One Gross “Hangover”
By Skip Sheffield
Memorial Day is a solemn, serious occasion.
“Hangover Part II” is about as un-solemn and un-serious as a movie gets.
The makers of the surprise hit “The Hangover” are trying to duplicate their success by making it cruder, grosser, more salacious and socially shocking than the first time around.
My friend Beth remarked on how social mores have slipped so much that a movie as tasteless and deliberately disgusting as “Hangover II” can slip by with an R-rating.
Enough of the soap box. Like "Pirates of the Caribbean,” there is nothing a film critic can say to deter an audience from attending. The coveted 17-25 age group loves booze, drug and gross-out humor, and this movie delivers. Hundreds were turned away from an advance screening at CityPlace in West Palm Beach.
Basically this is the same movie as the first with the same cast and same premise. Only the locale has changed: exotic Thailand instead of tawdry Las Vegas.
Once again Stu (Ed Helms), the nerdy dentist, is getting married, this time to a Thai beauty named Lauren (Jamie Chung). Once again the guys decide to have “just one beer” and once again they wake up in a strange place with no memory of the previous night and one of the party missing.
“It’s happened again,” mutters Phil (Bradley Cooper), the hunky handsome one. This time the missing person is Teddy (Mason Lee) the brainy 16-year-old brother of the bride-to-be. Once again with the inept assistance of prissy Alan (Zach Galifianakis, more annoying than ever), the guys will search for Teddy in the apparently lawless, often powerless and debauched city of Bangkok.
Comic drug mob boss Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) is back too, but the funniest player is a small monkey named Crystal, who delivers drugs, smokes cigarettes and helps thwart bad guys.
What can one say about a movie whose most startling gag involves a trans-gender prostitute?
Enough said. This week’s other choice is another sequel: “Kung-Fun Panda 2.”
Ed Asner is “FDR” at Caldwell Theatre
At the other end of the artistic spectrum we have the beloved, respected and acclaimed actor Ed Asner as America’s 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in “FDR,” playing five performances Wednesday, June 1 through Sunday, June 5 at Caldwell Theatre Company in Boca Raton.
Based on Dore Schary’s play “Sunrise at Campobello,” “FDR” covers the perilous years from Roosevelt’s inauguration in the depth of the Depression in 1933 to his death in the final year of World War II in 1945.
Asner has won seven of television’s Emmy Awards for the classic series “Mary Tyler Moore” and “Lou Grant,” but he is an accomplished stage actor as well. Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $45, $60 and $75. Call 877-245-7432 or visit www.caldwelltheatre.com.
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