Susan Sarandon, Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Bette Midler in THE FABULOUS FOUR. Courtesy of Bleecker Street
Bette Midler. Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally are the fabulous four actresses cast as best friends in THE FABULOUS FOUR, the latest comedy entry in the recent string of gal pal comedies featuring older, big-name actresses and silly antics. I might call them “broad comedies” but then someone might slap me (insert rim shot). While some of those comedies have been a bit forced, leaning heavily on too-familiar jokes, THE FABULOUS FOUR is fun, a lighter and more relaxed version, and less fully-packed with far-fetched comic bits. This femme-centric comedy about aging, friendship and new beginnings is femme-helmed too, with Australian writer/director Jocelyn Moorhouse at the helm and scriptwriters Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly backing her up.
In THE FABULOUS FOUR, four women who have been friends for decades, ever since college, gather in beautiful Key West for the second wedding of one of them. Bette Midler plays the bride, Marilyn, recently widowed and a recent transplant to quirky Key West, but taking the plunge back into the sea of matrimony after a whirlwind romance with a local widower (Bruce Greenwood).
Although the four have stayed in touch, there has been a long-standing rift between Marilyn and her one-time best friend Lou (Susan Sarandon). In college, Marilyn was fun-loving and unfocused, who needed steady, studious pre-med student Lou to keep her on track to graduation. All four were roommates in New York after college, as they launched their careers and Lou went to medical school. But the two best friends had a falling out after Marilyn stole Lou’s boyfriend, and then married him.
Lou has never forgiven Marilyn but Marilyn still misses her old bestie and would love to have her at the wedding. So, of course, the other two, Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Alice (Megan Mullally) decide to trick Lou into coming to Key West – a ruse that works like catnip for book-loving, cat-loving Lou.
Yeah, pretty far-fetched, but the film does have a lot of fun with the Key West locale, and all things Ernest Hemingway, with plenty of those six-toed cats. As it happens, all these women have done well for themselves financially, so there is no limit to the fun they can have in pricey Key West. Marilyn lives in large home with a lovely back garden in expensive Key West, where she recently moved. Lou is a successful cardiac surgeon, Alice is a successful recording artist and music producer (with a taste for younger guys) and Kitty has a prosperous business growing cannabis and making cannabis-infused gummies, much to the disapproval of her very-religious daughter. With money no object, these gals have a great time. I’d say a high time but, again, someone might smack me.
Like all of this recent spate of comedies with major older female stars, there are plenty of antics and silliness, with high hopes that hilarity ensues. This one is less breathless than some of them, and the antics are less over-the-top and overly-familiar (mostly), which helps make the whole comedy funnier, more easy-going, and enjoyable.
There is also great chemistry between the women in this cast, especially between Susan Sarandon and Bette Midler, who are the major focus of the plot. But all of them contribute to the comedy, with Sheryl Lee Ralph a standout as a kind of brains of the outfit. Hemingway and literature get a good shout-outs too, in among the mojitos, daiquiris, beaches and hang-gliding. There are serious moments, of course, as the characters deal with a number of matters around aging, friendship, family and being open to new adventures and new beginnings. And an added bonus are two of Sarandon’s own cats, judging by the credits.
The bottom line is that THE FABULOUS FOUR is fun, a light summer treat with enjoyable performances from a truly fabulous cast in one gorgeous locale.
THE FABULOUS FOUR opens Friday, July 26, in theaters.
A scene from PLAN C, one of the documentary films in the 2023 St. Louis International Film Festival. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment
PLAN C is a timely documentary spotlighting a pro-choice non-profit organization called Plan C, which is dedicated to providing information, to anyone who wants to know, on the options for an unwanted pregnancy, and particularly about the medical abortion pill. The Plan C organization careful notes they are information providers, not abortion providers, but they do tell women facing an unwanted pregnancy how to contact doctors who will provide medical abortion pills, even by mail. When the organization was founded, abortion was legal in all states, under Roe v Wade, and medical abortion pills had been approved by the FDA. Post Roe, the landscape in which these activists – mostly women – do their work is completely different.
The women in this organization find themselves in the difficult position of providing information, to anyone who requests it, on an once-legal procedure in the drastically changed landscape after the overturning of Roe. Director Tracy Droz Tragos’ documentary takes a look at these activists and the doctors with whom they work, who find themselves in this difficult position. They must decide how far they are willing to go into legally murky territory to provide information to women with a crisis pregnancy who want to know.
