Category: Entertainment

Great comedies are in short supply these days, but “72 Hours” offers a reminder that a crime subplot can quickly ruin even a potentially average one. Directed by Tim Story (“Barbershop,” “Ride Along”) and written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (the “Harold & Kumar” trilogy, “American Reunion”), this latter-day “Hangover” retread did not need to do anything but, you know, deliver laughs in order to tickle audiences’ funny bones. But even with a cast led by Kevin Hart and stacked with “Saturday Night Live” alums Marcello Hernández, Ben Marshall and Kam Patterson, this summertime confection from Netflix frantically — and disappointingly — throws everything at the wall in the hopes that something will stick.

Hart plays Joe, a 40-year-old advertising executive who mistakenly gets added to a group text for the Miami bachelor party of Mason (Mason Gooding), which is being thrown by his twentysomething friends Nick (Hernández), Hunter (Marshall) and Freshman (Patterson). When his latest campaign for a vodka brand gets dismissed as “cringe” by a colleague, threatening an upcoming promotion, Joe persuades Mason and his pals to invite him to join them, in the hopes of acquiring more intimate knowledge of a younger generation of consumers.

The prospect of attending a raucous three-day party on South Beach comes as disappointing news to Joe’s girlfriend Jennifer (Teyana Taylor), who’s waiting for her own proposal. But even after renting a swagged-out Airbnb to ingratiate themselves with the group, Mason and especially Nick only reluctantly agree to let Joe join in on their activities. He fails early to win their confidence, but after they visit a yacht party, Joe is forced to consume cocaine, unleashing a Tony Montana-like alter ego whose flamboyant, destructive behavior runs them afoul of a mysterious drug lord convinced Joe is encroaching on his turf.

Whether as a true generational touchstone or just a laugh-inducing diversion every few years, remaking “The Hangover” in some capacity every few years is not just a welcome experience for a certain segment of the moviegoing audience, but probably a good business practice for studios. The problem with this idea, as “72 Hours” demonstrates, is that filmmakers feel the need to top their predecessors, or even themselves, with each attempt. As a consequence, it seems no longer possible tell the story of five guys having a couple of wild nights without introducing an escalating, even ridiculous series of events. (“The Hangover,” of course, also includes a crime subplot, but notwithstanding its status as the kickstarter of this subgenre, Todd Phillips at least knew to mine it for laughs instead of serious thrills.)

The premise here is actually pretty solid: what happens when a guy old enough to know better decides to participate in some young adult hijinks? Of course, Joe insists at one point that “40 is the new 20,” and culturally speaking that seems true these days, so maybe immaturity knows no age limit. Not to mention the fact that “Old School” tackled this concept successfully almost 25 years ago. But other than a handful of “unc” jokes and an unfortunate pre-gaming incident involving Pepto-Bismol, the movie elicits surprisingly little humor from the generational divide between Hart — who might be more convincing at 47, his actual age — and his younger counterparts. (That the bachelor and his friends are all around 30 further flattens the differences between them and Joe.) Instead, it’s his wallet that proves most valuable, both to the characters and the screenwriters, lubricating luxury and access when the scrappy twentysomethings can’t afford something.

In the meantime, the writers introduce Joe’s attempt to unlock the secret lives of young adults for his advertising campaign (evoking ulterior-motive movies like “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and “27 Dresses”), a competing bachelorette party whose members are not what they seem (think Ilana Glazer in “The Night Before”), and of course, the mysterious drug lord who inexplicably rents out his mansion to anyone with a credit card, but carelessly fails to lock up his valuables. The script aims to mirror some character dynamics from the peerless “Bridesmaids” — in particular, the relationship between soon-to-be-married Mason and his stuck-in-the-past best friend Nick. But the film can’t decide whether it wants to actually give its cast substantive material to explore or assault them with vomit, cocaine and whale sperm (!) as a way to ensure the audience’s involvement.

