For A Good Time, Call...

1-900-Mmm-Hmmm

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Rated: R  Language, strong sexual content and some drug use
Release Date: August 31, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 26 minutes

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Director: Jamie Travis
Writers: Lauren Miller, Katie Anne Naylon
Cast:  Ari Graynor, Lauren Anne Miller, Justin Long, Mark Webber, James Wolk

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SYNOPSIS:  Former college freinemies Lauren and Katie find themselves sharing the monthly expenses in a fabulous Gramercy Park apartment, and in order to make ends meet, the unlikely pair start a phone sex line together.

REVIEW: Writer/Director Jamie Travis moves from documentaries and shorts to full length features with his first effort involving two girl who are forced together under financial distress. Written by one of the film's stars Lauren Miller (Girls! Girls! Girls!), and co-written by new scribe Kate Anne Naylon, the audience is treated to female raunchiness and humor. 

During her college years, Lauren Powell (Lauren Miller, 50/50) is asked by her friend Jesse (Justin Long, The Conspirator) to take his other drunk friend Kate Steel (Ari Graynor, The Sitter) home. Even though she is uptight, Lauren relents and does Jesse the favor. When Kate pees in an empty soda cup and spills it all over Lauren by accident, Lauren vows to put Kate under frienemy status. Ten years later, Lauren faces her boyfriend Charlie (James Wolk, Happy Endings) who wants to put their 'boring' relationship on hold while he goes to Europe for a new job and new adventures. Kate also faces her own troubles as she faces eviction from her grandmother's spacious formerly rent-controlled apartment. Both having their own troubles, Jesse steps in to bring the two together in their time of crisis. Moving in together at Kate's apartment, the new roommates do not see eye to eye. But when Lauren's life-plan to get an editing job fails, she decides to join Kate in a joint business venture in a sex-chat phone line.   

For a Good Time, Call is a sweet and lightly raunchy comedy with all of the earmarks of a female The Hangover without any of the cursing or nudity. All of the comic gags and sensual situations are suggestive, but no females were harmed in the making of the film. There is a stripper pole in Kate's apartment, courtesy of Kate' grandmother, plus an entire box of phallus symbols of varying widths and lengths. Kate's chosen profession as a sex-chat operator is only made better by the addition of Lauren as their new company's business manager. As their business grows and the money starts coming in, Kate and Lauren have to expand by hiring another girl named Krissy (Suger Lyn Beard, 50/50). The chat line attracts many kooks like airline pilot Jerry (Seth Rogen, 50/50), and a few regulars like Kate favorite Sean (Mark Webber, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).

Both girls, although succeeding in their business and their healing friendship, they both struggle to deal with their own secrets. Lauren, while successful, shows shame when confronted by her Long Island mother Adele (Mimi Rogers, Hope Springs) and father Scott (Don McManus). Kate, raised wholly by her late grandmother, tries to rely on herself with a carefree smile and light attitude.

Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor play off each other as the Yin-Yang of the same circle. Responsibility versus spontaneity, planning versus doing, and rationale versus emotion. Ari Graynor reminds me of Shaun of the Dead's Kate Ashfield character Liz without the British accent. Her seventies sensibility includes a feathered blond hairdo and terry cloth jumpsuits. Former Macintosh spokesperson Justin Long digs deep into a scraggly flamboyance as the gay best friend to both Kate and Lauren. Seth Rogen is silly as one of the phone johns, plus another notable cameo takes loading dock jargon to a new extreme. Mark Webber is a timid but honest regular Sean, while James Wolk's ex-boyfriend Charlie reinforces why women don't stay in relationships too long.

The story is solid and the laughs come from the silly situations the pair of independent ladies find themselves in. Justin Long's Jesse and Suger Lyn Beard's phone operator Krissy are the break out characters of the flick, each chewing up the scenery with every moment they are in front of the camera.

For a Good Time, Call... is something worth while if you are in the mood for silly, sweet lightly raunchy humor wrapped around a tale of woman empowerment and friendship. The characters work well together and the writing team of Miller and Naylon get the job done. The movie is not anything utterly new, but if you have some spare time, give 'em a call. 

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WORTH:  DVD or Rental

The Conspirator

An Angry Nation on Film

Director: Robert Redford

Writer: James D. Solomon, Gergory Berstein

Stars: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Tom Wilkinson, Kevin Kline, Justin Long, Danny Huston

RANT: Spending Easter in the midwest with my family. My big sister and her family have come in from California for the week, so I get to spend time with them as well. A big win for my heart, but a loss for seeing movies this weekend. Luckily, only Water for Elephants opened, which one newspaper claimed to be "The Lamest Show on Earth". I will return with more reviews next week.

SYNOPSIS: Union Captain turned lawyer, Frederick Aiken, is charged with the military court defense of the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.

Robert Redford returns to the director's chair with his historical account of the military trial of Mary Surratt, the owner of the boarding house where the Lincoln kidnapping, turned assassination, was planned by John Wilkes Booth and his confederate sympathizers.

James McAvoy stars as Union Captain Frederick Aiken who, after returning from the war between the states, goes into the practice of law under Senator of Maryland Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson). Johnson is tasked with defending Mary Surrat (Robin Wright), the owner of a boarding house where her son, John Wilkes Booth and other southern and confederate sympathizers planned the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Dealing with divided loyalties in front of the military tribunal while defending the accused co-conspirator Mary Surratt, Johnson puts Aiken on her defense to give her a chance at a fair trial.

The history of the film is as poignant as that of Scott's Black Hawk Down or Milk. Mary Surratt is an admitted southern sympathizer needing to support herself and her family after the death of her husband on trial for her accused part in the assassination of the nation's President. Aiken is a union soldier and lawyer, only defending Surratt because he has to, not because he believes in her. Regardless of his beliefs, Aiken does defend her to the chagrin of his Union soldier compatriots and his girlfriend, as well as the peril of his career.

Redford shoots the film in a smokey haze. The military courtroom is barely more than a barracks at a fort, the dust and haze filtering and reflecting in the low light coming from the windows. Other scenes are shot just as softly, as if the camera lens was covered with Civil War era gauze. The bandages that cover the wound of a dead president and a divided nation seem to seep into every frame. Will Mary Surratt be the first woman to hang for her alleged part in the plot? Will a union military tribunal result in a fair verdict, in spite of a enraged public? Will Secretary of War Edwin Stanton allow any verdict to dissuade him from rendering angry and biased judgement?

The acting is stellar. McAvoy is torn between duty to the law, to justice, and to a mourning nation. Wilkinson is calculated for his career, but concerned for what possible justice can come out of this trial. Danny Huston as the prosecutor booms every witness and has all of the angles covered. And finally Robin Wright, as Mary Surratt, is a woman devout to her beliefs in God, her beliefs in the Confederacy, and the belief in her innocence.

A moving portrait of the lengths that one will go to to protect the greater good, The Conspirator is classic Robert Redford direction - thoughtful and deep. But The Conspirator is more Lions for Lambs than The Horse Whisperer or Quiz Show. You can definitely enjoy this film at home, whether you are blue or grey.

WORTH: Netflix