Spy is built on a very cool idea. The Melissa McCarthy vehicle casts the terrific comedienne, at the height of her career, in the last role you’d think to put her in: ass-kicking, globe-trotting super spy (Jean Bond, if you will). For the most part, it succeeds, revitalizing the endlessly revisited 007 parody with some snappy comedy, an extremely compatible ensemble, and some genuine surprises that keep things moving at a speedy clip. Its biggest weakness, unfortunately, is pervading, and is one of the most infuriating clichés in modern comedy. I’ll get to that in a minute. (You’ll just have to wait a little longer and read through the rest of my review to find out what it is, Agent Whatsyername. Don’t look down…unless you enjoy the sight of sharks with freakin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Muahahahaha!!!)

Ahem. Anyway, Spy begins with McCarthy playing Susan Cooper, a CIA desk analyst who feeds remote assistance to super-suave field operative Bradley Fine (Jude Law, whose unrealized dreams of playing Bond are semi-realized here). Fine’s on a mission that goes terribly wrong when he accidentally shoots a baddie in the head while interrogating him, a shocking moment that proudly announces the movie as a full-on spoof. The bungled assignment leaves the CIA in a tight spot: the new big bad, an obnoxiously posh Brit named Rayna (Rose Byrne), has revealed that she knows the identities of every active CIA field operative, making she and her flock of henchmen virtually impossible to sneak up on.

Left without any options, CIA boss Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney) sends mousy Susan out into the field to track Rayna (the only person in the world who knows the secret location of a nuclear bomb) from afar and report any activity. Naturally, Susan disregards the “from afar” part and mixes it up with Rayna and her musclebound goons across Paris, Rome, and Budapest. She’s receives help from her very own earpiece analyst, played by an endearingly klutzy Miranda Hart (she and McCarthy’s sizable height difference is a nice visual gag). As a bonus, the agency sends a handsy Italian Lothario named Aldo (Peter Serafinowicz) to aid Susan, though he only seems interested in caressing her bosom.

Susan’s efforts to nab Rayna get dicey when she’s forced to go undercover and act as the bitchy Brit’s personal bodyguard. Making things worse in a hilarious way is Jason Statham, playing a cocky rogue agent with a long list of dubious war stories. He’s all bark and no bite, and his sloppiness only gets in the way of Susan’s mission, as she’s constantly having to save his ass instead of focusing on the mission at hand.

Director Paul Feig is smart to allow McCarthy to explore her range. Her comedic timing and delivery is world-class (she gives Samuel L. Jackson a run for his money when it comes to cursing people out), but she’s got dramatic chops as well, and the movie’s got enough serious beats in it (all of which McCarthy carries on her shoulders) to keep us invested in the story and the characters’ fates.

The ensemble on display perhaps isn’t the most comedically talented when taken on an individual basis, but as a collective they have shockingly effortless chemistry across the board. Statham overachieves in his role as the butterfingered, loudmouth lummox, and is arguably as funny as McCarthy. Bobby Cannavale plays a slick, international mob-boss villain; it’s a small part, but he nevertheless gave me the biggest laugh of the movie in a scene where he’s running towards a helicopter like a frightened school boy, squealing, “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

The best gags are set up by the inherent humor in the film’s premise. Susan’s rotating undercover identities run the gamut of middle-aged lady archetypes, from “cat lady” to “soccer mom.” In one scene, Susan giggles with excitement as she walks through a test lab full of cool, shiny gadgets she’ll get to use on her mission. To her disappointment, it’s revealed that, due to her being undercover, the only gadgets she’s able to use are disguised as stereotypical “mom products” like tampons and fungal spray.

Okay, time to lay it all out on the table: “You look like” jokes have got to be stopped. Enough already. Literally every mainstream comedy that’s come out in the past 5-7 years is chock full of them, and Spy is no exception. You know what I’m talking about. When Susan’s given a midwest-mom secret identity, she exclaims in disgust, “I look like somebody’s homophobic aunt.” When Rayna sees Susan and her earpiece buddy sitting next to each other, she says “you look like a pair of demented aunts.” When Susan sees Statham’s rogue agent wearing a ridiculous hairpiece and fake mustache as a disguise, she says, “you look like a perverted bus driver.” There are easily 20 or more jokes like this throughout the movie, and I couldn’t help but cringe as they piled up. It’s one of the cheapest trends in comedy today, its creativity level on par with the “yo momma” jokes from that insufferable Wilmer Valderrama MTV show from the mid ’00s.