Working under the watchful eye of his “Ride Along” director, Hart continues to maintain a likeable screen presence as the well-meaning but out-of-his-depth Joe, but doesn’t do himself (or his wildly inconsistent filmography) any favors with this project. Much of Hart’s appeal lies in his willingness to be the butt of the joke, and there are many here at his expense — thankfully not as many as usual targeting his diminutive stature. But what’s missing from his performance (perhaps beginning with the writing) is the palpable life experience that lends him an advantage when his young friends run into trouble. Clearly, Joe made enough bad decisions in his earlier days to create — and survive — “Ricardo Montana” as an alter ego, but as the film progresses, he seems less like an elder statesman than an old guy trying to live vicariously through his counterparts.

This is Hernández’ second movie role, and he seems poised to break out in the same way he did on “Saturday Night Live,” but even though he’s funny, there’s not enough of a character here for him to truly distinguish himself. Patterson, on the other hand, pops in a way he has seldom done on TV, and delivers a memorable performance as the group’s resident idiot. Meanwhile, recent Oscar nominee Taylor beams in from another movie with a grounded performance that this one doesn’t deserve. Additional supporting turns from other television stalwarts (“Better Call Saul” alum Michael Mando, “Severance” breakout Zach Cherry, “Veep” scene-stealer Kevin Dunn) hint at a better, less wacky odyssey left by the wayside.

Story’s body of work is not unlike Hart’s, in that every pretty good movie he’s made is significantly outnumbered by bad ones. His latest falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: It isn’t totally awful, but it strains to communicate how much fun the audience should be having instead of, well, just being fun. The irony of chasing “The Hangover” is that even Phillips seemed nonplussed by its success, or perhaps even resentful; perhaps that’s why he made a shameless copy with the second film and an antagonistic drama for the third. But not unlike a hangover itself, “72 Hours” is a movie that reminds you of the specter of the past; the problem is that it never delivers enough good times to make the painful aftermath worthwhile.

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the series premiere of “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,” now streaming on HBO Max.

HBO Max’s “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” opens in a post-apocalyptic Pasadena, an alternative world where zombie hands poke out of the ground, giant moths terrorize, random tears in reality serve as vacuum portals to unknown parts of the galaxy and survivors barter with their last remaining canned goods.

About the only thing still operating is the comic book shop run by Stuart Bloom (played by Kevin Sussman), where the gang on “The Big Bang Theory” would sometimes hang out. But even that store is no longer normal, as geeky fights among patrons quickly turn deadly. It’s not a great place, so when another Stuart from a different dimension arrives, so begins our main character’s quest to save the universe.

According to Alt Stuart, it was “The Big Bang Theory” characters Leonard, Sheldon and Howard who built a quantum interference device that caused reality to be altered. Regular Stuart and Bert (Brian Posehn) embark on a quest to find the device at Cal Tech — and along the way, reconnect with Denise (Lauren Lapkus) and discover that Kripke (John Ross Bowie) has turned into an evil gang leader controlling much of the San Gabriel Valley. They also find Raj (Kunal Nayyar), who’s been imprisoned by Kripke for quite some time and is looking to help them fix the device.

They’re all captured, but Bert uses his geology expertise to create bombs with rocks and water — and they make it to the device. All is saved, until Kripke kills Raj — and the device then activates, taking Stuart, Bert and Kripke to another universe.

So how much of the show’s multiverse can be explained by science? Sussman credits co-creator Bill Prady with having a handle on where the science works. “There’s a bunch of quantum physics involved in the show, and Bill is an expert on quantum physics theory,” Sussman says. “You can get away with a lot because at the end of the day, it is theory. It’s popular theory, but it’s legit. So I would ask him a question like, ‘how can my character be here and be there at the same time?’ And I had an epiphany at one point when I realized, oh wait, so it’s not just parallel universes — it’s parallel universes with a little time travel mixed in!”

Sussman says there were points while filming the show where it would help to understand the quantum physics theory behind what was happening in a particular scene.

