Couple's Retreat: Vince Vaughn's Mid-Life Crisis.

Dear Vince Vaughn,

It's time someone said it: You might not have it anymore. It's okay! You had a streak for a while (Old School, Wedding Crashers, Dodgeball), but as of late, you've made mostly failures. In fact, I think you've been replaced by the Apatow kids. Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jason Segal, and Paul Rudd have been picking up your slack.

So what is it, man? Are you starting to feel your age? The last two films that I consider "Vince Vaughn" films--that weren't related to Christmas--have been wishy-washy romantic comedies that couldn't decide whether to focus on the romance or the comedy. That's right, you remember The Break-Up. So what is it? Did you look back on your career and all of a sudden decide that it needed more dramatic weight? Wasn't the Psycho remake enough dramatic weight for one career?!

Now I'm not saying your attempts at combining believable drama and comedy are a bad idea. And though your execution is way off mark, I'm grateful that it isn't in another time zone like Funny People was.

In Couples Retreat, your characters are at the same time stereotypes and caricatures. Jason Bateman is so over-the-top enthusiastic and task-orientated that I wanted to slap him; Jon Favreau is your standard washed-up high school jock whose only goal appears to be partying with the twenty-somethings that for some reason find him attractive (not possible); Faizon Love is the standard overweight black friend; Kristen Bell is the puppy dog trying to please Jason Bateman; and Kristen Davis reprises her Sex and the City role.

Only you--Vince Vaughn, in case you forgot who you were during your mid-life crisis--and Malin Akerman have characters with any semblance of depth; a couple with a self-described "average" marriage and a lot of little relationship problems that you two didn't realize needed fixing. These characters are really the only two that are suited for the drama you attempted to squeeze into Couples Retreat, and that is why it feels so out of place.

Couples Retreat is, always was, and will forever be established as a comedy. Jon Favreau wouldn't be caught masturbating in any other genre. And while the film is funny, the attempts to include realistic dialogue regarding the characters' love lives weigh the humor down instead of enhancing it. You can't have a nearly naked yoga instructor comically dry-hump the female characters, and follow it with a scene of the ladies lecturing Charlotte--I'm sorry; I mean Lucy--about how inappropriate it was. They were all there getting dry humped themselves! Is one dry hump worse than another? What a lazy segue into "serious relationship talk" time!

This is how the film went:

1) Sctanley with a "c" humorously berates everyone.
2) Serious relationship talk time.
3) Faizon Love isn't wearing underwear.
4) Serious relationship talk time.
5) Vince Vaughn fends off sharks with witty banter.
6) Serious relationship talk time.
7) Jon Favreau and Charlotte try to get happy endings from their respective masseuses.
8) Serious relationship talk time.
9) All relationships are suddenly in epic turmoil!
10) Guitar Hero
11) Sexy Fun Time beach party
12) All relationship problems are resolved.

The thesis of your film is that Guitar Hero and beach parties solve all relationship problems.

There was one point in your film (I think that's all) where you combined comedy and drama perfectly. It comes when your character lectures Jon Favreau about Applebee's. Not only was it one of the funniest speeches in the film, it highlighted a greater dramatic issue (No one wants to spend their life going to Applebee's alone) without the characters trying to describe their painfully simple emotions to us in too many stupid words. You can sneak poignant thoughts into comedy without being so serious about it! Subtlety is largely underrated and underused these days.

The fact is, your tendency to juxtapose drama and comedy instead of combining the two throws the film off kilter. You can make references and thoughts about real-life relationships with your comedy, instead of forcing the audience to watch comedians attempting to emote. If you want everyone to sit down and talk about their feelings, write a drama. Don't sandwich it between a naked guy and Jean Reno. The beauty of films like Dodgeball and Old School is that they focus solely on comedy; romance is an afterthought, if even a thought at all. If you wanted to write a real romantic comedy on a tropical island, you should have had Jason Segel write your script. Do better next time.



