The Hangover Part II *

Director: Todd Phillips

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis

Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, Jamie Chung

Paul Giamatti, Mason Lee

It's not that The Hangover Part II is bad (it is) but it's just how unnecessary it feels what makes such a waste of time. Essentially, in order to capitalize on modern audience's needs for lazy writing, the people behind this film have remade the first movie and changed a few bits.

Instead of Las Vegas, the action moves to Thailand, instead of a cute baby for Galifianakis to obsess about, we get a drug dealing monkey and instead of having Justin Bartha's character getting married, now we have Ed Helms' doing it.

If you had a blast watching people reduced to stereotypes in the first one and love the way in which bromance has become the new rom-com, then this movie might still treat you to a fine time. However for those seeking their entertainment without condescendingly chauvinistic winks at how masculinity only comes to happen if you get shot, make fun of gays, think about getting laid all day long, have no regard for societal rules etc. then this film will be a massive waste of time.

Perhaps the perfect analogy to describe this movie is that it does feel like a lesson not learnt. Watching it and realizing how preposterous it can get, might remind you of a hangover you got the week after you promised yourself not to drink any more.

Any seemingly meta explorations of human behavior found in the previous statement, which might make the movie sound any better, are pure coincidence.

Due Date *

Director: Todd Phillips
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis
Michelle Monaghan, Juliette Lewis, Jamie Foxx, RZA

Todd Phillips newest entry in his "disgusting heterosexual males have feelings too" series, teams up Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis in a preposterous, unfunny story about daddy issues and wreaking havoc.
Downey Jr. plays Peter Highman, a successful architect on his way home from a business trip in order to attend his wife's (Monaghan) C-section.
In the airport he runs into Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) an eccentric struggling actor who pretty much destroys his carefully laid plans.
After a series of misunderstandings they end on a no-flight list and are forced to cross the country together to get to Los Angeles.
In almost every aspect the film is an odd couple sort of thing-Peter's the control freak, Ethan's the mess-and as usual Phillips exploits the crassness in every single way he can.
Perhaps there are people who will find it funny when Peter punches a child in the stomach and others will laugh out loud as Ethan masturbates while his dog imitates him.
Yet for every "asshole" and "fuck" uttered by these two men, Phillips has an ace up his sleeve to try and make us go "awww".
We learn that Ethan is carrying his father's ashes (in a coffee can of course) and Peter himself was abandoned by his dad at an early age.
So without any intention to be subtle about anything, the screenwriters let us know that in the form of Ethan, Peter will not only get to practice about taking care of children, he will also exorcise his inner demons.
But why oh why do we have to suffer through this expiation as well? Not only is the film overlong and pretty obtuse, it also lacks the slight fun factor Phillips' previous films have had (not they're good movies or anything...)
Downey Jr. who is usually charming, comes off looking as a total monster here and while it's true that the part demanded him to be less nice than usual, most times he's plain ugly to watch.
Galifianakis is another thing altogether. Perhaps you know if you'll like him based on your first impression of him; when he first enters the scene you will either chuckle as you do whenever Monsieur Hulot or Groucho Marx first pop on camera or you'll dread every minute afterwards for having paid the ticket.
Galifianakis is a complete acquired taste, for those who dislike his one-note kind of comedy it doesn't really help that here he plays the same guy from The Hangover, at least he makes them both act the same way.
In the way Peter has to deal with Ethan we too have to put up with the comedian and truth be told he makes Due Date feel like a nine-month long endurance test.

Up in the Air **

Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick
Jason Bateman, Melanie Lynskey, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliott
Jim Miller, Zach Galifianakis

