Movie Review Strays

Strays (2023) 

Directed by Josh Greenbaum

Written by Dan Perrault 

Starring Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Will Forte 

Release Date August 18th, 2023 

Published August 21st, 2023 

Strays Stinks! Reaching the nadir of talking animal movies, Strays pees, poops, and generally grosses out in every possible way while begging us to find it cute. Featuring the voices of Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, Strays is a cruel, nasty, disgusting little movie that also happens to be an amateur effort in terms of production and direction on top of the lame gross out humor. I felt a sense of embarrassment while watching Strays, an embarrassment on behalf of the people who filmed this and assumed that what they were doing was worth doing. 

Will Ferrell provides the voice of Reggie a badly abused dog that doesn't realize it is being abused. Reggie's owner is a cruel bully that the movie seems to think is a clever takedown of redneck, man-boy stereotypes. Doug (Will Forte) is instead, a monstrous, nasty creation who says and does terribly cruel things that we're asked to laugh at. It's supposed to be funny that Reggie thinks his name is S###bag. It's supposed to be funny that Doug hates this dog that much. 

It's also supposed to be hysterical that Reggie thinks Doug is playing a game with him when Doug drives Reggie into the country, throws a tennis ball and leaves Reggie to find his way back home. The plot of Strays kicks in when an angry Doug drives Reggie more than 3 hours away and drops him in the middle of a mid-sized city. Reggie has no idea where he is and is immediately set upon by bullies. Thankfully, he's saved by Bug (Jamie Foxx) who, though even smaller than Reggie, is more resourceful. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review MacGruber

MacGruber (2010) 

Directed by Jorme Taccone 

Written by Will Forte, Jorme Taccone, John Solomon

Starring Will Forte, Powers Boothe, Ryan Phillippe, Kristen Wiig

Release Date May 21st, 2010

Published May22nd, 2010 

There have been so many things written about the history of Saturday Night Live and the movies that adding to the pile seems a waste of time. I will keep the history lesson brief, we all know the translation between sketch and feature has been less than stellar. I'm sure I am not the only one who thanks heaven there was no Church Lady or Hans and Frans movies, thank you Dana Carvey for your restraint.

And as evidenced by the dearth of SNL-movie related content written in relation to the latest SNL feature, I know I wasn’t the only one dreading the release of MacGruber. Based on a series of interstitial gags created by star Will Forte, MacGruber held little promise of feature length success. It's great to be surprised; MacGruber doesn't suck.

Will Forte is MacGruber, an ex-military man hiding out as a priest in some unspecified jungle on a self imposed Rambo-esque exile when he is approached by his former commander Colonel James Faith (Powers Boothe). There is a threat to the homeland and it comes from the man who killed MacGruber's bride on their wedding day, the evil weapons dealer Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer).

Colonel Faith wants MacGruber to come back to the US and stop Cunth from using a massive nuclear weapon on the US. He also wants MacGruber to work with top new military man Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) but MacGruber has other ideas. Our hero has a team to put together, one that fans of the WWE will absolutely love. What happens to that team and how MacGruber ends up working with Piper and Mac's old flame Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) is something for you to discover. All I'll say is 'classic MacGruber.'

I have brought a little more order to the plot than actually exists on the screen; MacGruber doesn't really play as a straight narrative feature. Will Forte and director Jorme Taccone wrote the script for MacGruber and kept true to the sketch show roots of the character by creating a feature that is really just a series of gags. Sure, there is something of a narrative line that travels throughout but mostly MacGruber just hits one gag after another and somehow the form holds.

The gags of MacGruber work one after the other after the other. A few build throughout, including MacGruber's odd attachment to his car stereo, but most are one off jokes and references to 80's pop tunes. And then there is the filth. MacGruber is shockingly filthy with R-rated material that might make the Judd Apatow crew uncomfortable. 

Part of the shock comes from the unexpected, MacGruber can't use so many variations of the F-word when he's on network TV. He also cannot have two of the most awkward, off-putting and hysterical sex scenes since Leslie Nielsen and Lisa Marie Presley donned giant condoms in Naked Gun. 

MacGruber's supporting cast is right along with him making the awkward into the hysterical. Kristen Wiig is expectedly up to the task but Ryan Phillippe is the one who gets the big assist late with a sight gag that lives up to the word gag. Val Kilmer is a rich choice for the goofy bad guy. The now chubby cheeked star plays a wonderfully straight bad guy to MacGruber's over the top good guy. 

