Movie Review A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice (2023) 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh 

Written by Michael Green 

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Kelly Reilly, Jamie Dornan, Michelle Yeoh, Jude Hill 

Release Date September 15th, 2023 

Published 

I want to like A Haunting in Venice, but I just can't. I've written and rewritten this review several times, each with a different take on the movie. I tried to find what I liked about the movie and leaned into that for a while. Then I went hard on the movie and tore it up and erased that. I don't know why I am struggling with a movie that is not really so complicated as to require such mental machinations. But here we are with a film critic having seen a movie and still trying to decide if he liked it or not. Do I like A Haunting in Venice? Yes or No?  

A Haunting in Venice returns Kenneth Branagh behind the camera into the role of famed detective Hercule Poirot. In this adventure, Poirot is several years retired from his experience in Death on the Nile. Now living in Venice, Poirot has hired a former police detective, Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio), to keep away those that would draw him back into the detective role he's trying to leave behind. And yet, Vitale makes way for one of Poirot's old friends, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) to get in to see him. Oliver is the author who created the legend of Poirot by basing her bestsellers on his cases. 

Naturally, she has an interest in getting her friend back to solving murders and she's got just the thing for him. On this night, Halloween night in Venice, she's attending a seance. She intrigues Poirot by admitting that though she's a skeptic, she can't seem to figure out how famed psychic Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) does what she does. Oliver wants Poirot to help her debunk Reynolds or confirm that there is something real to her and thus a confirmation of something beyond life. Poirot dismisses her notions of the fantastic and agrees to debunk the psychic. 

Attending the seance alongside Oliver, Poirot, and Poirot's security man, are a rogue's gallery of potential murder suspects, per usual for a Poirot mystery. First, there is the host of the event. a former opera singer and celebrity, Roweena Drake (Kelly Reilly). Roweena set up this event on the notion that Reynolds could contact her late daughter, Alicia, who died under mysterious circumstances a year before. She's invited her family doctor, Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dorner) and he has brought his young son, Leopold (Jude Hill). Already on hand is Roweena's maid and caretaker, Olga (Camille Coltin), and uninvited but arriving regardless is Alicia's former fiancee, Maxime (Kyle Allen). 

Though Leopold is excluded, for obvious reasons, the rest will gather in Alicia's bedroom as Reynolds attempts to contact Alicia. In the process, Poirot will expose Reynolds as a fraud, survive an attempt on his life, and then Reynolds will end up dead. Her death is the true catalyst for the film's central mystery, one that will grow to encompass at least one more body and connect back to Alicia's death, tying everything up in a neat little bow. It's all very clean and efficient and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that except, if you're like me, and you guess the plot at hand early on, the fun drains out of the proceedings quickly. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Baby Mama

Baby Mama (2008) 

Directed by Michael McCullers

Written by Michael McCullers

Starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Dax Shepard, Romany Malco, Maura Tierney, Sigourney Weaver

Release Date April 25th, 2008

Published April 24th, 2008

When Kate (Tina Fey) is told she has a one in a million chance of having a baby she first considers adoption. Unfortunately, being single her wait for a baby could be five or six years. Her only other option is a surrogate mom. A high end company, run by the glorious Sigourney Weaver, sets Kate up with Angie (Amy Poehler).

Kate and Angie could not be more different. Where Kate is successful, smart and focused, Angie is dull witted, messy and hooked up with a loser boyfriend/common law husband Carl (Dax Shepard). Nevertheless, Kate needs a baby mama and Angie is willing so the two strike a deal. Later, when Angie breaks up with Carl she ends up living with Kate while Kate finds herself romanced by Rob (Greg Kinnear) who knows noting of her baby ambitions.

Baby Mama was written and directed by Michael McCullers whose most high profile credit is the script for the most recent Austin Powers outing. He has a talent for outsized, broad comedy and he brings some of that to Baby Mama. Unfortunately, the mixture of McCullers broad comedy clashes with the straight laced character based comedy of Tina Fey and the two fail to mix.

Where Poehler is playing a very broad character, married for seven years, never having gotten pregnant yet hired as a surrogate? Fey plays Kate as straight as an arrow. Given a romance with Greg Kinnear, Fey shines and we see a glimpse of the movie that Baby Mama might have been with a different comic vision.

