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VACATION FRIENDS MOVIE REVIEW
Ed Norton in “Fight Club” made a good observation about the brief encounters we share while travelling: “Single Serving Friends”. People you cross paths with, never to be seen again. It’s nice. That way, if the person is annoying or insane, you’ll only be talking with them for a short while. The last thing you want to do is get stuck with a real weirdo for longer than that single serving, so accidently meeting a couple of crazy people who think they’re your best friends now is kind of a nightmare scenario. And that’s what we have here with “Vacation Friends”. Marcus and Emily (Lil Rel Howery and Yvonne Orji) are a mild-mannered couple from Chicago on a week-long vacation in Mexico. Marcus is an uptight planner who runs a construction company, and on this trip, he intends to propose to Emily. But his romantic plan is ruined when their room is flooded. When Marcus attempts to book another room, a hotel employee accidentally reveals Marcus’ proposal intentions, and he reluctantly does so right there in the hotel lobby. After watching their proposal, the wild and carefree Ron and Kyla (John Cena and Meredith Hagner) invite Marcus and Emily to stay with them for the week. The four spend their vacation together, with Ron and Kyla encouraging Marcus and Emily to live life carefree, which means daredevil antics, drugs, booze, and no regard for health or safety. The week culminates in Marcus and Emily blacking out due to excessive partying. With their wild adventure concluded, they return home to begin planning their wedding, ready to never see Ron and Kyla again, but we wouldn’t have much of a movie if that was the case, would we? Dogget, Mike, Mark, and T.C. throw back some margaritas with some oddly tasting salt on the rim to discuss and decide if this movie was worth spending their life savings on to watch.
DIRECTED BY: Clay Tarver
STARRING: John Cena, Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, Meredith Hagner, Andrew Bachelor, Lynn Whitfield, Robert Wisdom, Tawny Newsome, Kamal Bolden, Barry Rothbart, Anna Maria Horsford
YOUR REVIEWERS
T.C. De Witt (Screener Squad)
T.C. De Witt is a multi-awarded writer/director originally from Wisconsin and now based in Los Angeles. His life has been devoted to the arts since he was a child. He’s been a stage performer, playwright, stand-up comic, film and television actor, radio DJ, podcaster published author, recorded musician, and comic writer/illustrator. He is now a professional screenwriter and has been thriving for the past decade, regularly offering his talents to production studios in LA, Chicago, Milwaukee, and internationally in Sydney and Poland. He’s provided content for Amazon Prime, Netflix, and several YouTube partners. His films have screened internationally, and his stageplays have been performed across the country. In the last ten years, he has directed 57 films, 23 episodes of his series The One Minute Rewatch, 300+ episodes of podcasts, and his multi-award-winning short film Screen: Righter screened at the Festival de Cannes in 2016. He has released two feature films, The Princess Knight and A Christmas Sunset. He thrives on collaboration and the thrill of sharing stories in all forms.
Danny Dogget (Screener Squad)
Hey persons, it’s your favorite canine Dogget! As many of you know, I don’t identify as a critic as much as a classy shock jock. That being said, I do my best to give all of you a well-balanced review filled with my true opinions and hopefully a few laughs. You can occasionally find me on other persons podcast like Mission Impodible (that’ll be 10 dollars Nathan). For the most part, you can find me doing reviews on Oneofus.net.
Michael Riojas (Screener Squad, Highly Suspect Reviews)
The man with the ever-changing nicknames. Born in Austin, Riojas was rocketed to Del Rio, Texas, a literal small ville. In his youth, he was bitten by a radioactive… okay, look. Mike is not very good at this whole “talking about himself” thing. But he has been so obsessed with comics, video games, and anime since childhood- that if one has to choose between listening to Joe Quesada or Mike over any obscure Spider-Man trivia, they go to him (or, at least Martin Thomas once said so). He is also a big fan of “Ghostbusters” (he even owns his own jumpsuit and two, that’s right, TWO proton packs!), collects toys and video games, and will defend “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” if provoked. He lives in Austin with his beloved Dachshund-Maltese and trusted sidekick, Dean. He can also be heard on RageSelect. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
Mark Prince (Screener Squad)
Mark Prince is a lifelong nerd so old he remembers the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, the original Star Wars in the theater, and comics that cost a quarter and could be found on racks in the local apothecary. By day, a mere human services worker, by night he emerges to combat boredom, master the vagaries of the B grade television serial, the C grade cinematic release, and to ever assist his fellow man, as well as to master, once and for all, the Shoryuken Dragon Punch with ever stiffening thumbs.
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