DVD Review: Birds of Paradise (2010)

Now Available to Own   

  Photo Slideshow   

AKA: Free Birds 

While there’s not a whole lot about this English language dub of the Argentinean original animated 3D endeavor that’s worth recommending, the work (which was co-produced by the Oscar winning Best Foreign Filmmaker Juan Jose Campanella of The Secret in Their Eyes) does have one great twist that sets its premise apart.

A gender-flipped version of the ugly duckling storyline that typically follows a plain female who longs to be more beautiful in order to get attention from the opposite sex, this anthropomorphic reimagining of the idea centers around an average male sparrow named Jack (voiced by Drake Bell).

Tired of being snubbed by the lady-birds he covets, Jack wishes he had the type of exotic, aesthetically pleasing feathered appearance that the more superficial of his female acquaintances flock after on a regular basis.

After he flies down a chimney and lands smack dab into a pile of paint cans that shower the bird in vibrant topical hues, Jack emerges looking like he’s set to star in a Rainforest feathered production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Thrilled by his colorful looks, Jack eagerly takes advantage of his second opportunity to make a new and improved romantic first impression on the fairer sexed flockers.Willing to risk the damage that paint inhalation could have on his lung power and ability to sustain flight, Jack takes part in a great race in an effort to not only impress but get a taste of what life is like from the faux point-of-view of the beautiful, privileged and exotic fliers he envies.

Yet while he would give anything to be exotic, one of the world’s most authentically exotic and expensive birds would give anything to live the normal, free-flying life he’s been taking for granted as one of the flock.

A seven hundred thousand dollar beautiful canary that’s been sold to a selfish and cruel owner, Aurora (Ashley Tisdale) has been trapped in a cage for most of her life.

While inevitably the two opposite birds that both have a yearning for a new type of life eventually cross paths and learn some hard character lessons along the way (from themselves, each other as well as their colorful collection of sidekicks), it’s a flimsy story all around.

And despite some terrific comic relief by Ken Jeong, Jane Lynch and Jon Lovitz, Bell’s shallow, social-climbing character isn’t nearly as sympathetically likable enough as the traditional ugly duckling formulaic archetypes from which the screenplay was derived.

When you add this with a surprising abundance of gloomy overtones that add a grim timbre to the film’s second half (which unravels the tapestry they’d been attempting to weave together with the two contrasting plotlines in the beginning), it’s a safe bet that your children are going to grow restless pretty fast with this tonally uneven picture.

Bolstered by an energetic opening and vibrant animated visual style that can sadly only take it so far, this lackluster production that was timed to coincide with the theatrical release of Rio 2 as well as the home entertainment premiere of Free Birds is weaker than some of Lionsgate’s recent English language translations overseen by Mychal Simka.

While the voice work is at least much more consistent than what's on display in Simka’s latest offering Snowflake, the White Gorilla, all in all Birds of Paradise fails to live up to his surprisingly effective and vastly superior Planes tie-in Wings.

Nonetheless, you have to give Birds credit for its impressively modern revisionist take on ugly duckling tales where only female characters worry about their looks since questions and concerns about fitting in are universal in every culture, language and gender, whether human or feathered.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD: Two and a Half Men -- The Complete Sixth Season

Season 6 is Now Available to Own

Read Jen's Review of Season 5

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





After being thoroughly impressed by the extraordinarily inventive scandalous wit utilized by the writers in the previous DVD set of America's number one smash TV comedy, I must say that I was initially dismayed by the lack of creativity evidenced at the start of the sixth season.

While fortunately it bounces back, unfortunately it doesn't manage to do so consistently until the middle of the set's second disc or approximately one half of the season's run with twelve's "Thank God For Scoliosis," which was a double-back on a previous episode as Alan (Jon Cryer) begins dating his receptionist whom Charlie (Charlie Sheen) of course had previously used and abused.

Yet despite this sign of more surefire comedic awkwardness to come as the men engage in multiple episode arcs with (gasp!) the same women and Charlie becomes engaged to the beautiful and kind Chelsea (Jennifer Taylor Bini), before "Scoliosis," there had only been one must-see via the ridiculously funny "It's Always Nazi Week" which was ironically the sixth episode of the sixth season that wouldn't be topped for six more episodes.