Americans are sharply divided on this subject but the great majority favored keeping abortion in the first trimester safe and legal, particularly in the case of rape or incest. Yet since the U. S. Supreme Court overturned Roe, leaving the decision about abortion rights up to the states, a number of states have activated severely restrictive laws or even resurrected old bans on abortion from earlier eras. Among the states imposing restrictions now is Texas, which is where Plan C is based.
The documentary puts us on the cutting edge of this most politically-heated of issues. It also delves into the history, of Roe v Wade and the approval of the medical abortion pill in 2007. Approval of medical abortion gave women hope for greater privacy in this very personal decision, including an end to women having to walk a gauntlet of anti-abortion protesters to reach a clinic. With the reversal of Roe, and now attacks on the FDA’s approval of one of the drugs used in medical abortion, this group now faces greater challenges in their efforts to provide women with the information they seek.
PLAN C offers interviews with various members of Plan C and the doctors with whom they work. The organization is based in Texas but has outreach across the country. Free speech issues are discussed as shifting landscape in many states.
There could not be a more timely documentary, and PLAN C’s profile of this informational group offers insights beyond the headlines and a human, ground-level look at the subject that has raised so many questions about women’s rights and free speech.
PLAN C was shown Nov. 13 as part of SLIFF and it is available to stream starting Nov. 17, 2023.
Zoe Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, Scarlett Johansson, and Jillian Bell star in Lucia Aniello’s bachelorette party comedy ROUGH NIGHT, Photo by Macall Polay. Courtesy of Columbia/Sony Pictures.
Scarlett Johansson leads a cast of raucous women characters in a comedy that does more than just flip the usual bachelor party trope on its head, in ROUGH NIGHT. The result is a refreshing take on buddy comedy that not only turns the tables on gender but completely nails how women really interact with each other, in a fitfully funny comedy.
Besides a strong female lead cast, ROUGH NIGHT is directed by a woman, Lucia Aniello, who also co-wrote the script and is one of the producers. Unlike the typical male-written script, these female characters are spot-on and interact like real women do, even if the situation is over-the-top comedy. While the women characters and how they interact is refreshingly accurate, the humor is sometimes uneven. Still, the film has much to recommend it – including not being another Bridesmaids wanna-bee.
Not surprisingly, the humor is on the raunchy side and leans a bit dark, although it mostly skips the potty humor, a nice change from many recent comedies. The plot follows the general outlines of other bachelor-party-gone-wrong comedies like THE HANGOVER, where one bad decision leads to another, with bits from WEEKEND AT BERNIES and VERY BAD THINGS as well.
Ten years after college, best buds Alice (Jillian Bell), Frankie (Ilana Glazer), and Blair (Zoe Kravitz) reunite with bride-to-be Jess (Scarlett Johansson) for a wild bachelorette weekend in Miami. Alice has it all planned out, and the friends are set up in a beach-side home for the weekend, because just one day won’t be enough – at least for Alice. These four musketeers are joined by the bride’s Aussie pal Pippa (Kate McKinnon, sporting a wavering Australian accent but unerring comic instincts) who met Jess during a college study-abroad term but has never met her other college friends.
Although the women were inseparable pals and all wild partiers during college, each has gone her own way since. A flashback that starts the film shows us the college-aged characters that were, with best friends Jess and Alice teaming up to take on the frat boys at beer pong. Post-college, Jess has transformed into a sincere but awkward would-be politician, nervously shooting a political ad for TV, dressing perfectly, and constantly worrying about her image. Alice, meanwhile, is now a grade school teacher but she is always looking back to her college days with overwhelming nostalgia. The once inseparable friends and lovers Frankie and Zoe now are worlds apart, with Frankie an unconventional social activist and Zoe an wine-sipping, upscale urbanite mother, who is now separating from her husband.
Alice, who has orchestrated this whole weekend party, is determined to get the old gang back together, and particularly to rekindle her bond with best-friend Jess. Things go wrong when a male stripper they hired ends up dead. Although it was an accident, drugs and liquor lead to all the wrong decisions, and comedy chaos ensues.
Director Aniello and co-writer Paul W. Downs do more than switch the narrative around in this refreshingly real women-centric comedy. The comedy is built around the relationships between the women, not the men in the their lives, and many women in the audience will smile in recognition at several scenes. These women are smart, complicated and out for fun – until they are out to save their skins.
