Beware of seeing a movie just because it's playing at a convenient theatre & has a likewise convenient showtime, as you could expose yourself to swill like IN GOOD COMPANY.
Saturday evening I was visiting a friend in a northern New Jersey
suburb (I live in Manhattan). We decided to see a film & as he was tired that excluded a long film (like AVIATOR) or something that we really wanted to see but was starting too late (CLOSER). We settled on IN GOOD COMPANY thinking that since it was written & directed by Paul Weitz (ABOUT A BOY, AMERICAN PIE) & has a decent cast (Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Scarlett Johansson, Marg Helgenberger) it would be a breezy & appealing film, plus it was starting at the right time at the generic multiplex we found ourselves at.
YUCK!! This goes into the IMMEDIATE FAMILY category of
films--projects whereby good talent in front of & behind the camera
simply show up to pick up paychecks in mild, inoffensive, derrivative, safe &
utterly forgettable drivel. Lots of scenes of people walking around
Manhattan while truly awful alterna-folkie music bleats from the
soundtrack. Weitz used this to good effect in ABOUT A BOY but there he
had the services of the witty & sardonic Badly Drawn Boy. Here I think
he's using the same vomit inducing muscisians responsible for the
migrane that was the music from GARDEN STATE. Whole patches of
dialogue are obscured by semi competent acoustic guitar picking &
strumming & whining that passes for singing. And then that dreaded
Phil Collins song, that same fucking one that's used in 5000 bad
movies comes in & assaults the ears for a final & unoriginal insult.
An aside--wouldn't many movies be much better with no music at all? Is
it REALLY necessary? Especially if they're dialogue driven films?
There ARE a few scenes where just for an instant there seems to be
some sort of chemistry between Grace & Quaid but they are few & brief.
The scenes between Quaid & Johansson, who plays his daughter, were
downright painful. Both actors seemed to be reading cue cards over the
others shoulders & seemed uncomfortable around eachother, almost like
2 people caught in an elevator after one of them farts. Marg Helgenberger just stands around & smiles a lot at Quaid in the 1,000,000,000th "dutiful wife" role. This is Lifetime cable TV movie fare with not one original frame which wastes the talents of everyone involved & the audience's time & money. I have a feeling that the box office for this turd is made up primarily of people like my friend & I who saw it as a compromise flick at a
suburban zillionplex. Man was I happy to go home to New York the next day!
This is one of the many reasons I live in a big city--no way in hell would I pay money to see a movie like IN GOOD COMPANY on the big screen in Manhattan. There are too many other movies playing & too many other things to do than waste $10 & 2 hours on a Saturday night being bored to death by bland Wonder Bread entertainment.
Saturday evening I was visiting a friend in a northern New Jersey
suburb (I live in Manhattan). We decided to see a film & as he was tired that excluded a long film (like AVIATOR) or something that we really wanted to see but was starting too late (CLOSER). We settled on IN GOOD COMPANY thinking that since it was written & directed by Paul Weitz (ABOUT A BOY, AMERICAN PIE) & has a decent cast (Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Scarlett Johansson, Marg Helgenberger) it would be a breezy & appealing film, plus it was starting at the right time at the generic multiplex we found ourselves at.
YUCK!! This goes into the IMMEDIATE FAMILY category of
films--projects whereby good talent in front of & behind the camera
simply show up to pick up paychecks in mild, inoffensive, derrivative, safe &
utterly forgettable drivel. Lots of scenes of people walking around
Manhattan while truly awful alterna-folkie music bleats from the
soundtrack. Weitz used this to good effect in ABOUT A BOY but there he
had the services of the witty & sardonic Badly Drawn Boy. Here I think
he's using the same vomit inducing muscisians responsible for the
migrane that was the music from GARDEN STATE. Whole patches of
dialogue are obscured by semi competent acoustic guitar picking &
strumming & whining that passes for singing. And then that dreaded
Phil Collins song, that same fucking one that's used in 5000 bad
movies comes in & assaults the ears for a final & unoriginal insult.
An aside--wouldn't many movies be much better with no music at all? Is
it REALLY necessary? Especially if they're dialogue driven films?
There ARE a few scenes where just for an instant there seems to be
some sort of chemistry between Grace & Quaid but they are few & brief.
The scenes between Quaid & Johansson, who plays his daughter, were
downright painful. Both actors seemed to be reading cue cards over the
others shoulders & seemed uncomfortable around eachother, almost like
2 people caught in an elevator after one of them farts. Marg Helgenberger just stands around & smiles a lot at Quaid in the 1,000,000,000th "dutiful wife" role. This is Lifetime cable TV movie fare with not one original frame which wastes the talents of everyone involved & the audience's time & money. I have a feeling that the box office for this turd is made up primarily of people like my friend & I who saw it as a compromise flick at a
suburban zillionplex. Man was I happy to go home to New York the next day!
This is one of the many reasons I live in a big city--no way in hell would I pay money to see a movie like IN GOOD COMPANY on the big screen in Manhattan. There are too many other movies playing & too many other things to do than waste $10 & 2 hours on a Saturday night being bored to death by bland Wonder Bread entertainment.