfulness drives the podcast.  Even a particularly cruel and exploitative sexual assault scene late in the film is delivered so ineptly that it provokes laughter:  The movie is comparable to The Room in the realm of pet projects that are as incompetent as they are sincere.  It's bread and butter for the folks at The Flop House.

4. "Eddie Izzard, Trevor Noah, Tig Notaro, Big Jay Oakerson, Seth Meyers," WTF with Marc Maron

Now this was a surprise.  Recorded live at Just For Laughs in Montreal, as Maron does every year, this episode starts as a typical comic interview show, then transforms into something more.  Maron's interviews are usually unapologetically frank, taking a dive deep into the psyche of the stand-up comedian, and this one is right along those lines, but even more intensely than usual.  Trevor Noah, notable for a recent knockout "Daily Show" appearance, tells a heartbreaking but very funny story of his upbringing as a mixed-race child in apartheid South Africa.  Tig Notaro, now in remission, gives further insight into the personal tragedies that inspired her bombastic "cancer set" last year.

If there's a downside to the episode, it's that the more socially important stories overshadow the benign entries from the other comics in the lineup.  Seth Meyers's interview is fairly short and sweet.  Poor Big Jay Oakerson's story about being hit on by a transvestite in a New York porn store is funny, but it pales in comparison to the rest, and he gets a subtle shaming from Eddie Izzard about his casual use of the word "tranny."

3. "Hollywood Bowl," Analyze Phish


The ninth entry in the series, in which "Parks & Recreation" writer and dedicated Phish fan Harris Wittels tries with all his might to indoctrinate Comedy Bang Bang host Scott Aukerman into the band's fan club, was over a year in the making, and upon listening to the episode, it's very clear why.  It's centered around audio recorded at Phish's Hollywood Bowl show in August 2013, at which Scott was intended to have his first full Phish experience, with the help of a cocktail of drugs.

The reason for the yearlong delay in the episode's release is revealed quite bluntly early on: after the concert, Harris checked himself into rehab, and has been drug free ever since.  The audio from the concert then becomes a harrowing portrayal of a man coming to terms with his addiction.  While previous episodes have been centered around Scott's mocking of Phish while Harris makes effort after sincere effort to convince him to like the band, this one is far less ironically distant and digs deeper into what began as recreation and devolved into addiction for Harris.  Harris is jarringly honest in the episode--jarring because he's usually so ironically distant--and the audio from the concert, while often uncomfortable, is brutally funny.  Highlights include Harris's and Scott's failed attempt at a Jaws-related comedy bit while high, which Harris insists was his precise moment of hitting rock bottom.

2. "Shed Busting," Comedy Bang Bang


Another moment of truth within the Earwolf universe, this is a rare up-front conversation between Scott Aukerman, comedian Todd Glass, and a rare out-of-character James Adomian.  The openly gay Adomian and the recently out-of-the-closet Glass discuss the hard truth about being gay in the comedy industry, when homosexuality carried a heavy burden (and in many ways still does).  Their conversation is so interesting that it's actually a letdown when they get to the show proper, and Adomian retreats into his Jesse Ventura character.

1. "Staind Glass," U Talkin' U2 to Me?


By far the weirdest idea for a podcast of the year, born out of a stupid pun created by co-hosts Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott.  The two Scotts' U2-themed show took a brief foray into early-2000s nu-metal, and they invite Todd Glass onto the show to discuss Staind's bestselling album "Break the Cycle," only because his name completes the pun.  Glass knows nothing about Staind, and next to nothing about U2, which leads to the episode's high point in which Scott and Scott play a series of random songs to see if Glass can guess which one is U2.  The songs progress from reasonable (Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer") to ridiculous (Ross Bagdasarian's "Witch Doctor").

The series in general has been the year's biggest surprise in the podcast department.  It seems to have an unsustainable premise--Scott and Scott review each U2 album until the band's new one is released--but the two Scotts spin that flimsy idea into a series of audaciously silly gags and "sub-podcasts" like Talkin' 'bout Money and I Love Films.  Though they do discuss U2 at length, it's the two Scotts' personalities and banter that keep the podcast alive and make it one of the best overall listens of the year.

Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel: Why SCROOGED (1988) is the Best Christmas Movie of All Time, and Bill Murray's Best Performance

I first saw Scrooged (and loved it) when I was six years old.  I was surprised, then, once I reached the age of reason, that the movie actually wasn't very well received.  Roger Ebert, who is the critic of record as far as I'm concerned, called it "disquieting" and "unsettling," and even its star, Bill Murray, was semi-apologetic about it in an interview, hedging that it "could have been a really, really great movie." Well, it is.