“I look forward to people on Reddit trying to dissect what’s happening because I know that all of it can be argued,” he adds. “I would try to poke holes in it on set, and Bill always walked me through. ‘No, see, the reason why this does make sense is A, B and C.’”

Prady explains that the device that Leonard, Sheldon and Howard built seems to have shifted the primary characters to a universe with a separate, distinct history that has an apocalyptic event that occurs sometime after “The Big Bang Theory” and before we meet them.

“The Einsteinian issue that time is a fourth dimension comes into play here,” he says. “Because when the device malfunctions, it alters reality, but it creates a new past as well. So when we meet them in the first episode, the apocalypse is some years ago, and that’s a result of the alteration. Both the past and present and the future are altered from what they should have been.”

So then the question is, when the characters move between universes, does the universe they left still exist, or is it being restructured?

“That is ambiguous, and they don’t know, and we don’t know,” he says. For example — now that Kripke has killed Raj, that doesn’t seem good right? But in Episode 2, he will point out that either the universe they just left doesn’t exist anymore, in which case he didn’t kill Raj because that Raj never existed, or that they’re we are dealing with an infinite number of universes, and so he just killed one Raj out of an infinite number, which is pretty minor.

But “the branching theory of multiverses states essentially that every quantum event that could go one way also could go the other, and at that point there’s a branch, both universes exist side by side… The theory is that the universe branches at every decision point, so there’s a rapidly growing, infinite number of universes. That gets into the very annoying realization that some infinities are bigger than other infinities, which is mathematically true and conceptually uncomfortable. But it would state that from the point of the Big Bang, the number of infinite parallel universes increases with every moment that the universe ticks by. So that was kind of the science and pseudoscience that sort of lays this out.”

Prady jokingly adds: “How useless is that?”

But it’s a reminder that “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” may be science-fiction, but it’s still grounded in some ways.

“When I was teaching at USC, and somebody had a project that involved fantasy elements, I’d say, the most important rule in writing fantasy is that the rules you create for your fantasy have to be as real as the laws of physics. They have to be consistent, and they always have to be the same,” he says.

Prady uses “Bewitched” as an example, with its arbitrary rule that only the witch who casts the spell can remove it. “It’s based on nothing, but it keeps every ‘Bewitched’ episode from being three minutes long,” he says. “Because without that rule, Endora would give Darrin donkey ears, and Samantha would remove them, and we’d be done. Now, can your universe be raggedy around the edges? 100%. And that’s ‘Doctor Who.’ The rules are there, but sometimes they don’t quite work out, and the Doctor will explain.”

In the case of multiverses, the parameters of what we think of as the “multiverse” has been cemented in pop culture by Marvel films, “Rick and Morty,” “Dark Matter” and more. “I think the reason that you wind up with multiverses with similar stories is that the notion that multiverses exist mathematically. Things like string theory and stuff touch on that. So you can build off of what has sort of percolated through the general consciousness.”

Prady notes that not all of it makes sense, and he’s proud of the fact that the characters will acknowledge that.

“A guy online did a scientific analysis of what must be happening in this, and where he explains all the various scientific multiverse theories that we are clearly drawing from,” Prady says. “It was thick, thick science. It does state that there’s an infinite number of multiverses. So clearly, we should send that article to HBO Max and say, ‘look, there’s a scientific basis for additional seasons!’”

Mark H. Rapaport’s new film “Godhead” is a master-class in ratcheting up tension. Shot in black-and-white with camerawork that makes the audience feel like a voyeur uncovering perverse secrets, the film blends faith, sex, lies and discomfort into an unknowable dance between its leads.

The premise begins simply: A rural Catholic priest (Al Warren) is visited by two bizarre twins (Sarah Coffey and Kimball Farley), who look like an unholy blend of Die Antwoord, Grimes and overcooked ravers. They believe they are part of a prophecy and need the priest’s help to fulfill it. They also have a gun. And the priest has a young boy (Luke Speakman) that he seems to keep captive indoors …

To say more would ruin the film’s twists and turns, which were met enthusiastically at its world premiere screenings at Montreal’s genre-focused Fantasia Festival this week.

