V/H/S [Blu-ray]

The anthology is an important and rightly admired corner of the horror genre. It allows filmmakers to explore a variety of scary stories in a fast-paced and punchy short form that at its best offers more bang for your buck with a string of creepy things that's scares linger long after the credits roll. At its worst, it's a cluttered collection of schlock, bad acting and flat frights. Unfortunately, I found V/H/S--and its grouping of found footage shorts helmed by different directors--falls into the latter.

The Movie:

As a horror fan who harbors a deep respect for both the anthology and found footage subgenres, I was thrilled to finally see V/H/S. When handled properly, both of these horror arenas can offer something distinctly terrifying. However, I found V/H/S to be a muddled mess of thinly drawn characters, nonsensical narratives, and disturbing misogyny.

There are six stories in total, the first being a framing device where a batch of interchangeable lowlifes aims to rob a decrepit house of a mysterious VHS tape. Our introduction to them is their self-recorded crime spree that kicks off with the gang sexually assaulting a woman, seizing her and exposing her bare breasts to the camera as she screams in terror. These men are too vile to relate to, so I had no emotional stake in their story. While the protagonists found in the tapes they watch are lesser degrees of evil?ranging from deceitful lovers to perverse frat boys and would-be rapists?they are still barely developed, so one story after another lacks resonance.

The threadbare writing is largely to blame, but the actors, who are by and large awful with no charisma and dead line readings, don't help. The whole thing feels amateurish, like a film student's attempt at terror. The arcs themselves feel half-formed and are frequently confusing between the shoddy camera work, hiding necessary information, and the narratives presenting setups with no payoffs, or worse yet payoffs that have no setup whatsoever. In short, I was perplexed throughout. WTF moments can be a fun element of horror, but only when they are supported by the storytelling. That is not the case in V/H/S.

Likewise, characters are constantly making choices that are simply convenient for the plot. Chief among these is the common found footage pitfall of a character recording what is essentially coverage for the movie, but from their perspective would be a meaningless moment, like a crook recording himself putting a tape in a VCR then focusing the camera on himself watching it. While two sequences integrate the camera into a character's costume, overcoming this obstacle by making it an easily incorporated part of the narrative, the others contain dissonant moments of "why would you film this?"

Let's move on to the misogyny. First off, while nudity--especially female nudity--and violence against women are standard horror tropes, they are not inherently misogynistic. However, the way both are utilized in V/H/S is insidious. In just the first 40 minutes of the film, its male protagonists ogle, pressure and prod women for sex, commit sexual assault, attempt to covertly record a sex tape twice, and nearly commit rape on a passed-out young woman. But not all women are sex objects or victims of these men's desires. Some are also monsters and murderers, and in one case a literal castrating man-eater. While I believe we are meant to find these men vile, we're still invited to identify them by ogling these women alongside them. This is certainly disturbing, but not in a satisfying horror movie way.

In the end, I found V/H/S to be a major letdown. The sloppy use of the found footage device is unjustified in about half of the shorts, and brings little advantage to the rest, often obscuring characters or action that could make the story more engaging. There's little to cling to as far as the characters go, making for a thoroughly dull viewing experience. While there are some bright spots where actual tension is developed?like a creepy late night video shot by an intruder?the endings generally leave viewers with more questions that feelings of terror. Plus, as this is a Blu-ray review, I feel it's my responsibility to mention that the attempt to achieve the aesthetic of VHS tapes, which is to say, glitchy and low resolution, seems a waste of Blu-ray's high-def format. Ultimately, made up of jumbled stories that would be too weak to stand on their own, V/H/S feels like a film experiment that fails to come together.

The Disc:

Obviously, I did not care for this movie. But if I did, I'd be thrilled for all the insight into its creation these special features provide. Each filmmaker offers their own version of special features for their segment. The helming team Radio Silence presents an alternative ending for "10/31/1998." Glenn McQuaid's contribution is "More Tuesday the 17th," which gives a little background into the mysterious Wendy along with a couple of behind-the-scenes shots and a smattering of scenes deemed too lame for the movie, and rightly so. Director Joe Swanberg interviews his "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" writer Simon Barrett and star Helen Rodgers.