Aside from only being mildly funny at best, these cheap one-liners actually do real damage to Spy. The movie’s two hours long (which feels pretty bloated for a comedy), and maybe if Feig had cut out a big portion of the mostly disposable schoolyard barbs, the movie maybe could have been cut down to a more appetizing 90-100 minutes. These jokes were a thorn in my side, and I’d be interested to see how the movie would play if Feig would just pluck it out.

Once I calmed down from my “you look like”-induced rage, I was able to clear my head and realize that, in hindsight, I had a really fun time with Spy. While Feig doesn’t reach same level of quality he did with Bridesmaids, he gives McCarthy’s talent the platform it’s deserved for a long time, and she makes the most of it. She’s pretty much irreplaceable in today’s comedy landscape, and this hopefully won’t be the last time we see her excel in a tailor-made starring role.

Hugh Grant goes with rom-coms like teenage girls and vampires. Like eggs and bacon. Like Hall and Oates. Like Kirk and Spock. You get the idea, pick a Valentine’s card, put Hugh Grant’s face on it, commence swooning. He may be getting a bit older and a bit less believable as the dashing, stuttering, male lead he’s become famous for playing, but well, if we know anything about Hollywood, it’s that the men are allowed to get older as long as their female love interests stay just as young. The Rewrite, the latest from Music and Lyrics and Did You Hear About the Morgans writer-director Marc Lawrence, does have a young love interest—AND a very age-appropriate love interest as well in the form of Marisa Tomei. But where the film bores isn’t in its coupling—indeed that only serves to make us quite nostalgic for an A-game Grant and Tomei rom-com that never was—instead it’s the film’s trite plot and over-gimmicked characters that would have amused ten years ago and are now too overplayed.

The Rewrite isn’t your usual rom-com, and that’s because it isn’t actually a rom-com. Not in the strictest sense of the genre. There’s sexy time, and single people, but no one is actually pursuing anyone in this film. Instead we have Hugh Grant playing washed up screenwriter Keith Michaels, his Oscar-winning hey-day long over, struggling to sell any of his ideas for a film. Producers want sexy female action films and he’s showing his age pitching nostalgic retrospective pieces. He begs his agent for a job of any sort and she suggests a teaching gig at an upstate New York college. He’s above such things, but when his electricity gets turned off he unsurprisingly rethinks the offer.

Upon almost instant arrival to his new gig Michaels makes the immediate mistake of shacking up with a student, impressing her with tales of his award-winning career. As a prospective for his screenwriting class, Karen (Bella Heathcote) gets into his class of course, but Michaels has a hard time shaking her off when he’s told that professor-student relationships are—surprise, surprise—strictly forbidden and grounds for dismissal.

Oblivious and narcissistic, Michaels picks almost his entire class based on their Facebook profile pictures. Which means older student Holly Carpenter (Marisa Tomei) doesn’t make the cut, she with two daughters, just trying to finish her education, and happy to simply receive some feedback from Professor Michaels on a script she’s written.

After proving how ill-fit he is for academia when he offends a fellow English department professor (Allison Janney) by (in an almost too naive way) poking fun at Jane Austen, Michaels finds himself on thin ice and, with no actual teaching experience, not especially sure what he’s doing. The middle of the film drags somewhat as Michaels begins to connect with his students, understanding more about them through their writing and letting them lead the class discussions to create the illusion he’s actually teaching. He and Tomei have a few candid conversations during office hours and around campus where she snoopily (though with a believable amiability) inquires into his personal life and offers advice around his estrangement to his son.

Additionally, his prying but friendly neighbor Jim (Chris Elliott) and the department head Dr. Lerner (J.K. Simmons) serve their particular purposes acting as Keith’s one-dimensional friends teaching him life lessons in accepting his life’s progression into an older man with a new career. Teachers might be slightly offended by the implications that not only do those who can’t do, teach, but that it’s not particularly requiring of talent.

