Movie Moment: Ted

There isn't a whole lot I can say about Ted that hasn't been said already.  It's a story about a kid, John, (Mark Wahlberg) who makes a wish that his Christmas gift of a teddy bear comes to life.  The wish comes true, John and Ted become "thunder buddies for life," and John slides somewhat unconsciously into adulthood with his pot-smoking bud by his side.  All is well until John's career-conscious yet surprisingly down-to-earth girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) suggests that Ted is preventing them from moving on with their lives.  Masterminded by the man (Seth MacFarlane) who brought us "Family Guy," Ted was an instant box office success, and therefore a testament to America's love affair with fart jokes.

So, is there more to Ted than bathroom humor and the saccharine schmaltz that is raunchiness's good cop twin?  Or is the movie's message more menacing than it seems, hinting at themes of Peter Pan syndrome and the perennial plight of the long-suffering girlfriend?  If so inclined, I could play either side.  But such musings have no place on a blog like this, and anyway, they're kind of a downer.  It's far more fun to focus on the appearances from Ryan Reynolds, Tom Skerritt, Sam Jones (Flash Gordon), and the always dryly amusing Patrick Warburton; the wild wardrobe of Ted's trashy girlfriend (which I vastly preferred to the more sophisticated style of Lori); and the eternal battle between the diamond-in-the-rough guy and the slick-but-smarmy guy (played by Joel McHale, who is always that guy) because we all want to root for the diamonds (even those of us who are duds).  But my favorite part?  Hands down, it was getting carded while buying the tickets :)        

Movie Moment: Adventureland

One of the perks of being a one-woman felt factory is getting to watch lots of movies while I work.  Last weekend I rhinestoned a trio of French fry-themed necklaces to the tune of Adventureland, a dark comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart as a couple of nearly-adult kids trying to figure it all out one summer while working at an amusement park.  Set in the late 1980s, it's more angst-ridden than bubblegum, playing up the murkier undercurrents of carnival life and intermingling them with all the live wire edges that come with being young.  Rounding out the cast are Ryan Reynolds as a sleazy married guy who hits on all the girls and "Saturday Night Live's" Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the dorky but devoted married couple who serve as his foil.  Engaging, gritty, and refreshingly real, Adventureland is the kind of story that makes you want to relive and bury your early twenties all at the same time.

Movie Moment: The Change-Up

If ever there was a movie made up of equal parts sleaze and schmaltz, then it's The Change-Up. A weird way to begin a post I know, but that's what comes to mind. Although the identity switching comedy is as old as the hills (Freaky Friday, anyone?), it remains intriguing. After all, who wouldn't want to trade places with someone else for a while, if only to find out what that person's life is like? It was this thinking (along with my love of stupid comedies, which, incidentally, requires almost no thinking) that lured me into the theater.

The Change-Up centers around best buds Dave (Jason Bateman), a family man on the fast track to law partner, and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), a playboy out-of-work actor. Their moment of reckoning comes when they pee in a public fountain one drunken night while confessing jealousy for each other's lives. The lightning crashes, the lights go out, and before they know it, they've swapped bodies.

Workaholic Dave realizes how much he misses having the time and privacy to do things like Rollerblade and use the bathroom uninterrupted. But he also learns that Mitch's life isn't all fun and games, eventually appreciating just how good he has it and how much he's been neglecting his family. Likewise, Mitch laps up the full-time attention of "people who care about his day," and the perks of an always-full fridge. Still, balancing work and family is tough for this perpetual slacker, and he longs for his freedom.

Ground-breaking it's not. But it is interesting in an introspective, "what does it all mean?" kind of way. Not that I imagine that that's the movie's message, or that it even has a message. I caught an interview in which Reynolds and Bateman were quipping that The Change-Up has lots of levels, and that you have to look deep - real deep - to get them all. To be sure, the gratuitous nudity, F-bombs, and just plain gross-out bathroom shenanigans lent the story a B-movie quality that undercut its discordant and often desperate sappiness (and made me look away - far, far away). But then, like most moviegoers, I know that the quality of movies takes a nosedive come August, the glitter of the June and July blockbusters already in the dustpan to be resurrected into DVDs and the winter holiday features still months away.

All criticism aside, it was entertaining to watch Bateman and Reynolds be catapulted into caricatures of the respectively priggish and wise-guy types they typically play only to be reeled back in to portray polar opposites. I wasn't laughing hysterically along with my fellow theater-goers, but I didn't long for my $10.00 back either.