by George Wolf
McFarland, USA
Once, during one of my high school cross country meets years ago, a teammate and I were running together when we came upon a runner from another school who had collapsed in pain. As we passed our rival, my teammate looked down at him and unleashed a string of expletives meant to wish him anything but well.
The point is, I wanted to tell that story and reviewing a film about high school cross country seemed the best time to do it.
McFarland, USA, is the latest from Disney’s division of inspiring sports stories, and it’s a perfectly pleasant if unremarkable take on… an inspirational sports story.
In the late 1980s, a high school teacher and coach named Jim White started a cross country team in the small, mostly Hispanic town of McFarland, California. Despite very humble beginnings, the team won the state championship in its very first year and didn’t look back, ultimately becoming a powerhouse program.
It really is a nice underdog tale, and I’m surprised it took this long to get a film adaptation. It comes complete with the “white savior” angle, and an understandable logic in telling it from his point of view. Coach White’s (even his name is tailor made for suburbia!) status as the main character doesn’t hit you like a blind side (pun very much intended) of manipulation, and there are ample opportunities to make salient points about the changing fabric of America.
Though the script isn’t as serious about these issues as it could have been, at least the effort is there, buoyed by some graceful direction from Niki Caro (Whale Rider, North Country). We learn, as the coach does, about a segment of the country that’s often out of sight and out of mind. But as the team comes together and lessons are learned, the film is content to keep the cultural issues broadly drawn, toeing an awkward line between awareness and pandering.
As Coach White, Kevin Costner gives the film exactly the type of rock solid anchor you would expect. Through the periods when the narrative seems less than believable and his supporting cast wavers, Costner’s earnest authenticity provides constant forward momentum. And though Maria Bello’s role is reduced to the obligatory supportive helpmate, she and Costner do manage a sweet chemistry.
A touching introduction to the real people of McFarland, USA ensures the film hits the finish line on a high note, even if the result isn’t quite one for the record books.
Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Every year or so there’s a film that simply should not work, but does. Machete. Kick-Ass. Hot Tub Time Machine. And every year or so, Hollywood leeches what it can from the fresh, silly, undemanding body of that film with a lifeless and inexplicably mean-spirited sequel. I give you: Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
Lou (Rob Corddry) turned his miserable life around at that ski resort in 2010/1986. Or not. Turns out, Lou is still a big problem in that he’s still toxic and crude, so someone shoots him and it’s up to his remaining friends (Craig Robinson, Clark Duke – John Cusack is noticeably, wisely absent) to fire up the hot tub and stop the murder before it happens.
The fact that the hot tub sends them to the future hardly matters in this lazily scripted joke of a film.
Gone entirely, along with Cusack, are the charm and good nature of the original, the light heartedness that offset the darker edges and made the toilet humor and sex jokes almost endearing. It was a nostalgiafest, complete with “I want my two dollars!” shouted at John Cusack from a ski slope. Priceless.
With no such built in fondness for 2025, and Corddry in the lead, the sequel is just a smattering of self-referential gags held together with homophobia and misogyny.
Corddry is a magnificent, unseemly talent, but he’s not a lead. With Lou in the center of the film, rather than the charming, curmudgeonly everyman of Cusack, the movie substitutes an anchor for flailing misanthropy. That’s hard to build on.
The lack of a lead is one of the film’s larger concerns. Corddry, returning time-tripper Craig Robinson, and new 4th wheel Adam Scott are all comic talents, but also all side characters.
With Steve Pink returning to direct another script from Josh Heald, you might think lightning could strike twice, right? No. Let’s be honest, no one thought this film would be any good. We’re all still stunned that the lightweight goofiness of the original was as entertaining as it was. Who knows how that worked, but whatever ingenious, low-brow magic put Crispin Glover (two arms or one) at that ski lodge, it’s missing from the sequel.
But rape jokes are always funny, right?
The DUFF
The DUFF may not be the best teen movie ever made, but after the string of If I Stay‘s and Fault in Our Stars‘s the last few years, it feels like Citizen Kane. Characters, humor, smarts, acting…what a nice change.
It’s based on a “young adult” novel by Kody Keplinger and centers on Bianca (Mae Whitman) a high school senior who is aghast to learn she is known in social circles as a DUFF – the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Ouch. Even though she is assured the label doesn’t mean she’s ugly and/or fat – just the one people use to get to her hotter, more popular friends – Bianca feels some changes are in order.
First, she breaks up with her longtime besties, then turns to her neighbor Wesley (Robbie Amell) – who just happens to be the football captain and a certified Mr. Popular – for advice on how to shed her DUFFness and catch the eye of her big crush, Toby.
So, yes, it’s a white suburban makeover movie with an outcome that’s never in doubt, but The DUFF is saved by winning performances and a confident self- awareness that trusts its audience enough to aim higher than YA melodramatic angst.
Josh A. Cagan’s script serves up all the teen movie staples, but does so with a lovable wink that never becomes outright parody, while it also manages to touch on some serious issues (cyber-bullying, hurtful stereotypes) with an amusing subtly. Even the overused devices of narration and lessons-I’ve-learned essay writing don’t seem quite so tired here.
Director Ari Sandel provides a lively pace and plenty of visual flair, surrounding Bianca with flashbacks, fantasy sequences and on-screen graphics. Think Mean Girls meets Scott Pilgrim, and you’re in the neighborhood, a pretty fun neighborhood.
Whitman (one of the few bright spots in The Perks of Being a Wallflower) is a treat, and she carries the film with a winning performance that shows a real flair for comic timing. Amell (TV’s The Tomorrow People and The Flash) is just as good, creating a genuine chemistry with Whitman that is perfectly endearing. Rather than the one-note fawning hot boy and the girl with hidden specialness, The DUFF gives us main characters that seem human, and both Whitman and Amell take advantage.
Okay, so maybe it does dip a toe in sentimental waters once or twice, but The DUFF has enough going for it to make it a breezy charmer. And I didn’t even mention the great Alison Janney as Bianca’s mom!
Get more of my reviews at MaddWolf.com!