Encyclopedias and dictionaries. Maps and stand-alone GPS units. Alarm clocks, calculators and even poin-and-shoot cameras. Hell, basic human interaction. The proliferation of the cell phone has eliminated the need for many things we used to rely in life, all of those aforementioned items included. But when it comes to sex, nothing can replace the intimacy and pleasure from actually seeing and touching another person. Well, nothing other than a cell phone.
Or a land line. A pink land line.
Being that my wife was three states away on business, it's curious (and purely coincidental) that I should stumble on to 2012's For a Good Time, Call..., a breezy comedy about would-be phone sex operators. Now, outside of begging for a text full of titties, I've never engaged in any phone-based friskiness. Not only does it seem way too expensive, but it seems like it would be way too awkward as well. Not to mention cumbersome. Oh, and pathetic.
Total bullshit aside, I actually enjoyed this flick. Sure, that poster screams like, awfullllll!, but it really isn't. Initially, I was just looking at run times, and at 83 minutes, this was definitely a winner. And while my cable box so kindly asked me to wait One moment please...I was thinking this movie was In a World... (I thought Ari Graynor could have been Lake Bell's name, because I can never come up with it). Damn ellipsis. Ellipses. F--k it. The dot things...
Anyway, while it starts with a plethora of quirky-movie horseshit (nice apartments, no real jobs, bad dialogue, Justin Long), it quickly settles into, for me, a decent comedy. Sure, lines like 'do you have freckles on your dick?' may not be funny to you, but delivered earnestly by a pretty blonde, and I'm calling pure movie magic.
Okay, 'magic' may be overselling it, but for what could have been a truly shit-tastic Bridesmaids [review] rip-off, For a Good Time, Call... stands on its own two feet in the recent slew of female raunch-coms (assuming that's a term).
The plot, equal parts predictable and implausible, centers around two seemingly polar-opposite girls who begrudgingly begin a phone sex business together. Initially, the over-the-top Katie is the one licking everything on the phone, while the more reserved (and waaaaay hotter) Lauren handles billing and promotion. Surprising only the one guy that made this his first movie ever, eventually the tables are turned and the girls discover that they can be smart or a huge slut, respectively, if they would only just believe in themselves! Aww.
I'm sure, on paper, this sounds about as enticing as spending four bucks a minute to flog the bishop in an empty room, but for whatever reason, I was totally on board. The girls and the film begin as something awful and make believe, but believably grow into something we can care about. Sure the dreaded zany miscommunication occurs, momentarily ruining everything, but the film succeeds regardless. Look, it's funny, it's sweet, and best of all, you can finish it over two naptimes, and still load the dishwasher and open the mail.
Unable to do pretty much anything around the house, are the Yays and Boos. In fact, these freeloaders stand directly in the way of me getting pretty much anything done. F--kers.
Yaaaaaaaaaaay! 
Or a land line. A pink land line.
Total bullshit aside, I actually enjoyed this flick. Sure, that poster screams like, awfullllll!, but it really isn't. Initially, I was just looking at run times, and at 83 minutes, this was definitely a winner. And while my cable box so kindly asked me to wait One moment please...I was thinking this movie was In a World... (I thought Ari Graynor could have been Lake Bell's name, because I can never come up with it). Damn ellipsis. Ellipses. F--k it. The dot things...
Anyway, while it starts with a plethora of quirky-movie horseshit (nice apartments, no real jobs, bad dialogue, Justin Long), it quickly settles into, for me, a decent comedy. Sure, lines like 'do you have freckles on your dick?' may not be funny to you, but delivered earnestly by a pretty blonde, and I'm calling pure movie magic.
Okay, 'magic' may be overselling it, but for what could have been a truly shit-tastic Bridesmaids [review] rip-off, For a Good Time, Call... stands on its own two feet in the recent slew of female raunch-coms (assuming that's a term).
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| I will never look at flight delays the same way again. |
I'm sure, on paper, this sounds about as enticing as spending four bucks a minute to flog the bishop in an empty room, but for whatever reason, I was totally on board. The girls and the film begin as something awful and make believe, but believably grow into something we can care about. Sure the dreaded zany miscommunication occurs, momentarily ruining everything, but the film succeeds regardless. Look, it's funny, it's sweet, and best of all, you can finish it over two naptimes, and still load the dishwasher and open the mail.
Unable to do pretty much anything around the house, are the Yays and Boos. In fact, these freeloaders stand directly in the way of me getting pretty much anything done. F--kers.
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| Replace 'pink phone' with Tom Green and we've pretty much got Road Trip. |
- A woman is described as having a bush that smells like lavender. Yep.
- Random Frat Guy. This dude throws up all over someone's front yard, then asks, Can you bum a cigarette off me?
- If someone is holding a giant cup of piss, even though you don't want them to spill it, it's pretty great when they do.
- Indisputable facts. You can't hear a UTI.
- 1-900-MMM-HMMM. I never tried this one (see below).
- Oh my God. They hire a second girl for the phones and this bitch is hysterical. The line they catch her on is incredible.
- Ah, the montage. Even if it's totally absurd, I loved it regardless.
- I know that movies are full of professional actors, but I don't care what you say. You can't fake real laughter. There is so much of it here, you can just feel the good time they're having.
- Katie goes into this long-winded, just awful story about getting her period that had me rolling. My favorite part? When she bike-rided over to her cousin's house. Shit. Maybe only ex-English teachers find that funny.
- Do prisoners really make soap dildos? Man, jail really does suck. Though...you might be able to get a vagina that smells like lavender, huh?
- And finally, guys jerking off. I know, I usually wouldn't recommend a movie simply to see guys beating their dick like it stole something, but the trio of famous faces you get to see pleasure themselves is fully worth the price of admission. Rogen, I've spoiled for you, but the other two are pretty funny as well.
Booooooooo!
- We open with a sex scene? Yaaaa- oh, shit. She's wearing her bra. Boo.
- We even get a boobless shower scene. Double boo.
- Justin Long. This guy can really be annoying sometimes.
- But worse? Is when by the end of the movie, you totally like him, damn it.
- Man, the beginning is tough. The line, You're like a Subway gift card was almost so contrived I was going to shut it down.
- That and the fact that for the first ten minutes each character was hand picked from a sack of Small Movie Douchery.
- Oooh. The ol' unreciprocated I love you. So awkward here.
- Now, the eventual conflict is welcome because things had been going so well, buttttt....drama time is handled so poorly it almost sinks the whole ship. Good thing it's brief.
- And finally, do you have to always fall in love with your friends? I love my friends, but I don't want to be with them. Oh, shit. Does that mean there's something wrong with me?
When I was a kid, long before the internet and cell phones, my friends and I would call 900 numbers from pay phones. The point wasn't to speak to someone, as we didn't have any money (and masturbation hadn't been invented yet). The point was to see if you could successfully make it to the recorded welcome message. See, we didn't know the numbers - we just made them up. This took some imagination. Obviously you started with 1-900, but then what? Three letter words, right? So there's HOT (468), WET (938) and of course, BIG (244) as your go-tos, but then you had to get creative with the four-letter finishers. Usually they were parts of the body. But you don't need me, for that.
You've got a cell phone.