CATFIGHT (2017)

NR

STARS: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone
DIRECTOR: Oner Tukel
GENRE: Dark Comedy


We tend to think of a "catfight" as a snotty verbal altercation between two women that might, if it gets out of hand, devolve into some hair pulling. This ain't that kinda thing. This is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. Bare knuckled.

And in this corner, weighing one hundred and seventeen pounds...

Don't be deceived. Catfight pits a couple of cinematic heavyweights--Sandra Oh and Anne Heche--against one another in a knockdown drag out slugfest of epic proportions!

Sandra Oh Plays Veronica--a self-absorbed housewife married to a wealthy industrialist war profiteer.  Anne Heche is a struggling lesbian artist. Freud would have a field day with her paintings. They haven't seen each other since college when their paths cross at a glitzy birthday party. Old resentments surface. Verbal barbs begin to fly, and soon thereafter the fists. Veronica gets the worst of it and ends up in a coma. For two years. Meanwhile, Ashley's fortunes have changed, and she is now a celebrated artist. Veronica has lost everything and takes work as a maid. 

Fate throws the two of them together again and another brawl ensues. This time Ashley loses--by a knockout--and ends up in a coma. For two years. When she awakens, all her funds have gone to pay the medical bills, and her notoriety is gone. And the first one now shall later be last...there but for fortune...and all that. I love the symmetry of it. In all, there are three grudge matches between them where the punches fly and the blood flows freely. Some people are just always rubbing you the wrong way.

Catfight makes its satirical statement in a not so subtle way. No reading between the lines required. It has to do with, among other things, our national obsession with violence and war. With every punch thrown, there's the mandatory SOCKO sound effect (which you don't hear in a real fight) that's in every TV show and movie that features fisticuffs. Which is most of them. 

Sit in front of the tube for a couple hours and take note of the shows they promo during the breaks. What do they show in these short clips? Somebody getting punched or shot. We've grown so numb to it, we're no longer aware of what it's saying about us. Maybe a clue to that is in the "Fart Machine"--a guy who interrupts the late night TV host's monologue by parading out and feigning flatulence. Everybody who watches this is highly amused--and, of course, distracted from what's really going on around them. (A statement about our declining intelligence level?)

Catfight is like a hot fudge sundae. Dark and delicious. And yes, dark humor requires something of a sophisticated mindset to be able to differentiate it from that which is being presented as deadly serious. Through humor the most serious of issues are often examined. The darker the humor, the more deadly serious those issues can be. And that's why humor should not be taken lightly.

Grade:  B +  

JILL'S TAKE

OMG! I can't believe what I just read. At the end of Catfight, I turned to Tim and whispered, "This is, bar none, the worst f---ing movie I've ever seen!" Dark humor be damned. The tag line of this turkey should have read: "Thelma and Louise Meet Wrestlemania" with a little Animal House thrown in for good measure. Sheesh! (My personal expression of disgust.)

I can just imagine the "pitch" for this non film went something like, "Listen, JB. Let's get two bankable female stars to beat each other up for 96 minutes. We've seen tons of movies where guys do it but it's time to give women their due." Billed as a 'black and blue comedy,' the plot was so unbelievable, and the violence so un-funny, that I just plain hated it. Except for the musical score. They don't list a scorer but the musical supervisor, Devoe Yates, must have had a blast picking famous classical themes such as Grieg's "Anitra's Dance" to contrast with the battles going on onscreen. Still, I have a problem with violent comedies. (I wasn't particularly amused by Married to The Mob or My Cousin Vinny, either.) Maybe it's just me. After all, the Tomatometer gave it 76% -- but the audience score wasn't nearly as favorable...

The really sad part? Catfight is the last movie Tim and I will see together. I leave for California in two days. For good. We'll still write our joint reviews long distance but it won't be quite the same without him quietly disagreeing with me (or not!) as the credits roll. 

Grade:: F

CEDAR RAPIDS (2011)

Rated: R

Stars: Ed Helms, Anne Heche, John C. Reilly, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Alia

Shawkat, Sigourney Weaver, Kurtwood Smith, Stephen Root

Director: Miguel Arteta

Genre: Dark Comedy

Cedar Rapids, IOWA--where I lived and worked for a time WAY back in the day. The folks there were--shall we say--not terribly hip. As a young dude, I sported longish hair, and the people would literally hang out their car windows, pointing and laughing at me as I crossed the street! (DUDE LOOK LIKE A LADY...HHAWW!)