Helping to propel one of the season's biggest mysteries and comedic goldmines, in "Nazi Week," Alan and his ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle) briefly hook-up after she has a falling out with nerdy replacement husband Herb, played by the terrific Ryan Stiles from America's underrated take on UK's sketch comedy series Whose Line is It Anyway?

Needless to say, their old pet peeves along with fundamental down-to-their-core incompatibility soon take over which ends the couple's brief insecure mad dash for comfortable familiarity. However, when Judith is revealed to be pregnant six weeks later, their reunion is far from over as far as Alan's concerned. Yet since Judith and Herb had reconciled, Judith keeps her moment of insanity with Alan from Herb but it does little to keep Alan from trying to be a part of what very well could be his soon-to-be-born child's life.

While the familiarity of making whoopee isn't exchanged for the other kind of booties as in the land of Men, boom-boom always comes before babies, at the same time for fans who'd been growing weary of the same paradigm we'd seen previously, the show grows stronger with several plot-lines firmly in place.

Thus it endures after its odd start wherein the main problem seemed to be in the writing as it replaced the brilliance of its sexually charged hidden innuendo by fixating far too heavily on scatological humor wherein jokes about number two, the gasses emitted by Jake and the need of his father to use a special stool for stools became the most go-to source of humor.

Obviously "potty humor" as it was always called in my neck of the woods has never been foreign fodder for these Men but it was one of the many weapons housed in the show's successful arsenal of jokes and writers, comedy junkies, series enthusiasts, and the show's extremely hard working ensemble deserved much better than the series stooping that lazily low for laughs. I'm not sure if it's because they were spreading themselves too thin with the series mastermind Chuck Lorre's co-development and launch of the sweet and hilarious Big Bang Theory which will now play with the Men on Monday night's lineup in the most coveted time-slot on CBS.

Still, whatever the case may have been, once it makes its way past a few speed bumps, there are some priceless episodes to enjoy as Alan struggles internally about Judith's pregnancy but begins a romance that results in an acid trip with the girl's mother, Charlie grows serious about settling down, and Jake dates the girl next door whose ex-NFL star father is played by Michael Clarke Duncan. While guest stars including Alicia Witt, Sheen's brother Emilio Estevez and Duncan are introduced early on, it's Duncan who is given the best material when he returns for arguably one of the season's wittiest episodes following what we'd feared would be a one-time cameo.

Aside from the aforementioned titles, the other can't miss episodes include: "David Copperfield Slipped Me a Roofie" which saddles Alan with the worst fortieth birthday party in history (to our delight), "She'll Still Be Dead At Halftime" in which the trio has to get rid of a drunken, lingerie-clad, passed out blonde in Charlie's bed before his fiance returns, a Friends meets Sex and the City style dysfunctional bromance pity party in "The Two Finger Rule," and Alan's blind date with Melanie Lynskey's cutesy stalker Rose in "Above Exalted Cyclops."

Likewise, aside from a surprising turn at the end of the season that demands a DVR program for its comeback this month, by switching up the main duo's roles, we have new sources for laughs as Alan is the player of the season compared to Charlie and the Two rebounds from more of the same to new craziness as Charlie is put to the test taking care of Chelsea and Alan "text-blocks" Charlie when he becomes the quintessential gay best friend of Chelsea.

Sadly missing series favorite Lynskey in the interviews contained in the set's intriguing and hilarious featurette "The Women of Two and a Half Men" in which I realized the way that Conchata Ferrell's Berta has replaced Holland Taylor's mother Evelyn for Charlie, there's also an especially interesting portrait of Angus T. Jones and the way he's essentially come-of-age on television in the refreshingly earnest "Growing Up Harper" that presents us with not only the opposite of Jake but the opposite of a child actor stereotype.

Additionally containing the obligatory gag-reel that illustrates the way the actors cope with the tongue-twisting lines live in front of a studio audience and giggle fits (often even before the joke is uttered) which again makes you appreciate just how much more Cryer has to do in any given episode, the four-disc set from Warner Brothers thankfully includes a DVD episode-guide insert that lets you jump right to your favorites.

