imagineer99

There is a scene in Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation where two illegal Mexican immigrants sit in the back of a pickup truck as they are being carted off to work at a meat packing plant in a midsize Colorado town. As the truck glides down the town's main drag, the two men are greeted with their first uninhibited sight of America: a landscape comprised of chain restaurants and $2.99 Happy Meals—-a literal sea of neon signs and billboards. From this, it's obvious that Fast Food Nation isn't a movie that holds its punches. With each passing burger joint and pizza place dotted along the road, Linklater is posing a silent question. He's asking about consumerism and an American obsession with immediacy. He's criticizing the "bigger is better" and "quantity over quality" aphorisms that have run amuck amongst this country's social conscience. But, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that Linklater likes to pose more questions than he actually likes to answer. The film is attempting to be a desperate wake up call to a society that is trying to eat itself to death. But, in reality, what we get is nothing more than a bold prophet that simply can't begin to live up to or answer its own queries.

Based on a nonfiction book of the same name, Fast Food Nation ultimately fails because it doesn't quite know what it's trying to do. Filmed in a style that feels very organic, Linklater is attempting to blur his cinematic world with that of reality—-where his fictionalized "Mickey's" burger joint could easily pass for the local McDonalds or Taco Bell. This realist approach is juxtaposed against the fictionalized characters that artificially inhabit the playing field. To put it bluntly, it's a mixture that just doesn't work. Several sub-stories are told in conjunction with each other, each poorly paced and each not given the appropriate attention it deserves. For instance, Greg Kinnear's blissfully ignorant fast food marketing executive is completely dropped halfway through the film. This unevenness not only feels awkward, it stilts the narrative structure. If the character is so unimportant that he can just disappear, why should we care? The other stories get similar treatment, complete with stereotypical teenage miscreants and an overly aggressive meat packing foreman that preys upon the immigrants that work there. The moments of genuine emotion—-such as Catalina Sandino Moreno's performance as a distraught migrant wife—-are too few and far between. The rest of the movie is clumsily ground together with odd cameos that, while somewhat interesting, are not smoothly congealed into the rest of the recipe.

By the time Linklater gives us his grand finale—an uncensored, raw look at the killing floor of a meat packing plant—-we get the feeling that the film is less concerned about stirring genuine emotions and more interested in manipulatively gutting the feelings out of us. If we can watch such bovine terror, than darn it, we should feel something! Yet, there is no connection to what we are seeing. It's a spectacle, stuffing us with a bombardment of grotesque images that ineffectually force us to react—-gross, but ultimately hollow. And in that respect, ironically, Fast Food Nation is very much like the pre-made meals it claims to despise—somewhat visually appetizing, but ultimately void of emotional and nutritional content.

With his unassuming eyes and sheepish, "awe shucks!" demeanor, Will Ferrell is quite simply the guy you root for—the eternal boy trapped in a gangly 6'3" frame. Just a single look can make you giggle and smile so effortlessly that you're often unaware that you're actually doing it. It is with this notion that Stranger than Fiction—Ferrell's first major foray into a theatrical world outside the realm of in-your-face frat boy silliness—just makes sense. By surrounding Ferrell's charisma with a subdued, darkly comic script and a talented supporting cast, we get a film that is both fresh and heartfelt.

Directed by Marc Forster and penned by Zach Helm, Stranger than Fiction is an odd mix-mash, combining a standard comedy with existentialist ideas. Number crunching IRS agent and genuine loser, Harold Crick (Ferrell) one day wakes up to find his life being narrated word for word by burnt out writer Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Odd thing is, Eiffel is writing an actual book where Crick just happens to be the main character. To make matters worse, she plans on killing him off as soon as she can make it through a particularly arduous stretch of writer's block.

Originality is one thing that is absent from a majority of contemporary Hollywood pictures, so Fiction immediately gets points for simply trying something different. I suppose it's icing on the cake that the film is genuinely good. Crick, knowing that is death is imminent, begins to break out of his cloistered shell and to experience the fruits of his life. And, in the process he forms a bond with a tax breaking baker (Gyllenhal) and seeks advice from a literature professor, played by a particularly charming Dustin Hoffman

However, even though it is well intentioned, the execution isn't flawless. The romance that develops between Gyllenhal's outcast baker and Ferrell's strait-laced Crick doesn't feel entirely organic. We admire the relationship and smile at its sugar coated sweetness, but we don't necessarily believe their connection. It may taste good, but it doesn't exactly wash down smoothly. Neither, does the film's over reliance on reinforcing generic, "Carpe Diem" philosophies. Towards the second act, things do get sappy. Luckily, by the conclusion, the plot has bounced back to a wonderful limbo of both oddly comic and genuinely heartwarming moments.

For all its flaws, Stranger than Fiction, works. Like a good novel, Forster has fashioned something that is strange, stylistic, and unexpectedly inspiring. And, despite the chinks in its existentialist armor, that's surely something worth writing home about.

Dane Cook isn't funny. It's a mantra one can live their life by. I guess it should come as no surprise, then, that his first starring role in a feature film isn't funny either. Employee of the Month is trying to be a smart and satiric portrayal of life for blue collar workers at a Costco-esquire warehouse store (think Office Space, except with cash registers instead of computers). What we get instead is a lame, uninspired display of physical schmaltz dashed with clichéd jokes and poor comedic timing.

The plot is pretty basic. Likable loser Zach, played by Dane Cook (still not funny), begins an all out competition with head cashier Vince (Dax Shepard) to win the coveted position of—wait for it—employee of the month. The two warehouse enemies go through ridiculous stunts to win the accolade, including finding lost children, cleaning up spills, and speedily checking out customers. Oh, and apparently uber-hot new cashier Amy (Jessica Simpson) only dates the employee of the month—a plot point that is so stupid and inexplicable that it takes a lot of guts (or just plain laziness) to base a movie off of it.

The majority of the film consists of the back and forth banter between the two lead characters—a concept that is lot more humorous in concept than in execution. In essence, this is something that can be attributed to the movie's horrendous comedic timing. The jokes just don't work. The actors don't react when they should. They're inch a way from making contact, but instead end up striking out instead. Matters are made worse by Simpson's performance. I understand that making fun of Jessica Simpson is somewhat passé, but to put it bluntly she's awful. She mumbles through her lines like a sedated porpoise at Sea World, smiling giddily and awkwardly towards the camera. Heck, I think in the background I saw some guy holding up cue cards. Her bland performance doesn't help her on screen chemistry opposite Cook. I almost felt bad for Dane. Almost.

The side, "color" characters aren't any better, which is a shame because they are played by some recognizable minor comedians (Andy Dick, Brian George, Harland Williams). But, as with all things in Employee of the Month nothing is ever utilized to its potential. Andy Dick plays an eye technician who—get this—is practically blind! If you find that concept hilarious, you are either: A.) 10 years old. B.) A moron. Efren Ramirez, the guy who played the nerdy Hispanic sidekick in Napoleon Dynamite, stars once again as the—um—nerdy Hispanic sidekick. Wow! Where do the writers get this stuff?

The lack of laughs is incredibly disappointing considering the potential hilarity of the subject matter. From three pound tubs of mayonnaise to generic paper products, there's a lot of stuff to work with here. But, instead of getting some kind of commentary on excessive consumerism or a ridiculous need for price gouging and bargain hunting, we get a lot of fart and midget jokes. For a comedy that comes in at what feels like a staggeringly long 143 minutes, the laughs are too few and far in between. I cracked a smile every now and then, but for the most part I just kept on thinking how much better the film would have been as an express checkout installment—15 minutes or less.