The film ends predictably, though not believably, but this film never boasts believability as a goal. The title confused me at first, as Michaels doesn’t actually do any writing in the film, a more sentimental person had to point out it must refer to him rewriting his own life. There aren’t enough eye-rolls in the world. Altogether, I give credit to Tomei and Grant, who really do make a great pair with a believable chemistry. I only wish this script had opted for a rewrite as they are never allowed to be much more than friends until a rather awkward shift at the very end. Me-via-1999 was beyond disappointed in the lack of heart-swelling I felt, and modern me was just annoyed at how calculable everything felt.

Marc Lawrence has either lost some of his romanticism or hasn’t quite figured out how to allow it to age with his protagonists, not to mention the modern sensibilities and expectations of today’s audiences. Here’s hoping he figures it out, as he’s clearly very talented, as are both Grant and Tomei who I will gladly watch on-screen anytime. I hope someone thinks to put them in another film together, and this time give them something to bite into.

The Rewrite has a limited New York City theatrical release February 13.

Perhaps in an effort to shake his typical “good guy” role, Jason Bateman plays a foul-mouthed asshole in his directorial debut Bad Words. Most comedies can get by with a weak storyline as long as there’s enough laugh-out-loud moments. Unfortunately, Bad Words is neither clever nor funny. While it tries very hard to be funny, the film keeps its ambitions low in the story department, but manages to miss the target in both instances.

The film begins with Guy Trilby (Bateman) explaining how he perpetually makes bad decisions. He demonstrates how much of an understatement that is by taking the stage to compete in an eighth grade spelling-bee. That’s right, this grown man finds a wacky loophole in the rule book that states anyone who hasn’t passed the eighth grade is eligible to compete. Naturally, the parents at the school feel outraged by his decision to exploit the rule.

Not helping his case is that Trilby is a complete asshole to everyone around him. Which includes a journalist named Jenny (Kathryn Hahn) who is strangely attracted to him even though he repeatedly treats her like garbage. Same goes for the ridiculously cute Indian-American Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand), a fellow 10-year-old competitor who desperately wants to befriend Trilby despite constantly being insulted. Instead of just reciting obscenities, Trilby one-ups his own douchery by being racist as well. On a couple of occasions he calls the kid Slumdog, threatens to slaughter his sacred cow, and tell him to “shut his curry hole”. Yes, the film IS called Bad Words, but rather than focus on using derogatory words, the film stoops to adults making racists remarks to kids.

The screenplay ended up on the Black List, a collective list of the “best” un-produced scripts in Hollywood, though it’s so full of contrived situations it’s hard to understand how. For example, Jenny sleeps with Trilby for plot purposes only as she never gets an ounce of respect from him. Also, Chaitanya’s parents make the 10-year-old fly coach while they enjoy first-class and force him stay in his own room on a separate floor in the hotel, making it very convenient for the protagonist and the boy to bond. And it just so happens that this is the first year they’re televising the spelling-bee to millions of people.

Those familiar with Bateman’s character from Arrested Development will see some flashes of Michael Bluth’s sarcastic wit, but without any of the kindness or humor. Other comedies with a bad lead character like Bad Santa and Bad Teacher work because at some point we are given a reason to care. But Bateman’s character is such a jerk that it’s nearly impossible to care about him or why he is even competing in this contest. And while Hahn is adequate in her role as the journalist/love-interest, her character, like most in the film, is completely unnecessary to the story.

It’s hard to think of any good words to describe Bad Words. There are a couple decent scenes in the film that may earn a couple chuckles — namely when the two rivals pull pranks on each other at the hotel — but otherwise it’s mostly filled with cringe-worthy moments. His reasons for entering the contest is kept a mystery the entire time and when it’s finally revealed it’s an eye-roller. To top it all off, the motivations for everything that happens in the film don’t even make sense once all the cards are on the table. Unlike Bad Santa where the jokes are funny and the bad protagonist has some sympathetic qualities, Bad Words is just bad.

From the Oscar winning minds behind the story of The Descendants, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash bring a similar family oriented film that aspires to be a charming crowd-pleaser, but ends up with the same underwhelming results. The Way Way Back features a coming-of-age story about a teenage boy who feels like an outsider wherever he goes, including his own house. There are some satisfying qualities and charm found in the film (mostly from Sam Rockwell) but The Way Way Back plays out just as you would expect, failing to break from its formulated structure.

