Movie Review Dicks The Musical

Dicks The Musical (2023) 

Directed by Larry Charles 

Written by Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp 

Starring Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Megan Thee Stallion 

Release Date October 27th, 2023 

Published October 31st, 2023

Dicks The Musical is not quite as filthy as that title might imply. Don't get me wrong, the movie is uproariously filthy, but it's not filled with much full frontal male nudity. That remains one of the very few taboos that Dicks the Musical doesn't confront, at least not head on. Of all of the things that Dicks the Musical gets away with under the banner of an R-Rating, the sillier that Larry Charles and writer-actors Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, make the MPAA look like a completely joke. Yeah, you can show two men in an aggressive, upside down nude embrace as long as you only show their butts. It's that kind of charged silliness that drives Dicks the Musical in humiliating the Hollywood ratings board. 

Dicks the Musical centers its story on a pair of gay men, Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, who are playing a pair of non-gay characters, alpha male types who have a different woman every night and a six figure salary plus commissions as the top salesmen of their company. Named Craig and Trevor respectively, these two manly beasts are about to come face to face for the first time as their company, Vroomba, is combining their sales staff from two sides of the same big city. This will prove to be important as Craig and Trevor are twins, separated at birth. No, they look nothing alike, but for the purposes of this story we are asked to go along with the gag.

Discovering their brotherly bond, not because they look like, but rather because they carry to different sides of a necklace, Craig and Trevor excitedly start dreaming of reuniting their parents. To do this, they will engage in their own version of The Parent Trap with each going undercover in the home of the parent who abandoned them. For Craig, this means meeting his mother, Evelyn (Megan Mullally) for the first time. As for Trevor, he is going to meet his father, Harris (Nathan Lane) for the first time. Using the skills that made them top salesman, they believe that they can convince their parents to get back together, Parent Trap style. 

Find my full length review at Filthy.Media

Movie Review: Fame

Fame (2009) 

Directed by Kevin Tancharoen

Written by Allison Burnett

Starring Debbie Allen, Kelsey Grammer, Charles S. Dutton, Megan Mullally, Asher Book

Published September 25th, 2009 

Published September 27th, 2009

In the first 10 to 15 minutes of Fame I was reminded of another movie about young artists and their art, Robert Altman's daring and ingenious Ballet observation The Company. That film exists really only as an excuse for the master Altman to indulge his love of ballet. The story was utterly meaningless to him. He likely failed to find funding for a straight up documentation of a ballet performance so instead filmed the ballet as part of what was supposed to be a movie.

That film has Neve Campbell and James Franco as the center of a romantic plot but Mr. Altman doesn't care in the least about that. Ms. Campbell is trained in ballet and her performance and practice scenes are observed with far more care and concern than the romance subplot on which Mr. Altman can barely keep his camera still, as if he were searching for ballet somewhere in the corner of the scene being played.

That may not interest you, it didn't interest much of the mainstream audience that ignored The Company in it's 2002 release. For me however, I found the film's anti-structure daring and Mr. Altman's antsy direction is mesmerizing for it's energy and life. It's as if he was telling his actor's 'not now, somewhere there is art happening, let's find it'.

The first few scenes of Fame have this feeling. The camera wanders the halls of the legendary Performing Arts High School in New York City searching for and quickly finding art in progress. In one room actor's deliver monologues and are critiqued by the great Charles S. Dutton. In another, piano's moan with the work of Mozart or Beethoven under the knowing ear of Kelsey Grammer. In another room singers sing and in still another Dancers leap and glide across the floor.

These scenes are intoxicating and a director with the boldness of Mr. Altman might have stuck with this energy. Bring in a few characters at the periphery but keep the camera roaming from room to room taking in the energy. Sadly, Director Kevin Tancharoen is no Altman. Bowing to convention and studio marketing concerns, Mr. Tancharoen cranks out what amounts to High School Musical crossed with  episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol.

7 relatively inconspicuous characters adopt high school movie types and play out the string of a very typical charmless plot. If you want the good version of this movie rent the indie flick Camp. Writer Director Todd Graf's 2003 musical set inside a camp for aspiring artists has all of the daring of Altman mixed with a plot with ten times the life of Fame and characters whose problems and joys resonate far beyond the character types played by the actors in fame.

But even before you rent Camp, maybe consider The Company. As I suffered through Fame, my thoughts kept falling back on this forgotten masterpiece from the late master Altman. It's a remarkable movie and one that was too quickly dismissed and forgotten. In a just world movies like Fame are the one's that get dismissed and forgotten.

Movie Review Stealing Harvard

Stealing Harvard (2002) 

Directed by Bruce McCulloch

Written by Peter Tolan

Starring Jason Lee, Tom Green, Leslie Mann, Dennis Farina, Megan Mullally, Richard Jenkins, John C. McGinley

Release Date September 13th, 2002 

Published September 12th, 2002 

In Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Green broke every rule of good filmmaking. In doing so, he created one of the more inept films in history. On the other hand, Green should be commended for one of the boldest attempts at comedy we've ever seen. To his credit, he put himself on the line, and though he failed spectacularly, the attempt was brave and bold. If only his new film Stealing Harvard had taken some of the risks that Green did in Freddy Got Fingered, rather than churning out yet another market-tested demographically- safe comedy.

