The Guilt Trip

Miles To Go

★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 buckets | Matinee or DVD

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Rated: PG-13 - Language and some risque material.

Release Date: December 19, 2012

Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes

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Director: Anne Fletcher
Writers: Dan Fogelman
Cast:  Seth Rogen, Barbra Streisand, Brent Cullen, Colin Hanks, Yvonne Strahovski, Adam Scott

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SYNOPSIS: An organic chemist takes his mother on a country wide road trip while he tries to sell his invention.

REVIEW: Anne Fletcher, director The Proposal and 27 Dresses, returns to the helmer's chair to tell the tale of a mother and son on a long road trip. Based on a screenplay from Dan Fogelman (Crazy, Stupid, Love and Tangled) with elements from his own relationship with his mother, Fletcher takes an established genre staple and makes it into something new.

Organic chemist Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen, For a Good Time, Call...) flies to New Jersey to visit with his mother Joyce (Barbra Streisand, Little Fockers) before planning to left on a road trip across the country to shop his new invention, a household cleaner safer than the major brands and created with wholly organic ingredients. When his mother tells Andy a story that affected both of their lives, Andy takes it upon himself to invite Joyce along on the trip. Once on the road, the differences between them grow as Joyce tries to offer her advice on his love life and how he should pitch the invention that he took five years to develop.

The Guilt Trip is a love letter of sorts between Dan Fogelman and his mother. He did, in fact, take a road with his mother. The story that she told her son, while not exact to the screenplay, is an element that ties mother and son together. One of the scenes that Barbra Streisand undertakes that is a direct true event from Fogelman's mother. It involves a steak, a stage, and a sixty minute countdown. Sometimes the exaggeration of true events are better than anything that we can type up from our imagination.

Seth Rogen plays a more dour character than we are used to seeing from him. He tries to be the happy-go-lucky type, but years of research for his invention has left him on the verge of being penniless, perpetually alone, and dependent on the success of his product. Barbra Streisand, as the mother, embodies the spirit of a loving Jewish mother. Joyce shows her son affection with food, repeated voicemail calls, and prying questions about Andy's lack of a girlfriend. Both Rogen and Streisand show great chemistry onscreen, brought out by methods that only hundreds of fictional movie miles can produce.

Dozens of buddy road trip have made their way to the big screen - from Due Date to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, from Thelma and Louise to Kalifornia, buddy road trip films are abundant. But The Guilt Trip treads into a little bit new territory by pairing up a mother and her son in a coast-to-coast road trip. The sophomoric humor is reduced in favor of the uncomfortable quirks of two generations of family. Both make the best of the situation with only the best of intentions toward each other, but each has their own regrets keeping them from living complete lives.

The Guilt Trip takes a trip from New Jersey to San Francisco, taking a few funny and unexpected turns along the way. The ending has a bit of a surprise while being true to the expectations of the journey. Cute and entertaining, this movie keeps rolling along at a steady clip, not even slowing down for foul weather.

The Guilt Trip is a great movie to take your own mother to. It will entertain both parents and their grown children. If a cute comedy is what you are looking for, this film may be the one to get yourself in gear for.

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High School

Whut?

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Rated: R  Some nudity, all involving teens, pervasive drugs and language and crude and sexual content
Release Date: June 1, 2012
Runtime:  1 hr 40 mins

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Director: John Stalberg, Jr.
Writers: Erik Linthorst, John Stalberg Jr., Stephen Susco
Cast:  Adrien Brody, Michael Chiklis, Colin Hanks, Matt Bush, Sean Marquette, Adhir Kalyan, Michael Vartan, Curtis Armstrong, Yeardley Smith

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SYNOPSIS: When valedictorian Henry take a hit of marijuana with former friend Travis in a fit of uncertainty and panic, he freaks out when he hears that the school principal has scheduled a school-wide drug screening the next day. To save his future, he must work with Travis to concoct and carry out a daring scheme to get the entire student body and faculty high.

REVIEW: John Stalberg, writer and director of High School and the 2005 Mr. Dramatic, he teams up on writing duties with Lemonade: Detroit writer Erik Linthorst and odd choice The Grudge and The Grudge 2 scribe Stephen Susco to attempt to create the next new stoner movie for a new generation, following in the foot steps of Dazed and Confused, Fast Highs at Ridgemont High, and Pineapple Express.