Rapaport, whose well-received 2023 debut feature “Hippo” also premiered at Fantasia, spoke with Variety about his choice to do another film in black and white, how “Godhead” takes aim at crooked authority figures and leaving the audience with challenging questions.

What inspired you to develop this story?

I always find that in life I come up against authority figures in a way that feels unfair. I often am too nice to people, and I think I have a little bit of second-born’s gullibility. As I grow up and hopefully become a dad, I’m trying to shed that. I think in this movie, I was able to put a finger on that feeling of being aware of the hypocrite or the manipulator. From childhood until adulthood, you have your religious figures, you have your family, you have your bosses. I’m always a very trusting person, and so I found that there’s real horror in that. This movie, although framed as a Hitchcockian thriller of sorts, is really a canvas for me to explore those frustrations.

With a film like this that has a twisty plot, how are you able to balance disseminating information to the audience without overexplaining and giving them easy answers?

It’s a tough tightrope to walk. I hope I’m able to do that successfully by staying with the characters first and being able to feel with them, and writing the script from their intentions and their heart, and not letting the plot of a horror film take over the greater emotional core. Of course, we do go there and go to dark places and twist and turn, but I try to always bring it back to the characters. I always can do better finding that humanity.

There are plenty of dark moments in this film. How did you determine how bleak versus hopeful you ultimately wanted your work to be?

It’s funny, there was another version of the ending where it was a massive, obvious F-you to all of these evil characters. I was talking to Al Warren, who plays the priest beautifully and with so much real emotion, and he got me thinking about the end beat. Without spoiling it, he said, “Let’s think about where this could go if you, as the director, practiced forgiveness,” and I found that in doing that I actually ended up with a much more horrifying ending than had I brought the hammer down on his character. I think there’s an eeriness to forgiveness as well, in that the ultimate manipulation is forgiving your manipulator. I wouldn’t mind if the audience felt maybe characters made the wrong decision at the end. That just keeps the question going, because the movie at its core is a question for the audience, less than an answer. In my old version, I tried to provide the answer, and it just wasn’t satisfying. So it was a real exercise in reeling back that sword that the director wields. That’s where we ended up.

What was the creative choice to shoot in black and white instead of color?

It was my instinct off the bat just because my first film was in black and white and it was such a fun, beautiful little film. People loved the black and white. It felt like a different world. And so it started as a, “Well, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” My brain was thinking in black and white. But of course, you need the narrative to deserve black and white. As I started to write the script, I just couldn’t see it any other way. I was very much into Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse.” He makes a ton of great movies, but this three-hander … I wanted to place us in some sort of timeless world. It felt black and white was an effective way to do that.

In addition to the beauty of the shadows and the moodiness that it’s able to convey, there’s how it relates to the themes of good and evil, right and wrong, truth and untruth. I had a full-circle moment in writing the script where there’s a gray area that I put in there, because, even though it’s in black and white, it potentially concludes on a gray area, which to me is the most horrifying area of all. We all want to know: Are we black or white? Are we right or wrong? When I was able to think of it as a spectrum and not just black and white, it opened up a whole new visual language for me.

Alief is representing “Godhead” for worldwide sales as it searches for distribution.

Watch the “Godhead” teaser trailer below.

The Beach Boys‘ endless summer has run into a hitch. The touring version of the group, led by sole remaining original member Mike Love, has called off six weeks’ worth of concerts scheduled for this summer, amounting to nearly 30 dates, citing the need to “recharge” before hitting the road again in the fall.

The cancellations and postponements cover the concerts that the band had scheduled from Thursday night, when they were to have played at Wolf Trap in Virginia, through Sept. 3, when they were scheduled to perform at the Colorado State Fair. The group — which for years has maintained one of the most active touring schedules of any name-brand act on the road — is now slated to resume its touring schedule on Sept. 24.

