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I think the British do this sort of comedy well (although there are dramatic elements in the story too). This is a slightly odd movie and perhaps not for all tastes due to its plot and main character (and the poster!)  It is inspired by the real life story of a famous English brothel owner, here played by Julie Walters, but not a biopic. (She is the only actor I really know in this one.)

At first we see Christine works as a waitress but also tries to make some money on the side by renting out several of her apartments to prostitutes. This is not working so well as since the working women are not paying her, she is herself owing money to her landlords. Christine’s apartments run from the seedy to the glamorous. She also at times will give sex to pay a debt. She does all this to be able to afford a good school for her son, being a single parent, as well as trying to live up to her family's expectations, who have always thought less of her. (One would consider her low class or common.)

When Christine's money troubles become too much, she kicks out her prostitutes and goes into business for herself, making a niche business by catering to the slightly kinky tastes of middle-aged husbands and businessmen. Although Christine is open to sex with strangers for money, she is a bit of a novice, not knowing for instance some slang terms for certain sex acts. She and a couple of middle-aged waitress friends continue to do this until she becomes so successful as to afford to buy her own house where she continues to serve these sorts of men, until the law catches up with her.

Afternoon Delight

The premise of Afternoon Delight has some seedy elements because it is about a wife and mother befriending a young stripper. A review I read called it an "uneasy comedy" and I agree about the uneasy part which relates equally to the stripper character as well as how the main character sees her.

The story is about a 30-something Jewish wife and mother who has become uninterested in sex with her husband. Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) has had a dry spell for some months and sees a shrink (Jane Lynch) for her problem. Her husband, Jeff (Josh Radnor), has created some popular apps so they are pretty comfortably set--not "rich" but above a normal paygrade, that's for sure. Rachel's lifestyle among some other Jewish wives is one where they do charity work and go for massages while their kids are in school, but Rachel considers herself a step or two above them intellectually as she once had aspirations to be a war correspondent (an intelligence we see little of, frankly).

A friend suggests the couple go to a strip club to get their juices going. Rachel and Jeff do so, and Rachel gets a lap dance from McKenna (Juno Temple), a young stripper. Although we can tell Rachel is somewhat and reluctantly aroused it does not solve her problem. Later Rachel sees McKenna by chance in the street and pretends to bump into her and starts a conversation.

McKenna is pretty open about her way of life and non-judgmental and Rachel likes to think that she herself is too. She invites McKenna back to the house and tells her friends she is the new nanny, and Rachel's husband is not sure where she is going with this. McKenna is physically more confident than Rachel as well. She touches her in friendly ways that makes Rachel, as in the strip club, both uneasy and aroused, yet not wanting to admit she has these sexual appetites because that would mean her marital problem is hers and nothing to do with sex. Rachel appears to think McKenna needs some salvation and she, Rachel, is the one to provide it, and this setup proves poisonous, mostly due to Rachel's misguided actions. Due to a badly phrased and probably condescending comment about her, McKenna purposely does something which breaks Rachel's social circle apart, but forces Rachel and her husband to come to terms with the larger meaning of their marital problems.

The Invention of Lying

In a world where everyone tells the truth, Mark (Ricky Gervais) suddenly realizes he is able to lie, and everyone takes his words as the truth since no one has experienced lying before. The film does not explain how or why this happened to Mark, nor why he seems to understand the concept of lying. Now finally Mark can go on a date with the shallow Anna (Jennifer Garner) by lying about who he is, inflating his status in her eyes. She usually is bored with him but doesn't consider him marriage material due to his unattractiveness. Once Mark finds that he can lie, he does so thinking that it makes his and others' lives happier, but later learns it is a shallow existence with no meaning, and even worse than before.

Mark digs himself deeper in his hole, hoping to help others become better people, but everyone mistakenly believes they can be bad people on Earth since he has previously told them heaven is guaranteed.

Anna begins to question if a storybook life with the handsome Brad (Rob Lowe) is the one she wants, or she wants true love with Mark.

Heathers

This black comedy (much more black than comedy) early in Winona Ryder's career is a little dated as to the characters' 80s hair and fashions, but has become quite a cult favorite.

