Screenhead

It’s a perfect time for Christmas movies to start coming out, seeing as the decorations have been up in the stores since like September.  And so, we’re tackling Four Christmases today, a movie that shows that sometimes, time with the family is the best gift of all.

Even if you don’t notice it at first.

This time, a young couple who’s not terribly interested in getting married, usually manages to duck their family obligations around the holidays by making up elaborate stories and going off to various getaways instead.   But a surprise San Francisco fogbank socks in the airport irrevocably, and so the four are left forced to spend Christmas in the last place on earth they want to…with their families.

Families.  FOUR of them.  Both of their families are divorced, and thus, they’ll have to spend four Christmases in just one day.

What’s so unnerving about this movie is that it veers so wildly between hilarious and awkward that it almost can’t decide whether it’s supposed to be funny or uncomfortable.  It’s like the fat kid at school…he’s trying desperately to be funny, but it’s actually just about as sad.

Each of the families is deranged for its own reason, and believe me, they’re deranged.  The least of the deranged is a family of backwoods amateur ultimate fighters.  It gets worse from there.

It’s awkward.  It’s painful, in spots.  But it’s also got a lot of humor and warmth to it.  There’s lots to enjoy here.  We’ve all seen this kind of thing before. This is Christmas at its absolute.  Family, friends, lovers, growth.  Life.

Four Christmases is like LIFE.

And as such, the Screenhead Ten Scale gives this strange little allegory a six out of ten.  There’s lots to like here, and there’s lots to feel uncomfortable about.  It IS life.  Take it for what it’s worth.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Folks, I’ll be honest with you–I know, aren’t I usually?–but I’ll tell you right off the bad that Couples Retreat is not the kind of movie I usually go to the theater for.

Frankly, a movie like this, you don’t HAVE to.  There are no big special effects, no huge crashes of audio, nothing that would necessitate a screen measured in feet and a speaker count that requires you to take off your shoes to match the count. But the really interesting part about Couples Retreat is that you’ll WANT to.

Somewhere out there, there are four groups of friends, and their marriages frankly have seen better days.  One of them, a hard-charging type-A couple that is almost incapable of carrying on a conversation without Powerpoint, is actually inches from divorce.  And to that end, they’re seeking therapy at an island resort called Eden.  But Eden doesn’t come cheap, and as such, the type-A excelsior couple wants to enlist its circle of friends to go on a package deal, which is significantly cheaper.  Lured by promises of sun and frolic, the other couples retreat, and discover a whole lot about themselves, their partners, and their lives.

There are several moments in this movie that can really only be described as awkward.  Faizon Love naked, for example.  A day at the spa.  A really uncomfortable yoga sequence.  Some moments in here break open the awkward scale and segue into creepy.

But there are also a lot of good laughs to be had here, and some poignant bits that’ll actually make you think.  Couples out there…how much of your life is “his” and “hers” and how much of it is “ours”?  It’s a question to ask, for anyone who’s ever been or ever thought about being in a relationship.  You would not think of me, a man who can pummel virtually any horror movie trivia into the very ground, as a person to enjoy a romantic comedy, but Couples Retreat qualified.  It was funny, it made me think a bit, it gave me Vince Vaughn as a dad, there’s plenty of great points here.

Of course, I also got to watch a four year old thoroughly use a display toilet in a home improvement store.  Twice.   And that’s something you never want to see.

The Screenhead Ten Scale is prepared to sift through a bit of dross for some comedy silver, and understands that getting laughs is downright important.  Despite the awkwardness, it hands over a seven out of ten for being a thoroughly satisfactory comedy with its share of rough spots.

Popularity: unranked [?]

So, okay, I’m jumping the season just a tick–not even the stores have their decorations up yet, but surely we’ve heard of Christmas In July?  That and I haven’t actually seen it yet, so it’s on the list.

Anyway, this time we’re going up north, to get a better look at jolly old Saint Nick’s family life, including his disgruntled older brother Fred.  Why is Fred disgruntled?  Well, having a saint for a little brother can do that to you–especially when your little brother’s sainthood winds up making you immortal.  And when you wind up as a repo man, often taking away the gifts that Santa brought for Christmas, it’s enough to leave you a little…well…bitter.  And Fred’s no different.  But after prevailing on his little brother for bail money, Fred’s forced to head to the North Pole to work off the bail money brother Nick provided.  Will Fred be just the little extra punch Nick’s operation needs?  Or will Christmas collapse under its own weight?

