Tag: Kyle Bornheimer

‘She’s Out of My League’ (2010) Review

She’s Out of My League Synopsis: When he starts dating drop-dead gorgeous Molly, insecure airport security agent Kirk can’t believe it. As his friends and family share their doubts about the relationship lasting, Kirk does everything he can to avoid losing Molly forever.

After a two-year “break”, Kirk, a TSA security guard, is ready to win back his girlfriend, Marnie. Unfortunately, Marnie’s already moved on with a new boyfriend named Ron, both of whom are unusually close to Kirk’s family. Then Kirk meets Molly, an event planner who is also a total knockout. She seems to like Kirk too, but both his friends and his family exacerbate his own insecurities, as they can’t believe the relationship will ever last.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen She’s Out of My League, but rewatching it now reminded me how much I liked it. It’s certainly not a classic, nor is it anything overly original, but it has some genuinely humorous moments, and Jay Baruchel is a wonderfully unconventional leading man.

He and Alice Eve are cute on screen together, as Molly is indeed a knockout and likable, seemingly unaware that no one can believe a woman who looks like her would want to date a guy who looks like Kirk.

Both are surrounded by friends who are just as dumbfounded about the relationship as Kirk is. His group of friends, led by Stainer (TJ Miller), are a nice blend of supportive and sarcastic. Krysten Ritter is sorely underused as Patty, Molly’s snarky best friend, and I have to be honest, I’m glad the movie didn’t push the two prickly best friends together romantically, as their dislike of each other provided some of the best moments in the film.

The humor is definitely of the R-rated variety, so if you’re not a fan of dick jokes, you’re probably not going to like She’s Out of My League all that much. Sometimes it’s a bit much, yes, but the same could be said about There’s Something About Mary, and yet… it works. Most of the time. I feel like there’s a scene in the movie that desperately wanted to be the new “hair gel” moment in rom-com cinema, but it was icky rather than funny.

That being said, She’s Out of My League is still fairly witty and charming, providing an entertaining look at how awkward dating can really be, especially when you’re dating someone that you, and everyone else around you, thinks is way… well, out of your league. I enjoyed this one a lot – it was my last rom-com of 2022 and one that I would recommend to fans of the genre.

Watched: 12/29/2022
Notable Song: She’s So High by Tal Bachman

Rating:

01/04/2023
‘Bachelorette’ (2012) Review

When plus-sized high school friend Becky (a sorely underused Rebel Wilson) announces she’s engaged to be married, her controlling, mean-spirited best friend Regan (Kirsten Dunst) spirals into seething disbelief. She is given maid of honor duties and immediately calls their two mutual high school friends, Katie (Isla Fisher) and Gena (Lizzy Caplan), to announce the news. The three women try to figure out how their friend, nicknamed Pig Face in high school, managed to land her fiancé, Dale (Hayes MacArthur), who is handsome and rich to boot.

Despite their disbelief, they realize this means they can come together to enjoy the wedding festivities. Notably, the bachelorette party. Six months later, the four former friends are reunited the night before Becky’s wedding. Katie and Gena are eager to snort some cocaine, drink, and get the party started, but Becky informs them that she’s no longer the partying type, and she and Regan have planned a laid-back party in the hotel room with champagne.

This doesn’t stop Katie from calling in a stripper, and from there, the party turns into a disaster, with Becky angrily informing her friends that they’re not invited to the wedding if they “can’t be normal people.”

This doesn’t stop Regan, Katie, and Gena from continuing the party. During a coked-up evening, they accidentally tear Becky’s wedding dress and set off into the seedy streets of New York to try and find a way to mend it before morning. Their plans derail when they run into Dale and his friends on their way to Dale’s bachelor party, including Clyde (Adam Scott), Gena’s former high school boyfriend, with whom she has a rocky past.

Tagging along is also Trevor (James Marsden), a smarmy jerk eager to bed one of Becky’s bridesmaids, and Joe (Kyle Bornheimer), another high school classmate who used to sell Katie weed and still harbors a crush on her. Throughout the evening, all three women have to deal with their past while trying to figure out what the future may hold, all the while attempting to repair Becky’s wedding dress, which is subsequently bled on, thrown in a pile of garbage, and used as toilet paper by a stripper.