Uneven yet still more consistently funny than the crash-and-burn of NBC's The Office which has overstayed its welcome, by briefly showing us an alternate side of the Men as they slightly morph into one another and pick up atypical habits throughout season six, stale becomes fresh in a quality comeback for the perennial favorite network comedy.


Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

Movie Review: Julie & Julia (2009)

Coming Soon to DVD & Blu-ray



Photo Slideshow

View the Trailer & Photos

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





Despite the fact that they are separated by more than fifty years in two thematically similar narratives, the presence of both personalities referenced in the title as well as the talented women portraying them linger as the film flows back and forth in time.

Similar to producer Scott Rudin’s film The Hours (also starring Meryl Streep and based on a literary source), Julie & Julia uses time freely and in a circular fashion. Reuniting with not just producer Rudin but her co-star Amy Adams from Doubt (although in this film the two don’t share a scene), Julie's more contemporary plot concerns Adams’ hardworking, highly educated but frustrated failed novelist Julie Powell who moves from Brooklyn to Queens in 2002 while the aftermath of 9/11 is still painfully fresh.

Spending her days in a cubicle alternating from anger to tears of heartache as she takes calls while employed with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation—Powell discovers that the only solace she receives from a hard day at the office is in the certainty of following a recipe she knows and trusting that she’ll be able to predict the outcome of its resulting comfort food.

Following a disastrous lunch with her group of power hungry friends from college and an embarrassing article about her lack of success as she nears thirty which finds her feeling dissatisfied with herself as a writer, Powell’s loyal husband Eric (Chris Messina) suggests that she should look for an outlet that somehow gives her the artistic release she desperately needs.

As the dawn of the twenty-first century began the rise in popularity of blogging, suddenly Powell realized precisely what she wanted to do. But unlike the flood of vanity blogs filled with random thoughts, gossip, Dear Diary like entries, or items that most of us would never want to read, she put her literary skills to good use and employed an intriguing hook by embarking on a quest to cook all 524 recipes in 365 days contained within the culinary tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

While Powell gets to work on her blog, writer/director Nora Ephron has been deftly weaving us through the simultaneous and similar challenge facing Meryl Streep’s Julia Child who—no stranger to governmental work-- like Powell has also moved and is in search of something to do that will fulfill her on a personal and creative level.

Thus, we follow Streep’s journey as Julia Child from her 1948 arrival in Paris until she eventually channeled her appetite for life and food into the study of cuisine, becoming not just the first American woman to study at Cordon Bleu but to eventually bring her academic pursuits to America with the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking which was co-written with Louise Bertholle and Simone Beck.

Easily the greatest actress working today, Streep manages to fully convince us she’s Child within seconds, going beyond that recognizable accent that was made part of our pop culture landscape once more via Dan Akyroyd on Saturday Night Live by fully embracing just how much Child simply loved life and seemed to treasure all those with whom she came into contact.

Moreover, the Child sequences in Paris are far more compelling than any of the material involving Powell. And unfortunately this seems as though it's because, no matter how much you ultimately dress it up—aside from her genuine affection for Child- the blog itself felt like a race-to-the-finish-line style gimmick rather than a true celebration of the overwhelming amount of work that Child put into the book so many who own it take for granted. Of course, this probably was not Powell's intention but for truncated film reasons, that's the way it comes across.

Additionally, despite my admiration for Adams as one of my generation’s most talented actresses, she isn’t given very much with which to work. Basically, Adams' Powell seems to be a pretty narcissistic character especially considering the fact that as evidenced in the script-- not only does it indicate that it’s female driven professional jealousy that drives her to blog but the film also contains a conversation that’s nearly entirely comprised of her character and another agreeing on how much of a bitch Powell is-- as well as another throwaway line that all women hate their friends.

Thus, since the representation of Powell went against the celebration of living life to the fullest and Child’s zest for this manner of being, I kept thinking how much better the movie would’ve been if they’d axed the Julie Powell plot completely and just gone solely with a film about the fascinating Julia Child.

