No Vacation from the National Lampoon-style humor

If you lived through the 1980s, you know it. If you sat through the 2000s, you know it. That wink-wink through lasviousness and lewdness paired with physical awkwardnes that made the National Lampoon’s … movies featuring Chevy Chase as patriarch Clark Griswold so darn popular in that first decade. That silly-man, try-too-hard demeanor that made…

Being human is more than good enough in Paper Towns

There’s been a bit of a stir this week around a TV interview on a morning show in Sacramento of Cara Delevingne, who played teen girl enigma Margo in this Paper Town. The co-anchors dissed the actress for her answers and disinterest, and cut the session short. John Green, the novelist from which the plot…

In Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck, heart beats out rowdy

Amy Schumer’s comic mind surely worked overtime to come up with Trainwreck. The rising star wrote the script, as you probably know unless you’re living in one of the few places where they haven’t beamed her deserving face on a morning or evening show interview these past couple of weeks, and then passed it along…

Blythe Danner turns a little film into a Dream project

Hollywood indeed works in funny ways, proving so delightfully again this summer of 2015 that truth can can sometimes be a strange bedfellow of fiction. Blythe Danner delivers the performance of her life in I’ll See You in My Dreams. The blue-eyed actress embraces the role of Carol Peterson, co-written and directed so warmly by…

Ted 2‘s What Happens When a Bear’s Just Not Funny

Seth MacFarlane misses the mark so badly with Ted 2 that I didn’t know whether I wanted to put my hands over my eyes or my ears. One of each? No, that wouldn’t work. His sequel to the comedy about the teddy bear that came alive and pals up with Johnny, the boy whose parents…

It’s OK when Pixar plays head games, Inside Out proves

Please do go with your kids to see Inside Out. I spent the pre-lunch hours of my Father’s Day delightfully with my daughter Elisabeth taking in the stark emotions of Joy and Sadness and the many shades in between in the full Regal Cinemas theater for matinée showing of the 15th Pixar picture from Disney.…