Tuesday, November 22, 2016

BAD MOMS: EMPHASIS ON THE WORD BAD



BAD MOMS could be the perfect example of what is wrong with movies today. Rather than allow a combined effort by producer and director to meld together to make something memorable or at least worth watching  more than once, studios now seem controlled by corporate boardrooms who eye only the return on investment, judging by cookie cutter playbooks rather than creativity. Watching a movie like this you have to wonder if they ever looked at the script or just cut and paste moment from various movies changing the names of characters as they went.

The movie revolves around Amy (Mila Kunis), an overworked and underappreciated mom of two. She works full time yet is paid part time by a group of millennials more concerned with the going to concerts than working, has a work at home mortgage broker husband who doesn’t lift a finger to help and her two kids are the stereotypical youngsters, one an overachiever fretting over college in in 7 years and the other and underachiever who is happy with a D. Amy is perpetually late to everything and frazzled by her life.

One night she catches her husband masturbating to a woman on screen and discovers he’s been doing so for 10 months so she kicks him out. After a late PTA meeting where she says she will no longer participate by their rules she goes out for a drink and makes friend with 2 other moms also fed up. Carla (Kathryn Hahn) is the wild one, the do what she wants, ignore her kid party animal who sleeps with any and every one she can. Kiki (Kristen Bell) is the timid home keeper who abides by her husband’s rules all the time going so far as to iron his underwear while trying to corral 4 terror inspiring children. So naturally they get drunk and have a good time.

The next morning Amy decides she’s had enough. No more perfect mom or at least pretense to be so. She tells the kids to make their own breakfast. She drops them at school with Arby’s for lunch. She goes to breakfast alone, is called by her boss asking where she is and when told to come in tells him she only gets paid to work 3 days a week and it’s her day off. And finally she faces off the prim, proper and all controlling picture of mom perfection, PTA President Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate), at the latest bake sale. This sets in motion a challenge for the lead of the PTA between the two which forms most of the rest of the film.

What we end up with is another gross out crude frolic in fun according to corporate execs. It’s not enough that nearly every teen movie these days has to have kids overindulging in sex, drugs and alcohol, the time has arrived when we want to encourage the same from parents in an attempt to show just how cool they are too. Granted life can be stressful and you want to cut lose now and then but not to the extremes on display here. Soccer moms don’t rally around a non-conformists by going to her house, getting ripped and kissing one another.

I kept expecting to see Seth Rogen or Will Ferrell show up at any moment while watching this film. It was like someone said see how these movies are made, let’s make one of those movies but instead of guys put women in the same roles. The whole time they ignore the fact that none of those movies have done major business like they did when they first began being made and were unlike anything around at the time. They are now the cliché films that were attacking cliché films when they were made. They are predictable, lame and unfunny. At least now we can say women can be the same way.

That’s another troubling thing about this movie. After years of feminists trying to prove they are equal to or better than men (and in many ways they can be) it feels as if that’s all been tossed aside to show they can be just as worthless too. The concept of Amy taking back control of her life here may sound like a good idea but in this story it just makes her look like she is more concerned with herself than her kids even though the movie tries to make you feel otherwise by the last 20 minutes.

Characters are cardboard cut outs here rather than fleshed out individuals. The jerk dad, the frazzled mom, the uptight authority figure, the hunk you immediately fall in love and bed with. They’ve all been seen before. It just feels like they took these characters from teen films and aged them just a tad, enough so they’re now adults but not too old so the kids can still relate to them.

It saddens me these days to consider the output being made on film. In search of blockbusters or quick return on investments Hollywood has tossed aside any hope of movies that will stand the test of time. With the exception of a few that have been outstanding can you name movies you’ve seen this past year that you plan to revisit in the future? I can’t. But I can tell give you at least 10 movies made from the 30s to the 80s that I could. I just hope that young people can truly realize the fast that they’re being sold product instead of entertainment. I fear that they’re not.

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