License to Wed (2007)

I added License to Wed on my watchlist many years ago because of Robin Williams but, like it always happens, if I don't watch it shortly after, it falls into oblivion and I watch it years later, with no idea how the movie ended up on the list nor what it is about.

Well, this one follows Sadie (Mandy Moore) and Ben (John Krasinski), a happy couple who, after only six months, feel ready to get married. It's always been Sadie's dream to be married at the family church with her family minister, Frank (Robin Williams), officiating it. Before they get married, Frank forces them into a rigorous premarital counselling program to see if they are really ready for marriage.

The beginning is quite promising but as soon as the plot starts developing—I'm kidding, nothing develops in here—, it is more than clear that the writers had no idea what they were doing. The result? A story that barely goes somewhere, that is filled with clichés and couldn't get any more predictable. On top of that, it is not even enjoyable. It's a stupid and utterly boring story.

If License to Wed is so unappealing, the credits go to the characters too. They aren't even paper-thin as that would require some dimension whatsoever. They are just a bunch of people with no personality and nothing that makes them stand out. There's a moment in the movie where Ben is asked to describe each of Sadie's relatives with only a word and he's having a terrible time because he's still trying to impress the future in-laws. Well, I felt just same because of the lack of characterisation. And it's not only with the supporting characters but with the main ones too, especially them. How am I supposed to care about Sadie and Ben if they are the weakest and thinner romantic leads ever? Seriously, we know nothing about them other than they both are self-absorbed. As for the Reverend, Frank, he comes off as a creepy, manipulative psychopath.

Warner Bros. Pictures

The cast is completely helpless. I love Krasinski in The Office and Moore in This Is Us but in here they both suck. Their performances are nearly pathetic, they don't make you laugh, and they sure don't make you buy the romance between their characters as they have no chemistry whatsoever. Robin Williams is painfully ridiculous as Reverend Frank, and don't even get me started on the poor cameos from some of The Office's actors.

The biggest issue with License to Wed though is that it is supposed to be a comedy and guess which film couldn't be any less funny? Yep, this one. The humour is so bad, I'm wondering what kind of people enjoys it. I was expecting sitcom-level humour because of Krasinski and Ken Kwapis, who also directed The Office, but I was expecting it to be at least funny —I only laughed once and it was something Williams said. I'm not even sure it was supposed to be funny.

A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014)

It's been so long since I added A Merry Friggin' Christmas on my watchlist that I forgot why it was there. So it's knowing nothing about it that I finally decided to watch it (it turned out it was because of Robin Williams). 

The film follows Boyd Mitchler (Joel McHale), a father who does all he can to give his kids a perfect Christmas because his childhood was ruined by his drunken father, Mitch (Robin Williams), who ruined Santa Claus and Christmas, and pretty much everything for him. When his younger brother, Nelson (Clark Duke), asks him to come his son's baptism which will be held on Christmas Eve in their hometown, Boyd is forced to spend Christmas with his family and estranged father. It gets even worse when he realises that he forgot his son's Christmas presents, decides to make an eight-hour round trip to get them and his father tags along to help.

Although it's not the smartest of plots, it does have some potential at the beginning. Eventually, the writers decided to develop it, or rather not develop it, in the worst way possible and the result is a dull, pretty stupid and unengaging story whose moral and message get lost. I guess it's supposed to deliver the true meaning of Christmas —something the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! did beautifully— and show how to deal with childhood fantasies while growing up, or something like that. I'm not sure because it's all very confusing and messy. 

The characters too are pretty weak. They all are shallow, one-dimensional, unsympathetic and, frankly, quite pathetic characters that it's difficult to care about —maybe the drunken Santa Boyd almost killed is an exception. In other words, they are forgettable.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that the cast does a terrible job. Joel McHale who I loved in the Community episodes I've seen isn't funny at all, and the fact that he plays a hating jerk doesn't help either. Robin Williams who plays the grumpy old man who never was there for his son is too serious —this is supposed to be a comedy, after all— and his witty humour and one-liners are nowhere to be found. The rest of the cast is just as bad, Lauren Graham deserving a special mention because her acting reaches a whole new level of bad.

Phase 4 Films, Entertainment One Films

At last but not least, the comedy. It's certainly not entirely the actors' fault is their performances are dull and unfunny. There isn't much you can do when you have to work with jokes that are either childish or dumb, or both. There's a one-liner from Williams at the end of the movie, that's the only time I chuckled. A Merry Friggin' Christmas is so unfunny is depressing.

New in September: It's All About Pacing

This month's new offerings are a bit deceptive. On the one hand, most of the titles showing up in the first few days of September don't inspire a lot of excitement. There was the return of a number of on-again, off-again classics (welcome back, Ms. Hepburn and Messrs. Cooper and Wayne), a bunch of 1980s and '90s comedies and sci-fi/horror, and a handful of returning kid flicks. So far, so predictable. But once we look forward, things start to get interesting, with the debuts of a number of recent films that are undeniably top tier, as well as new seasons of quite a few notable TV shows.

