SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE: A Warm, Fuzzy, & Very Profane Sex Comedy

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE

(Dir. Leslye Headland, 2015)

I don’t think it would be accurate to label this an anti-rom com, because it really doesn’t subvert or satirize the formula, but I would say that it’s probably the among the most profane romantic comedies I’ve ever seen. Which makes sense since it was co-produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.

From its opening in which boy (Jason Sudekis), meets girl (Alison Brie) while at college, to its premise that over a decade later the couple attempts a platonic friendship, writer/director Headland’s follow-up to her 2012 debut BACHELORETTE often resembles a foul-mouthed, raunchy remake of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, but that’s so not a bad thing.

You see, since Sudekis’ Jake and Brie’s Lainey lost their virginity to each other on the roof of his dorm back in 2002, they’ve both had scores of failed relationships.

Jake and Lainey run into each other at a sex addict support meeting in the present day and start hanging out, but with the understanding that because they screw up every sexual relationship they’ve had, they should just be friends. They even come up with a safe word should the sexual tension ever gets to be too much: “mousetrap,” abbreviated from “dick in a mousetrap.”

Lainey, who is a kindergarten teacher, is still pining for another guy from her college days that she’s been seeing on and off, Adam Scott as the mustached OB-GYN Matthew Sovochek, who Jake considers one of the most boring people ever. It’s a constant hang-up for Lainey that Matthew is going to marry somebody else.

Jake, who with his business partner (Jason Mantzoukas) is about to get rich from selling a tech patent to a major company, has his eyes on his boss (Amanda Peet), but from the get go we know he’s really in love with Lainey.

Of course, that and the whole path here, with our leads going through the motions with others (Marc Blucas for Brie; Peet for Sudekis) while falling for each other, is as predictable as they come but the conversations that they have along the way riffing on masturbation (Jake teaches Lainey how to do it properly with the help of an empty green-tea bottle), sexual positions, and other deep topics are amusingly relatable and keep the project humming along.

There’s also the hilarious highlight of a scene halfway through in which Jake and Lainey attend a children’s pary at Mantzoukas and his wife (Andrea Savage) while tripping on ecstasy and we get a bikini-topped, cut off wearing Brie teaching the kids to dance to David Bowie’s “Modern Love.” “Why don’t we do drugs?” Savage asks Mantzoukas longingly while watching.

With the amusingly self deprecating Brie building likable layers on top of her work on Mad Men and Community, and Sudekis putting in a less smarmy, and far wittier turn than his HORRIBLE BOSSES persona (or his SNL characters for that matter), there’s a lot of genuine warmth in the humor and in the tender touches of drama here.

It may be very dirty-minded, in that even the indie rock songs on the soundtrack drop the f-bomb (I’m looking at you, The Echo Friendly!), with plenty of plot points that you can see coming from the theater parking lot, but SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE is pleasing time spent with people who you want to get together. It’s a warm and fuzzy film about wanting to f*** your best friend. That's the best way I can put it.

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HORRIBLE BOSSES 2: A Tediously Tiresome Thanksgiving Turkey

HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 

(Dir. Sean Anders, 2014)

Okay, so yeah, the first film was a fluke – a one-off throwaway that was just funny enough to recommend. But the sequel, opening everywhere today, is a tiresome rehash that wears out its welcome before it even hits the 10 minute mark.

However, up to that point, with its inspired use of the Clash’s cover of Eddy Grant’s “Police on My Back” to take us into a crudely amusing opening scene featuring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudekis promoting their new invention, a bathroom accessory named “The Shower Buddy,” on a morning TV talk show, the movie seems like it could possibly match the original.

But this misguided mash-up of 9 TO 5, which they reference several times so it’s okay to steal from I guess, and BACHELOR PARTY goes downhill fast from there once its incredibly uninvolving and annoyingly familiar plot kicks in.

This time, our returning comedy trio trying to strike out as their own bosses gets screwed over by Christoph Waltz (seemingly loving slumming it here) and Chris Pine (Captain Kirk from the J.J. Abrams’ STAR TREK re-imaginings) as a father-son pair of wealthy, conniving corporate investors who steal the product and re-name it “The Shower Pal” (“That’s a better name, too,” says Sudekis).

So Bateman, Day, and Sudekis plan to kidnap Pine and collect ransom from Waltz, but guess what? Things don’t go down as smoothly as they hope.

In lame attempts to rekindle the comically criminal shenanigans of the first time around, the bickering buffoons visit Kevin Spacey, reprising his role as one of the horrible bosses, in jail for advice; Jamie Foxx, reprising his role as “Motherfucker Jones” in the same seedy bar for more contrived consultation; and Jennifer Aniston, reprising her role as a sex-addicted dentist, who has the most regrettably creepy lines to spout throughout this mess.