The odd couple bits between Fey and Poehler feels more like the forced concoction of marketers rather than the organic growth of a comic idea. Reteaming the SNL gal pals holds some appeal with younger audiences, there is no doubt of that, but in Baby Mama the reteaming happens at the expense of a story that had great potential as a romantic comedy.

Greg Kinnear, hidden entirely in the films commercials and trailers, drops in to show exactly what kind of movie Baby Mama might have been. As a juice bar owner who flirts up a storm with Fey before falling for her, without knowing of her baby fever, Kinnear shines with an easy smile and quick witted charm. When he and Tina Fey are together onscreen you want more of them and less of the broader, less believable antics of Poehler.

In essence Baby Mama wants to be a smart, funny romantic comedy but the distraction of Fey reteaming with Poehler prevented that and lead to this lame odd couple knock off despite numerous, obvious, pitfalls. Tina Fey remains somehow above even the lowest of the low moments of Baby Mama and thus the film isn't so bad as to be unwatchable but not quite good enough for me to recommend Baby Mama,.

Movie Review Mean Girls

Mean Girls (2004) 

Directed by Mark Waters 

Written by Tina Fey 

Starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tim Meadows, Amanda Seyfried

Release Date April 30th, 2004

Published April 30th, 2004 

Rosalind Wiseman's book “Queen Bees and Wannabes'' is a sociological study of the lives of teenage girls. The book covers important teenage girl topics like cliques, fashions, friends, sex and drugs and provides parents with helpful advice for understanding their teenage daughters. I'm told it's a good read, entertaining even, but as a non-fiction book, it was an unlikely and difficult choice for a big screen adaptation.

This difficult task fell to Saturday Night Live head writer Tina Fey whose challenge was to create characters and a story arc from what were essentially intellectual observations of behavior. The characters and the story had to incorporate the book’s many important themes and ideas. Oh, and it had to be funny.

Lindsey Lohan stars as Cady Heron who, for her entire school career, has been home schooled...in Africa. Her parents are Zoologists who have decided to move back to America and enroll their daughter in a real high school. Once inside poor Cady must navigate the wilds of high school cliquedom from the popular kids to the nerds to the various sub-groups of each. Cady quickly realizes that high school is quite similar to the African bush with any number of obvious and hidden dangers. The jungle comparison is a good joke the film uses more than once.

After a rough first day Cady finally makes friends with a pair of outcasts, Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese), who help her navigate the difficult waters. The first lesson is to avoid the "Plastics," the meanest clique in the school and also the most popular. The plastics are three super hot girls, Regina (Rachel McAdams), Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried), who run the school. Later when Cady is being harassed in the lunchroom Regina saves her and the Plastics invite her to join their clique.

Though Cady isn't quite comfortable with the Plastics' way of belittling people and their constant focus on clothes and their bodies, Janis tells Caddy to stick with it as a way of exposing the Plastics as the evil that they are. However once inside, being popular becomes kind of fun for Cady and her time as a double agent becomes more and more out of control until she has alienated pretty much everyone.

The film sets up along the familiar territories of high school movies but with Tina Fey's sharp-eyed observations sprinkled in along the sides. Fey, who also has a small role as a teacher, uses this setup for a number of outside the plot observations, the best of which are quick parodies of the stereotypical homeschooled kid. Also, Amy Poehler of SNL shows up in the role of the Mom who desperately tries to be her daughter’s friend entirely at the expense of being a good mother.

Fey's observations are witty, smart and at times a little uncomfortable. Tackling the thorny issue of teenage sexuality, Fey glosses over the rough spots but makes a very cutting observation of how teenage girls in the post-Britney era have become hyper-sexualized. Check the scene where the Plastics with Cady perform a dance routine to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock wearing outfits more at home in a strip club. Any adult male who is not a little bit disturbed by this scene needs to take a step back and imagine that it’s your daughter on that stage. The point hits home quickly.

Many reviewers have drawn comparisons between Mean Girls and the 80's classic Heathers because both films share a cynical edge. Heathers is far darker than Mean Girls but it's not a bad comparison.

