Video review: "Long Shot"

Let’s get this out of the way first: no, in real life women who look like Charlize Theron do not fall for guys who look like Seth Rogen. Unless, of course, they actually are Seth Rogen.

Well, I guess Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley were a real thing. But let’s stipulate that outside of showbiz -- where outsized talent, wealth and fame tend to kick the usual laws of attractiveness out  the window -- these sort of pairings do not naturally occur.

But that’s the main dynamic of “Long Shot,” in which a nobody loser falls for an incredibly ambitious and beautiful woman, and she somehow returns his affection. In fact, she’s not just your workaday looker; Charlotte Field is actually the U.S. Secretary of State and running for the big job: POTUS.

Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a high-minded but bottom-feeding journalist who finds himself out of work and running into Charlotte, who babysat for him back when they were teens. He had it bad for her, and it doesn’t take much to rekindle his desire. She offers him a job as speechwriter, he accepts, and they start jet-setting around the world, reconnecting and love blooming.

Director Jonathan Levine and screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah pepper the background with interesting supporting characters.

Bob Odenkirk play the current president, a former TV actor who sees the White House as a springboard to features films. Andy Serkis is a nasty media mogul who sees a strong independent contender as a personal affront. And O’Shea Jackson is Fred’s best friend, a successful entrepreneur who offers some unexpected insight.

There are some goofy aspects to “Long Shot,” but I was surprised that the beauty-and-the-geek pairing is actually the best thing about it.

Bonus features consist entirely of 11 documentary featurettes. They are:

• “All’s Fair in Love & Politics: Making Long Shot”
• “Seven Minutes in Heaven: Seth + Charlize Uncensored”
• “Secret Weapons”
• “Epic Flarsky Falls”
• “Prime Minister Steward O-Rama”
• “Hanging with Boyz II Men”
• “Just Kinda Crushing It!”
• “The First Mister: A Portrait”
• “An Imperfect Union”
• “Love & Politics”
• “Friends Like These”

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Extras: 

Review: "Long Shot"

I’m not quite sure if the title of “Long Shot” refers to the woman running for president of the United States or the dweeby guy who becomes her speechwriter and falls for her. Given they are played by world-class beauty Charlize Theron and frumpy beta male extraordinaire Seth Rogen, respectively, I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.

Hollywood: the only place where guys who look like they were plucked straight out of a video game tournament get supermodels to fall for them.

Once, just once, I’d like to see a mainstream movie where a regular-looking guy is ensorcelled by a regular-looking woman, or vice-versa. But this is showbiz, and we like to look at pretty people.

There are a lot of things that don’t work in this movie, but surprisingly the Theron-Rogen pairing is not one of them. It’s a sweet and awkward dance, about two very busy but lonely people, and in the end we believe she really could fall in love with him.

(The other way is a given.)

Mostly this is due to a very strong and subtle performance by Theron, who shows us layers of emotion, ambivalence and calculation we don’t usually see in the romantic comedy game.

Also, he is hitting at only about 60% of Full Rogenness, which turns out to be the perfect dose of his neurotic/obnoxious shtick.

He plays Fred Flarsky, a crusading journalist at the Brooklyn Advocate who has built a reputation for spit-flecked invectives against those he sees as evildoers. As the story opens he is infiltrating a Nazi sect (Brooklyn Nazis?) and goes so far as to agree to a swastika tattoo to prove his bona fides.

Theron plays Charlotte Field, Secretary of State serving under an idiot president (Bob Odenkirk) whose only preparation for the role of POTUS was playing one on TV. But now he’s decided not to run for reelection in favor of something “more prestigious” – feature films – and offers to endorse Charlotte for her own run.

She and Fred run into each other at a posh party Fred’s best friend (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) invites him to as a cheer-up after losing his job. Turns out Charlotte babysat for Fred when they were teens, and there was an early and embarrassing, uh, indication of his desire for her -- the pudgy D&D bookworm pining after the student council president wannabe.

The political flacks tell Charlotte she isn’t funny enough, so she brings Fred on as a punch-up writer who travels with her around the club promoting a major environmental initiative she wants to use as a springboard for her presidential announcement.

Bearded, wearing the same type of rainbow-hued tracksuit he did as a kid, carrying a copious amount of drugs at all times, Fred stands out like a sore thumb on the international stage. But as they spend time together, they find the old attraction still burns.

Soon she’s teaching how to be a real grownup, and he’s helping her find her inner kid. One sequence, where they drop drugs and dance till dawn, ineptly plays national security issues for a goof.

In the black column is the film’s ability to hold up a funhouse mirror to our current political environment. Like any good satirist knows, it’s better to wield a scalpel than an ax.

