I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - Movie Review

Well, for a while I swore off most Hollywood movies and with good reason. I've seen a plethora of bad ones in the past year (either through rental or purchase). It does seem like the old days with movies that have a good plot, superlative acting and creative humour have fallen by the wayside, now replaced with dull, unimaginative and utterly unfunny jokes and non-memorable catch-phrases.

This past Saturday, my wife was out visiting a friend in another town, so I had my son for the day so I thought I'd take him to a movie (at the theatre). He has only seen two movies in the theatre before - Curious George and Over the Hedge, but based on what I heard about The Bee Movie, it seemed pretty good. To my pleasant surprise, it was. Of course, after the amount of cash I dropped to see it (tix plus food), it made me think twice, but I thought, "well, at least Hollywood is not all crap". So given the fact that we are on vacation today due to my wife's pregnancy appointments, I thought I'd rent a few movies for the family to watch last night. I got my son Ratatoule, which was pretty good, and I got my wife and I the recently released comedy, "I Now Pronounce You as Chuck and Larry". I am generally not a big Adam Sandler fan, but I thought that the premise of the movie was interesting. I didn't think that it was be a pro gay marriage movie, but more of a corny cheeseball flick that was more immature and had some slapstick situational humour. Boy, was I wrong on all counts.

The whole premise of the movie centers around a couple of firefighters, Larry (Kevin James) and Chuck (Adam Sandler). Larry is a widower who is raising a young son and daughter, and is, by all means, a family man. Chuck is a philandering man-whore who will be happy to get booty any way he can. As a result of Larry saving Chuck's life, Chuck indicates that he owes Larry. Larry decides that Chuck can repay this debt by "marrying" him through a same-sex partnership, since that would entitle Chuck to get Larry's pension in order to take care of his kids, should Larry die. Then, of course, things spiral in all directions when the scheme starts to take all sorts of unexpected twists. Without revealing much about the plot to spoil it for people who haven't seen the movie, I do have some general observations about the movie.

First, some positive elements. While I don't condone fraud, I do think that the fact that the Larry character wants to take care of his children is an admirable quality. In my view, the ends do not justify the means, but surely we can be sympathetic to a father who wants to take care of his children. Another positive aspect of the movie was the deep friendship seen in the Chuck and Larry characters - the fact that despite squabbles, and irritating each other to death at times, they still maintained a fairly warm, brotherly comaraderie, backing each other up when needed, and being there emotionally for each other when needed.

Despite some positive qualities, I feel that the movie is severely tainted by some negative components. The first of which is its obviously rabidly pro-gay stance, which I suppose should not be surprising, given Hollywood's severe left-wing bent. Not just in the Chuck and Larry characters, but also in Larry's son, who obviously is in need of some testosterone shots, based on some of his past times and activities. Perhaps I was naive, but I was seriously surprised by how much gay lifestyle and gay culture made it into this movie. I expected something slapstick silly, but there was obviously the same old bullshit message about "tolerance for gay, transexual, transgender, asexual", and the other plethora of sexual deviances known to man, as well as the constant barrage of cross-dressing men and such. To have Dan Ackroyd make his little speech at the end about tolerance was baffling, since his character wasn't that well developed to begin with.

Even though I am not one to be easily offended, I took tremendously gross offence at the way Asians were stereotyped in this movie. At the beginning, the Chuck character can be seen gallivanting with a group of scantily-clad Asian girls (reinforcing an unfortunate existing prevalent stereotype). I've never liked Rob Schneider, but the fact that he actually had the gall to put on a ridiculous suit from the 60s/70s (with matching haircut) and then make-up his face so he looks Japanese, and then put on a historically stereotypical broken-English Japanese accent, making the character look severely unintelligent - well, I can say that I will be boycotting anything to do with this asswipe in the near future. Of course, if he had done this and painted his face black and put on an ebonics accent, the film would have never seen the light of day and he probably would be fearing for his life right now. But it disturbs me greatly to see that Asians seem to be fair fodder for racist propaganda in these movies. Thankfully, I have heard that the movie has more than its fair share of critics other than me.

Combine all this with the fact that the movie constantly pokes fun at the weight of Larry - I'm surprised that Kevin James accepted the script - it shows that this movie, while trying to get laughs, will stoop to the lowest of the low to obtain them. Don't get me wrong - there is nothing wrong with humour, and even humour that may not be necessarily in the best taste - but it should not be at the expense of those who have historically been targets of such bigotry. To see Sandler and Schneider, both of whom have Jewish blood (and Schneider has a bit of Filipino blood) mock people racially - well, it's clear that both aren't well read in history. I once read Schneider commenting on how he would never work with Mel Gibson after Gibson's anti-semitic remarks. What a freaking hypocrite.