Setting the R-rated, sometimes dark comedy in brightly colored Miami adds the right touch of lightness to the mood, and also provides a fantasy-playground location, where the absurd can happen. One of the best comic bits is the concurrent bachelor party for Jess’ equally buttoned-down groom-to-be Peter (played by co-writer Paul Downs) – a wine tasting. Peter and his friends share their feelings about women while a sommelier serves them pinot noir in an elegant wood-paneled room. A comic bit that references a real-world incident with an astronaut is hilarious.
The film is R-rated, with plenty of raunchy humor, drugs and general misbehavior. Some of the humor around the dead body is a bit edgy, but this barrier has already been crossed in other comedies, including WEEKEND AT BERNIES. But there is nothing so off-putting that the absurd humor does not still come through.
The performers sparkle in this film, both in the comedy and in some dramatic scenes. Scarlett Johansson is terrific as the bride-to-be at the center of this mad weekend, whose mind is always working while just trying to go along with the fun and spirit of things. A running theme is built around her relationship with college bestie Alice. Although this is a comedy, it is also a film about women’s friendships. Both men and women will recognize the dynamic between Jess and Alice, the friend who is almost possessive and always pulling her friend back to the past “glory days.” Both Johansson and Bell portray the layers and the back-and-forth of this dynamic between them brilliantly, particularly in a later confrontation.
Meanwhile, McKinnon is fabulously funny as the crazy one in this group, as well as the unknown quantity as the new girl in the old crowd. McKinnon’s Pippa is endlessly upbeat, and ever ready with the next bad idea or even just the nerve to carry it out, the kind of character who might take to any bad suggestion with a “why not – I’m game” attitude. She’s always the most unpredictable and often the most hilarious in the group.. Her Aussie accent may be less than perfect but the non-American viewpoint is a nice addition to the humor.
Kravitz and Glazer are the other friends-at-odds pair, mirroring the dance between Alice and Jess, but with a different twist. Glazer and Bell also play the sex-obsessed and risk-taking pair contrasting to Johansson’s and Kravitz’s more cautious, are-you-nuts pair. Demi Moore and Ty Burrell add an extra comic twist playing a creepy-funny couple in the neighboring beachfront apartment, next to where the women are staying.
ROUGH NIGHT is just as it says a rough night for these friends but it is overall a refreshing kind of comedy, even if it is not non-stop hilarious. It certainly whets the appetite for more comedies with real women, a largely untapped well of humor just waiting for the next film to dive in.
That’s right all you crazy boys and girls… I, your loud mouthed, movie loving smartass is bringing back my uncensored, fun-filled column SIT DOWN, SHUT UP… AND LET ME WATCH MY MOVIE! In this installment, I will be addressing an issue that apparently is popping about since Sundance.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST MY OPINION. DO SOME RESEARCH AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND.
I recently received word of a group that is none to happy with the lack of women in the film industry.
Now, let me preface this by saying that I fully support women in media, film, and heck, anything else that a woman wants to do… I am not sexist by any means.
The WOMEN”S MEDIA CENTER is a group dedicated to making women visible in the media. Whether it be print, television, women being interviewed etc., their goal is to make women heard. This is a reasonable, and respectable mission. However, in the below video, I found a couple of things troubling. Take a gander, and then I will explain why I am not ok with this video. Go ahead… I will wait.
Ok, boys and girls… here is where I have a problem. Well, several.
First, where did these numbers come from? I searched the site for sources, but could not find them. I am not saying whether the numbers are true or not, but I would like to know how these numbers came about. Did the WMC (Women’s Media Center) conduct a poll, pull this off of the web, did they get these numbers from one or more studies conducted by reliable, unbiased sources, was a random sample of a particular area taken,and/or is it statistically accurate? These are all things that I look at when I read figures. I could say that 90% of people find me to be AWESOME, but how did I come up with that number? I could have conducted a survey of 10 people, and asked them if I am, in fact, awesome to their faces, and only one said no. Point is, I like to know where information comes from. (FYI… 1 out of 1 Melissa’s agree that I am SUPER AWESOME! THAT’S 100 Percent!)
For just a second, let’s assume that the numbers are completely accurate. Like I said, I have no clue whether they are or not, and am certainly not about to accuse the WMC of misrepresenting the fact. If ” 77% of film critics are male”, “only 8% of film writers are female” (I am assuming that they mean script writers and not just critics, because that would be a little redundant to the previous fact. Plus, if you added those two up, what would the other 15% be? That’s a scary thought… but I really hope that dinosaurs are involved!), and “only 7% of the top films of 2009 were directed by women, then we need to look at why this is.
