IonicBreezeMachine

Friends Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are excited for their first year at Adams College only to be met with the cruel reality that the social hierarchy dictates one's enjoyment and privileged at Adams with the two labeled "Nerds" by the lunkheaded but also established and cruel Alpha Beta fraternity of jocks overseen by Stan Gable (Ted McGinley), Danny Burke (Matt Salinger), and "The Ogre" (Donald Gibb). After the Alpha Betas take control of the freshmen dormitory (after burning down their own house and avoiding consequences due to their University connections), all Freshmen, including Lewis and Gilbert, are reduced to living in a cordoned off part of the college gym. While the university allows displaced freshmen to join fraternities, Lewis, Gilbert and a handful of others branded "nerds" due to race, age, and sexual orientation are rejected by all Adams fraternities. With no other options, the nerds band together and find a dilapidated house and restore it through teamwork and their intelligence, but with cruel vandalism and pranks by the Alpha Betas the nerds take it upon themselves to upend the Alpha Betas' reign of Adams College.

Revenge of the Nerds is a 1984 college comedy which took inspiration from a news paper article about Silicon Valley computer programmers gaining respect and applied the themes of the article to the framework of college and sexual shenanigans comedies that had become in the wake of films like Animal House and Porky's with their low budgets and high returns making them a routine staple of 80s movie-going throughout the decade. While there was some support for the film, notably from Siskel and Ebert who praised the likable human element in the two leads and themes of the movie, there were many others who lumped the film in with the other sex/college comedies of the time that were produced cheaply and quickly. Despite not attaining major support from the outset, the film nonetheless became a major hit earning $60 million domestically against a $6-8 million budget. Revenge of the Nerds does certainly have many of the crude and raunchy elements of its contemporaries, the thing that gives it an edge is in its characters and its anti-prejudice themes.

As noted by some of its supporters at the time, Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards are perfectly matched and very likable together. While Carradine's Lewis provides the spark with his more mischievous smart alecky character, Edward's Gilbert serves as the emotional anchor as he's established as being the sweetest and most sensitive of the group and sort of the glue that holds their found family of nerds together. The rest of the nerd collective is made up of a variety of memorable personalities like pre-pubescent wunderkind Harold Wormser (Andrew Cassese), the crude and gross "Booger" (Curtis Armstrong), and the openly flamboyant and gay Lamar (Larry B. Scott) who despite embodying many of the exaggerations is positive for the time especially when you consider the nerds are welcoming and (relatively) none-judgmental of him. And of course, what good are your heroes without some loathsome villains?, and Revenge of the Nerds gives us some real loathsome heels in the form of Ted McGinley's Stan despite being the "smartest" of their group is also the most openly sadistic carrying an arrogant and superior smirk on his crafted features that makes him an excellent foil to the nerds as his confidence that he can't be punished for his actions makes his downfall all the more satisfying. The movie also has good supporting players such as Bernie Casey's U. N. Jefferson who as head of a national Black fraternity becomes an unlikely ally to the nerds, or John Goodman's Coach Harris who serves as a secondary antagonist ignoring or even outright encouraging the Alpha Beta's reprehensible behavior.

In terms of the movie's humor you could certainly say it was "of the time" (though filming location University of Arizona had reservations even back then of allowing filming due to the film's portrayal of campus life) and this has led to some reassessment since it's release. Here's the thing, comedy by its nature exists in a flexible reality where the absurd is often as acceptable as the mundane in order to convey jokes or serve story beats and that's the best way to look at Revenge of the Nerds, not as reality but as funhouse mirror image of reality that although distorted carries some truth. One of the notable aspects that has been re-evaluated is the romantic subplot between Lewis and Stan's girlfriend Betty played by Julia Montgomery and the means by which the two get together. Per Montgomery's role in the film, she felt Betty secretly wanted to be with Lewis and leave Stan (and there are hints of this in the movie, albeit in a slightly fleeting manner until a few minutes before the event happens) and much like the funhouse mirror exaggerations of certain persons on display, this is best approached as something of a spin on the "Sleeping Beauty" trope (and I mean the original version where it was MUCH more than a kiss....). This will depend on a person-by-person basis, but I feel like the movie places its values at the forefront (particularly in the ending climax) while sort of bending and twisting them when necessary for the sake of either a joke or plot mechanic.

