Word: favreau
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Couples Retreat tells the tale of a reduced-rate trip to Bora Bora taken by a quartet of Midwestern guys (Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman and Faizon Love) and their spouses or squeezes (four actresses with Ks in their names). It's now 13 years since Vaughn and Favreau made their early rep with the smart buddy-comedy Swingers. In the interim, Favreau has become a respected director (Elf, Iron Man) and Vaughn, pretty much, a movie star. Three of the films he has top-lined - Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up and Four Christmases - have taken in about $450 million...
...decision had been made to give Rose Garden remarks by Obama, and shortly afterwards, news leaked out that Obama would agree to fly to Oslo to accept the award on Dec. 10. The task fell to Obama's two top speechwriters, Jon Favreau and Ben Rhodes, to craft Obama's words, which had to strike a delicate balance; they needed to both seize the moment, when the world would want to hear from him, while heading off the inevitable criticism that Obama was being rewarded prematurely, for rhetoric, not action. Not only did he say he was "surprised and deeply...
...Couples Retreat was co-written by Vaughn and Favreau, with an assist from Dana Fox, and it has the choppiness you'd expect from too many cooks in the kitchen (in contrast, Favreau was the only screenwriter on Swingers). I'm fine with the original Trent ("money") and Mike (not "money," no matter what Trent said) moving to the suburbs, having kids, getting fat and spending weekends at Home Depot and Applebee's. These things happen. What's depressing is that there's hardly a creative spark in this sour, offensive, contrived story, and its sloppiness is more consistent than...
...There has always been an edge to the pairing of Favreau and Vaughn, but it's usually Vaughn who plays the fast-talking loathsome one. In Made, he played a character so astoundingly annoying, it bordered on performance art, but he got away with it on the strength of his natural charm and youthful beauty. Here he's been neutered, and Favreau takes on the role instead. It's not that Favreau isn't believable as Joey, a horny guy who is angry at the hand life has dealt him. It's that he's too believable. He arrives...
...seeing Joey leer at girls nearly as young as his daughter, set himself up for some solo sex on the couch (across America, women will turn away from their moisturizer, shuddering at the memory) and all but demand some extended bodywork from a hapless masseuse. It's gruesome. Undeniably, Favreau brings conviction to the part, but he wrote himself into a hole. Our idea of a happy ending might entail Joey being devoured by sharks somewhere east of Eden. Instead we get marital resolutions based on the fear that nothing is worse than being alone at Applebee...