Veronica (Ryder) is the fourth wheel of a popular clique of highschool girls known as the Heathers, three girls all named Heather. Heather 1 (Kim Walker) is the leader and most ruthless. Heather 2 (Lisanne Falk) is pretty much a following sheep. Heather 3 (Shannen Doherty) is even more so, she's the meekest of the three.

Veronica is increasingly unenamored of how the leader Heather 1 plays mean jokes on undesirables like nerds and fat girls, and realizes she's become anti-Heather and must stop the Heathers' domination. Veronica confides in her diary that she wants to bump off H1, but really doesn't have the guts. Meanwhile, she is attracted to the new student, Jason aka J.D. (juvenile delinquent?  played by Christian Slater), who seems to share her sensibilities.

Accidentally they kill H1, and her death is masked as a suicide by Veronica and Jason, and thus everyone thinks it is a "cry for help" and H1 is looked on sympathetically instead of the witch she was. This happens again with two male students, jocks, one whom Veronica actually kills.

Veronica begins to feel remorse but she realizes Jason is a psychopath who wants more and more. She has to now stop HIM before he puts his big plan into action.

The Way, Way Back

This movie was written/directed by the creative team who won an Oscar for The Descendents, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, a summer film about a teen boy who is having trouble coping with his fractured family. It takes place at a small beach town where everyone comes to vacation in the summertime and although the time is not stated and the production values don’t specifically point to a decade, it is around late 1970s or early '80s  since I think as it is based on autobiographical elements from the writers.

The teen Duncan is played by Liam James. He is disgruntled (or worse) because he can’t stand his mother’s jerk of a boyfriend (Toni Colette, Steve Carell). The boyfriend, Trent, is the sort to try to get Duncan to “man up” although Trent’s efforts are more to assert his authority rather than caring about connecting with Duncan, and perhaps Trent is even a little jealous of Duncan taking away time from his mom, pat. Most of this negative behavior is done when they are out of earshot of Pat. As a result Duncan is closemouthed with Trent and almost surly, only he knows there is little he can do about this situation. This summer, they all drive to Trent’s summer cabin in a Massachusetts town, which includes Trent, Duncan, Pat, and Trent’s vain daughter from a previous marriage. Their cabin neighbor is the happy drunk Betty (Allison Janney), herself a divorcee with a mopey teen daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and younger son Peter (River Alexander), both whom Duncan eventually befriends (although he is a loner at first). Betty and Trent are neighbors from past years, so you can see that this summer community have known each other a long time.

Duncan tries to avoid the expected socializing with Betty and another couple (Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet) so he escapes to Water Wizz, a local water park where there is a pool with a big slide, and where all the kids hang out at. There he is embraced by the employees, which include the laid back and sometimes irresponsible manager Owen (Sam Rockwell), his quasi girlfriend (Maya Rudolph) and other employees. At Water Wizz, Owen is all about the fun and kind of takes Duncan under his wing.

This is the End

I really knew nothing about the new film This is the End other than the slimmest of plot. It stars Seth Rogen and James Franco and other actors in their circle. What I knew was that it was a comedy where the actors essentially play themselves, or more correctly caricatures/send-ups of themselves. What I didn't know that it was an "apocalyptic comedy"--Rogen, Franco and their friends hole up in Franco's home when the apocalypse happens.

The bones of the plot is that Jay Baruchel, a friend of Rogen's, comes to L.A. to hang out with him. Not being among the circle of Rogen's newer Hollywood friends like Franco and Jonah Hill, Jay doesn't like the partying culture and really just wants him and Seth to spend time alone, even if it is is mindless pursuits like smoking pot and playing video games. Seth instead convinces the reluctant Jay to go to a housewarming party at James Franco's new place, where we see James has a weird love obsession with Seth, and guest Jonah Hill is too nice to Jay, leading Jay to suspect he is two-faced in some way. During the party, the rapture happens, taking all the devout and pious, and as expected almost all of Hollywood is left behind on Earth to be swallowed into hell or worse. The party guests of course are oblivious as being all immoral people none of them are raptured and they don't know what's been going on outside the doors.

Jay, being more sensible than the rest, tells them that there is a slim chance they can survive and be good enough in their last hours to get raptured too. But they have to beat back demons and deal with the new Hollywood which is afire and crumbling into hell.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Although the trailers probably framed this as an outright comedy, it is mostly a romantic drama with most of the ha ha comedic elements at the beginning of the movie, and the comedy throughout is a little more in the black comedy vein. I think the story is helped by being written and directed by a woman.

