Tenure

This is a melo-dramatic comedy, 2009 flick starring Luke Wilson as our main protagonist and also featuring Gretchen Mol, David Koechner, Sasha Alexander and Bob Gunton. It is written and directed by Mike Million. Rated R if you're interested by ratings or if you want to supervise what your kids are listening. I've heard the F word a few times and other sexual references words, so that is where you'll get your R rating. No images to support the words. It's all speaking "R".

This is not the flagship of Luke Wilson's filmography. It is an independent movie produced by Blowtorch Entertainment, that you may not heard of, unless you're into the underground movie scene. Like I said, it's not a blockbuster movie, not action-packed and it wasn't a movie that you saw any publicity about it, at least not that I know of. But, somehow, when I looked at cover and read the synopsis, I was, I could say a little bit intrigued. So I sat on the couch and I was ready to be… Well I wasn't ready for anything. I didn't come with lots of expectations for this movie. I thought to myself, well let's just watch this and see what comes out of it. So anyway, there you go! Charlie Thurber is in his mid-thirty and an English teacher at Grey's College. Charlie's struggling to get his tenureship, which to us is the thing that he'd like to get so bad. To obtain this, he's get to be elect by his fellow teacher partners and his essays need to be publish in a journal or anything that releases a publication. This is the main plot of the film.

Here comes Charlie's best friend, Dr. Jay Hadley(David Koechner), who's an anthropologist and die-hard believer of the existence of the Big Foot. Jay is a 42 years old that I've never seem to grow up. The best example I could tell for this is that Jay tried to get his tenureship and got denied so to replicate at one person who didn't get him his vote he "T-P'ed" that particular man's tree. You see the picture.

Charlie's got to put on his A-game when Elaine Grasso(Gretchen Mol), a new teacher from Yale adds herself up in the mix. On top of this, he has to deal with his father(Bob Gunton), who's in a nursing home but doesn't feel like being in it.

The movie's main theme is about trying to get what you want and the ways you choose to get it. It's an easy-listening movie, it does not revolutionize the movie "genre", but in my opinion this kind of film doesn't need to change that much anyway.

On a scale of 10, I'd give Tenure a 6/10 rating. It made me laugh at times, not out loud laughs but okay laughs. If you like Luke Wilson and/or Gretchen Mol, then I suggest you this flick.

This film was a delight to watch, but did get slow at parts. At parts you did feel a little bored, but something would come up to get your attention back for a bit. It had light humor, but it was a nice chuckle and relaxing. The cast in the film was pretty good. Luke Wilson was decent, but not his best role. Now they needed an actor to play a off the wall weird teacher who is obsessed with bigfoot. So they picked David Koechner, who at first I thought wouldn't fit, but he proved me wrong. Gretchen Mol played the main female role and she did a good job. The film is all about a teacher trying to get tenure. That in itself sounds like a boring piece of work, but luckily they did put some humor in the film. That is basically what David Koechner was for. Some scenes were a bit out of the ordinary, but it really fit with the film. This independent film didn't rely on anything crazy like special effects. Just nice dialog and a decent cast. This would be one of those nice Sunday afternoon movies to watch.

You know those movies featuring a total loser who's doing so bad that it actually becomes embarrassing? They're probably aimed at making us feel better about ourselves, the real losers, out there in that strange dimension called reality-land, trying to cheer us up that every loser can strike a happy ending and somehow, thanks to Hollywood magic, turn winner again... Well, "Tenure" is one of those, with the relatively fresh twist that our "hero" is a college teacher. He's great at teaching, but not really good at anything else. His students love him, but his colleagues hate him. Plus, his best friend falls into the category of "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" It's got heart, though, and though this film is by no means guaranteed to knock your socks off, if the same thing can be said of you, I mean, the "heart" thing, then you might like it. Especially if you've ever been in a situation trying to figure out how to get through to members of the younger generation, or you believe in Bigfoot, or you happen to like Gretchen Mol...

I am not going to bash this movie as many have done... I saw the movie, and was think I set the bar too high. Without giving away too much of the movie, I found that the acting was good, the story was different from a "bottled, formulaic, Animal House-ish" rewrite college comedy.

It was smart, clever, and told a good tale, there was only a small amount of unanswered questions I had in my mind when it ended... I stared at the screen and said... "OK...it wasn't awful, it was .... well OK"

The bottom line is, I am not going to say it was a horrible movie, because it was not... I found that I was entertained by the movie, and they did not try to market it as a blockbuster.. A decent film, and not too far removed from what it was about.. trying to get tenure at a College.

Luke Wilson does a very good job here. He makes us like him and we want him to succeed in all areas of his life. That seems to be the main point of the movie and the main reason to enjoy it.

I know David Koechner from several roles, but mainly as the likable loser on "Superior Donuts". Here, he is a loser, but I wouldn't say likable. I suppose we want him to succeed but almost know for certain he never will.

Gretchen Mol is adorable and intelligent, and while her character's failure would be good for Charlie, she just makes Elaine too nice and pleasant for us to really want that. Seeing her and Wilson together is one of the best things about the movie.

Sasha Alexander is nothing but unpleasant. That's it. Margaret has no redeeming qualities except she's a looker. That's how Jay described Elaine, but I didn't see it myself.

Bob Gunton does a good job (though there are no challenges connected with his character's apparent problems) and I found myself wanting the film to focus more on him and the relationship between William and Charlie. I didn't care if the movie wasn't always funny.

William Bogert as the dean is sort of the absent-minded professor and makes us sort of like him, though not always.

The actors playing three of the students also made us like them. Even Ben, sort of the class clown, who doesn't have nearly enough lines.

Some of the music is classical and nice to listen to. But I particularly liked the "a capella" sound that was so much a part of the background music of the TV series "Glee" and a big part of the "Pitch Perfect" movies. This style was played at the movie's start.

Is this family friendly? In version I saw part of the sign for the presentation of a product is blurry, and every time the product name is mentioned it is bleeped. Let's just say it helps men who are having trouble with women. Later, this product is the subject of a hilarious scene in ... I'd better let you find out. Also, I have reason to suspect the F-word was used a lot. Cleaned up for TV, it's not really too bad.

I enjoyed this, though I have seen better.