Few movies nowadays are completely dependent on the persona of the lead actor to succeed.  Scrooged is an iconic Bill Murray performance, the best of his career, and probably the only time the actor has truly been permitted to own a movie.  Murray is a powerhouse in the film, and it is entirely centered around his performance.  If his progression from miserly millionaire to humble humanitarian were not believable, the film would fall apart.  The movie is co-written by Michael O'Donoghue, the brilliant "Saturday Night Live" co-creator who helped to shape Murray's persona.  I assume it was O'Donoghue who took Ebenezer Scrooge and made him into a character only Murray could have played.

Murray is Frank Cross, the youngest TV network president in history.  His network, IBC, has its reputation riding on a multimillion-dollar live presentation of Scrooge (the more things change...) with Buddy Hackett as Ebenezer.  Cross, who shed much of his humanity while climbing the corporate ladder, lambastes his executives, tortures his harried assistant (Alfre Woodard), ignores his only brother (real-life brother John Murray), and reluctantly sucks up to the chair of the board of directors (Robert Mitchum) to keep a stronghold on his job. (A sniveling kiss-ass played with relentless grinning positivity by John Glover represents a plausible threat.)


When his deceased old boss (John Forsythe) appears to him and warns him of the three ghosts, he's appropriately skeptical.  Scrooged takes place in a world where Charles Dickens's story has been eaten, devoured, and regurgitated by every Very Special TV Hour known to man.  The TV show Frank is producing, while well-mounted, is as cynical an exploitation of Christmas as has ever been presented.  Scrooge's first appearance is preceded by a kickline of street urchins played by the Rockettes, and Tiny Tim (Mary Lou Retton) accentuates his "God bless us" line with a somersault and several backflips.  Mitchum, whose performance is a deadpan masterpiece, presses onto Frank that cats and dogs are becoming a key market, and urges him to feature mice more prominently in the show (the more things change...).

Murray, playing a truly deplorable character in early scenes, lends a unique vulnerability to Frank.  His frequent ironic quips are hysterically funny and delivered with inimitable timing, but also portray an unfortunately distant character who cautiously avoids relating to people or feeling feelings.  Frank is less a Dickensian miser than a 1980s yuppie who's desperate to hang on to the fortune for which he's stepped on so many people.  One of those people is his ex-girlfriend Claire (Karen Allen, whose smile lights a thousand Christmas trees), a charity organizer whose plain niceness is confounding to him.

Frank's character arc is always believable, and more complex than the fairly simple journey of the typical Scrooge.  His dealings with the first two ghosts are riddled with false epiphanies and rationalizations: when the Ghost of Christmas Past (played as a reckless, unshaven cab driver by David Johansen) takes him to see his childhood home, he scoffs, "I get it. You're here to show me my past, and I'm supposed to get all dully-eyed and mushy." The Ghost's response to this is one of the funniest lines in the film, and right on the money.

Murray reportedly disagreed with director Richard Donner's vision for the film: maybe Murray saw it as more of a straight comedy while Donner, who shortly thereafter co-created the terrific "Tales from the Crypt" TV series, wanted to accentuate the horror aspects of the film.  Donner was correct; the performances provide the comedy, and the movie only works if played straight against it.  Danny Elfman's haunting score sounds like the Nutcracker Suite appropriated by Philip Glass.  Above all, the movie isn't afraid to take the ghosts seriously.  Forsythe's first appearance, in ghastly Tom Burman makeup, is admittedly pretty scary, and Frank's walk through his future is a stripped-down nightmare (though Donner allows himself one indulgent shot that's a cheeky Hitchcock parody).

It all culminates in a third-act explosion in which a newly reformed Frank ambles onto the set of his Scrooge special, interrupts the broadcast and delivers a speech that in the mouth of any other actor would seem maudlin and unnatural.  It could not have been easy, but Murray finds the absolute right note, and his utter joy and earnestness in proclaiming, "I get it now!" is a truly moving transformation.  It's a gargantuan outpouring of emotion that's comparable to Hickey's last-act monologue in The Iceman Cometh: it's that honest and that good, and Murray is more alive than he's ever been in anything, as a man who's completely taken aback to learn that he's still capable of feeling joy.

**** out of ****

 

NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #3: GROWN UPS 2 (2013)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 


Adam Sandler's Grown Ups 2 (while not strictly a bomb) is the reason I invented the term "torturously okay." It's the worst kind of comedy: it's not completely unfunny, but there's nothing in it that warrants its existence.  It's a movie made strictly for financial reasons.  Here is a collection of some of the top comic actors working today, serving a script that... well, I doubt there even was a script.  Three talented people are credited (Sandler, Fred Wolf, and Tim Herlihy), but I think Sandler and director Dennis Dugan just concocted some rudimentary comedy film scenarios and directed their cast through them loosely.

