Movie Review Sunshine Cleaning

Sunshine Cleaning (2009) 

Directed by Christine Jeffs

Written by Megan Holley 

Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Jason Spevack, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Clifton Collins Jr, Eric Christian Olson, Alan Arkin

Release Date March 13th, 2009 

Published March 13th, 2009 

The opening scene of the dramatic comedy Sunshine Cleaning involves a man walking into a gun store, picking up a shotgun, placing a shell inside that he had brought with him and in the end this man shooting himself. The scene is contentiously at odds with the rest of the movie which attempts to make the cleaning up after such an incident a quirky romp. It's not.

Oscar nominee Amy Adams stars in Sunshine Cleaning as Rose Lorkowski, the head cheerleader turned maid for hire. Life hasn't worked out as Rose planned. She had planned on being with her high school sweetheart Mac (Steve Zahn), especially after he went and knocked her up. The two are still sleeping together but Mac is married to someone else.

Now, Rose works wherever she can to make money to raise her slightly odd son Oscar (Jason Spevack). Then there is Rose's sister, Norah (Emily Blunt) who's like having a second child. Norah cannot hold a job, cannot stand authority and is generally a drag on her big sister.

Then, an opportunity arises. Mac informs Rose that the guys who clean up after crimes make  really good money, more than enough for Rose to put Oscar in a private school. Rose enlists Norah's help and, after some brief whining by little sis, Sunshine Cleaning is born.

Director Christine Jeffs elicits strong performances from Adams and Blunt while getting solid supporting turns from Zahn and Oscar Winner Alan Arkin. The characters played by each are believable in the context of the film and each has that just slightly off center quality that fascinates an audience.

Unfortunately, the actors are often overshadowed by the film's wildly gyrating tone which bounces from an almost slapstick approach to Rose and Norah's early business going to deathly serious as Rose and Norah's past with their mother is revealed. Norah's ark becomes bizarre and awkward when she becomes determined to inform the daughter of a dead woman (Mary Lynn Rajskub) of her mom's death and finds the woman taking an interest in her.

Meanwhile Rose develops a platonic friendship with a cleaning supply store owner played by Clifton Collins Jr. The relationship doesn't really develop beyond her using him for his knowledge and eventually as a babysitter. These subplots fail to reveal much about either sister aside from their own helpless self involvement.

There are good things about Sunshine Cleaning from the cast to the few laughs elicited to the demonstration of a career that holds a morbid fascination for more than a few people. Sadly, the film never finds the right tone to unite the characters, the humor and the morbidity and thus Sunshine Cleaning feels unsatisfying in the end.

Movie Review: Fired Up

Fired Up (2009) 

Directed by Will Gluck 

Written by Freedom Jones

Starring Nicholas D'Agostino, Eric Christian Olson, Molly Sims, Daneel Harris 

Release Date February 20th, 2009 

Published February 21st, 2009

Eric Christian Olson is a talented, quick witted comic actor who has yet to learn the fine art of choosing projects. Olson has been the best part of more than a few bad movies and sadly Fired Up continues the trend. Though Olson earns the few scant laughs to be found in Fired Up, this limp cheerleading comedy is yet another low point on his growing resume.

Nick (Olson) and his pal Sean (Nick D'Agostino) are top flight football jocks who use the game as a way of meeting chicks. It's worked so well that they can't walk the halls of Gerald R. Ford High without bumping into someone they've been regularly bumping into.

Unfortunately, football is about to cut into the skirt chasing. Coach (Phillip Baker Hall) wants the boys in El Paso Texas for two weeks of girl free, boiling hot football prep. But, when the boys overhear cheerleaders talking about an upcoming cheer camp where 300 beautiful women will be surrounded by a paucity of male cheerleaders.

The opportunity is irresistible and after some serious scamming they find themselves on the Cheer squad and indulging a near endless amount of beautiful girls who don't already know what horndogs they are. Things get complicated when Sean develops feelings for the head cheerleader Carly (Sarah Roemer) and Nick runs afoul of the cheer counselor Diora (Molly Sims).

Fired Up being an idiotic formula comedy you can guess what happens from there. As is the case with all formula movies in this day and age predictability isn't so much the problem; it's trying to find unique ways to draw laughs from the formula. Folks, formula isn't going away anytime soon so we can only hope that the characters trapped in these formula stories are interesting and funny.

Unfortunately, in Fired Up, they are not. Even the very talented Eric Christian Olson struggles to get laughs out of these stick thin characters. The women in Fired Up are utterly useless, written as either bubble headed or clueless, there isn't one brain among them as each falls head over heels for our lecherous heroes.

Filling in for the characters is a whole lot of awkward gay jokes and bizarre asides featuring the head cheerleaders jerk boyfriend and his love for 90's hip hop and pop tunes. These jokes are seemingly just whipped against the screen and we in the audience are expected to find them as funny as the filmmakers do. We don't.

There is a movie out there that will give Eric Christian Olson the role he needs to best show off his quick wit and comic virtuosity. Hopefully he finds it soon and and can put Fired Up behind him as quickly as I forgot it after writing this review. Right about.... now.

What was I writing about?

Movie Review The Hot Chick

The Hot Chick (2002) 

Directed by Tom Brady 

Written by Tom Brady, Rob Schneider 

Starring Rob Schneider, Rachel McAdams, Anna Faris, Matthew Lawrence, Eric Christian Olson 

Release Date December 13th, 2002 

Published December 13th, 2002 

To call a Rob Schneider movie juvenile and stupid is like looking at the sky and saying it's blue or saying water is wet. When you go see a Rob Schneider movie, you have to expect low-grade humor aimed at the 14-year-old-male demographic. Expect there to be a multitude of fart jokes, and various other references to bodily functions. There will also be genuinely funny moments and a cameo by Adam Sandler. So far, this formula has yet to yield an entertaining picture, but with the small number of laughs culled from his latest effort, The Hot Chick, the potential for a truly funny movie exists.

In The Hot Chick, a gorgeous high school cheerleader named Jessica (Rachel McAdams) rules her school with a scathing wit and disregard for her classmates' feelings. Jessica's life is perfect: she is head cheerleader, likely to be the prom queen, and she is in love with the star quarterback (Matthew Lawrence). Of course, karma has it in for this chick and it strikes when she steals a pair of ancient earrings from an unusual shop in the mall. The earrings' backstory, explained at the beginning of the film, is that they belonged to a woman who was promised into a marriage she did not want. 

Therefore, she uses the earrings' mystical power to trade bodies with a peasant girl. After Jessica loses one of the earrings and it is found by a petty criminal named Clive (Schneider), she wakes up in Clive's body and vice versa. Desperate for help, she seeks out her best friend April (Scary Movie's Anna Faris) for help. Not surprisingly April doesn't believe the strange man in front of her is her best friend but after some intimate details are shared, April realizes that this is indeed Jessica.

We have seen this set up before. In fact, in the 1980s, the body switching stuff was a genre unto its own. Anyone remember Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore in Like Father Like Son or Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage in Vice Versa or George Burns and Charlie Schlatter in 18 Again? (And the list goes on and on.) Schneider and his co-writer/director Tom Brady do not do anything to improve upon this lame genre; merely adding gross-out jokes is not my idea of improvement. Still, Schneider's game performance has its moments, and McAdams really shines as the bitchy cheerleader.

The Hot Chick is not a very good movie but it's not nearly as bad as your average Schneider/Sandler offering. It's slightly tamer than anything he's done before, and it has some genuinely funny moments; not nearly enough laughs for me to recommend it, but not so bad as to be avoided at all costs.