With "Amateur Night ? Balloon Night," David Bruckner gives some insight in how the climactic final shot of "Amateur Night" was achieved, where cameras are rigged to specially equipped balloons. He also delivers a concept design gallery that reveals the monster sketches and prosthetic planning for his man-eater. And a behind-the-scenes photo gallery gives a look into the production of "Tape 56," "Second Honeymoon," "Amateur Night" and "Tuesday the 17th".

"AXS TV: A Look at V/H/S" explains the "creative mission" of the movie with interviews with the crew and clips from the feature. There's also a string of interviews, grouped thusly: V/H/S producers Brad Miska & Zak Zeman, "Tape 56" writer Simon Barrett & director Adam Wingard, "Second Honeymoon" writer-director Ti West, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett of Radio Silence, "Amateur Night" writer-director David Bruckner & "Tuesday the 17th" writer-director Glenn McQuaid, and more from "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" writer Simon Barrett & director Joe Swanberg.

Next on the disc is a commentary track that features a whopping ten people from the movie, including Simon Barrett, Joe Swanberg, Helen Rodgers, Adam Wingard, Brad Miska, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Justin Martinez, David Bruckner, Chad Villella, and Tyler Gillett. Basically, the disc is packed with just about every extra a fan of this feature could want, which might be enough to make up for the purposefully crunchy quality of the movie's look.

Distributor: Magnolia Home Entertainment Starring: Helen Rogers, Hannah Fierman, Joe Sykes, and Jas SamsDirected by: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and Radio SilenceProduced by: Roxanne Benhamin, Gary Binkow, Brad Mishka, and Zak ZemanWritten by: Simon Barrett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence, Nicholas Tecosky, Chad Villella, and Ti West

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Les Misérables [Blu-ray]

Les Miz diehards! Are you terrified Tom Hooper won?t ?get it right?? Than watch this non-musical adaptation of the novel. It?s not exactly bad ? the shots are pretty, the acting?s decent, and the plot shrewdly streamlined ? but its flagrant simplifications are a disservice to the bleak original. After this, Hooper will seem like Scorsese.

The Movie:

What is it about Les Mis?rables that gets its fans into such a tizzy? Is it the melodramatic romance, the tragic revolution, the noble self-sacrifice? Whatever the magic combination the original and stage versions possess, though, is sadly missing here. From start to finish, director Billie August has erected a textbook example of how a Hollywood treatment can ruin a good thing.

At its heart, Les Mis?rables is the story of Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson), a Frenchman who was sentenced to nineteen years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread. A kindly priest soon sets him on the path of righteousness, marred by the constant pursuit of Police Inspector Javert (Geoffrey Rush).

The original Victor Hugo book, weighing in at two thousand pages, features dozens of characters and a labyrinthine plot. Instead of preserving the original structure at the cost of some lesser details, this version sacrifices both plot elements and entire characters in order to savor the details.

On the surface, this decision would appear to benefit the main storyline. Valjean?s unexpected parenthood of Cosette (Claire Danes), daughter of the fallen woman Fantine (Uma Thurman), can have much more screen time when Cosette?s cruel caretakers, the Th?nardiers, barely make an appearance, and their piteous daughter ?ponine doesn?t exist.

But the screenplay does a poor job of managing its dearly bought time. Like any melodrama, the ?umph? of the story is in the characters? emotions: the love of Fantine for her child, the guilt of Valjean over his past. Yet instead of exploring the depth of their angst, the script becomes bogged down in tedious exposition. The characters spend so much time rehashing their exploits that there is barely a moment of silence in the first hour of the film. Whatever happened to ?show, don?t tell??