There are allegations that the film is actually a Ponzi scheme: it cost $80 million (much of it, no doubt, from product placement) to make when it could have been made for, I dunno, 1/80 of that.  The movie looks horrible; if you ignore the gargantuan cast of all-stars, it has the look of a multicamera sitcom.  The actors--many of whom are Sandler's friends--were no doubt paid handsomely, and Sandler and crew were granted the abnormally large budget on the faith that he and the stars would grant them considerable returns at the box office.

It worked.  The movie made $133 million domestically and about $246 million worldwide, proving that the rest of the world has no right to criticize any of America's crassness.

I can understand why Sandler has chosen to do it this way.  He's the cinematic equivalent of Weezer, the iconic '90s group.  After releasing a risky, personal album for which they were harshly criticized, they retreated back into bubblegum pophood and haven't released anything good since.  Sandler flirted with the idea of being an actual respectable actor: he was terrific in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, and was pretty good in Mike Binder's otherwise disposable Reign Over Me.  But lately it seems like he's been scared back into his comfort zone, content to headline dull lowest-common-denominator duds like Just Go With It and Blended.

Admittedly, I wouldn't have given a thought to watching Grown Ups 2 if not for two Kiwi gents, Tim and Guy, who started a quite entertaining podcast this year--"The Worst Idea of All Time Podcast"--for which they watch the film once a week for a year.  It sounds completely idiotic--the film is not only inane but practically contentless, with very little substance worthy of description, let alone discussion--but actually, it's brilliant.  Even necessary.  When people around the world are spending $246 million to see Grown Ups 2, something is wrong.  It's a cinematic Wolf of Wall Street; it pumped up its penny stock script with big name actors and high quantities of bodily humor, then sold.  Tim and Guy are the Kyle Chandler character, exposing the scheme.

I should reveal that I haven't seen Grown Ups 1... but really, why should I?  Grown Ups 2 isn't a Godfather Part II which fills in the blanks of its predecessor.  There's no plot; the movie's 101 minutes are loosely structured around a backyard party at Sandler's house which everyone in town attends.  With few exceptions, no character learns anything during the course of the film.  Each one of its four leading guys--Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, and David Spade--leaves the film pretty much as they found it.  Sandler is a violent lout, Rock is a passive-aggressive fool, James is a punching bag, and Spade... I'll come back to him.

A look at the characters' names should give you an idea of how much real thought was put into the film: Officer Fluzoo, Principal Tardio, Mama Ronzoni, Bumpty McKenzie.  The "story" threads seem to have been purchased in bulk, partially eaten, from the sitcom factory.  Character arcs are set up and dropped.  For example:

• Rock tells us early in the film that his wife (Maya Rudolph) has forgotten their anniversary, and that this will give him capital to spend later in the marriage.  An interesting premise.  Never followed through.
• James is constantly visiting his mother because he feels he doesn't get respect at home.  His wife (Maria Bello) tries to make up for it by taking him to a cheerleader car wash, which turns out to be a male cheerleader car wash--ho, ho--and that's pretty much the end of that.
• There's some momentary stuff about Sandler being insecure about having a new baby with his wife (Salma Hayek), which is apparently resolved in the end, but I really can't figure out why.

The only part of the story that the movie follows through with is Spade's arc, in which he finds out rather suddenly that he has a child he never knew about.  The kid, Braden (Alexander Ludwig), is supposedly 16 but looks 30, and makes Spade feel uncomfortable, but the two eventually find common ground and build a relationship.  Spade, dare I say, gives the only well-thought-out performance in the film, and is the only character who changes at all during the film.  As a result, the scenes between him and Braden are kind of sweet and moving.  Ludwig has fun as the kid, though his dialogue seems to have been written for a Neanderthal type, when the actor looks more like an overgrown boy-band Kurt Cobain.

Is the movie funny?  Well, sometimes.  A few of the gags do stick, but most of the ones that work are subtle, improvised, and rapid.  Sandler compatriots Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran, and Allen Covert give reliable background performances that contain some of the movie's best chuckles.  Jon Lovitz, as a lecherous gym janitor, has some of the funniest moments in the film, and prompts more laughs with one nonsequitur than the rest of the actors get with the movie's many painfully labored set pieces.  Most are set up for the characters to find funny: when ice cream shop owner Colin Quinn is fixing the soft serve machine and it looks like he's pooping, they all laugh and laugh and we sit silent.

