Movie Review Opening Night

Opening Night (2017) 

Directed by Isaac Rentz

Written by Gerry De Leon, Greg Lisi 

Starring Topher Grace, Paul Scheer, Alona Tal, Anne Heche, Taye Diggs

Release Date June 2nd, 2017 

Opening Night has the kind of scrappy charm that you want out of a musical. It’s shaggy and flawed but it’s also fun-loving and freewheeling. The story of a Broadway stage manager struggling with personal demons from his own seemingly failed Broadway career, the movie may not have the polish of a Hollywood production but it makes up for it with moxie and the can-do spirit of an underdog production with nothing to lose.

Topher Grace (That 70’s Show) stars as Nick, the stage manager for a Broadway production called “One Hit Wonderland.” The show within the movie stars N’Sync’s J.C Chazez, sending up himself with gusto and a hint of poignancy, playing a one hit wonder singer taking a journey that is part A Christmas Carol and part It’s a Wonderful Life. The theme of the musical is the theme of the movie: can someone bounce back after early success becomes a quick failure?

Relative newcomer Alona Tal shines as Nick’s recent ex-girlfriend and chorus girl Chloe who winds up thrust into the lead role opposite Chasez when the show’s lead actress Brooke (Anne Heche) suffers a blow to the head and is accidentally dosed with Ecstacy in one of a couple plots that stumble their way on stage and quickly off without the best possible resolution. I was hoping Heche would be given something more to play here, she hints at depths of sadness in the character, but sadly she ends up a bit of a plot device before a credits scene sendoff that, at the very least, has a funny punchline courtesy of scene-stealing comic Paul Scheer.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids (2011) 

Directed by Miguel Arteta 

Written by Phil Johnson

Starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock, Sigourney Weaver

Release Date February 11th, 2011

Published February 11th, 2011

It's “The 40 Year Old Virgin” minus the Virgin part. That's a pretty solid description of “Cedar Rapids” which stars a former Daily Show correspondent turned star of The Office, Ed Helms, and tells the story of an innocent man-child slowly drawn toward debauchery by a coterie of bad influences who happen to make great friends.

Directed by Miguel Arteta (“Chuck & Buck,” “Youth in Revolt”), “Cedar Rapids” is the story of Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) a Wisconsin insurance salesman who gets the opportunity of a lifetime after the unfortunate passing of a co-worker (a delightfully awful cameo by Reno 911's Thomas Lennon as a top salesman who dies, off-screen, from auto-erotic asphyxiation.)

Tim is headed to Cedar Rapids for an annual conference of Insurance Company salespeople where the head of the industry, midwest division, Orrin Helgeson (Kurtwood Smith) will hand out the coveted Two Diamond Award, something Tim's late co-worker had walked away with each of the past two years.

While in Cedar Rapids Tim is instructed by his boss, go to character actor Stephen Root, to stay out of trouble as Orrin is a pious man and expects the same of all Two Diamond Award winners. Unfortunately for Tim staying out of trouble will be hard while rooming with his new best friend, the ingratiating Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly) who has no designs on the Two Diamond Award, only on having a real good time.

Also caught up with Tim and Dean is convention regular Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock) and mom turned Cedar Rapids party girl Joan Ostrowski Fox (Anne Heche); each of whom will help Tim come out of his shell in ways the naive Wisconsinite could never have imagined.

Miguel Arteta has a particular talent for characters like Tim Lippe. The innocent cast into a fast paced new world has been an area of expertise for Arteta in movies like “Youth in Revolt,” where Michael Cera created a French alter-ego to deal with the quick witted girl of his dreams leading to drug trips and a crime spree as well as in “The Good Girl” where a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal experienced love for the first time with a sad housewife played by Jennifer Aniston.

Arteta brings an immigrants eye view to these characters. Born in Puerto Rico, Arteta came to the US is the 80's where he fostered his love of movies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Like Arteta at Wesleyan, his characters seem to be learning a whole new language and culture in their new environments and like Arteta they are quick on the uptake even as the experience is a mind-blowing change.

