Video review: "Like a Boss"

Not a lot of movies focus on the workplace. They tend to treat people’s jobs as the in-between stuff that happens offscreen so the story can focus on more interesting things like relationships, crime, alien attacks, etc. It’s weird, because for a lot of people, especially unmarried folks without kids, work is often the dominant thing in their life.

I remember watching a Woody Allen movie years ago where he played a sportswriter, and if the flick was any indicator, he worked about 45 minutes a week.

“Like a Boss” is primarily about the relationship between two friends, but plays out at work because they’re partners running a small cosmetics business. Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne) have been friends since childhood, are best friends and live together.

Mel is a little worried that all their other gal pals are getting married and settling down, but Mia enjoys her freedom and sees no end on the horizon. They have casual hook-ups with guys but for once, a mainstream movie doesn’t see the need to tack on a heedless love connection.

They enjoy their work, and Jennifer Coolidge and Billy Porter bring warmth as their employees, treated more like family. But they’re massively in debt, so when famous cosmetics tycoon Claire Luna offers to buy a stake, they feel like they’ve hit the big time. But Claire’s real motive is drive a wedge between the pals so she can gain control of the company.

Claire is played by Salma Hayek in extravagant hair, makeup and neon-colored outfits. She’s sort of a Latina Martha Stewart with a killer instinct. It’s a fun role, though it gets a little tiresome after a while.

There’s a lot to like about “Like a Boss,” even though the story drags a bit in the middle. It’s a celebration of female friendship and independence, on the job and in the heart.

Bonus features are rather weak. There are deleted scenes and just two featurettes: “With Coworkers Like These, Who Needs Friends?” and “Get Some with Ron and Greg.”

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Like a Boss"

At first I thought "Like a Boss" was a semi-remake of "9 to 5" about women's struggles in the workplace, with a tyrannical female boss instead of a chauvinist male. Instead it's probably closer to "The Internship" or similar buddy comedies, in which professional challenges lead to two besties experiencing conflict.

It's a fun, frothy girl-power flick with a nice cast and good energy. It drags in the middle, but starts and ends well.

Tiffany Haddish has gobs of "presence," to use an old-fashioned Hollywood term. Whenever she's on screen, you're paying attention to her, no matter what anyone else is doing. She plays Mia, one half of a spirited duo of women who have been best friends since middle school.

Now in their mid-30s, Mia and Mel (Rose Byrne) have their own boutique cosmetics line. They're living the fun life, rooming together and partying with disposable boys while their friends are settling down and squirting out kids. Mel worries a little that they're missing out, but Mia has a "no regrets" mantra.

"We shouldn't feel bad about putting our careers first. It's what men do," she says.

Problem is, their company is a half-million in debt, which Mel -- the quieter, analytical one -- has hidden from Mia, the gregarious creative force. When they're approached by makeup tycoon Claire Luna (Salma Hayek) to invest in their business, it sows the seeds of an inevitable split between lifelong friends, followed by the ordained reuniting.

As a rule Hollywood movies don't focus a lot on the workplace because, well, most people's jobs are pretty boring. ("We need a spreadsheet montage to spice things up!") Even when they do, work is interrupted by a constant parade of lunches, dates, hangouts, errands, etc. Watching these movies you'd think people spend about three hours a week at the office.

Things follow a pretty predictable cycle as the pair work to ingratiate themselves into Luna's company, Ovieda. (Pronounced "Oh-vee-AY-da," not "Oh-VEE-do," the slightly redneck-y city near my Florida hometown.) Luna makes increasingly outlandish demands, then changes her mind, then drops them like a hot potato.

It's all part of her scheme to drive the friends apart and take controlling share of the company. Oddly, the partners are smart enough to insist on retaining 51 percent share of the company, but still let Luna dictate terms.

Hayek is done up in slathers of makeup and colored contacts, wearing tight-fitting clothes of flamboyant hue. She looks like a Barbie doll version of herself, a shoe-in for the "Obnoxiously Rich Housewives of Atlanta" cast.

The role is written as more reactionary than satirical, like a reptile eyeing its prey. It's funny for a bit, but just a bit.

Billy Porter and Jennifer Coolidge play Mel and Mia's employees, who are treated more like family. Karan Soni is Luna's toadying lickspittle in a one-joke role.