Basically, anything that was intentionally put into the movie doesn't work.  The sub-plot about Kevin James's functionally illiterate son isn't funny.  A brief introduction in which a deer enters Sandler's house and pees on everyone: not funny.  The male cheerleader gag: not funny, and wasteful of cameos from several SNL alums who are doing better things now.  Nick Swardson's histrionic performance as a drugged-out school bus driver: annoying.  The many gags targeted at Spade's girlfriend, a female bodybuilder who's frequently called "he": very not funny.  In fact, none of the female performers are given much to do: not even Cheri Oteri, who appears as Sandler's ex-girlfriend of sorts and has no effect on any of the film's happenings.

The main actors, Spade excepted, are shockingly underwhelming.  Usually any of these guys and gals, Sandler included, would be a highlight of the movie he or she is in.  Imagine Chris Rock reduced to playing a schlub, Maya Rudolph as a dutiful wife who occasionally bursts with stereotypical Tyler Perry-like Mad Black Woman intensity, Kevin James as a doormat, Maria Bello barely in the film, and Tim Meadows, one of the most reliable deadpan comic character-actors working, being forced to gawk and mug in every scene.  Meadows's catchphrase is, apparently, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" He uses it as a response to everything, and presents it as a key laugh line, akin to "Dyn-o-mite!" or "'eyyyyyyy." I surmise that either it was explained in the first film, or it's a private joke between Sandler and friends that the audience isn't allowed in on.

The numerous bit actors redeem the film a little bit from the boredom induced by its stars.  To say they steal the show would imply there was a show to steal.  Steve Buscemi, who is for some reason a regular in Sandler films, is good for a few laughs as a driver's ed instructor.  Shaquille O'Neal is fun to watch as an imposing but shy police officer.  Director Dugan has a brief role as a doctor examining Sandler's son; neither the premise nor the scene is funny, but his delivery is spot-on.  Rob Schneider appears nowhere in the film, and for that he deserves the most praise.

Oddly, the most laughs in the film are delivered by the least likely suspect: Taylor Lautner, who takes his role as an ornery frat kid just seriously and straight-faced enough.  The scenes in which he and his bros (who include Sandler's nephew Jared as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick) taunt Sandler and his crew of old farts, exchange elaborate high-fives and ridiculous handshakes, and perform rage-induced backflips work exactly in the way they're supposed to.  I never liked Lautner as the heartthrob in the Twilight movies, but he might have a future playing heavies like this.  He's very good.

** out of ****

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NOTE: Dennis Dugan now works, I believe, full time for Sandler, as he's primarily directed vehicles for him and his colleagues since Happy Gilmore.  As an antidote for this one I invoke his debut film, Brain Donors, an often hilarious modern Marx Brothers film, with John Turturro in the Groucho role.  It proves he knows his stuff, and may be only minimally to blame for this mess.

It Came From Netflix Instant: DARKNET (2013-14)

The premise for the Canadian TV show "Darknet" isn't the freshest, and sounds an awful lot like the plot of feardotcom, William Malone's disappointing rip-off of The Ring.  It's a series of loosely connected fables centering around a website that features grotesque mutilations, maimings, snuff films, all things which we hold near and dear to our hearts.  Everyone who visits the website becomes roped into a macabre underworld.

It's silly, but the show is actually a lot of fun, in a way that not many horror TV shows have been since "Tales from the Crypt." Each episode consists of several threads involving not only murder, but the sensationalizing of violence through the internet, and viral video in particular.  A medical student suspects there to be an intruder in her house.  A businesswoman thinks she spies a peeping tom outside her hotel room.  A woman receives a series of e-mails with surveillance footage of people being murdered.  The threads are slowly revealed to tie together in interesting and subtle ways, occasionally across episodes.

As with all anthologies, the effectiveness of each story varies, but none overstays its welcome.  "Darknet" also doesn't have same problem as, for instance, The ABCs of Death, which limited its entries to 5 minutes and thus didn't give any of them the time to build suspense or mood.  Since the stories in each "Darknet" are tonally similar and interwoven with one another, the atmosphere and tension are allowed to build gradually.

The first episode, written and directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice), is an appropriate hook for the remaining five episodes.  Episode 3 has the most memorable sequence, in which a smug salesman is tailed in the street by an odd stranger.  Episode 4 is the weakest, hinging on a hospital plot line that's more predictable than the rest (though it features a secondary story about breast implants gone wrong that's a must see).  The final episode of the season (directed by The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh's Rodrigo Gudiño) is a knockout of a closer, taking the concept of internet trolling to a whole new level.

"Darknet" is available on Netflix Instant.