The Muppets (Film #17)

I love the muppets. And I'm glad to see they still haven't lost their touch.

I watched this one about a month ago and I've got two kids under four so I really only remember the following:

1. Amy Adams has just the right amount of crazy eyes.
2. Everybody and their cousin had a cameo in this film.
3. Jason Segel can actually be likable when he's not in Bad Teacher.
4. Chris Cooper can really bust a move.
5.Kidnapping Jack Black is a great plot device.
6. I would totally, totally watch "Punch Teacher"
7. Emily Blunt should totally just make a career out of playing that character from The Devil Wears Prada.
8.Walter wasn't my favorite muppet, but he also wasn't my least favorite.
9. I'm pretty sure the movie accidentally promotes the notion that "like should stay would like"
10. I still liked it, regardless.

Bad Teacher (Film #16)

Remember when Cameron Diaz was a Charlie's angel and people thought she was fun loving and swell, even if she laughed like a horse, because she had a rockin' body?

yeah, this isn't THAT Cameron Diaz.

Which, I guess, means she has "range" - if you consider "superficial bitch" a stretch (and for the record, I really don't here). Whatever.

Here's the premise: Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz) loves money. Money, money, money. And hates teaching, a career she is partaking in until her fiance marries her and she can retire to a world of wealth that she never had to earn. Sufficed to say that plan doesn't work (or, you know, as the muppets would say, this movie would have been a lot shorter). It's back to work for dear Elizabeth who spends her nights binge-drinking and getting high with her creepy Craigslist roommate and her days showing movies to her middle-school aged students who are content to do no work and let their teacher sleep.

Right. Because that's not a damning depiction of the American educational system from all levels.

It does, naturally, get worse (for America's teachers) and a bit better for Miss Halsey. A new substitute teacher is an heir to some made-up clock fortune who is apparently biding his time in education until he finds something else to tickle his fortune. He is played by Diaz's real-life ex Justin Timberlake and that possible tension is the only thing compelling about the film.

Unfortunately, JT only likes girls with big hearts. And boobs.

Fortunately, Elizabeth is willing to have surgery.

Unfortunately, she lives with the Craigslist moocher and has no money for new tits.

Fortunately, she has the wealth of her students to exploit - from fundraisers to "tutoring".

Unfortunately, it's still not enough.

Fortunately, there's a bonus for the teacher who gets the best scores on the state's standardized test and that should be enough to cover the rest of the costs.

Unfortunately, that's where the film totally lost me.

Look, I get it. Elizabeth is a superficial girl who has to learn her real priorities and strengths in life in order to grow and succeed and get a boyfriend who doesn't awkwardly dry hump her while yelling "No talking!" (Timberlake's BEST scene in the movie, BTW). But damn.

A female protagonist who is a greedy, money-hungry golddigger, a school filled with highly incompetent admin and teachers who are either over-the-top nutso enthusiasts or dispassionate drug addicts who could care less, a romantic triangle with the most unlikable three characters in the planet, and THEN they promote teaching to the test!

FOR SHAME!

Actually, I'm pretty sure this film is a subversive examination of the dangers of stifling teacher freedom and creativity in the classroom by mandating that we limit ourselves to the standardized tests that get used to evaluate our success in the classroom.

But convince other people of that!

I don't know, the whole movie felt shamefully hollow to me and the end - which I will spoil for you right now - where Elizabeth becomes a GUIDANCE COUNSELOR because she had some small degree of success helping a nerdy boy score major points with his peers (BY GIVING HIM HER BRA!!!) and no degree of success as a teacher is perhaps the most upsetting chestnut of them all.

Sorry, just didn't get the point of this one!

21 Jump Street (Film #15)

When I started living with a boy, I had to learn a valuable lesson in cinematic compromise. I like movies like this:


And he likes ones like this:



And so we have learned to split the difference and watch movies like this:



Oh, wait, nevermind. 21 Jump Street is nothing like Steel Magnolias.

Sigh.

Look, this movie isn't Hitchcock. It's not Truffaut. It's barely "cinema." But it is funny. And even prissy bitches like me can appreciate that.

Even if you never watched a single episode of the original, you probably remember the premise (if you're over the age of 22 and you care about pop culture, like, at all). Youngish looking cops get put in an undercover squad where they can infiltrate high school crimes like drugs and gangs and bad Eminem hair.

I rarely if ever like either of the two male leads in anything - with the exception of Jonah Hill in Moneyball and Channing Tatum in a shirt. Oddly, I like them both here.

Like a lot.

And not in a "they're sooooo dreamy" kind of way. Because for most of the opening bits they look like this:


I mean more so for their chemistry - uneasy brothers who love each other, even when they sort of hate each other. Better, they're both believable as complete and utter screw ups, so there's that.

Plot-wise, there isn't so much to say - kids in high school taking crazy new drug and Tweedledee and Tweedledum need to figure out the source while psychologically reversing the damage accrued during their own high school experiences (For Tatum, not being able to go to prom; for Hill, well, look at the poor boy and just guess).

I laughed a lot at the stupidity and the tongue-in-cheek snarkiness of the film. And any movie with Johnny Depp (in the best cameo EVER that he shares poetically with Peter Deluise) is okay in my book. For me, it was all about bike cops, James Franco's little brother, the best tripped out Peter Pan audition ever, and a pretty impressive nerd makeover.

Good times were had by all.

But still mostly by Tim.