For most people spending the entire summer at a beach house out in Cape Cod sounds delightful, but for 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James) that is not the case. That is because Duncan is an introverted teenager who is forced to put up with his mother’s (Toni Collette) overbearing boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), a man who is constantly trying too hard to act like a father figure towards Duncan but ends up being much more condescending than affectionate. Duncan cannot catch a break even when an opportune situation presents itself as their neighbor just so happens to be a good looking girl his age, but his shy awkwardness still gets the best of him.

With seemingly nowhere else to go, Duncan manages to escape off to a nearby Water Wizz waterpark after running into the boisterous manager of the park, Owen (Sam Rockwell). Their friendship takes off with minimal effort (or much interest) from Duncan as Owen seems very eager to take him under his wing for no reason other than he is bored. This is where The Way Way Back begins to get good as Owen’s 100 mile-per-hour wise cracks energizes the picture and subsequently loosens up Duncan’s boarded up personality.

While Liam James plays the awkward side of his always-slouching and timid character spot-on, he is much less convincing when his role calls for him to show a bit of confidence. Though he is not totally to blame, the script has a few cringe-worthy moments such as a completely overengineered dance routine involving James that would even make Napoleon Dynamite shake his head. And there are multiple times where the film forces him to dance.

Meanwhile, Rockwell completely steals the show with his sarcastic lines and give-no-shit attitude. Even though he is supposed to be more of a supporting character, he is so good that he becomes the best asset of the film. In fact, all of the smaller roles were more redeeming than many of the leads. Faxon makes a hilarious appearance as a lifeguard who knows how take advantage of his powers at the park. And Rash channels his inner Kip (yes, another Napoleon Dynamite reference) which makes for an entertaining sidekick.

If there is one thing The Way Way Back does well it is making the story feel relatable, unfortunately it does so by sporting an all-too-familiar backdrop of characters, circumstances, and outcomes. Granted, this coming-of-age tale is not aiming to be wholly original, but in the end the film only plays to half of its strengths. The Way Way Back does generate a fair amount of laughs throughout the film, but misses on the emotional level because of the underplayed drama between mother and son—a shame because Collette’s character had real potential to be more than just a naïve mother who is content with looking the other way for everything in life.

The Way Way Back trailer:

Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely has, so far, gathered mixed reviews and unfortunately I got to see why. I went into the film very open minded and came away feeling confused and largely disappointed. Nevertheless, there can be a lot said for the powerful depiction of energy and balance within life and relationships, something that Shelton has always done a great job with in her films.

Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt) is a massage therapist whose world is enriched with the need to find balance within all aspects of her life, and her brother Paul (Josh Pais) seems to be the complete opposite, with an uptight personality who comes across as extremely emotionally stunted.

At a dinner held at the house Paul and his daughter Jenny (Ellen Page) share, we are introduced to all the characters that the film focuses on, each with different but strong personalities and each involved within the shift of energy and balance that occurs. Paul is dental practice owner whose business is failing yet it would seem he is in denial. During the dinner Abby advises her brother to see Bronwyn (Allison Janney) who is a Reiki healer and a personal friend of hers.

From the very beginning you get a sense that Touchy Feely is about something bigger than the characters within the film and that energy and balance are two factors that will play a large part in how the story will take shape. Abby develops an aversion to bodily contact and is unable to perform the duties required of her within her profession as well as the ability to share the passion she once had with her partner (Scoot McNairy). This obviously affects her well balanced lifestyle and how she deals with her new found fear is where this film would have focused on – or so you would have assumed.

What I found confusing however, was that the individual paths the characters went down seemed to be very separate from our initial expectations of the films intentions. We presume that from the Touchy Feely poster of Abby and that the entire sequences of events that occur are related to this character’s lifestyle – that Touchy Feely is about her. Yet once the credits role, I felt that it highlighted her brothers personal progression and even his daughter Jenny’s development so much more than any other – that Abby’s final ‘realisation’ was a mere after thought. If this was what the film intended, that the whole storyline and focus would shift along with the balance of energy, then it would seem to make a lot more sense. If this were the case then Touchy Feely would have done well to spend more time on tightening this idea rather than giving Abby somewhat confusing additional storylines, for instance the five-ten minutes she experienced the drug ‘ecstasy’ seemed utterly disconnected from the film.