This perhaps should not be of much surprise to me, but I was a little shocked to see the overt sexuality in the movie, including the scene where the Chuck character is visibly fondling the breasts of the Jessica Biel character. My wife and I thought that was really dumb, not funny, and was there just to put some shock value into the movie

This movie had lots of potential - but as often is the case in Hollywood movies, I should not get my hopes up.

Away From Her - Film Review

Yesterday night, I did something unexpected, something that was totally against the fabric of my masculine being, something that was arguably against the way God had designed a man.

I rented a chick flick.

I hate putting down my hard earned money on crappy movies of all genres. It just so happens that based on my experience, these tear-jerker dramatic types tend to take the cake, in terms of making me realize that food digestion takes more than a couple of hours. But in the spirit of wanting to afford my wife some viewing options, I thought it best for me to not force my preference of action/suspense thriller movies onto her once more. She is pregnant, after all, and I must be sensitive to her proclivities at this point in her pregnancy.

So I scanned the new release shelves of Blockbuster for anything that would elicit a reaction that would be akin to "Like hell, will I watch that!" Just for good measure, I read the description on the back of the box, and if it was something that screamed, "You're a true homo if you watch this!", that would be my choice for the evening.

So I brought home a movie entitled, "Away From Her". Essentially, from what I remember from what the box said, the movie is about a married couple over 50, both of whom are struggling with the wife's obviously increased disposition towards developing Alzheimer's disease, and how he reconciles the fact that her affections are for another man.

If you are a truly heterosexual red-blooded male, and read that on the back of the box, I am willing to bet nine times out of ten, you'd place the box back on the shelf and run out of the store, grabbing your hair, and screaming to have dinner at Hooter's. I guess I felt like the 1 in 10 men who contemplated renting the movie long enough to actually rent it. Besides, I reasoned, this is for my wife, not for me. I'll go along and perhaps daydream about my business transactions or my investment portfolio, as I present the disposition of actually watching the movie.

Now, I did not know that this was a Canadian film. I may have suspected it, since I saw the lovely and talented Sarah Polley was producing it. And it starred Gordon Pinsent, whose Canadian films I've seen before and whose acting I admire, as well as Julie Christie, who was once a easy-on-the-eyes Russian agent in a James Bond movie.

I won't give away many plot details in case you haven't seen the movie, but for a Canadian production, it was pretty good (and I say that to not debase Canadian productions, but it's just a known fact that while Canadian movies are generally a breath of fresh air from the standard American fare, they are generally of lower caliber from all aspects from production, acting, plot and music). Away From Her was not a flashy movie, but based on the subject matter, it wasn't supposed to be. You won't be finding any stunts or explosions/light shows, or latest cutting edge music on the soundtrack. It was a wistful, contemplative movie that really relied on Pinsent and Christie's characters to roll the plot along. There were some nice supportive characters which were acted very well by their real-life counterparts, which added more rounding and substance to the story.

The progression of the plot, while some may consider a bit on the slow side, I thought was done very well in order to really delve into the characters feelings and expressions, as well as to show the slow onset of Alzheimer's. There were a number of scenes in which nothing was said, but the point was made quite clear, before the scene faded. I thought that such tools to progress the plot and enhance character development were very well done.

I did notice, unfortunately, that there was obviously some seemingly forced Canadian content (quota) that they had to meet, since they threw in names of Canadian cities and towns in the oddest places in conversation. I think from the cinematography and landscape, you can tell it was a Canadian production - they didn't have to put in all the references to Brantford or British Columbia or whatever. It was really out of place. In U.S. movies, they don't name drop U.S. towns and cities so blatantly.

Also out of place (and likely inappropriate) was the blatant anti-American sentiment seen when the characters are watching coverage of the war in the Middle East. This is obviously Polley's severe left-wing bent that is making its appearance, but for a movie with this topic, it neither added to the plot nor added to the characters.

Sadly, in today's films, the producers and writers just cannot get away from swearing or using cuss words. Unfortunately Away From Her was not immune to this. There were several instances where characters used f-words liberally (the only person who used a swear word that was somewhat believeable was the teenage gothic girl who sat on the couch beside Mr. Anderson, at one scene. To have a frail old woman on a walker, who obviously had some horny hormones going, using the term, "claustrof*ck" seemed not only out of place, but it was seen as a cheap stunt to be on par with typical Hollywood productions. Take out all the swearing and the film would be so much better.

Overall, however, I found the film to be...oh my gosh...heartwarming. My wife made liberal use of the Kleenex box throughout the movie and I must admit, I did develop some moist eyeballs at several points (probably due to my house being so damn dry in the fall). I thought they they explored the progression of Alzheimer's in a respectful and realistic way. The actors did a fantastic job in bringing out the emotions of the characters and that only added to the admirable job in how the characters were developed. My wife wished that the ending was a bit neater (it left a few loose ends), but I think it was deliberately done like that as to not follow the typical American film formula. Away from Her is definitely worth your consideration, and no, I won't think you are a homo if you watch it.