Tag: Adam McKay

Oscar Watch: The Big Short

The last piece of the AFI Film Festival puzzle as it relates to Oscar potential was unveiled Thursday night as Adam McKay’s The Big Short screened. You don’t normally (as in ever before now) see director McKay’s name linked to Academy Awards buzz. We know him best for making Will Ferrell comedies like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys. 

Yet this comedy with some drama mixed in focuses on the financial and housing crises of recent years and features a stellar cast that includes Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, and Marisa Tomei. And when Paramount pushed it up from a release date in 2016 to Christmas time this year, it was seen by some as a move to put it in the Oscar race.

The verdict? Pretty strong, but reviews haven’t been met with universal acclaim. Some critics have been quite positive though and when it comes to the performances, attention has turned to Carell for Actor and Bale in Supporting Actor (a category he won in 2010 for The Fighter). Even though the Best Actor race is less competitive in 2015 than it’s been in recent year, I still feel Carell is a bit of a long shot for consideration unless the movie really takes off. Same goes for Bale. I would also say its inclusion in Best Picture seems iffy, at best.

As you know, however, these things can change over the next couple of months and The Big Short at least established itself as a potential player in the weeks ahead.

Get Hard Movie Review

Get Hard is a limp premise that wastes the pairing of two talented stars of the genre in a sea of dated jokes. In this film’s world, gay and racial humor is displayed in full force and the writers seem to believe it’s edgy just because it exists on the page and its high profile performers are saying the lines. It doesn’t connect and the result is a pic that will soon be easily forgotten on both Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart’s resumes.

James King (Ferrell) is a hedge fund manager who’s engaged to his boss’s (Craig T. Nelson) materialistic and cliched money grubbing daughter (Alison Brie). Darnell (Hart) runs the car wash business that services King’s building. When King is wrongfully convicted of embezzlement, he enlists Darnell to help him cope with his upcoming ten year stint at San Quentin. You see, King assumes Darnell has done hard time because… well, he’s black and he believes statistically there’s a likelihood of it. When Darnell is promised $30,000 to assist with King’s request, he is perfectly OK with misleading him.

This sets up elaborate scenes in which Darnell simulates prison riots and instructs King on how to stand up for himself. Mostly it involves advice on how not to get raped in the joint. Lots and lots of jokes about it, which are all stale. The filmmakers even go as far as putting King in a situation where he must learn to, um, service a man should he have to. It’s more uncomfortable than funny. Like the entire idea of this venture.

Get Hard is not anywhere close to as dangerous as it wants to be. It must waste some of its running time investigating who really is behind the crimes King is charged with and that part is dull. The rest of the way is gay joke, racial joke, gay joke, racial joke. Mixed in occasionally is tired commentary on how corporate America contains the real bad guys, a thread also common in much more rewarding Ferrell fare like The Other Guys and The Campaign. Even what purports to be the pic’s comedic highlights, like Ferrell accidentally getting injured by a weapon, only reminded me of when he did it better like in Old School. And let’s face it – how many times have we already seen Will use his naked body as a punchline? It’s here too! The main side effect of taking the journey to Get Hard in this case is absence of laughter.

*1/2 (out of four)