The film is almost exactly as the title indicates. Steve Carell plays Dodge, an insurance salesman who still goes to work although an Earth-ending meteor is set to hit in three weeks time. As the days tick by the movie shows us how different people react, some keep to their routine, such as the tv anchorman continuing to professionally report on the state of the world (Mark Moses), or Dodge's cleaning lady continuing to come every week. Others, like Dodge's friends (Rob Corddry, Connie Britton, Patton Oswalt, Melanie Lynskey), live it up like there is no tomorrow.  And as we know the tomorrows are ending soon.

Dodge sees his downstairs neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley) crying when she breaks up with her boyfriend (Adam Brody). He lets her stay the night and later helps her escape during a riot. Fleeing in her car with an abandoned dog, each have a last desire--she's missed all the commercial planes flying out of the country so Dodge offers her to take her to a man he knows who has a plane, so that she can see her family one last time; he wants to track down a high school sweetheart after finding a mislaid letter where she says he was the love of her life.  We can see that for him a lot of his desire is of the "what if" he had done this or that throughout his life, and yet he is still unmotivated to act until this last moment.

It becomes a roadtrip as they meet friends and strangers and we see how they too have reacted to this end. Penny has a military friend (Derek Luke) who is hunkered down in a bomb shelter. A man who gives them a ride has a death wish (William Petersen). They stop at a family restaurant chain where all the employees have taken matters in their own hands. They also hook up with Dodge's estranged father (Martin Sheen).

The Middle Men

The Middle Men is an R-rated movie that feels like it doesn't want to push past PG-13 boundaries. I'm sure guys will flock to this thinking there is going to be nudity, hot sex, and raunchy situations, but it is mostly a morality tale. This is supposed to be a based-on-true-story movie about the people who first used the internet as a commerce tool by breaking into selling online porn.

The main character is played by Luke Wilson. Jack Harris is a family man. He and his wife are a cute all-American couple living in Texas. Soon a friend in L.A. needs help solving some business problems (I was never sure really what Jack's profession was) as Jack is known to be a good problem solver. He gets his friend's business back in line and is asked to solve more problems, eventually by oily lawyer Jerry Haggerty (James Caan). Haggerty's clients, Wayne and Buck (Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht) are borderline idiots (although the film shows us that Buck was once a rocket scientist waylaid by drug abuse), but have  come up with an idea to use the then-fledgling internet as a sales portal, to sell porn.  Buck, the mathematically inclined one, writes a program that will receive credit cards for payment (a new concept) and online shopping is born. There are humorous moments as we see the guys gleeful over making money for so little input, so they get greedy and decide to offer new content by filming dancers at a club belonging to a Russian mobster Nikita (Rade Serbedzija). But the two yokels are often high and forget to send Nikita his share of the profits, and so that is why Haggerty has called Jack in to help.

Jack does kind of help them, and even becomes their business partner, but there is a deadly mishap. Jack also is away from home too much solving everyone else's problems, eventually tempted by a porn star (Laura Ramsey), and so he and his wife separate. The porn situation escalates until the FBI (Kevin Pollock) is investigating them all.

Cloudburst

This is a gay themed film about two older lesbians going to Canada to get married when one's family tries to separate them. Based on a play.

The two women, Stella (Olympia Dukakis) the butchy one, and Dot (Brenda Fricker) the gentler female, live together in Maine. Stella is brassy, drinks and swears. Dot is more of a homebody and is slowly losing her vision, making her pretty dependent on Stella although they are both in their 70s. Dot's granddaughter doesn't like that her grandmother's quality of life is not good (she apparently has no real knowledge of what a real lesbian is like and doesn't see the signs that her grandmother is one; she believes the pair are just good friends). The granddaughter tricks Dot into signing over power of attorney, then puts her into a senior home.

Stella is incensed and breaks Dot out of the home, then remembers she read somewhere that gays can get married in Canada. They go on the road and, suspecting the police are after them, pick up a young hitchhiker to change their M.O., even taking him home to see his sickly mother, and eventually he helps Stella and Dot also.