I liked Natasha Rothwell, Ari Graynor and Jessica St. Clair as Mia and Mel's other close friends, who love them dearly but are all on the mommy track. Despite the lighthearted nature of the movie, the five of them have some fairly authentic exchanges about the life/work balance challenges women face, and how those who choose independence end up feeling ostracized.

Also unexpected but appreciated is that the filmmakers (director Miguel Arteta, screenwriters Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly) don't try to shoehorn in obligatory love interests for Mia and Mel. Mia has a much younger boy-toy where they're both quite happy with frequent but non-committal hookups, and Mel brings some bro-dude home and then dismisses him like the help.

No, this is a movie about girl love: The kind of bonds women form over the years that might shift and crack but never shatter. It's not a terribly funny or ambitious movie, but file it under "I just liked spending time with these characters."

Review: "Office Christmas Party"

“Office Christmas Party” starts out a little funny, a little sweet, and then slowly devolves into a dumb raunch-fest.

Don’t get me wrong: a good filthy comedy can be just the thing to break up the dull parade of PG-13 action flicks and kiddie fare (see the first “Hangover”). But when it’s not executed well it becomes like the loud, drunk guy at the party everyone wishes would leave (see, or rather don’t, the other “Hangover” flicks).

This is the rare movie where the fringe characters are more interesting than the stars. If you cut out everything with Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, T. J. Miller and Olivia Munn, you’d have a discombobulated but very tight story of a bunch of office denizens caught up in the weirdest, wilding holiday party ever.

There’s the dweeby guy (Karan Soni) who’s been bragging to his fellow tech nerds about his hot nonexistent girlfriend, so he hires a prostitute to play her. Things go OK until she decides to freelance a little extra action from his buddies, and her she-pimp starts waving a pistol around.

Kate McKinnon of “Saturday Night Live” and “Ghostbusters” scores with another kooky character concoction, an uptight Human Resources manager named Mary who acts as the resident killjoy, but secretly has a freak flag in need of flying.

Then there’s the budding romance between single mom/office manager superstar Allison (Vanessa Bayer) and sweet-natured Fred (Randall Park), whose pet peeve is the underrepresentation of Asian men in adult films.

Fortune Feimster has a scene-stealing turn as a novice and overly exuberant Uber driver who hasn’t figured out what the appropriate level of chatter with the fares is yet. She keeps popping off one killer throwaway line after another, and I wished she would drop off Aniston and the movie could follow her the rest of the way.

But…

The setup is that the Chicago branch of a biggish tech firm is run by the ne’er-do-well son (Miller) of the dearly departed company founder. It’s a loose house and there’s plenty of goofing off, but they make money and realize growth – just not enough to please the hardcase CEO, played by Aniston, who happens to be his sister.

She’s got a lifetime of resentment built up over having to do all the work while golden boy slacked and got ahead, so she’s determined to cut costs to the bone – even ordering a 40% layoff, nixing bonuses and even canceling the hallowed Christmas party.

Rich boy hatches a plan with his nice guy Number Two, Josh (Bateman), who really runs the office, to land a big contract with a major mover (Courtney B. Vance) and save everyone’s bacon. But, using the sort of logic that only works in movies, they’ve got to go ahead with the wildest office party ever to impress the crusty older dude.

Munn plays Tracey, the resident hacker whiz who has a plan to route Internet signals through anything electric, from street lamps to hot dog rotisserie machines. (Question: once they flip it on and everyone’s got free Wifi, how exactly do they make money?)

I think we all know where this is headed. There will be hookups, hilarious injuries, hard drugs will make an appearance, and some scary guys will threaten our heroes for about a minute and a half. Just grab the plots from the “Hangover” movies and a smattering of ‘80s comedies like “Risky Business” and “Bachelor Party,” toss it in a blender and drink deep until you can’t take it anymore.

Video review: "Safety Not Guaranteed"

In addition to being one of my favorite films 2012, "Safety Not Guaranteed" also nabs the title of Best Movie Nobody's Seen. This tiny indie came and went from theaters quickly, but inspired plenty of passion among the few who bought tickets.

This quirky black comedy/drama is about a trio of journalists sent to check out a cryptic help-wanted ad for a companion to travel through time. "Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before," it concludes.

Aubrey Plaza, best known for TV's "Parks and Recreation," plays Darius, a cynical intern looking not so much for her big break as something to break the monotony. She finds it in Kenneth (Mark Duplass), the odd but oddly charming fellow behind the ad. Paranoid and defensive, he slowly starts to let his guard down, and a nascent romance begins to take form.