This idea was solidified by the pitch-perfect chemistry that Streep had with her Devil Wears Prada costar Stanley Tucci who portrayed her adoring husband Paul. Able to spark so well together that early into the picture you can actually see Streep blush right through her makeup-- and indeed, according to the production notes from Sony’s Columbia Pictures, Streep suggested Tucci for the role—the two present a refreshing depiction of a true marriage of equals.

Of course they have their troubles and Streep and Tucci are able to bring quiet layers to their work showing private doubts and fears of not fitting in during a few unscripted dialogue-free moments that ordinarily would’ve been left on the cutting room floor. Yet their relationship unlike Julie and Eric’s which mostly consists of grocery buying, food tasting, and disagreements was the one that truly inspired and nourished me as a jaded twenty-first century singleton the way that Child's food and cookbook has nourished countless chefs over the years.

For, they not only support each other through the hard times of feeling less like a man or a woman when he’s interrogated during the McCarthy era and humiliated and likewise as Child is unable to have a child but also in the way they seem to look at each other as though they’re still the only people in the room. And this is evidenced in the cute (yet slightly scandalous) nude bubble bath etc. postcard photos recreated on film that they took to share with others their love and delight in life and each other.

All in all, it's an ambitious and highly literary film that combines not just two works of nonfiction including Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia and Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme’s My Life in France as well as her famous cookbook along with what I can only imagine was endless research in a masterful script by Nora Ephron. Additionally it proves to her harshest critics she’s much more than the queen of the romantic comedies whom they'd had her pegged to be and although the Julie portion of the film made it a bit unbalanced, it’s still highly recommended.

Likewise, given another wondrous turn by Streep and a dynamic supporting performance from Tucci who helps augment our leading lady, I believe that Ephron’s work may be up for some serious awards consideration also given the amazing talent involved behind the scenes from producer Rudin, Benjamin Button and Painted Veil Oscar nominated composer Alexandre Desplat and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (Closer, Angels in America, Charlie Wilson’s War, Rent).

However, as a longtime fan of Ephron’s--for this reviewer, the most inspiring and empowering story involved in the production from a female standpoint aside from Ms. Julia Child’s is that of Ms. Nora Ephron’s who—with Julie & Julia seemed to provide a subtextual third character and narrative to the piece of a woman seeking inspiration, something to do, and the right outlet to find herself. To explain-- with this film, Ephron managed to do just that as a filmmaker.

As when it comes to Julia, Ephron has actually created something that looks and feels completely different than any of her other works and at its heart, it’s a film that applauds a woman’s need to find a creative outlet. And while most moviegoers will be caught up fully in the tale of the characters, I was just as invested in the evolution of the woman yelling “action” and the way that somehow she managed to juggle various texts to produce not just a cohesive structure but a mightily impressive and intelligent screenplay at the same time.

For, while I’m sure that the movie will have a tough time battling the testosterone fare of GI Joe, to me the greatest measure of its success would be that-- similar to both Julie and Julia-- if Nora Ephron has finally realized just how valuable, worthwhile and important her work has been to female filmmakers and audience members all along.

And, much like Julia Child trying to fight prejudices and labels against the Americans trying to master French cuisine-- Ephron has battled the Rom-Com label for years. And although her romantic comedies are still the most sophisticated ones I’ve seen in decades, with Julie & Julia she proved that she can leave the genre whenever she wants and meander directly into Rudin territory of literary works without managing to forget to season the work with intelligence, feminism, and wit.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

Movie Review: Weather Girl (2009)

Arriving on DVD 12/29

Movie Still Slideshow



View the Trailer

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





In writer/director Blayne Weaver's utterly charming indie summer sleeper, Tricia O'Kelley plays the titular (albeit soon-to-be-former) weather girl who's as sassy as hell and she's not going to take this anymore.

As we learn in the movie's memorable opener-- she's driven sassy by being forced to be sassy. Likewise, the factors of her restlessness consist of working in an industry where the show's leads are referred to as "anchors" whereas O'Kelley's 35 year old college educated professional Sylvia is still patronizingly described as a "girl" complete with the sexist stereotype of "sassy" being part of her daily on-air introduction that's of course mimicked all over town (you've seen The Weather Man and Groundhog Day). Of course, this isn't helped by being given the thankless and tireless quest to come up with new adjectives for the word "rain" in Seattle while pointing to a green screen sharing-- what Sylvia reveals in her "career suicide" meltdown is not news but "tidbits for dumb people."