While Revenge of the Nerds is certainly of the time in many ways, it also has its heart and occasionally head in the right place so it isn't cynical like Private Lessons or Preppies which helps to explain why it's endured in pop culture (and spawned an ill-advised media franchise). Definitely a good time, just be aware that like a funhouse mirror, the thing reflected is occasionally real but not necessarily reflective of reality.

Bull (Adam DeVine) is a mutt bulldog who unlike the rest of his friends is not neutered which often leads to him getting in to shenanigans around his household where he tries to find sexual release on either peoples' legs or household objects. Bull carries a crush for his next door neighbor and friend, Honey (Kathryn Hahn), a Borzoi and show dog, but feels inadequate to approach her especially in the presence of his rival Sterling (Beck Bennett), another Borzoi show dog with an impressive lineage. When Bull learns his family plans to have him neutered, he runs away with his friends boxer Rocco (Idris Elba), dashund Fetch (Fred Armisen), and beagle Lucky (Bobby Mynihan) for a debauchery filled night of last hurrahs before he has to say goodbye to his testicles.

Fixed is the long in development directorial project from animator Genndy Tartakovsky, whose prolific work includes the likes of Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, and Hotel Transylvania to name but a few of his contributions to animation. The film stemmed from Tartakovsky's desire to do an animal roadtrip movie that would carry a similar dynamic to him and his real life group of friends which served as the basis for what would become fixed and presumably due tot the success of Hotel Transylvania, Tartakovsky was able to start development in 2018 at Sony Pictures Animation. Despite being produced by Sony, the film was intended to be released by New Line Cinema for 2023 only to fall victim to Warner Bros. Cost saving initiatives of canceling completed releases. As the rights reverted back to Sony, they were free to shop for alternate distribution with Netflix taking up the offer having released a number of Sony Pictures Animation films on their platform. After a tortuously road to release, Fixed.....isn't awful, but it's not exactly Tartakovsky's best work either.

Per Tartakovsky's reputation, the animation is very expressive and energized with a lot of energy and good timing. There's a good sense of personality and character in the designs even if I'm more mixed on for what they're used. This brings us to what Fixed actually is, which is essentially The Secret Life of Pets by way of The 40 Year Old Virgin. Animation is certainly no stranger to sexcapades like Fritz the Cat or even the more recent Sausage Party, but despite Fixed being filled with raunch and vulgarity a plenty, I wouldn't exactly qualify it as "adult" animation. While both Fritz the Cat and Sausage Party were filled with plenty of vulgar language and sexual situations, it was also clear they had something to say with Fritz the Cat spoofing the counterculture of the 60s and 70s (somewhat incorrectly according to R. Crumb) or Sausage Party skewering organized religion so there were actual ideas backing up what was presented. Going even broader to sex comedies, movies like 10 and to an extent the first American Pie took shots at middle aged insecurity and superficiality and the vapid understanding by adolescent high school males who had a very base and shallow understanding of sex. With Fixed, it often feels like the joke begins and ends with sex and aside from being slighty more graphic with dog behaviors as it pertains to pee, poo, and even blood a lot of the time it feels like you're watching something like Secret Life of Pets only with more sex jokes. The only moment that really feels fresh or particularly insightful is a brief sequence where Bobby Moynihan's Lucky falls in love with an intersex doberman named Frankie played by River Gallo, and it's honestly a pretty good moment character wise where his friends are supportive and non-judgmental and it makes you realize there was potential for this concept...only for it to be surrounded by material that aims low.