P.S. I'm still convinced that once Kristen Bell found out that this wasn't Forgetting Sarah Marshall 2, it was too late for her to drop out.

Inglourious Basterds, or Tarantino's Ego 2: I Know A Lot About Nazis.

Dear Quentin Tarantino,

Do you think you're audience is stupid? Wait, I suppose you're right; most of your audience is probably stupid. But plenty of us are not, and your inability to let any subtle point stay subtle in Inglourious Basterds was borderline insulting to me. You point arrows to notable Germans to alert us to their importance. You find it necessary to spontaneously insert a split-second sex scene to provide background information that could have easily been inferred. And finally (for the purpose of this letter I won't list everything), you have Samuel L. Jackson explain to us why film burns. Of course film burns. I get the feeling that you simply wanted to point out your epic, unrivaled knowledge of cinema history...which you do constantly.

You are the worst name-dropper of all time. Over and over again, you have your characters tell us about German cinema in speeches that are sometimes so long that all I saw was you fellating yourself onscreen. "Oh...my... God! Quentin you are so knowledgeable!" It's the same thing you did with grindhouse films in Deathproof: Blatant after blatant reference like you're trying to impress a professor or something. It's unnecessary and pretentious. Just stick to subtle references, those don't make me want to hit you.

Now, Inglourious Basterds isnt a bad film, no matter how much the misspelling of the title makes me want to say it is. It is entertaining and at times, fantastic. But your lack of any emotional levity is simply tiresome. Everything is a joke, and the problem is that you've given us the same jokes repeatedly four films in a row. Okay, I'm sure many people find your little idiosyncrasies hilarious, but your capacity to completely ruin scenes with cheap jokes or stupid camera work astonishes me. IF I WANTED TO WATCH A B-MOVIE I'D WATCH A B-MOVIE! Grow up and make something worthy of the budget you are given.

For example, your opening scene: Jews under the floor boards. The excellent (he really was excellent) Christoph Waltz slowly berating the dairy farmer for information he already knows. It was a great start. Then Christoph Waltz pulls out the biggest pipe I have ever seen. The theater laughs, I groan, and the scene is ruined. Why can't you take anything seriously? Why can't a girl sit nervously in a room with the man who killed her entire family without you focusing the camera on strudel? I hate strudel! Strudel ruins scenes Tarantino. Your new nickname is "Strudel."

Your characters are nothing but stock caricatures of whatever you need them to be and none of them have more depth than a glass of water. The most diverse character in the entire film is the dairy farmer in the beginning and he's in the film for ten minutes. It is pathetic, easy filmmaking.

You did save the day with the fantastic scene in the basement bar. If this scene didn't exist, I wouldn't have thought twice about giving your film a 1/10 on IMDB (the worst insult, like, ever!) Holy Hell, this scene was fantastic! You capitalized perfectly on your "knowledge" (someone probably told you) of culture and of the various accents in your film. You did manage to throw in your interpretation of "King Kong" in there, but it was semi-plot relevant so I forgive you.

A lot of other people might be pissed at you too. I think most people are expecting an action film. I hate mindless action, but that's what you're good at! You're like Michael Bay with dialogue other than grunting. Unfortunately, the Basterds appearances are so rare that I occasionally forgot why the movie was named after them. . Much of the film moves at a slower pace than I expected, and it actually drags in spots. Now Im not saying its boring (occasionally its boring), but someone needs to get some balls and tell you to stop it with the drawn out speeches and scenarios. In a perfect world, you would have made this movie: 2 hours of Brad Pitt and friends killing people; of course taunting and giving their little speeches along the way. It would have been more fun that way. Then, you give the other half of the script (Shosanna s story) to a writer/director who has the capacity to produce substance and you have two good movies! What you have here is much more of a wishy washy, I enjoyed it--but there were some terrible problems-- sort of meh, it was good, but not amazing film. I wanted more. C'mon, Tarantino. It's time for something new.