Hot Tub Time Machine takes us back

Back in the 80's, when I was just a mere prepubescent boy waiting for his balls to finally drop, there were two John Cusack vehicles that I would take for spin over and over again in my VCR. One was The Sure Thing, which my old man had bought at the local Citgo for some reason and the other one was Better Off Dead he cult classic that still has people yelling "I want my two Dollars". Back then, Cusack was the reigning king of the quirky teen comedies, and even when he took a decided more dramatic turn in "Say Anything" his everymanboyishness still resonated. But, alas, John could not be in high school and college forever, and soon he had to move on to more grownup things like Being John Malkovich and 2012: the RV odyssey.

God, don't you miss the 80's?  While even if you don't, it is still fun to reminisce about the decade that brought us Music Videos, Hair Bands, Cable. Reagan, and New Coke. Okay, so Music Videos, Hair Bands, Cable, and Reagan, were around before then, but hey, at least there is still New Coke right? New Coke and a young John Cusack.

Ok, enough  with me waxing nostalgic, let me get back to my review of Hot Tub Time Machine.

So, thanks to my awesomeness at rock, paper, scissors, I got to pick which Netflix Movie we were going to watch that day. My pick was none other than Hot Tub Time machine starring John Cusack, Rob Cordry, and that black guy front the Office (oh, okay, I will go look it up: Craig Robinson). I had heard that was funny, but my girlfriend was not convinced and wanted  to watch The Talented Mr. Ripley instead. However, since my rock totally crushed her scissors, she was going to have to wait.

So, in went the Blu Ray and out came this gem of a raunchy comedy.

So here is the synopsis: Three forty something friends and one nephew decide go on a ski trip, find themselves in a hot tub which thanks to some wiring mishaps is actually a wormhole into their past. Soon, they find themselves stuck in 1985, during Winterfest, not knowing how the fuck to get back to the present, or even if they want to. While, I am no Stephen Hawking, I am pretty sure that the physics on hot tub time travel are pretty sound. I mean who knows what the hell goes on with those things. So anyways, Winterfest 85 turns out to be a critical juncture in the lives of all them, but the trio and the nephew find themselves torn between causing a butterfly effect in the future, or changing their lives for the better.

Okay, so this story might sound like something concocted by someone who spent the night doing bong hits and watching a John Cusack marathon, wondering "what if? " and it probably is, but you know what. It works. Sure, some of logic in the movie makes no sense whatsoever, but the raunchy comedy derived from this nonsensical logic is fucking hilarious. Rob Cordry is especially funny as that one asshole friend that every pack of friend has and John Cusack is great at being, well John Cusack. Speaking of Cusack, the movie is rife with homages to that time when he was the reigning king of geeky teen comedies.Craig Robinson is also hilarious, adding a certain gravitas to the threesome.


So, if you are in the mood to be taken back to the 80's, or just want to laugh at people dressed in bright yellow neoprene then get your but to your local video store and grab yourself a VHS copy of this funny film. Heck, it might even be out on Beta.

Easy A gets a solid B+

All of us, even those who were born after the fact, know that the 80's was the golden era for the teen sex romp comedies. This was pretty much thanks to John Hughes and the brat pack who help turn out classics that still resonate such as The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Say Anything and even Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But sadly, that era has gone, John Hughes has passed on to make teen sex comedies for God and Molly Ringwald has gone onto become a TV mom for a preggers teenager.

Sure, once in a while something like Ten Things I Hate About You or Mean Girls would come along and make us yen for those days again when twenty something actors could play convincing teenagers and movies could have a sense of fun yet still be grounded with some type of ambiguous moral message. Alas, kids today are generally stuck with shit like Twilight which is all angst and no fun and stars like Lindsey Lohan who make one decent teen comedy before going off the deep end and showing their lady parts to the world.

This is why the world needs a movie like Easy A which harks back to the good old days when a teen comedy could be about sex and still have a message and a starlet like Emma Stone who can play a convincing teenager yet has the the maturity not to show her beaver off to paparazzi well getting out of limos.

