Charlie Day – Memphis Flyer

Silver foxes Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen head out on a bachelorette party trip to Europe in Book Club: The Next Chapter, a sequel to the 2018 sleeper hit comedy. Craig T. Nelson rand Don Johnson also reprise their roles as frigid husband and seasoned himbo with whom our heroines must negotiate new relationships.

Before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world in 2008, there was the Blackberry. Known to its army of corporate users as the “crackberry,” it demonstrated both the advantages and disadvantages of 24/7 connectivity long before the first Instagram post. Blackberry by indie filmmaker Matt Johnson tells the story of Research In Motion, the company who ruled the mobile world in the Bush era. Wary of another disingenuous hagiography of a tech oligarch? Don’t worry, this one’s a comedy!

Charlie Day, star of the TV comedy staple “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” makes his film-directing debut by biting the hand that feeds him. For Fool’s Paradise he enlisted Ken Jeong, John Malkovich, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, Jason Bateman, Common, and a whole bunch more, to satirize showbiz as it is practiced today. You can be excused if you get a strong Being There vibe from this one.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 represents the end of an era for Marvel and Disney. The main cast is retiring, and director James Gunn is moving to helm the rival DC movies. The Memphis Flyer‘s Sam Cicci says “Guardians Vol. 3 is the most creative Marvel film in years, a fitting end to Gunn’s time with Disney.” So far it’s pulled in $365 million worldwide, and shows no signs of stopping.

Judy Blume’s revolutionary young adult novel Are You There Go? It’s Me Margaret gets a worthy adaptation from director Kelly Fremon Craig and Simpsons producer James L. Brooks. Abby Ryder Fortson stars as Margaret, the confused middle-schooler who must navigate a move to the suburbs, puberty, and religious doubt all at once. Rachel McAdams and Memphian Kathy Bates give excellent support as Margaret’s mother and grandmother. Read my review, then watch the trailer.

Sam Raimi’s pioneering horror-comedy franchise continues its perfect record with new director Lee Cronin in Evil Dead Rise. This one’s definitely more scary than funny, but Cronin nails the franchise’s irreverent tone, and Alyssa Sullivan kills as a single mom possessed by demons who stalks a haunted apartment building. A must-see for horror fans, this one’s got legs.

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo and his frequent collaborator Kwan Hae-hyo are back together with Walk Up. Indie Memphis screens this affecting slice-of-life film, which premiered to laurels at the Toronto Film Festival, at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17 at Studio on the Square.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

What’s the beeping noise in the distance? It’s the sound of The Super Mario Bros. Movie collecting coins. You just saw Guardians, but you can’t get enough Chris Pratt? Good news! You can hear him phoning it in as Mario in this animated adaptation that has earned enough to build Princess Peach a very nice castle.

Would it surprise you to learn that Horrible Bosses is the highest-grossing black comedy ever? It surprised me, mainly because I didn’t think they kept statistics for that kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love black comedy as much as any good, cynical movie critic. But they don’t usually make a lot of money — as the old saying goes, “Satire closes on Saturday night.” And yet, Horrible Bosses raked in north of $200 million on a $35 million budget. So they made another one.

The would-be murderous trio from the first one, uptight accountant Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman), dental assistant Dale Arbus (Charlie Day), and clueless finance drone Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis), have started a business to market their invention, the Shower Buddy. After they bicker, bumble, and pantomime hand jobs on a TV morning show, they improbably get a call from someone at a boutique mail-order business, Boulder Stream, who thinks the Shower Buddy is a “home run.” After turning down a buyout offer from Boulder Stream executive Rex Hanson (Chris Pine, the guy who plays Captain Kirk but isn’t William Shatner), they strike what they believe is a favorable deal with his father, CEO Bert Hanson (Christoph Waltz). But once they fulfill their part of the contract, Bert double crosses them, and they have only a few days to save their company from his clutches. Naturally, they decide to kidnap Rex for $500,000 and use the ransom money to pay off their loan to the bank. Maybe, they “reason,” they’ll be better at kidnapping than they were at murder.

They aren’t, so they meet again with “MF” Jones (Jamie Foxx), who gives the gang some vague plans about sedating the victim, which leads them to break into the office of Dale’s old boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston). The film reaches its comedic high point when Nick must bluff his way through a sex-addiction recovery group to save his co-conspirators from discovery. Armed with a canister of anesthetic, they attempt to kidnap Rex, who immediately gets the better of them and takes over the plan. They’ll fake his kidnapping and split $5 million, because Rex is the kind of guy who thinks big.

The central comedy trio works well enough: Bateman is the straight man, the Groucho figure, while Day and Sudeikis goof it up. Pine is deliciously douchebaggy as the devoid of all human empathy scion of wealth, and Waltz plays to type as his calmly evil father. Aniston is apparently incapable of partial commitment to a role, and there’s a beautiful cameo from Kevin Spacey, who looks like he just showed up for one day and nailed his profanity-filled monologue.
But for this kind of comedy to work, the actors need a pretty tight plot to mug against for laughs.The Hangover was a good example. Unfortunately, Horrible Bosses 2 takes after Hangover 2 instead, cynically pilfering plot points from better movies like Raising Arizona when it’s not just replaying beats from the original. While the original got subversive laughs from the class tensions, making the central trio businessmen like their targets instead of employees defangs the premise and makes them into just another set of amoral, plotting sharks in an economy filled to the brim with them. As Foxx’s character says in a failed joke that reads like a screenwriter’s uncomfortable moment of clarity, these characters are just a bunch of criminals who still think they’re nice guys. But with this much star power on display, they should at least be funny criminals.