Fool's Paradise - Charlie Day - 2023

★-Not good. In fact, very bad. It's there with Pootie Tang on the bell-curve of cinema. At least movies like that and Freddy Got Fingered have cult value. “Sepatow!” 

Seems like it's supposed to be an ode to silent film actors as well as a Hollywood satire, but it really doesn't work. The gist is a mute mental patient played by Charlie Day happens to look like this pain in the ass star and gets thrown into stardom after the other guy dies while autoerotic asphyxiating himself. We then follow this still silent, non-actor guy's rise to fame and fortune. 

Movie sort of relies on cameos to provide humor. It feels like one of those, dude calls in every big name he knows, and they come out and phone in a day of shooting. People you'll see in this flick: Jason Bateman, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Common, Edie Falco, Glenn Howerton, Ken Jeong, Ray Liotta in his last role, John Malkovich, and Jason Sudeikis, among others. Something like Santa's Slay, for example, which also has cult appeal. 

More than anything, it was an unfunny satire about the type of douche bags that we hear about in these Hollywood inside baseball movies that become hot every few years. These have been coming out forever. Examples off the top of my head: The Player, Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Hail Caesar!, Barton Fink, The Aviator, Bowfinger, Ed Wood, the Eddie Murphy Dolemite movie, The Artist, The Disaster Artist, Movie 43, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (a must-see), Get Shorty, Sullivan's Travels, The Bad and the Beautiful, Singin' in the Rain, Babylon (which I thought was underrated)... All of those movies are infinitely better than Fool's Paradise, which bummed me out. 

So, yeah, unfortunately a shockingly bad movie, Fool's Paradise was pretty much unwatchable. Dull-witted, unfunny, aimless. Avoid. 

Air - Ben Affleck - 2023

★★★-Air retells the story of Michael Jordan's historic signing with Nike in 1984 before ever playing a second of professional basketball. The idea for the film came from screenwriter Alex Convery, who noticed that the story was glossed over in the documentary series The Last Dance. 

Matt Damon stars as talent scout Sonny Vaccaro who had the biggest hand in the signing. Others at the table during the historic pitch include Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike played by Ben Affleck, marketer Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), player rep Howard White (Chris Tucker), shoe designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), Jordan’s agent David Falk (Chris Messina), and Jordan's parents (played by the Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon). 

The movie apparently had Jordan's blessing as Affleck met with him before filming on what should be included in the movie (he specifically said that Davis had to play his mother). Nike wasn't consulted, supposedly, but that doesn't matter because they come off looking fucking great. As does Vaccaro, who is considered something of a dubious character (for more on him, check out the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, Sole Man, which focuses on his life). 

Reviews were mostly positive with the Rotten Tomatoes score at a Certified Fresh 92%. Though there were some people that didn't like it. NPR's Aisha Harris criticized the film's “craven exercise in capitalist exaltation” and lack of character development. Similarly, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it a “shallow, parochial and obtuse” corporate promo.

I liked it though it feels weird rooting for Nike. Claims that it is pretty much a commercial for Jordan's sneakers and Nike are pretty accurate, but it tells a hell of a story with a lot of talented actors. Certainly not the worst movie I've seen about Michael Jordan.

Central Intelligence is (sort of) the greatest movie of all time

Well, it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen and enjoyed it for the most part. Therefore, Central Intelligence gets a pass as the greatest movie of all time.  It is your typical, run-of-the-mill but solid action-comedy.

The movie features two "friends" from high school played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (a CIA agent named Bob) and Kevin Hart (Jet) who team up to save the world from terrorists who are trying to get their hands on satellite codes that do whatever and the man who stole those codes. Bob, who was overweight in school and bullied by a young Jason Bateman, hooks back up with the cool kid, Jet, who is now way past his prime who lives a "boring" life as an accountant working for Bateman's company, under the cover of going to their 20-year high school reunion. Once the pudgy "loser", Bob is now "The Rock". He needs now needs Jet's number-crunching skills to figure out who the buyer is and where he will be in order to save everyone from whatever those codes are supposed to do, some dubious doomsday scenario or something. Jet is now in it as he is humorously pulled into shoot-outs, jail-breaks, Mexican standoffs, so forth, while Bob does most the ass-kicking.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson make for well-matched comic foils, helping Central Intelligence overcome a script that coasts on their considerable chemistry.

Pros: Johnson and Hart are killer. The megastars are both very funny and solid. Basically 90-minutes of endearing and light escapist humor which is always nice.

Cons: The action is meh. The plot isn't something you can really make a lot of sense of if you start poking holes at it. A lot of these characters don't behave like real people.

Notes: Here's some stuff. Jesus Jason Bateman's character is an asshole. When The Rock is the not so popular chunk in 1996, Bateman and his crew of pricks see him dancing in the locker-room shower during an all school assembly (why wasn't The Rock there?) to honor the Jet and his many accomplishments. They grab him, still in the nude, and throw him out onto the basketball court. Jet gives him his letter jacket to cover his shame and off he goes. This moment of kindness basically make Bob a huge hard-on for Jet for the next 20 years, telling everyone, including his partner in the CIA, played by Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, about the coolest dude in his high school. Side note, bullying was pretty nonexistent at my high school and considered social unacceptable (the few kids who tried it were ostracized and eventually asked to leave), but if this had happened there, then depending on who it happened to, people would have gone to jail.

Anyway, we later see that Bateman is all apologetic when Bob and Jet go to him to help with their little CIA thing. He even asks Bob to forgive him. But then, JK, he was just fucking with them. He doesn't give a shit and it was Bob's fault he got tooled on because he's a fucking loser. So forth. The guy is just toxic. He even reveals he is a Scientologist and that he is "clear" in one of the funniest little tidbits in the movie. Bob is still afraid of him, because he is an aggressive ass-hat, I guess. But he eventually gets his though nothing has really changed from that moment to the one at the end where Bob knocks him out.

That knocking out Bateman moment leads to a bizarre finale where Bob gets naked at his high school reunion to like overcome the past humiliation. This time, since it is The Rock, everyone loses their minds. Guys, girls, everyone, is like really into and totally comfortable with this guy being naked. That being the case, he naked dances for the last 10 minutes of the movie. It's the weirdest fucking thing. I don't care how attractive the dude is, this is still a sex crime.

The CIA stuff is a little out there but that doesn't really matter as it is basically generic action that is just a vehicle for the actors to buddy up and work toward a common humorous goal. Certain moments in this regard are less than stellar. Like when Jet freaks out about making bird noises like as a way of signalling each other, I don't even know. He just has a little freakout, which one of several and sort of becomes his "thing" and is pretty irritating. But roll with it and you'll have a good time.