I would like to introduce a different comparison between Mean Girls and a high school movie of a very different genre, Thirteen. With its serious source material, Mean Girls addresses some of the same issues as Thirteen but from a comic perspective. Both films detail the way new friends shape how a young girl becomes a woman and how a seemingly normal teenage girl can in a short time become an entirely different person.

Being a comedy, Mean Girls cannot give these issues the depth that Thirteen has. But as a funhouse mirror version of Thirteen, Mean Girls has value to it beyond entertainment. I like how Mean Girls avoids melodrama while acknowledging its serious source material. Serious for parents of teenage girls who may find watching Mean Girls, and its candy coated satire, a convenient way to raise important issues with their daughters.

Most importantly, though, the film is funny. Tina Fey has a quick wit and a great ear for satire. With so many characters to manage, the character development tends to get lost but each of the actors is likable enough to sell the jokes and the character types they inhabit. Lindsey Lohan shows the same acting chops and comic touch that places her a step ahead of her teen rivals Hillary Duff and Amanda Bynes. If Lohan can continue to choose good material, she could have a very good future.

It's Tina Fey however who may have the brightest future. Taking the themes, observations and conclusions of a non-fiction book and creating characters and a story arc that employ those important elements and managing to make it funny is a monumental task. For the most part, she succeeds. The film lacks a realistic edge to provide a real catharsis, especially in its ending which raps up a little too neat, but it's still funny and smarter than most comedies of recent memory.

Movie Review: Date Night

Date Night (2010) 

Directed by Shawn Levy

Written by Josh Klausner 

Starrive Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Ray Liotta, Common, Jimmy Simpson

Release Date April 9th, 2010 

Published April 8th, 2010

A couple of bored New Jersey-ites decide to mix up their routine with a trip to the big city and find themselves mixed up in a murderous plot involving gangsters, crooked cops and dirty politicians in the new comedy Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell and directed by mainstream machinist Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum 1 & 2).

Shawn Levy has never been what anyone would call an auteur. Levy is, without a doubt, a craftsman but more along the lines of an amateur carpenter than a master builder. Levy's films tend to unfold with a solid plan in mind and end up as rickety, half completed disasters. To be fair, the half completed parts can be quite entertaining and have proven exceptionally popular.

How nice then that Levy's latest rickety contraption, Date Night, actually shows the director becoming a better craftsman. Unlike the Night at the Museum movies, Date Night has a quick pace, oodles of charm, and more than a few really big laughs. It helps to have a pair of very, very funny leads to carry the audience over the trouble spots. As Phil and Claire Foster, Steve Carell and Tina Fey do a remarkable job of portraying a marriage with a little dust on it. The routine of once a week dinners, lame book clubs and time spent with fellow dusty married couples is so well evoked that you can't wait for the expected wackiness to ensue.

The wackiness arrives when Phil and Claire, frightened by the recently announced divorce of a longtime friends, break from their routine for a night in New York City. The couple want to have dinner at a swanky new restaurant in Manhattan but they don't have a reservation. When another couple doesn't show, Phil boldly claims the reservation and the identity of the missing couple.

That couple, unfortunately, happens to be the missing link between a mob boss (Ray Liotta) and some dirty cops (Jimmi Simpson and Common) and a shady politician. When the dirty cops come after the Foster's one wild night ensues as they evade the bad guys with the help of a hunky security expert played by a shirtless Mark Wahlberg.

The plot is creaky and as well aged as Claire and Phil's marriage routine. The key to making it work lies with Carell and Fey's ability to sell the goofball, over the top gags and sell they do, Carell and Fey make a top notch comic duo. Scene after scene, whether Phil and Claire are sharing a quiet meal, poking quiet fun at fellow diners, or running from a hail of bullets or in a wild car chase, Carell and Fey make the most of their terrific comic chemistry to draw big laughs.

If you like the Steve Carell and Tina Fey you know from TV then you will like Phil and Claire. Director Levy cleverly plays the story to the strengths of his stars and they reward him by taking thin characters and a well worn plot and make something surprisingly, hilariously more of it.

With any other cast Date Night would crash and burn. With Steve Carell and Tina Fey Date Night becomes a fast paced, laugh out loud riot; stay for the credits which tack on a few more big laughs in Carell and Fey's blunders and ad libs. Shawn Levy may never be a great director but with the right cast and the right material he is an effective director and that is all that was needed for Date Night.

