Ben Stiller's THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY Dreams Of Being A Feel Good Epic

Now playing at a multiplex near you:



THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY

(Dir. Ben Stiller, 2013)

I remember reading James Thurber's 1939 short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” when I was a kid in elementary school and being charmed by its simple concept - i.e. average man has heroic daydreams throughout a mundane day shopping with his wife.



Later I saw the 1947 Norman Z. McLeod adaptation, starring Danny Kaye, and really wasn't into what they did with it. Apparently Thurber didn't either, much like how P.L. Travers hated what Disney did to MARY POPPINS (horribly handled in the currently playing SAVING MR. BANKS), Thurber protested the songs and screenplay to no avail.



Now Ben Stiller, for his fifth film as director, tackles the concept in this even looser adaptation that aims to be a feel good epic for the whole family. Unfortunately despite its hip cast (Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Adam Scott, Patton Oswalt), snazzy soundtrack (Arcade Fire, Rogue Wave, David Bowie), and lavish production values (Stuart Dryberg's cinematography is gorgeous) the charm of the original is lost in action.



We first meet Stiller's Mitty in his sterile looking drab New York apartment trying, but failing, to “send a wink” on his eHarmony account to a co-worker he's smitten with (Wiig).



Obviously Stiller, by way of Steve Conrad's screenplay, is updating Mitty for the internet age, a theme also present in his job as a negative assets manager at Life Magazine being threatened by the company making the shift from print to digital.



Mitty, who we're told by his mother (Shirley MaClaine) worked at Papa John's when he was a teenager, is another in the long line of shy awkward characters that Stiller has made his movie career out of - guys who learn through the course of their films how to come of their shells.



Between Stiller's fantasies about saving a dog from a burning building, engaging in a surreal super hero-esque battle with Scott as his arrogant dick of a boss, and wooing Wiig by bursting through the wall as a rugged arctic explorer, a plot involving a missing negative intended for the last print edition cover of Life emerges.



Of course, this means Stiller has got to ditch the dreaming and do some actual adventuring. He leaves his office and travels across the globe to Greenland, Iceland, and the Himalayas to find the photographer (Sean Penn at his crinkly grittiest), making the movie come off like Walter Mitty Vs. The Volcano especially because, well, he has to run from an erupting one at one point. 



Along the way, Oswalt, as an eHarmony representative, calls Stiller to get him to beef up the “been there, done that” section of his account on the dating site. You see, it seems our protagonist's main problem is that he's never gone anywhere.



It also seems like the real secret Mitty is hiding is that he has some mad skateboarding skills - these really come in handy on a winding mountain road in Iceland.



It's not just that Stiller's WALTER MITTY is a big commercial movie, it feels like a big commercial itself with its bumper sticker sayings and mottos.



But what is it a commercial for? eHarmony? Life.com? Papa John's?



There's such a self conscious grab-life-by-the-balls vibe, transparent in such moments as Wiig telling Stiller that Bowie's “Space Oddity” is about “courage and going into the unknown” (Wiig even sings the song in one of Stiller's visions).



On the plus side, Stiller and Wiig, who it's nice to see playing a real believable person for once, have an easy going chemistry in their scenes together, but overall the comedy feels too light, the fantasies too forced, and tonally it's all over the place.



This is apparent in one of Mitty's daydreams about having that “Benjamin Button disease thing” where he's aging backwards and we see a CGI-ed Stiller as a tiny old man in Wiig's arms. This seems more akin to the spoofiness of his work in ZOOLANDER and TROPIC THUNDER than the spirit of the rest of the film.



I was also disappointed at how easily predictable all the film's pay-offs are. There are no surprises at how the narrative concerning Penn's lost photo wraps up, and the love story lacks any emotional pull.



WALTER MITTY is not without wit, and there's a fair amount of likability to the proceedings, but it's sad that Stiller and co. couldn't dream up something a whole lot better.





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ANCHORMAN 2: Enough Laughs For Fans Of The First One

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES

(Dir. Adam McKay, 2013)

Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, David Koetchner, and Steve Carrell decide while on one of their trademark strutts to get perms! That's funny, right?