Robin Williams down but not out

Flubber

But let's take a moment to break out the older and returning titles. First off, last month's loss of two Robin Williams movies, Popeye and The Fisher King, was certainly bad timing given the actor's own untimely departure. But Netflix seems to be making up for that with the joint arrival of Barry Levinson's beloved wartime comedy, Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), and 1997's Flubber, a serviceable remake of Jerry Lewis' Disney's The Absent-Minded Professor (1961). Which means the late Mr. Williams hasn't been totally left out in the cold, even if his incoming titles are arguably a downgrade from the outgoing. Perhaps the Michael Keaton comedy two-fer of Mr. Mom (1983) and Multiplicity (1996) will help balance the scales?

Hello, kiddies

It's also more or less a wash as far as family films go, with last month's expirations being offset by a number of (mostly returning) titles. Among those are the above mentioned Flubber, Barry Sonnenfeld's witty remake of TV's The Addams Family (1991), Disney's Fox's animated Anastasia (1997) and live-action Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Mel Brooks' Star Wars spoof, Spaceballs (1987), Pee-Wee Herman's second big-screen appearance, in Big Top Pee-Wee (1988), and the welcome return of Martin Scorsese's sumptuous ode to cinema, Hugo (2011). Also making its way to streaming is that rite-of-passage film for generations past, Old Yeller (1957), which may be a bit musty but should still leave a tot or two bawling by the end credits.

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August Expiration Watch: Cleaning House

It looks like a number of three- and six-month contracts are up this month, with Robert Altman and two recently deceased stars suffering the worst of it. Say farewell to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning performance in Capote (2005), which returned in March, as well as two very different sides of Robin Williams, in Popeye (1980) and The Fisher King (1991). The former was directed by Altman, who is about to see his impressive catalog of streaming titles reduced by nine�amounting to wholesale cinecide. That means that, along with Popeye, this will be your last chance to check out That Cold Day in the Park (1969) and Fool for Love (1985), both of which debuted in June, plus the five titles that arrived with such a splash back in March.

Among expiring classics there's Howard Hawks' El Dorado (1966), a June arrival that's already being put out to pasture (for shame, Netflix), plus a pair from that master of sarcastic wit, Billy Wilder, whose streaming oeuvre will now be minus The Seven Year Itch (1955), starring Marilyn Monroe (sporting her iconic white dress), and The Apartment (1960), with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine setting the standard for adult romantic comedies.

Matthau as Varrick

1970s action flicks are also taking a hit, with the pending expiration of two recent Pam Grier entries, Black Mama, White Mama (1972) and Bucktown (1975), as well as the Clint Eastwood mountain-climbing thriller, The Eiger Sanction (1975). But the real '70s gem may be Charley Varrick (1973), starring Walter Matthau and directed by Don Siegel, the tough-as-nails director who also gave us Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Gun Runners, and Dirty Harry, among others. Matthau is at his unflappable, efficient best as a bank robber who finds himself in possession of mob money and being tracked by a cold-as-ice killer, played by a scary Joe Don Baker. Gritty and merciless, this one was an early influence on Quentin Tarantino (who apparently cribbed a line of dialogue for Pulp Fiction). Keep an eye out for Sheree North, as a wised-up photographer, and Felicia Farr, a.k.a. Mrs. Jack Lemmon, as a mobster's mistress. As far as I'm concerned, Farr didn't make nearly enough movies after Billy Wilder's great Kiss Me, Stupid (no longer streaming, but reviewed here). The only thing I had trouble buying: Matthau as heartthrob. Or maybe I'm missing something?

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The Good Samaritan

There was a period in the late 1990s when Robin Williams seemed to be making one bad, sappy movie after another. This was between his Oscar-winning turn in 1997's Good Will Hunting and his embrace of darker roles in 2002's Insomnia and One Hour Photo. As a longtime fan I was particularly disappointed to see him in such schmaltz as Patch Adams, Jakob the Liar, and Bicentennial Man. He seemed to be creatively out of gas and working, if not strictly for the paycheck, then from some karmic desire to bring good into the world via syrupy comedy-melodramas. My respect for him�as both actor and comedian�was precipitously low. And I know I wasn't alone.

But in early spring of 2000, while living on New York's Upper West Side, something unusual happened. Faced with two winter-deflated tires on my Raleigh M-20, I walked the bicycle to a shop on Columbus and 81st in search of air. But when I arrived, the store was closed, its final customer being escorted to the door. He was a stocky, muscular man with grayish hair, and as he exited I knew almost immediately�even under his bike helmet and sunglasses�that it was Robin Williams. And he knew that I knew.

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