Ironic that the same town of today (which appears to be all built up and grown up...I didn't recognize any of it) serves as a metaphor for sophistication in the ultimately sweet, and bittersweet comedy, Cedar Rapids. Sophisticated in comparison to Brown Valley, Wisconsin, anyway--where insurance agent Tim Lippe has come from to attend the big convention.

I had to wonder if Ed Helms, who plays Tim as the ultimate country rube, didn't watch Big with Tom Hanks as many times as I did. Hanks' character is literally a 13 year-old trapped inside an adult male's body. Tim Lippe has no such excuse to fall back on. He's a bona fide adult with the emotional maturity of a 13 year-old. Exactly why, we're not sure, because not everyone in Brown Valley is quite as naive. Take, for example, Tim's middle-aged bed buddy, Macy, (Sigourney Weaver) who has been around the block a time or three (she was once his 7th grade teacher!)

Tim's boss, Bill Krogstad (Stephen Root) sends him off to the insurance convention in hopes of capturing the coveted Two Diamonds Award, an honor previously bestowed upon the local agency for a few years running. When Tim lands in "the big town," the first person he meets is a hooker (Alia Shawkat) who is working the hotel circuit. More culture shock follows when he meets his African-American roommate, (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and the third roomie--the wild, crazy, and profane Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly). And Tim will soon fall in with Joan, (Anne Heche) a jaded married chick who approaches these conventions as her one chance to taste some freedom, and a little bit of recklessness. And reckless the exploits of these four will become-- as wild parties, booze, drugs, and hanky-panky begin to transform the straight-laced insurance salesman into something he's not sure he ever wanted to be.

Good performances all around--though people like Tim Lippe exist only in a Norman Rockwell world, so in that respect, Helms' portrayal is over the top when compared to the other characters, each of whom COULD be real! And of all the quirky, colorful personalities in Cedar Rapids, I think I like Bree, the hooker, the best. (No reflection on my personal life--heh heh.) She may be the most pragmatic of the bunch, and she dispenses the film's ultimate nugget of wisdom, about the compromises we all make just to get by.

Cedar Rapids is a film that will linger with you like the faint trace of some intoxicating perfume.

And for a dose of reality, I just read that prostitution is a growing problem in the city. PIMPS AND HOOKERS...WOW! Guess I could walk those streets now with my pony tail and see people who look a lot weirder than me!

How times change.

Grade: B +

SPREAD-- Rated: R (Now playing at home where absentmindedly spooning soup into your nose while watching a movie is not considered bad manners)

LAX--where dreamers with visions of making it big are constantly arriving, and just as many disillusioned dreamers are leaving on the same day. In Spread, Ashton Kutcher plays Nikki, a self-absorbed young hustler, who dreams of being a kept man--which he manages to do when he sweeps successful lawyer Samantha (Anne Heche) off her feet at one of those nightclubs where the beautiful, vacuous people go to play.

Samantha has a nice "spread," a swanky villa overlooking the City of Angels, where Nikki can luxuriate in style--and all he has to do to earn his keep is to satisfy the older Samantha's physical needs. But when Sam is away, the bad boy will play--throwing parties and pretending it's his digs, and demonstrating his bedroom talents to assorted beautiful, vacuous chicks. Until one day, Nikki is smitten by a young waitress...and why? Because she doesn't give in to him right away, and just like most guys, he wants want he can't have. But lo and behold, Heather (the intriguing Margarita Levieva) is a player in her own right--hustling wealthy, cigar smoking dudes and cruising around in their flashy cars.

What will come of a romance

Between two hustlers of a feather

One named Nikki

And the other named Heather?

To anyone who tries to live an honest, hard working life, Spread is a seamy tale filled with not the most likable characters. You'd think that L.A. is rife with nothing but shallow, materialistic, amoral people. Hmmm...don't know where anyone would get THAT idea!

But there are things to recommend Spread for viewing: Anne Heche pushing the envelope and doing uninhibited, soft-core porn sex scenes, for one. Let's see...when I think of another reason, I'll let you know. Oh yeah, it has the quirkiest closing scene you're ever likely to see on film. Let's just say it will remind you that you've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find you're prince or princess--and even at that, some of us end up with rats.

GRADE: B-