Rather than being a blowhard Trump clone, Odenkirk’s prez is a self-deluded hack. Similarly, Andy Serkis (barely recognizable behind a Steve Bannon-esque wig and facial prosthesis) is a stand-in for a Roger Ailes type as the conniving head of the Wembley global media conglomerate.

Several cutaways of a Fox News-like morning talk show, replete with sniggering goombahs tossing around sexist jokes, are just devastating.

But the movie also has a surprising moment I didn’t expect where Fred gets an eye-opening reveal about his own biases and intolerance.

Director Jonathan Levine and screenwriters Liz Hannah and Dan Sterling wisely stay away from getting too deep into the political weeds. This is reflected by one of Charlotte’s political image consultants on their strategy to stress her glamour rather than her plans: “We don’t drill down too deep on policy, and that’s because our research finds people don’t care.”

Witty, funny, occasionally gross, “Long Shot” is that rarest of cinematic animals: a political romantic comedy with a fuzzy, warm center.

Review: "The Disaster Artist"

I am a virgin to “The Room,” at least the movie from end to end, though it exists as such a monumental cultural touchstone now that it’s impossible to be totally ignorant of its sideways charms.

Often called “the Citizen Kane of bad movies,” it has gone on to become a cult hit for its atrocious acting and nonsensical plot, with people packing midnight screenings to howl in laughter and shout out the dialogue in unison with the film, the same way their parents did for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Google it and you’ll find a multitude of gifs and memes, often centered around writer/director/producer/star Tommy Wiseau’s hilariously inept line delivery (“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”), vague Eurotrash accent and odd looks -- like an ‘80s hair band singer unaware of the passage of time and the fading of fame.

Showbiz people have long been fascinated by “The Room” and Wiseau, and indeed “The Disaster Artist” begins with a montage of (mostly) recognizable celebrities talking about how gobsmacked they were by the film. Director and star James Franco, along with screenwriters Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter, have clearly created their movie as combination homage to/mockery of Wiseau.

He may have been a ridiculously inept filmmaker, but nobody can deny the man his commitment and passion, reportedly sinking $6 million of his own money into the project. No dummy, Wiseau has spent the years since “The Room” came out proclaiming that he meant it to be a comedy all along.

James Franco nails Wiseau’s Schwarzenegger-meets-Phonics speech patterns and odd affectations, and we get a great deal of amusement out of him and the film. I’m not sure if the movie ever truly gets us deep inside his head and reveals what makes him tick. As the closing scroll reminds us, to this day nobody is exactly certain of where Wiseau is from, how he got his fortune or even his real age.

Tommy befriends a wannabe teen actor, Greg Sestero, played by Franco’s real-life brother, Dave. Together they move to Los Angeles to be struggling young actors… although they don’t really struggle too much, as Tommy drives a white Mercedes and already had an apartment in L.A. in addition to the one in San Francisco. He resists any questions about his background, claiming to be from New Orleans, or the source of his prodigious wealth.

Greg is tickled to have someone supporting him financially and emotionally, and the pair set about the usual round of auditions and agency interviews, with hilariously predictable results.

At an acting class, Tommy is distraught when the teacher tells him he’s a natural screen villain, refusing to be laughed at or placed in a box. To buck him up, Greg says he should make his own movie, and we’re off to the races.

Tommy cranks out a script, drops a load of cash on a fourth-rate movie studio and hires a bunch of film veterans before they’ve barely finished their introduction. Seth Rogen gets in a lot of comic digs as the script supervisor who often acts as the de facto director, as Tommy’s on-set antics and abuse continue to spiral as the shoot goes along.

June Diane Raphael, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson and Jacki Weaver play members of the cast, actors who desperately want a paying gig on a feature film but soon recognize they’ve signed up for a one-man disaster parade. They’re the real unsung heroes of “The Room.”

The primary dynamic of the movie is the relationship between Tommy and Greg, who gets cast as the second lead in “The Room.” Greg gradually begins to realize he must separate himself from Tommy’s chaotic influence, helped by the urging of his new girlfriend (Alison Brie). The Franco brothers play off each other very nicely, keeping things comedic without tipping over into daffy.

Bad movies are not exactly a novel concept for good filmmakers. Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” lampooned a man far weirder than Wiseau. “Troll 2” might argue about which film truly deserves the crown of “Best Worst Movie,” as it also had a documentary made about it that used that title.

“The Disaster Artist” is a very fun and entertaining film that amuses and informs, without every truly getting below the surface of these characters. Purely on amusement factors, I give it Hi Marks.