In 1989, Winona Ryder appeared alongside Christian Slater in Heathers,
written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehman, and the result
was akin to a bunker-penetrating bombshell — something that bore
results with a bit of time. A darkly comedic attack on the cozy pieties present in most teen flicks, Heathers — an even more wickedly canted take-down of adolescent social cliques than its most recent descendant, Mean Girls
— assayed popularity, teen suicide and downright sociopathic behavior
with equal, cold-water-to-the-face irreverence. Though the film grossed
only a bit above $1 million in theaters, it became a sensation in the
rental and nascent sell-thru market — the very definition of a cult
hit.

Sex and Death 101
represents a reunion between Ryder and Waters. And while she isn’t the
lead, per se, it is the most many fans will have had an opportunity to
see from a “real” Ryder in some time, after several indie flicks, a
small role in the anthology comedy The Ten and a prominent role in Richard Linklater’s rotoscope-animated A Scanner Darkly.
Weird, funny, engaging and spiritedly thoughtful even if not always
successful, the pairing seems to celebrate a certain reunion of like
minds.

Waters’ first film behind the camera since 2001’s Happy Campers, his only other directing credit, Sex and Death 101 centers around Roderick Blank (Something Different‘s
Simon Baker), a successful advertising executive who, just weeks before
his marriage to Fiona (Julie Bowen), gets a mysterious email that
contains the names of everyone he’s ever had or will have sex with, 101 women in
total. The rub is that it doesn’t end with his wife-to-be — in fact,
she’s nowhere near the last name. In the midst of this “sacrilegious
epiphany,” and finding no relief from a trio of bizarro-world
comptrollers (Robert Wisdom, Patton Oswalt and Tanc Sade) from whom the
list originated, Roderick throws himself headlong into the sheer,
delicious variety (centerfolds, bisexual astronauts) of his predicted
future, but soon finds matters dulled without the thrill of the chase,
and even worse when a new, true love (Leslie Bibb) turns out not to be
on the list. All this is crosscut with and eventually complicated by,
meanwhile, the story of a woman, known only as “Death Nell” (Ryder),
who’s gaining a media following as a murderous femme fatale, putting
all sorts of bad men in comas.

From start to conclusion, Sex and Death 101
is an exercise in wheel-spinning hijinks much more than any analysis.
(“I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for all this, but I’m not
going to wait around for it,” says Roderick at one point.) Waters has
in the past described his personal sensibility as “Bunuel meets Caddyshack,” and that description aptly captures some of the wild tonal shifts that mark Sex and Death 101
— a movie that includes a gross-out bait-and-switch reminiscent of
Stifler’s clandestine closet hook-up in American Wedding, but also
sincere questions and insight about the existential crises to be found
in knowing beforehand one’s lovers (and, by extension, non-lovers). How
much of life, and the appropriation of our time, is in pursuit or
purchase of these tangible acts? While Baker is the lens through which
the story is told, Ryder is its scythe-bearing, no-BS conscience, and a
late diner scene in particular offers up powerful proof of (no pun
intended here) her ability to kill softly.

In the end, Sex and Death 101
isn’t so much profound in and of itself as it is a fun, sloppy
treatment of a profoundly interesting premise. It’s a movie that feels like it should
be reverse-adapted into a book. As a reunion project between Waters and
Ryder, though, it feels right, leaving one wanting for thirds. For the
full original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Anchor Bay/Avenue Pictures, R, 116 minutes)

From the hoo-ah! delivery of its lines to a parade of scrupulously
groomed facial hair and tattoos, machismo comes oozing out of every
pore of Street Kings, a corrupt cop drama that expends so much energy
trying to convince audiences that it’s hardcore that it rather quickly
devolves into serial silliness.

Los Angeles Detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is the stalest of clichés — a boozing, world-weary police officer with a dead wife. He’s also the more-than-willing tip of the spear for his boss, Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker), a social-climbing captain with an eye on higher office. When there are issues that need to be taken care of without the hassle of warrants and pesky paperwork, Ludlow is more than happy to shoot first, and let his captain vouch for him and answer questions later.

Things come to head, though, when Internal Affairs Captain James Biggs (Hugh Laurie) starts poking around. Then bad goes to worse when Ludlow’s whistle-blowing ex-partner (Terry Crews), with whom he had a very nasty falling out, gets brutally murdered with Ludlow on the scene. Shifted to a pencil-pushing desk job, Ludlow steels himself to settle the score, but finds the hunt for the chief suspects more complicated than usual. Forced to go up against the corrupt culture of which he’s been a part his entire his entire career, Ludlow is left not knowing whom to trust.

Noir heavyweight James Ellroy has a story and script credit on Street Kings‘ much-tinkered-on screenplay, but don’t let that — or the movie’s heavily peddled list of co-stars, which includes some requisite eye candy (7 Dias‘ Martha Higareda), a couple holding-deal 20th Century Fox favorites (Laurie, Chris Evans) and a pair of hip-hop musicians (Common, The Game) — fool one into thinking that this film has either the involving, ensemble, labyrinthine swirl of L.A. Confidential or the menacing punch of Training Day, the two movies with which it most desperately wants to be associated. (Other similar films include To Live and Die in L.A., Dark Blue and Dirty, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.)

In fact, Street Kings evinces no particular insight or thought other than the sum of its component commercial parts. It’s that attempt to create an easily marketable genre piece that quite obviously led Fox Searchlight and the film’s producers to the doorstep of Training Day‘s writer and Street Kings‘ helmer, David Ayer, who made his directorial debut with the similarly gritty Harsh Times, but can’t be judged one way or another here, so convoluted is the story.

There’s a certain credibility in some of the film’s detail, and its salty, politically incorrect dialogue. “You dress white, talk black and drive Jew, so how am I supposed to tell (your ethnicity)?” spits Ludlow early on, baiting some Korean bad guys into beating him up. But the conspiracies on display in Street Kings are so hollow, and its characters, particularly Wander, are required to so frequently verbalize their supposedly illicit intentions or deeds that any legitimate tension or sense of believability simply evaporates.

Appreciatively, a few new unintentionally hilarious “Keanuisms” (“This thing you want, you think you want, you don’t want!”) get minted along the way, but it’s long before the finale involving both a long-winded explication of the cover-up that’s just been unraveled and a character proudly displaying his secret, wall-hidden stash of cash, guns and other valuables that Street Kings has moved from passingly ridiculous to boring to flat-out ludicrous. For the full original review, from Reelz, click here. (Fox Searchlight, R, 108 minutes)