Ed Helms captures the eager to please Wisconsinite with just the right mix of man-child and upstanding citizenship. We meet Tim for the first time as he accepts a booty call from, of all people, his former grade school teacher played with voracious cougar-ness by Sigourney Weaver. Naturally, Tim thinks this relationship is going somewhere while we in the audience and the teacher quickly feel sorry for him.

Helms has the ability to earn sympathy and laughs in equal measure and it makes him an ideal innocent in the debauched, snowy airs of the big city, Cedar Rapids. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock make the perfect crew for Tim; Reilly the obnoxious, drunken ‘ladies man,’ Heche as the Cedar Rapids style 'femme fatale,' and Whitlock the stalwart good guy who we know has Tim's back with an assist from Omar from the HBO series 'The Wire.'

”Cedar Rapids” is a glorious satire of supposed big fish in small ponds everywhere. The overblown importance of the “Two Diamond Award,” Cedar Rapids as the Las Vegas of the Insurance sales game, and Tim's general awe at his surroundings set flame to the overstuffed egos of anyone who can't understand why the movie is so funny.

One of the major buys of the Sundance Film Festival, “Cedar Rapids” is poised to be one of the breakout comedies of 2011. Will Ed Helms become the next Steve Carell? Only the box office can decide that. For now bask in the glory of Tim Lippe and his wild weekend in “Cedar Rapids.”

Movie Review John Q

John Q (2002) 

Directed by Nick Cassavetes 

Written by James Kearns 

Starring Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, James Woods, Anne Heche, Kimberly Elise, Laura Harring 

Release Date February 15th, 2002 

Published February 14th, 2002 

Is it me? Do I not watch the news enough? I'm asking because I've only seen one hostage situation in my life.

This guy barricaded himself in his parent's house and held his mom hostage after his step-dad tried to kick him out. It ended in one hour after the guy accidentally shot himself in the leg. Yet Hollywood would have us believe these things happen all the time. Either its some good guy wronged by the "system" or it's a showcase for some slick talking hostage negotiator who makes his own rules despite always being suspended for his out of control behavior.

The new Denzel movie, John Q., falls into the first category. And though it's everything you've seen before it's saved to a point by Denzel's dignified professional performance.

John Q is the story of John Archibald, a factory worker who's struggling to provide for his family after his hours are cut. The story really begins when, during a little league game, John's son falls ill and is rushed to the hospital where we're informed he has a heart problem and needs a heart transplant. Well, needless to say, hearts don't grow on trees. 

There are forms to fill out and once you find a heart, the surgery itself is prohibitively expensive. Cost means nothing to John who will do anything to save his son including taking the hospital emergency room hostage with all it's patients, including colorful characters played by comedian Eddie Griffin and Shawn Hatosy. It is from here that John Q. dissolves from a moving family crisis film to a stock cliched hostage movie.

The hostage scene setups are strong because of Denzel Washington. As an audience member I automatically cheer for him to succeed. But once in the hostage situation director Nick Cassevetes begins piling on the cliches. Robert Duvall stars as the calm and understanding negotiator trying not to hurt anyone and Ray Liotta is the pigheaded lout who gets to yell the classic hostage movie line, "Take the shot" as the sniper slips precariously close to our hero. 

,Considering we're only one hour in and Denzel is the lead, I seriously doubt he will be killed at this point. And of course, John bonds with his captives, he even let's a couple go, and punishes the standard jerk of the captive crowd (there is always one jerk). It's like an episode of Fear Factor, there is an element of suspense but it's network TV so no one is in any real danger.

The actors involved do all they can with their roles with Denzel doing most of the heavy lifting and James Woods helping a good deal. As the big-time heart surgeon, Anne Heche has the thankless villain role for most of the film as the head of the hospital that denies John's son's treatment. Hospital-HMO bureaucracy is supposed to be the film's main story arc but it's so overdone that by the end, the director and screenwriter are beating you over the head with the "HMO is evil" message. Who already doesn't know HMO's are evil?

Despite Denzel's best effort, John Q. is a lame parable about the evils of hospital politics buried in cliches and stock been-there-done-that situations.