It didn’t take me long to enjoy this movie.  In fact, it only took a few minutes to watch as character actor Vince Vaughn threw himself into a headlong run being chased by several Salvation Army Santa Clauses, and to watch as genius veteran actor Paul Giamatti waddled into frame in a fat suit, to firmly convince me that this at least had every chance of being a total comedy riot.

And there’s a lot to like about this movie–there are plenty of funny bits.  For instance, when Nick introduces Fred to the Ten Most Naughty list, pause the DVD and read the descriptions.  Some of these are priceless, if a little out of order.  Just to show you what I mean, and spoiler just a couple, I really don’t see how “wore same underwear for seventeen days” qualifies you as MORE naughty than someone who “poisoned fourth grade class hamster”.  You’d think murder puts you ABOVE poor hygiene on the naughty list, but hey.  That’s Santa’s prerogative, I guess.

Okay, sure…on many levels you can see a lot of this coming.  When even Family Guy can make jokes about Vince Vaughn’s career (”This is my impression of every Vince Vaughn movie ever: I’m utterly incapable of feeling love. Oh, wait–no I’m not.”), you know they’ve got a good reason.  “Go after the easiest target ever” is pretty much the modus operandi out there, so you know that if they notice it it’s right out in the open.    And yes, by all reasonable standards, this has been done unto death.  But we’re not here for original thought.  We’re here to hear an old chestnut told just a little bit differently, and frankly, the way they’ve told it is pretty sweet.

Sure, it’s trite.  It’s cliched.  It’s hackeneyed.  Virtually every punch of the writing is telegraphed so hard it comes Western Union.  But does that make it any less effective?  No, not really.  It’s still a force to be reckoned with.  It does what it sets out to do, and in the end, can we ask for much more?

No, not really.  Though this suffers from the albatross of cliches around its neck, it still manages to be entertaining and even a smidge heartwarming.  A full six out of ten for getting the job done, but in the messiest fashion possible.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Couples Retreat, a Jon Favreau-scripted and Peter Billingsley-directed comedy just cast the lead women for the film.  Kristen Bell, Kristin Davis and Malin Akerman are set to play wives: Bell is Jason Bateman’s wife; Davis plays Favreau’s wife and Akerman is Vince Vaughn’s wife.

It appears Faizon Love is still looking for a wife.

The story revolves around four couples who go to a tropical island resort, with one couple working on their marriage and the others sucked into the resort’s couple’s therapy – no win situation with psych mumbo-jumbo hoaxer and snake oil.

The movie will shoot in Bora Bora and Los Angeles.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Couples Retreat is set with cast deals finalizing, as I write this post, which goes into production in October.

Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman and Faizon Love are set to star in the comedy.

The story takes the paths of four couples who travel to a tropical island resort . One of the couples arrive at the resort to solve their marriage problems while the other three are ready to frolic on the island; but find out couples therapy is not optional — typical psych mumbo jumbo.

Apparently the idea for the story came from Vaughn and Favreau scripted the movie.

Popularity: 1% [?]

“We just got to get through these four Christmases as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Forbes magazine did the calculations, worked the digits and figured out that Vince Vaughn gives more profit than any other actor in the industry as I write this down now — might change tomorrow — that’s show biz.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring. 

Apparently, Vaughn charges less than any other dollar for dollar; thus the investment pays more to the investor. 

The numbers work out like this: For every dollar you spent of Vince Vaugh, you made $14.73.  Those are great numbers. 

Vaughn had two films Wedding Crashers and The Break Up  that were calculated into the formula.  Each, respectively, earned $283 million and $203 million.

The formula went like this: Forbes compiled the Ultimate Star Payback list by looking at the stars’ last three films that opened wide in at least 1,000 theaters before 2008 and were made in the last five years.

It calculated the gross income for each film by adding half the worldwide box office and the first three months of wholesale DVD revenues and then subtracting its budget. The gross income was divided by the actor’s total compensation to derive his or her payback for the movie.

Sounds like a reading math exercise.  Anyway,  Vince congratulations!!!

Popularity: 1% [?]