Before Act of Valor begins we are shown a short intro narrated by the directors (Mike McCoy, Scott Waugh) explaining why they chose to cast real active duty Navy SEALs. These elite soldiers have hard-learned skills, mannerisms, muscle memory and a language that can’t be handed over to an actor to exhibit with the same conviction. Like watching Michael Jordan dunking or Muhammad Ali in the ring the SEALs are the very best at what they do. Watching them in the movie it’s clear that McCoy/Waugh made the right choice. Act of Valor follows a team of soldiers sent who carry out a covert mission to recover a kidnapped woman. The person in question is…
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G-S-T Review…Wanderlust
Wanderlust could well be the best thing David Wain has done since 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer. Maybe that’s not the best way to start a review of a well-liked director’s latest film; I feel like I’m stacking the deck, immediately, against Wanderlust, but at the same time the movie contains and emphasizes many of the same characteristics that made Wet Hot so great and have since established it as a modern comedy classic. The humor here is big, broad, and shamelessly silly, the characters are well-drawn, endlessly funny individuals, and the satire at the film’s core is well-realized. Where the two movies differ lies in the way Wain’s latest rambles, which is only appropriate to a…