Movie Review Megamind

Megamind (2010) 

Directed by Tom McGrath

Written by Alan Schoolcraft, Brent Simons

Starring Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, David Cross

Release Date November 5th, 2010 

Published November 4th, 2010

2010 is the year of the bad guy in animation. In “Despicable Me” a mad genius named Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, became a good guy when he was faced with three lovely little orphans who warmed his villainous heart. Now comes “Megamind,” voiced by Will Ferrell, an evil genius who has grown used to being beaten by his nemesis Metro Man but finds himself unfulfilled once it seems he’s actually won.

Megamind (Ferrell) escaped a dying planet and was sent to earth destined for…. Something, he didn’t catch that part of his parents’ farewell speech. On the way to earth Megamind is bumped off course by another escapee from a dying planet, a handsome, dynamic little boy known as Metro Man (Brad Pitt). Metro Man arrives on earth landing under the Christmas tree of a wealthy family, Megamind crash lands in the yard of a prison where he grows up tutored in the ways of villainy.

Metro Man and Megamind went to school together and while Metro was the big man on campus with his charm, good looks and super powers, Megamind and his big blue head and prison-issue jumpsuit became an outcast. Getting picked last and picked on leads Megamind to embrace his bad guy side and with the help of his childhood companion, Minion (David Cross), Megamind determines to become a Super Villain.

The battles between Metro Man and Megamind, often centering on Megamind’s kidnapping of local reporter Renee Richard (Tina Fey), are epics of destruction that always end the same way with Megamind beaten, captured and imprisoned. However, when Megamind crashes the dedication of the Metro Man museum, takes Renee hostage, and sets up his evil death ray, he actually manages to defeat and seemingly murder Metro Man.

With the city now under his command and no one to stand in his way; Megamind should be ecstatic. Instead, he’s bored. Only Renee gives him a hard time but he doesn’t mind, in fact he discovers that he really likes her and maybe that is why he’s always taken her hostage. They get a chance to explore this when an evil even more destructive than Megamind arrives in Metro City and forces Megamind to go from bad guy to good guy.

There is a heady ideal at the heart of “Megamind.” Can evil exist without good or can good exist without evil? The creators of “Megamind” come down whole-heartedly on the side of both being necessary in order to exist. It’s a big topic for a kiddy flick but not one that “Megamind” lingers on more than it has to.

“Megamind” is first and foremost about jokes and the creators could not have assembled a cast more adept at delivering their punch lines. Will Ferrell has the uncanny ability to project a pratfall with words. His voice characters stumble and bumble in the fashion of his live action characters and that is strong testament to the comic brilliance of Ferrell’s persona and “Megamind” bumbles with the best of them.

Tina Fey’s genius is sarcastic apathy; her voice communicates brilliant comic exhaustion. In one of “Megamind’s” best scenes, Renee Richards boringly recounts the number of times Megamind has kidnapped her and the predictable ways in which he plans to torture and kill her: “Shark tank? Seen it. (Chainsaws) Seen it. (Lasers) Seen it.” Each line delivered with a tart, sarcastic assuredness that drives Megamind nuts.

Brad Pitt, David Cross and Jonah Hill round out the cast of “Megamind” and bring wit, energy and surprising warmth to their highly unusual characters. Pitt’s Metro Man is a rather obvious send up of Superman but you have to love the energetic pandering and insatiable ego that Pitt brings to the character. David Cross is known for being a caustic stage comic but his Minion is a loving companion to Megamind and Cross’s warmth sells Megamind’s change from villain to hero. Jonah Hill meanwhile goes for something close to what Will Ferrell brings to Megamind, a sense of the typical Jonah Hill character we know but with a touch more anger, his Hal the cameraman is funny because Jonah Hill is funny.

There isn’t much to “Megamind” that you haven’t seen before yet it succeeds. This terrific voice cast takes some familiar characters and predictable situations and turns up the charm and energy to keep us interested and laughing; even at jokes we likely could have predicted in the parking lot on the way into the theater. Voice acting is a unique talent and not everyone has it. Will Ferrell, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt and David Cross have that talent and “Megamind” is funny because they are funny.