Escape From Planet Earth

This new animated film has a pretty substandard script.  It's about two alien brothers--one brawny, one brainy--who have to work together when the brawny brother (voiced by Brendan Fraser) is stranded on Earth, believing he doesn’t need his brainy brother’s (Rob Corddry) assistance to fly his spaceship and other help. Unfortunately parents will bring their kids to this and think they come out with a “cooperation” moral, but there is rampant commercialism in the first part of the film.

The brawny brother, Scorch, is beloved by all due to his heroic deeds. His brother, Gary, is a mission control technician who operates Scorch’s spaceship by remote control. I thought this in itself was a stupid premise because it just seems nonsensical to have someone else fly your spaceship for you. But then I saw it needed to be part of the plot so that when Gary refuses to help Scorch, Scorch ultimately gets stranded on an alien planet since he doesn't know how to fly his own ship. Anyway, Gary’s son even admires Scorch over Gary, emanating his braggadocious behavior. Gary gets fed up with being unappreciated, and just when Scorch gets a new mysterious assignment to the “Dark Planet” aka Earth, Gary quits and refuses to help.

What Scorch and everyone else doesn’t know is that instead of saving someone on a secret mission, Scorch has been duped to deliver some priceless energy component to an evil Earth military officer (William Shatner) who intends to use the energy to travel to other worlds to dominate alien races. Scorch and other stranded aliens are forced to work for the military, and once Gary finds out, he gives in to save his brother.

Identity Thief

Even if the jokes are kind of run of the mill, the two leads are able to do their characters pretty well as they are probably types of people they have played before. Jason Bateman shows that if given the right material he can play a dramatic role well, and even Melissa McCarthy too can do some convincing dramatic scenes if required (even if in this film her dramatic scenes are ploys to fake out Bateman's character into feeling sorry for her--or are they??)

Bateman does a good job as the straight man here although his character becomes pretty desperate and mean. He plays a financial advisor Sandy working behind the scenes at his company, and along with some other disgruntled employees who feel they are undervalued, quit to form their own company. Just when this happens, Sandy's identity is stolen and his new boss feels he is a liability as their clients are questioning his "criminal" activity. After the local police tell him that since this crime took place elsewhere, their hands are tied in being unable to help him.  So Sandy convinces his new boss to give him a few days to clear this up.  Sandy is extra desperate as he is trying to provide for his growing family and feels, as a "little guy," being taking advantage of by people in power, personified here by his insensitive old boss (Jon Favreau) as well as the unseen identity stealer.

As the identity thief McCarthy plays up stereotypes and then some.  She dupes Sandy into giving her some personal information and proceeds to max out his credit cards and destroy his credit rating.  The film portrays her character as thinking of her victims in an "out of sight, out of mind" way, until the real Sandy tracks her down.  Although for most of the story she is still devious and uncaring, there are small moments when she actually thinks about the people she is scamming--some who fall for her sob story, others who unwittingly, like Sandy, think they are being helped.

Stand Up Guys

I'll say it straight off--don't waste your money on this film. It's obvious the movie company already did, by having this film made. The only ones who benefit are the people they paid to make the movie. It's an easy paycheck for the three senior actors in the film, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and Alan Arkin, and even for supporting ut established actor Juliana Margulies. Maybe it offers some exposure to its first time screenwriter but perhaps the only ones who can come out a bit above water is Lucy Punch doing what she can with her comical role, and Addison Timlin offering a bit of poignancy to a story that really doesn't do it much justice.

The basic plot concerns some old mobsters who go for one last spree in their old age. The most central character (or at least the loudest) is played by Al Pacino, Val, a con who has just been released from prison after almost 30 years, for the stray accidental murder during a shootout of the son of his mob boss. He is greeted upon release by his best friend Doc (Christopher Walken) who seems to have been the only one to have remained his friend. What Val doesn't know is that their old boss has forced Doc to kill Val in payment for his son's death. Doc of course does not want to do this.

The story takes place in about 24 hours. Val wants to do stuff like party and have sex, which he hasn't done during his time in prison, so Doc takes him to a madame (Lucy Punch) and a bar. They break out another old cohort Hirsch (Alan Arkin) from a nursing home, unknown to his daughter (Julianna Margulies), and steal a sports car where Hirsch, apparently a getaway driver or or lover of fast cars in his past life, has a fun time on a joy ride. There is a screwball subplot where in the trunk of the car is a woman whom they help get revenge on some rapists (Craig Sheffer and other no name actors) that really have nothing to do with the plot other than to show what decent guys the threesome are.

