Headed for a Hilarious Heartbreak
The Heartbreak Kid
(R)
originally published October 10, 2007
Ben Stiller and Malin Ackerman
The films of Bobby and Peter Farrelly have been traveling downhill since There’s Something About Mary. The Farrellys returned to semi-form with 2005’s sweetly comic Fever Pitch, a stab at touching the heart without inducing the gag reflex, but it felt like only half a Farrelly film, which should be as disgusting as it is romantic. With the exceptions of their pre-Mary pictures - Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin - all of the tamer, lesser-rated pictures (The Heartbreak Kid is only their third R-rated comedy) have wanted for Mary’s perfect balance of heart and raunch.
Adapted from the 1972 film directed by Elaine May and written by Neil Simon, The Heartbreak Kid reunites the Farrellys with Mary star Ben Stiller, who plays 40-year-old confirmed bachelor Eddie Cantrow. Eddie’s life consists of running his San Francisco sporting goods store, keeping a check on his horndog septuagenarian father (Stiller’s real-life dad Jerry), and hanging out with his one and only friend, the not-quite-happily, not-quite-unhappily married Mac (Rob Corddry). After going to the Valentine’s wedding of his former longtime fiancée, Eddie finally awakes to his miserable loneliness. In true movie fashion, that darkness is brightened by the girl of his dreams, Lila (Malin Ackerman), and Eddie marries her after a whirlwind courtship. It isn’t until Eddie and Lila’s honeymoon in Sammy Hagar’s vacation destination of choice, Cabo, that the ill-fated newlywed discovers his new wife is a crazy, former cokehead with whom he can’t imagine spending for better or worse. He also meets his real soulmate, Miranda (Michelle Monaghan, Mission: Impossible III), and he woos her while attempting to rid himself of his wife.
The Heartbreak Kid reacquaints the Farrellys with the raunchy romance that made There’s Something About Mary so wonderful. Kid may not be as sweet as Mary - all Eddie’s romantic woes stem from his own rash selfishness (after Hurricane Lila, he should be a bit gun-shy about Miranda, whom he’s only known for a couple of days) - but it is as grossly funny. Stiller is back in top form, and the supporting cast - Stiller’s pops, Monaghan, Corddry, Carlos Mencia as crazed resort owner Uncle Tito, and Miranda’s entire extended Southern family (especially Statesboro’s Danny McBride) - is charming. With The Heartbreak Kid, the Brothers Farrelly have replicated an original formula that may not be quite as good, but is sure as hell better than anything they've done in a decade.
Get Into Blood Car
Blood Car
(NR)
originally published October 10, 2007
Mike Brune and Matt Hitchinson
Hey, horror fans, this is your old pal, Glen, back from a self-sabbatical imposed after the recent spate of teenybopper horror. Sporting not enough blood, not enough guts, and definitely not enough breasts, my beloved genre has gone to the puppies. Even the recent R-rated flicks have been disappointments. Captivity? I felt like I was in it, and not in that naughty, kinda fun way. Dead Silence? I wish that had been the case; it would have been more entertaining. The Reaping? You get what you sow, if you know what I mean. Thank John Carpenter for Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes II (at least there wasn’t a doggie flashback) and Hostel Part II. But you gotta thank Drive-In re-animator Joe Bob Briggs for Blood Car, an inventive independent horror comedy (filmed down the road in Atlanta) that harks back to the salad days of B-movies and double features.
In a not very post-apocalyptic few weeks, gas prices have risen to over $30 per gallon, forcing kindergarten teacher/ hippie vegan guy Archie Andrews (Mike Brune, a sly combination of Anthony Perkins' everyman and Crispin Glover's crazy man) to labor on a wheatgrass-burning engine. Purchasing his green liquid health from pretty little roadside stand lady Lorraine (Anna Chlumsky, My Girl), Archie can’t quite get his dream car, a nondescript black Honda, up and running - until he accidentally adds blood to the putrid petrol pretender. Now Archie’s cruising around town, getting flashed by hot mamas in Mexican restaurants and doing unspeakable things to the town’s primary seller of meat (Columbus, GA native Katie Rowlett, whose sexy Southern slut owes a lot to Jaime Pressly’s Emmy-winning sexy Southern slut, Joy, who bears a loose resemblance to several of my ex-girlfriends) while searching for fresh sources of fuel.
With Blood Car, director-cowriter Alex Orr can prove to his parents that his youth was not misspent. He obviously learned the answer to cinema’s two preeminent queries - “there’s no such thing as too much blood” and “we can’t kill her until she takes her clothes off.” Orr and the other writer/ co-DP/ co-editor/ producer, Adam Pinney, also have brains. Their gags aren’t just surreal, senseless or dumb; they establish a broad, appealing tone that squeezes laughter from the pellet gun executions of several household pets as well as the gangland-style slaying of a classroom of kindergartners. Too bad they weren’t smart enough to convince Rowlett or Chlumsky to doff their togs and display their magambos. Not that they’re missed amongst all the crazy, funny, bloody shenanigans. Blood Car revs its engine at Ciné starting this Friday at midnight.
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