In A World

What a fantastic, honestly hilarious comedy. Perfect in every sense of the word, In a World defines my idea of funny. This is the directorial debut for Lake Bell, and yet you really would not know it – she brought to the table a vision and with that a solid script; which deservedly won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, Utah in January.

Carol Solomon (Lake Bell) is a struggling vocal coach, teaching actors how to speak with different accents. This is how we are introduced to Bell’s character, she receives a phone call asking if she could work with Eva Longoria to develop her cockney accent – the auditorium is in fits of laughter as we hear Longoria trying to pronounce “slapper”, just a few seconds into the film. From then on, almost every scene has you involuntarily bursting out laughing as Bell knows exactly what the audience finds funny.

Though lacking in confidence, Carol seems to get lucky in scoring her first big ‘gig’ and attempts to pursue a career in voice acting, something she has always dreamed. Her father, Sam Sotto, the reigning king of movie-trailer-voice-over artists, has never wanted her daughter to follow in his footsteps and becomes insanely jealous of her success.

Dealing with issues of sexism, Bell highlights the hardship women can face in a male dominated industry, however this is not the focal point of In a World and during a Q&A at the end, she described it as being something she wanted to include but never to force onto the audience.

In a World is a wonderfully charming and extremely witty comedic gem directed, written and starred in by Lake Bell – I look forward for its international release.

RATING: 9.5

Touchy Feely

Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely has, so far, gathered mixed reviews and unfortunately I got to see why. I went into the film very open minded and came away feeling confused and largely disappointed. Nevertheless, there can be a lot said for the powerful depiction of energy and balance within life and relationships, something that Shelton has always done a great job with in her films.

We presume that from the Touchy Feely poster of Abby and that the entire sequences of events that occur are related to this character’s lifestyle – that Touchy Feely is about her. Yet once the credits role, I felt that it highlighted her brothers personal progression and even his daughter Jenny’s development so much more than any other – that Abby’s final ‘realisation’ was a mere after thought. If this was what the film intended, that the whole storyline and focus would shift along with the balance of energy then it would seem to make a lot more sense.

Stick around Way Too Indie for a full review of Touchy Feely coming soon.

With its release on Blu-Ray and DVD last week, Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret has once again caused a stir online. By now the story behind the film’s troubled post-production, lawsuit and stillborn release have been regurgitated so many times it feels like a formality to explain what happened (The New York Times did a piece here that does an excellent job going into detail about the film’s history). Of course some basic facts have to be told just to give a sense of why Margaret has such a devoted following.

Kenneth Lonergan shot Margaret in 2005 and was contractually obligated by Fox Searchlight to create a final product that was under 150 minutes. It took him nearly three years to finally hand in a cut that met the studio’s requirements, but by this time producer Gary Gilbert, Fox Searchlight and Lonergan were in court over the film. Margaret was shelved for another three years until Fox Searchlight released cut Lonergan handed in years earlier into theatres for a very brief run last fall. Some critics began hailing it as a masterpiece and, by the end of the year, a small but vocal group of the film’s supporters convinced Fox Searchlight to schedule more screenings.

Earlier this year Searchlight announced that a Blu-Ray of Margaret would be released with a DVD containing an extended cut. The extended version would run 186 minutes, adding over a half hour worth of new footage and hopefully grant Lonergan the freedom to finish the film he wanted to make seven years ago. It was a pleasant surprise, and a generous move on Fox Searchlight’s part considering the amount of grief the film has put their company through.

I decided to watch the extended cut first, figuring that it was the director’s cut when it actually wasn’t the case. As Lonergan explained in a recent interview with Indiewire,

“The cut that was released was the cut I delivered. They’re both the director’s cut; they’re just different cuts. One of them was just free from the constraints of worrying about the time.”

Of course, the cut that Lonergan delivered was only done out of necessity rather than choice. Having seen both cuts now, it’s easy to understand why it took so long for Lonergan to hand in a version he was satisfied with.