In addition to making the narrative painfully clear, screenwriter Rafael Yglesias has reduced--if not eliminated--the characters? moral ambiguity. Javert is not a public servant blinded by his devotion to the law, but rather a villain who believes he is the law (played with predictable smarminess by Rush). Marius (Hans Matheson), Cosette?s beau, is not a starry-eyed student swept up in his friends? revolutionary fervor, but the iconoclast leading the charge. The script even dwells on Valjean?s newly fabricated illiteracy to reinforce his simple saintliness.

Yet despite these purist protests, this is an entertaining movie. The recreation of 1830s Paris is nothing short of gorgeous, complete with intricate costumes, lavish set decoration, and elaborately produced scenes, including a state funeral procession with hundreds of extras. The talented cast does a satisfactory job of breathing life into their expurgated characters. And while it is a sad shadow of the novel, this version is probably more appealing to many people, as it is so much more straightforward and accessible.

In the end, though, it just doesn?t feel like Les Mis?rables. The original saga doesn?t sugarcoat the brutality of life ? it magnifies it. Perhaps this unflinching outlook is what draws fans in: it?s refreshing to see a story that doesn?t hesitate to denounce the injustice of the world. By tying its story up in a bow, this version Les Mis?rables no longer champions the miserable. It just sympathizes with the moderately unhappy.

The Disc:

Clearly, the distributors are releasing this DVD now in order to get the jump on the many devotees of the musical who are counting the hours until the Tom Hooper production is released on Christmas. From one Les Miz junkie to another, let me tell you that no matter how badly you need your fix, this Blu-ray is not worth buying. Yes, it is nice to be able to see the exact amount of grime on Uma Thurman?s face, as the picture looks great. It's even fun to gawk at the subtitles in Arabic. But really, you can watch this for three dollars or less online, and there aren?t enough extra features here to justify the $20 purchase.

The lone special feature is the "A First Look at Les Mis?rables" featurette. Do not, I repeat, do not run out and buy this disc just to watch it. It covers much of the same ground as the multiple trailers and features already available online: i.e., behind-the-scenes clips coupled with enthusiastic cast interviews. The movie will be out in two weeks, people. Have a little self-restraint!

Distributor: Sony Pictures Home EntertainmentStarring: Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, Claire Danes, Hans MathesonProduced by: James Gorman, Sarah Radclyffe

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Liberal Arts [Blu-ray]

Josh Radnor?s second directorial effort, Liberal Arts, is a pleasant movie, full of warm and intriguing personalities, and set mostly in the green spaces of a small liberal arts college. It is there that our protagonist, Jesse Fisher (Radnor), meets a 19-year-old college student and is forced, for maybe the first time, to confront his age and his outlook, as well as who he wants to be.

The Movie:

In an opening montage that?s choppily cut, we learn Jesse isn?t the happiest of individuals. He?s 35 and is employed in an admissions office at a school in New York, a job that he finds tedious. He?s also recently broken up with his girlfriend. However, a chance trip to visit an old college professor (Richard Jenkins) perks Jesse up a little bit, and when he reaches his old college campus, he fits right into the fiber of the old buildings and the green lawns.

Jesse has a deep sense of nostalgia for his alma mater; he enjoys chatting up the students on campus and wandering around, taking in the sites and scenery. He has a way with connecting philosophy and literature, and he?s in his element when talking to sophomore Dean (John Magaro) and another sophomore, Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), whom he develops a deeper connection with. After one magical weekend, life takes Jesse back to New York, but he can?t get Zibby out of his mind, and she can?t keep him out, either.

For a long time, I thought Jesse?s trip would bring him full circle with the college aspect, forcing him to rethink his life and become a college professor, which his brain is absolutely tuned for. Instead, the film treks through a tale of mental exploration, which helps Jesse to figure out how he can maintain a positive and idealist attitude, even if he is far removed from the college classes that made such a deep impression on his memory and thought processes. He?s helped in this re-evaluting of his attitude by several chance encounters with the Baja hoodie-wearing Nat, played outlandishly by Zac Efron. While these scenes help the story move forward, they feel a bit gimmicky in an otherwise tight film.