Star turns don't come more tailor made than George Clooney's Ryan Bingham in "Up in the Air". Ryan's job has him traveling across the country most of the year in order to layoff employees when their bosses can't do it.
Who else but Clooney, the eternal bachelor, could play a character whose asshole-ish qualities are compensated by undeniable, inescapable charm?
This life spent in airports and hotels has made him avert to any kind of emotional connections with other human beings including his own family.
That is until he meets Alex (Farmiga) a sexy frequent flyer with whom he begins a casual relationship only to have him doubt if his philosophy on bachelorhood is convenient.
He also meets Natalie Keener (Kendrick) an ambitious young woman hired by his company to revolutionize layoffs by going the cyber way. With Natalie Ryan becomes threatened of becoming obsolete, but she too has demons of her own to work with.
With a combination of comedy and drama, "Up in the Air" tries hard to be extremely likable, to the point in which every character becomes essentially a two dimensional representation of different kinds of people.
"I stereotype, it's faster" says Ryan to teach Natalie a lesson in efficiency. Curiously director Jason Reitman does the same to his movie.
While trying to evoke humanity and the day-to-day struggles of people living under a horrifying economy, he makes his characters as cold and detached as the computers Natalie wants to impose on Ryan.
The people in "Up in the Air" are completely mechanical in their behavior, even the people who are supposed to be "real" like Lynskey who plays Ryan's small town sister. The screenplay suggests her warmth and innocence by making her the kind of woman who makes a printout of herself and her fiancé (McBride) to have it photographed all over the country, "like the gnome in that French movie".
All because, you guessed it, she can't afford a real honeymoon and is happy with the photographs.
It's this kind of faux humanity that makes the movie so difficult to believe in. Besides this the movie also has some offensive gender politics; it pretends it's OK with women in charge of their careers but eventually patronizes them to make Ryan shine brighter.
Take Natalie for example, Kendrick plays her with enough vapid naivete to make us like her, but behind her tough facade lies a person so easy to convince that she would give up a life dream to be with a man.
When this comes and bites her in the ass, the movie proves Ryan was right about love sucking so much and people who fall for that trap being disposable.
Then there's Alex, who Farmiga imbues with sexiness and incredible confidence, but who is nothing more than your average maneater come the movie's end. Meaning that in this movie if you're a career woman you're either a bitter, disappointed lover or a soulless nymphomaniac.
Only women from Ryan's hometown have husbands who love them and the possibility of happiness.
"Up in the Air" is condescending towards lifestyle choices that don't fit its idea of living. The problem is that the movie is all appearances and doesn't even have an idea to back up its statements.
If problems only exist when their solution is available, then this movie shouldn't even be an issue.
Beyond its questioning of "loneliness" and relationships lies nothing more than a sleek corporate ad that tries to take you off the fact that they've been telling you all along that no matter what you do, you'll die alone.

The Hangover **

Director:Todd Phillips,
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis
Heather Graham, Justin Bartha, Jeffrey Tambor

The bachelor party is the heterosexual male ritual by excellence. During it, the groom-to-be is indulged by his friends with the last moments of utter freedom he will have for as long as the marriage lasts.
The bachelor party in Las Vegas, is the only location where Hollywood sees fit to fulfill this heterosexual male ritual.
In "The Hangover" we miss the actual party, but wake up with the guys the morning after amidst what can only be described as disaster.
Cocky schoolteacher Phil (Cooper) calls bride-to-be, Tracy (Sasha Barrese) to let her know that her fiancé Doug (Bartha) has gone missing. With only five hours left before the wedding, we go back in time two days trying to uncover what the hell happened.
Doug and Phil left Los Angeles with nervous, nerdy dentist Stu (Helms) and Tracy's weird brother Alan (Galifianakis); after a couple of Jager shots at the Caesar's Palace roof, they wake up to find their $4,200 a-night-suite completely shattered, one of Stu's teeth missing, a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet.
With only twenty four hours left to find the groom, and the title physiological effect ailing them, they set out like frat boy detectives to uncover what went wrong.
The plot, like many before it, indulges in all that is crass, loud and politically incorrect (baby masturbation should not be as funny as it is when delivered by Galifianakis) and while some of the situations work out for great comedic relief, most of the movie fails to click.
The ensemble is great, Cooper stretches out his pretty boy-ness to the max (his cockiness is disturbingly charming sometimes), Helms gives the movie a soul of sorts (even if his character is forced to enact some over the top couple drama with his possessive girlfriend played by Racahel Harris), Galifianakis gives the kind of performance deemed to achieve eternal emulations and Graham turns in a surprisingly sweet performance as the hooker with a heart of gold (she channels Julianne Moore's Amber Waves from "Boogie Nights").
Even if their distinctive personalities get a chance to shine, you never really know how is it that they all became friends in the first place because honestly the one thing they have in common is that they are guys.
And it is through this where the film has both its greatest ally and foe.
For some guys in the audience the film will feel like constant deja-vus and remind them of how they bonded through shameful experience (no morality tales here, even the ending gives the guys something to cheer about).
Some others though will see the film as a representation of everything that might result terrifying for men(morning after babies, drunken marriages, insane significant others, small gangsters who can kick their asses, Mike Tyson...) -one might even say the whole plot is a subconscious manifestation of the groom's fear of commitment- and wonder why the hell is this marketed as a comedy when it should be a horror movie.