As Margaret starts we are first introduced to Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) when her math teacher Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon) confronts her about cheating on her math test. Lisa is dismissive as she tells her teacher that none of what he teaches has any application in the real world. She leaves, and we see bits and pieces of the rest of her school day. After school she goes shopping for a cowboy hat to wear when she goes horseback riding with her father (played by Lonergan himself) but comes up short. She notices a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) wearing a cowboy hat and she starts to chase the bus down, screaming and waving at the driver. He waves back, but fails to notice the red light ahead and runs over a woman (Allison Janney in a memorable cameo).

The bus accident is one of the first key moments where the two cuts differ. As Lisa is holding the woman and the attempts by two pedestrians to stop the bleeding fail, the traffic around them starts getting louder as more and more car horns start to blare on the soundtrack. In the theatrical cut the effect is there but it’s mixed into the rest of the background noise. In the extended cut the noises get so loud in the mix that it threatens to drown out the dialogue.

The extended version’s aggressive sound mix heightens the anxiety of the scene and gives a clear sense of what’s going to happen over the rest of the film. In Margaret the crash turns into a reality check for Lisa. Her naïve, selfish view on things is shattered again and again the more she tries to restore her life before the accident. As the woman starts to slip away and the horns blare on the soundtrack, Lisa breaks down completely. For Lisa it’s a horrifying situation knowing that her actions were responsible for a brutal death. To everyone around her, it’s a tragic accident and nothing more. As the crowd around Lisa forms a cocoon blocking off everything around her, we can hear the outside world screaming to break through. The world might have stopped for Lisa at this moment, but everyone else has to keep moving.

The extended cut’s sound mix’ purpose is evident, and it explicitly lays out what Lonergan wanted to do originally. Lisa’s story isn’t any more or less important than anyone else’s. One of the scenes missing from the theatrical cut slowly pans across Lisa’s apartment building from the outside. As the camera moves past each window we can hear bits and pieces of the conversations going on in each apartment. Eventually the camera settles on Lisa’s apartment where she’s talking to her mother (J. Smith-Cameron). It feels like the camera isn’t tied down to Lisa in any way, as if it simply chose to focus on her when it could follow someone else at a moment’s notice.

These kinds of moments are why I think Lonergan took so long to hand in a cut he was satisfied with. By removing or minimizing that aspect of the film it would fail to show what he wanted to get across in the first place. Another scene at a restaurant where Lisa is talking to a classmate is dominated by the sounds of other customers so much that it takes almost two minutes before we hear a single word of Lisa’s conversation. It’s moments like this that show just how significant the differences between the two cuts are.

The theatrical cut, which is a good film on its own, doesn’t have the same expansive feeling as the extended version. Several subplots are chopped down including a romance between Lisa’s mother and a Colombian businessman (Jean Reno). Character motivations are sometimes muddled since the scenes explaining them stayed on the cutting room floor. The worst example of the theatrical cut’s editing comes towards the end of the film when Lisa confesses something that was never mentioned up until that point. In the theatrical cut it isn’t known whether or not Lisa’s confession is true, but the extended cut clears up any doubts one might have had about the scene.

Each of these edits unfortunately takes away what makes Margaret such a great film. Lonergan clearly wanted the film to be a big, sprawling piece that reflected the messiness of real life. By taking away the subplots and focus on Lisa’s surroundings it shrinks the film’s universe when it needs to be as large as possible. The theatrical cut makes Margaret feel more like Lisa’s story while the extended repeatedly states that it’s anything but. In one scene Lisa gets into an argument with Emily (Jeannie Berlin, who has one of the strongest presences in the film),a friend of the woman hit by the bus. She yells at Lisa that everyone around her isn’t a supporting character in the story of her life. In the theatrical cut the line feels more like someone dressing down Lisa, while the extended cut makes it feel more like a summary of what Margaret is trying to accomplish.

It would be a waste of time to go on about what could have been if Margaret didn’t take almost seven years to come out. It’s unfortunate that the film was robbed of any chances of getting awards recognition (especially for Paquin and Smith-Cameron), but the fact that Margaret is available to watch in a version longer than 150 minutes is a small miracle. In the context of the extended cut it’s hard to see the theatrical version as anything but a director’s vision being muffled. While Margaret‘s status as a masterpiece may be up for debate, the 186-minute version definitely feels closer to earning that status than the contractually-obligated one.