Along for the ride are Jeff, a 40ish reporter who's using the story as a ruse to get a free trip to his hometown, and Arnau, a shy Indian-American nerd who yearns to lose his virginity.

Everyone assumes Kenneth is a kook, but he doesn't seem like a very dangerous one. When strangers in sunglasses and black SUVs start following him around, it starts everyone to wondering if there's more to his bizarre plan than meets the eye.

Do people in this story really travel through time? I won't tell you, not only to save the surprise but also because it's not really germane to the success of this film. "Safety Not Guaranteed" does not dazzle us with sci-fi hocus-pocus, but studies what effect the possibility of its existence has on a small group of sharply-drawn characters.

What a daffy, dark, joyous ride.

Alas, extra features -- the same for DVD and Blu-ray versions -- are somewhat lackluster. There is no commentary track or anything to spend hours with. There are two brief featurettes: "A Movie Making Mission" and "The Ad Behind the Movie." You can also hunt around for a hidden time capsule Easter Egg.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 1.5 stars

Review: "Safety Not Guaranteed"

"Safety Not Guaranteed" is a movie that involves time travel, but it's not science fiction. Instead it's a funny/sad piece about a bunch of people whose lives are brought together by the prospect of going into the past, and what effect that possibility has on them.

Do people really travel through time? I won't tell you, not only because I don't want to give too much away, but as I said this question is really not critical to the movie's considerable success.

This oft-delightful indie acts as a counterpoint to "Moonrise Kingdom," the recent Wes Anderson film that I have criticized as being relentlessly quirky just for the sake of self-indulgence. The characters in "Safety" are also off-kilter and even weird, but watching them one senses their strange behavior occurs because of who they are, not because they're putting on a performance.

In a sense, the people in "Safety" appear odd because that's our outward perception of their inner core, whereas the folks in "Moonrise" behave strangely because they construct and maintain an identity based on others' reactions to their oddness.

Aubrey Plaza is probably known to most people as the super-acerbic girl on television's "Parks and Recreation." I've enjoyed her immensely on that show, but I've often watched her on it or the tiny supporting parts she's had in movies and thought, "I'd love to see what she could do with a bigger canvas."

Here's my answer, and what a joy it is. There are notes of her character on "Parks" -- a cynical young woman sullenly navigating a post-college landscape without much success or enthusiasm. But Darius is a much fuller, fleshier portrait with subtle layers. Here's hoping Plaza has more roles like this on the horizon.

Her counterpart is Mark Duplass as Kenneth, who places an ad in the paper seeking a partner for time travel. "This is not a joke," the ad insists. "You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."

Darius, who interns at the fictional Seattle Magazine, is sent along with a veteran reporter and another intern to check out this odd announcement and write a story about the person behind it. Everyone expects it to be a big joke, but then Darius meets Kenneth and finds him, if not convincing, then utterly serious.

There are two kinds of weirdoes: those who are doing it for attention and those who think they're passing themselves off as normal but aren't. Kenneth belongs to the latter group. He works at a big-box store, wears an unattractive mullet, tools around in an ancient yellow Datsun 280Z and has weird conversations with his co-workers about our fixed perception of time.

After some hesitation, Kenneth agrees to take on Darius as his partner-in-training. Despite the fact that they practice shooting guns and his ramshackle house is filled with strange gadgets and drawings, Kenneth does not seem all that frightening.

He talks a lot of bluster about his smarts and skills, but it comes across as the innocent boasts of a 12-year-old who never grew up. When Darius asks about a rather strange feature of his anatomy, he goes into a sort of mental fetal position, and that's when she realizes how vulnerable he really is.

Her ostensible boss is also undergoing a form of time travel, though with very different motivations and results. Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) is 40ish and takes the assignment purely so he can reconnect with a hot girl (Jenica Bergere) he had a fling with back when. Along for the only partially willing ride is Arnau (Karan Soni), a timid, virginal nerd.

Just as Darius is realizing how much of a connection she has to Kenneth, things start to get serious when they break into a laser company, and men in black suits and sunglasses begin following them around.

"Safety Not Guaranteed" is a hard movie to pigeonhole. Director Colin Trevorrow and screenwriter Derek Connolly, both feature film rookies, have concocted an offbeat treat that keeps on surprising.

3.5 stars out of four