Tossing dignity and good taste to the wind, the cast of MacGruber crafts a series of jokes that somehow adds up to a feature film. MacGruber doesn't really tell us much about the future of Will Forte as a star but as a gag writer with a great ear for just the right cheesy 80's pop song; he's kind of a genius. MacGruber thrives on Forte's instinct for brilliant bad taste.

Movie Review The Brothers Solomon

The Brothers Solomon (2007) 

Directed by Bob Odenkirk

Written by Will Forte

Starring Will Forte, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Lee Majors

Release Date September 7th, 2007

Published September September 9th, 2007

Bob Odenkirk is a really funny guy. Anyone who has seen his all too brief HBO sketch show Mr. Show with his good friend David Cross, has seen his talent on display. His first directorial feature, Melvin Goes To Dinner was a terrific movie. A talky, brainy, low budget comedy that displayed Odenkirk's ability to let a joke build without ever forcing a punchline.

Since that mini-success Bob Odenkirk's career has gone in the toilet. His follow up to Melvin Goes To Dinner was a spectacularly misguided prison comedy called Let's Go To Prison. Now comes an equally inept, though funnier -not that that was a big challenge-, The Brothers Solomon. Written by Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte, the film plays like a comedy of what not to do when making a comedy.

In The Brothers Solomon, Will Arnett, of TV's beloved Arrested Development, and Will Forte, play John and Dean Solomon, brothers who did not grow up like most folk. Following the tragic death of their mother, thei father (Lee Majors) moved the boys to the north pole, they asked to move there and dad abided, where they were homeschooled and went years without contact with other human beings.

The social shortcomings of the boys has contributed to lifelong virginity and them living together; likely for good. When their father falls into a coma a kindly doctor informs them that sometimes people come out of comas if they have something to live for. Remembering that dad always wanted a grandson, the boys begin a quest to make a baby for dad.

Of course, being socially awkward, to put it kindly, the brothers fail the dating scene miserably. So, they turn to the website craigslist.com where they find Janine (Kristen Wiig), a kind woman willing to carry their child.... for 12, 000 dollars and no sex. Then it's off to the fertility clinic and nine months of waiting. Can dad last that long? Will either brother ever get it right with a woman? Will you give the slightest damn?

The first two questions I won't spoil, the last question however is a simple no. As directed by Bob Odenkirk, The Brothers Solomon plays like the bastard child of Knocked Up and Dumb & Dumber, only not funny or even as remotely interesting as those two very different comedies. Where Knocked Up bothered to create characters we cared about enough to laugh with, The Brothers Solomon simply has characters and if you can find a way to care about them you are a better man than I.

Dumb & Dumber is, at the very least, energetic in it's insipid way. The Brothers Solomon is a snoozer from beginning to end. Here is yet another 'comedy', like the recent ping pong movie Balls Of Fury, that believes that certain things just ARE funny because they're there. In Balls of Fury it was the lead character's love of Def Leppard. In The Brothers Solomon it's supposed to be funny that the filmmakers have assigned the song St. Elmo's Fire as the brothers unofficial theme song.

Oh and it's also funny that Lee Majors plays the boy's father. Not that Majors does or says anything remotely humorous. No. Just the fact that he is Lee Majors is apparently supposed to be funny. That's the joke. He used to be The Fall Guy (shrug). If you find that fact funny, then maybe this is the movie for you. I, for one, need something a little more than that.

I must admit that I did laugh once during The Brothers Solomon and my apologies to the filmmakers for spoiling their one funny moment here. When the brothers find out that dad is in the hospital they go flying out of their apartment for a race to the hospital. On the way, they stop to dispute a late video charge at a local video store. The line "Dad would have wanted us to dispute that late charge" cracked me up.

The only other minor pleasure I took away from The Brothers Solomon were cameos from some of my favorite TV performers. Sam Lloyd plays Ted Buckland on TV's best sitcom Scrubs and shows up here as a doctor. Also from Scrubs, one of the show's top bit players, Charles Chun who plays Dr. Wen on Scrubs and here plays Dr. Wang. Seeing Lloyd and Chun allowed me a few moments to lapse into dreams of my favorite Scrubs episodes as I waited out the 90 minute runtime of The Brothers Solomon.

Despite it all; I remain convinced of the talents of Bob Odenkirk. I have seen far too much good work from Odenkirk to write him off yet. A word of caution though Bob, another Let's Go To Prison or The Brothers Solomon and you are off the creative roll call. Get back together with your Melvin Goes to Dinner writing partner Michael Blieden, drop the budget, and make Melvin 2.