Which brings us to the issue of Zibby and Jesse and their potential as a couple, which seems to plague Jesse more than it does Zibby, and rightfully so. While Zibby is of age, she?s still in college and the difference seems like a daunting precipice instead of a small bump in their relationship. That?s a difficult connection to cultivate without coming across as distasteful onscreen, but even such tough-to-navigate territory is handled capably in Liberal Arts.

Radnor is a tryer as a filmmaking. He isn?t scared to offer complete silence on a screen when Jesse humorously does some math to figure out the age difference with Zibby and what that might mean later on. At one point, he even uses an epistolary as a narrative device, and while I initially assumed the segment would break the flow of the narrative, it was actually endearing, and a great way to show a relationship as it was being built.

The fresh setting?at Kenyon College in Ohio?helps Liberal Arts to avoid a lot of low budget indie traps, and the characters feel genuine, even if the dialogue isn?t always as spectacular as it could be. In short, Liberal Arts is a pleasant little ride that may tap a bit of nostalgia that we never knew we had within us. It may not go down in history as a great film or even in Radnor?s directorial catalog as his best, but it?s certainly a step in the right direction.

The Disc:

Liberal Arts comes with a nice little set of bonus features, thanks to some lengthy deleted scenes. We get to see Jesse and his initial breakup, and we see how he deals with a friend who is having trouble moving forward with his life, as well. Further scenes show some moments between Zibby and Jesse and a couple of the college professors. All of these should help us to understand the character's motivations a bit more.

A featurette follows that is almost more of a preview, but it does include a few behind-the-scenes shots of Radnor directing and Olsen talking about Radnor?s multitude of skills on set. Finally, the actual trailer is available for the flick. It?s not a ton of stuff, but I appreciate the music and the thought put into the menu page and the disc is easy to navigate. There?s enough with the Liberal Arts set to be able to appreciate purchasing it.

Starring: Josh Radnor, Elizabeth Olsen, Richard Jenkins, Zac EfronProduced by: Brice Dal Farra, Claude Dal Farra, Jesse Hara, Lauren Munsch, Josh Radnor

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Premium Rush [Blu-ray]

Premium Rush is an annoying movie. It?s not the fault of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who stars as NYC bike messenger Wilee (as in Coyote), or Michael Shannon, who plays the villainous cop Bobby Monday. They are both good actors and do a very good job. The annoyance is squarely the fault of screenwriters David Koepp and John Kamps. In fact, Koepp the director should sock Koepp the writer in the nose for ruining many good bike action sequences at the service of such an idiotic story.

The Movie:

The story involves Wilee riding like a maniac through NYC to deliver an envelope that Monday wants to take away from him. Despite having the whole of the city to ride around in, Wilee continually intersects with Monday, with his ex-girlfriend bike messenger (Dania Ramirez), and a rival messenger (Wole Parks.) Have you ever tried to find someone even when you agreed to meet at a certain place? Sometimes it?s tough, but these four keep bumping into each other all over the city. Koepp and Kamps use a flashback structure so things get explained by going back in time and showing scenes that shed light on who is doing what and why. It?s a good structure, and like the action scenes, is wasted on a dumb story.

Dumb fun is great and not every script needs to be Hamlet, but this one strains credulity a bit too much. And this is coming from a guy who had to look up ?credulity? to make sure he was using it correctly. If you are yelling at the screen saying things like, ?Why doesn?t she just take the subway to deliver the envelope, she?d get there in about five minutes? or ?How is it possible that after turning down three streets the bad guy sees the good guy a block away in heavy traffic,? or ?How many cops are in this city anyway, why can?t anyone help that bike cop!? or ?There is no freakin? way he gets out of that impound lot like that,? then it?s hard to enjoy the dumb fun.

The dumbness is hard to get through and the characters are also annoying. Wilee continually calls Monday a ?douchebag? but the real douchebags are the bike messenger characters, who complain about pedestrians being ?a menace? while the messengers run red lights, ride on the sidewalk, weave in and out of traffic, laughing as cars skid, screech and honk. The most enjoyable part of the whole movie is when one of the messengers goes flying over their handlebars.

There is a problem when the villain is your favorite character. You have to like the protagonist at leas a bit and I just couldn?t like Wilee that much, as he giggled whenever he flew threw a red light. Plus, his ex is pissed at him for not using his law degree by taking the bar. He thinks wearing a suit will kill him, but then why did he go to law school at all? Isn?t the student debt crushing him? It?s just another plot hole in a movie full of them.

The Disc:

Sometimes movies, especially action movies, can redeem their mediocre-ness with an amazing Blu-ray release. You know, a commentary, tons of extras, maybe something that you can do on your tablet, amazing picture and sound. Premium Rush, sadly, has none of that except great picture and sound. So the mediocre-ness continues.

The disc includes two decent but unspectacular extras. They total a decent 20 minutes, but that is all buyers get. The first, ?The Starting Line,? focuses primarily on the story, cast, and filmmakers. David Koepp, John Kamps, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt provide most of the interview fodder, along with some of the story ideas, behind-the-scenes shots, and discussion of the bike training. It?s very basic but it gets the job done. If it had been the beginning of a long group of more technical extras, it might have been fine.

The other extra ?Behind the Wheels? looks at the bike stuff naturally. This is mildly interesting but not particularly in-depth. We see plenty of how Wilee had a bunch of stunt riders and they all specialized in something different. No ?here?s how we did this cool thing? type of info. Not that that is required, but the bike riding is probably the most enjoyable thing in the movie, so why not show it off a bit?

So, other than an electronic copy to watch on your portable device, you get very little. A wasted opportunity, much like the movie itself. Bike junkies and those who put action sequences above all might enjoy this film, but everyone else should probably avoid it.

Distributor: Sony Pictures Home EntertainmentStarring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, Jamie Chung, Wole ParksWritten by: David Koepp, John Kamps

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Zero Dark Thirty

The scene you may be expecting from Zero Dark Thirty comes at the very end of the nearly three-hour film, as director Kathryn Bigelow precisely recreated the raid on the house in Pakistan that led to the Navy SEAL team assassinating Osama bin Laden. It's a spectacularly tense and realistic scene, full of the same adrenaline you remember from Bigelow's Point Break and The Hurt Locker, and suffused with both films' sense of male camaraderie and macho strength.

But the two hours that come before that tell a very different story, with a woman--Jessica Chastain's Maya--at the center and a much different kind of drive that led to finding bin Laden. The 10-year manhunt, including setbacks like the 2005 London bombings and several CIA deaths, is recreated in unbelievable detail, with screenwriter Mark Boal's journalist's eye cannily setting up the major and minor players who led to that dramatic SEAL Team Six raid. And before we even meet Maya or any other agents, Bigelow bombards us with an audio recreation of 9/11, using phone calls made from inside the World Trade Center; it's a harrowing and unforgettable scene, setting up the incredible stakes for finding bin Laden, and plunging us immediately into that post-9/11 atmosphere of fear and lust for revenge.

Maya embodies both of things perfectly, though it takes a while to see it; we first meet her as a silent, shocked witness to a CIA agent (Jason Clarke) as he tortures an al-Qaeda detainee, derisively calling him "bro" and promising "If you lie to me, I will hurt you." With her delicate features and flowing red hair Maya looks out of place in the dingy torture chamber, but she knows what she's doing; when the detainee begs her for mercy, she refuses, setting the tone for her tough and unrelenting character as well as the movie's attitude toward torture. Bigelow shoots the torture scenes in grim, uncomfortable detail, but she also allows that such intense interrogation leads to a key piece of information that helps Maya hunt down bin Laden. Though Zero Dark Thirty deals with incredibly politicized topics, its only bias is toward the devoted CIA agents who were willing to do absolutely anything to find their man.

Though embedded deeply in the dirty and sometimes dull work of the CIA, from tapping phones to bribing sources and, yes, torturing them, Zero Dark Thirty's winding story dovetails occasionally with more famous history-- a brief sequence of the 2005 London bombings is unbearably tense, and protests in Pakistan surrounding U.S. drone strikes affect one character we've come to like without even knowing his name. For anyone with only a passing knowledge of modern CIA history, though, there are plenty of surprises, from the details of how we found bin Laden's hideout to a few moments of explosive violence that, to me at least, came as a complete surprise. The film moves at a methodical, professional pace as Maya conducts her investigations, but in the occasional pops of suspense Bigelow's action directing skills truly shine.

It's frankly incredible that, in the middle of such a complicated story, Zero Dark Thirty presents such a complex character in Maya, a tough woman in an impossible job who sidesteps every imaginable possible cliche. Everything about her, from the way she wears a scarf over her head when interrogating a detainee to the false smiles she gives to put powerful men at ease, speaks to her unusual position as a woman in the Middle East, but that contrast never becomes text, just another fascinating layer in a story with no simple conclusions. Not all of the characters around her are equally as complex-- Chris Pratt, Harold Perrineau and Joel Edgerton are just a few of the big names who are gone as soon as they arrive-- but Jennifer Ehle, Kyle Chandler, James Gandolfini and especially Clarke all make their impact, though all somewhat overshadowed by the powerhouse that is Chastian. Like the woman at its center, Zero Dark Thirty exudes a constant, quiet confidence, telling a story with an ending we all know and making it feel thrilling, suspenseful, and completely vital.

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Pitch Perfect [Blu-ray]

An overwhelming majority of comedies pretend to care about their semi-fleshed out main characters and openly degrade and manipulate their shallow side characters in order to generate laughs. The reason why Pitch Perfect works, and works pretty damn well, is because it has a fondness for and takes the time to understand almost every single person it puts on screen. It doesn?t ridicule them like a stranger might. It teases them in the same way a friend who knows every dirty little secret would tease. That?s not only more honest, it?s far funnier and far more relatable, and there?s not a single character or even larger idea that?s immune from the treatment here.

The Movie:

From Beca?s (Anna Kendrick) bullshit, teenage angstyness to Aubrey?s (Anna Camp) father-instilled and annoying obsession with perfection to the inherent ridiculous nerdiness of a capella competitions themselves, Pitch Perfect celebrates, analyzes and teases all of it. No one is let off the hook and no one?s pratfalls or insecurities completely define them. Even the primary villain, Bumper (Adam DeVine), is allowed to say really funny things and have his own version of a happy ending. It?s all exaggerated--but only in the same way as Mean Girls. Apart from three or four minor instances, the film plays up its characters without making them caricatures, and staying on the right side of that note makes a big difference.

Structured by a very formulaic premise that follows auditions to a final competition, Pitch Perfect nonetheless finds ways to still live in the margins and in the gray areas. The basic story follows a group of girls including Beca, Aubrey, Chloe (Brittany Snow) and Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) who sing in an all-female a capella group continually bested by their all-male a capella adversaries, but the overall goal is so much bigger than just winning. It?s about getting noses dirty, trying new things and shedding all the baggage accrued through singing competition failures, step-monster intrusions and surprise vocal node flare-ups. It?s about relaxing and having some fun.

And if any movie this year--other than perhaps Magic Mike--knows how to cut loose and have some fun, it?s Pitch Perfect. Buoyed by the year?s best musical montage featuring more than a dozen characters performing Kelly Clarkson?s ?Since U Been Gone? and further energized by hilarious commentary from Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins during all the a capella performances, the movie never stays in one place too long. It belts out notes in every register and continually nails each of its characters with very specific jokes that work perfectly with their individual personalities. For example: we?re off-handedly told Bumper has introduced a line of sports sandals. If ever a human being would be pumped about such an activity, it?s that clown.

Pitch Perfect works. It has the perfect love-hate relationship with its subject matter and a great sense of humor about itself. It never comes off as preachy or unfair to its characters, and it features dozens of classic lines that should continue to be quoted for years. It's great. A-ca-believe-it!

The Disc:

Pitch Perfect is loaded with exactly the type of special features you would expect from a movie that uses a lot of improvisation. A series of ?Line-o-rama? features quick cut through a slew of different hilarious lines left on the cutting room floor. The one involving Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins is the clear stand-out as those two go back and forth rapid-firing as many funny asides as they can think of for possible inclusion in the movie.

The disc also offers quite a few deleted or extended scenes. Most of them are of more of the extended variety with just a few extra added lines of dialogue, but since they let fans watch Fat Amy beatbox and Bumper being all 'bumpy', their inclusion is definitely warranted, as are some special interview segments with Banks? commentator and a few of the performers after a capella competitions.

Another random and interesting special feature is a music video that cuts together cast performances of Nicki Minaj?s ?Starships? with those fans taped and sent in themselves. The result is a pretty cool a capella take on the song featuring some snazzy editing. All that, plus behind the scenes footage of Fat Amy?s burrito attack and two commentaries from producers/ director combine to make this Pitch Perfect release a worthwhile and fun purchase.

Distributor: Universal PicturesStarring: Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Rebel WilsonProduced by: Elizabeth Banks, Paul Brooks, Max Handelman

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Parental Guidance

Parental Guidance is the type of movie everyone will vaguely enjoy. From six-year-old kids to eighty-five-year-old women, it should be an acceptable experience at the cinema for practically all, regardless of age, gender, race or socioeconomic status. That?s probably why it?s being released on Christmas. When extended families head to the theaters, Parental Guidance?s somewhat warming, ass-extended hug will do just fine for aunts, cousins and teenagers alike.

Unfortunately, ?do just fine? isn?t exactly a ringing endorsement. In fact, just as I can?t imagine anyone hating Parental Guidance, I also can?t imagine a single human being finding it to be anything better than a check plus. It?s quite possibly the blandest bite of white rice 2012 had to offer. From airport security jokes about turning to the left and coughing to riffs about old people not knowing how to tweet, it?s seriously lacking in the original thought department, and its plot is riddled with predictable turns and tired clich?s.

The basic premise follows two grandparents named Artie (Billy Crystal) and Diane (Bette Midler) who get called out of the bullpen to watch their grandchildren for a few days while their daughter (Marisa Tomei) and son-in-law (Tom Everett Scott) go to a work conference. During their stay, they hope to build actual relationships with the little ones that go deeper than the generic holiday time they?ve spent before, but, of course, their time winds up descending into a mess of wacky hijinks and surface level complaints about parenting styles.

There is more than enough room in the cinematic landscape every year for one or more intelligent commentaries on parenting styles. Like going to prom or getting married, disapproving of how our parents raised us or how our children are raising their kids are experiences an overwhelming majority of people go through. There?s an inherent amount of honest truth and hilarity inside there, but Parental Guidance doesn?t have the aggressive and daring spirit to exploit either one of those areas. It?s not ballsy enough to let Artie or Diane actually rip into the children or each other with any hilarious venom, and it?s not astute enough to let Artie, Diane and their daughter have more than a few relatively brief conversations about what should be or should have been done differently.

Consequently, it?s just sort of funny and touching in the same way as it sort of uses its cast. There?s no reason why a movie with Billy Crystal and Bette Midler as an old married couple should only be moderately funny, and there?s no reason why a mother-daughter relationship between Midler and Tomei should only be moderately affecting. If you?ve got the pieces in place, you might as well use them. You might as well use their talent to set the bar higher than the safe zone of mediocrity.

When Parental Guidance works, it lets the natural charm of Crystal and his cohorts come through. It lets them be funny and interact like real human beings. When it doesn?t, it contrives idiotic scenarios involving places like the X Games and the symphony to turn everyone into caricatures in an attempt to manufacture tired laughs.

Parental Guidance definitely wasn?t the best way I used 105 minutes this week, but it also definitely wasn?t the worst. If you?re really excited about seeing anything else this Christmas, skip Parental Guidance and go to that. If you want to go to the movies with a large group and are interested in making sure everyone has a passable time, then this should be at the top of your list.

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