A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011)

You have a good job, you make good money, and you don’t beat your wife. What more could a Latino father-in-law ask for? Wall Street broker Harold (John Cho) is asked to look after a Christmas tree by his father-in-law (Danny Trejo) who objects to the faux monstrosity in his suburban villa,  but he and his ex-roommate Kumar (Kal Penn) end up destroying it with a giant spliff from a mysterious benefactor.  The two then set out to find a replacement for the damaged tree and embark on a chaotic journey around New York City with their BFFs Todd  (Thomas Lennon plus his infant daughter) and Adrian (Amir Blumenfeld) while scoring drugs, having sex, trying to avoid being murdered by a Ukrainian ganglord and making babies … The tree is a cancer, Harold. We have to get rid of it before it kills Christmas. The stoner dudes are back apparently unscathed after a sojourn in Gitmo, rampaging and raunching about NYC in as tasteless a fashion as humanly possible. With a toddler off her trolley, a claymation sequence, a song and dance feature starring Neil Patrick Harris who isn’t really gay, every ethnicity and creed mocked and a penile homage to A Christmas Story, this is the very opposite of woke. A laugh riot intended to be seen in 3D but we’ll take an egg in the face whatever way it falls. Almost heartwarming! Screenplay by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg. Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson. Oh, great. Now we’re getting tinkled on

Tag (2018)

There are no winners. Only not losers.  Hogan ‘Hoagie’ Malloy (Ed Helms), Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm), Randy ‘Chili’ Cilliano (Jake Johnson), Kevin Sable (Hannibal Buress) and Jerry Pierce (Jeremy Renner) have been playing a game of tag every May for 30 years  – but Jerry’s never been It and his upcoming wedding (to which none of his friends have invited) provides the perfect setting to finally land the big fish. Or does it? He’s planning on retiring now and Hoagie tags Bob at his insurance company where he’s CEO and collars Chili mid-toke and Kevin at his psychiatrist’s in order to make one last attempt in their hometown of Spokane where Jerry runs a successful fitness business and his ninja-like agility still threatens to make it impossible … I will be so pissed if she didn’t have a miscarriage. Adapted from the Wall Street Journal story It Takes Planning, Caution to Avoid Being It by Russell Adams, this has an iron-clad concept that doesn’t quite work – somehow the innate madness and anger that occasionally surfaces in Helms’ character (and which is ultimately put down to illness – such sentiment has no place here!) doesn’t get ridden the way it ought. First-time director Jeff Tomsic has fun with the action sequences but the screenplay by Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen needed something extra – at one point I kinda hoped it would be Preston Sturges, because the kind of antic frantic lunacy that this story suggests needs that sort of old-school zany style. The final twist turns into something else with Hoagie’s crazed tagalong wife Anna (Isla Fisher) letting loose – at last. Too late, I fear! You’re it. Poor planning. Poor execution

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Learn it.  Know it.   Live it. Stacey (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the 15 year old girl who wants to date and takes tips from the more experienced Linda (Phoebe Cates) who teaches her how to give blow jobs using carrots at lunch in the school cafeteria. Stacey has her virginity taken by a 26 year old in a football field dugout and never hears from him again. Her older brother Brad (Judge Reinhold) is a senior working a MacJob at a fast food joint and is in a going-nowhere relationship for two years with Lisa (Amanda Wyss) who works there too. Stacey’s classmate Mark ‘Rat’ Ratner (Brian Backer) falls for her but she winds up knocked up by his mentor Mike Damone (Robert Romanus) who welshes on paying for the necessary abortion. Stacey’s classmate Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) is a stoner slacker who is the bane of history teacher Mr Hand (Ray Walston) but they wind up coming to a detente just in time for the end of the school year. Adapted from Rolling Stone journalist Cameron Crowe’s undercover observational book about a year in the life at a California high school, Amy Heckerling’s feature debut is a sweet and funny if episodic look at some very relatable kids. She helped Crowe rewrite the original screenplay.  Not as raucous as Porky’s or as insightful as The Breakfast Club, it’s notable for not making a big deal about abortion (or topless shots of its female stars) but mainly for being a breakout film for so many future stars and Academy Award winners – including that legendary turn by Penn as the ultimate stoner surf dude. Totally rad!