They stop now and again in a diner where the waitress Alex (Addison Timlin) works, a nice friendly girl who has a connection to Doc she doesn't know about. Throughout it all, the three men can't help but admit they are old and that any good times they had in the past, are in the past.

Free event: The Awful Truth

This is a screwball comedy starring veterans Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.  They are a married couple who think the other is unfaithful.

The Awful Truth
Monday, January 7, 2013
8:00 p.m.
Transistor
3819 N. Lincoln Avenue

Strictly Ballroom

Usually I am not a fan of really broad comedies. I think this '90s film comes from a time when Australia's comedies were mostly of the broad type, at least the ones I saw that came my way. But there is also a romance and music and dancing, creating appeal across many fronts. It is a film by Baz Luhrmann, part of his Red Curtain trilogy (along with Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge), and based on a stage musical he made in the '80s.

The plot concerns the competitive ballroom dancer Scott (Paul Mercurio). For all his life he has trained as a ballroom dancer, a culture that is a big part of several generations of his family. His parents, Shirley and Doug (Pat Thompson, Barry Otto), also were competitive when they were younger and now run a dancing academy. Among the hopefuls is the amateur Fran (Tara Morice), an ugly duckling who knows she can never match the glamour of the ballroom. When Scott tries to include new showier steps in his performances that are outside of the standard rules of the ballroom community, he is pressured into following the rules by his manager Les (Peter Whitford), the competition head Barry (Bill Hunter), and other dancers.

But Fran sees him practicing his new steps and Scott is grudgingly convinced to have her as a temporary partner since no one else wants to risk dancing with him. He also meets Fran's father, a notable flamenco dancer (Antonio Vargas), who helps Scott perfect his paso doble. Scott later finds out something about his own father and a shared dream that he now has the opportunity to make real.

CIFF 2012: Of Snails and Men

This Romanian film taking place in the 1990s follows a popular movie theme--laborers at a government-run auto plant face potential shutdown. The factory is being bought and privatised by a French company that plans to make it into a snail cannery. It only intends to rehire 300 employees, leaving a couple thousand out of a job.

One of the guys, Gica, sees an ad for sperm donation, and rallies the guys to take this opportunity to raise enough money to buy the factory themselves. The husband and father Gica is also having an affair with the staff secretary Manuela, but she is taken with the son of the French businessman, thus giving the story more complexity.

When Gica and his coworkers try their wacko plan, it does not turn out well and in fact is not successful at all. Manuela, as in many of these types of stories, at first is played just as a sex object, but the story gives her character more backstory and rounds her out, and even gives her character integrity as when she hears Gica intends to stay with his wife, she still decides to help him against the French.

Wilby Wonderful

Canada has such quirky comedy movies.  Other than sketch comedy I don't find them as broad as some of the stuff I see coming out of America.  They're certainly more about quirky characters than grossout humor.

With an ensemble of Canadian actors, this movie is about a day in the life of island town Wilby.

There's the local cop (Paul Gross) who's having an affair with a single mom (Rebecca Jenkins) whose daughter (Ellen Page) has a clingy boyfriend (I don't see what she sees in him, he seems immature and only interested in sex). The cop's wife (Sandra Oh) is trying to promote the town as a tourist attraction and is more concerned with her work than with her husband (hence his infidelity I guess).  She's been trying to sell a home to the mayor (Maury Chaykin) and the stress of trying to do everything is getting to her. The laid back but dyslexic handyman (Callum Keith Rennie, he ruins a banner by painting "Wilby Wonderful" instead of "Wonderful Wilby") makes a friend by saving a suicide (James Allodi) getting over a marriage breakup, and they become more than friends, if you know what I mean.

Olympic Dreams--Geordie

This is an old film I remember watching on tv many times when I was a kid, and was broadcast in the U.S. under the title "Wee Geordie."  Then when cable got started these old films were never shown anymore and unavailable on VHS/DVD. If made nowadays, it would probably be considered "twee."

