Nov 20, 2015
It seems every holiday season brings with it at least a couple of new Christmas movies. They're often ensemble affairs, with up to a dozen name actors handling small yet plum parts in a sweet confection that is guaranteed to be played in cable reruns and streamed on Netflix forever.
This year's double dose of sugar-coated cinematic cheer has already arrived, with this weekend's "The Night Before" starring Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie in a raunchy R-rated romp that is aimed at a younger crowd. Last weekend brought us "Love the Coopers," a much more traditional Christmas tale that aims to please the whole family, or at least those with a gentler sense of humor.
"Night" stars Rogen as Isaac, a nice but sloppy married Jewish man awaiting the birth of his first child; Gordon-Levitt as Ethan, a musician who's been spinning his wheels in life ever since the sudden death of his parents 14 years before; and Mackie as Chris, an NFL athlete who is suddenly having the best year of his career at an age when he should be forced to retire. The three of them have been going out every Christmas Eve for the past 14 years in order to cheer Ethan up at the loneliest night of the year, but this year, there are added complications.
With Isaac about to take on the added responsibilities of fatherhood, the trio has already agreed that this year will be their last wild romp. The guys know they have to make it count and Ethan finds the perfect solution when he steals three tickets to New York City's most exclusive party of the year, the Nutcracker Ball, where the best deejays and the wildest psychedelic drugs await the city's hottest singles.
The party alone would make a crazy night, but Chris is eager to break into the posse of his team's superstar quarterback and promises to bring him a load of primo marijuana. That quest leads to all manner of havoc, as the pot gets stolen by a woman who hates Christmas and they have to chase her all over the city to get it back.
Add in multiple run-ins with their high school drug dealer, Mr. Green (Michael Shannon in a terrifically sleazy performance), Ethan's attempts to win back his girlfriend (Lizzy Caplan) and settle down, a drug trip in the middle of midnight Mass for Isaac, and a surprisingly winning (and fully clothed) cameo by Miley Cyrus, and "The Night Before" is hoping to be a new holiday favorite with teens through thirtysomethings.
But for those who are seeking sweet holiday solace, steer clear. "Night" is also packed with profanity, a wild bathroom sex scene and a whole lot of drug humor en route to a conventionally moral happy ending. It also features a blasphemous scene in which Rogen's character has the sudden need to vomit from all the drugs he's taken – right in the middle of his wife celebrating midnight Mass with her family. He does so in the center aisle of the church before calling out Jesus' name in vain.
It's a shame, because "The Night Before" continues Rogen's string of movies in which his character and his costars engage in disreputable behavior en route to learning positive and even morally conservative life lessons. He has said in a Rolling Stone interview that "we make conservative movies for stoners," meaning he and his mentor Judd Apatow try to send conservative messages subversively into the kind of audience that would never consciously seek such messages out.
Marriage, fatherhood, and faith are all expounded upon favorably by the end of "The Night Before," but Catholic audiences should approach with extreme caution because there are plenty of moral pitfalls along the way. There is a place for outrageous and even raunchy humor since it is not possible to take it seriously and emulate it, but in a Christmas movie like this, it's harder than usual to justify.
"Love The Coopers" is the much safer bet for a movie the whole family can enjoy, as it features Diane Keaton and John Goodman as Charlotte and Sam Cooper. They're two former hippies who fell in love during the '60s and have been married for 40 years, although Sam is determined to leave her after the family's annual Christmas get-together.
Sam is frustrated that Charlotte has aged into a fearful, boring woman who has found multiple excuses not to go on Sam's dream vacation: an African safari. He sees her lack of adventures as symptomatic of much broader problems and is determined to break free, take the trip himself and start a new life before it's truly too late for him to go.
Their extensive family and friends have plenty of their own problems, including daughter Emma (Marisa Tomei), who was just caught shoplifting and has them all wondering where she's at. Meanwhile, son Hank (Ed Helms) has been dumped by his own wife for being stingy and uninspired, and a cute waitress (Amanda Seyfried) who's a friend of the Coopers is about to make a dramatic move that could break the heart of her favorite customer (Alan Arkin).
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Click here "Love The Coopers" isn't as funny as "The Night Before," but it does have a fair share of laughs and exudes warmth and charm with solid performances bringing to life characters you come to care about deeply. With families often unable to agree on anything from dessert to what to watch on TV after the football game's over, these two choices make it easy for everyone to find something they'll like on their own terms.
On a final side note, "Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2" is out this weekend, and I have left it out of being my main review because it is the kind of movie that's critic-proof: those who want to see it will see it no matter what a critic says. But I'm happy to report that it is vastly better than last year's "Mockingjay Part 1," which provided almost no action and all talk in a tale of battling propaganda streams between lead heroes Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). This new film has all the payoffs for the entire series, as the final rebellion against evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is finally happening, and there are numerous impressive action setpieces.
As always in the series, there is no foul language, no sex and no nudity, but this one has some of the most intense action violence of the four-film series. There is an especially frightening sequence involving our heroes being chased by "mutts," a zombie-like mutant species of creatures that rampage after them in the capital city's sewers to amazing effect. It's an utterly stunning sequence, but is definitely more intense than anything else in the series and means that parents should take the PG13 rating seriously this time.
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