One A Week Reviews #1: Frenemy

Welcome to 2011's run of One A Week Reviews. While last year I did tend to get a little behind on them (little? HA!) last year. This is a new year with a fresh start and I'm hitting the ground running. First off, let me route you AWAY from this wrongly advertised stinker, reviewed for dvdsnapshot.com!

FRENEMY
 
OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

After a group of friends witness a horrifying crime, they wonder how they were lucky enough to escape, unharmed, while one friend did not. Through this self-discovery they start to understand the meaning of their own hilarious yet twisted fate. As their time starts to run out, the chance for redemption isn't too far behind.

OUR TAKE

Frenemy – once known as Little Fish, Strange Pond – opens with a scene of banter between Matthew Modine and Callum Blue so gratingly obtuse that if you bail out there, no one will blame you. Their characters, Mr. Jack and Sweet Stephan, have wandered in whole cloth from some awful undergraduate's Master Thesis play for two, layering one non sequiturs with little rhyme or reason like a psychotic Mutt and Jeff. They bring their detached banter to an adult video store run by Zach Gailfinakis. This leads to a hold-up, evidently by a bad stand-up comedian, and a never-ending, meandering debate of the meanings of life, death and evil. While Matthew Modine is usually a compelling actor, not even he can hold this nonsense together. He and Blue, lunatics bantering away, wear out their welcome early in the proceedings, making 80 minutes feel considerably longer. Adam Baldwin fares a little better as the police officer who briefly comes into their lives to save, then hunt them.

Throughout the film there are weird fade-outs to subplots that feel as tenuously connected as the digressions in a David Lynch film. This whole feature feels like a little too much Lynch and Tarrantino were watched during it's making. The twists at the end are unsurprising, and considering how absurdist the whole trip is, aren't even necessary.

Gregory Dark, director of many a porn film as part of The Dark Brothers and many Cinemax classics as Gregory Hippolyte, crafts an ominous, absurd psychodrama billed as a comedy with a big picture of Galifinakis on the cover because he's currently "hot." This packaging is as misleading as the official synopsis above. It comes nowhere near capturing the actual tone of this odd movie. Dark's been directing (in one genre or another) since the early 1980s, but Frenemy feels like a first feature from someone who overdosed on film school.

EXTRAS

Frenemy is presented in 16x9 Widescreen with 5.1 Dolby Digital English Audio. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish, and there are some trailers.

CONCLUSION

Packaged as a "comedy" to exploit the fame of Zach Galifinakis, this oddball drama is more a weird, disjointed vehicle for Matthew Modine. Frenemy is dark and offputting, a must-see only if absolutely nothing else is available for viewing. AVOID.

OVERALL PICTURE

MOVIE: D

EXTRAS: C

Jay's Review: Gigantic

I reviewed Gigantic back at the beginning of August, but it kinda fell through the cracks a bit. Belated, but now posted for your perusing pleasure... or rather, warning that you can skip viewing the actual movie if you want...

GIGANTIC

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:
Get ready to laugh with this romantic comedy that’s anything but normal, starring Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine), Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer), John Goodman, (Confessions of a Shopaholic) and Zach Galifinakis (The Hangover). Mattress salesman, Brian gets swept up in a romance with the lovely but misguided Happy when she comes in to his store one day and falls asleep on one of the beds. To win her over, he must compete with her bear of a father, an art-collecting loudmouth with a bad back and deep pockets. Gigantic is a funny, surreal love story about the anxiety that comes when two people with crazy families collide unexpectedly and fall for each other.


OUR TAKE:

No, it’s not.

I can't quite put my finger on what's going on in Gigantic, but it's not romantic and it's not comedy. It's moments of beautiful grace, a very respectable attempt, and excellent acting assembled into an odd mess of a construct.

It feels like it wants to be a whimsical indie comedy. You have a lead character (Brian) who shuffles thru life working at a mattress store (wacky slacker job), trying to adopt a Chinese baby (because he always wanted a younger sibling -a fact drawn from the life of the director), and from a dysfunctional family of older brothers and elderly parents who, among other things, make Shroom Tea for the family.

The patented “Whimsical Indie Girl” is here. Zooey Deschanel, no less, is named “Happy” and is both kooky, cute, and sexually forthright... as are all “Whimsical Indie Girls.” To her credit she does eke a character out of Happy, but it ain't by much.

Also, Ed Asner shows up to be the above mentioned 'Shroomin' dad and John Goodman plays his gruff notes as Happy's rude, grouchy, rich dad. A character mostly known for having a bad back and traveling everywhere reclined. The regal Jane Alexander shows up for a few quick scenes towards the end. In fact, her character is there to serve one purpose in one conversation, but it's still nice to see her.

Then come the more serious parts. The adoption subplot seems more unlikely to succeed than anything else. The rhythms of the comedy are plodding when they should be light. I don't think I laughed once. As a drama, I would have adored this. With the attempts at “whimsy,” and general “Sell” from the DVD packaging that this is a comedy, I'm left asking the age old question. “Que?”

Finally, there's the Zach Galifinakis problem. I just can't figure it out. He's credited as “Homeless Man,” and just shows up occasionally to beat or shoot at Brian, then in the end turns out to be... well, I don't know what. Something happens towards the end of his character arc that really queers the deal with this movie. The hopeful warm ending becomes almost a little scary when you wonder just what this adopted baby (delivered via the Deus Ex Machina Express, no less) is being dropped into. The tone is thrown off in ways it doesn't recover from. It can't.

In the end it's not whimsical nor witty, and it's not a drama (tho it is a tad disturbing). It's serious and slapdashedly resolved. The saving graces come in the scenes it's assembled out of. Awkward dates with parents, family dinners, a fumbling conversation or two. Weird characters populate the peripheries. If it didn't feel like they tried so hard for the “Whimsy,” or some “let's wrap this puppy up and go home” cheats, this would be a much better movie.

I say “Meh.”

SPECIAL FEATURES:
Auto launches with a trailer for Tennessee, which looks to be an overly-earnest, unwashed road trip film starring Mariah Carey and 2 unwashed angsty guys who I’m betting are really obnoxious. Enter at your own risk.

The Menu only offers Scene Selection, Play, Audio, and Bonus
Audio offers 5.1 and 2.0 English Dolby. No Subtitles. (which is an immediate half a point off from this reviewer and his noisy environment)
Bonus Features:
-2 deleted scenes, one of the kind of “is this whimsy” that permeates the whole movie. No reason I can see to have cut it.
-An Alternate Take of one scene. Some productions stills.
-The Trailer: You can figure out “Beds, Adoption, Zooey” and the boast of being from the producers of “Junebug” and “I’m Not There.” One shot in the trailer is scored and cut to almost imply Brian has shown up at Happy’s house for a profound romantic interlude. In the actual movie it’s the scene where he shows up to see where she works…a glaring cheat that threw me out of the actual movie entirely, since I watched the trailer first.

The film is R-rated and 98 minutes long


CONCLUSION:
The sum of the parts is underwhelming, but the parts have some moments of grace to them. A very long-distance nude Deschanel and some Shroomin' (while approved by the elderly), may make you hesitate showing this one to the kids... as will the general tone that hangs over the moments that should be madcap because the character keeps getting random assassination attempts made on him...

The actors are fine. The cinematography is beautiful. A composition of Deschanel on a mattress in all grays, blues, and blacks, from her eyes to the blankets, with her popping white face in the center is worth watching the whole film for. There are moments here.


OVERALL PICTURE: Movie: C- Disc: C-