Call me the Grinch Who Stole “Sisters,” but the new comedy starring the dream team of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey is just plain crap. I know some of you will see it anyway, and I kind of hope you do. A mainstream American comedy starring two fortysomething women deserves box-office support, and Poehler and Fey are my absolute favorite forces in American comedy. But the truth is that it’d be more fun to watch them clip their toenails for two hours than mug their way through this formulaic, retrogressive soap dish.
Poehler plays Maura Ellis, a divorced nurse held hostage by her own do-gooder impulses. (Read: She’s a poor woman’s Leslie Knope.) Rather than climb back on ye olde dating train, she prefers to Skype with her retired parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest, cursing like a scurvy-addled sailor) and craft motivational cards. (Without the dark night, we’d never see the bright stars.) Fey is big sister Kate, an oft-fired aesthetician who is living on the couch of her former “bug man.” Decked out in hot pants, ratty hair extensions, and an un-ironic fedora, Fey is in serious anti-Liz Lemon mode, though those audible italics are still in full effect: “I’m not a hot-head. I’m brassy,” she says, and you gotta love it – at least a little bit. Continue Reading →