Of course, you know from all the heavy publicity that it’s kind of a big deal that ‘70s broadcaster Ron Burgundy is back with the rest of the San Diego Channel 4 news team in this sequel to the 2004 comedy hit ANCHORMAN.



Will Ferrell, clad in his character’s signature burgundy three-piece suit, gathers his comedy buddies Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and David Koechner together again to bring the retro-fitted funny, and for the most part they get the laughs they’re going for.



It’s just that I wish they, by way of Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay’s sketchy screenplay, were going for more in terms of story, satire, and real comic invention. I mean, they pile on the jokes, most of which are over-the-top one-liners, but the narrative concerning the dawning era of 24-hour news cycles is seriously under developed.



It’s now the ‘80s and Ferrell’s Burgundy is all washed up working as an announcer at SeaWorld after losing his coveted co-anchor job, and having divorced his wife (the also returning Christina Applegate) because she was promoted to the nightly news desk. But his pathetic predicament doesn’t last long because Dylan Baker comes calling to recruit Ron for a position in New York at the new basic cable channel upstart, GNN (Global News Network).



A sequence that resembles the “getting the gang back together” sequence in THE MUPPETS (the 2011 reboot) follows with Ferrell driving around in an RV plucking Koechner from his fast food franchise that serves bats disguised as fried chicken (he claims that an unspecified “they” calls them “chicken of the cave”), Rudd from his somehow sexy photographer gig for Cat Fancy magazine, and Carrell back from the dead, or rather for mistakenly thinking he’s dead as he’s found eulogizing himself at his own funeral.



So far so funny, but the movie’s premise never goes up from there even when introducing a new rival in the form of the intimidatingly handsome Jack Lime (James Marsden), who’s GNN’s star primetime anchor, while Burgandy and his bunch are stuck in the 2-5 am graveyard shift.



In one of his trademark fits of idiocy, Burgandy makes a bet with Lime that if his slot doesn’t get higher ratings he’ll quit the business, but if Lime loses he’ll have to legally change his name to “Lame.” This is, at least, a plot point, but one that doesn’t pay off – it sort of fades into the fussy framework. As does a later strand in which our hero goes blind from a skating injury (he was sabotaged by Marsden) and goes off to live in a lighthouse, one of several places in this 119 minute movie that the jokes fall flat and the laughs taper off.



A sharp as a tack Meagan Good as the boys’ new African American boss gives the film the chance to comment on ‘80s-era racism in the workplace, but, much like the first one’s take on sexism, it just skirts the silly surface on the topic – Ferrell not being able to stop saying the word “black” when first meeting Good is a telling indicator of the level here.



Another new addition to the cast, Kristen Wiig, as Carrell’s frizzy-haired dim-witted love interest is way underutilized, and they really didn’t have any reason to have Harrison Ford (gruff as usual) on board as a network bigwig except that Ferrell and McKay thought ‘why not?’



Still, ANCHORMAN 2 largely stays classy and has laughs a plenty even when it shamelessly trots out re-dos of bits like the epic newscaster battle scene stuffed with surprise cameos (I’m not spoiling!), and another crazy showcasing of Ron’s jazz flute skills. These bits worked before, so again, why not refry them and serve them up again?



Fans of the first one should find enough quotable lines (one of my favorites: “Who the hell is Julius Caesar? I don't follow the NBA!”), enough goofy sight gags, and enough in-your-face absurdity for the sake of in-your-face absurdity to satisfy them, but folks who aren’t into Ferrell ‘n friends’ brand of crude PG-13 boundary pushing comedy should stay home in droves.



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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 11/5/13

As I wrote in my review last summer, I found Roland Emerich’s WHITE HOUSE DOWN, to be bigger, dumber, and a lot more fun than Antoine Fuqua’s like-minded OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN from earlier in the year. But guess which one was more successful and is getting a sequel? That’s right, not the one I liked. Oh well, maybe Emerich’s Jamie Foxx/Channing Tatum vehicle can pick up more of an audience when it releases on home video today in a Two Disc Combo (Blu-ray / DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy) package and a single DVD editon (+UltraViolet Digital Copy).