Okay, here is a quick synopsis of Easy A:

Take the Scarlet Letter, add a little 16 Candles romance, a dash of Mean Girls High School Observation and perhaps a touch of Juno parenting and Bam, you have an winning teen sex romp comedy where no one actually gets laid, yet it is still fun to watch. Emma Stone plays Olive, a clean cut girl and tells a little fib about banging a college boy and soon finds herself with a reputation after the rumor is spread by the goody goody (played with vicious glee by Amanda Bynes) who overhears in the bathroom.

However, instead of crying about her reputation, she embraces it instead, reveling in her new found popularity. She then takes it one step further and becomes a fake skank for hire for the meek and downtrodden: sort of like a hooker with a heart of gold, but a this hooker never actually spreads her legs. Anyways, things get out of hand, she meets a good guy and now she has to figure out how to get out of it and wind up with the guy who is sort of a cross between John Cusack in Say Anything and that one dude with the nice car in sixteen candles.

The only thing that is really hard to believe in this movie is the premise that Olive has somehow managed to go unnoticed by the high school boys up until she develops a reputation. I mean, come on, Emma Stone is hot. hotter than Molly Ringwald ever dreamed to be. But, then again, this is something the audience is just going to have to suspend their disbelief about in order to accept the premise of the movie. Perhaps it is because she hangs out with a girl with much bigger boobs than her.

The thing that I liked most about the movie was the surprisingly hilarious banter that is scattered throughout. Olive's parents (played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkston) are especially funny. Speaking of Olive's parents, I thought they were the best teen parents to show up in the movie since Juno. They simply ooze quirky California culture while at the same time showing that even sun baked Cali parents can be warm and supportive. This is especially true for Olive's mother who comes across as surprisingly realistic and endearing.

All in all, Easy A is an above average film that makes you miss those good old days when teen movies were neither horrendous satires about teen movies nor angst loaded bullshit featuring werewolves and vampires. I highly recommend you add Easy A to your Netflix que and enjoy it, because it will probably be a few years before another good teen movie like it comes out again.

MACHETE DON'T BLOG

Sure, eventually,we all need to grow up. It sucks, but growing up is usually a necessary progression that we American's tend to go through in our early thirties. By that time, college has become a distant memory, we met someone,made plans, bought a house, had a kid. Blammo, we become our parents, working two jobs to pay the mortgage and stressing over trivial shit like 401Ks and wondering where the fuck all of our hair went.

Sure parts of us try still yearn for those days of carefree youth, but we have responsibilities dammit, and other parts of us secretly like playing the grownup.Filmmakers, I imagine, are just like us in this sense. One day they are making movies for the pure fun of it and the next thing you know they are producing films whose catering budget is twice as large as their first independent feature and telling stories with a message and are no longer fun at all.

Thank you Robert Rodriguez.

Thank you for refusing to grow up and continuing to have fun while making your movies.

I sat down watched the Texas Wunderkind's latest feature, which evolved from a fake trailer from his last film. I must say, that it was one of the most enjoyable time I had watching a movie since Pirhana 3D. The plot was nonsensical, the violence was gratuitous, and the action was over the top. In other words, it was a perfect escape via Bluray. My favorite part was the scene involving the bad guy's intestines.

Totally fucking awesome!

As are all the hot chicks that Machete gets to bang...

Or, at least snuggle with...

Speaking of Jessica Alba...

Is it just me, or is actually getting hotter as she gets older? Heck I almost "forget" to return the Bluray to Netflix just so I can watch all the parts that she was in again (as well as the intestine gag again).

Don't get me wrong though. Machete does feature a massage. A few of them in fact and not just the important message of Machete's are sharp.. It tackles issues such as illegal immigrants, dirty politics, drug cartels, and even religion, but the seriousness of these various issues are all nicely frosted over with a heavy heaping of sugary mayhem.

Funny enough, the next day, it was as if the cable box was reading my mind, because AMC decided to show one of Rodriguez's earlier works: From Duck to Dawn (which features a much younger Danny Trejo) and watching it while sipping on tequila, I could not help but marvel how little his style has changed throughout the years. While some might take it as a sign of creative stagnation, I take it as a sign that he is still having a kick ass time doing what he loves.

And for that we can all be thankful.