Bachelorette (2012)

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan, James Marsden, Kyle Bornheimer, Rebel Wilson, Adam Scott

Director: Leslye Headland

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

What do you do when your "fat friend" gets married before you?  This is the problem presented in Bachelorette, as three friends, Regan (Dunst), Gena (Caplan), and Katie (Fisher) come to terms with the impending marriage of their "fat friend," Becky (Wilson).  Regan, the maid of honour, has always thought that she would be the first to marry, and is particularly devastated.  Gena, is insecure in her life, possibly addicted to drugs, and not yet over her ex-boyfriend, Clyde (Scott), who will be at the wedding.  Gena, really, is just a bitch.  After a fight with the bride the night before the wedding the trio get drunk and do cocaine, lament about their lives and the wedding, and decide to play with the wedding dres.  This all goes horribly wrong when they manage to rip the dress in two, and the night is spent in a mad scramble to try to fix it.

Going into this, I wasn't particularly sure about the film.  The three leads aren't exactly likeable, and I found the humour to be more offensive than funny.  Then the dress rips and the mad scramble starts and things really start to fall into place.  I really enjoyed the mad scramble and I found that with a goal in mind the characters all really seemed to become more likeable.  I never really wanted to embrace Isla Fisher's Gena - at the end, she was still really just a bitch, although I must say I didn't outright hate her or anything.  I loved Lizzy Caplan, though.  At the start she was the only character who I thought I might like, then I didn't, then I absolutely loved her.  Hers was the journey that made the most sense and was the most fun - but then, anything that includes "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers is awesome.  In the end, though, I found Dunst's character to be the most intriguing. It's really your typical story of a girl who appears to have everything, but really has nothing, but I still like what they did with it.

This movie gets a lot of comparison to The Hangover and Bridesmaids.  In my opinion it's a far better female equivalent of The Hangover than Bridesmaids ever was.  Where Bridesmaids is about women hating each other and fighting over whose the best bridesmaid, The Hangover series is about guys getting drunk and having an adventure before a wedding, with hilarious results - while Bachelorette does have a good amount of infighting among the bridesmaids and with the bride, the key element here is the pre-wedding adventure, with hilarious results.  It's a movie centred around a wedding, but also not centred around the wedding, and that's really why I enjoyed it.  It was fun.

3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom (2012)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Chris O'Dowd, Lizzy Caplan, Nora Dunn, Whitney Cummings, Ron Perlman, Chris Noth, Sam Anderson

Director: Jordan Roberts

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

Frankie (Hunnam) has always been the focus of two things: his brother's pranks and his brother's films.  These pranks have lead to some disastrous results, notably when he became a Youtube sensation following a disastrous incident at what was supposed to be his wedding.  Wedding called off, Frankie withdrew to the desert and did his best to cut off all ties with his family.  That is, until his brother, Bruce (O'Dowd), is released from rehab and his parents (Dunn and Anderson) insist that Frankie come to the reunion.  Bruce has decided that he wants to become a director, and his favourite person to focus on is his brother.  Frankie wants no part in it, but when he finds out that Bruce secretly filmed an encounter that Frankie had with Lassie (Caplan), Frankie must embark on a journey to regain his dignity.

This journey is what makes this film absolutely awesome, as Frankie comes up repeatedly against the not exactly sane people that inhabit his brother's world - notably rather deranged actor Jack (Noth), and the transsexual Phiyllis (Perlman).  Each character in this film is really a character - most of them you suspect might be mentally unstable and a good portion of them who you really hope aren't supposed to be realistic depictions of people, even if some of them do kind of remind you of people you know - and their actions are both hilarious and infuriating at the same time.  It's very easy to relate with Hunnam's character because the events that happen to him are in a way so clear cut that it's hard not to be mad at Bruce.  At the same time, however, once you write Bruce off as not all there mentally it becomes easier to try to make allowances for his behaviour, even when he crosses the line - which he does multiple times.

The thing that I really liked about 3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom was just how unconventional it is.  It addresses issues that, while you might see addressed normally, don't get touched on to the great length that Frankie touches on them.  I mean, it's a movie that combines the power of the internet and viral videos with hidden sex tapes and erectile dysfunction.  And on top of all that it also has this great love story underneath it.  You never really care about most of the characters in this film - you aren't rooting for Bruce or Jack or Phiyllis - but there isn't any addition to it that could have been done away with.  You are rooting for Frankie and Lassie, and they need Bruce, Jack, and Phiyllis in order to make their story work.  Plus, you can't go wrong with Ron Perlman as a transsexual.