I’m going to do something I usually don’t do for my reviews… I’m going to start with my rating: 5 stars!  That’s right, this movie written by John Favreau, Vince Vaughn, and Dana Fox and directed by Peter Billingsley (long-time friend and business partner of Vince Vaughn but better known as Ralphie in A Christmas Story) had me ROTFLOL with a big ol’ Simpsons grin all over my face. Produced by Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show, Couples Retreat doesn’t go overboard with crude, rude, or lewd humor. It delivers on humor gained from life and doesn’t take itself too seriously about marriage and long-lasting relationships. What Couples Retreat manages to do is present a caricature of four types of couples we all know well, and lets us look at life from their perspective.

After an opening montage of marriages from the 50′s through 2009, we meet the four couples that are featured in the movie. For fun I’ll list the couples as if this were The Newlywed Game:

• Couple #1 – Dave and Ronnie, played by Vince Vaughn (The Break-Up) and Malin Akerman (Watchmen); this is the couple that doesn’t realize they are looking at their marriage like a job and both just happen to be “working” in the same relationship with the same children, extended family and friends.
• Couple #2 – Joey and Lucy, played by John Favreau (I Love You Man) and Kristin Davis (Sex And the City); this is the couple that was high school sweethearts. She got pregnant at 18, then got married so they could raise their daughter together. Eventually they realize that they don’t love each other as much as they originally thought they did and are only still “married” just for their daughter.
• Couple #3 – Jason and Cynthia, played by Jason Bateman (Hancock) and Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall); this is the hard-working, does-everything-by-the-book, over-thinking couple that eventually realizes that they may not be as compatible as they thought. They are working on saving their marriage and have a business plan in place to dictate how their lives should be lived.
• Couple #4 – Shane and Trudy, played by Faizon Love (Who’s Your Caddy) and Kali Hawk (this is her first co-starring role in a movie); This is the newest couple in the movie as Shane is recently divorced and dating a younger woman. Only time will tell if he is happy and can move on or is still in shock from the divorce.

Now that the table is set, lets look at the main course – the plot. Jason and Cynthia are having marital problems as she is not able to get pregnant. The stress of this is causing a split in their marriage so they are going to make one last effort and try to save their marriage. Jason and Cynthia know of a tropical place called Eden that has the best couples’ therapy in the world. The only catch is they can’t afford it on their own so if they can get their friends to come along, the costs is cut in half. Reluctantly the other couples agree as a way to show support, get a free trip, and leave to start the journey with their friends. Each couple embodies someone we know and we can laugh with as events unfold at the Eden Resort.

Upon arrival to the resort they learn that there are two parts of Eden: Eden West, where the couples retreat is located and Eden East, where the singles retreat and parties are located. The couples’ retreat is run by Mr Marcel played by Jean Reno (The Pink Panther 2) who is the world’s leading couples spiritualist.  The resort’s job is to make sure that there are no distractions for the couples and allow them to re-learn why they married in the first place and find the missing spark of their marriage. Needless to say hilarity ensues as we watch the couples partake in the couple-building exercises.

Couples Retreat is a comedy that has romance as part of the plot; I would not classify this movie as a Rom-Com (Romantic Comedy for those that aren’t up on their movie ling0).  And boy-howdy do the jokes start flying fast and funny. There are some scenes in this movie that will have you laughing so hard that you’ll want to go back and see the movie again JUST to catch the jokes you missed the first time.  I want to go into detail of the jokes and humor but I’m afraid that if I do I’ll ruin the fun and surprises.  This is the type of comedy where the delivery of the humor is in the words and life situations and not related to pratfalls and sight gags. I won’t ruin the fun but I will say that the younger child of Dave and Ronnie (Vaughn and Akerman) steals the movie in two scenes involving a Home Depot-type store.