I didn't hate Fixed, but aside from appreciating some of the animation and vocal performances (particularly Elba, Hahn, and Gallo) I didn't feel Fixed really offered much with its mixture of an R-Rating and animation that wasn't done better elsewhere. It's maybe worth a one time viewing for Tartakovsky (depending on your tolerance for a parade of mainly pee, poo, and sex jokes) but not only has Tartakovsky done better, but so have raunchy animations and sex comedies.

Sam (Rebel Wilson) and Betsy (Anna Camp) are childhood friends who've struggled to stay connected as their lives took different paths. Following Betsy's bachelorette night in Paris that Sam needed to disappear from in order to tackled a weapons deal as she works as a secret agent unbeknownst to her friends, Betsy says she's had enough of Sam's flaking and reassigns Maid-of-Honor to her future sister-in-law, Virginia (Anna Chlumsky). Despite now being on the outs with Betsy, Sam still attends the wedding to show support despite the friction still being there. However the ceremony is interrupted by the arrival of a teal of mercenaries led by Kurt (Stephen Dorff) who is working with the Best Man, Chris (Justin Hartley) to utilize the rings and occular scans of several guests who are required to access a safe on the property. With the wedding party taken hostage, Sam must now use her agency honed training to save her friends and stop the terrorists.

Bride Hard is the latest release of upstart distribution company Magenta Light Studios, the company from prolific producer Bob Yari seeks to specialize in low-mid budget films for theatrical distribution which have struggled in the wake of streaming proliferation that has seen theatrical films lean towards larger more expensive tentpoles. Written by Shaina Steinberg in her feature writing debut, who's most notable credits are as a writing assistant on the Starz series Spartacus and writing for the short lived NBC procedural Chase, Bride Hard is the kind of high concept package (being Bridesmaids by way of Die Hard) that you would've seen more of about 10 years ago with films that came about in the wake of Bridesmaids (think The Heat or Spy). With a cast that includes 3 alums from the Pitch Perfect franchise, Bride Hard feels very much like a man out of time in terms of what it is, it's just a shame it's not reminiscent of one of the good movies of this type and falls more in line with Barely Lethal and So Undercover.

On paper, there's no reason a movie like this shouldn't work because when you intertwine the high stress scenario of an incoming wedding with the high tension scenario of a action movie plot you can get some good mileage out of something like that (the underrated Belgian film The Wedding Party I felt did this kind of premise really well). Unfortunately with Bride Hard, it feels very much like a first draft as the movie doesn't really create characters so much as it creates vaguely defined archetypes that it places in weatherworn situations without particularly good timing or comedic energy. From the opening montage that clunkily sets up Sam and Betsy's estrangement that segues to a bachelorette party where the core cast need text identifiers because the movie couldn't figure out a way to establish their roles and characters organically, the establishment of both the bridal drama/shenanigans and the stock espionage elements aren't particularly well-integrated and the movie fails at creating the comic friction you need for this premise to work. The friendship between Sam and Betsy is supposed to be a key point for the audience to latch onto but there's so little actual meat to that relationship that when Sam is dumped as Maid-of-Honor in favor of Betsy's spiteful future sister-in-law Virginia, there's a feeling of "so what?" because we aren't really invested in the relationship.

Once the high concept action elements enter the movie at the half-hour mark things don't become too much better as despite Simon West's reputation as an action director, the action feels very cheap and without much in the way of memorable setpieces with maybe only an occasional line read mining a smirk or slight chuckle from a wasteland of comedic potential. The editing often feels very clumsy with a lot of choppy attempts at integrating the action elements with the comedic elements and even during standalone sequences, such as where Virginia is being Catty to Sam, there's an odd disjointedness that makes this film feel like it shouldn't be in a theater and would be more at home on VOD.

Bride Hard isn't the worst movie of this type that I've seen (for my money something like 2010's Killers was way worse), but it's also something of a reminder of how a lot of the good will from Bridesmaids was run into the ground by shameless copycats that assumed all you needed for success was a cast of talented female stars, a high concept hook, and no actual effort. There was probably a decent enough idea here at one point, but it either wasn't fully developed or died the death of a thousand cuts leading to something that's destined to take up the back rows of streaming services.