Despite the same themes of friends dealing with jealousy and insecurities while leading up to a wedding, Bachelorette is not a Bridesmaids clone, nor does it try to be. If anything, Bachelorette the caustic, cocaine-fueled cousin of Bridesmaids. The three leading ladies are highly unlikeable, and the only reason you root for them is that Becky deserves better, and you don’t want her big day ruined by her drugged-up, so-called friends.

Dunst is the film’s highlight as the self-centered, bitchy maid of honor, Regan. She’s a pain in the ass and unnecessarily horrible to the people helping plan Becky’s wedding, but there are moments when you see her questioning her sense of self. This doesn’t excuse her behavior, but it does add a touch of vulnerability that keeps Regan from becoming a one-dimensional mean girl.

Fisher’s Katie is oblivious and a bit dim, but she’s also a woman who wants more out of life, a boyfriend who will be nice to her, preferably with a job. Despite her habit of making terrible choices, Fisher has enough comedic talent and sweetness to make Katie the most likable of the three B-Faces (nicknames given to them in high school).

Caplan is precisely what I expected her to be. Gena is the sarcastic yet cool friend who wants everyone to believe she doesn’t give a shit about anything, even though it’s evident she does. This isn’t the first time Caplan has played this particular role; it comes naturally to her.

Gena owns the movie’s sweetest romantic subplot as she and Clyde go on a mission to try and fix Becky’s wedding dress while reminiscing about their past and what drove them apart. This is the second movie I’ve seen where Adam Scott has played a former flame that some beautiful woman can’t seem to get over (Headland’s Sleeping With Other People being the other). Given Caplan and Scott’s chemistry, I totally get it.

The movie honestly doesn’t have as many laughs as Bridesmaids or The Hangover, and I often wondered why on earth someone as lovely as Becky would continue to be friends with three horrible women. But it’s an interesting study of friendship and how it matures (or sours) long after high school has ended. It’s possible to be happy for a friend but also suffer from crippling insecurity about one’s own life, though Bachelorette certainly takes these insecurities to the extreme.

At times, I felt like Bachelorette was trying too hard to prove that women can be just as raunchy and crude as men, which came across as obnoxious. While there were brief moments of heart, the rest of the film just fell flat for me. The end was far too easy, happy endings tied up in a bow with little to no consequence for bad behavior. There are some fantastic performances, but that’s not enough to consider Bachelorette worthy of a repeat viewing.

Watched: 03/24/2019
Notable Song: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers

Rating:

03/25/2019
‘The Big Wedding’ (2013) Review

Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton (whom I could watch in just about anything) play Don and Ellie, a divorced couple who are forced to pretend they’re still married when their adopted son Alejandro’s ultra-conservative, Catholic (Ben Barnes – who seems to have been sprayed with self-tanner to appear Hispanic) biological mother and sister arrive to attend his wedding to Missy (Amanda Seyfried).

The problem is that Don has lived with Ellie’s (ex) best friend, Bebe (Susan Sarandon), for the past eight years. The movie also touches upon Alejandro’s adopted siblings, Topher Grace and Katherine Heigl.

Grace plays Jared, a 29-year-old doctor and a virgin who is suddenly eager to lose it to Al’s biological sister Nuria. Heigl is Lyla, a woman suffering from infertility and separation from her husband. She also holds some immense hostility toward Don for cheating on her mother with Bebe.

The Big Wedding feels too big. There are too many characters, too many storylines, and not enough movie. We don’t get to know the characters all that well before the wedding day arrives.

The storylines seem far-fetched, the conflicts are quickly brushed off as if nothing happened (a quick apology from Lyla’s estranged husband is enough to call it water under the bridge?), and while there are a few laughs, there aren’t enough to save the clunky storytelling.

Oh, and Robin Williams, who is usually a bright spot in most movies he stars in, is so woefully underused. Anyone could have probably stepped into his role, and it would have been just as shrug-worthy.

The Big Wedding is disappointing, to say the least.

Watched: 08/30/2018
Notable Song: Save The Last Dance for Me by Michael Buble

Rating:

08/30/2018