The so self consciously twisted scenarios the fellows get tied up in, via the screenplay co-written by director Anders and creative partner John Morris (who also both co-wrote the currently playing DUMB AND DUMBER TO), just go in circles with a clear lack of momentum.

These guys can be very funny - the stressed out Day and the all too smug Sudekis play off each other effortlessly while Bateman deadpans some choice one-liners - and amid their wacky scrapes I chuckled maybe a dozen times, but there was nothing resembling a big genuine laugh to be found.

If you stitched together these guys’ individual appearances on late night TV talk shows into a feature length 90 minutes or so it would be much funnier than this. Especially as it wouldn’t have the tired as hell kidnapping tropes (code name gags ‘n all) that all fall horribly flat here.

And there’s also the unfortunate and badly timed (because of the Cosby controversy) rape jokes that Aniston’s character, puts forth that left a disgusting taste in my mouth. As well, it’s weird that Pine puts forth some dramatic acting about dealing with his dad Waltz not loving him – in what movie does he think he’s in?

It would be a critical cliché to say that HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 is a cinematic turkey delivered just in time for Thanksgiving, but if they’re going to so blatantly trot out such a lame retread, then so am I.

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Blu Ray Review: Eastbound & Down: The Complete Third Season

Danny McBride’s crudely deluded Kenny Powers character keeps on losing while still thinking he’s a winner in the third season of Eastbound & Down out today on DVD and Blu ray.

McBride’s raunchy redneck shtick, which can be very funny but is often embarrassingly painful, is better served up by HBO in these half hour episodes than in misguided movies like YOUR HIGHNESS. Here, the mulleted has-been baseball star’s hard-partying behavior is neatly contained in easy to digest scenarios which don’t wear out their welcome, that is, unless you watch all eight of them in a marathon.

After the second season’s seedy adventures in Mexico, Kenny returns to the states and joins the Myrtle Beach Mermen baseball team. 

We catch up with our profane pervert of a protagonist on the beach with a boogie board that sports an image of the Confederate flag with a marijuana leaf in the middle. 

From there we go to the ballpark to meet the team’s relief pitcher, Shane Gerald, played by SNL’s Jason Sudekis, who McBride calls his best friend, to the irritation of his assistant Stevie (Stevie Janowski). At his son’s first birthday party, we learn from the returning Katy Nixon as April that Kenny hasn’t paid child support, and that she may regret having the baby.

That sets up the season’s arc - Kenny having to take care of his baby Toby after April takes off (Kenny left her at the end of the first season so it makes some sort of twisted sense). Kenny, of course, doesn’t take being a father seriously - he tells his college aged girlfriend (Alex ter Avest) “you think I wanna fuckin’ hang out with my fuckin’ son? Hell no, I’d much rather being doing cocaine and watching the SAW movies on DVD in your dorm room with you.” 

Will Farrell reprises the role of cocky corrupt car dealer Ashley Schaeffer from the first season in a few segments this season, the best of which might be in the second episode “Chapter 15,” but the most successful storyline that goes through the third and fourth episodes concerns Shane dying from a drug overdose (he was snorting coke to the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian,”) and Kenny trying to connect with his identical twin brother Cole (also played by Sudekis).

Although I like Janowski, who hasn’t been on anything else besides Eastbound, I wasn’t into how the show constantly humiliates his character, and his cheating on his wife (Elizabeth De Razzo) scenario didn’t go anywhere interesting.

The beautifully skuzzy Don Johnson returns as Kenny’s father, but the real news is that Lily Tomlin appears as his bowling champion mother. Matthew McConaughey, Craig Robinson, Seth Rogen, and in a deleted scene, Val Kilmer, make cameos, but sadly there’s very little John Hawkes as Kenny’s brother, but obviously that’s because he’s got a busy movie career happening.

For better or worse, season three is pretty much the same quality as the first two seasons, so if you weren’t a fan before you won’t be won over, but folks who “get” McBride, and director/co-writer Jody Hill’s brand of bawdy, lowbrow humor will be highly satisfied with this 2 disc set.

Special Features: Extended scene of “Dinner at Schaeffer’s” (more fun with Will Ferrell from “Chapter 14”), commentaries on every episode (some of which are funnier than the episodes themselves), 48 minutes of deleted scenes including a way too long segment of Stevie cutting off his hair and shaving his head and eyebrows, and over 8 minutes of outtakes, which have their fair share of laughs.

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