Yet, the most pressing reason that has "blacken[ed] all of" her "skies of blue"-- to quote Ella Fitzgerald-- is that she's found the underwear of the perky alcoholic co-anchor Sherry (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Kaitlin Olson) in the condo she's shared with the main anchor, Dale (NCIS star Mark Harmon) for the past two years.

Confronting Dale and Sherry live and on the air of their Seattle morning program where the network affiliate manager Blair Underwood (obviously frantic about FCC violations and viewer complaints for her "R" rated tirade) wants to cut and immediately go to commercial despite the camera crew's decision to keep rolling since this is the stuff of television gold.

Ridiculing not just her position at the station and encouraging viewers to pick up a newspaper but also belittling the "amateurish" sexual technique of Dale-- her on-air blow-up soon becomes a bigger YouTube-like online hit than the Lily Tomlin/David O'Russell back-and-forth exchange (in separate videos) from the set of I Heart Huckabees.

Yet, shortly thereafter, realizing she's given up her job as well as her medical insurance, her condo, and everything else by becoming the laughingstock of the hiring circuit for-- as a friend chides-- her "weather girl" resume, Sylvia quickly seeks shelter by crashing on the couch in the apartment of her younger brother, Walt (Ryan Devlin). And, after lowering her standards, she accepts a job as a waitress for Jane Lynch (effective in a cameo that seems to be a distant and less crazy cousin to the character she played in Role Models).

While some (read: male) critics are easily dismissing the female-centric work-- albeit one crafted by a male writer/director with a knack for clever dialogue-- via that shudder inducing overused description of comparing it to a Lifetime Movie, it's still a highly entertaining feel-great rom-com that benefits considerably from its avoidance of set stereotypes.

For example, as opposed to most Sex and the City knockoffs, Sylvia's two friends (Marin Hinkle and Alex Kapp Horner) are the opposite of supportive, going as far as to set her up with Hinkle's ex on the TV show Two and a Half Men (Jon Cryer) as a man whose biological clock is ticking so hard that he wants to "fast-track" the relationship in a way that makes him-- as Sylvia describes-- "probably the creepiest person on the planet."

While admittedly the film is fairly predictable especially when Sylvia finds herself on the receiving end of the adorable puppy dog crush of Walt's highly articulate, subtly funny and openly flirtatious 29 year old best friend Byron (Patrick J. Adams) which evolves into a "friends with benefits" arrangement with Sylvia's rule that he's not allowed to fall in love with her despite their frequent couplings-- the scenes between Byron and Sylvia are some of the best ones in the film.

However, most likely this is because they may have come from a personal place as the writer/director shared in the production notes that he "got the idea for Weather Girl after dating a woman about five years older than me... The difference in age was minimal... but the pressures she felt professionally, from her friends and from society kept hammering home this idea that 'she didn't have time.' I really liked the idea of this woman who seems to have it all... but then gives it all up and has to start over again with those pressures looming over her."

Moreover, societal pressures and human relationships-- not just romantic ones-- are laced throughout and help make the movie work as Sylvia's estrangement from her friends who blankly tell her that she's cold and puts up emotional walls (which Dale has has used as the reason he's cheated) is so strong that they forget that she even has a brother at one point. And even Walt is given one revealing scene to show our disconnect from one another when he admits that he's worried when she becomes involved with Byron that she'll mess up his one only real friendship.

In fact, the dynamic between the three and the novelty of a strong emotional rollercoaster friendship between a brother and a sister-- instead of two guys just leaning on each other in a "bromance" or women sipping "cosmos"-- make this the opposite of a Lifetime feature. Likewise, it helps elevate the obviously budget-strapped indie (wherein we have to forgive a few "convenient" moments like Sylvia and Byron running into her friends illogically at night on the docks for no reason) in a way that hides its flaws via the thoughtful script and the sheer likability of the cast.