The story takes place in Scotland beginning in the 1940s, when Geordie MacTaggart is a little boy. His father is the gameskeeper for the laird or lord of the manor he works at (Alistair Sim). Geordie is small for his age and is picked upon for this reason, despite the support of his friend Jean, a girl who has a secret crush. One day Geordie sees an ad in the newspaper advertising a Charles Atlas kind of bodybuilding program. He sends away for the booklets and for several years, until he is 21, he builds up his body (at this point he is played by the tall strapping actor who played Li'l Abner, Bill Travers). He has also formed a mentor/student relationship with the man whose books he has studied, the muscly Samson (Francis de Wolff).

In the mid-50s, Geordie's father dies and he takes over his job. The laird suggests Geordie not just exercise for health, but pursue something more noble, such as the Scottish sport of throwing things like the caber or the hammer. Geordie reluctantly enters the Highland Games and does poorly at first, but with Jean's romantic support (now played by Norah Gorsen), he wins. The laird and others convince some people from the British Olympic committee to come take a look at him (I guess Scotland was not broken out from Britain back then). Geordie enters the Olympics, is befriended by a Swedish female shotputter who gives him too much attention, and wears a kilt to the opening ceremony.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

As many kids movies are these days, this one is based on a series of books as well as the third of a series of films.  The main character is a put-upon boy comically fighting the growing pains of, well, growing up.

In this installment, the main set of characters are still being played by the same actors, giving continuity to the series. Pre-teen Greg (Zachary Gordon) is now looking forward to summer break between 7th and 8th grades, where he plans to zone out by playing video games all summer. His dad (Steve Zahn) though wants him doing something more constructive, such as joining the local scouting troup, or doing some reading of classic novels as his mother (Rachael Harris) suggests. Dad even thinks a new dog might help get Greg to doing outdoor things instead of vegetating indoors.

When Greg sees that his secret crush Holly (Peyton List) belongs to the country club, he enlists his best friend, the goofy and conservative Rowley (Robert Capron) to bring him as his +1 guest, and lies to his dad that he has a job there, to prevent his dad from bothering him further about getting a summer job (as well as avoid military school). Complicating his lie is that his older bullying brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) lusts after Holly's vain sister and threatens in his big brother way to expose Greg's lie if he doesn't help him get near her.

Replay: Hipsters

The movie Hipsters is currently playing locally.  It was in 2009 that I saw this story at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Two groups of 1950s Russian youths butt heads: the young Communists headed by Katya (Anton Shagin) who has a secret love for her colleague Mels (Anton Shagin), and the hipsters, a group who wants nothing more than to dance, drink and dress in decadent Western ways. During a raid, Mels sees the beautiful Polly (Oksana Akinshina) and it is love at first sight. He secretly becomes a hipster, pursuing her although she is at first coy and cold. He becomes more bold within the hipsters and no longer hides his secret persona among the Communists. Katya's revenge is just as much about Communism versus the West as it is that of a woman scorned.

There are a few songs and dance numbers but I am not sure that is enough to make it a musical. The film is a commentary about young people being individuals, as portrayed in the last scene where it takes us to present day with punk rockers, people in goth clothes, kids of all types.

This conflict continues even today but the film portrayed it in an exciting new way, with humor and music which is kind of unheard of. I liked the visual style and the musicality.

Olympic Dreams--Whip It!

A Texas teen (Ellen Page) discovers roller derby, but her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) would prefer her to be a beauty queen. Bliss sneaks out of the house to attend a match, meeting a cute musician (Landon Pigg). She has found her true calling and is encouraged by one of the pros (Kristen Wiig) to get a spot on the team. Bliss becomes "Babe Ruthless," and soon becomes very good despite her amateur status. This helps the team because they've never won a championship.

Bliss continues to sneak out, juggling her waitress job, pageant duties, lying to her family, as well her budding romance. Rival skater "Iron Maven" (Juliette Lewis) later finds out a fact about Bliss that jeopardizes her place on the team as well as the success of the team.  Also, her family finds out about her extracurricular activity, which also forces Bliss to choose between the loves of her life--her family or her sport.

Daniel Stern is Bliss' dad; Drew Barrymore plays another teammate (she also directed and co-produced); Jimmy Fallon gives additional humor as the play-by-play announcer; Andrew Wilson is Bliss' team coach; Alia Shawkat plays Bliss' loyal friend.