Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the big weekend movies including “Cars 3,” the latest adventures of Lightening McQueen, the bachelorette party from hell in “Rough Night” and the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur in “All Eyez on Me.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
To describe “Rough Night,” a new ensemble comedy starring Scarlett Johansson, Zoë Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell and Ilana Glazer, as a comedy of errors makes it sound more genteel than it actually is. Deadly mistakes are made on this weekend bachelorette party getaway and there is loads of comedy but there is nothing genteel about this dark and debauched movie.
Johansson is Jess, an A-Type candidate for state senate and bride-to-be. When her former college roommates (and fellow beer-pong champions) arrange a weekend in Miami she’s hoping for a quiet, dignified affair. Her friends Alice (Bell), Blair (Kravitz), Frankie (Glazer) and Pippa (McKinnon) Jess’s Australian friend from a semester abroad, have different ideas; ideas that include foam parties, booze and male strippers.
The trouble starts early when Frankie uncorks a bottle of champagne at the airport and the pop, mistaken for a gunshot, causes panic. Checking into their swanky beach house (courtesy of Jess’s biggest and only campaign donors) they get the party started. Adding to the loose atmosphere are the swingers (Demi Moore and Ty Burrell) in the house next door. “This weekend is all about us,” says Jess, “just like old times.” And it is like old times, with camaraderie, laughs and plenty of booze and drugs until Alice accidentally kills the male stripper they hired as entertainment. “It really is a tragedy,” says Pippa, “he could have been a scientist and cured cancer.”
Aspiring politician Jess immediately kicks into survival mode, engaging in the great political pastime, the cover-up. “I know things are crazy right now,” she says, “but you’re going to have a lot of material for my wedding speeches.”
“Rough Night” breathes the same air as other big, raunchy ensemble movies like “Very Bad Things,” “How to be Single,” “The Night Before” and “The Hangover.” It embraces its wild side, adds a dollop of “Weekend at Bernie’s” to take advantage of its star power and push the envelope.
The first half hour plays like a naughty comedy, giddy with the promise of a raunchy good time. The tone changes abruptly as the body lies in a crimson puddle set against the stark white tile floor. There are still laughs but they come from a different place, a nasty place that takes some of the air out of this comedy balloon. It never quite gets to the level of inspired lunacy that “Bridesmaids” found so effortlessly because it doesn’t have the same kind of heart.
It does, however, have several fun moments, both before and after the death, most courtesy of McKinnon, Bell and Paul W. Downs who plays Jess’s nice-guy fiancée Peter.
McKinnon brings a wonky Australian accent and her trademark off kilter presence to the role of the best friend from far away. She plays Pippa like a visitor from Mars not Australia, someone who tries to fit in even though she’s unfamiliar with the ways of the rest of society.
Bell, who has shone in small roles in movies like “Fist Fight,” “22 Jump Street” and “The Night Before” is given a chance to strut her stuff here. She plays Alice as the kind of loose canon who throws up on the bar and nonchalantly says, “It smells like barf here. Let’s get outta here.” She’s the comedic engine who keeps the movie from succumbing to its dark side.
It would be a spoiler to describe Downs’ contribution to the goings on. Suffice to say, it involves Red Bull, gymnastics, adult diapers and a sweet disposition.
“Rough Night” has laughs but they are mostly derived from an unpleasant situation. It’s fun to see how the dynamics of the college friends manifest under stressful circumstances but the strain they feel mirrors the strain the movie feels trying to find a consistent, funny tone.
Welcome to the House of Crouse. It’s a packed house this week. Director John Madden goes long on his political thriller Miss Sloane and the pleasures of working with Jessica Chastain. T.J. Miller talks about laughing through the apocalypse and Riz Ahmed discusses realizing a childhood dream by starring in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s loads of guests and loads of fun so c’mon in and set a spell!
Richard and CP24 anchor Jamie Gutfreund have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Office Christmas Party” with T.J. Miller, Jason Bateman and Jenifer Aniston, “Jackie” starring Natalie Portman, “Lion” with Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain as “Miss Sloan.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with Erin Paul to have a look at the weekend’s new movies, “Office Christmas Party” with T.J. Miller, Jason Bateman and Jenifer Aniston, “Jackie” starring Natalie Portman, “Lion” with Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain as “Miss Sloan.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
In Office Christmas Party T.J. Miller plays Clay, a scattered office manager with a “mind like a drunk baby.” In a last ditch effort to save his branch from closure he tries to woo a lucrative client by throwing a no-holds-barred Christmas party.
“This is the way we close Walter,” says Clay. “We throw the best Christmas party he’s ever seen. We could save everybody’s jobs.”
Miller leads an ensemble cast featuring heavy-hitters like Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, Kate McKinnon and Jennifer Aniston but he doesn’t want to talk about that. Not right away, anyway.