Let’s start with the latter. Top movies are chosen by sales, and/or because they are good, not by some secret society of “he-man woman haters”. Movie sales are driven when purchased or watched by the everyday person, not people in the film industry. People in the film industry generally don’t have to pay to see the movies that they want. It’s kind of a perk to the job. The general population, who are the ones spending money on movies, doesn’t pay attention to directors, writers or producers! How many times have you ever witnessed someone pick up a movie at a store, look at the director or writer, and put it down because it is a woman? Heck, how many people do you know that look past the list of actors or the pretty picture on the box or poster?
Now, back to the fact. In order to know the reason why films directed by women were less popular, I would need to know how many films were actually directed by women in 2009, if these films were made available to the general public and if these movies were actually good. 10,000 women could each direct a film. That doesn’t mean that any of them will be good. So, before I take this number to heart, I need more information.
On to film critics and film writers. For this one, I don’t need as many answers… because this is my sandbox. I can whole-heartedly say that I have NEVER felt any discrimination when it comes to breaking into the film industry, or experienced any other kind of hate that has prevented me from succeeding. Now, I am not disputing that it doesn’t happen, but I have never seen it, nor have I heard about it from any of the many talented women critics and writers that I know. Also, if it was, or still is industry standard, then how do women have jobs? How am I writing this? How do I know so many women in this industry that are extremely successful due to hard work? Oh, I get it… We are all in The Matrix! Duh!
Have I met a dumb male critic that has made a smart-ass comment, thinking that I wouldn’t know about horror makeup or action films? Sure have… several times… but guess what? Not only do I exercise my right to make them look stupid for making such idiotic comments, I have found that if they are dumb enough to walk around with such small minds, they are probably horrible at their craft. How can you be a successful film critic if you can’t think outside of your predisposed, judgmental, ignorant little box? If you have ever watched some of the guests on Maury, Dr. Phil or Oprah, you know that intelligent, creative bigots don’t occur too often in nature. It’s pretty hard to be successful when you are a complete moron!
In the St. Louis area alone, I know a ton of talented, successful women in film. They achieved this by putting in the work and mastering their craft. I don’t look at whether someone is a woman or a man, all I see is a talented film critic, writer, or journalist. That is the message we as a society should really be trying to convey. There is nothing wrong with having a support system for any one group. Everyone need support, and if they encourage each other to feel better or make positive life decisions, then great. The biggest problem, however, is that society always wants to blame others, and turn that blame into a crutch. When that, along with labels, name-calling and/or excuses are used rather than positive solutions, it is no longer support… for anyone! These groups are sometimes just as bad as the people that they are fighting! All this propaganda, negativity, and sometimes even anger is not only giving people an excuse to fail, but is causing a bigger fight. As Mohandas K. Gandhi once said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”.
I wholeheartedly believe in standing up for what you believe in, but there is a difference between talking about the problem and actually getting off your ass to do something about it. For example, if this video would have included sources to their facts, as well as offer positive ways to make a change, then this would have been more effective, and I wouldn’t be writing this. Why? Because they would then be actively educating people with sourced facts, so that people could make up their own mind, and offering ways to actually make a difference. To be more clear… It’s like telling a child that he will never be able to read, but never taking the time to tell him why, or trying to teach them how.
The first steps to change are presenting unbiased, sited facts and offering positive actions to make a difference. Ultimately, we need to get out of this gender, religion, race mindset and see each other as people. Not all women are the same, and it is unfair to group us all together. We cannot blame gender, religion, or race for all of our problems. Are there still people out there with narrow thinking? Sure, but it is our job to rise above that and determine our own future. We are smart enough to do that, right? If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or even in film then do it. If society won’t let you, then make your own film, start your own blog, or write your own script. It is up to the individual to make their life their own. If you let something as silly as gender, skin tone, appearance, or religion stop you from being a success, then you only have yourself to blame. Survival of the fittest.
Its no secret that I love College Football… I am also fond of Women and Alcohol and with the new Spike TV show BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE which premieres January 12th at 10Pm, 9 Central. Here is the official synopsis:
In the vein of “Animal House,” “Blue Mountain State” follows three incoming freshman in a big-time, Midwestern college football program. Alex is a talented quarterback, content to ride the bench while partying with his best friend Sammy, who aspires to be the school’s mascot. Craig, on the other hand, is a number one recruit and future Pro whose life is already mapped out for him by his controlling girlfriend. Will they be able to juggle football, girls, class and nonstop hazing?
Check out the trailer below and tell me you arent excited and check out the official site for more trailers:
