Movie Review Champions

Champions (2023) 

Directed by Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Mark Rizzo 

Starring Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson, Ernie Hudson 

Release Date March 10th, 2023 

Published March 5th, 2023 

It's a tricky thing, representation in modern media. On the one hand, you want that representation to be sensitive and compassionate. On the other hand, you need to draw in some flaws that make your characters more human being than saints of proper representation. The new movie Champions brings forward strong representation of a community of intellectually disabled people while still making them human and flawed. Director Bobby Farelly takes great care not to let these characters be simplistic, safe representations of their community, but rather well rounded, unique and quite charming individuals. 

Champions stars Woody Harrelson as disgraced basketball coach, Marcus Marakovich, Marcus managed to destroy his entire career in a single night, though those who know him well, like his boss, Phil (Ernie Hudson), know this has been coming on for some time. Nevertheless, in this one night, Marcus manages to shove Phil on the court in front of a large crowd and many cameras before getting thrown out of the building. Then Marcus gets drunk, drives, and smashes into the back of a cop car. He's officially fired the following day. 

In court, Marcus narrowly avoids a prison sentence by accepting a community service assignment. Marcus will be the Coach of the Des Moines, Iowa Friends, a basketball team for the intellectually disabled. In classic movie fashion, it's a ragtag bunch for whom basketball is fun but mostly an excuse to spend time together. Marcus' notion of teaching fundamentals or plays such as the Pick & Roll, are lofty goals to say the least. Marcus can't even get one of his players to stop shooting the ball by throwing it backwards over his head. 

There is nothing special about Marcus' character arc. Marcus is here to go from being a guy who doesn't connect with the members of his team on a human level to someone who loves his players as people more than just players. There is also a typical sports movie plot unfolding with the Friends getting so good under Marcus' leadership that they earn their way to the Special Olympics basketball championship. These are tried and true tropes, relatively predictable. Thankfully, as a veteran filmmaker, and quite a good one, Bobby Farrelly knows he needs to color in the margins of this plot to make something more of it. 

Thus Farrelly includes a very not typical romance between Harrelson's Marcus and the sister of one of his new players, Alex, played by Kaitlin Olson. Farrelly subverts convention, ever so slightly, by having Marcus and Alex meet before the story begins. The film opens with Marcus and Alex finishing a rather forgettable Tinder hook up with him trying to get her to leave and her eagerly trying to leave. Olson's Alex is not the kind of character that typically comes back in a movie like this. Usually, this character is a functional character, one to demonstrate the lack of character in our main character, a lesson they need to learn about being a better, more thoughtful or caring person. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review: Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch (2005) 

Directed by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel 

Starring Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, JoBeth Williams

Release Date April 8th, 2005 

Published April 7th, 2005 

Peter Farrelly is a huge Boston Red Sox fan and has been since he was a kid growing up in the tiny state of Rhode Island. When he and his brother, and producing partner, Bobby moved to Los Angeles Bobby became a Dodger fan and Peter remained loyal to the Sox. Through Bucky Dent in '78, Buckner in '86 and Bret 'freakin' Boone in 2002 Peter lived and died by the Red Sox.

So it must have been an extraordinary experience for Peter when while shooting his latest film Fever Pitch ,a romantic comedy about an obsessed Red Sox fan's first real relationship, that he was allowed to shoot the movie in and around Boston and in the cathedral of Fenway park and all while the real Red Sox were making their historic run to break Babe Ruth's curse. Call it fate or serendipity or just dumb luck, not only was Peter Farrelly on the field when the Sox won the series, he shot a terrific movie while he was there.

Fever Pitch stars Jimmy Fallon as a lifetime Red Sox fan named Ben. His uncle took him to Fenway as a 7 year-old kid and he's never left. Inheriting his Uncle's season tickets right on the first base line Ben has developed a second family with the other lifetime Sox fans and been there through the hard times. Ben's apartment is a shrine to his obsession filled to overflow with memorabilia, jerseys and posters.

Naturally, women have tended to find Ben's Red Sox passion a bit of a turn-off.  He's never had a serious relationship that lasted past Spring training. That changes however when he meets Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) a just reached thirty workaholic who thinks she can take Ben's Red Sox fandom in stride if he can accept how much she works. Lindsey, however, greatly underestimates just how obsessive being a Red Sox fan can be, especially when the Sox are in the playoffs.

Drew Barrymore could do this material in her sleep. While Reese Witherspoon and Meg Ryan openly campaigned to be the new Julia Roberts, Drew has crafted the most Julia-esque career. A career filled with solid light hearted romantic comedies that make big money. The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates, and Never Been Kissed are not ground breaking cinema but they are solid mainstream entertainments that showcase her unique brand of sweet, slapstick goofiness and innocent sexuality.

As for Jimmy Fallon, he has not exactly set the world on fire in his few attempts at big screen stardom. In fact, after last years atrocious action comedy Taxi I wanted to set him on fire. In Fever Pitch Fallon greatly improves over that performance (how could he not?) thanks mostly to the believability and heartfelt acting of Drew Barrymore and the pitch perfect script by the Farrelly Brothers.

Fever Pitch is superbly crafted to grab both male and female audiences with its perfect mixture of light romance and sports fanaticism. To even the appeal of the film between men and women, the Farrelly Brothers have even toned down their usual brand of gross out humor for a more traditional form of romantic comedy. This is a more mainstream, less abrasive comedy than anything the Farrelly's have done before. Don't worry though, the brothers have not forgotten the hardcore fans.

In Fever Pitch the Farrelly Brothers have replaced their usual brand of gross out humor with Three Stooges style light violence; no one really gets hurt but it looks like it. Lindsey gets beaned in the head by a foul ball, one of Lindsey's friends is slightly hurt when Lindsey drops her while she is climbing a rock wall in a gym and, in the films, climax Lindsey plays cat and mouse with Fenway security after dropping off the centerfield wall. These moments of cartoon paroxysm are sprinkled throughout Fever Pitch just to remind you that this is still a Farrelly Brothers film.

The script is based on a novel written by Nick Hornby about an obsessive soccer fan. All the Farrelly's had to do was take out some of the drinking and all of the riots, change sports and move it to Boston, the one place in America where Baseball obsession could come close to the kind of loyalty shown by British soccer hooligans. Then they added some of their trademark over-the-top humor and a nearly perfect mainstream comedy is born.

Movie Review Hall Pass

Hall Pass (2011) 

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Pete Jones, Kevn Barnett 

Starring Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate, Richard Jenkins

Release Date February 25th, 2011 

Published February 24th, 2011

Peter and Bobby Farelly haven't been relevant since they rode the public's brief fascination with Jack Black in the early 2000's to a hit with “Shallow Hal.” Since then the brothers have floundered half focused on new material and half obsessed with making a movie about the Three Stooges. The Stooges movie has been gestating since the late 90's with a variety of acting combinations dropping in and out with nothing to show for it.

Finally, the guys who started the man-child comedy revolution with movies like “There's Something About Mary” are back at full strength and making the kind of movie that was their forte. “Hall Pass” is a small miracle of outrageously raunchy humor with a good heart that made ``Mary,’ “Kingpin” and “Shallow Hal” hits.

Owen Wilson stars in “Hall Pass” as Rick, an early 40's father of three happily married for more than 15 years to Maggie (Jenna Fischer). Three kids have taken the spark out of the marriage lately and more and more Maggie is catching Rick lusting after other women like a horny old teenager.

More troubled are Rick and Maggie's best friends Fred (Jason Sudeikis) and Grace (Christina Applegate). They have no kids and no spark; leaving Fred to masturbate in the front seat of their minivan lest she catch him. (If you're wondering how that bit of information pays off, see the movie.) Rick and Fred commiserate over their troubled love lives at a local coffee shop while lusting after an Aussie barista named Leigh (Nicky Whelan) whose nubile-ness represents everything they fantasize about.

After speaking to a mutual friend “The View's Joy Behar in an unshowy cameo) Maggie and Grace come up with the idea of a Hall Pass. The concept is simple, one week off from marriage to do whatever the guys want, guilt free. Either they will spend the week striking out or they will get whatever cheating they were going to do anyway out of their systems.

This is the kind of simple, straight forward set up that Ron Howard and Vince Vaughn botched in “The Dilemma.” The Farrelly Brothers demonstrate that it takes more than just the idea to make the movie; you need characters and big gags that pay off to really make it work.

Owen Wilson shows a heretofore untapped talent for playing a middle aged dork. Usually cast as the life of the party guy, Wilson slips effortlessly into the role of Rick like one in the long line of 80's rock 'n roll t-shirts Rick thinks is cool. What Rick and Fred think is cool goes a long way for laughs in “Hall Pass.”

Jason Sudeikis is a real scene stealer in “Hall Pass;” offering the same kind of randy, goofy, raunch-ridden asides that he brought to his equally funny supporting role in last year's “Going the Distance” with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. Sudeikis plays a great douchebag but when the role calls for him to morph into a good guy you believe it fully.

The gags in “Hall Pass” range from the classically Farrelly bathroom jokes, including some truly explosive diarrhea, to more self aware stuff reflecting the ways in which guys really talk. A scene taking place in the home of a mutual friend that neither Rick or Fred really like demonstrates that guys can be as catty as women are about the people they envy, they just have a more blunt and colorful way of being catty.

”Hall Pass” is uproariously funny with big gags mixing with strong characters and in the end a believable amount of heart minus the treacle that most other, similar films pack on when they don't have the goods to really earn audience sympathies. The Farrelly Brothers haven't been this funny in over a decade. See “Hall Pass” and rejoice and who knows, maybe that Stooges movie will actually come out someday.

