Film Review: Booksmart

On the last day of high school, two overachievers find out the party-crazy classmates they've looked down upon for years are going to top universities also. The more daring of the two convinces her bff that they have to cram four years of partying into one night to make up for the time they spent studying.

I usually complain when plots are very simple, but the characters are so endearing, the dialogue is so laugh-out-loud funny ... and raunchy ...and the pacing is so relentless, that you can't help but get sucked in.

I saw bits of the party sequence from "Sixteen Candles" and a lot of "American Graffiti," as the teens hit their coming-of-age moment with some hard truths. The ensemble cast could have been stereotypes but the more we get to know them, the more we want to get to know them.

The highlights are Beanie Feldstein as the class president who wonders why her inauguration wasn't celebrated as wildly as the last day of school, and Billie Lourde's ubiquitous, maniac space cadet. My favorite joke is when the girls start speaking in Chinese because of course they speak Chinese.

This is what "Bridesmaids" should have been, raunchy, smart and fun instead of cheap diarrhea jokes.

TV Review: Reef Break

"Reef Break" is a throwback to the light, breezy TV detective shows of the 70s where the detective is loaded with personality, may have a shady past, and is much better at police work than the actual police.

This isn 't a bad thing. Poppy Montgomery has a lot of personality as a surfer/ former smuggler who becomes an under-the-radar fixer for the governor of Reef Break, an island paradise she once, and now, calls home. Not really believable, but just enjoy the scenery and relax.

It's a mixture of "It Takes a Thief," and "Magnum PI". The pilot had twists and turns I saw coming, but hey, it's summer, you want something to go down like a cool Pina colada.

Review: Murder Mystery

As a big fan of the "Thin Man" films, I always thought it was a lost opportunity that they never sent Nick and Nora Charles to Europe. The first film was set in New York, the second in San Francisco, the third ... back to New York.

Noooo.

The third film was the chance to make "The Thin Man in London," or "The Thin Man in Paris." These would have been a much-needed boost to a film series whose producers thought giving them a baby was the boost they needed.

Adam Sandler is a police officer who takes wife Jennifer Aniston to Europe on a long-promised honeymoon. The blue collar couple get invited on a yacht where we meet some eccentric soon-to-be murder suspects as well as the nasty soon-to-be murder victim. This has all the elements of a Thin Man film (and a bunch of Agatha Christie mysteries), and though Adam Sandler plays a rough-around-the-edges police detective, Jennifer Aniston does a good job filling in for Myrna Loy. It's been years since "Friends," and I've forgotten how she can make any line very funny.

The pair eventually get framed for the murder (don't think about it too hard) and while on the run comically bicker as they try to find the real killer.  It's light and breezy and as a screwball comedy is just as good as any from the 1940s.

We get the added bonus of location shooting in Monaco and Lake Como and it's all very Hollywood.

Its only false notes happen in the beginning when Sandler schemes to keep his wife from finding out he didn't get a promotion. This is a plot you'd see on "The Honeymooners" and hasn't aged well. The other misfire is the totally gratuitous chase scene tacked on the end.

We may never see the "Thin Man" reboot I've been hoping for, but until then, this is very close.

Review: Rocketman

Yeah, it's a good film, well made, great acting, even better music ... but ....the showbiz biography genre has one story: Hardscrabble beginnings, rise to the top, drug/alcohol-fueled spiral to the bottom, then semi-positive ending.

We've seen it all before.

When his dad was being cruel to him, I kept thinking of the song from one of the Austin Powers films: "Daddy, why didn't you love me?"

This man used to pal around with Princess Diana, he jammed with his idol John Lennon, he was an early crusader in the fight against AIDS. We get none of that.

See it for the music, because if you see it for the drama you'll be asking yourself 'how much of this is true?'