WHITE HOUSE DOWN’s Special Features include a Gag Reel, a bunch of featurettes with interviews, behind-the-scenes breakdowns, and an examination of the contributions of Cinematographer Anna J. Foerster equaling around an hour.

A summer hit that I proudly missed, Dennis Dugan’s GROWN UPS 2, the second go around with Adam Sandler and his buddies ( Kevin James, Chris Rock, and David Spade, but this time not Rob Schneider), also drops today on 2-disc Blu ray combo, and 1 disc DVD editions. Special Features on the film that grossed over $240 million despite having only a 7% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes include Deleted Scenes equaling only a few minutes, and less than 10 minutes of featurettes. Surprising, as I thought they’d really load this sucker up with much more crap, but in this case, less is definitely more.

Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, Peter Landesman’s PARKLAND, which takes its name from the hospital where Kennedy was taken after being shot, comes out this week also in 2-disc Blu ray and single disc DVD editions. Zac Efron, Ron Livingston, Billy Bob Thornton, Gil Bellows, Colin Hanks, and Paul Giamatti star in this depiction of the world-changing events in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 through the next few days after. Special Features: Director's commentary with Landesman, and Deleted Scenes.

Peter Jackson's THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012) gets its inevitable Extended Edition box this week, with a new commentary by Filmmaker Peter Jackson and co-writer Philippa Boyens and a ton of featurettes, on 3D Blu ray and DVD, alongside TWILIGHT FOREVER: The Complete Saga Box Set, which captures all the TWILIGHT films together with bonus material aplenty on 10 Blu ray discs, and 12 DVDs.

Also out today: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's Kristen Wiig vehicle GIRL MOST LIKELY, James Franco's William Faulkner adaptation AS I LAY DYING, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedmans' LOVELACE (starring Amanda Seyfried as '70s porn star Linda Lovelace), Edward Burn's comedy drama THE FITZGERALD FAMILY CHRISTMAS, Greg Mattola's Larry David HBO telefilm CLEAR HISTORY, Gilles Bourdo's French biopic RENOIR, and Aram Rappaport's marketing comedy SYRUP.

On the older films front there's the 30th Anniversary Edition of Philip Kaufman's THE RIGHT STUFF, ELF: 10TH Anniversary, Bob Clark's comedy classic A CHRISTMAS STORY: 30th Anniversary, Burny Mattinson's MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL: 30the Anniversary Special Edition, and Richard Donner's SCROOGED: 25th Anniversary Edition.

The A & E reality series Duck Dynasty celebrates the upcoming season with their DVD-only release I'm Dreaming of a Redneck Christmas, which repackages the finale for season 2 finale as a stand alone holiday release. This appears to be a greedy move as one can get the entire season for just a few dollars more so buyer beware.



Other TV season sets releasing today include Mad Men: Season 6, Law & Order: The Thirteenth Year, Magic City: The Complete Second Season, Saved By The Bell: The Complete Collection, Ice Road Truckers: Season 7, Boy Meets World: Complete Collection and the entire run of the popular BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous aptly named Absolutely All Of It.



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FRIENDS WITH KIDS: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now playing in Raleigh at the Rialto Theater:



FRIENDS WITH KIDS (Dir. Jennifer Westfeldt, 2011)

With its generic title (not to be confused with FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS or FRIENDS WITH MONEY), its recognizable cast, rom com premise and New York City setting, this looks from the outside like yet another commercial chick flick, but it’s better than that. Much better.



Jennifer Westfeldt, who starred in and co-wrote KISSING JESSICA STEIN, makes her directorial debut (she also wrote, produced, and stars), in this comedy drama centering around a couple of long time friends (Westfeldt and Adam Scott), who decide to have a baby, but not a relationship.



Westfeldt and Scott’s friends, 2 couples consisting of Maya Rudolph married to Chris O’Dowd, and Kristen Wiig married to Jon Hamm (Westfeldt’s boyfriend since 1997), are doubtful that this will work, and so are we. I mean when you walk into this movie, you know that Scott and Westefeldt will realize that they love each other and become a real couple in the end, but it’s the way it plays out the chemistry of the leads that got to me.