Instead he begins the interview with, “Let’s talk comedy in a time of tragedy.”
OK, lets.
“Basically I have a political obstacle to my social mission statement,” he says. “The social statement was, tragedy permeates our everyday lives, people are lonely, they’re scared, they have death anxiety, they don’t know how to attribute meaning to their own existence, so through comedy we can provide an opiate or distraction that permeates our everyday lives. Through satire we can hopefully frame the world in a way that people can laugh at.
“Also I aim to help people, through my stand up, to release the death anxiety. I aim to help people not take themselves so seriously.”
When Miller, who also currently plays Erlich Bachman on Silicon Valley, finally gets around to talking about Office Christmas Party, he’s still on message.
“It’s very easy to promote a comedy during the apocalypse,” he says.
The Christmas film, which features a greedy pimp, a sexually repressed head of HR and an office load of drunk, disgruntled employees, is a mix and match of sentimentality and debauchery that Miller thinks is perfect for the season.
“What better way to spend the holidays?” he asks. “First of all you don’t have to talk to your family for an hour-and-a-half during the holidays. That’s a bonus. If the movie is funny, you talk about how funny it was for half-an-hour. How dynamic Jenifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Courtney B. Vance are. How strange I look in a Santa suit for that long. That my facial hair is still abrasive and arresting. That’s two- and-a-half to three hours towards a stress free holiday. That’s what we’re pitching you.
“It’s a funny movie. It’s a laugh a minute. Well, it’s a laugh every minute-and-a-half to two minutes. We wanted to give you a break. It’s exhausting to laugh every minute.”
Miller, who once worked as a legal secretary in the same Chicago office building seen in the film, says the movie is silly and fun but shares his core comedy philosophy.
“Workplace environments have become so sterile and corporations have become so much about profit and not the people they work with that we’ve lost the fun of work. We don’t have cool office Christmas parties anymore. We are saying, ‘You spend so much time with the people you work with, why not have a night or two a year where you can kind of just relax? Take a night off from worrying about offending someone or giving ‘tude.’
“That is our message to North America. Take the holidays, drink way too much eggnog, laugh, relax and know that we’ve got a lot of work to do in 2017.”
Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman appeared in the edgy “Horrible Bosses” films so you’d expect their new movie, “Office Christmas Party” to be holiday fare more naughty than nice. But you’d be wrong. Their latest suffers from not being too vulgar, but from being not vulgar enough.
Aniston runs Zenotech Data Storage Systems, a tech company she inherited from her late father. Dad left her the company but gave the main branch to her party animal brother Clay (T.J. Miller). She’s a strict by–the-book business person the Grinch who cancels all branch Christmas parties to save money and gives Clay until the end of the quarter, just two days away, to turn things around or she will lay off 40% of the staff and cancel all bonuses.
Clay is scattered with a “mind like a drunk baby,” but determined to protect his branch and his staff. To that end he recruits head programmers Josh (Jason Bateman) and Tracey (Olivia Munn) to woo a lucrative client (Courtney B. Vance) by throwing a no-holds-barred office Christmas party. “This is the way we close Walter, we throw the best Christmas party he’s ever seen,” says Clay. “We could save everybody’s jobs.”
Despite Clay’s warning, “When I drink a lot bad things happen,” they proceed with the party. Add in a greedy pimp, $300,000 in cold hard cash, a sexually repressed head of HR (Kate McKinnon) and an office load of drunk, disgruntled employees and you have a Bacchanalia that would make would make Caligula blush.
Given the premise “Office Christmas Party” is not nearly as wild as a movie about and out of control party should be. Despite the excess of flesh and booze the movie often opts for sentimentality over debauchery. It most certainly doesn’t put the ‘X’ in Xmas.
Tone wise it should feel like anything could happen; like the movie could go off the rails at any second. Instead it’s as sweet and gooey as a (slightly soiled) Hallmark Christmas card.
Packed with comedy heavy hitters like Aniston, Bateman, McKinnon and Miller, it’s the supporting cast who garner most of the laughs. Fortune Feimster, a comic best known for her work on “The Mindy Project” livens things up as a motor mouth Uber driver and Randall Park’s take on a shy-but-kinky office worker has its charms but it is Courtney B. Vance who steals the show. The velvet-voiced character actor who specializes in playing lawyers—think “Law & Order” and his Johnnie Cochran in
“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”—unexpectedly lets his freak flag fly and the results are glorious. If it was his movie it might have been more fun.
Somebody should’ve spiked “Office Christmas Party’s” punch.
Richard’s CP24 reviews for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, Saoirse Ronan in “Brooklyn” and the Seth Rogen Christmas comedy “The Night Before.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, Saoirse Ronan in “Brooklyn,” the Seth Rogen Christmas comedy “The Night Before” and the Julia Roberts thriller “Secret in Their Eyes.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
