Movie Review: Sex Tape (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

"Who has sex for three hours? That's the length of the movie Lincoln. You did the full Lincoln." That's the usually hilarious Rob Corddry as Robbie talking to his friends Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel), a couple who try to rekindle their once passionate sex life in the movie Sex Tape. That line got the biggest laugh at my screening. But the guffaws felt Pavlovian, like the canned laughter on a TV sitcom designed to entice the viewer into yukking it up as well. Even the very title, Sex Tape, indicates how out of step this movie is with the times. It's not a tape anymore, guys.

Movie Reviews: In a World... (2013) and Things Never Said (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

As Carol Solomon, Lake Bell plays a vocal coach whose only work prospect at the moment is coaching actress Eva Longoria on a cockney accent for a movie she has to completely re-loop.

Longoria: Is that what you think you stupid slapper?
Carol: "Fink." Switch out the "t-h" for an "f'."
Longoria: Is that what you fink you stupid slapper?

It's a thankless task, made worse by the fact that Carol's dad Sam (Fred Melamed) believes it's the closest she'll come to following in his famed footsteps. Dad is a semi-retired movie trailer voice-over artist operating under the stage name Sam Sotto. His assertions of few opportunities for women in his line of work are constant and dispiriting. But Carol makes her own breaks, and is soon pursuing a career holy grail, to resurrect the cliché opener for many film previews, "In a world...", words that haven't been uttered over a trailer since the passing of the man most associated with the phrase, Don La Fontaine. The slight yet ingenious premise of In a World... allows Bell, who also wrote and directed, to craft a hilariously original comedy that feels like a Christopher Guest-directed mockumentary with an eccentric Annie Hall-type at its center.

Movie Review: Pain & Gain (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

It's been over a week since I saw Pain & Gain. I'm only now getting around to writing about it because it has taken me this long to sort out my feelings about it. I say this like if it's some sort of deep, philosophical exegesis on the commodification of the human body by the exercise industry when it's really just a fluffy Michael Bay crime flick. Perhaps that is what has made it more difficult to read this film.

Birthday Grab Bag

by Tony Dayoub

It's my birthday, which I share not because I want you to leave me some mushy comment (that's what Facebook is for), but because it's my way of saying this post is going to be written in the spirit of this special day. That is, I could write about the Seventies gem Five Easy Pieces (1970), which I saw last night at Atlanta's historic movie palace, the Plaza Theatre, in a restored print celebrating the film's 40th anniversary; or some marvelous presents I received today, Criterion's Blu-rays of 8 1/2 (1963) and Red Desert (1964), as well as the Blu-ray of Hitchcock's classic, North by Northwest (1959); all beautiful films which deserve deeper thoughts than I'm willing to bring forth today. Instead, I'll save those for the near future because today, I'm just kicking back, dashing off some quick notes on some of the other gifts I got today which, though excellent in every way, don't really deserve something epic in the way of critical consideration.