So what that it hits all the standard rom com story beats when it has as sharp and witty a screenplay as this, and this particular group of extremely likable and funny folks (including most of the cast of BRIDESMAIDS) making it pop?



A soundtrack with songs by The 88, and Wilco (no escaping the label “Dad rock” here) helps the flow of the film, which often feels like we’re hanging out, dining, and drinking along with along with the ensemble.



Scott and Westfeldt have difficulty dating other people, of course, but Scott gives it the old college try when he meets Megan Fox, as a Broadway dancer, who every male in the film remarks about how hot she is. On Westfeldt’s side, she’s seeing Edward Burns, who everybody (more the men than the women actually) comments about how hot he is.



Despite dating Burns, Westfeldt finds herself falling in love with Scott, of course, but he’s getting serious about Fox – for the time being we all well know.



This is all predictable rom com fodder, but the sharp dialogue and energy of the acting often made me forget that.



Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm have less screen time than the rest, but they stand out at a dinner table scene at a cabin the couples are vacationing at (See? Another rom com story beat).



It’s obvious to the others that Wiig and Hamm are miserable and on the verge of divorce. Wiig, who certainly isn’t comic relief in this film, mainly drinks copious amounts of wine, but Hamm lashes out at Westfeldt and Scott in a menacing manner that even Don Draper would be intimidated by. It’s a effectively edgy scene – Hamm is trying to cut through the crap to reality, and as heated as he is, we all know that his criticisms are true.



There’s a bunch of humorous moments and a lot of honesty in FRIENDS WITH KIDS, even though some stuff about such an arangement are glossed over.



For example, we cut from Scott and Westfeldt’s wonderfully awkward sex scene to Westfeldt giving birth. Surely, something notable between these 2 happened during the 9 months she was pregnant, right? I guess not.



But that, and a few short scenes that fall short of hitting their mark, don’t keep FRIENDS WITH KIDS from being an enjoyable, tasteful film. Now I’m not saying that Jennifer Westfeldt is the new Woody Allen, but she just entered the ballpark.



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BRIDESMAIDS: The Film Babble Blog Review

BRIDESMAIDS (Dir. Paul Feig, 2011)

On his highly addictive popcast “WTF,” comedian Marc Maron often talks about comic actors that have a grasp on exactly what’s funny about them. 

In scene after scene of BRIDESMAIDS, Kristen Wiig nails exactly what’s funny about her. 

Lately Wiig has been so overused on Saturday Night Live reprising obnoxious characters that weren’t that amusing in the first place, and then at the same time she’s underused in a string of sideline parts in movies such as PAUL, EXTRACT, MACGRUBER, GHOST TOWN, DATE NIGHT, etc. that it’s so satisfying to report that her first starring role is a real winner. 

Wiig’s mastery of nervously nuanced body language, and naturalisticly awkward line readings carries her hapless heroine Annie here hilariously through this uber affable film. 

As a former bakery owner turned jaded jewelry store clerk whose life is going steadily downhill, we first meet Wiig in bed with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm in the funniest sex scene since TEAM AMERICA.

Hamm is, in his own words on Conan, an unrepentant douche-bag, who only wants no-strings-attached sex, but it’s obvious that Wiig wants more. 

Hamm just has a small, and oddly un-credited role, so we know that’s not where this is going.

Wiig’s best friend since childhood Maya Rudolph is getting married, and our sardonic sad sack heroine finds out she has competition in the Maid of Honor department in Rose Byrne as Rudolph’s new upscale best friend. 

There are shades of Wiig’s Penelope character from SNL, in a good way, in a bit at an engagement lunch as Wiig and Bryne keep trying to upstage each other, stealing the microphone from each other back and forth in vain to get the last word in.

The other bridesmaids that make up the wacky wedding group are Reno 911’s Wendy McLendon-Covey, The Office’s Ellie Kemper, and Mike and Molly’s Melissa McCarthy whose abrasive fearless performance comes close to stealing the movie, as funny as Wiig is.