And stay away from Will Arnett. He's now starred in both Let's Go To Prison and The Brothers Solomon and had a small role in Hot Rod. Clearly, Mr. Arnett is movie poison.

Movie Review Booksmart

Booksmart (2019) 

Directed by Olivia Wilde 

Written by Susanna Vogel, Katie Silberman, Sarah Haskins 

Starring Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte

Release Date March 24th, 2019

Published March 24th, 2019

Booksmart stars Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, a long way from her role on Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing, as Molly and Amy, High School best friends who believe they have the whole school thing locked down. Molly and Amy have done little but focus on getting into the best colleges and owning the student government in order to make sure their college resumes were strong. The pair's plan appears to have worked as both are off to amazing schools. 

I say the plan appears to have worked but appearances can be deceiving. On the final day of the school year, Molly overhears some classmates making fun of her high achieving ways but when she tries to show them up by talking about getting into Yale, she finds that her fellow classmates have also gotten into good schools. This includes a girl Molly had dismissed as a tramp, Triple A (Molly Gordon), the name gets explained, trust me, who has also gotten into Yale. 

As Molly begins to confront other students about their school plans in the fall she finds that even her nemesis/crush, the jock football goof, Nick (Mason Gooding, Cuba Gooding’s son, FYI), has landed a scholarship to Georgetown in the fall. All of the time and effort that Molly and Amy put into getting into a good school wasn’t in vain, per se, but the realization is that they could have both achieved and still found time to enjoy themselves and party. 

Thus, with one night remaining before graduation, and Nick the jock throwing a raging party at his aunt’s house, Molly convinces Amy that they deserve one night of classic High School debauchery with drugs, drinking and bad choices. But first, they will need to find out where the party is actually taking place and find some way of getting there. This leads to a series of bizarre encounters on the way to the party. 

My absolute, unquestionable, favorite part of Booksmart is Billie Lourde, Carrie Fisher’s remarkably brilliant daughter. Lourd plays Gigi, a debauched rich girl who pals around with Jared (Skyler Gisondo), a sweet, misguided rich kid with a crush on Molly. Gigi pops up at random moments throughout Booksmart and gets a big laugh every single time. Lourd is boiling with charisma and charm and comic timing and I wanted more of her even as I recognize that any more of Gigi would ruin the magic of the character. 

A close second in the race for best supporting player in Booksmart is former Daily Show correspondent and co-host of the podcast ‘2 Dope Queens,’ Jessica Williams. Williams plays Ms. Fine, Molly and Amy’s favorite teacher. Such big fans of each other, the girls actually get their teacher’s phone number in class so they can stay in touch. Williams will re-enter the story later at the party and has a funny running gag about a student with a crush on her. Williams is brilliantly funny, never going for the easiest laugh and finding ways to twist a good joke. 

The whole of Booksmart falls under the direction of actress turned first time feature film director Olivia Wilde and what a remarkable job she has done. Taking a screenplay with four credited writers, Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskin, and Katie Silberman, who has the ‘written by’ credit on IMDB, and shapes it with strong direction into a movie with memorable characters and big laughs. For a first time director, Wilde directs Booksmart with the confidence and competence of a veteran director. 

This is a wonderfully strong outing for someone with only a few short films on her directorial resume. Olivia Wilde has come out of the gates with a movie that demonstrates a director with a strong authorial voice. Wilde appears generous with her cast, giving them the time to find the jokes while shaping the scenes to the overall narrative. The film is notably raunchy, as the trailer indicates, but Booksmart also has a strong emotional component that plays into the ending I won’t spoil. It’s a lovely coda and one you should see and enjoy. 

I can’t believe I have gone this far without talking about the young stars of Booksmart, but here we are. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever are, no surprise if you’ve read this far, wonderful in Booksmart. Feldstein consistently subverts expectations and gets laughs and pathos in equal measure. Dever, playing an out of the closet teenager in authentic and achingly real fashion, has an emotional arc that is also exceptionally funny because she is naturally talented and draws the laughs out of the real. The chemistry between Feldstein and Dever is off the charts and you can’t help but adore their dynamic. 

Booksmart is one of my favorite movies of 2019. Wildly funny, smart and emotional, it’s an exceptionally strong debut feature for director Olivia Wilde. I can only imagine incredible things for Wilde’s directorial future. The raunchy humor and comparisons to Superbad may be what gets audiences in the door, but they will remember Booksmart for a terrific cast and Olivia Wilde’s smart, funny directorial choices.