Tag Archives: Cameron Diaz

Sex Tape

Sex Tape is not a dirty movie. Yes, there’s nudity and sexual content and language galore but this film is designed to tickle more than titillate.

Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel) are a loving married couple. In college, they had sex and lots of it, as illustrated by a hookup montage near the beginning of Sex Tape. But, as often happens with married couples, work and kids seriously impact their carnal couplings.

On a night when the kids are at mom’s, Annie and Jay go for it. Do they ever! They shoot for every position shown in the book The Joy of Sex. After 3 hours they are exhausted.

The next day Jay becomes aware that he has unknowingly shared the video with several people to whom he had given iPads. Jay and Annie go on a mission to recover those iPads. Their close friends Robby (Rob Corddry) and Tess (Ellie Kemper) are recruited to accompany them.

In a brilliant casting move, a key player in the film is Rob Lowe, who famously starred in a real life sex tape 1988. In Sex Tape, Lowe is Hank, a narcissistic marketing guy who wants to sign Annie to blog for his toy company.

Since he has one of the iPads, they go to his house. While Hank and Annie’s conversation leads to his offering her cocaine, Jay runs through the house looking for the iPad while being chased by a German Shepherd.

After Jay is finally satisfied that the iPads are wiped clean of the recording of their coital marathon, he learns that it has been uploaded to the internet. He and Annie—and their kids!—drive to the website’s headquarters to break in and destroy the computer servers. What happens when they get there won’t be revealed here.

When Jay is handed a thumb drive that contains the last remaining copy of their sex tape, he and Annie finally watch the thing, portions of which are included in the Sex Tape film. There’s some funny stuff here!

Sex Tape is the perfect film for a married couple date night. (Even if you’ve never made a sex tape.) Segel and Diaz are funny and charming. Rob Lowe is weirdly amusing. Unless you’re prudish, go and laugh.

 

 

 

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The Other Woman

 

Women (and men) who have caught their spouses cheating will enjoy the comeuppance received by deceitful scoundrel Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in The Other Woman. Revenge comes in many forms from the trio of women he’s used and the payback is rough.

Carly (Cameron Diaz) is a New York City attorney having a carefree romance with Mark—until she finds out he is married. Dutiful wife Kate King (Leslie Mann) is shocked to find out that hubby is messing around, but she isn’t overly angry at Carly, because Carly didn’t know he was married.

Kate and Carly become chums. Following a night of alcohol-fueled female bonding, the two follow Mark on a weekend trip to the beach. Conveniently, Kate’s brother Phil (Taylor Kenney) has a beach house near the spot where Mark is cheating with a third woman, Amber (Kate Upton). When Amber learns of Mark’s treachery, the getting even begins.

Coster-Waldau’s credibility as a sleazeball is easy to buy, considering that he also plays the amoral Jaime Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones. That character fathered two sons with his sister, tried to kill a small child and, on the latest episode, committed a particularly vile act.

Leslie Mann has been funny in movies before—mainly in Judd Apatow films since he’s her real life husband. But The Other Woman may be her funniest performance to date.

Also appearing in the film are a weathered-looking Don Johnson as Carly’s dad and Nicki Minaj as Carly’s secretary.

The film may remind you of 1996’s The First Wives Club in which three ex-wives seek to make life less happy for the husbands who dumped them for younger babes. In The Other Woman the take down is complete and funny.

Nick Cassavetes is the director. His best-known film is The Notebook, a love story that’s a favorite of many romantics. The Other Woman isn’t quite so touching, but its resolution should be satisfying to most women moviegoers.

And for the guys, we get a few seconds of Kate Upton running in slow motion on the beach. (Thanks, Nick!)

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The Counselor

Things to like about The Counselor:

  1. Cormac McCarthy’s literate script. The master novelist transfers his writing talent to a screenplay.
  2. Ridley Scott’s compelling visuals. Every scene in The Counselor looks good onscreen.
  3. Cameron Diaz’s silver fingernails. Stylish. (as Malkina)
  4. The love scene between The Counselor (Michael Fassbender) and his lady Laura (Penelope Cruz). Tastefully sexy amongst the white sheets.
  5. Brad Pitt in a cowboy hat (as Westray) telling The Counselor that he could be happy living in a monastery. Why doesn’t he? In a word, he says, “women.”
  6. Javier Bardem (as Reiner) telling a very dirty (but funny) story about a Malkina sexual escapade on a Ferrari windshield.
  7. Bruno Ganz (as the Diamond Dealer) triggering memories of the Hitler Reacts videos.
  8. The Counselor’s repeated requests for advice from others. Ironic role reversal.
  9. Ruben Blades back on screen as one of those who counsels The Counselor.
  10.  Rosie Perez back on screen as a prisoner The Counselor is assigned to defend.
  11. The creative method of transporting dope into the U.S. via oil drums hidden inside a tanker truck’s tank.
  12. Dean Norris back on screen as one involved in the drug trade. Ironic role reversal for Breaking Bad DEA agent Hank.
  13. Malkina’s leopards chasing jackrabbits.
  14. The classy look of most of the settings: Reiner’s restaurant, Reiner’s residence, The Counselor’s apartment, the spa where Malkina and Laura visit together.
  15. The gritty look of the garages where the dope is loaded and unloaded.
  16. The Counselor’s discomfited reactions to all the cautionary words he hears.
  17.  McCarthy’s clever use of the word “cautionary.”
  18.  The creative methods of killing people.

The Counselor does lean heavily on dialogue but there is plenty of action to balance it out. The story—a drug deal that doesn’t come off quite as planned with money missing—is standard stuff.

If you’ve ever enjoyed a Ridley Scott movie or a Cormac McCarthy novel, don’t miss The Counselor.

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What to Expect When You’re Expecting

It was better than I was expecting. (And much funnier than the book!)

Like most ensemble romantic comedy movies with large casts of interacting characters, WTEWYE is predictable. How predictable? Five seconds into the movie, you know exactly how the first scene will end.

WTEWYE does have more laugh out loud funny moments than the Garry Marshall ensemble movies, such as “Valentine’s Day.” Here we have five Atlanta area couples dealing with fertility issues, planned pregnancies, surprise pregnancies and adoption. Of course, there is also a fair amount of poignancy with the pregnancy.

Interestingly, the only mother-to-be in the film who has given birth in real life is Jennifer Lopez, whose character is infertile. She and her husband adopt a child from Ethiopia. The pregnant women are Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick and Brooklyn Decker. Elizabeth Banks is the funniest of the five.

A good bit of the WTEWYE’s humor comes from a group of dads who get together to push their offspring in strollers. Thomas Lennon of “Reno 911” fame and Chris Rock are part of that group.

For men and women who are new parents (and for many of us whose youngest offspring are now teens), the film will bring back memories of pregnancies, some of which you may have forgotten. Along with the pregnancies, we follow the development of romantic relationships between the couples to predictable outcomes.

Maybe the most impressive aspect of WTEWYE is how realistic the prosthetic tummies appeared on the film’s moms.

WTEWYE is a pleasant enough amusement. But if you are newly pregnant, don’t count on the movie to be instructive. Buy the book.

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