Blu-ray Review: Spring Breakdown (2009)

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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.

Movie Review: Love N' Dancing (2009)

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When times are hard, there’s no cinematic escape to lift you quite as high as the old standbys of “love” and “dancing,” and such is the case with this old-fashioned, non-challenging, cinematic slice of comfort food—the aptly named Love N' Dancing.



And far more fittingly-- in case moms were feeling left out from the summer box office that puts an emphasis on fare for teenage boys-- this adorable if admittedly predictable charmer opens just in time for Mother’s Day-- for the seven or eight of you who won’t be trying to “beam up” for Star Trek.

Intriguingly, the film’s roots began several years ago when the actor and comedian Tom Malloy became inspired to pen the script while taking in his first professional dance competition. So while the idea to make a dance movie long before they were again in vogue with the advent of So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars on network television seemed odd half a decade ago, today it feels like it’s exactly the right time for Love N' Dancing to land in theatres.

Following the success of mindless diversions like the wildly popular High School Musical series and last summer’s critically panned but audience revered Mamma Mia!-- escapism seems to be precisely what audiences need as Love N' Dancing choreographer and four-time U.S. Open Swing Dance Champion Robert Royston astutely surmises, “if you look throughout American history, we as a culture have often embraced dancing in times of great economic stress.”



Although as Royston continues, dance movies are very different than musicals--now more than ever we’re seeking out something that as he explains, “makes people feel good, and… gives them something to do that isn’t expensive or complicated,” and Love N' Dancing is guilty on all counts.

An affable trifle you can predict the entire way through before the end of the opening act—its uncomplicated familiarity nonetheless takes a backseat to the feeling it evokes in its celebration of West Coast Swing dancing, romance and the tried and true plot of a woman engaged to the wrong man who finds the right one and her true self when she sets foot in a dance studio.



Luckily the grace and enthusiasm of Amy Smart elevates her standard chick-lit character from its one-dimensionality of the page that downright shines when she’s challenged by the slithering, all business, sans romantic maneuvering of her fiancé Billy Zane (playing the type of self-involved jerk he does best).



And although it’s unfortunately hindered by the otherwise tremendously talented dancer and screenwriter Tom Malloy’s weak acting presence as the romantic lead and third part of the love triangle opposite Smart and Zane, he manages to write his way out of what could’ve been a mess by inserting a clever twist into the old formula by making his professional dancer turned instructor deaf.



Unwilling to compete anymore since he’s convinced that his prior back-to-back championship titles may have been awarded based on sympathy rather than merit, Jake gets by as a public school motivational speaker by day and dance teacher by night. And in doing so, he meets Smart’s buttoned up, bespectacled and cardigan clad middle school instructor Jessica in the daylight and then arranges to instruct she and her fiancé in the art of dance in evening sessions to ready them for their nuptials.

However, when Zane’s BlackBerry, Bluetooth headset, and business wheeling and dealing out-rank his affection for Jessica as he repeatedly ditches her to take classes alone, soon Smart’s Jessica begins to recall the budding dancer she’d been as a young woman as she realizes that both Jake’s encouragement and West Coast Swing becomes her.

Still hung up on his old professional partner (Royston’s real life wife—the actress and dancer Nicola Royston) who tries to lure Jack back to competing with none-too-subtle flirtation--soon he begins imagining what it would be like to return back to the ballroom but this time, with Jessica on his arm.



While it doesn’t take a chemist to figure out exactly where this formula is heading—the movie’s stellar production values (that hide its twenty-eight day shoot and substitution of Albuquerque for Philadelphia) with top-notch cinematography, editing, soundtrack, and direction from She’s All That helmer Robert Iscove ensures it never overstays its welcome thanks largely in part to the plethora of professional dancers who comprise the work.

Utilizing West Coast Swing for the very reasons that “it’s not only visually exciting, but it’s the kind of dancing that works well with almost any type of music,” as Royston continues—the film’s authenticity in the style reigns supreme since in the labor of love work, “there are 18 world and national championship title holders represented." Likewise, it’s always thrilling to know that what you’re watching is the genuine article and not just Flashdance style movie trickery.

While a few of the film’s subplots including an underwritten Caroline Rhea whom appears merely as a foil to converse with Smart (often in the middle school bathroom) and a lesbian dance instructor who fills in as a gender-bender twist on the “gay best friend” character for our leading man feel a bit half-baked, it’s always fun to see Zane work it as the smarmy modern day cousin to the character he played in James Cameron’s Titanic.

Amusing, frothy, and light as air-- Love N' Dancing doesn’t have any pretenses in trying to be a box office CGI smash. However, it does succeed for its built in audience of dance enthusiasts (especially the growing fan base in the dawn of Dancing With the Stars) and those of us who--tired at the end of a long hard day of an even longer and harder week--just want to go watch some Love N' Dancing. Even though in Iscove’s movie it works to the film’s advantage if you’re hoping to see the two qualities in reverse order as the dancing far surpasses the love which in my filmgoer’s eye, works just fine as that's entertainment indeed.