O'Kelley, Adams and Devlin in particular are all wonderful and a special mention must be given to Cryer and Harmon's knack for making what could've been a pretty clear-cut way to tackle each character into something else altogether... so that instead of just one single joke, they get a lot of mileage out of their roles whether it's Cryer's cameo as a Hummer driving baby mama hunter or Harmon's news man diva who sleeps in his makeup towel but feels that he's the victim in his infidelity.

However, to me, the real story was O'Kelley who is a terrific talent and one who energetically tapped into her character and believed so much in the work that she was on board from the start, fighting to help get funding, cast-mates and serving as a producer on the film. Additionally, I truly admired her lack of fear in showing us the flaws of Sylvia's sense of entitlement before she gets a dose of reality and when she ascertains that it's so much better to be a real woman than a "girl" on TV-- even if, unfortunately the beginning of that revelation happens to occur live on-the-air when Sylvia walks out with a pair of pink panties and a whole lot to say.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

Blu-ray Review: Spring Breakdown (2009)

New On DVD & Blu-ray

Find the Film On iTunes



Rent or Own On Demand

Download the MP3 Soundtrack
On Amazon or iTunes

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





You know how annoying it is when you're at a party and you see one of those guys who just assumes that the more beer he pounds and the louder he gets, the more hilarious he is? Or the random drunk girl who shows up at the party already loaded and proceeds to dirty dance with a wall... even though there's no music playing? Well, if you multiply these poor unfortunate souls by a dozen, that's basically how obnoxious movies about spring break are.

It's sort of like when you're forced to look at a photo album at a family function when you politely inquire about a trip and the person describing everyone in each picture states "oh man, you should've been there," every five minutes or as disheartening as meeting a friend you haven't seen in years and in the attempt of catching up with them, you realize that most of their stories begin with, "and this one time, I got so wasted..."

Crude, rude, and filled with the type of cardboard characters we'd normally try to avoid in real life-- you get a sense that Spring Breakdown screenwriter Ryan Shiraki (working from a story idea by Shiraki and Rachel Dratch) was hoping his film would be Romy and Michelle's Spring Break or a female-centric version of Old School at the very least.

But and so unfortunately, essentially what we have with this Warner Premiere is the equivalent of a Saturday Night Live skit that killed in rehearsal, was left in the show with the highest of expectations where instead of sending us into hysterics it died halfway through the five minute sketch. Yet, instead of jumping ship, the actors all kept working at it for eighty additional minutes-- just like the drunk dude who gets louder or the girl who spins faster at the party to try and make you laugh or at least notice them.

Unfortunately, it fails miserably, so like the loud guy's skanky counterpart who shakes it like Gwen Stefani (not understanding that maybe it's inappropriate to do so at a dinner party)-- the insanely talented cast of the film willingly puts themselves through comedy hell just to try and steal even the tiniest chuckle or half-smile from viewers who've taken a chance on it due to the sheer star power involved.



Although in You've Got Mail Parker Posey proved just how masterful she is at bossing people around (even yelling at the tic-tacs in her purse!), in Spring Breakdown she turns into a frumpy environmentalist working for an oil addicted, shotgun toting female senator played by one of my favorite scene stealers in the form of Role Models, For Your Consideration, and 40 Year Old Virgin star Jane Lynch.

Set in Washington D.C. fifteen years after Posey's Becky and her two best friends Judi (Rachel Dratch) and Gayle (Amy Poehler) were booed off the stage of their collegiate talent show for their love of performing "women centered folk music," they realize that although they have fun with their make your own pizza parties, karaoke Fridays, and yearly Americana road trips, they're not exactly living the lives they always wanted.

While Posey's Becky is constantly humiliated by her boss, she gets an unexpected opportunity for a higher staff position when she's persuaded to travel to South Padre Island to covertly keep an eye on the senator's daughter Ashley (Amber Tamblyn) during spring break.



Despite fearing she's going to be letting down her friends and their plans to travel to a women's folk celebration in Tempe, AZ-- after seeing eye dog trainer Gayle is rejected by a blind guy for not being beautiful enough (Poehler's husband Will Arnett in a nice cameo) and the living-in-denial Judi finally figures out the millionth clue everyone else knows in realizing her fiance is gay-- the two decide they'll tag along with Becky to party away their problems.



