John Phillips

There's nothing clever about this deliberately rude and vulgar comedy, but certain audiences will find it absolutely hilarious. Never afraid to head straight into the cheapest, nastiest gag, director Dan Mazar and writer John Phillips throw their odd-couple stars into a series of riotously awkward situations, usually involving nudity. And even if it's not as funny as it ought to be, at least there's some meaning to the chaos.

Zac Efron plays Jason, a bright young Atlanta lawyer who takes after his workaholic father (Dermot Mulroney). But Jason's grandfather Dick (Robert De Niro) remembers a more interesting Jason, before ruthless ambition took over his life. So after Grandma's funeral, Dick asks Jason to drive him down to Florida a week before Jason is due to marry the high-maintenance Meredith (Julianne Hough). Jason quickly discovers that Grandpa is intent on sowing some very wild oats, detouring their journey through Daytona at spring break, where they meet a couple of girls (Aubrey Plaza and Zoey Deutch) who are up for pretty much anything. What Jason doesn't know is that Grandpa is doing all of this to remind Jason who he really is, and to show him how to enjoy life instead of control it.

The script sometimes lays on this message rather thickly in between a series of deliberately jaw-dropping gross-out sequences. Predictably, drugs and sex abound, and most of the jokes are so corny and ludicrous that they're not remotely believable. Everything that happens strains to shock the audience, which means that nothing is actually very shocking. But while the story has no tension at all, it also manages to grab hold of the audience simply because the characters are so vividly played by the fearless Efron and De Niro. Neither role is much of a stretch, but they dive into even the yucky and/or naked moments with gusto, developing some chemistry in the process.

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Shot in 1969 at an outdoor concert that precluded Woodstock, the film defies the stereotype of the general population at the time. Sure, some have painted their faces and smoke joints, but D.A. Pennebaker (The War Room, Moon Over Broadway) surprisingly chooses to show a broad spectrum of the audience. No matter who is watching, it all comes back to the talented musicians that stir your soul.

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It's a good thing, then, that these same grown-ups weren't around in the British village of Midwich circa 1950. In that sleepy hamlet the entire population suffers from a brief blackout one day; a few months later, all the Midwich women of child-bearing age find that they were expecting, and the children, when they come along, are not exactly like the other boys and girls. They are, in fact, exactly like one another: blonde, rather too intelligent for our comfort, and possessed of a particularly icy stare. To say that they are aloof is an understatement. And, perhaps most tellingly, they have a hive mentality: They keep only one another's company, they communicate wordlessly, and when one of these children learns a fact, the others automatically learn it too.

Continue reading: Village Of The Damned (1960) Review