A message on Love’s Instagram page appeared alongside an illustration with the emblem “Gone Surfing.” It read: “Playing for you is the highlight of our summer every year — especially as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States while saluting the 60th Anniversary of ‘Pet Sounds.’ We’ve been having a blast out there, and to keep the good vibrations going strong, we’ll be taking a short break to recharge before getting back on the road in September. All tickets for postponed performances (July 23 through September 3) will be honored following our return in late September. Please contact your local box office for additional information and questions. Thanks for your love — we can’t wait to see you back out there for a September to Remember… We look forward to continuing our Endless Summer with you.”

The refreshed schedule on Love’s page shows 11 concerts slated for this fall or next year. Four of those were already on the group’s itinerary, while the other seven are rescheduled dates for shows that are being postponed. It’s not clear whether the nearly 20 other dates that are being called off in the summer schedule will also be rescheduled for a later date or not.

The Beach Boys have been touring with Love as the only remnant of the classic lineup since the retirement earlier this year of Bruce Johnston. 

Another original member, Al Jardine, continues on the road leading his own group, billed as “Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band,” also playing the music of the Beach Boys. Jardine’s group has been booked to fill in for one of the appearances that Love’s crew called off, at the Oregon State Fair in Salem on Aug. 29.

The touring Beach Boys played a three-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this month, for the venue’s annual Independence Day fireworks spectacular. The shows went over well, although, even as he still took the lion’s share of lead vocals, Love, 85, was a less robust presence on stage than he has been on other recent tours, leading some to wonder if the demanding tour schedule had been taking a toll. Emcee/ringleader duties in the shows were mostly split between frequent guest star John Stamos and Love’s son, Christian Love (who sings lead on numbers formerly sung by the late Carl Wilson).

The Beach Boys’ revised touring schedule:

9.24 @ The Big E – The Big E Arena in West Springfield, MA
9.25 @ The Sounds of Summer Concert Series in Quakertown, PA
9.27 @ Alabama Theatre in North Myrtle Beach, SC
10.9 @ Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington, IL
10.10 @ PNC Pavilion at Riverbend in Cincinnati, OH
10.11 @ Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN
10.19 @ Grey Eagle Resort & Casino – Grey Eagle Event Centre in Calgary, AB
11.11 @ Walt Disney World Resort, Florida – Epcot, America Gardens Theatre in Orlando, FL
11.12 @ Walt Disney World Resort, Florida – Epcot, America Gardens Theatre in Orlando, FL
11.13 @ Hard Rock Hotel & Casino – Bristol in Bristol, VA
5.8.27 @ River Cree Resort and Casino – Entertainment Centre in Enoch, AB

Affected shows taken off the itinerary:

7/23 – Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA
7/24 – Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY
7/25 – Lancaster, PA American Music Theatre
7/26 – Univest Performance Center, Quakertown, PA
7/30-31 – Niagara Falls, ON OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino
8/1 – Schenectady, NY M&T Bank Event Center
8/2 – Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY
8/6 – Grand Rapids, MI Frederik Meijer Gardens
8/7 – Indiana State Fair
8/8 – Bristol, VA Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
8/9 – Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
8/12 – PNC Pavilion, Cincinnati, OH
8/13 – Bloomington, IL Grossinger Motors Arena
8/14 – Aurora, IL RiverEdge Park
8/15 – Rochester Hills, MI Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
8/16 – West Allis, WI Wisconsin State Fair
8/19 – Waupaca, WI Indian Crossing Casino
8/21 – Shooting Star Casino, Mahnomen, MN
8/23 – River Cree Resort and Casino, Enoch, AB, Canada
8/24 – Grey Eagle Event Centre, Calgary, Canada
8/26 – Pocatello, ID Portneuf Health Trust Amphitheatre
8/27 – Nampa, ID Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater
8/28 – Lewiston, ID Clearwater River Casino Event Center
8/29 – Oregon State Fair, Salem, OR
8/30 – Redmond, WA Marymoor Park
8/31 – Alaska State Fair, Palmer, AK
9/2 – Rendezvous Event Center, Winter Park, CO
9/3 – Colorado State Fair, Pueblo, CO