Management

Sometimes a movie has one scene that is totally worth seeing, even if the rest of the movie sucks. Management is one of those movies. In fact, I would not blink an eye if the director told me that the movie was originally written around that one single scene. Imagine, write a storyline for a single funny scene, then build a movie around it. It has to happen, right?

Management stars Jennifer Aniston and Steven Zahn, 2 actors that can be hit or miss. You may know Steven Zahn from such monster box office hits as Sunshine Cleaning (which actually wasn't that bad), Strange Wilderness (which was dreadfully horrible), Rescue Dawn, and Daddy Daycare. And everyone knows who Jennifer is.

The premise of the movie is that Aniston is a traveling saleswoman who sells corporate art. Zahn is the night manager for his parents' motel. The owner is Fred Ward. Anyway, Zahn immediately falls in love with Aniston and on his shift struggles to think of a reason to visit her room. He then finds a way. With some persistence, he eventually scores, but Aniston then finds out that he won't leave her alone, and follows her across the country (interestingly all the way to Baltimore and Columbia, Maryland).

After that previously mentioned scene, the movie is unbelievably predictable and uneventful. Think of it - what other movie has the underdog dude go after the attractive sophisticated woman and not get her? It's the fibre of a successful romantic comedy. Without it, it's not funny....or romantic.

Management was directed by Stephen Belber, basically an unknown. The movie is an hour an a half long and is rated R for language and sexual situations. The movie also stars Woody Harrelson as Anistons on-again off-again mentally deranged boyfriend, a role that he has perfected. Harrelson has been a busy woody, staring in nearly a dozen movies in the past 2 years.

If it weren't for that one scene, this movie would have been a dud. However, because that scene made me laugh so hard, it deserves the big 3 stars.

Strange Wilderness

I got Strange Wilderness from Netflix on Saturday. It wasn't a well-advertised movie. But because there weren't any new releases this week, I thought I'd get it. It should be funny enough. It stars Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn, Employee of the Month, Riding in Cars With Boys), Allen Covert (who's in every Adam Sandler movie), Jonah Hill (Superbad, Evan Almighty, Knocked Up), Justin Long (the Apple guy), Harry Hamlin (L.A. Law), and Ernest Borgnine, the hardest working 91 year old in Hollywood (Mermaid Man!).

Boy was I wrong! Sometimes I should pay attention to those stars on the movie. This one predicted that I would give it 2 stars. And it was right!

The premise of the movie is Peter Gaulk is struggling to keep his father's nature show, Strange Wilderness on the air. Ever since his father died, he has been trying to keep up the show, but he's a pot-smoking bumbling buffoon. And his camera man is a pot-smoking bumbling buffoon. And the sound guy smokes pot, too. And I'm not sure what Justin Long did with the crew other than smoke pot and bongs.

In an effort to save their show, they decide to go find Big Foot. Not only do they find him, but they shoot him up with machine guns when they find him because they all freaked out. Not sure why this was funny - or supposed to be funny. Near the end of the movie, they all started yelling at each other and calling everyone a bunch of "F-in A-H's" and then the physical fight broke out.

Lot's of cussing. Mostly the F-Bomb. Now that I think about it, Jonah Hill doesn't say much more other than F - in ALL of his movies.

This movie is rated R for drug use, crude and sexual humor, and, as Netflix put it, "non-stop language". And they ain't kidding! The movie is 86 minutes long, so the suffering won't last forever. The movie is directed by Fred Wolf, most noted for his involvement with Ducktales. I guess he's trying to break out of his stereotype. He wins. He went from being kid-friendly to dickhead.

As mentioned previously, I give this movie 2 stars. There were a few things that did make me laugh, but the 43,018 F words were just a bit for me. Ignore this movie and see Ducktales instead.

Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn is the newest in the line of Veit-Nam era war movies. We really have not seen a new one of these since Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill, unless, of course, you consider Forrest Gump and Viet-Nam era war movie. But as we know, Forrest Gump more accurately portrays John Kerry than it did any real soldiers.


Rescue Dawn stars Christian Bale, who's been busy in the last couple of years with 3:10 To Yuma, The Prestige, and Batman Begins. The beginning starts off exciting enough aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ranger. It leads to his eventual crash and detainment as a prisoner in a war camp somewhere in Southeast Asia.


He is united with other prisoners, including Jeremy Davies who appears as a Charles Manson-like character, who interesting starred as Charles Manson in the 2004 TV movie Helter Skelter. The hatch out a plan to overtake the guards and escape from the camp and seek rescue from friendly faces. The later scenes border on somewhat "too convenient" circumstances, but the movie is based on a true story, so we may have to assume that much of it is true.


Overall, I like the movie and gave it 3 stars out of 5. On a side note, the movie was produced by former Duke basketball player Elton Brand. And we thought athletes from Duke couldn't amount to anything other than NBA stars.