2014 Movie Preview: #11 - Bad Words

Release date: March 28

Plot summary: Jason Bateman ("Identity Thief") makes his feature directorial debut with the subversive comedy "Bad Words." Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, a 40-year-old who finds a loophole in the rules of The Golden Quill national spelling bee and decides to cause trouble by hijacking the competition. Contest officials, outraged parents, and overly ambitious 8th graders are no match for Guy, as he ruthlessly crushes their dreams of victory and fame. As a reporter (Kathryn Hahn of "We're the Millers") attempts to discover his true motivation, Guy finds himself forging an unlikely alliance with a competitor: awkward 10-year-old Chaitanya (Rohan Chand of "Homeland"), who is completely unfazed by Guy’s take-no-prisoners approach to life.

My take: I just mentioned how Foxcatcher may be a career changing film for Steve Carell. Well the same may hold true for Bateman who stars here as the crass man infiltrating children's spelling bees. Bateman is also directing this film. I've always had a thing for the 'Bee' dating back to when I discovered that the English professor I had at UD moderated the event for several years. The dark humor in this film may not be for everyone, but I'm sure looking forward to it.

RBR: We're the Millers

This comedy about a small time drug dealer who pretends to have a family so he can smuggle a large quantity of marijuana across the border turned out to be a surprise hit earlier this year. Now having seen it on DVD, its success is that much more surprising to me. For one, movies that come in August typically are not poised to be blockbusters. But the bigger reason is that the film's humor and subject matter do not seem like they would lend themselves to a mainstream hit. Credit the likeable cast for driving this creaky premise into a film that does enough to get by. SNL's Jason Sudekis plays the drug dealer who rounds up Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, and Will Poulter to play his family members. The film also features appearances from comedians including Ed Helms, Nick Offerman, and Kathryn Hahn. The humor here is very hit and miss. I found too many of the gags had decent setups with weak payoffs. The bigger issue though was poor character development. Almost everyone here is inconsistent and behaves in a manner that suits the joke and the role they play in it. Unfortunately, I found there to be very few surprises offered here. Given that this is a film that is relying on half of its jokes to work based on shock value, that's a problem. I also found the film to be a bit too cynical at times regarding the American dream and suburban family life. It feels like they want the characters to take a jaded attitude toward that lifestyle, but the actors seem to be good representatives of it. I did not find myself actively hating this film like other pathetic comedies I have seen this year, but I also was left confused as to what was offered here that struck a nerve with so many viewers to cause it to earn as much as it did at the box office. To me this is the epitome of an average film that gets by with its pleasant actors engaging in some occasionally humorous antics. Rating: ** 1/2

He's got a spell on you

Jason Bateman plus spelling bees plus foul language equals me being very interested in Bad Words. Here's the red band trailer for the new film which not only stars Bateman but was directed by him as well.

Inner Office workings

Audiences said goodbye to The Office this past May and now that it's over we're starting to get a look at what might have been. Here's an interesting video that will be included in the DVD/Blu-Ray of the final season that shows some famous actors originally auditions for the roles of Michael, Jim, Pam and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew. Watching it, it seems as if they made the right choices to go with the people that they did, but it's still funny to think of how different the show would have been had say Seth Rogen gotten the role of Dwight.