As for the main characters, the script was written in such a way as to showcase each couple and their specific problems without taking away from the overall plot.  With this type of movie comes similarities to previous movies such as Parenthood (which itself is now the basis for two TV shows) The Break-Up,  Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I Love You Man. All five of these movies show the funnier side of marriage, relationships, and life. With that, I will say that both Vaughn and Favreau  have great comedy timing and play off of each other with relaxed ease making the comedy flow as if natural and not being pushed. The same is true of the script – it allows everyone to shine through the words and situation and again, no rude or lewd sight gags are needed.  I keep bringing this up as too many movies rely very heavily on crude and/or scatalogical humor, or setup gags that have a cruel punchline. Couples Retreat manages to deliver the humor with a great cast while being real to itself and not talking down to the audience.

Only adding to the humor are the secondary characters, the “quirks” that are always needed to help sell the story. One face you’ll recognize is that of Dr Ken Jeong (The Hangover) who plays the Therapist that Jason and Cynthia talk to at the resort. His soft hands / soft heart approach adds to the quirkiness as he is there to help the hard-nose straight-laced couple try to fix their marriage.  Another character that the audience loved was Stanley [as he says in the movie, "Stanley with a C"] played by Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun of the Dead). Stanley is the concierge of the resort and Mr Marcel’s right-hand man. Serafinowicz’s portrayal of Stanley reminded me of a very young Christopher Walken in style and appearance. A scene near the end of the film will have you laughing as Dave and Stanley battle each other in Guitar Hero. Yes, another movie works Guitar Hero into the plot it but does add some fun to the style in which used. (This has nothing to do with the review but can you name two other movies that  also used Guitar Hero?  That would be Rain Wilson’s The Rocker and Kevin James’ Paul Blart: Mall Cop.)

The humor (which I keep mentioning but can’t give too many details as it would ruin the fun) and the characters are worth the time to see Couples Retreat. Vaughn and company do a great job in delivering one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time. With a running time of 107 minutes, this PG-13 movie distributed by Universal is a movie I’d recommend seeing on Date Night or with a bunch of friends. You will get your money and time’s worth in seeing this movie.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Written up by the super great Jon Farveau and directed by Peter Billingsley, aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story if you must know, comes the latest comedy to spawn out, Couple’s Retreat. Starring Vince Vaughn, Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman, Jason Bateman and many others, the story follows four midwestern couples who embark on a journey to a tropical island resort. While one of the couples is there to work on their marriage, the other three set out to jet ski, spa and enjoy some fun in the sun. They soon discover that participation in the resort’s couples therapy is not optional. Suddenly, their group-rate vacation comes at a price. What follows is a hilarious look at real world problems.

Being coughed out by Stuber and Wild West Picture Show Productions, with the help of Universal Pictures, the film will set to be released on October 9th of this year. Stop reading this already, watch the trailer below:

Dear Santa,

Why is it that no one seems to know how to make a good Christmas movie anymore? The last holiday film that I truly loved was “Love Actually”, which was released back in 2003. Since then, there have been a few that I liked (“The Family Stone” and “Fred Claus”), but being who you are, I think you have the right to protest this slew of lame and awful holiday-themed comedies or at the very least leave giant lumps of coal in the stockings of all these producers. It’s movies like “Four Christmases” that demonstrate how little Hollywood knows about making Christmas movies.

Instead of incorporating good and witty humor into their storylines, much like what I know has to be your personal favorite, “The Santa Clause”, producers these days seem to think audiences won’t come to see Christmas movies unless they’re filled with dumb slapstick humor (not the funny kind like in “Home Alone”) and bathroom humor. “Four Christmases” is filled with that stuff; it has a baby vomiting on a person on more than one occasion, a little girl inadvertently sticking a pregnancy test in her mouth after it’s been used and a man being pummeled by his UFC-trained “cage” wrestling brothers. By now Santa, you’re probably rubbing your forehead in frustration, and I share the sentiment. Obviously, you know that Christmas is better than a bad joke that falls flat on its face in almost every scene; with movies like “Four Christmases”, the good name of Christmas is getting dragged through the melted snow, and I think you should finally take action.