On a plane to Vegas, Wiig gets drunk and tries to crash first class repeatedly while the rest of the cast gets in their own crazy predicaments which I won’t spoil. It’s a uproarious scene, but it’s far from the funniest ones on display, as a great sequence featuring Wiig breaking every law in the book driving up and down the road in front of a cop she had a fling with (Chris O’Dowd) tops it. I really can’t explain how this comes about – you’ve just got to see it for yourself. 

As that bemused cop, O’Dowd has charming repartee with Wiig and joins the well chosen cast which notably includes the last film role of Jill Clayburgh as Wiig’s ditzy celebrity portrait painting mother.

Despite its predictable rom com trappings and some unnecessary gross-out humor (I could’ve done without a food poisoning/vomit scene in an expensive dress shop), BRIDESMAIDS is one of the funniest films of the year so far (that might not be saying much, I know). 

There are more laugh out loud moments than I can count, and Freaks and Geekscreator Feig (who also helmed episodes of Mad Men, 30 Rock, The Office, and Arrested Development BTW) does a great job shaping the material written by Wiig and Annie Mumolo with a touching tone and, for the most part, great timing. 

And coming from the Judd Apatow production line it’s a welcome change from the usual boy’s club fare.

Ignore the accusations of BRIDESMAIDS being a female version of THE HANGOVER (although they did cut a Vegas party scene because of the similarity) and the superficial resemblance to such chick flick crap as BRIDE WARS, because this is an extremely funny movie that really should make Wiig a star. 

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PAUL: The Film Babble Blog Review

PAUL (Dir. Greg Mottola, 2011)

STARMAN meets SUPERBAD in this sci fi comedy that has Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the comic duo from SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, aiding and abetting an extraterrestrial fugitive voiced by Seth Rogen.

Pegg and Frost, who also co-wrote the screenplay, are a couple of British geeks on an American vacation that kicks off with a visit to Comic-Con in San Diego before making a road trip to alien landmarks from Area 51 in Nevada to Roswell, New Mexico.

There’s a FANBOYS vibe going on as the pair are starstruck at meeting fictional fantasy novelist Adam Shadowchild (Jeffrey Tambor), whose name is a running gag throughout the film – the joke being that only hardcore nerds know who he is.

Right after stereotypical rednecks (David Koechner and Jesse Plemons) harass Pegg and Frost at a U.F.O. themed diner, our protagonists meet Paul – the CGI crafted little green man from another planet.

“He looks too obvious!” Frost protests, but our snarky title character explains that it’s because pop culture has been inundated with his image in case an encounter occurs.

It turns out Paul, a pot-smoking heavy-drinking party animal of an alien, has escaped from his 60 year imprisonment at Area 51 and is on the run from a government agent (Jason Bateman playing it perfectly straight), so Pegg and Frost’s rented RV becomes his vehicle to an undisclosed location for a spaceship pick-up.

Kristen Wiig, in one of her better performances, jumps on board the RV as a half blind trailer park manager who gets converted from her crazy Christian mind set by the outspoken E.T. and is chased by her father (John Carroll Lynch). Also on the chase are SNL’s Bill Hader and the creepy Joe Lo Truglio as clueless FBI agents.

Every sci fi movie ever seems to be referenced in “Paul”. Lines are lifted from STAR WARS, locations from Star Trek to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are visited, and then there’s the presence of Sigourney Weaver as “The Big Guy” – Bateman’s boss who will stop at nothing to recapture Paul.

It’s a film for sci fi nerds by sci fi nerds. It’s sloppy and choppy, but it has so many legitimate laughs in it that I didn’t care that it didn’t come close to the visually stylish Edgar Wright films that Pegg and Frost cut their teeth on.

PAUL is fast-paced foul-mouthed fun with an infectious silly tone that never lets up. Although you can see many of the gags coming, they’re still funny when they land thanks to the playful platform provided by Pegg, Frost, Rogen, and director Greg Mottola.

Though I don’t consider myself a STAR WARS fanatic, Trekkie, or sci-fi junkie to any extreme, my inner star-child was greatly amused by these alien antics.

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