Movie Review The Heartbreak Kid

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly, Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, Kevin Barnett

Starring Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman, Michelle Monaghan, Jerry Stiller, Rob Cordry, Danny McBride

Release Date October 5th, 2007 

Published October 4th, 2007 

Ben Stiller has the astonishing talent to remain as funny and likable in bad movies as he is in good movies. Night at the Museum, Meet The Fockers, Envy, all not so great movies and all movies where Stiller outshined the material provided to him. Stiller is once again in better than the movie mode in the Farrelly Brothers comedy The Heartbreak Kid. This sorta-romantic comedy, a remake of the 1972 Elaine may-Neil Simon teaming, has a terrific idea at its center and Stiller in fine form. Unfortunately directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly can't help but succumb to their worst instincts in a vain attempt to recapture past glory.

Eddie (Stiller) is 40 years old and never married. He was engaged for 5 years, but as we meet him in The Heartbreak Kid, he is attending his ex-fiance's wedding. Both Eddie's dad (Jerry Stiller) and his best pal Mac (Rob Corddry) give him no end of crap for not settling down when he had the chance. Thus when Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman) he rushes things a little bit.

Eddie and Lila fall into a relationship not long after he attempts to foil a bad guy who stole her purse. A whirlwind courtship leads to the hasty decision to get married and a disaster on the horizon. Taking their honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas, Eddie quickly realizes that Lila is a little off. She sings along with every song on the radio, she's horrible at math, and she's desperately in debt. She's also not very bright, thus why she is almost immediately laid up in the hotel room with a bad sunburn.

The time alone allows Eddie to meet Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), a beautiful women's lacrosse coach vacationing with her family. The two spark quickly and after spending a day together drinking and soaking in the local culture,  Eddie realizes he is in love. Now, he has to figure out a way to break it to Lila that they are not working out and make sure he has won Miranda's heart.

The set up for The Heartbreak Kid is solid, this is a terrific premise. Unfortunately, the Farrelly Brothers, back behind the camera for the first time since 2005's Fever Pitch, can't resist a return to their basest instincts. Fever Pitch was a sweet, good hearted romantic comedy that played straighter than any previous Farrelly's comedy. The Heartbreak Kid is a throwback to the less interesting Stuck On You, Shallow Hal, Me Myself and Irene days.

Those films distilled the essence of the Farrelly's oeuvre down to the lowest common denominator. Each has its moments, but for the most part each is a lesser and lesser version of the Farrelly's one true classic There's Something About Mary. The Heartbreak Kid is the palest imitation of all; featuring Stiller in the earnest, frustrated good guy role he played so well in Mary.

Sadly, The Heartbreak Kid fails to capture what made Mary such a great comedy. The combination of heart and humor in There's Something About Mary is a near perfect combination of good hearted romance and lowbrow, genitalia based humor. It's a combo nearly impossible to pull off and The Heartbreak Kid doesn't even come close.

Disgusting for the sake of being disgusting, slapstick for the sake of slapstick, The Heartbreak Kid constantly steps on the more interesting aspects of Eddie's romantic dilemma by dropping in unnecessarily crude humor. Do we really need Carlos Mencia as a porn loving, sex offending, hotel manager? Do we need Jerry Stiller grossing out everyone in earshot with his many horrifying sexual innuendos?

Did we need to see Ben Stiller getting peed on or a visual gag about women's privates that may be the lowest joke of any movie in 2007? I certainly don't think so. Not when Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman and Michelle Monaghan are doing such great work creating a comically tense love triangle. The crudity only serves to distract and get in the way.

Ben Stiller gets better and better each time out. In fact, Stiller has never seemed more comfortable onscreen as he does in The Heartbreak Kid. Granted, he's played the flustered good guy for more than a decade but really, you can finally see him losing his many tics and affectations and becoming comfortable being himself on screen. This newfound comfort only serves to turn this already funny actor into a more charming and interesting screen presence.

Stiller's work clearly has a good effect on co-star Malin Akerman who does much of the heavy lifting in the broad comic moments. Akerman is a great beauty who gives herself over to broad comedy in the most unexpected ways. Not everything about her performance works, but you have to respect her bravery and willingness to do anything that was asked of her.

Michelle Monaghan is the perfect romantic foil for Stiller. The two have tremendous chemistry and the romance between them was more than interesting enough to make The Heartbreak Kid work as a romantic comedy. It's unfortunate that Peter and Bobby Farrelly didn't trust their stars enough to back off, just a little, on the lowbrow stuff.

The potential is there for a terrific romantic comedy in The Heartbreak Kid. It's undone by writer-directors desperate for faded glory. Peter and Bobby Farrelly have seen diminishing returns on each of their films since There's Something About Mary. Only Fever Pitch betrayed an attitude that they really didn't care about mimicking their past success.

Reteaming with Ben Stiller however, the Farrelly's sensed an opportunity to regain their A-list status and went for broke trying to recreate something that just can't be captured a second time. Certainly not with such desperate pandering as that which breaks The Heartbreak Kid.