The movie stars Vince Vaughn (you know, that guy you almost had sued last year for using your brother’s name in a movie without your permission) and Reese Witherspoon. Their characters’ names are Brad and Kate, and they are an unmarried couple who are very content that way. Every year at Christmas, they create some elaborate, diabolical minefield of lies to get them out of actually spending time with their families so that they can take vacations to various tropical locations. If you actually delivered coal to adults, this pair would have enough to run their fireplace all winter. Each of Brad and Kate’s parents is divorced, so when their holiday trip to Fiji gets canceled due to major fog, they have no choice but to make the rounds to all four parental figures, hence the title “Four Christmases”. And Santa, if you’re wondering why Brad and Kate couldn’t just invite everyone over to their house, the answer is simply because then there wouldn’t be setups for different fun gags at each residence.

The parents are portrayed by Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen, Sissy Spacek and Jon Voight, visited in that order. What follows is a series of failed gags involving Vince Vaughn getting beat up and thrown around, and Reese Witherspoon being spit up on by babies and being attacked by children in a Moonbounce. Man, do I wish you could have come in and worked on this script!

So, I put together a short list for you of suggestions for fixing this and future potential Hollywood Christmas scripts:

1. Jokes that are actually funny. The jokes in this movie especially stink worse than expired eggnog, in particular the ones involving breast-feeding and baby vomit. This brings me to the next suggestion.

2. No babies vomiting, projectile vomiting, peeing on people or excreting any other bodily fluid while a character is within the target area. Putting stuff like that into a movie clearly shows how desperate you’re becoming, and you don’t want that to taint your image.

3. And finally, if you’re gonna have such refined actors in the roles of parents, make sure you actually give them something to do besides reading off perfunctory dialogue specifically written to cut down the actors playing their children. Otherwise, it’s all too clear that they’re in the movie just to dupe their own longtime fans into being robbed of their time and money.

I hope these are helpful suggestions and that I have successfully put you on alert for future bad Christmas movies. Oh, and this year, you can skip the houses of the four, count ‘em, four, writers who penned this screenplay.

I’m making my list of the year’s worst movies and checking it twice to make sure this movie is on it. Just one more question: are there any plans to progress to something worse than coal in stockings?

Rating: 1 star

No doubt one of the hardest things for a man to do is come back from a weeks vacation to over 500 emails at work. And want to read them all. While I have to do this, I thought I would get in some real work first, here at Atomic Popcorn.
Below is an update on the goings on of the Hollywood arena.

The latest revamp of the love affair in Titanic between DiCaprio and Winslet, is now called Revolutionary Road. What more would you want than to watch something you have seen before. A budding relationship in the mid 50′s between folks you know have chemistry on screen. I will pass on this one. Maybe a Netflix.

Eva Longoria, is no longer a prime time goddess? Rather she is ending up on the big screen as a comic book character? I don’t even think she has the skill for this movie. The boys over at /Film are trying to say Longoria is trying to become the next Avenger. Will this movie actually get off the ground, just because its a Marvel product?

There is no Doubt in my mind that just because you put two great actors of our time together it will make a solid movie. The trailer for Doubt is out and looks terrible. Streep and Hoffman are extremley talented in their own right, but this looks like a kid made it!

Four Christmases, staring Vince Vaughn and the ever glowing Reese Witherspoon, has a new trailer out. Enjoy it below.

One of the best films of 08, Kung Fu Panda, has a sequel already and its coming to DVD? What the heck is going on here and why didn’t Paramount call me about this! Damnit!

It seems that everyone loves a good XXX and that is what Vin Diesel is wanting to give to the fans. A new movie is in the works staring the correct person for the role. Sorry Ice Tea, err Ice Cube or whatever drink you are.