Although they're led to believe that Ashley is a stereotypical girl-gone-wild, she's essentially a younger version of Becky as a nerdy college student who lives for the renaissance festival and is crushed when her boyfriend dumps her for a beautiful sorority bimbo.

Determined to prove her boyfriend wrong that good girls can be bad and her mother right that she's as popular and as wild as her mother had been at her age, Tamblyn's Ashley ventures to South Padre where Becky and her friends hope to accidentally encounter her, without letting on that they were sent to South Padre for that very reason.

Of course, Becky and Ashley hit it off since they have so much in common. But while Becky takes her duty seriously in trying to as she notes, "turn girls into better human beings," Mean Girls star Poehler ends up reliving that film's plot as the Lindsay Lohan character this time when she befriends the hot sorority sisters by getting rid of predatory, horny males with her dog training skills and Dratch discovers what she's been missing out on by living life with a gay guy. To make up for lost time, she begins drowning her sorrows in endless alcohol along with the scene-stealing Missi Pyle as an old cougar who runs the hotel they're staying at and is celebrating her sixteenth spring break.

So what begins with some mild promise in its amusing set up of nerdy women trying to stand up for themselves ends up collapsing into an obnoxious, tasteless, and painfully unfunny version of all of the spring break stereotypes and annoying rejects from parties, bars, and clubs that you can imagine stuffed into an eighty-four minute work that feels twice as long.

Granted, the likable cast and especially Pyle who damn near saves the whole film and the under-utilized Lynch try their best. Of the main trio, special credit should be given to Poehler who-- similar to her work alongside Tina Fey in the weak but more amusing Baby Mama-- manages to improve every scene she's in by going all out in any given situation no matter how ridiculous or demeaning it may be, attempting to at least keep you interested even when the characters have long since worn out their welcome.

The Blu-ray technical aspects are solid sound-wise especially given the film's fitting soundtrack that compliments the setting and although the picture is very clear, some of the flesh tones appear a bit soft and as I can only suggest it as a rental anyway (unless you find you just have to have it)-- depending on product availability you'd probably do just as well to rent it in DVD since my guess is that the quality is probably fairly similar.



With a ho-hum commentary by Shiraki and Dratch, extra scenes that don't add any bonus humor and a laughless gag reel-- the major highlight of the Blu-ray if you become a fan that is would be the digital copy feature which is compatible with Windows Media and portable devices.



Moreover, of the recent female-driven films I've seen lately on disc-- it's somewhere in the middle. The break-down: on the one hand, it's infinitely better than the talented Heather Graham being relegated to starring in what is essentially one extended toilet joke in Baby on Board; given far more bonus points for genuine "girl power" sentiment than the anti-feminist Bride Wars despite the fact that that film actually felt like its screenplay was a bit more polished; yet not quiet as genuinely entertaining as the overwhelmingly predictable but more earnest and emotionally satisfying Renee Zellweger vehicle New in Town.

While it's challenging to make any movie about spring break or beach life actually worthwhile (see Surfer Dude for proof)-- save perhaps for the tongue-in-cheek underrated '80s take on the Frankie and Annette pictures as witnessed in Shag--the biggest disappointment is that we're dealing with a dream movie cast of great female comedic talent. In fact, these women are so perfect that they almost made me wish other funny women would've been brought to the table as well such as Maya Rudolph, Sarah Silverman, Kathy Griffin, Tina Fey, Cheri O'Teri, Debra Messing, Lauren Graham, Lisa Kudrow, Megan Mullaly, Cheryl Hines, Judy Greer, and Molly Shannon. Furthermore, it would've been preferable if they would've sat down to write something that would've been much better suited to their tremendous talent rather than forcing the Breakdown stars to endure salsa fights and keg stands.

Of course-- as a woman who wishes there would be more films for women that we can actually laugh with rather than just turning us into stereotypical bridezillas or house bunnies-- it's definitely worth a look for fans of the cast alone to send a message to Hollywood to at least make more films with a large female cast since for every one Spring Breakdown we're faced with roughly twenty frat pack male buddy movies. Still, that's not enough to recommend doing more than just saying you can rent it for a few chuckles. However, like the drunk girl or loud bombed guy at the party, once it ends, you'll quickly forget about it.