Soon to be high school senior valedictorian Henry Burke (Matt Bush, Adventureland) agonizes over every academic decision, desperate to be sure to be an attractive prospect for MIT. Former best friend current heavy stoner Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette, 13 Going on 30) takes it upon himself to hang with Henry to find out when and how their childhood friendship ended. Talking Henry into going back to a ramshackle tree house where they used to hang out and where they had hidden a 'time capsule' with all of their most treasured childhood knick knacks. Finding a joint, Travis tries to loosen Henry up by having him get baked on the joint. Meanwhile, tight-ass principal Gordon (Michael Chiklis, Eagle Eye) has had enough with stoners and miscreant behavior at his school under his rule. He decides to institute a school wide drug test the next day with the punishment of a positive urine sample being immediate expulsion. Hearing about this upcoming drug test on the news, Henry freaks out and spirals into a panic about his finals and the jeopardy of destroying his life's work with a few hits of a doobie. Travis concocts a plan to ruin the results of the drug test by stealing a potent synthetic drug called Keef from a genius, lawyer-turned-drug dealer Psycho Ed (Adrian Brody, Midnight in Paris), baking the powder into brownies to be used in place of the school moms' baked goods for the annual fundraiser sale on the day of finals and the drug tests. As the students and facility alike are enjoying the swapped batch of brownies, Travis and Henry must contend with the normally paranoid Principal Gordon, the enraged Psycho Ed, bad-tripping students and teachers, the looming drug test, and the questionable strength of their former friendship.

Stalberg and team take a more modern approach to their stoner movie. With the advent of a new millennium the importance and obsession of superior high school grades to cement a positive future is as much an addiction as the pungent smell and smooth ride of a superior grade of grass. The puckered posterior and moral rigidity of Henry stands polar opposite of Travis' free-wheeling and low-key existence, but both are fueled by their own addictive obsessions. There are usually cliques in these films - nerds, jocks, stuck up beauties, and of course stoners - but this time the focus seems to be on the highest aspirations and the highest inhalations.

Everyone is on top of their game, even in the film has been finished and shelved for some time. Adrien Brody shows again why he is an Oscar winner. His turn as the early graduating, law bar passing straight arrow whose marijuana and LSD laced adventure on vacation expands his mind to the opportunities of drug dealing and synthetic drug making as paranoid Psycho Ed is inspired and hilarious. Michael Chiklis' plays Principal Gordon as the overbearing and stuck up academic overlord like a man savoring the taste of every word before he utters it - something completely different from his The Shield role. Colin Hanks charms as he tries to placate and rebel against Gordon as assistant principal Brandon Ellis, using his Orange County conservatism and his substance abuse chops from Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny in combination. Matt Bush and Seam Marquette become an intriguing new odd couple as Henry and Travis, riffing off each other with typical new millennial teenage angst. Facility Yeardley Smith (New Year's Eve), Michael Vartan (Colombiana), and Curtis Armstrong (Buck Larson: Born to Be a Star) lend a hand with quirky brownie induced shenanigans.

>Following the formula of teenage high school movies - straight arrow student led astray by miscreant friend, putting them in a dilemma, and having to follow through with a hair-brained scheme against 'The Man' to get themselves out of trouble again (you know, the usual!) - John Stalberg, his creative writers, and the brilliant cast make for an absurd and hilarious adventure. On paper, some of the scenes are nowhere near as side-splitting as how they actually turned out. A shared hit of marijuana on a darkened smoky room with Psycho Ed and a frog in a terrarium ends with audience members chanting the same word over and over again, like a buzz-induced mantra. It hearkens back to a 'Who's on First' caliber sequence! When Travis tries to keep Psycho Ed distracted with a barrage of fronts (the Urban dictionary describes Fronting as 'Acting like you are more, or you have more than what really exists'), it continues on for just the right time for maximum laughs. I even realized later that Henry wasn't calling Travis 'Bro' because of a misguided sense of trying to fit into the stoner's group, because, in fact, that was how Travis Breaux's last name is pronounced. Genius!

What is teenage life without conflict! In High School, conflict abounds. Henry battles to keep his own future from deteriorating by schewing the drug tests. He and Travis battle against the iron-fisted rule of Principal Gordon. When Psycho Ed finds out that Henry and Travis stole his highly potent Keef, the pair must find a way to make amends or find full payment for the drug dealer and his slacker crew. And to top it off, rival valedictorian runner-up Sebastian Saleem (Adhir Kalyan, Rules of Engagement) figures out Travis and Henry's plan to bake the school with misdirected baked goods and looks to blow the whistle to Principal Gordon unless Henry promises to take a dive in his last final exam, thus giving Saleem the highest GPA and the title of top student. Is there even a way for Henry and Travis to pull off a win?

High School may be just another in a long line of teenage angst movies, but for me there was more than enough laughs and hi-jinks to carry the day. Filled with tear-inducing fun, multiple conflicts to overcome, and an eventual self-realization of a what a teenager should become, High School is worthy of a look, as long as you can hold your breath while racing through the smoke-filled rooms! And, by the way, can you tell me where the school office is? Are you kidding me? Whut!

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WORTH: Matinee, DVD, or Rental