Stealing Harvard stars View Askew legend Jason Lee as John Plummer, a soon-to-be-married medical supply salesman. Years ago, John made a promise to his niece that if she got into college, he would pay for it. In the meantime, John met and fell in love with Elaine (Leslie Mann). They were engaged and agreed to get married when they accumulated enough money to buy a house. It is no surprise then that as soon as John has enough money to get married, he finds out his niece has been accepted to Harvard and needs money.

From here, the film tweaks one of my movie pet peeves. A character can easily dispel a difficult situation by simply telling the truth, but doesn't because of the plot. There is absolutely no reason for John not to tell Elaine about his problem, except that if he does there wouldn't be a movie. I can't stand this trope, it's a plague inflicted by lazy, hack screenwriters of the world.

Therefore, instead of simply telling the truth, John enlists his buddy Duff (Green) who suggests they steal the money. After a series of outlandish robbery attempts and bids to cut deals with lowlifes, John finally comes clean with Elaine, who has the brilliant idea to steal from her father (who is also John's hateful boss (Dennis Farina). She could just ask her dad for the money, and he would likely give it to her ,despite his hatred of her fiancée, but if she did that we wouldn't have the ridiculous climax and tacked on a happy ending.

Director Bruce Mcculloch, formerly of Kids In The Hall, may not have much of an eye for story, but he does manage a light quick tone and a few solid laughs. Lee is solid though some of the material is beneath his talent. Green, once again playing himself, draws some of the biggest laughs. He has an amazing talent for physical humor, and because he is so unpredictable, the comic potential of his character is attention grabbing.

Stealing Harvard never had a chance to be a good film. Coming from the big studio system, this film was engineered with demographics ahead of script. Screenwriter Peter Tolan writes as if he was creating the marketing campaign as he was creating the story. It is truly a shame, with the talent there was a very funny movie to be made. Stealing Harvard just wasn't it.

Movie Review Why Him?

Why Him? (2016) 

Directed by John Hamburg 

Written by John Hamburg, Ian Helfer 

Starring James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Megan Mullally, Zoey Deutsch, Griffin Gluck 

Release Date December 23rd, 2016 

Published December 22nd, 2016

Why Him(?) is an ungainly, awkward, mess of a movie. The film stars James Franco as one of the most off-putting characters ever brought to the screen, a tech billionaire named Laird who has no concept of how normal people interact. This could be a funny idea, the super-rich can tend to lose connection to the concerns and proprieties of the common man, but, Franco's performance isn’t merely that of a charmingly out of touch kook, but rather a genuinely out of sorts sociopath played as a comic creation.

Bryan Cranston co-stars with Franco in Why Him(?) and is apparently trying to create a character just as annoying as his co-star. Cranston is Ned Fleming, the father of Stephanie (Zoey Deutsch) who has gone off to college in Silicon Valley and fallen madly in love with Laird. Stephanie has invited the whole family, including her mother, Barb (Megan Mullally), and brother Scottie (Griffin Gluck), to fly to California from their home in Michigan to spend the holidays with her and Laird who they will meet for the very first time.

Laird's shtick is that he says everything that comes into his head with no filter. He curses to a degree that would shame Melissa McCarthy and is so incredibly disconnected from everyday small talk that he has no problem discussing sex with his clearly offended future in-laws. Even as everyone around him is clearly offended and uncomfortable with Laird's behavior he is completely oblivious and somehow this is supposed to be funny. It's not, it's just hard to watch.

For his part, Cranston plays Ned as a joyless crank. He’s miserable from the moment he arrives in California from Michigan and remains miserable through the films forced and predictable finale. So, Ned is a miserable character with no sense of humor, no jokes to leaven his miserable premise and the most that Cranston can seem to do with the character is physical shtick that is more like watching someone amid a mental breakdown than someone attempting physical humor. Cranston gesticulates and tenses every muscle and spits every line of dialogue and never once does something funny.

The supporting players in Why Him(?) come away far better off than the leads. Megan Mullally, a veteran of TV sitcoms, seems to know just where to pick her spots for her few jokes, while poor Zoey Deutsch spends most of her time trying to dodge the two leads whose gesticulations as they strain for every joke had to be rather dangerous for any co-star who wandered too closely. Keegan Michael Key, playing Franco's oddball, German accented, assistant Gustav, at the very least could fight back. His running gag is randomly attacking Laird as a way of developing his self-defense, a joke that falls flat, especially once Cranston begins trying to explain it.

Why Him(?) is completely derailed by a pair of lead performances that could not possibly be less appealing. The fact that both Cranston and Franco are former Academy Award nominees only compounds the problem. We know these two actors are better than this awful material and watching them act down to this garbage idea is just depressing.

I blame Director John Hamburg for most of the problems with Why Him(?). Having allowed his actors to do a great deal of improvisation, at least I assume that was improv, otherwise there is an editor who needs to find a new profession, Hamburg created the sloppy, slapdash environment that lead to this mess. Even worse, Hamburg fills out the awfulness by relying on bathroom humor with toilets and urine playing significant roles in the film.

What is it with John Hamburg and bathrooms? Bathroom issues have figured prominently in his humor in most of his movies from the cat that could flush a toilet in Meet the Parents to Ben Stiller's irritable bowels in Along Comes Polly to the fart jokes of Hamburg's one good movie, I Love You Man, Hamburg seems either obsessed with bathrooms or he's merely childish and lazy. Toilets figure prominently throughout Why Him(?) which ends with a post-credits scene all about toilets with pictures of people using the toilet. Ewww. 

At the very least toilets are an apt metaphor for Why Him(?). This movie needs to be flushed.